Hope Road (18 page)

“Not always a bad thing,” John says. Another crass remark, and he hates himself for it.

“It is if you end up dead in the boot of a car.” She pauses to stub out her cigarette. “And that’s that. My only daughter. A prostitute.”

“There are worse things,” he says.

You stupid bastard.

He wishes he hadn’t come.

“Like what?” she asks.

“Worse people, I mean. The scum who did it, for example.”

He stops. Remembers exactly this conversation. Different names, different place, but the conversation was the same. Words in the void left by a death you can’t explain. Your body overwhelmed and exhausted, your senses at a minimum… you touch things and they hardly register, sounds, tastes, all fuzzy and indistinct.

Den had been there right after it happened. He remembers the chirp of her radio, the blur of her voice, then someone else. They’d heard the shot and come running. She’d used the sleeve of her uniform to wipe the mess off his face.

“You know,” he hears himself saying, “my brother had a few terraced houses up Harehills way. Filled ’em with illegal immigrants, all paying through the nose. Then he kicked ’em out, and those who wouldn’t leave got taken outside and beaten with baseball bats. One ended up in a wheelchair.” He looks up at her. “
That’s
worse.”

“Nasty piece of work is he, your kid?”

“
Was
. Someone took half his head off with a shotgun.”

She draws in breath, sinking back in her chair a little.

“I was there when it happened. Ten feet away,” he adds.

She looks up at him, pity in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“Joe was worse than your daughter, Mrs Macken. There are bad people, then there are people who make mistakes. Young girls, they don’t know everything. Who does?”

“And that’s it?”

“And that’s it. She’s not to blame. Neither are you.”

“She was trying to jack it in, the escort thing. She hated it. Just needed a friend, someone she could trust.”

Freddy. Why did you let this happen?

“Did she have a boyfriend?” John asks.

“She had someone. Like a split personality these last few weeks, love-sick teenager one minute, uptight and nervous the next.”

“Any names?”

She shakes her head. “It wasn’t the one from before, though. Now he
did
promise.”

“Who?”

“Sugar. He promised me.”

Sugar?

“Promised what?”

“To look after her. I couldn’t, not in the end. She was too big for her own boots.”

She stubs out her cigarette. Coughs.

“Did you tell the police this?”

She ignores him, fishes for a phone down the side of the armchair.

“I don’t know who you are, and you didn’t tell me your name. But you’re not a friend of Donna’s, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m asking around, trying to find out what happened. I’ve got a few contacts, y’know, people I can go to.”

“Fat lot of good that’ll do me,” she says, as she finds a number and presses dial. “You wanna be here when the police come back?”

“Not really,” he says.

“Thought not.”

She doesn’t get up.

Back in the car. He texts:

2 years ago. Thanks for looking after me. J xxx

Reads it back a dozen times. Gets as far as selecting Den’s number. Then deletes the message.

He sits there a while.

Sugar?

Makes a call.

“Roberto? It’s John Ray.”

S
he’s in the far corner, with a good view of the door and the car park.

“You’ve eaten,” he says, seeing the ketchup-smeared carton of a Big Mac and a half eaten portion of fries in front of her.

“I thought I better get here early, make sure they weren’t following you again.”

“You look good,” he says, sitting across the table from her.

“I look like shit. So do you.”

The thing is, even when she looks like shit she looks great. He wants to touch her, run his fingers across her cheek and see her nose twitch; he wants to watch her lying naked on the bed reading one of those crappy novels she likes, and to see her eat noodles badly with chopsticks, sauce dripping down her chin.

“So?” she says.

“I need to know what you think of this bloke. Sugar, he’s called. Let’s just listen to what he has to say. From what he told me on the phone he knows something.”

“And he’s not currently talking to DI Baron because…?”

“Because he’s keeping out of their way. Not the cooperative type.”

“And me? Did you tell him I was gonna be here?”

He watches her take a long thin chip and nibble it down to nothing.

“Actually that was his idea.”

“
Fuck
, he knows who I am?”

“The young detective from Leeds CID who’s knocking about with Tony Ray’s son? Every crim north of Nottingham knows who you are, Den.”

“Well that’s a comforting thought. If Baron finds out I’m gonna lose my job, you know that?”

He shakes his head. “I got Sugar’s word on that.”

“Well that’s fine then…”

“Don’t worry. He’ll not mention you to anyone. Believe me, my dad’s name still carries a lot of weight.”

“Honour among thieves, eh?”

“Don’t mock. I’m not enjoying this either.”

“No? I’m just beginning to wonder…”

They both look up. And they’re not the only ones.

He’s in the doorway, scanning the room. Shaved head, the tattoo of an angel on the back of his neck, its wings extending part way round as if clamped there. He sees them and steps through a litter of kids that have been left to play on the floor. There’s something smooth and feminine about him, a cat-like assuredness edging on disdain. And John has no doubt that Sugar, five-ten and no more than ten stone, would make a very good minder.

That’s what Roberto had said, name-checking Sugar immediately. A minder, amongst other things. Tasty as well, very tasty. Yes, they could get a message to him…

“Thanks for coming at such short notice,” John says.

Sugar slides in next to him, staring at Den, nothing threatening, but not friendly.

“Right,” he says, taking a chip from Den’s sachet.

“Help yourself, why don’t you?” she says.

He pops the chip into his mouth, flashes her a smile.

“Okay,” says John, “just to clarify, this meeting never happened. We can have your word on that, no?”

Sugar chews slowly before swallowing.

“You’ve already had my word, Mr John Ray. Once was always enough for your dad, and your brother.” The comment falls awkwardly between them. Sugar sits back, exhales. “All right, yes, this’ll never go anywhere.” He looks at John then at Den. “I promise.”

You’ve made promises before, Sugar…

John is about to make a start, but it is Den who speaks first.

“Freddy? Do you know Freddy?”

Sugar nods. Says nothing.

“He’s in Millgarth,” she adds. “Arrested for murdering Donna Macken, no charge yet.”

“I know. What’s he been saying?” Sugar hunches his shoulders a touch and settles back into the seat.

“Don’t know, exactly.”

“That right? I heard he’s got Henry Moran with him, and
you
must know something?”

“I’m not on the case,” she says.

“Yeah, you’re playing alibi for this lucky fella! Talk about cast-iron.”

He takes another chip.

“Your boyfriend’s car an’ all,” he adds, holding the chip in front of his mouth, talking as if John isn’t there.

“Tell me about Donna,” she says.

Sugar puts down the chip.

“I met her when she was working at Dukes Casino in town. She worked behind the bar.”

“I thought she was a croupier,” says John.

“Who told you that?”

“Her mother.”

“She worked behind the bar.”

“And you?” Den asks.

“Security. We got on well. Y’know, working in a place like that, smiling at every arsehole as walks through the door, it gets on your tits. Especially for Donna.”

“Especially?”

“Because she didn’t like being talked down to.”

He stops, looks at the kids playing nearby, screwing up one side of his mouth. At first it appears that he’s pausing to think. Then John notices a slight tremor in his breathing. A second or two and it’s gone.

“She got more attention than most girls. Because of the way she looked,” he says, eyes still on the kids. “There are fellas’ll walk into a casino, see a girl like her, and just assume she’s selling it. She got so many offers in the end she took one. Good looking bloke an’ all, young.”

“So why’s he paying?” Den says.

Sugar shrugs.

“You think good looking guys never pay for it? It’s a funny thing. I never worked it out. But you’d be surprised. So, she sets up a time with this bloke. Hotel in town. I go along and wait in the bar downstairs. I’ve got the room number and the time she’s supposed to be out.”

“Just out of interest…” John says.

“Two hundred. That gets you an hour and a half. You want anything whilst she’s there, bit of coke, bennies, blow… nothing heavy, she rings down and I take it up.”

“In with the price?” John asks.

The other two look at him.

“He’s joking, right?” Sugar says to Den.

“Do we know who this man was, the first one?” she asks, keen to move on.

Sugar shakes his head.

“She saw him again, though.”

“Did she have many regulars?” asks Den.

“Yeah, a few. About a year ago Dukes got new owners, and they sacked a dozen people, including Donna. From then on she just did the escorting.”

“What about you? Ever have sex with her?”

“Well… yeah. I mean, yeah.”

“Surprised that I ask? Perk of the job, is it? Pimping a young, lonely girl around town? Filling her with alcohol and hiring her out like an animal?”

“This is Donna, right?” he says, speaking to John for the first time. “We’re talking about the same girl?”

“Donna Macken,” says Den, her words cold and measured. “Drunk, stoned, beaten up, possibly raped, side of her skull cracked, dead in the back of a car. That’ll be the fucking one!”

“Donna,” he says quietly, “was the toughest bitch I’ve ever met. And I didn’t pimp for her. I
worked
for her. I’d wait down in the hotel bar. Forty quid she paid me.”

“But you had sex with her?”

“We’d sometimes go out clubbing, if we both had a night off. One thing’d lead to another. I mean, she’d come on to me. To be honest she was pretty randy.”

They sit there for a while in thought.

Den eats a cold chip. She’s in control, completely unfazed, amazing… All John wants is to have her back in his life, on a yacht somewhere, miles away from all this shit.

Den: “Did she always take you?”

“Until she was sure about a punter, yes.”

“Always hotels?”

He nods.

“What about the Ukrainians? You went with her when she started working for them?”

The question hits Sugar like a sudden wave of nausea, or a flash of heartburn.

“I warned her.”

He hides behind a defiant tone, like he’s scolding Donna, blaming her for what she’s done. But the skin is pulled tight over his cheek bones and his eyes push a fraction further out of their sockets.

“Warn her about what?” says Den.

“Two foreign blokes? No one knows who they are. And she’s alone in a room with ’em?”

“Tractor salesmen from the Ukraine, apparently,” says John.

Sugar shifts in his seat, lowers his voice. “Yeah, I heard that. Do you know what else I heard? When they need something, they know exactly who to ask. And I’m not talking about tractor tyres.”

“Did you still work with her, with the other punters?” says Den.

“Not the last few weeks. Reckoned she didn’t need me anymore. She only had the tractor boys, she wasn’t doing any other clients.”

“But you warned her about them?”

He nods. “I went up there a few times.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” Den says.

“Something like that, Constable. I wasn’t happy about her working up there. You ever been inside that place?”

“The hotel?”

“Yeah. Great place to die.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Even the girls working the streets, they tell somebody where they’re going, try an’ leave the punter’s registration, a time, a description, anything. Donna? She gets herself into a hotel room, nobody else staying there from I could see, two foreign blokes and her? What does she do when something goes wrong?”

“So why didn’t you stop her?”

“You don’t know Donna. In any case, I saw your Freddy up there. The two of them have been out in town together. I thought Freddy’d be able to look after her. Turns out I was wrong.”

A little girl waddles up to the table and holds out a hand for Den. In her hand is a sachet of ketchup.

Den smiles. “Wow!” she says. “Is that yours?”

The child grins, shows her the sachet some more, waving it in the air like a tiny flag. Then she wanders off again.

“Okay, Sugar,” Den says, “where were you on Friday night?”

Coppers, they switch off they switch on…

“Clubbing til two.”

“Went home alone?”

“No.”

“Donna died in the hotel, Friday, midnight. If you weren’t there, there’s nothing linking you to her, right?”

“Right.”

“So my advice is talk to the police.”

“Why should I?”

“Just tell ’em what you told us, about the Ukrainians. And the hotel. Anything you can remember. Help ’em find who it was killed her.”

He sniffs.

“Public spirit?”

“Come on,” John says. “Known prostitute found dead in the boot of a stolen car, drugs and alcohol in her system. How long do you think this gets priority? And if you didn’t see her that night, then you’re not in the picture, are you?”

Sugar looks confused.

“I did see her.”

“What?” Den says, immediately taking over.

“I saw her down the
Majestic
.”

“The club?”

“Yeah. City Square. About eleven. She was coming out when I went in. Pissed off she was. Someone had given her a dud, and she’d tried to use it at the bar.”