Hit and Run (5 page)

*****

Richard was driving as they made their way along Cross Street in the centre of Manchester, past the rebuilt Marks and Spencer store at the bottom of the Arndale centre, past the giant windmills and water feature of the Millennium gardens and the Triangle shopping centre and the Printworks leisure complex opposite, both plastered with giant screens relaying adverts and entertainment.

Richard took a small side street, then another in the area behind Victoria Train Station and parked in front of the Topcat Club.

‘You been here before?’ he asked Shap as they approached the entrance.

Shap frowned. ‘Not sure.’

Richard looked at him.

‘Well,’ Shap defended himself, ‘they all look the same after a few bevvies.’

There were photographs of the girls in the entranceway, scantily clad but nothing that you wouldn’t find in the tabloids.

Richard and Shap made their way up to the bar – more photos of girls lined the bar area. There was a sprinkling of customers and two girls pole dancing in a central area. Tables and chairs were laid out informally and around the perimeter were some seating booths affording a little more privacy. Shap surveyed the place in appreciation. Richard gestured to the barmaid.

‘What can I get you?’ she asked.

‘Mr Sulikov here?’

‘No.’

‘This is his place.’

‘Yeah. But he’s not here. You want the manager?’

Richard nodded.

A couple of minutes later she returned with the manager. The bloke did a double take when he saw Shap.

‘You know each other?’ Richard asked.

‘Detective Inspector Mayne,’ Shap said introducing them. ‘James Harper, owner of the stolen vehicle involved in this morning’s accident.’

Richard’s nostrils widened and he raised his eyebrows, staring hard at Mr Harper. ‘Small world,’ he said, his voice sharp with suspicion. Janine would want to hear about this.

*****

Feeling wretched, Janine was halfway home from the hospital when her mobile rang summoning her to the nightclub. It took her ten minutes to reach the city centre location. It was dark already, a single star, Venus if she remembered rightly, the only thing bright enough to cut through the light pollution that hung over the city. Janine looked at the pink neon Topcat sign flashing on and off and braced herself.

The music was loud and the decor shiny. Glittery pink stripes ran through the wallpaper, glossy brown fake leather covered the booths and seats. The platforms where the girls danced were lit from above and below by pink spotlights. The girls looked very young and wholesome in spite of all the flesh on display. There wasn’t much of an erotic charge to the dancing as far as she could see; repetitious and detached, curiously passionless.

She could see Richard and Shap at tall stools near the bar. Apparently enjoying the floor show. Neither of them saw her approaching.

‘Interview concluded already, then?’

Richard jumped at her voice. ‘Thought we’d wait for you, boss.’ He smiled sheepishly and slid off the stool. ‘This way.’

She followed him along a corridor; plush red carpet and silver flock wallpaper. ‘We’ve got a name.’ Richard told her. ‘Rosa Milicz, Polish.’

They reached a small office, the door ajar. Richard stepped inside and she followed. ‘Mr Harper,’ he introduced the man seated at the cluttered desk. ‘DCI Lewis – she’s heading the enquiry’

Harper was about Janine’s age, late thirties, maybe early forties if he’d weathered well, tousled light brown hair, longish at the back, clean-shaven. He had an aquiline nose, high sculptured cheekbones, a cleft in his chin. He stood and shook her hand; he was slightly stooped and his suit was rumpled. He wore a collarless shirt beneath it. Janine noticed photos on the wall, names beside them: Suzy, Fleur, Carmen.

‘Rosa.’ Harper passed Janine a head and shoulders photo. Janine studied it. She looked young, younger than Janine had imagined, vivacious. Someone had strangled her, Janine thought, squeezed the life from her then ruined that lovely face.

‘She didn’t turn up for work yesterday. The description – it could be her. I missed the news but Andrea, one of our dancers, she rang in.’

‘Was Rosa married?’ Janine asked him.

‘No. Over here on her own.’

She turned to Richard. ‘Put in a request to Poland for dental records asap.’

He nodded.

‘Can we see her employment file?’ Janine asked.

Harper coloured slightly, rubbed at the bridge on his nose. ‘Ah, well, the girls are freelancers, you see. They sort out their own tax and national insurance. Of course we pay public liability for the premises.’

‘Wages?’ Richard said.

‘Cheque or cash. I think …’ He stood and crossed to a filing cabinet, rummaged through and pulled out a file, riffled through it. ‘Yes, Rosa was paid in cash.’

‘Rosa’s address?’ Richard said.

‘No, we don’t seem … no, sorry.’

‘That usual?’ Janine regarded him carefully. She noticed one of his eyes was more open than the other, one eyelid drooping, though she couldn’t read the expression in them. ‘Employing someone and not even having their address?’

Harper looked a little uneasy but said nothing.

‘Surely you’d have taken her details when you hired her?’

‘The girls get a form to fill in – all those details – we just don’t seem to have one for Rosa. I’ve no idea what’s happened to it.’ He slid the drawer shut.

‘You don’t own the business?’ Janine clarified.

‘No, I’m just the manager. The owner’s abroad.’

‘That’s Mr Sulikov?’ Richard said. ‘His first name?’

‘Konrad.’

‘What can you tell us about Rosa?’ Janine asked him.

‘Nice girl. Reliable, turned up for her shifts on time. Never any problem. That’s why it’s so hard to understand.’

‘How do you mean?’ Janine asked.

‘Some of them – they get in a mess: drink, drugs, boyfriends. Or they’re breaking the rules, putting themselves at risk. Topcat’s for dancing.’

‘Strictly ballroom,’ Richard said.

‘We keep it clean. No touching, no tango. Some girls push it, or they make private arrangements with the punter outside these walls. We can’t protect them then.’

‘Anything make you think a punter’s involved?’ Richard asked him.

‘I don’t know what to think. All I’m saying is Rosa did her job, no fuss, no bother.’

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’ Janine wondered if Rosa had known herself. It had been early days. And if she had known had it been welcome news or not?

‘No,’ Harper looked surprised, ‘she never said anything.’

Janine didn’t like her cases colliding like this. It sparked her sense of mistrust. ‘Your car was stolen last night?’ She let the words hang in the air.

‘That’s right.’

‘It was involved in a hit and run accident this morning. The little girl’s died.’ She felt Richard’s eyes on her. ‘Now Rosa.’

Harper looked puzzled. Janine waited it out, watching him. Wondering if he would volunteer any more information, try and explain the sequence of events, the glaring coincidence. Harper said nothing.

‘Mr Harper,’ she said, ‘I’m going to have a look around, talk to people. Please give DI Mayne all the details you have about Rosa. Last time you saw her, the names of any regulars she danced for, friends she had.’ Janine paused in the doorway. ‘Death seems to be following you around. I’d try to think of anything that might help us.’ No harm in shaking his cage a little, letting him know that she didn’t buy the little-white-hen-who-never-laid-an-egg routine.

Andrea, the girl who had rung in, agreed to talk to Janine but in spite of her cooperation there was a distrustful edge to her manner. A lot of people acted like that with the police. Sometimes they had reason to.

Andrea had creamy brown skin, short curly hair. Young again, and wary. She toyed with the ashtray, played with cigarettes and the bangles on her wrist, avoiding eye contact for much of their conversation.

‘Did Rosa have any distinguishing features?’ Janine began.

‘A tattoo, on her leg, a rose. Her right leg – that’s why I rang. It all seemed to fit. Is it her?’ She glanced at Janine.

‘We think so.’

Andrea compressed her lips, looked back at the table. ‘Who do you think did it?’ she said fiercely. ‘Who’d do a thing like that? Why?’

Janine shook her head.

Andrea tilted her head back, blinked hard at the spotlights on the ceiling.

‘What was she like?’ Janine asked.

‘Pretty quiet, really. Not shy, didn’t let people push her around or anything. Just never said much about herself.’

‘Any problems with the clients? Or anyone else?’

Andrea shook her head.

‘You were both here Sunday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Finish at the same time?’

She nodded. She rooted in her handbag, pulled out a packet of baby wipes and Janine glimpsed the snapshot of a toddler. Andrea found the cigarettes she was looking for. She slid one from the packet.

‘Who left first?’

‘I did.’

‘And you didn’t see her again? Was there a boyfriend?’

Andrea shook her head, lit her cigarette.

‘Do you know where she lived?’

‘No.’

Was the denial a little too fast? Janine looked steadily at the girl.

‘Look, we worked together, that’s all.’ Andrea said defensively. ‘She was a nice kid but I don’t socialise with people from here. None of us do. It’s just a job. She had a room somewhere, that’s all I remember her saying.’

‘Is there anything else you can think of that might help us?’

‘No.’ She took a drag on her cigarette.

Was the girl keeping something back? Or were her guarded replies her natural reaction to police questioning? ‘We might need to talk to you again.’

Andrea nodded, blew out smoke and rose. Janine watched her walk across the club to leave her cigarettes at the bar. Moving away, already back on the job, smiling at clients, laughing at a remark one of them made, taking her place on a low podium.

Janine wondered what Andrea thought about working here. Did she regard it as good money, a better living than working in a call-centre or waitressing somewhere? How did she feel about the customers who came to ogle her? Was one of the customers, perhaps one of the men here tonight, Rosa’s killer? Wouldn’t he stay well away though? Unless he was a regular, whose absence might be remarked upon?

She could see Shap chatting to a group of men at the bar. A raucous burst of laughter. All lads together. Shap was obviously on good form. But she knew that alongside the bonhomie and the wit the detective sergeant would be mopping up every last morsel of intelligence. On the case in his own inimitable style.

*****

Chris hadn’t trusted himself to go into Ann-Marie’s bedroom. Fearful that he would do something obscene: trash the place, tear down the drawings and her City scarf, the mobiles and the posters. But now he took a breath and pushed the door open. Why was it shut anyway? She never shut her door; she liked to be able to see the landing light, to be able to hear them moving about the house and call out to them. The door swung open and he took in a scattering of felt pens and bits of plastic, some cards and puddles of clothes. He’d expected it to look neater, more organised. He thought Debbie would have already tidied up. Creating a shrine.

Chris had built the beds, rigged up a slide from the top bunk and a ladder at the other end. He’d made the cupboards in the alcove, too, with drawers beneath for her clothes. The drawers had come from a big reclamation place in Hyde. Lovely wood, beech. He’d cleaned them up, sanding them and using linseed oil for a soft warm finish. He’d fixed on new handles, rejecting all the fancy shapes for some simple round wooden ones not too big for her hands and no sharp edges. After all that Ann-Marie had plastered the unit with stickers from cereal packets and the dentist. He’d felt a lurch of dismay when he’d first seen them but quickly reasoned that it didn’t matter. It was her space. Just a week ago her curtain pole had come adrift and he’d been up there fixing it while she chattered to him about dogs and how their sense of vision worked compared to humans and cows and flies.

Can’t fix this, he thought, and sat down heavily on the lower bunk, his head bowed in the narrow space, his hands large and useless, an encumbrance now. He stared mutinously at her old teddy, remembered making it dance as he held Ann-Marie in the crook of his arm, her sturdy legs kicking in delight. How she’d dragged the bear about as a toddler; already she was the image of her mother: the same dimples, the same wild hair.

Debbie, falling for Debbie had been brilliant. He met her through the job. She and another nurse had a flat-share in Withington, before the old hospital closed. Chris had woken her up. She’d been on nights. She was skinny and funny and pretty, even with her hair sticking out every which way. She’d made coffee and watched him work, asked him questions. She was easy to talk to.

‘Reckon you need a new T-connector,’ he told her, wiping his hands on a rag.

‘Do I now? What’s that then?’

‘It’s a fitting, joins all three pipes together.’

‘Right.’ There was a hint of a smile playing round her lips, impudence dancing in her eyes. ‘You’d better sort me out then.’ Her voice sounded softer and her face fell serious as she stared at him.

He had felt himself harden and a flush of heat spread along his thighs and the back of his neck.

‘Pleasure.’ Tension sucked the oxygen from the air. Her eyes moving up to his then back to his lips. Her hand tucking stray hair behind one ear. Her skin was pale. There was a blue vein visible in her neck. He wanted to touch it, lick it.

‘I’m off Saturday,’ she said.

‘Maybe a drink?’ His throat was dry.

‘Yeah.’ She smiled. The dimples in her cheeks.

They’d been married the following spring. Being with her had put a sheen on everything, a hot ball of joy inside him. Not that he’d been unhappy before that, but being with her made everything more real. Even the bad time, when they lost the baby … His thoughts scattered … Lost two babies now.