Текст книги "Scarred for Life"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

‘Are you okay?’

Tim squealed slightly. ‘Fine. Just a little tap.’

Jessica continued looking through the logs. As they had been told, Hamish was definitely off work on the nights Cassie and Grace had disappeared, yet the number plate of his black cab had shown up very close to the area Jessica suspected both women went missing from. It was enough to arrest him.

Crack!

Tim’s head crunched off the table again as he tried to manoeuvre himself out.

‘Do you need me to move?’ Jessica asked.

Tim creakily emerged, rubbing his head. ‘I’m fine. I’ve disconnected everything under there and tried again.’ He pressed a button on the desk but nothing happened. ‘Stupid piece of shite . . .’ He paused. ‘’Scuse the language, like.’

‘It’s fine.’

Still at a loss, Tim leant forward and smashed his hand on the top of the box with such force that the entire desk shook. There was a crackle, a pop and then static.

‘Does that mean it’s working?’ Jessica asked.

Tim shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Try radioing Hamish.’

Tim checked his lists and then put the call out. Seconds later the reply buzzed back from a gruff Scottish accent. ‘I’m here, son. Is your radio on the blink again? My phone’s out of charge, else I would’ve called in.’

Jessica grabbed a pen from the desk and wrote, ‘Where is he?’ on the pad between her and Tim.

‘Where are you, mate?’ Tim asked breezily.

‘Just picked someone up from the Tesco on Oxford Road. I’m on my way out to Longsight. I’ll call in when I’m done.’

23

‘Better put your seatbelt on, mate,’ Dave warned the uniformed officer as the four of them packed into the marked police car. Jessica had taken the driver’s seat before anyone could complain and screeched them away into rush-hour traffic, sirens blazing, blue lights spinning, heart pumping.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,’ Archie wailed from the passenger seat as his head thudded into the window.

‘Stop whingeing,’ Jessica barked, slamming the car into fourth and blazing around a bus. ‘Call the station and get backup.’

Archie wound down the window an inch, saying he felt a little woozy, and Jessica half-turned in the seat towards Rowlands. ‘Have you still got Tim on the phone?’

‘Yes, can you watch the road, please?’

Jessica accelerated into a speed bump and felt the suspension bounce as the car took off and landed with a metallic thud. She rounded a corner in third just as their radio blazed to life.

‘Answer it, then,’ Jessica ordered Archie.

‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘Stop being wet.’ Jessica punched the dashboard. ‘What is it?’

‘We’ve just caught your cab on ANPR,’ an officer chirped.

‘Thanks for the help but we’re already on our way.’

The tyres howled as Jessica undertook a lorry, swerved right and overtook a mini, before breezing through a set of red traffic lights.

‘I really think I might be sick,’ Archie said groggily, winding down the window even further.

‘Will you put that back up?’ Jessica said. ‘It’s bloody freezing in here.’

She was so busy bellowing at Archie that she almost missed the ramp from Mancunian Way onto Stockport Road. Not wanting to double back, Jessica stamped on the brake, spun the steering wheel hard left and hoped for the best. With a crunch of metal, the rear bumper clipped the concrete barrier but she gripped the steering wheel tightly and righted the front, accelerating at the same time and racing down the incline in one smooth-ish movement. Well, that was how it felt in her head.

‘I hope you’ve packed some clean pants,’ Dave told the uniformed officer in the back seat.

‘I’ve been in a rally car and that was nothing like this.’

Jessica eased off the pedal as she reached the bottom, had a quick glance right, and then steamed onto the A6. ‘Will you two girls stop bitching in the back? This is how an expert does it.’

In the front, Archie slumped towards the open window, making an unhealthy-sounding combination of gurgles and groans. Jessica slid the car into fifth as she accelerated again.

‘Find out from Tim where his mate is now,’ Jessica shouted.

Dave asked the question and replied moments later: ‘That estate out the back of Levenshulme train station. Second right after the station, first left.’

‘Gotcha.’

A motorbike swerved to turn across her and then thought better of it when the rider realised how quickly she was going. Jessica swore under her breath, weaving around a car coming in the opposite direction as Archie groaned again.

‘You’re really putting me off,’ Jessica said.

‘Hnnnnnfhh.’

Jessica skidded around the turn towards the train station, second right, first left. Screeeeeeeeeeech.

Blue flashing lights already filled the road, with the black cab stopped in the centre, two police cars ahead of it, one behind. Jessica slotted in next to the one at the rear and wrenched the door open. Her heart was pounding from the adrenaline as she bounded forward.

Close to the stopped cab was an officer talking into his radio. When he spotted Jessica, he waved her across. ‘We only got here thirty seconds ago. We’ve been waiting for you.’ Behind her, Archie, Dave and the uniformed officer staggered across, out of breath. Even in the dim light from the street lamps, Archie looked green. ‘What happened to you three?’ the officer added. ‘You look like you’ve shat yourselves.’

‘I nearly did,’ Dave replied, trying to catch his breath.

The officer passed Jessica a bulletproof vest. ‘We’ve got armed officers on the way,’ he said.

‘Sod that, I’ve already bailed them out once today.’

Jessica marched across to the cab and knocked on the driver’s side window, taking a step backwards as the rear door opened. Out stepped a dumpy woman, hands up, Tesco bag for life in the air. ‘It was only a pack of choc ices!’ she shouted, eyes wide in fear. ‘I thought I’d only picked up one box but there are two. I’ll pay the difference.’

Jessica ignored her, opening the driver’s door, crouching and telling Hamish Pendlebury he was under arrest.

Archie sat in Jessica’s office cradling a chipped mug of tea. ‘I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight,’ he said, voice still trembling.

Dave laughed. ‘I’ve seen way worse than that.’

Jessica scowled at the pair of them, Rowlands in particular. ‘Aren’t you done for the day?’

‘I just need an hour or two for my heart rate to return to normal, then I’ll nick off,’ Dave replied.

‘You have been on the advanced driving course, haven’t you?’ Archie asked.

‘Pfft, I should be teaching that,’ Jessica replied.

Neither of them seemed convinced. ‘Is that why you took a chunk out of the back bumper?’ Dave asked.

Jessica nodded at Archie. ‘That was his fault – if he hadn’t been squealing like a trapped mouse, I would’ve been able to concentrate.’

Archie sipped his drink but his eyes were blinking rapidly. ‘That guy in uniform’s gone home for the day. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s off on the sick for six months now. Poor bastard.’

‘Will you two stop moaning about my driving? I got us there, didn’t I? We’re all in one piece – you should be thanking me.’

‘What for?’ Dave asked.

‘Showing you how to multi-task. There you were crying like a baby abandoned in a box, while I was driving, answering radios, navigating—’

‘Scaring the shite out of cyclists,’ Dave added.

‘Bah, they should get a car.’

There was a knock on the door, with a PC poking his head around to say that Hamish Pendlebury and his solicitor were now ready. Jessica was already past the end of her shift – again.

‘Go home,’ she said, nodding at Dave and then turning to Archie. ‘Right then, brown pants, you did the legwork, so you can ask the questions if you can keep your lunch down for a few minutes.’

Archie perked up, sitting straighter in his chair and then standing. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, just splash some water on your face first – you look like you’ve got chronic bowel syndrome. Meet me at the interview rooms.’

Hamish Pendlebury was a big man. His studded leather jacket had been confiscated but he was still wearing jeans and a scruffy black skull and crossbones T-shirt full of creases. His hair wasn’t as long as Tim’s but they could have been members of the same biker gang, and he had a long grey beard which had been clumped into a point. His solicitor was the complete opposite: small, well decked out, expensive leather satchel, cocky. Hamish was looking fairly confident too, his steady gaze sweeping across Jessica and Archie, which wasn’t a good sign.

Before Archie had said a word, Jessica had a sinking feeling. When both the suspect and his solicitor were looking conceited in the interview room, it was because they knew something the officers in front of them didn’t. There was a definite smugness about the pair of them. A smuggy smugness that they weren’t even attempting to conceal with their smug grins and smug posture. Even the satchel had a smug look about it, as if the solicitor had spent an hour in Marrakech bartering some poor kid down from thirty quid until he’d managed to buy it for fifty pence – and then put it on expenses when he got home. The smug bastard.

Archie didn’t seem to notice. The only sound in the interview room was the tapping of his foot on the floor as he curled his top lip aggressively.

‘I suppose you think you’re clever, don’t you,’ he said, glaring at Hamish.

That hint of a Scottish accent again. ‘Not really.’

‘Two young girls – what was it, you couldn’t get a shag so you took it out on them?’

The solicitor tutted but didn’t say anything. Jessica knew he was going to cut in when they’d made big enough idiots of themselves. She was going to at least let Archie show her what he had.

‘I’ll bet you were well chuffed after the first girl, weren’t you,’ Archie added, laying the accent on thick. ‘You thought you had it all worked out – go cruising close to the closed bus stop for any girls unfortunate enough to be looking for a lift home. But it all went to cock, didn’t it?’

No reply.

‘No offence, mate, but you’ve even got the name for it, haven’t you? I mean, if I was called “Hamish”, I’d be out there trying to cop off with anything that moved. I’ve only heard of one Hamish in my life and he was a right paedo, he—’

Another tut from the solicitor. This was going badly.

‘All right,’ Jessica cut in. ‘How about we go back to last Thursday night. We know you weren’t on shift at the taxi place, so what were you doing?’

‘No comment.’

Oh, for God’s sake. He was one of those.

‘You do know that if you don’t talk to us, then it can go against you?’

Hamish’s solicitor cut in. ‘My client isn’t saying he won’t ever answer your questions, simply that it’s difficult to answer that exact one.’

It seemed to be the week for Jessica not quite grasping what was going on. At a loss, she nudged Archie with her knee.

He began tapping his foot again. ‘Hmm, Hamish, Hamish, Hamish . . . I think you do remember what you were up to last Thursday. I’m guessing you knocked off work at around five or six. Went home, had a couple of crispy pancakes, watched a few cartoons on television, perhaps even got excited by that one who presents the news.’ He turned to Jessica. ‘What’s her name?’ Without waiting for a reply, he continued. ‘Never mind. Anyway, after that, you spent a while looking at questionable material on the Internet. I know, I’ve been there myself after a long day. The difference is that I don’t currently have officers poring through my search history. What do you think they’re going to find on there? Horse sex?’

Hamish peeped sideways at his solicitor and motioned him to stand.

‘Whoa there, big fella,’ Archie said, not moving.

‘I went out on Thursday night,’ Hamish said, sitting again.

‘Well, hal-le-lu-jah – he speaks,’ Archie added mockingly.

‘I left my cab at home and I walked to this place a few streets over from mine.’

‘What place?’ Archie asked.

A hint of a smile slid across the cabbie’s features. ‘It’s called Sandra’s.’

Jessica and Archie exchanged a look and mouthed the same word simultaneously. ‘Shite.’

24

Jessica stood outside the unassuming doorway in the gap between street lights and turned to Archie. ‘Ever been here before?’

‘No!’

‘I won’t hold it against you if you have.’

‘Sod off – I don’t have to pay for it.’

‘Some men like the seedy nature of paying for sex . . . apparently.’

‘How do you know, is your boyfriend a fan?’

Jessica saw Archie’s simmering grin and let it go. ‘I went on some vice course a couple of years ago. A lot of it was about people smuggling but then it took us a day or so just to figure out what the laws are. Half of what I thought was illegal is perfectly fine. It’s a bloody minefield.’

‘All that to get a quick shag off a prostitute.’

Archie motioned to step towards the doorway but Jessica pulled him to one side, deeper into the shadows. ‘We need a quick word first.’

‘What?’

‘About the interview room – what were you doing?’

In the gloom, she could just about make out his shrug. ‘I dunno, trying to get a reaction. I thought that if I acted like a knob head, then you could jump in and be the sensible one.’

‘Bloody hell, I’ve never been called that before.’

‘Is there a problem?’

Jessica started to reply and then stopped herself. He reminded her far too much of what she was like when she was younger – stupid, brash, gobby, trying to get under people’s skins. Sometimes she still felt like that now, but here he was, a decade younger than her, figuring it all out for himself. She could hardly give him a hard time when she had done far worse things than he was likely to.

‘No, just . . . try to think a little more before you speak. You’re going to get yourself into trouble.’

‘Aye, fair enough. Now can we go scare the shite out of a few punters?’

‘Lead the way.’

The only markings on the dark door were the number thirty-one and a buzzer. Archie pushed it open and headed up the stairs with Jessica behind. He led the way through a second door at the top into a small waiting room. On one side was a counter like the reception desk in any office, except that the woman behind it had approximately forty per cent more cleavage on show. Directly across from the door was a flatscreen television fixed to the wall displaying a porn star mid-act, while underneath two men sat, staring at the floor and definitely not at each other. A scattering of pornographic magazines was on the coffee table in front of them.

When Jessica entered, the two men looked up in unison, eyebrows arched in mutual confusion about why the fully dressed woman in a suit was there. The receptionist knew instantly.

‘Are you Sandra?’ Jessica asked.

The woman was somewhere in her early forties but had definitely kept her looks – and chest. She nodded. ‘Feck off, will ya – all my accounts are in order; the girls are all healthy, all tested, all English, all willingly here. There’s no trafficked European girls here. Oh, and before you ask, I’m not a madam and I’m not running a brothel either. I’m an employee the same as anyone else. You can ask any of the girls.’

One of the men got slowly to his feet, desperately rearranging the crotch area of his trousers. ‘Is, er, everything, er, okay?’

Jessica slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and took out her identification, showing it to both men and then Sandra. Before she could turn back, both men had dashed for the exit, stumbling their way down the stairs and slamming the door at the bottom.

‘Feck’s sake, there was no need for that,’ Sandra said.

‘Aren’t you chilly?’ Jessica asked.

‘Ha ha, aren’t you the funny one.’ She nodded at Archie. ‘And you can stop looking at my tits too.’

‘Where else am I supposed to look?’ he shot back. ‘They take up half the room.’

Jessica put her ID away. ‘Look, we’ll leave quietly – we just need you to tell us something.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out the printout, folding it flat on the counter until Hamish Pendlebury’s features were clear. ‘Do you know who this is?’

Sandra picked up the sheet and glanced at it, before returning it to the desk, pursing her lips, and rearranging her cleavage. ‘Everyone has confidentiality when they come in here.’

‘You’re not a sodding doctor’s surgery.’

‘Too bloody right we’re not. For one thing, we don’t have a three-month waiting list; for another, our clients always leave satisfied.’

‘If you don’t tell us, then we’ll have people coming here all day every day – hanging around, asking questions. Interviewing all the girls individually, going through your accounts with a fine-tooth comb.’

‘Knowing you bastards, you probably would as well.’ She winked at Archie. ‘Don’t think we don’t have your off-duty lot popping in for a quick in and out anyway. You’re all dirty bastards, you’ve gotta be to hang around with paedos and weirdos all day long.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jessica replied. ‘And that’s just the superintendent and his mates. Anyway – do you know this guy or not? Believe me, whatever confidentiality you think you’re offering, he’d be grateful for an alibi.’

A grin spread across Sandra’s face as she picked up the sheet again. Somewhere in a back room a woman’s moaning reached what was either a genuine peak, or she was nailed on for some sort of acting award. Sandra nodded at Archie again. ‘That’s Holly – she’d like you.’

‘Do. You. Know. Him?’ Jessica snapped.

‘Fine! He’s one of our regulars. He’s in here at least once a week – you can’t forget that hair. I think he lives nearby.’

‘What days did you work last week?’

Another heave of the bra: ‘Christ, you’re not enforcing working time directive, are you?’

‘Do you ever answer a question?’

‘All right, bloody hell . . . I did daytimes Monday and Tuesday, then evenings Thursday to Saturday.’

‘What about this week?’

‘I’ve been on lates all week.’

Jessica pointed at the picture. ‘What days was he in?’

Sandra demonstrated an impressive set of lungs as she exhaled thoughtfully. ‘He always comes in to see Arianna – so that’s Wednesday and Friday last week and Monday this week.’

‘Is there any proof – a credit-card transaction, a cheque . . .’

‘What do you think we’re running here? We’re not bloody Asda.’

‘So it’s cash only?’

‘Obviously.’

‘But you’re absolutely, one hundred per cent positive he was here on those three evenings.’

Sandra folded up the photograph and handed it back. ‘Darling, when someone with a beard like that starts wanting to do the types of thing he does with Arianna, believe me, us girls talk about it.’

25

Jessica rolled over and fell onto the floor. She thought she was being nice after sneaking in late, not disturbing Adam and instead sleeping on the sofa. The result was that she’d barely slept at all, huddling under a thick blanket and twisting herself around it into such knots that she wasn’t sure what was blanket and what was clothing. Once again, she’d managed to work the entire day and most of the evening. The only thing she had done after getting home was creep up the stairs and peer through the crack that Bex left between the door and the frame to make sure that the teenager was still there. Jessica didn’t know why she felt so protective of Bex, but there was something there, something . . . motherly. No, not that. Sisterly? She couldn’t explain it because she’d never had those instincts before. Her younger self would have nicked Bex for the thieving and then spent the rest of the day congratulating herself for being so clever. Now . . . she didn’t know.

Jessica clawed her way onto the sofa again and started trying to straighten the blanket when the door creaked open. She spun to see the painfully thin outline of Bex standing in a vest top and pair of shorts. Her legs looked like a frog’s, thin with bandy knees, while her arms were wrapped around her midriff as they so often were. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I borrowed your stuff. Adam said—’

‘It’s fine, you can wear what you want. I don’t use half of it anyway. We’ll go through my wardrobe if you like.’

‘I couldn’t sleep – I was worried about you getting home. Adam said you’re always late but I was thinking about you being a police officer and . . .’

‘I didn’t want to disturb anyone, so I slept down here.’

Bex bobbed awkwardly from one foot to the other.

‘Are you cold?’ Jessica asked.

‘A bit.’

‘Hungry?’

She suppressed a smile. ‘A bit.’

Jessica picked up the blanket and draped it around Bex’s shoulders. ‘Let’s see what’s left in the kitchen.’

Bex sat shivering at the table under the blanket as Jessica began picking items out of the fridge. ‘I’m not really in the mood for a sandwich,’ she yawned, peering around the door at Bex. ‘You?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘It’s too early to cook and the microwave’s too noisy, so we can’t really have anything warm. All the sausage rolls are in the freezer, so they’re off the menu.’

‘Honestly, don’t put yourself out.’

‘I don’t know why we have so much healthy shite in here. This is what happens when you let Adam do the shopping – it’s all bloody fruit and yoghurt. Oh sod this.’ Jessica opened the cupboard, lifted out the tins of baked beans and a packet of cream crackers, and then poked around for her secret stash of chocolate-coated chocolate chip cookies. She placed them on the table in front of Bex and then put the kettle on. ‘Nothing beats a brew and a biscuit – especially at three in the morning.’

With a tremor and a pop, the kettle finished boiling, so Jessica and Bex decamped back to the comfort of the living room, shivering under the blanket together and dunking their way through Jessica’s biscuits.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind me being here?’ Bex asked.

‘This place is too big for Adam and me.’

Bex pressed the mug to her chin, breathing in the warm fumes. ‘Does that mean . . . ?’

Jessica hated the question – it was what she always got from her mother and why she tried to avoid her phone calls. Kids: it always came down to bloody kids.

Bex must have sensed she’d asked the wrong thing. ‘Sorry . . .’

‘No, it’s . . .’ Jessica stopped, remembering – as if the name was ever out of her mind. ‘. . . I lost a baby and now they don’t think I can get pregnant again.’

‘Oh . . .’

‘We were thinking about adopting or fostering, but it’s awkward with the job . . .’

‘So you have to choose between one or the other?’

It was an honest question – a natural one – but Jessica suddenly felt that itch at the back of her throat as if tears were near. She’d tried to block out the fact that the choice was as simple as that. Izzy combined the two, as did so many others, and yet Jessica knew that wasn’t her. As with anything in her life, it was all or nothing.

You’re either living life at 100 m.p.h., or you’re not living at all.

Jessica just didn’t know which of the two camps she was in.

‘Sorry,’ Bex said.

Jessica shielded herself behind half a biscuit. ‘Don’t be.’

Bex drew her mug up in front of her face and began to speak. ‘I didn’t know my dad – never met him, never knew his name. I was brought up by my mum in Hulme. My first memory is of waking up early in the morning, a bit like this I suppose. I was maybe five or six and it was cold, so I got up to see if I could find my mum. It was only this little two-bed place and her room was next to mine but there was no one in her bed. I heard voices downstairs, so I crept down into the living room and she was there with two blokes. I thought . . . well, I didn’t know what I thought then. It’s obvious now – it all is.’

Bex pulled the blanket tighter under her chin, leaving one bony arm sticking out, clutching her mug. ‘I used to think she was ill because there were needles everywhere. She’d say they were because she was feeling poorly but you don’t know any differently when you’re a kid. If I ever asked about my dad, she’d get furious, saying he was no good and that I shouldn’t worry about him. Then I’d have all these “uncles”. There was always someone there.’

She paused, then added: ‘When you’re a kid, you think normal is what’s in front of you.’

So young, so wise.

‘How long have you been on the streets?’

‘I don’t really know – a couple of years, maybe? When I was a kid I really enjoyed school but there was never any pressure from home to do well and when I got a bit older I started hanging around with the wrong people. We’d bunk off, smoke in the park, see if we could get some booze. No one said anything, so we just kept doing it. Then Mum started seeing this bloke named Stu. By then, I pretty much knew what was going on with the needles and so on but it was normal. I was still sleeping at home and this one night I woke up and he was just there at the bottom of my bed, watching.’

Jessica gurgled a noise of revulsion, not knowing what to say.

‘He didn’t say anything but he was . . . well, you can guess.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘And how old are you now?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I started screaming at him, telling him to get away.’

‘Did he?’

‘He turned around and walked out of my room as if nothing was wrong but I’d woken up my mum by shouting. She came stumbling in from her room, screaming back – wanting to know why I’d woken her up. I was telling her what Stu was doing at the bottom of my bed but she shrugged and asked what the problem was.’

Jessica couldn’t stop herself: ‘No . . .’

Bex took another biscuit and crunched into it. ‘I spent the rest of the night sleeping up against the door and then the next day I packed all the clothes I had into a bag and left. I knew the parks pretty well and there was usually an unlocked toilet or a pagoda somewhere. During the summer, it’s not too bad . . . well, it’s not great but it’s not the worst. But then it was winter.’

‘What did you do?’

‘You get into the hostel where you can. Sometimes the woman on the desk lets you in but other times, when they have a bunch of people in, you have to pay. When you need eight quid a day for a roof, you become pretty good at figuring out the types of people who are a bit careless with their wallets.’

‘You did that for two years?’

Bex finished the biscuit and put her mug on the floor, curling herself up entirely under the blanket and edging closer to Jessica. She seemed more childlike than ever. ‘More or less. There are always blokes saying they’ll do this or that to help you but it’s pretty easy to figure out what they actually want.’

Jessica felt the need to defend Adam. ‘Not everyone’s like that.’

‘Maybe . . .’

‘Why did you decide to come here?’

Bex yawned widely. ‘I don’t know – why did you invite me?’

The yawn was infectious and Jessica found herself trying, and failing, to stifle one herself. ‘I don’t know . . . instinct.’

Bex indicated the sofa and Jessica’s sleeping arrangement: ‘Are you and Adam going to be okay?’

‘Yes; it’s just the job.’

‘Are you going to have to choose between being a police officer, Adam, and children?’

Jessica couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘Not yet.’

26

Jessica and DC Archie Davey spent the morning trapped in what would have looked to outsiders like an elaborate yawning competition. Jessica didn’t want to spend time in her office in case DCI Cole came looking for her, so, instead, they holed up in the back corner of the canteen – somewhere neither he, nor anyone with intestinal problems or taste buds, would go anywhere near. Archie complained that the job was taking a toll on his social life but Jessica could do little other than laugh and yawn. ‘Get used to that,’ she advised.

Hamish had been kept in overnight while his story was checked out. The first-hand sighting at the massage parlour was as much of an alibi as they were going to get and there wasn’t much desire to haul all the girls in for interview. Sandra had likely been right about one thing – off-duty officers would be known faces at some of those establishments, and in a model of mutually assured destruction conducted through the media, the police would come off worse if they caused too many problems.

For the most part, the massage parlours weren’t the problem anyway – the girls who worked there knew what they were doing and the blokes who lumbered in on the way home from work knew what they were paying for. Sandra knew that too: if she and her girls didn’t create a problem, then they wouldn’t get one, even if the books might struggle to hold up to the closest scrutiny. It was the people-smuggling that GMP’s Serious Crime Division was desperate to get a handle on – mainly of Eastern European girls – but if they were going to close that down, then leaving a safe alternative was probably for the best too. It was on the borderline of legality but it served most people’s interests to leave it be. Well, unless you lived next door to one – and then you were screwed either way. Literally, if that was your thing.

That left Jessica with a problem, because if Hamish wasn’t driving his cab in the area Cassie and Grace had disappeared from, then who was? He insisted it had been left on his driveway while he’d gone for a walk to Sandra’s. He’d spent two hours – and a hefty chunk of change, no doubt – at the parlour and then headed home. Because of the shift Arianna worked, Sandra had practically been able to give them a clocking-in and -out time for Hamish’s appearances, ruling him out of killing either woman. He said that his cab was exactly where he’d left it when he got home and that, although he hadn’t checked in the evenings, the keys were still on the table where he’d left them by the next morning.

That left them with two options:

1) Someone had broken into Hamish’s house, stolen his keys, stolen the cab, picked up both women, beaten, killed, cut up and dumped them – all without making a mess in the vehicle, then returned the taxi and keys unnoticed, possibly simultaneously inventing a time machine; or

2) Somebody had cloned his number plate.

Option one was unlikely; option two left them trying to track down all the black cabs in the city, close to the city and possibly any others that had been bought second-hand and stored in a garage for what could have been years. For now, as the full list of anyone with a licensed Hackney cab within a fifty-mile radius was put together, they could do little else other than hope their number plate recognition system flagged up that particular plate in a place where it wasn’t Hamish going about his daily business.

After deciding there was nowhere in the station she could get away with catching half an hour’s sleep, Jessica found Rowlands on the main floor.