‘Bloody hell! I can’t believe it. How long has it been?’ asked Sapphire.
‘Not long enough away from you, you scally,’ he teased.
Sapphire laughed and pretended to cuff him on the ear. ‘I see you’ve lost none of your cheek. What are you up to now?’
‘Not much, just moved out of a squat so I’m on the streets now.’
‘Aw! How come?’ asked Sapphire.
Skinner shrugged. ‘Some bad company in there.’
For a moment Sapphire was tempted to offer him her sofa but then she recalled what a thieving bugger Skinner had been. They’d shared a squat with some other youngsters years previously when Sapphire had been homeless. He was a great lad to get along with but when it came to pilfering other people’s possessions, he didn’t seem to be able to help himself.
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘What you up to these days? You still working the streets?’
‘Yeah, that’s me,’ said Sapphire.
‘Ooh, well in that case, you need to watch out.’
Sapphire felt that he was about to add something else but stopped himself. ‘Watch out?’ she asked. ‘Watch out for what?’
‘Oh nothing, just, y’know, it’s a dangerous place out there.’
Sapphire wondered if he was referring to Cora’s death but that had been weeks ago and there’d been no recurrences since. But Sapphire knew Skinner of old and she could tell he was hiding something. His tell-tale jumpiness had shifted up a notch and he couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Come on, Skinner, what is it you’re not telling me?’
‘Nowt, like I said, it’s dangerous out on the streets.’ As he spoke, he glanced across at Elena, but his eyes didn’t settle on her.
‘It’s OK, I already know,’ said Elena.
‘No, you don’t!’ he snapped back.
‘Look, Skinner,’ said Sapphire. ‘Don’t you think I deserve to fuckin’ know if I’m working the streets and there’s summat iffy going on?’
‘No, I can’t, Saph. It could land me in a lot of shit.’
By now it was becoming obvious to Sapphire just how nervous Skinner was and she adopted a more sympathetic tone. ‘This is summat bad, isn’t it, Skinner?’ He nodded, his eyes wide with fear. ‘Look, Skinner, you’ve always been able to trust me. You can tell me anything and you know it won’t go any further. Who was it that always had your back when we lived in the squat?’
Skinner appeared shamefaced and for a while she could see he was weighing up his options. Again, he looked over at Elena who had been listening to their conversation; her impatience obvious from her folded arms, rolling eyes and heavy sighs. ‘Elena, can I catch up with you later?’ he asked. ‘Only, I need to speak to Sapphire about something.’
Elena tutted. ‘If it’s about that prostitute who got killed then I already know. Everybody knows. It was ages ago, so I don’t know why you’re acting like it’s something new.’ Then she left them, and Sapphire couldn’t resist a grin as she watched her stomping across Piccadilly Gardens.
‘Is she the jealous type by any chance?’ she asked.
‘Oh, don’t worry about Elena. She’ll soon come round. She just doesn’t like being left out of anything.’
Sapphire nodded then waited for Skinner to get to the point.
He peered around him shiftily then nodded at her. ‘Not here.’ He pointed to some benches on the other side of the gardens. ‘Let’s go and sit over there.’
Once they were seated on a bench some distance from anybody else, Sapphire prompted him. ‘Go on then, spill. What is it I need to know?’
Skinner peered around again then lowered his voice. ‘Elena was right. It is about that killing but there’s a bit more to it and I don’t want Elena to know. She might mouth off.’ He hesitated before finally opening up. ‘It was a girl called Cora who got killed. She used to work the beat.’
‘Yeah. I know. I knew Cora. Somebody found her dead in the squat where she was staying.’
Then something dawned on Sapphire. ‘Shit! Is that the squat where you used to live? Is that why you moved out?’
Skinner grabbed hold of her hand. ‘Keep quiet for fuck’s sake! Then he lowered his voice again. ‘Yeah, it was.’ He leaned in conspiratorially till his head was only centimetres from hers before he whispered, ‘I saw the whole fuckin’ thing.’
‘You’re joking! What the fuck?’ she said, pulling her hand away and staring at him in shock.
Skinner nodded. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told. I swear I fuckin’ shit myself. She was in her room with this guy and I just happened to look through the window.’
Sapphire couldn’t resist a slight smile. Knowing Skinner, he was looking for an opportunity to lift some of Cora’s stuff without being detected. She listened as he told her more.
‘She’d took this guy back and when I looked through the window, he was fuckin’ strangling her and she was choking, man, I swear. She saw me looking but I just fuckin’ legged it.’
‘What about him? Did he see you?’
‘No. He had his back to me. He was on top of her, strangling the fuckin’ life out of her. At first, I thought they were just shagging. But then I saw his hands round her throat. And her face. Fuckin’ hell!’ He stopped and shook his head from side to side as if trying to chase the memory away. ‘I swear, her fuckin’ eyes were popping out of her head.’
Sapphire placed a hand gently on top of Skinner’s. ‘Jesus! That must have been bad.’ She knew he had more to tell her. In view of what Skinner had already said, it occurred to her that there was possibly a further link to the beat. She wasn’t wrong.
Skinner dropped his head and muttered, ‘I know who the guy is.’
‘Shit, who?’
‘He’s someone I’d not seen around before, but I did see him go into the room with her. Later I wondered if they were still there; that’s why I looked in the window. Anyway, I don’t think anyone else saw them arrive apart from me. Then
