Death Call (17 page)

‘One of the girls I work with was attacked the other night....’

‘But that’s part of the business, isn’t it? It’s always happening, some drunken punter wants something you don’t do – so what’s new?’ Carroll said, expecting a good deal more.

‘It was different, she said. The guy was a psycho, do you know what I mean? He paid her for a blow-job, but went crazy when she said she wouldn’t do it without a condom. He pulled out this huge knife and told her to suck him off or he’d kill her.’

‘What happened next?’ Grant asked.

‘Well, she blew him, like he asked. She was scared, you know....’

‘Then what?’

‘When he came she spat out the paste and he went crazy. Just because she spat it out! I mean what did he want her to do – swallow it? No one does that anymore. She said she had to jump out of the car she was so afraid, and she never even got paid.’

‘So, where is she – this girl you’re talking about – what’s her name?’

‘She doesn’t know I got in touch with you. It was only afterwards – after she told me, that I thought about Jo Mac, and what I’d read about the other girl in the papers. She said that the guy had some sort of a tattoo on his left arm....’

‘But what did he look like, Tracy – did she tell you what he looked like?’

‘I don’t know – I didn’t ask her – but she said she recognised the tattoo – she’d seen it somewhere before, but couldn’t place it.’

‘Could we meet this woman? Could you arrange that?’

‘She works down on the Cross most nights – her name’s Eileen. I don’t know her second name – but she’s got reddish hair – kinda auburnish, you know?’

‘Are you still down there these nights Tracy?’ Carroll asked.

‘Only at the weekends. That’s when you can make a little money. It’s difficult having a child, you know....’

Carroll nodded.

So there it was – a recent attack on a hooker in the same area by a guy wielding a huge knife. It was too good to be true. All we have to do now, Dan thought, is to get our mitts on this woman Eileen. If she can give us a description, well we’ll know if it’s our man straight away. And then there’s the tattoo. Could be significant.

Grant turned back from staring out the window of Tracy’s flat and spoke softly.

‘Tracy, how do you think your little girl will feel about her mother being on the game in a few years, when she understands what you’ve been doing?’

Tracy’s eyes were fit to burst with anger, as she began what seemed like an endless tirade of abuse detailing why she had had the kid in the first place, how she had been abandoned, and how income support couldn’t feed a child on its own, never mind a mother and child. And then, of course there was the rent – the rent allowance that she got from the Borough Council was a pittance, she said, and if it wasn’t for the housing association she’d be out on the street all of the time instead of just at the weekends.

She went suddenly quiet, as Grant, half understanding but not agreeing with her, turned away.

‘I don’t need to justify what I do to the likes of you. I’ve been with more fucking coppers in the last three years than with any other sort of guy – and the worst thing about you fuckin’ lot – do you know what that is? You always want something for fuckin’ nothing – don’t you? Well, this girl’s sick of you and your fuckin’ holy attitudes. Don’t you ever, ever say anything like that to me again – do you hear?’

Grant looked a little ashamed at what he had said, but was hiding it rather well.

‘I think he was just thinking of your daughter, Tracy – he wasn’t having a go at you,’ Carroll said, trying to rescue the situation.

The last thing they needed was to lose Tracy Goode as a snout – it was hard enough to get the toms talking at the best of times, but when you had one that was ringing you it was a good idea to keep her sweet. You could never tell when it would pay off. Carroll dipped into his pocket and pulled out a twenty, placing it on Tracy’s coffee table. She said nothing. Grant didn’t agree with paying for this kind of information, but knew better than to open his big mouth again.

‘Listen, Tracy, if you hear anything, and I mean anything, will you give me a call?’ Carroll asked, buttoning up his raincoat. ‘It could make the difference between life and death for one of your mates.’

‘They’re not my mates – but I know what you mean – if I hear anything I’ll give you a shout, all right?’ Tracy said.

‘Cheers – you’ll be doing all of us a big favour and we won’t forget this, Tracy – I’ll have a word with the uniforms – get them to leave you alone for a while, all right?’ Carroll said. Tracy nodded, Grant looked on in disbelief. It just wasn’t the way he liked to operate.

Outside in the car, Grant began his little ranting session.

‘Don’t you ever do that to me in front of anyone again – understand – it’s bad enough you paying her, but to promise that you’ll have a word with the uniforms is completely out of order. You can’t go around making promises like that!’

‘Listen, Tonto – you nearly lost us the only decent source of information we have on this damned case – so don’t start getting fuckin’ religious with me now. You insulted her in the worst possible way – you said that her daughter would reject her because of what she does – think about it, man – she’s probably only actually on the game in order to give the kid and herself a decent standard of living. And there you go criticising her. That’s why I gave her the twenty – she earned it. If you remember rightly, it was Tracy who rang us this time – nobody forced her to do it – so think on, okay?’

‘I still don’t like it.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Carroll said, starting the car.

Chapter 18

King’s Cross at nine on a Friday night is nothing spectacular – at least not if you’re one of the right-minded people that prosecuting barristers talk of.

A constant stream of traffic, both of the vehicular and drug type, kept the place alive – but only just. The attempts at cleaning up the Cross were a desperate failure, Carroll thought. Everything about the place sang of shoddy workmanship and apathy.

From the small bed & breakfast joints and the sleazy and grimy hotels that littered the area, to the jaded fast food outlets, King’s Cross came over as a tired and wasted hooker – which is exactly what it was. The bars, home to every degree of low-life, kept the local cops on their toes, but other than that the action was thin on the ground – most of the Cross dwellers knew how to avoid the local cops, and they had it down to a fine art.

The Cross was, and always would be, a place that could never really shake off its past. It was a Cinderella that would never make it to the ball, the frog that would never make it with a princess. A lot of people liked it that way – including Carroll.

Whether it was the air of desperation that hung so unashamedly over the place, or the very basic displays of animal instinct that were a part of everyday life for the inhabitants, he couldn’t decide. But whatever it was, it created the back-drop to Carroll’s imaginary world, where he could play detective to the best of his ability. He’d never felt too good about rubbing shoulders with the upper-classes – and there were quite a lot of their number to be found in Islington and Canonbury. No, it was amongst the whores and pimps, the junkies and dealers, the wide-boys and the kerb-crawlers that Dan felt at home. These were people he could understand, people with whom he could relate.

The tired hookers, the mean-faced pimps, the desperate junkies, the flush pushers, the sex-starved husbands, the homeless kids – it was a pitiful sight, but it was also beautiful in a strange sort of way. Almost as if it were the subject of a painting by an old master. But this picture could tell a thousand stories everyday – not just the one. The expressions of despair, greed, disgust and pain on the faces of the people on the Cross could fill volumes. Each individual carrying enough emotional baggage to bring them down to where they now were – at the bottom of the pile. Some believed they deserved to be where they were – others were just resigned to a life of drudgery, hassle from the law and cold nights on the street, inhaling the noxious emissions from the passing buses and taxis. The diesel engine had a lot to answer for in the eyes, and most particularly the lungs, of the Cross dwellers.

Grant didn’t like the Cross. To him, the Cross was everything that was wrong with the world – a stinking dungeon of evil, waiting to infect the population. It was as though the people in the area were living in some weird post-apocalyptic world where begging and stealing and general crime was the only way to make a living. No, Grant didn’t like the Cross, and he sure as hell didn’t have the strange ideas that Carroll had.

‘This place is the pits,’ Grant said, as they pulled up around the corner from the station, on York Way.

The place was as busy as an anthill, and amidst the tired looking commuters who had worked late on the Friday evening, were the Cross dwellers. Pick-pockets and whores stood brazenly outside the side entrance to the station, waiting for the next opportunity.

It was cold, and the frosted breath of those on duty rose in the sulphur-stained street light like a huge cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘Well, shall we get out and see if we can find her?’ Carroll suggested.

‘Maybe we should just sit here for a little while, see if she’s there, you know?’

‘We could be sitting here all night – look, I’ll go and ask for her – if the two of us go it might look like we’re cops, and then they’ll just clam up.’

‘Most of them will probably recognise you....’

‘I doubt it – maybe one or two, but there’s a fairly big turnover in hookers here – they don’t last too long.’

‘Well, I’ll wait here in the car, okay?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ Carroll said, secretly wishing that Grant would just fuck off for good and leave him alone to work the way he liked. The expression ‘ball and chain’ came into his mind, and he could see Grant as the ball, holding him back at every hurdle. Christ, he thought, Sarah has never given me this much hassle and she’s suffering from MS!

Carroll stepped out of the car and walked confidently towards where the hookers stood in their short skirts and low-cut tops, displaying their wares to prospective customers. Most looked either too old or completely junked-up. He scoured the ten, maybe fifteen women ahead of him with his eyes and went for the smallest, with reddish hair.

‘Are you Eileen?’ Carroll asked, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his raincoat in an effort to keep warm.

‘Why, are you looking for her?’

‘A friend of mine recommended Eileen to me, and you look like he said she did.’

‘Yeah, I’m Eileen,’ the young woman said with the trace of an Irish accent.

‘You’re Irish, are you?’

‘Look, what do you want – do you want to do some business?’

‘You could say that – I’m Detective Sergeant Dan Carroll – wait – hold on – I’m not here to arrest you – I just want to talk to you about the guy who pulled a knife on you recently. Tracy Goode told us you were attacked, and it would really help us in our investigation if you would talk to us....’

‘What investigation?’

‘We’re conducting an investigation into the deaths of two escorts, and we think the guy who threatened you might have something to do with it....’

‘What’s in it for me, then?’ Eileen asked, hoping that the detective would offer her a few quid.

‘Well – did you know Jo McCrae?’