Candleland (12 page)

“Wait here,” said Larkin, lips curling into a smile.

“Here?” squawked Andy, indignation rising, “with Cheerful Charlie over there givin' me the evil eye all the time?”

“It's a perfect surveillance spot. You can see the house, keep an eye on the street and give me a bell on my mobile if there's anything I should know. And you're here for back-up if I need you. Plus,” Larkin added, the smile back again, “you're always telling me what a born and bred London boy you are. Well these are your people. This is your culture. Sit here and bond.”

“These aren't my people!” Andy spat, distaste on his tongue. “I'm a south London boy. That's my manor. It's like askin' you to go to Sunderland, innit?”

“This place has got much more class than anything in Sunderland. And anyway, you're not a south London boy, Andy. You're a farmer's son from Hampshire.”

“Fuck off,” Andy said, arms crossed, mumbling into the table. “You're just pissed off 'cos I scored last night an' didn't wait around for you.”

“You think there's a lot of skill involved in getting a girl so drunk she agrees to have sex with you?” Larkin stood up. “And you're not getting any younger, you know. All you'll be getting soon are sympathy shags.”

Andy started to reply but Larkin cut him off. “Just stay here,” he said, “and keep your eyes peeled.”

Earlier that morning Larkin had emerged from his room, made his way downstairs and found Faye and Moir sitting at the kitchen table together. As soon as he entered they stopped talking, words falling off in mid-sentence, and looked at him, smiling politely. Too politely. Something didn't feel right, thought Larkin.

“Morning,” he said.

They both replied.

“Henry's been telling me about the new lead,” said Faye. “Sounds promising.”

“We don't want to build our hopes up,” Moir replied.

“Henry's right,” said Larkin. “It could be something, it could be nothing.” He poured himself a coffee and sat at the table.

They outlined their plans for the day. Moir had intended to accompany Larkin to Kentish Town but Larkin had dissuaded him from that idea. If Karen was there, he might not want to see the condition she was in, and she might not want to talk to him yet. He'd call Andy, ask him to help instead. Faye then volunteered to spend the day with Henry, do something together, keep him occupied. Moir's eyes seemed to light up at the thought, and he gave an involuntary smile to Faye, which she returned.

There was something flowing between them, Larkin thought, some kind of exclusive bond he wasn't part of. Moir smiling was an unusual sight in itself, like he was using muscles his face didn't possess or at the very least was only rediscovering the use of. Like watching stone wrinkle and crack open. Larkin excused himself, took his coffee to his room, and phoned Andy.

He walked up the stairs feeling strange. He was happy that the two of them were getting along, but there was a much deeper feeling lurking around inside him. Something with a lashing shark's tail, basking below the surface. Jealousy, perhaps? He didn't know, and didn't have time to dwell on it. Instead he sat on the bed, dialled Andy's number, waited for him to answer, and started with the insults.

As Larkin aproached the house, he saw the door open. His first thought was to hide, not be seen, but he soon discarded it. Instead he moved quicker and reached the front gate just in time to see a nondescript middle-aged man wearing a cheap suit and a look of self-revulsion step over the threshold, blinking as the light hit him, pulling his fly shut. Larkin moved briskly up the well-rutted front path.

“Hold the door,” he said.

The man held the door open, studiously avoiding eye contact, then hurried off once he saw Larkin had it. Larkin entered, letting the door close behind him.

The hall looked, depressingly, just as he had expected it to. Woodchip-covered walls bulging and discoloured, lino cracked, worn and perishing. Despite a masking of cheap air freshener, the place smelt of damp, decay and something more unpleasant and all-pervading. Larkin knew what it was, he'd come across it before. The stink of humanity at its worst.

He heard sounds from down the hall, the echo of heels clacking on floorboards followed by a retching sound. He followed it.

At the back of the house, off to the right, was a room that could once have been the dining room. Now a double bed took centre spot, covered by a faded, stained, purple terrycloth candlewick with a junk shop bedside cabinet beside it. On the cabinet was an open packet of condoms, an aged tube of KY and a grubby, sticky-looking black vibrator. A Calor gas heater stood in the corner, an old disemboweled armchair beside it and a threadbare rug on the floor. Against one wall was an old wardrobe that had never seen better days. Thin, cheap curtains were drawn at the window, stopping any light from entering. They had been that way a long time; dust had gathered in the folds.

In another corner of the room was an old porcelain wash basin, and bent over that was a young, miniskirted girl, coughing a last mouthful of vomit down the sink. Larkin watched as she straightened up and reached for a bottle of mouthwash. It looked like a move she'd practised many times. She flung her head back, gargling with a capful, and Larkin chose that moment to knock on the door.

The sound startled the girl and she turned quickly, swallowing the mouthwash as she did so. Larkin got a good look at her.

Her hair was almost blonde, long and swept over to one side, her make-up looked like the work of an over-enthusiastic child mimicking an adult. Her clothes – mini-skirt barely covering her backside, slingbacks with impossibly high spike heels, blouse exposing both flat-chested cleavage and midriff – all looked like they'd come from the racks of Tart Express. There was no air of sexuality about her, she just looked tired, worn and used. Larkin's stomach gave a sour lurch as he put her age at no higher than fourteen. Her eyes, teary from vomiting and probably something more, were now wide with fear.

“Sorry to startle you,” said Larkin, as affably as possible, “but the door was open. I just came in.”

Her fear subsided slightly. “You're early,” she said in a broad, but wary, Yorkshire accent. “I'm not expectin' you for another fifteen minutes.”

Larkin gave what he hoped was a disarming smile. “Sorry. D'you want me to wait?” He could see she was scared, so rather than worry her even more, he decided to play along, pretend to be her punter.

She quickly sketched a smile that didn't reach her frightened, eyes and flung it in Larkin's direction without making eye contact.

“No, since you're here, you may as well stay. Welcome to the Love Shack.” She sounded as genuine and convincing as a Channel Five game show host. She walked round the bed towards him. “Sorry about that before.” She gestured to the sink. “Had a bad curry last night,” she lied.

Larkin nodded and thought of the man he had just bumped into, the one fidgeting with his zipper. He'd put something down her throat, but Larkin doubted it had been curry. “Right,” he said, colluding with her in the lie.

“Let's get it sorted out then,” she said, sitting on the bed, addressing her chipped, painted toe-nails. “Money before the honey, as they say. I've not seen you here before. This your first time, then?” She reached out, grimacing more than smiling, and began to inexpertly stroke his arm.

He tried to come back with an answer, but a sudden thought lodged itself, stubborn and unwelcome, in his mind. No, Larkin thought to himself, it's not. There was a time, just after his wife died, when he didn't want to be close to anyone, couldn't stand anyone to be near him. Conversely, all he wanted was to put his arms around someone, to hold them, and be held in return. It had been his absolute nadir. He had wrapped himself in booze and pills for a while and that hadn't worked, but one bleak night he had been so lonely, so lost in a haze of memory and alcohol, that he had found a prostitute who the bottle convinced him looked like his dead wife, and gone back to her place. He had wanted sex, wanted his body to feel pleasure again, wanted the warmth of a woman next to him, wanted intimacy. He had paid her, stripped, then collapsed on the bed, calling his wife's name, sobbing, begging to be held. The woman, a hardened professional who had had enough maudlin drunks to last a lifetime, had held him until he had passed out, put him to bed, and gone off to work somewhere else. The next morning he had woken up twisted with self-revulsion, got up and left; but not before the prostitute had extracted full payment from him for staying the night. He had never visited a prostitute since that night. Until now.

“Look,” Larkin started hesitantly, trying to keep his voice as unthreatening as possible, “I'm not a punter.”

Fear returned to the girl's eyes. She backed away to the corner of the room. “What you doin' 'ere, then?”

“Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you,” Larkin continued, although the girl didn't look convinced. He kept his voice slow and calm. “I'm just looking for a girl who used to live here. Work here, I don't know. All I know is, this is the last address I've got for her. Her name's Karen. Her surname was probably Shapp. Scottish.”

The girl just stared at him.

“I don't mean her any harm, I'm not the law, I'm not a social worker and she's not in trouble. I'm a journalist. But I don't want to do a story about her. I've been sent by her dad to see that she's all right.”

The girl looked straight at him. She's so young, he thought with a twist of anger. Too young to be coping with situations like these.

“I think you'd better leave,” she said, walking purposefully towards the door. “I'm waitin' for a client an' 'e'll be 'ere any minute.”

Larkin followed her. “Please. I just need to talk to you.” She kept walking. “I know you're busy, I'll pay for your time.”

She stopped and turned. At the mention of money she had suddenly, instantaneously mutated from girl to hardened tart, eyes lit by a feral glow.

“How much?”

“Whatever you were charging your client.”

“Seventy quid?” she said, looking like she'd just hiked the price by at least twenty.

“Done.”

“And you just want to talk?”

“Yeah, I just want to talk. But it might be a bit inconvenient here, if your next client turns up, so shall I take you to lunch?”

The girl's eyes brightened. “Where?”

“Wherever you like.”

“Can we go to McDonald's?”

“Certainly can.”

She smiled, looking, for the first time, like a teenage girl.

Andy's face, pressed up against the pub glass as Larkin sped past in the Saab with the girl in the front seat, had been a picture. Larkin didn't want him along, as he thought he'd have a better chance of getting the girl to open up on her own.

As they sat at the moulded plastic table, the girl, who had given her name as Tara, was enthusiastically dipping lumps of processed battered chicken into a tub of red gloop that had never seen a tomato in its life. Larkin had before him a cup of coffee, quarterpounder and fries. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he reckoned if he joined her in eating she might relax more. He was going to have to tread carefully as it was.

Tara had thrown a bright yellow puffa jacket over the top of her working gear, and it went some way to making her look like a generic teenager, admittedly one who was inexpertly vamping around in her big sister's clothes. Her eyes, though, they gave her away. They spoke of a world-weariness that she shouldn't have had at thirty-five, never mind fourteen.

“So where you from?” Larkin asked.

“Huddersfield.” The last of the chicken disappeared into her mouth.

“Do your folks know you're down here?”

She sucked the sauce from her fingers, munching all the time. “Ha'n't got no folks. None to speak of.”

“So how did you end up here, then?”

“You brought me for me dinner.” She laughed like it was the funniest joke she'd heard in ages. Perhaps it was. “D'you want them chips?” she said.

Larkin slid the cardboard container across the table and she started to dunk them where the chicken had left off.

“So how did you get here?” Larkin asked again.

Tara answered, addressing the cardboard. “Ran away from the children's home. Had to. Care worker kept shaggin' me. I were just a kid then.” Her words, depressingly predictable, were delivered in a detached monotone, as if she was talking about a distant relative, one she'd lost contact with years ago, one she'd never really got to know. “Anyway,” she said, looking up, “I thought you wanted to know about that other lass, not me.”

“OK, then,” said Larkin. “Karen. Did you know her?”

“Might've. Dunno. What's she like, again?”

“Scottish. Dark-haired. Thin. About nineteen.”

“Were she 'angin' around wi' that other lass? That Hayley?”

Larkin thought. Rayman had mentioned another girl being with Karen. “Could be.”

Tara screwed her face up, deep in thought. “Yeah, that were her. Bit miserable, stroppy, like.”

Takes after her father, thought Larkin.

“So where did she go?” he asked.

Tara shrugged. “She left. Girls come and go there. Les is always bringin' new ones in. Some don't last that long.”

“Who's Les?”

Tara gave him a look as if he'd failed to pick Boyzone out of a lineup. “Les? Les looks after us. Les is great. None of the girls would have a roof over their 'eads or money to spend if it weren't for Les.”

A genuine philanthropic soul, thought Larkin. He'd come across Les before, or one of his clones. All the kids who've had cruel childhoods, either in care, foster or biological homes, want to escape to somewhere else. Most of them pick London. As soon as the bus pulls in, there's Les, or someone like Les, waiting with a smooth tongue and a comfortable car, telling them no one understands them or feels their pain except him. He's sorry for them so he'll take them under his wing, sort them out, give them a chance. He'll take them home, or to one of his rented properties, install them there, soften them up at first, give them the easy life. Make them feel safe. Then comes the bottom line. It costs to stay here, and they have to start paying their way. He'll claim they owe him for drugs, alcohol or just living expenses. Next thing they know, they're turning tricks, and the proceeds are being handed over to him, kept in line by a few well-placed blows; ones that hurt but don't show, don't stop the girl from working. Trapped, with no escape. The only way out is to escape if they can, or wait until he's finished with them, by which time they may be no use to anyone, least of all themselves.