Someone had clearly gone to great pains to make her look innocent. Her legs were stretched out straight together, and even under the sheet she was fully dressed. Her clothes—a short skirt, patent-leather high heels, dark tights and a green scallop-neck top—were provocative, but not too tarty. Much more tasteful than that. So what was it all about?
Her handbag contained the usual: cigarettes, a yellow disposable lighter, keys on a fluffy rabbit’s foot ring, makeup, tampons, a cheap ballpoint pen and a purse with a few pounds and some loose change. There was no address book or diary and no credit cards or identification of any kind. The only item Banks found of any interest was a creased photograph of a proud, handsome young man in what looked like his best suit, bouncing a little girl on his knee. There was a resemblance, and Banks guessed it was the victim and her father. According to the girlfriend who had found her, Jackie Simmons, the victim’s name was Pamela Morrison.
Banks went back to stand in the doorway. He had soon learned that the fewer people who had entered the room before the SOCOs got to work, the better. He was on detachment from Soho Division to the West Central Murder Squad. Everything was squads and specialists these days, and if you didn’t find your niche somewhere pretty quickly, you soon became a general dogsbody. Nobody wanted that, especially Banks. He seemed to have a knack for ferreting out murderers, and luckily for him the powers that be in the Metropolitan Police Force agreed. So here he was. His immediate boss, Detective Superintendent Bernard Hatchard, was officially in charge of the investigation, of course, but he was so burdened by paperwork and public relations duties that he rarely left the station and was more than happy to leave the legwork to his DI and his oppo DS Ozzy Albright—as long as he got regular updates so he didn’t sound like a wanker in front of the media.
Banks liked the way things were, but lately he had started to feel the pressure. It wasn’t that there were more murders to deal with, simply that each one seemed to get to him more and take more out of him. But there was no going back. That way lay a desk piled with papers or, worse, traffic duty. He would just have to push on through whatever it was that was dragging him down, keeping him awake at nights, making him neglect his family, drink and smoke too much…the litany went on.
Harry Beckett, the police photographer, was next to arrive, and he went about his business with the usual professional detachment, as if he were photographing a wedding. Dr. O’Grady, who had been called from a formal dinner at the Soho Club, not far away, finally finished his examination, stood up and gave a weary sigh. His knees cracked as he moved.
“I’m getting too old for this, Banks,” he said. And he was looking old, Banks thought. Neat but thinning gray hair, the veins around his nose red and purple, perhaps due to his known fondness for fine claret.
“Any idea when she might have been killed?” Banks asked.
“Somehow, I knew you’d ask me that first,” the doctor said. “None of this is written in stone, mind you, especially given the temperature in the room, but judging by the rigor I’d say she’s been dead since last night, say between ten and one in the morning.”
“Know how she was killed?”
“I’ll have to get her on the table to make sure, of course,” said O’Grady, “but barring any hidden stab wounds or bullet holes, not to mention poison, it appears very much like suffocation. You can see that the pillow next to her had been scrunched up and creased, as if someone had been holding it, pressing it down. No doubt your SOCOs will be collecting the trace evidence, but there seems to me to be a drop of blood on it. There will certainly be saliva if it was used on her.”
“Her blood, or her killer’s?”
“There’s no way of knowing yet. Her nose might have bled, or she could have bitten her lip. Perhaps she scratched him as she struggled? I’ll know more later. You might also have noticed,” he went on, “that one side of the pillow was smeared with a number of colored substances.”
“I noticed,” said Banks. “Any theories?”
“Again, it’s impossible to say accurately at this point—you’ll have to carry out forensic tests—but at a guess I’d say it’s makeup. Mascara, red lipstick, blue eyeliner or eye shadow.”
“But she isn’t wearing any makeup,” Banks said.
“Ah, I know,” said O’Grady. “Interesting, isn’t it? I think I need a bit of fresh air. Seen enough?”
Banks nodded. He had seen enough; every inch of the scene was imprinted on his memory. It was like that with all of them, and they came back to haunt him every night, even the ones he had solved.
Before Banks and O’Grady could leave the room, DS Ozzy Albright appeared at the top of the stairs outside. “The SOCOs are here, sir.”
“OK, send them up,” said Banks. “Where’s the girl? I asked you to stay with her.”
“I left her with WPC Brown, sir. They’re in that Italian café just around the corner, on Old Compton Street. She’s in a bit of a state, sir. We thought she needed a cup of tea or something.”
“OK.”
“Er…there’s someone else.”
“Oh?”
A dark, bulky figure mounted the stairs slowly and appeared behind Albright, gasping and wheezing from the climb, a sheen of sweat on his brow. Detective Chief Inspector Roland Verity. With his round face and ruddy complexion, and the shock of ginger hair, he had always reminded Banks of a farmer, but there was a coldness and a calculating glint in his eyes that were bred of the back alley and the boardroom, not the meadows and pastures.
Verity patted his chest and grinned. “I’ll have to give up smoking,” he said. “Or climbing stairs.”
“Roly, what brings you here?” said Banks, as if he didn’t know. Though Verity technically outranked Banks, a DI didn’t have to call a DCI sir, and they knew each other well enough to be on first name terms.
“Word gets around,” said Verity. “Suspicious death in a knocking shop on my turf.”
To say this was his turf was no more true than to describe the building they were in as a knocking shop, but Banks knew there was no point challenging him. Roly Verity worked Vice, and they also had their headquarters at West End Central, in Savile Row. The proximity to Soho, for many years London’s red-light district, was certainly no coincidence, and it couldn’t be denied that Verity might have a legitimate interest in the investigation. Banks only hoped he wasn’t going to throw his considerable weight around too much and get in the way. From what Banks knew, though, Verity was more interested in power and politics than in the mechanics and techniques of a murder investigation. He also had a reputation as an honest copper, but Banks had never fully trusted him.
Verity stood in the doorway, practically filling it with his bulk, and took a cursory glance at the victim, then he gave a world-weary nod toward Dr. O’Grady and turned back to Banks. “On your way out, were you?” he asked.
“The doctor would like a little air,” said Banks.
“And I’d like a pint,” said Verity. “There’s a decent enough boozer just around the corner. It’s warm enough to stand outside, so we can all get what we want. What say?”
Banks and O’Grady followed Verity down the creaky stairs.
“Stay here and deal with the SOCOs,” Banks said to Albright. “I’ll be back.”
“Sir,” said Albright, managing to put as much disbelief into the simple word as he put disappointment at being denied a pint himself.
It was a relief to get outside. Even though the evening was warm and close, the air was fresh and not tainted with the smell of stale sex and death, only with cigarette smoke and the occasional whiff of cigar or marijuana. The building was on a side street, a little off the beaten track, but even so a small crowd had gathered, and the PCs on duty had their work cut out moving people on. It was just an ordinary black door with a brass knocker, stuck between a sex shop and a sixties-style boutique, that led up to a number of rooms on the first, second and third floors, but there was already so much police activity, cars parked at odd angle
s, or in no-parking areas, and uniformed officers milling around, that people couldn’t fail to know something was amiss.
Banks turned the corner and walked a few yards up Old Compton Street, one of the busiest streets in Soho, where he saw WPC Brown and Jackie Simmons sitting outside at the Italian coffee shop over the street. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said to Roly and O’Grady, then dashed over, dodging the traffic, to join the women.
“Sir,” said WPC Brown, standing up to leave when Banks sat at the table.
“No, it’s all right,” he said. “Sit down. Finish your coffee. I want you to stay.”
“All right, sir.” She sat down again and sipped from a cup of frothy liquid. It left a little white moustache on her upper lip, which she licked off and blushed when she saw that Banks was watching her. Banks just smiled.
Jackie Simmons wasn’t drinking anything, though a full cup of tea stood just beside her.
“I’d have some of that if I were you,” Banks said. “Hot sweet tea. Nothing like it when you’ve had a shock.”
She sniffed and shook her head, then wiped her eyes with a tissue. It was already damp and falling apart and Banks wished he had a fresh handkerchief to give her. He handed her a paper serviette instead. She took it and thanked him, then she blew her nose. “Sorry,” she said. “It just hit me, really. We were flatmates, Pam and me.”
“Okay,” said Banks. “I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, and then WPC Brown here will take you home. I’ll send DS Albright with her, and they’ll need to have a look at Pamela’s room, at her things, if that’s all right?”
“She doesn’t have much, but it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“It could be important, that’s all. Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt Pamela?”
“No. No one.”
“Ex-boyfriend, prospective boyfriend, or someone like that?”
“She had a boyfriend back home in West Yorkshire. Castleford. But she hasn’t seen him since she came here.”
“Is that why she came? To get away from him?”
“I don’t think so. She just said he was a lazy sod and they were going nowhere fast.”
“How old are you, Jackie?”
“Me? Twenty-one.”
“And Pamela?”
“She was nineteen.”
“When did she come here?”
“Early in the new year. I can’t remember the exact date, but it was when it was really cold, like minus twenty or something. Poor thing didn’t even have a proper winter coat.”
“Where do you share a flat?”
“Shoreditch.”
“What did Pamela do for a living?”
Jackie seemed embarrassed. There was nobody sitting next to them and the people at the other tables were deep in their own conversations. “I think you probably know that already, if you saw her,” she said finally. “She did what she had to do to make a living.”
“I want you to tell me. Exotic dancing? Prostitution?”
“It sounds so ugly when you put it like that.”
“How else should I put it?”
Jackie looked down at her clasped hands. She was playing with a ring on her thumb. “No, I don’t mean it’s wrong to call it what it is.” She gave him a brief smile, and he saw in the split second it took what a sweet beauty she was, and what intelligence there was in her eyes. She wasn’t wearing much makeup, and her silky long hair had covered most of her features, her slightly upturned nose and almond-shaped eyes a little red from sniffling and crying, but she was certainly an attractive young woman. “It’s just that we none of us like to admit the truth if we don’t have to,” she said. “We talk about dancing and dates as if taking your clothes off and sleeping with strange men for money were a perfectly normal thing to do.”
“Well, it is the oldest profession,” said Banks, “so I imagine there must be something in it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I suppose I do. But that doesn’t concern me right now. It’s Pamela and what happened to her that interests me.”
“God, I saw her,” said Jackie. “What could he…I mean, why…?” Her eyes filled with tears again.
“She was posed in an unusual way,” said Banks. “Any idea why?”
“No. How could I? It was like one of those carved figures you see on old stone coffins in churches. It was spooky.”
“We don’t know why she was posed that way, either, yet. And we don’t want anyone else to know that she was. This is very important, Jackie. These are the sort of details we like to keep out of the papers. I’m sure you wouldn’t want what you’ve just seen to be splashed all over the front pages in a lurid way.”
“God, no. I won’t say anything.”
“What can you tell me about Pamela?”
“She was a good person. I liked her. Not terribly bright, perhaps, but good-natured, good-hearted. She’d do anything for you.”
“Where did she dance?”
“Different places. Mostly Naughty Nites. Other places, too, but that was the main one.”
“And you?”
“I helped get her the dancing job.”
“And the other work?”
Jackie buried her face in her hands. “Yes,” she whispered. “God forgive me.”
Banks touched her lightly on the arm. “It wasn’t your fault, Jackie. There’s nothing to forgive. I need to know about the room, then you can go home. How did you know about it? How did you know where to find her? What happened there?”
“I think you can guess what happened there,” Jackie said. “It was a room she used for…for entertaining men friends.”
“How did she find these men friends?”
“Well, she didn’t walk the streets. Just people she met, I suppose, at the clubs…you know. She danced at some of them, and in others she…you know, she was a hostess. She chatted with the customers, drank with them, made them feel good.”
“She rented the room?”
Jackie shrugged.
“Who did she rent it from?”
“Dunno.”
“Who takes care of her, Jackie?”
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”
Banks could tell she was lying by her slight hesitation and the way she averted her eyes, but he decided to leave it for the moment. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out. “OK,” he said. “How did you know she would be in the room? Did she have a date?”
“Last night. Yes. She didn’t come home all night or all day, which wasn’t too unusual, but when she didn’t turn up at the club tonight, I got worried. You get fined by the owner for being late, you see, and Pam couldn’t afford that. The room was the only place I could think to look, really. The door wasn’t locked, nobody answered, so I went in and found her there.”
“Do you know who the date was with?”
“No. She didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t touch anything?”
“Nothing. I ran straight out and rang the police.”
“Thanks for doing that,” said Banks.
She glared at him. “I might be a whore, but I’m not a fool,” she said.
Banks stood up and glanced at WPC Brown. “I’ll send Ozzy round,” he said. “Can one of you also get in touch with the local police in West Yorkshire and have someone tell her parents? We’ll need them to identify the body as soon as possible.”
Whether the boozer was a decent one or not didn’t really matter as O’Grady and Verity were standing outside on the pavement when Banks joined them. O’Grady was sipping a double brandy instead of his customary glass of wine. He told Banks that he’d asked the barman about the wine selection and was told that he could have red or white, sweet or dry, so he’d chosen brandy instead. Verity had a pint of lager and Banks stuck with bitter.
“So who is she?” Verity asked.
“Her name’s Pamela Morrison,” Banks told him. “Ring any bells?”
“They come and go. How and when was she found?”
>
Banks told Verity what Jackie Simmons had just told him.
Verity grunted. “This girlfriend a tom, too?”
“So it seems.”
“Most of them are. Any particular club connection?”
“Naughty Nites Club, mostly.”
“I know it,” said Verity. “As such places go, it’s not bad.”
O’Grady put his empty glass down on the window ledge. “Unless there’s anything else,” he said, “I’m off. Busy day tomorrow. I’ll give you a call when I’m ready to start. Oh, what about the parents?”
“They’ll be told tonight,” Banks said, “and we’ll get a driver to bring them down from Castleford first thing in the morning.”
“Right-ho.” O’Grady wandered off toward the Tottenham Court Road tube.
“He’s looking old,” said Verity, staring after the doctor. “Another pint?”
“Better not,” Banks said. “I should get back and see how the SOCOs are doing.”
“They won’t thank you for it.”
Banks laughed. “Don’t I know it? Maybe some other time.” He turned to leave. Before he had moved away he felt Verity’s hand tighten around his upper arm, almost circling it completely. “I might be able to help you on this,” Verity said. “The bloke you want to talk to is called Matthew Micallef. Maltese.”
“And he does what?”
“He’s a pimp.” Verity gestured toward the house. “If this Pamela Morrison was connected to Naughty Nites and she was on the game, it’s likely she was one of his. He does the rounds, takes the pick of the crop. Just trying to save you a bit of legwork.”
“Thanks, Roly,” said Banks. “I appreciate it.”
“And this Micallef…”
“Yes?”
“Tread carefully. He’s a nasty piece of work.”
“Aren’t they all?”
“Just one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Keep me informed.”
The Naughty Nites Club was just getting into its swing when Banks arrived there close to midnight. A doorman built like a brick shithouse tried to block his way, but Banks flashed his warrant card and was reluctantly waved in. A well-endowed young black girl in white bra and panties was going through the motions onstage to an old Stones number while punters watched from tables or bar stools. Booths around the walls offered some privacy, and Banks noticed a couple of groups of businessmen—or gangsters, perhaps—involved in intense discussions. In most booths, though, a girl or two would be having drinks with customers and maybe negotiating terms for a little extra entertainment later. The lighting was such that everything white glowed like an advert for Daz. The black girl slipped out of her bra, and some audience members cheered. You wouldn’t get cheering like that in a real top-of-the-line club, Banks thought. Probably a bunch of northern oiks down for a football match.
The Price of Love and Other Stories Page 30