Murder... Now and Then (6 page)

He was getting depressed. Perhaps because he
would
rather be here than at home. Home wasn't much fun at the moment. Barbara didn't like it in London. They had been here five years now, and she liked it no better than she had to start with. Still, things would improve when he got promotion, which shouldn't be too far off. Peter could get his bike, the one that Lloyd had marked down for future purchase when the intended recipient was three weeks old. He was almost seven now, and he was tucked up in bed like all right-thinking people. Not that Lloyd would have been tucked up in bed if he had been home; he would have been pottering about until the small hours doing nothing in particular. But right now, bed seemed a very good place to be. Though not, perhaps, his own.

WPC Judy Russell's eyes caught his, and he almost blushed. Perhaps she could read minds; he wouldn't be surprised at anything that went on behind that liquid brown gaze. She had been in the job for almost two years; she was good. Good CID material – he ought to get her on to a detective course now that her probationary period was almost up. But that wasn't the extent of his interest in her; she knew that, and responded to it despite herself. Whatever it was, it had been there since the day they'd met, and it was still there.

He had asked her out for the evening a few weeks after she had arrived; he had never done anything like that before, and had been as nervous as a kitten all evening, expecting Barbara to jump out at him from behind lampposts. In the end, he had told her he was married, and she had told him that there was nothing doing. He hadn't tried again, but he had thought about it. Often.

She was taking a turn at watching the street; she looked cold, as she sipped coffee from a flask. She offered it to him, and he shook his head, his eyes glancing down at her black-stockinged legs and regulation shoes. Great levellers, uniforms. In civvies, Judy Russell's legs were something to write—

‘Punter,' Judy said, into the radio, ditching her coffee, as a car turned into the street.

They all tensed up; all the people who waited out of sight on the balcony, the four in the unmarked van parked off the road, and the two who displayed their wares on the road. But the car drove past at a normal speed; and went on its way.

‘A waste of good coffee,' observed Lloyd, as he stood everyone down.

She smiled. ‘It wasn't good.'

‘That's why I didn't have any.'

More girls had come to join the first two; each had her own space, violation of which led to the odd-scuffle, but nothing too noisy. Eventually, the cars were coming thick and slow, their drivers weighing up what was on offer. Lloyd watched until he had seen enough to state for certain that business was being transacted.

‘Russell, Horton, left stairs,' said Lloyd. ‘ Maidley and Simpson right. When I say go, go. Don't forget the drivers are committing an offence too. Names and addresses. Put the fear of God into them.'

‘Don't worry,' said Judy.

One of the cars drove off with its prize, but the other girls were still negotiating. ‘Go,' said Lloyd quietly, into the radio, and looked through the binoculars to watch the operation. It was quick, it was efficient. The car drivers who tried to get away were unable to do so by the unmarked van which was suddenly blocking the road one way, and the very obvious police van which had swung in from the other end, its doors open ready to receive the girls. One girl got away, outrunning Horton, who was sorely in need of fitness training. The others were rounded up neatly and efficiently. The men were warned that they might receive a summons, the girls arrested, cautioned, and taken to the van, some unwillingly, in which event they had to be manhandled in.

This was a street-cleaning exercise; the girls would be fined, the punters possibly summonsed in vague terms that wouldn't mean too much to their wives. With luck, the operation might rescue some under-age kid from a life on the streets, but probably not. They would drift up West, and get into the clutches of the real villains that the Vice Squad tried to mop up. By that time, it would probably be too late. For the moment the whole thing was simply a public nuisance, and the spot raids which would take place over the next eighteen months nothing but a sop to the public, and a lot of cold legwork and time consuming paperwork.

God, he was getting depressed. And he had another dozen or more nights like this to look forward to. ‘A street-cleaning task force' was how his motley crew was described. Designed to scare away the punters and make the girls less willing to walk the streets. Fat chance. He looked at his list, and picked up the binoculars and tripod, getting ready to move the show on to its next venue.

He met Judy and Horton at the bottom of the stairs, as the others made their way to the van. Horton was out of breath still, and bleeding from a scratch inflicted in the scuffle. Judy was inspecting the damage and passing him fit.

‘You want to lose some of that,' said Lloyd, prodding his midriff with the tripod. ‘Sedgwick Terrace next,' he said.

Horton swore mildly as he turned to go.

‘Something bothering you, Horton?' Lloyd asked testily.

Horton turned back. ‘ What's the point, Sarge?' he asked. ‘ We do this all night and we know that all these girls'll be back on the street tomorrow night.
This
street!' He stamped the frosty ground in emphasis.

Lloyd looked at him. ‘Then maybe we should come back here tomorrow night and do it all again,' he said.

Horton sighed, his breath streaming in the light from the street lamp. ‘We're never
going
to clean up the streets,' he pointed out. ‘You know it, I know it, and they know it. We can do this over the next eighteen months, or eighteen years, and it'll make no difference! So what's the point?'

‘The people who live here don't like it. And they have every right to expect us to stop it or at the very least curb it,' said Lloyd, slipping the binoculars into their case, and handing them and the tripod to Horton. ‘Just get that stuff to the van, Horton,' he said, ‘And stop moaning.' He was angry at Horton for articulating his own feelings; it wasn't very fair.

Horton went off to the van, and Judy's eyes rested on Lloyd's for a second longer than was required in a colleague-to-colleague situation, as his DI would have it.

‘Don't just stand there!' he shouted. ‘We've got work to do.'

Charles Rule didn't really want the drink that was being thrust into his hands. His head already felt as though it belonged to someone else, and he knew that he had lost count of the drinks a long time ago. He was a doctor; he knew from research rather than experience what effect this was going to have on him in the morning. He wasn't a drinker of any note.

And he was marrying Gerry tomorrow. He closed his eyes, but the room seemed to sway alarmingly, and he opened them again, taking a swig from the glass.

‘Go on,' said Phil, also a doctor, also pissed out of his mind.

Charles frowned. ‘Go on with what?' he asked, burping.

‘This Max bloke. Go on.'

‘Oh, Max. Yes. Max – well, he was acshully … ack – he was my brother's friend in the first place. He's a coupla years older than … anyway. He and I got … you know …'

‘Pissed,' supplied Phil to gales of laughter.

‘No … got …'

‘The same girl pregnant.'

‘We got … whassaword? You know. Anyway – we got talking – that's it. And we … we … and we were both – we were both … er …'

‘Queer.'

‘Stoned out of your minds,' said Phil.

‘… quite keen on acting,' finished Charles. ‘We joined an amateur thingy.'

Phil looked at him unsteadily. ‘You?' he said.

Charles nodded. ‘I played Iago once,' he said. ‘And … er … you know. Thingy.'

‘Get on. Thingy? Did you really? I saw Olivier's Thingy once …'

‘Max was good – he could've been a professional. But he never … he was an accountant. Is. Is an accountant.' He smiled. ‘You should see him with women. You should. Women. He … he can have any woman he wants. He's got … er …'

‘Oh, God,' groaned the barman.

Several ever more lewd suggestions were made as to what it might be that Max had got, until the barman had had enough, and they were sent out into the cold, rainy night, shouting through the streets of Stansfield, telling one another dirty jokes to which no one could remember the punch line.

The last thing Charles remembered was throwing up all over the road, and knowing that Gerry would kill him.

‘Oh, Christ.'

Three o'clock in the sodding morning, and the temperature dropping rapidly, making the wet roads freeze … one more and she would have packed it in. And now what seemed like half the Metropolitan police force was leaping out of the woodwork, running across the street, rounding them up, going through all the rigmarole of arrest, and handing them on to be bundled into the van that stood waiting to receive them. It had been scary the first time it had happened to her; now she knew what to expect, and the routine wasn't so bad.

One of them was having trouble with his radio aerial, and couldn't make himself heard above the general confusion. Then, in one of those rare and precious moments, a temporary lull sent his words ringing through the street. ‘I can't get this bloody thing to stay up!' he shouted to no one in particular.

‘That's always your problem!' shouted a female voice, and the remark was followed by ribald laughter, mostly from the girls, but some from the cops too. The target of the humour looked embarrassed as the girls crowded round the back of the van; a younger one came to his rescue. She knew him; he'd picked her up before.

‘Calm down, calm down, girls. Just get in, ladies, one at a time. There's room for you all … you too, Annabel,' he said, fielding her as she made a less than committed bid for freedom.

‘Get off me!' she shouted, and was helped up and into the van by a thrust of his hand under her crotch. She felt an expert finger slip under her G-string and into her, and she spun round in the door, breaking the heel of her shoe as she did, to look into the arrogant handsome face that smiled up at her.

‘Sorry, love,' he said. ‘My hand slipped.'

She was in just the right position to kick him under the chin and break his jaw. His neck, even. His smile faded, but he didn't move. And she would have done it, if a WPC hadn't placed herself firmly between her and him.

‘OK, Annabel – get in the van and sit down.' Her eyes were fixed on the other cop, not her. ‘
Now
,' she said, still not looking at her.

And with the finality of that word, she subsided, hooking one diamond-patterned leg over the other, morosely examining the gold-coloured heel that hung off her shoe.

The policewoman turned then to look at her. ‘I don't know who you're showing off for, Annabel,' she said briskly. ‘Both feet on the floor, if you don't mind.'

She pulled off the ruined shoe, and complied sulkily, pulling the thin material of her dress back over her black stocking tops. Her name wasn't Annabel. It was Anna. She'd added the rest to make it more suitable. And she actually spelt it with a capital B in the middle, two Ls and an E, but none of these cretins ever spelt it right on the charge sheet. Through the open door, she could hear the low voices.

‘Thanks, Jude. I owe you one.'

‘That's the second time your hand's slipped tonight, Dave,' the girl's voice said.

‘Cold night, Jude – my hands are numb.' Then a laugh. ‘You'll make someone a wonderful sergeant one day, sweetheart, but until then – keep your nose out, all right?'

Anna reached into her bag for cigarettes, but the packet was empty. ‘Anyone got a fag?' she asked.

‘No smoking,' said the driver.

‘Oh, come on!'

‘No smoking.' He twisted round in his seat. ‘It smells bad enough with the cheap perfume. No smoking.'

Anna blew out her cheeks. ‘Fuck you then,' she said.

‘Some other time, love. I'm driving.'

No laughter this time. Partly because you didn't laugh at cop jokes, and partly because it possibly wasn't a joke. Bloody hypocrites, the lot of them.

They were joined by a couple of uniforms, pushed out at the station, searched for drugs, and charged. Great. That was all she needed. A bloody fine. She was trying to get a flat. She'd have to live there too, to start with, but living on the premises would be better than doing it in the back of the punter's car, then getting picked up and herded into a van like cattle, only to go back to a squat she shared with two of the other girls, and God knew who or what else.

Her dream was to have her own flat
and
working premises. Her own flat, where she could live the way she wanted to live, and never have to let anyone in that she didn't want to let in. She'd been made offers by sleazy little pimps, but she wasn't turning over half her earnings to anyone. She'd do it on her own, and she reckoned she could afford the rent on one flat. But she needed key money – everyone was out for what they could get and key money might be illegal, but it was a fact of life. She almost had enough; she had been hoping that the bloke might accept what she had if she threw in a few inducements. But now it would all be going to the bloody courts. It was far from being her first offence.

She saw the cop whose head she had so nearly kicked in, and she still wanted to do it. But there was another way to get her own back. A way that might make them drop the charges. She turned to the sergeant who was booking her,

‘I want to make a complaint,' she said.

‘And she ran off last night?'

Victor Holyoak nodded. He was talking to a private detective, one of several that he had briefed. She had rung that morning; she was in London, she was safe, and she wasn't coming back, she had said, and had hung up.