The Shadows in the Street (13 page)

‘Dead end then.’

‘Nothing’s a dead end. We’re only just started. One person we want to talk to – a man the girls call Loony or Loopy Les. We don’t know his real name. Les takes flasks of hot drinks and sandwiches to the girls on the street from time to time … I wonder why …’

‘Religious nutter.’

‘Girls don’t think so. We need to find him. Description – IC one, medium height, brown hair, in his fifties, no distinguishing features.’

‘Well, there you go then, soon pick
him
out of a crowd!’

‘Drives a –’

‘Ford Fiesta?’

‘You read my mind.’

There was a general groan and people started to move.

‘Hang on, I know you’re eager to get out there but there’s another thing. Another prostitute. Marie O’Dowd – local. She was reported missing yesterday by another tom, Abi Righton. Abi went to the caravan where Marie lives and found it trashed. There’s a boyfriend, and he’s got form …’ He pointed to the right of the board and a mugshot of Jonty Lewis. ‘Possession, bit of dealing, aggravated burglary, vicious assault.’

‘Nice.’

‘I want him brought in. Last known address 44 Payton Street but that turns out to be a squat and there’s no one in it now. That was wrecked as well.’

‘Doesn’t sound like there’s a connection, does it, sir? I mean, apart from the dead girl and the Missper being toms.’

‘I agree. I don’t want anyone wandering off after red herrings. I want the killer of Chantelle Buckley. Chances are Marie O’Dowd’ll just turn up – apparently she’s done this before, gone off for a few weeks. Looks like things turn nasty with the boyfriend so she does a runner. Right, that’s it, except I’d like you to welcome your new DS, Ben Vanek, pronounced like that, right?’

‘Right, sir.’

‘DS Vanek will be working with DC Mead today – try and find this Loopy Les …’

Franks went on assigning the jobs – some to liaise with vice squad at Bevham, others to talk to the local prostitutes.

‘But I can’t spare everybody to this – we’ve got reports this morning of another big country-house antiques raid, village of Milton Copley, four miles north of here. That’s the third in as many months. Uniform are there but I want …’

Ben Vanek looked at pink-cords. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Best get out and about, DC Mead.’

‘Steph.’

He nodded.

‘Do you know the place?’ she asked as they headed for the car. ‘Or do you want the guided tour?’

He would have preferred not to be teamed with Steph Mead. She was bouncy and confident and he suspected she would chat a lot.

‘You drive,’ he said.

‘Where are we heading?’

‘Out to where the body was found.’

‘Won’t forensics have finished?’

‘Yes.’

He thought she made a slight face, but she took the hint and drove the rest of the way in silence.

There was nothing left to see other than the usual tape and markings at the spot below the willows. It was a cold morning and the surface of the water shone.

Vanek looked upstream as far as he could see, wondering where she had gone in, if she had been killed here or put in somewhere else and floated down. He would check out the pathologist’s report.

Steph Mead was standing by the willow, looking into the water. ‘No place to end up.’

‘Abi Righton,’ he said. ‘Do you have the address?’

She drove well, he gave her that, competent, smooth.

‘Where were you before this?’

‘Bevham,’ she said. ‘Uniform. But I always knew I wanted to be CID. Just had to do my time. You?’

‘Same. Though I really liked my first couple of years on the beat. I was in Birmingham. Lot going on in Brum.’

‘Why Lafferton?’

‘I want to work with Serrailler. Thought I’d said.’

‘You said he was a legend. You seriously went for the job because of him?’

‘Why not?’

She shrugged, taking a corner and accelerating.

‘Hello, again, Abi.’ Steph smiled. ‘This is Ben.’

‘Jeez, what’s happened? You haven’t found Marie, have you?’

She stepped back to let them into the bedsit.

It was clean, that was Ben’s first thought, untidy, with kids’ toys and clothes lying around, but it smelled clean, as if she’d been wiping the surfaces down with something. It was a decent-sized room, but it was just that. A room. A toddler was sitting in a high chair pushing bread around a puddle of liquid.

‘You haven’t found her?’

She pulled a towel off a chair.

‘I’m afraid not. I take it you haven’t had any word from her yourself?’

‘Well, I’d have said, wouldn’t I? I don’t like thinking about it.’

‘Tell me about this man you call Loopy Les?’

He wandered round the room, looking at CDs on a shelf, a couple of children’s books, a pretty china mug. No photographs, he thought. But then, he didn’t have any himself.

Steph Mead was sitting at the table, making faces at the toddler who stared back at her, huge-eyed, suspicious.

‘Or is it Loony Les?’

Abi shrugged. ‘We call him all sorts. He’s OK.’

‘Lives in Lafferton?’

‘Yes, he said so once, it was about the recycling bins thing. He said his street was getting them, said it drove him nuts putting one thing in this, the other in that, only you had to do it.’

‘His street?’

‘He never said which one, no. Sorry.’

‘And he just brings out sandwiches and hot drinks?’

‘Yeah. And if you want me to tell you why, I haven’t a clue about that either, but I reckon he just feels …’

‘Sorry for you?’

‘I don’t want anybody’s sympathy.’

‘Really? I would.’

She narrowed her eyes.

‘If I had to do what you do to put food on the table. Does he bother you?’

‘Why should he?’

‘Scare you?’

‘What, him?’ Abi snorted.

‘Did he know Chantelle?’

‘He met her. He turned up the night she was working, night I saw her. She thought it was weird. The Reachout van was out as well.’

‘Do you know the Reachout people, Abi?’ Steph Mead asked. She wanted him to know she was still there, Ben thought.

‘How do you mean? I don’t know them like friends. I know where they come from, what they’re called.’

‘Is it always the same ones?’

‘There are about four regulars. Damian, he’s always on. Nicola, Darren.’

‘Know anything else about them?’

‘They wouldn’t have anything to do with it.’

‘With what?’

‘Chantelle – with what happened to her.’

‘Because they’re from a church? Doesn’t follow, I’m afraid.’

‘Maybe not, but they wouldn’t.’

‘Les?’

She hesitated. The child looked round at her.

‘Abi?’

He frowned at Steph, meaning leave her, let her think, take her time.

‘No,’ Abi said in the end, ‘he’s all right. He’s been coming out with stuff ever since I … I been working and he’s never said anything … you know … never been funny with us. He likes to chat, he brings the stuff to eat, but that’s it. Les wouldn’t hurt any of us.’

‘What does he like to chat about?’

‘Anything. Weather. The bloody government. Usual stuff.’

‘Money?’

‘You know, why do some people have all the money, wanker bankers, all that.’

‘Quite serious chats then.’

‘Why shouldn’t we? I’m not thick, you know.’

‘No,’ Ben said, ‘I can see that.’ Meaning it. She was not thick. ‘Think, Abi. Has he ever said anything at all which would give us a clue to where he works?’

‘It’s in some library,’ Abi said.

Twenty

By the time Cat arrived, the others were already in the sitting room of the Precentor’s house. She’d had a call from the hospice, an accident had closed the bypass so that she had a four-mile detour to take Sam from school to Hallam House, and traffic coming back into Lafferton was still snarled up on her return. She had almost rung to cry off the meeting, but conscience pricked her – conscience and curiosity. She wanted to see Ruth Webber in action.

‘Unworthy,’ Chris said as she parked.

‘Shut up.’

But they were having tea and general chat. ‘We waited for you,’ Ruth said, flicking the pages of a notebook to and fro. She was not on her own ground, which would have made it easier to take charge.

Miles Hurley sat slightly apart from the rest, on a straight-backed chair, looking temporary. I haven’t got the measure of him, Cat thought, can’t tell which side he’s on, which way he might jump on any given subject. Is he the Dean’s man or his own?

The only other male was Damian Reeve, young, shaven-headed, enthusiastic, the Baptist who had set up the Reachout van, sitting beside Sally Pitts, vicar of St Hugh’s, the ugly Victorian church close to what most of Lafferton would never have acknowledged as its red-light district. Cat wondered about Sally. She never wanted much to do with the cathedral and St Hugh’s was not known for its social initiatives. Did she even know that girls worked in her parish? Sally was overweight, buck-toothed and, Cat thought, in her own way as charmless as Ruth Webber. What would girls like Abi Righton make of this roomful?

‘You lifesaver, thank you.’

But as Ilona handed Cat a cup of tea, Ruth tapped her biro on the notepad.

‘We should make a start now. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for sparing the time. This is the first meeting of the Magdalene Group – I suggested the name in fact, Mary Magdalene having been a prostitute –’

‘We don’t actually know that,’ Sally Pitts said.

‘Well, whatever the textual niceties, people will know what we mean, the name fits. Everyone agree?’

‘I suppose it depends.’ Damian had one leg hitched over the other and was scratching a hairy ankle. ‘I mean, when you say Magdalene …’ But under Ruth’s stare, he faltered. ‘Don’t suppose it matters.’

Miles Hurley had pinched his lips together slightly when Ruth began speaking. They stayed pinched.

‘Well, we know why we’re here, what we’re hoping to achieve. I became aware from the first week we arrived in Lafferton that there were prostitutes on the streets, quite a few of them and very blatant, and that isn’t right for anyone. I expect most people wonder why the police do nothing, but meanwhile, these are women in need of someone to help them get out of this dreadful way of life – and in need of some sort of haven while they do that.’

‘The police move them on,’ Ilona said. ‘They have blitzes.’

Ruth snorted. ‘And what does that achieve? They’re back within the hour. This isn’t anything to do with moving them on or ignoring them. We want to do something else. If we can provide shelter, a centre for them to come to, they could get food, it would be safe and warm, there could be things for them to do, and above all we would make sure they knew they were part of the cathedral’s wider community. That’s surely the beginning of the way back – and the way to grace. This has been one of the great failings here in the recent past, as I see it. The cathedral has stood in the middle of Lafferton but it has stood aloof, distancing the ordinary people. Jesus came to save sinners, and we need these girls to know they can find a safe haven here. There could be all sorts of information for them – about housing, sexual health and screening – that’s where you come in of course, Cat – counselling, advice about childcare. And then there’s the usual question of drugs. I think –’

‘Hang on a minute, hang on.’ Damian Reeve was pink in the face. ‘This is a heck of a lot you’re chucking into the mix all at once. And, you know, there already
is
a lot of this sort of advice available, you can’t just take the place of social services.’

‘Social services!’

‘Ruth, may I make a suggestion?’ Miles Hurley looked coolly round, his shoulder slightly turned away from Ruth.

There’s a history there, Cat thought. He doesn’t like her.

‘Far be it from me to try and rein in anyone’s enthusiasm …’ He paused and glanced about, then away again, a man who was saying precisely the opposite of what he meant. ‘It’s always a good idea to set out a clear agenda, have a few specific, achievable goals.’

‘Don’t run before you can walk,’ Damian Reeve muttered, staring at his ankle. He might have been saying it to himself.

‘Indeed. Cat,’ Miles said, ‘might you have something to add?’

‘From a medical perspective?’

‘Obviously.’ Ruth was tapping her biro again.

‘From any,’ Miles said with a small smile.

‘Some of the girls will obviously see their own GPs.’

‘Do you have any prostitutes on your list?’

‘I’m sorry, Ruth, I couldn’t possibly comment on that.’

‘Well, of course I meant in general, not naming names.’

‘Even so … But to look at it more broadly, there are sexual health clinics at Bevham General – drop-in clinics I mean, not just for GP referrals.’

‘But I wonder if they would go,’ Ilona said. She was sitting at the far end of the sofa, quiet, alert, tactful. She should have been running the group, Cat thought. But Ilona was involved in a great many things. She wouldn’t want to take on another job, even if Ruth Webber would let her.

‘Some will, some won’t. But Bevham isn’t Lafferton of course. We don’t have a clinic here – perhaps we should, but that isn’t really a matter for us today.’