‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘Yeah, I believe you, but if she hasn’t gone anywhere, then where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged her shoulders and looked at me with eyes that didn’t belong to a kid. ‘Maybe she’s dead.’
‘Do you think that? That she’s dead?’
She nodded slowly and with worrying confidence. ‘Yeah. I think so.’
I cleared my throat, not liking the feeling I was getting. ‘Do you think the person who killed Miriam might have killed her too?’
‘Could be.’
‘The man who attacked you tonight … what happened?’
‘I was standing in my normal spot when he pulls up in this car. I should have been with Charlene, but she didn’t turn up tonight so I was on my own. He just beckons me over like a lot of them do, then when I get over there, I take a look and I don’t like the look of him.’
‘What was wrong with him?’
‘He just didn’t look right, you know? He had this horrible smile and there was something about him. He gave me the creeps.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, he opens the passenger door and pats the seat, and he’s sort of leering at me like some sort of fucking perv, and telling me to get in. But I reckon he’s kinky; he looks the type. The type who’ll take you out somewhere quiet and really give you a going over, so I say no thanks and start to go. But he just grabs me and starts pulling me in, telling me it’ll be all right, that he’s not going to hurt me, but he’s fucking rough and he’s pulling me by the hair as hard as he can, the bastard…’ She paused. ‘And then you turned up.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Biggish guy. Fat. Bald. Fat face.’
‘What sort of age?’
‘I don’t know. About fifty or something.’ Which probably meant thirty.
‘And you’ve never seen him before?’
She shook her head. ‘There was just something about him, you know? I don’t normally feel that way about punters. I mean, they’re all fucking old and ugly, most of them anyway. But this one was different. I just knew he was dodgy.’
I tried to remember the make of car he was driving. It was a Mercedes saloon, not particularly new, and I think the colour was light brown or beige. Not dark-coloured like the one that had picked up Miriam. Other than that I had nothing.
‘It’d be good if you could make a statement.’
‘Why? I’ve just told you what he looked like. Do you think he could have been the one who killed Miriam?’ It looked as if the thought had only just occurred to her.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe.’
She shuddered. ‘Fucking hell.’
‘You’d do a lot better not working the streets, Anne.’
‘I need the money.’
I thought about sitting there trying to persuade her as to the error of her ways, but I’m almost certain it wouldn’t have done any good. Change comes from within. You’ve got to believe that what you do is wrong and needs to stop, and I was pretty sure Anne didn’t feel like that.
‘Come on, let’s take you back to Coleman House.’
She snorted. ‘Fuck that. I’d only been out there ten minutes when you came. I haven’t earned any money yet.’
‘Call it a night off.’
‘My man don’t believe in nights off.’
‘And who’s your man?’
‘Come on, you’re a copper. I ain’t telling you that.’
‘Well, I hope he’s an improvement on Mark Wells.’ As if.
‘Yeah, course he is.’
‘Then he’ll understand, won’t he?’
She laughed, much too cynically for a thirteen-year-old. ‘He won’t be happy if I don’t earn him some cash.’
What a gentleman. ‘All right, let me do you a deal. I’ll give you forty quid if you go back to the home tonight.’ It was a stupid gesture. The money would end up in the hands of her pimp or the local crack dealer, who were probably one and the same. And if Anne chose to put herself in danger, it was hardly my concern. Especially as whatever happened tonight, she’d be back on the streets tomorrow anyway. But I didn’t want to be responsible for leaving her out there tonight.
‘Forty quid. And what do you want for that?’
‘Nothing from you. All you have to do is go back home for the night and stay there.’
‘That ain’t a lot. Forty quid’s fuck all. I could earn ten times that.’
‘It’s all you’re going to get. And you don’t have to do anything for it.’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘Make it fifty, and I’ll do it.’
‘You’re in the wrong job. You ought to be a trained negotiator.’
I insisted on going back to Coleman House with her as I didn’t trust her to go alone. We got a black cab and the driver gave me a dirty look when he saw her in tow. In the end, I felt dutybound to show him my warrant card so he’d know I wasn’t some perverted punter who’d forgotten his transport for the night.
We didn’t say much in the cab, and when we arrived she jumped out without a word along with her fifty quid, and disappeared inside. I could have just gone back home, but while I was there I thought I’d check to see if Carla Graham was around. Malik was right, she wasn’t my type, but there was not exactly a wealth of good-looking women in my life, so I liked to make the best of any opportunities I got in that department. Even if it was just talking.
I had to ring the buzzer to get in. A woman’s voice came over the intercom. She couldn’t say her ‘r’s, and I recognized her as one of the staff members we’d interviewed yesterday. I think she’d called herself Katia, or something equally
