To Catch a Rabbit (22 page)

The front of the shop was on the corner of two streets, Carter Street, where the nightclubs were, and Nelson Road, a street of terraced houses that ended abruptly in a breezeblock wall, spray-painted with a mess of tags. Sean checked both, in case he was being observed, before trying the door. It was locked. There was no information about opening times; maybe you had to make an appointment. Then he saw the bell, black plastic set in the purple gloss doorframe. His hands were hot and his finger made a sweaty print on the button.

The door was opened by the ponytail girl. He hoped she hadn’t spotted him earlier.

‘Yeah?’

‘I’ve come for a massage.’

‘Got an appointment?’

‘No, I’m in town with my work, fancied a bit of company.’

He had no idea if that’s what you said, but she seemed to think it was plausible because she opened the door and let him in to a small, harshly lit reception area with three doors opening off it. He grippe
d the keys in his pocket and tried not to jiggle them. He didn’t want to seem nervous, or would it matter? Maybe blokes who visited prostitutes were nervous. There must be a first time for everybody, but perhaps that was usually late at night, pissed-up and cheered on by the lads. The girl opened one of the three doors and asked him to go in and wait. She said there would be someone down in a minute. The room was cold and smelled sickly, a mixture of baby lotion, antiseptic and a strong floral perfume. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it was a surprise to see an ordinary bed covered with a plastic sheet. He thought that they might keep up more of a pretence, even have a real massage couch. There was a bottle of Dettox spray and a cloth on the mantelpiece. So at least someone had done a bit of cleaning. It wouldn’t have passed Nan’s high standards, but it wasn’t filthy.

‘Massage with relief, forty quid,’ Ponytail said from the doorway. ‘Any extras sort it out with the girl.’ And the door was slammed shut.

There was a slim oriental woman standing looking at him. She was wearing a blue kimono-style robe, which hung open over black bra and knickers. It was chilly.

‘Can we talk, while the room warms up?’ Sean said.

She said nothing but flicked a switch on an electric radiator and turned to him with a fixed smile.

‘You like back rub first?’

Sean had been careful to move his wallet and keys to his jeans’ pocket. He had no intention of removing his trousers and he didn’t want to get ripped off. He had an image in his head of a guy, unable to find his jacket with all his valuables inside, being thrown out for refusing to pay. It might have been something he’d seen in a film, because, to be honest, Sean had never actually spoken to any other

bloke about visiting a massage parlour. There must be some guys at it, the statistics were there, but nobody he knew had ever mentioned it.

He lowered himself on to the bed, trying not to let his face touch the plastic sheet, and she slapped some oil on his skin, rubbing it in wide circles. It wasn’t unpleasant, especially as the oil began to warm up. It was only when her thumbs started exploring the waistband of his jeans that he decided it was time to get on with what he’d come for. She stepped back as he rolled over, then her hands went to his belt. He grabbed her wrists just before she touch his zip.

‘No get nasty with me mister or I scream.’

‘I’m not going to get nasty, I just want to talk, okay? I want to know about two girls who were here. Arieta and Flora. From Kosovo. And a Chinese girl, she was here too, in the summer probably, maybe up to October?’ She shook her head and pulled at his grip. ‘Were there any other girls who left here, who you haven’t seen again?’

‘No. No, Mister. You got to stop ask questions. Get out, get out!’ Her voice rose to a shriek, then she dipped her head forward and bit his knuckle.

‘Fuck!’

He thought she might have broken the skin. Now she was shouting in her own language, cursing him and pointing at the door. She picked up his T-shirt, jumper and jacket and thrust them at him.

‘Okay, calm down, I’m sorry…’

‘What’s going on?’ The door was flung open and an older woman with blonde, almost white, bobbed hair was standing in the doorway.

‘Crazy bitch. She got all wound up because I didn’t want any extras.’

‘How you expect girl make living here?’ The girl reverted to English, still shouting.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ Sean said. ‘It’s a fucking madhouse.’

But the older woman was blocking his way. It was dim in the room and the light behind her made it hard to see her features, but he remembered the set of her shoulders, and he remembered exactly where he’d seen her before.

‘Forty pounds for the massage.’

Her voice was as hard as the hand she held out. He pulled out his wallet and thrust the notes at her. She stepped back and let him through.

On the street, a fine drizzle was beginning to fall. He paused in the doorway of the How Hi, wedging his jacket between his knees to pull his T-shirt and jumper over his head. Miss Estelle. Of course, you bloody plonker. Divo Denton strikes again. That number, the one he’d written down and given to Sandy Schofield to check up, was a personalised number plate. E something, definitely an L in there. He just hadn’t seen it. Never could get them. Remember the number, yes, but read them as a whole word? No. Just didn’t click for him.

As he was zipping his jacket up, he saw a black Range Rover pull up at the corner. He stepped back into the doorway and watched two men get out of the car. He recognised the first one straightaway. Almost as wide as he was tall, the passenger was Mr Forsyth, the agricultural contractor. The other one, getting out of the driver’s side, was slimmer, with sandy red hair and a grey wool overcoat. A chill crept over Sean’s skin. He’d seen that man at Philip Holroyd’s funeral.

He watched them go into the All Star Massage Parlour. He turned and walked quickly away, repeating the registration number under his breath until he was out of sight. On the high street he bought a newspaper and a biro and scribbled it down next to the crossword. He squinted at it, turned it on its side, but it didn’t seem to make a word, just an ordinary plate.

He could have gone home then, or over to Doncaster Central to see if he could find Lizzie Morrison. But he was drawn back up to Carter Street. He was just in time to see the two men leaving. They hadn’t been there long enough to have fully enjoyed the services on offer, so they must have had some other business with Miss Estelle, or Stella Stubbs, as she was known to the DVLA. Forsyth got back into the passenger side but the redhead opened the rear door and leaned over the seat. When he stood up, he was supporting a small black woman, unsteady on her feet. With his arm around her shoulders he walked her to the side door. She wiped her eyes as if she’d just woken up and let him help her inside. The redhead came back to the car and drove away. Sean stepped back into the shady doorway of the How Hi, holding his breath against the smell of stale piss as the car drove past him.

On the bus back to The Groves he phoned Lizzie but it went straight to voicemail. He didn’t feel like talking to a machine so he sent her a text instead.

In his bedroom he stood and looked at the chart on the wall. The lines from the centre were beginning to link up around the outside
like a spider’s web. He added the All Star Massage Parlour and linked it to Arieta, Flora and Stella Stubbs. This meant that Lee, in red, was now connected, directly or indirectly to everyone on the diagram. He picked up another pen, green for Mr Forsyth. It was then that he realised he’d left the newspaper on the bus. Shit. He closed his eyes to see the plate again. YD something, or was it YS? This was hopeless. He wrote ‘redhead’ next to Forsyth. It would have to do for now.

It was late when Lizzie phoned back and he could tell there was someone with her. Guy probably. He started to tell her about his visit to Carter Street, but she cut him off.

‘Can’t it wait until the morning?’

‘What time are you in?’

‘Early. There’s a big case conference. Top brass and Moon from the HTS is coming over.’

‘I want to be there.’

‘Sean, I’m not being funny but it’s not, I mean, PCSOs aren’t normally...’

‘I know what you’re saying, but I’ve got something important. Ask Rick to get me a seat at the case conference and I’ll give you both everything I’ve got, first thing.’

She sighed. ‘Okay, meet me at half-seven, up in my office. I’ve got a presentation to put together on all the crime scene evidence.’

‘Fair enough. Save a couple of slides on your PowerPoint for me.’

Lizzie ignored him on the way out of the case conference, unless you counted her hissing,
don’t say a word about Carter Street or your nan’s lodger, or both our careers will be up in flames.
She meant her career of course. He had a job; she had a career. He was beginning to understand that there was a difference. He didn’t mind the ingratitude, although it would have been nice to be thanked for providing her with the details of her natty little slideshow presentation. She hadn’t even given him his chart back. She’d probably shredded it. No, what was really getting on his tits was the fact that somebody had spoken to the operations manager and he’d been detailed to full-time com
munity beat with no desk time at the station. Sandy Schofield was picking up all his admin tasks. He was completely out of the loop.

He was sounding off to Carly as they pounded along the crescent that divided the Groves from the bottom edge of the Chasebridge Estate.

‘What did you do to piss her off this time?’ Carly asked.

‘No idea. Except be nice to her.’

‘That would do it,’ Carly’s laugh rebounded off the concrete of the garages they were passing. ‘You need cheering up. Fancy coming out later? Rick Houghton’s got his divorce through and some of us are off into town.’

‘Go on then.’ Sean fancied getting off his face for a change. He’d been playing good cop and it had got him nowhere, except a patronising pat on the back from the Chief Super. Even that went for nothing when he saw them crowding round Lizzie, congratulating her for her excellent forensic work, telling her she was an essential part of the Philip Holroyd case. It was as if she was the most experienced detective at the station, not just some over-educated civilian from forensics. Which raised an interesting question, where was the most experienced detective at the station?

‘What’s going on with Burger?’ he asked Carly.

‘Gardening leave.’

‘Is he into gardening?’

‘Don’t be a fool! It’s what people say. I don’t know, he messed up somewhere with the Chinese girl, the one you called Su-Mai.’

Sean wondered if there was more to it than that. He hadn’t forgotten the moment in the car park when Burger had touched Stella Stubbs on the shoulder or the moment he lied about seeing a forensic report that hadn’t been written. If he knew the caravan by the quarry was a brothel, maybe he knew Su-Mai was a working girl too. Sean thought back to the snippet of the phone conversation he’d heard in the lay-by and Burger threatening him to back off.

‘Do me a favour, Carly, get Sandy to look up Stella Stubbs on the PNC.’

‘Don’t you think someone else is on to her?’

‘Find out if she’s ever been known by any other name.’

He cooked a couple of sausages and some oven chips for Maureen and watched her poke them round the plate with her fork.

‘Come on, Nan, you’ve got to eat something.’

‘I just don’t feel like it. I should have done more to help her; she’s on her own. Even if she went back to her own country, she’s got nobody. Just an alky for a father and cousins who would turn their back because she’s walked away from her marriage.’

‘What else did she tell you?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Did she talk about the All Star Massage Parlour?’

‘The brothel?’ Maureen speared a chip. ‘Yes and no. She told me a funny story about one of the other girls recognising the judge who’d put her away for benefit fraud the year before. And she said some days it was no worse than being married, some of the punters were all right and some weren’t.’

‘Did she say anything about the madam, Miss Estelle?’

‘I asked her who was in charge.’ She dipped another chip into a pool of ketchup. ‘I told her I didn’t know much about it, wondered how it all worked, well, she went right off on one, didn’t she? Swearing in her own language. Funny how you can tell, even if you don’t know the words. I kept off the subject after that.’

He sat down opposite her and picked up one of the sausages. ‘You going to eat this?’ She shook her head. ‘You did what you could, Nan. You gave her somewhere safe to stay. It’s not your fault.’

‘Why did she take off then?’

He shrugged. He hadn’t got a clue. Stupid to think he was part of it. He was eyes and ears on the ground, not expected to have any thing between those ears, not expected to work anything out. Well, if that’s how they wanted it, fair enough.  

‘I’m off out. Don’t wait up.’

He found Rick and Carly among a big crowd in the pub. Most of
the station was there, but no sign of Lizzie. At about nine, they went on for a curry. There were just four of them now, Sean, Rick, Carly and Steve. Rick waited until Steve had gone to the toilet, then he leaned forward and said he’d seen the lab results on the heroin that was in the caravan.

‘Not supposed to be talking shop tonight,’ he said, ‘and Steve wouldn’t thank me for sharing, but it looks like it was from the same batch that killed your Chinese girl.’

‘Not my Chinese girl. Not any more. Miss Morrison’s case. PCSOs don’t have cases, you know that.’

Carly played a mock violin and told him to cheer up, but he really didn’t want to know. What was the point? His fourth pint of the night quenched the heat of the prawn jalfrezi and he ordered a fifth.

Much later, in the heat and noise of Flares nightclub, it took him a moment to realise that Carly was trying to tell him something. Eventually she dragged him off the dance floor to a space near the toilets and shouted into his ear.

‘The answer to the question is King. StelIa Stubbs was formerly known as Stella King or Estelle King. She was also calling herself Estelle Kingsley for a while. She has a rap sheet as long as your arm. First picked up for soliciting at Grimsby Docks in 1982. Married to a Mr William Stubbs in 1991, divorced 1993. I was going to tell you earlier, but you’ve been in such a foul mood all night.’

Sean asked her to repeat the name and shouted back. ‘So d’you think she’s related to Burger? He touched her, in the carpark, like this. How does that feel? Like an ex-husband?’