‘She is, or should it be was, my daughter?’
Wendy felt a lump in her throat, so did Sergeant Hopwood. DI Waverton looked into space, unable to comprehend the gravity of what had just been said.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wilton, but your daughter, Amanda, is dead.’
Mary Wilton sat still, saying nothing. Eventually, she spoke. ‘I hardly ever saw her, not for years, and then one day, she turned up here.’
‘Any reason?’
‘We weren’t close, although I did my best when she was younger. I paid for her to go to a good school, and she was a bright student, went to university, a degree in English. I was proud of her, not selling herself at first.’
‘You were a prostitute?’ Wendy asked.
‘Until I was too old. It’s for young women, but Amanda never saw any of the seedier side. I managed to buy a small flat, and I never messed with drugs. School holidays I’d be there for her; she boarded most of the time, so it wasn’t so difficult to make money, and then take the time for her.’
‘Her father?’ Waverton asked.
‘No idea. He could have been a banker or a labourer. I never knew, although he must have been honest and decent, otherwise she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a beautiful woman.’
‘Escorting?’
‘She had been kept away from it, as much as I could, but she knew that her childhood had been paid for by illicit earnings. Ambitious, ruthlessly ambitious, that was Amanda. I tried to talk her out of it, not that I was one to talk. She joined an agency that dealt with the wealthy and the discreet, men who wanted absolute silence and total involvement from the woman, not a five-minute screw or a blow job, but a weekend or a week, the sort of woman they could take to a function, impress with.’
‘Amanda was capable?’
‘I’m sure she was. And then she’s here, wanting to spend time with me.’
‘And did you?’
‘She left after twenty minutes, and I never saw her again.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Janice and Meredith were here, ask them.’
***
Larry knew that Janice Robinson was dead, Meredith Temple was doing well at university, and Cathy Parkinson, the other English woman who had been at Mary Wilton’s brothel, was still prostituting. She was living in Hammersmith, not far from the station, and whereas the address indicated upmarket, the reality was anything but; it was a rundown hotel, a probable place where the women on the street could bring the men, no questions asked if a percentage of the price was handed over at reception.
‘Cathy Parkinson?’ Larry said at the reception.
‘She’s not been in for a few days,’ a long-haired male with a cleft chin, beady bloodshot eyes and a pointed nose, said. He looked between thirty-five and forty-five years of age, and he didn’t impress, so much so that Larry took hold of the register, spun it around and looked for the room number himself. Computers hadn’t made it to the hotel yet and weren’t likely to if it proved to be operating as a brothel.
‘You can’t do that,’ the man had protested. In vain, as far as Larry was concerned.
‘The room’s been paid for, up until the weekend.’
Larry climbed the four flights of stairs, walked down a dark corridor – the lights didn’t work, not even the emergency lights.
Outside, on the street, a uniform stood, another one in the small lane at the rear.
Larry knocked on the door and waited. Inside the room, the sound of a television. It was late at night, and judging by no lights visible under the doors of the other rooms on the floor, no one else was staying the night.
According to Meredith Temple’s description, Cathy Parkinson was beyond her use-by date, the first flush of womanhood long gone, replaced by a snarling woman who craved alcohol and drugs, not particular in which order, and she was usually the last one to be chosen at the brothel.
He banged on the door again, harder than the first time. The volume on the television did not alter, nor was there the sound of someone moving around. Not willing to break the door with a firm shoulder, not as easy as it looked in the movies, with their paper-thin doors and make-believe locks, and the brooding hunk of a police officer, muscles bulging.
Larry took out his phone and called down to reception. ‘Up here and with a key,’ he said. ‘And don’t take forever, or I’ll have you down the station, answering questions as to why you let women screw for money in your hotel.’
A uniform brought the man up. ‘He tried to do a runner, but I caught him before he got far.’
‘Anything to say?’ Larry looked over at the receptionist, a bruise developing just under his eye where the uniform had smacked him one. Serves him right, Larry thought.
The door opened with the master key. Larry gingerly opened it, ensuring he was wearing nitrile gloves. He stood at the door, not crossing the threshold.
‘Cathy Parkinson?’ he shouted once more.
With no option, he entered the room, keeping to the centre, a bathroom to one side, an open wardrobe to the other, the ubiquitous metal hangers. No doubt a Gideon Bible in the drawer, he thought, not knowing who Gideon was and why so many bibles.
The room was at least clean, probably because the woman lived there permanently, working from home.
A small fridge, the television perched on top. Larry switched it off.
A noise from behind him, the sound of a man being sick.
‘The bathroom,’ the constable said. Outside of the room, in the corridor, the disinterested long-haired man from reception down on all fours, getting rid of the curry he had eaten earlier.
Larry looked at the woman suspended from the metal pipe coming out
