‘Hello,’ said Anna. The effect was immediate. The young woman turned and seeing Anna, scrambled to her feet and began to back away, until with enough distance between them she turned and ran.
But those few brief seconds were enough for Anna to recognise her. ‘Wait!’ she called, but to no avail. Realising that the woman wasn’t going to stop, Anna wasted valuable seconds debating whether to follow on foot, or return to her car. She opted for the chase, running after the woman as she fled from the cemetery out on to the main road, and praying that she wouldn’t get into a waiting vehicle. An extensive housing estate had grown up around the crematorium, and glancing back occasionally to see Anna in pursuit, the girl kept on running, through the network of almost identical streets, until finally she emerged on to the busy dual carriageway of the main Bristol Road.
She seemed to be heading for the bus stop, which would take her back towards the city centre. If she boarded a bus Anna didn’t have a hope, it would move off long before Anna could catch up. But for once things were going Anna’s way, and there were none of the familiar double-deckers to be seen. Anna was gaining ground now and the girl showing signs of panic, until suddenly a black cab appeared from nowhere and with the minimal wave of a hand, the girl flagged it and jumped in. Anna was still too far off to read the cab’s licence number, but not for the vehicle registration. Rehearsing it over and over to herself, she fumbled in her bag for a pen and scribbled down the number on the palm of her hand. Breathless, but still running on adrenaline, she retraced her steps to the crematorium, where she retrieved her mobile phone from the car.
In seconds she was connected.
‘I’d like to speak to Inspector Mariner, please,’ she gasped. ‘It’s urgent.’
Tony Knox was nearer to the phone in Mariner’s office when it rang. He picked it up.
‘Anna Barham, boss,’ he said, watching Mariner’s reaction a little too carefully as he handed it over.
‘Who? Oh.’ Mariner took the phone, masking, he hoped, the fact that Anna had barely been absent from his thoughts, conscious or unconscious, since last night. She was probably embarrassed now about what had happened, but when she spoke, if anything, she sounded excited.
‘I think I’ve just seen Kerry.’
All thoughts of the previous evening evaporated. ‘Where are you?’
‘Selly Oak; at the crematorium. She went off in a cab, but I’ve got the registration.’
It was tenuous, but it was something. ‘Okay, go ahead.’
But he sensed hesitation.
‘On one condition,’ she said.
‘What?’ That we don’t talk about what happened last night? Fine. But it was nothing like that.
‘I’ll give you the number,’ Anna said. ‘But I want to be there when you talk to her.’
Christ, she didn’t ask much. ‘Alternatively, I could just charge you with obstruction,’ he said, coolly, but, like that other significant aspect of his life, it was impossible to maintain. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘When I talk to her informally you can be there, as long as you stay quiet and don’t interfere. But if I have to bring her to the station for formal questioning, you know that will be different, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Look, I know you’re going out on a limb for me. Thanks.’
‘Sure.’
She recited the cab’s registration number for him to write down.
‘It will take time to trace this back,’ Mariner warned her.
‘And even then we may not be sure. If the taxi has dropped her off somewhere in the city, we’ll have lost her. Go back to your place and if we do find her, I’ll pick you up from there.’
‘Thank you.’
More gratitude. He’d save it up for a rainy day.
A weak sun was trying to push its way through the low, grey cloud when, fifty minutes later, Mariner drove down Millpond Road, one of the shabbier aspects of Edgbaston, with Anna Barham beside him in the passenger seat. They’d been lucky. The taxi driver who picked up Kerry had been able to furnish them with the exact dropping-off point and even the number of the house he’d seen her let herself into, perhaps making a note of it for his own personal future reference.
The road comprised mainly Victorian three-and four storey houses of rusty brick that had long since passed their heyday. Most were now segregated into numerous flats and bedsits, to provide cheap accommodation for asylum seekers, DHSS claimants, and anyone else with a high level of desperation. None of whom had any long-term interest in the aesthetic qualities of the properties. Consequently, gardens were untended, stray rubbish littered the streets and this morning a couple of mangy wire-haired dogs foraged for pickings amongst the over-spilling bins.
Number seventy-two blended perfectly into the squalor.
Torn, grey net curtains hung at some of the windows, although those higher up looked new. There was no bell or knocker, so Mariner banged his fist on the door, creating as much noise as he could.
After a faint burst of music and some scuffling, the door was opened by a large African-Caribbean woman of indiscernible age. ‘What you want?’ she barked, squinting suspiciously at Mariner’s proffered warrant card.
‘We’re looking for Kerry,’ he said.
‘Kerry?’
‘We’ve got reason to believe she lives here. We just want to talk to her.’
‘There’s a girl lives on the top floor,’ the woman said.
‘Don’t know what her name is.’
Mariner held out the photograph. ‘Is this her?’
The woman peered. ‘Yeah, a real sweetie.’
‘We need to come in.’
The woman shrugged, turned and shuffled back into her own apartment, slamming the door behind her and leaving them alone in a dark and desolate hallway. Mariner led the way up grimy, uncarpeted wooden stairs, through a dim atmosphere, thick with the stench of stale cigarette smoke and rotting food. He cringed on Anna’s behalf. It was all in a day’s work for him, but for her it must be like a different planet. They passed one landing and continued on up to the next. A door at the top was crudely daubed ‘la’ in grey paint and had a tarnished knocker in the centre. Mariner rapped on it. Kerry was apparently expecting someone. The door was pulled back almost immediately, wide and welcoming, by a tall slim girl, with glossy shoulder-length chestnut hair and chocolate eyes, which were instantly wary. An inch of her midriff was visible, showing off a small, neat tattoo of a butterfly.
Mariner held out his warrant card again. ‘Hello Kerry.’
Kerry stared at him, suspiciously, trying to work out where she’d seen him before, but then she saw Anna, and making the connection, attempted to slam the door shut again. But Mariner was prepared for this and the door rebounded off the sole of his shoe. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions about Eddie Barham,’ he said. ‘We can do it here or at the station. It’s up to you.’ He’d said the magic 188
words. Her resistance breached, Kerry led them through a short hallway into a lounge.
The small flat was surprisingly neat in comparison with the rest of the building. She doesn’t bring her clients back here, thought Mariner, it’s far too homely and personal.
Even to his undiscriminating eye the decor was tasteful and pleasing, and above all it was scrupulously clean. For Anna’s sake he was glad of that. That wasn’t the only surprise, either. Kerry, when she spoke was surprisingly articulate, although her manners didn’t extend to offering them a seat. Mariner sat down anyway and Anna followed his lead, leaving Kerry with little choice. Mariner also held back on any introduction of Anna, allowing Kerry to make the assumption that she, too, was a police officer.
‘Tell me how you first met Eddie Barham,’ began Mariner.
‘It was a long time ago, I can’t really remember.’ She was cool and closed.
‘Try.’
Glancing over at the window, Kerry made a show of trying to recall, though it was more likely that she was weighing up how much to tell him.
�
��It was a couple of years ago,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe three. I was living rough. A bunch of us used to go to this cafe, greasy spoon place near the bus station, when we could afford it. Eddie came in there. We got talking.’
‘About what?’
‘I don’t know, just chit-chat, you know. Nothing really, but he was very good at getting stuff out of you. He was just nice, friendly, and he seemed interested.’
‘In what?’
‘Anything, everything. How we lived. What we did all day. I did think it was a bit weird, until one day he coughed that he was a reporter. He said he was working on an article about what it was like to be living on the streets in Birmingham. He wasn’t going to use real names or anything, but just write about how kids ended up there, and what happened to them. He said it was a chance to tell our story.’
‘And you helped him with it?’
‘Yeah. I thought it would be a laugh. Besides he was offering good money.’
‘Did you know about what was going on at Streetwise?’
Kerry blushed, more in anger than anything. ‘Yeah of course I knew. Everyone did.’
‘So you were aware that Frank Crosby was using the drop-in centre as a way of procuring under age kids for prostitution?’ Mariner had to be sure of this. From the corner of his eye he saw Anna’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly, but he couldn’t help that. She’d asked to be here.
‘I didn’t know about Frank then,’ Kerry said. ‘I’d seen him around, but I just thought he was a friend of Paul’s.
Paul was the one who did all the deals.’
‘Did you ever do any “work” for Paul?’
‘You know I did, don’t you?’
‘And you told Eddie about it.’
‘I missed one of our meetings. Eddie wanted to know where I’d been, so yes, I told him. I think I wanted to shock him.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sort of. But Eddie was too much of a pro. He just found it more interesting than the piece he was writing. He wanted to know all the details.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘I could only tell him what had happened to me. I said he’d have to find out the rest himself. I don’t grass.’ Implicit was her utter contempt for informants. Mariner wondered what she’d have thought if he’d told her that it was how he’d first joined the payroll of the West Midlands Police.
‘The next thing I knew, your lot had arrested Paul and Frank Crosby. That was when I first knew who Frank really was. But by then Eddie had paid me enough to put down a deposit on this place, so I didn’t have to go to the drop-in any more.’
‘Is that when you started working for Frank Crosby yourself, Kerry?’ Mariner asked innocently. He hadn’t been sure, but her reaction verified it all right.
‘I don’t work for him,’ she said, petulantly. ‘I work for myself.’
‘And where do you work?’ asked Mariner. ‘Where do you take your clients?’
‘I rent a room.’
‘In one of Frank’s seedy little hotels?’ Mariner could tell from her face that he’d hit the mark. ‘And I suppose Frank puts the occasional punter your way, too.’
‘It’s worth it, they’re always generous, Frank’s clients.
I had to get started somehow.’
As if there was no other option in life. ‘I bet Frank doesn’t know that you helped Eddie with his story, does he?
Does he ever encourage you to offer your clients extra services?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a little additional chemical stimulation.’
‘No. I don’t mess with any of that stuff.’ She was rock steady.
Mariner let it go for now. ‘And did you see Eddie again after the story broke?’
‘Not for a while, no.’
‘So when did you see him?’
‘A few weeks ago. He’d been in to Maureen’s.’
‘Heaven’s Gate.’
‘I know.’ Even she could see the irony. ‘He’d seen my picture. Maureen gave him one of my cards, so he phoned me.’
‘For an appointment?’
Crunch time. But Kerry just laughed. ‘Not exactly.’
‘So why did he contact you?’
‘He wanted a favour.’
‘Another story? About what? Frank Crosby?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that. Eddie’s got this brother who’s a bit backward, you know?’
The sudden shift in the conversation caught Mariner off guard. ‘Jamie?’ he said, nonplussed.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Eddie looked after him. Anyway, he was having trouble with him getting horny. He’d started playing with his dick in public, groping women, that kind of thing. Eddie thought it might help if he actually had sex, you know. He thought it might calm him down. He could hardly ask any of his friends to do it, so he had been trying escort agencies. That’s how he finished up at Maureen’s.
Trouble was, none of the girls would go to his house, and Eddie needed Jamie to learn that sex is something you do in private, in your own place. Then when he saw my picture in Maureen’s and she told him what I was doing, he thought I’d be able to help. He knew I looked after myself.’
‘And did you agree to do it?’ asked Mariner.
‘Not straight away. I mean, I felt sorry for the boy. Nearly thirty and had never been laid. Can you imagine that?’
Mariner didn’t say that actually he was beginning to get an inkling. ‘I said I’d want to meet him first,’ Kerry went on. ‘I wouldn’t do it with just anybody. Some of these people are, well, you know, I don’t know if I could. So one night I met Eddie in the pub and he took me back to his house. ‘
‘When was that?’
‘About a month ago, I suppose.’
‘And did you do the business?’
Anna visibly flinched, but Kerry remained casual. ‘No, but I would have. He was quite sweet and good looking too.
You couldn’t really tell that there was anything wrong with him, apart from some of that weird stuff. But he wouldn’t come near me. It was as if he wanted to, he kept sort of looking, but Eddie thought it might take time for him to get used to me.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I started just going to see them. I used to stop by at their house on my way back from other appointments. I would have been bloody stupid not to. All I did was sit and watch TV with them, but Eddie still paid me.’
‘Did you tell Eddie Barham that you work for Frank?’
‘I told you, I don’t.’
‘All right then, did Eddie know about your little “arrangement” with Crosby?’
‘Not to begin with, no. Why should he? It was none of his business.’
‘So who was it who had him beaten up three weeks ago?’
Kerry fell silent, avoiding Mariner’s eye. ‘Frank must have found out that I’d been seeing Eddie and jumped to the wrong conclusion.’ She glared at Mariner. ‘Like you did. He wanted me to stop seeing him. Said he knew what crap reporters wrote. I told him it wasn’t anything to do with that, but Frank didn’t believe me.’
‘So he gave Eddie a going-over. And then what?’
‘Frank told me not to see Eddie again. That if I did, the next time he wouldn’t get off so lightly and neither would I. I called round to tell Eddie I couldn’t see them any more.
It upset me to do it. I think even Jamie realised something was wrong. He was really sweet, tried to comfort me.’
Mariner remembered Jamie’s words: Kay no cry. ‘Eddie was disappointed of course, but he understood.’
‘So when did you see Eddie Barham again?’
‘Last Sunday night, he called me. He’d had a bad week.
Jamie had walked up to some woman in the swimming baths and grabbed her breast. Eddie was worried that she might bring indecent assault charges. He was desperate. He wanted me to go round. Just one last time.’
‘And?’
‘I told him I couldn’t. I had another appointment anyway.
Then when
I was waiting for the punter to show…’
‘Derek.’
Now Kerry realised where she’d seen Mariner before.
She looked at him anew. ‘Yeah, that’s right. While I was waiting for Derek, Eddie turned up. He knew where I met people and he came to talk me into going with him.’
‘And you went with him. Even though Crosby had warned you not to.’
‘Eddie could be persuasive, and like I said, I felt bad.
He’d already paid me a lot with nothing to show for it. I wanted to wait to explain to Derek, but Eddie had left Jamie at home on his own so we had to go straight away.’
So that’s what the argument was about. ‘Did Eddie ask you to bring him a little extra something this time?’
‘No. He wasn’t into that shit and neither am I.’
‘So what happened?’ Mariner asked, even though he was already beginning to assemble the jigsaw for himself.
‘Eddie took me back to his house in the car. But when we got there, his front door was wide open and there were these two guys inside. Jamie had gone. Eddie went ballistic’
‘What guys? Frank Crosby’s men?’
‘No. I’d never seen them before. They were going through Eddie’s stuff upstairs, after money I suppose.
Eddie tried to take them on, but there were two of them.
He didn’t stand a chance.’
‘And?’
Kerry looked down at her hands. ‘What could I do? I was behind Eddie and I didn’t think they’d seen me, so I went to get help. The battery in my mobile was dead and there were no bloody call boxes around there. I had to go for miles. In the end I found a phone box and called 999.’
‘Very public spirited of you. I thought you said you liked Eddie Barham.’
‘I did.’ She was defiant.
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