Hard Girls

  Pat had always made sure that he was one step ahead of the game, that there was someone to act as a buffer between him and the law. It was what had kept him safe for all these years. He had been good for a long while because of his relationship with Kate, but once she had officially retired, he allowed his natural aptitude for a decent earn to surface once again.

  It wasn’t even about the money, though that wasn’t to be sneezed at, it was more to do with the fact that he had felt alive once more. He felt the old excitement of the deal, had enjoyed being back in the world of skulduggery. Kate had made him happy, and he loved the bones of her. But he had missed the excitement of the life, missed the feeling of being a part of something. Danny Foster had done a good job as his number two, but it wasn’t the same. He had felt old, and he had felt bored, and that was something he could not get used to. Now his involvement in all this had backfired on him, and he had felt compelled to put it right, and he had done just that.

  This wheeling and dealing was making him feel alive once more. All he had was his businesses now, he had neither chick nor child, as his old mum used to say, he had nobody to call his own. Mandy was long gone, dead and buried. He had had no one except Kate, and she wasn’t enough for him any more. She wanted him to be like her, settled and accepting, and he had tried. He had really tried to be what she wanted him to be. But now, as much as he loved her, he had to admit part of him was relieved at her going. He wouldn’t have to pretend any more, he didn’t have to convince himself that he liked the quiet life. She had chosen to walk away from the life they had made. She had been compromised, he understood that, but her anger and complete indifference to him and his life had only gone to prove that he had been right all along.

  She had left him in a heartbeat and, in doing so, she had shown him just how much he had really meant to her.

  He had smoothed over his ownership of the flats, and he had walked away from the problem without a stain on his character or hers. But it hurt the way she had reacted, and he was not about to forget that in a hurry. She had always been the same, it had always been about her and her bloody job. Now she was a consultant, working for a bloody pittance just so she could keep her hand in, as she put it. She still had to go into that poxy nick on a regular basis, it was all she really cared about.

  Now she had another big case to keep her occupied, it would be the only thing she was really interested in. He respected her for that, knew she did make a difference to the world. He understood she was only doing what she felt needed to be done. But he also knew that he needed something in his life as well. Now Kate had walked out on him, he realised that he’d needed more than she had been willing to give him for a long time. He had felt disgruntled for the last few years, had felt the heaviness of his age and his loneliness weighing on him. He realised now that Kate, as much as he loved her, wasn’t enough for him. Without her, he could do what he wanted, without fear or favour.

  He was enjoying the prospect of having the freedom to do exactly what he wanted, having the freedom to go out and about at his leisure. She had kept her life right from the start, she had stayed on the force, and he had been happy for her to do that. Even though it had meant he had to change his life to fit in with hers. He had done that without a second’s thought. Now though, all these years later, he was aware of how old he was getting, and how little time he might have left to enjoy the money he had accrued, and the thought of that was terrifying in itself.

  But worse than that was the knowledge that it had taken Kate just minutes to decide that her job was more important than their life together. She should have been willing to stand by him, no matter what she thought he had done. She should have had his best interests at heart, as he had had hers. It had been a real learning curve because he had been so determined to make it all all right for her, and he had done just that. Yet she had walked away from him without a backward glance. As someone had pointed out to him many years ago, once a Filth, always a Filth. Never was a truer word spoken.

  Tammy Taylor was still very attractive for her age. She was tiny like her daughter, but she had a way with her, a way of holding herself that made her seem childlike. She had the same eyes as Janie, and the build was the same. But whereas Janie had looked what she was, a capable and strong young mum of two, Tammy looked almost ethereal, as if a strong gust of wind would knock her over.

  She was still in shock at her daughter’s death, and her eyes were haunted, they were searching Kate’s face for some kind of understanding, and Kate knew she had nothing to tell her that would make the news any easier to bear.

  ‘Was Moore her married name?’

  Tammy shook her head, making her long, thick hair ripple with the action. ‘It’s my maiden name. She was . . . I mean I wasn’t married when I had her.’

  Kate could see from the photographs all around the small front room that she was Janie’s mother, no doubt about that. They were like twins born years apart, the two of them smiling into the camera together, Janie’s lovely face radiant with youth and happiness.

  Kate hoped that this woman wouldn’t insist on seeing her daughter’s remains, she knew if she did, it would be something she would regret for the rest of her days. Kate intended to find out if there was anyone else who could do the formal identification of the body.

  ‘Do you know what time Janie normally started work?’

  Tammy shook her head once more. ‘I dunno. I mean, she never talked about it. She told me she was working for a nursing agency, you know. I can’t believe she was . . .’

  Kate let Tammy gather herself together once more. ‘Would it be possible for us to have the keys to her house, we need to have a look around in case there’s something that might help us . . .’

  Tammy nodded. ‘’Course, do whatever you want to. What am I supposed to tell the kids? How am I going to tell them . . .’

  ‘Is there anyone we can call? I think you need someone with you.’

  Annie’s voice was quiet, she was worried about how Tammy would cope with the shock of her daughter being murdered. Death was hard enough to accept at the best of times, but a murder was always harder because there was no reason behind it except hate.

  ‘My sister, I better ring my sister. She’ll know what to do.’ Kate nodded. ‘Are you sure you didn’t know anything at all about Janie’s work?’

  Tammy slumped heavily on to the leather sofa she had bought a few weeks previously with the money Janie had given her for her birthday. ‘I guessed it had something to do with Lucy Painter and that Jennifer James, but I didn’t think it was anything like this. I heard her on the blower to them a few times, but I didn’t think anything of it . . . I heard Lucy was a bit of a girl, but I never thought my Janie would do that, she was a quiet type of girl. She lived for her kids.’

  ‘Who’s Jennifer James? Is that who Lucy worked for?’ Annie asked.

  ‘I think so, she’s a hard-faced mare, and my Janie would talk to her a couple of times a week. She said she was just helping her get sorted with the agency. I knew deep down it was all a load of old fanny. She had too much money. But I didn’t think she was doing anything like this, I thought it might be lap dancing or some such. She had a lovely figure on her. I never asked too much about it because I didn’t really want to know. I wish I had put me foot down, had made her tell me what was going on . . . But she was a very determined girl, and she would do what she wanted no matter what I might have said.’

  Tammy was crying again, and Kate motioned to Annie that it was time to go. A young policewoman would stay with her until her sister arrived to keep her company. It was the worst part of their job, seeing the families as they realised their nearest and dearest would never come home again. And Victim Support would follow up.

  Outside, in the cool night air, Kate saw the ordinariness of Tammy Taylor’s life. A life that would never be the same ever again.

  ‘I think we need to talk with Jennifer James and, once Lucy Painter calms down, I think we need to find out from her e
xactly how the flats work. The phone records should give us something, if nothing else at least we’ll get a timeline of sorts. I can’t understand why no one seems to have seen or heard anything. This man must be either invisible, or imbued with magical powers.’

  Annie Carr opened the car door and settled herself behind the steering wheel. As Kate got into the passenger seat Annie said seriously, ‘It’s got to be someone who knew the girls’ movements, they were both drugged and then attacked, that all took time.’

  Kate nodded her agreement. ‘But a punter can buy as much time with the girl as he wants, can’t he, so that’s a moot point really. If he requests three hours, then he gets three hours. That’s why I want to see the phone records, the mobiles as well as the landlines. Someone booked that time, and we need to find out where they phoned from. The chances are it will be from a pay as you go, but we can only hope, can’t we? Also, the fact the girls were almost unconscious before he felt confident enough to attack tells me he is not a typically aggressive person. He needed them to be pliant, unable to fight back in any way. I think he is a loner, not that strong physically, but not a weakling, if you see what I mean. He needs to be able to spend time with them, but he also needs them to be warm, almost active. The girls would have been groaning, making some kind of futile movements as he started in on them. The Rohypnol and GHB would have rendered them unable to function, unable to fight back, but they would have known he was up to no good. I think that he would have needed them to know that. I think he is a sadist who gets off on the thrill of the blood, who enjoys violating them with foreign objects such as the chair leg, then goes merrily on to the destruction of not just their faces, but also their genitalia. This man obviously has a serious hatred of women, but not just any women, he targets young, beautiful girls who sell their bodies to the highest bidder, so I think we can safely assume he will not be killing outside of that comfort zone. Also, the elaborate posing of the bodies to maximise the horror of whoever is unlucky enough to discover them makes me think he is getting as much from that as he is from the murder itself. He is just warming up, Annie. This man has taken two lives already, and we have literally nothing to say he was ever there.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Kate. When you put it like that, I wonder how the hell we can hope to catch him.’

  Kate grinned wryly. ‘All we can hope for, Annie, is that he makes a mistake. So far we have found nothing. No prints, nothing that can even tell us he was in the room, let alone near the girls he murdered. He is not only cunning, he is also confident in what he is doing. He has planned it. I mean, think about it, even if we do track down any of the prints we might find, the girls’ occupation is the perfect alibi as to why the prints were there in the first place. We can find the fingerprints, but we can’t say when they were put there. They could have been there weeks, months, even years. But he is too shrewd, we won’t find anything. It’s the Grantley Ripper all over again. These people function in the world, they fit in somehow. We need to try and work out when and where he might strike, that is the only way we will be able to get some kind of head start on him. So we should start by finding out exactly how many properties and how many girls work for Bates.’

  Annie lit a cigarette in the darkness and drew on it deeply. ‘Patrick came in and saw the arsehole, so he is now officially off the wanted list. But you already know that, don’t you?’

  Kate didn’t answer her.

  Annie went on. ‘But we can still question Bates and, as you said, that Jennifer James. We can easily find out what premises are being used, and we can also shut them down. But what we can’t do anything about is the girls who work from their own homes.’

  Kate sighed. ‘We can only warn them, and hope they have the sense to listen to us. Now, as far as Bates is concerned, I’ll go and talk to him myself. He will be a bit more forthcoming if I see him on the quiet. He will appreciate that and be more inclined to tell me what I want to know.’

  Annie nodded and started the engine up. As she pulled away from the kerb she said sadly, ‘I always wanted a big case, you know, wanted to make my name, and now I can’t believe I was so fucking naive. Who in their right mind would want any of this on their plate?’

  Kate laughed. ‘You know the old saying, be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.’

  Danny Foster was handsome, and he knew it. Not that he was vain as such, but he saw himself every day and knew that, on a scale of one to ten, he was at least an eight. Women of all ages loved him. He had the thick, dark hair and steely grey eyes of his Irish grandmother, and the height and strong build of his Scottish grandfather.

  He was gorgeous and, unlike his parents, who had nothing remarkable about them, he had been blessed with a cheery disposition and an uncanny knack of sussing out a situation in nanoseconds. Coupled with his razor-sharp wit and his willingness to use extreme violence when the need arose, he had soon made a name for himself as someone of note. Patrick Kelly had seen the potential in him, and now they had a good working relationship. Danny liked and respected Patrick, he wanted to be like him when the time came. He wanted to be permanently solvent, well respected, and out on the lash as and when the fancy took him.

  Danny had no yearning for a permanent woman in his life yet. He liked to play the field and, at thirty-five, the field was getting bigger by the day. His reputation guaranteed him the interest of the women in his world, and his looks were just a bonus for them. He could look like fucking Oddjob and there were certain women who would still profess undying love and devotion. But Danny was far too shrewd to let anyone interfere with his work or his very active sex life on a permanent basis.

  As Danny Boy waited in Patrick’s office he allowed himself to relax. He loved this house, it was everything he wanted for himself one day. When the time came for him to have a family, he wanted them to be brought up in this kind of splendour. Not that he felt the urge for any sprogs just yet, but he assumed he might feel the need one day. He knew that it was only natural to want to reproduce at some point, and he accepted that the urge to do so could be a strong one. When, and if, he did decide to have a family, he would pick the girl wisely.

  Danny looked at the picture of Mandy that always caught his eye. She had been a real stunner, all blond hair and baby-blue eyes. She was staring into the camera and laughing, head back slightly, and her perfect teeth looked almost fake in their whiteness. But he knew Mandy Kelly had been given everything in life, from love and care to good dentistry. He wondered how Pat could see her everywhere, knowing what had happened to her. It just proved that you couldn’t ever be too complacent because life had a nasty habit of turning round and biting you on the bum.

  Patrick walked into the room. He was still a big man, still powerful looking, and although his dark hair was more grey than black these days, he carried himself as he had always carried himself, as if he was someone of importance. Which, of course, in their world, he was.

  ‘Here you are, Danny. Get that down you.’

  Danny accepted the brandy gratefully. He knew it would be expensive, knew it would be smooth. He sipped it, and savoured the burn for a few seconds.

  ‘Have you talked to Peter about the girls’ safety?’

  Danny nodded. ‘Yeah. He reckons that we just need to keep them in pairs, it’s only the girls on their own who are vulnerable. I agree with him, Pat. It’s safety in numbers, so I got his assurance that the girls would be offered a cash incentive to work the shifts in pairs.’

  Patrick nodded absently. ‘What about the club?’

  Danny shrugged gently, his huge shoulders reminding Patrick just how strong this young man was. ‘What about it? Takings are up, the doormen are doing their job, and the skirt is fucking wall to wall.’

  Pat laughed with him. ‘You are fucking always on the horn, do you ever give it a night off ?’

  Danny grinned cheekily. ‘I saw a great little earner yesterday. I was thinking of investing in it, so I would appreciate your advice, Patrick.’

  ‘W
hat is it?’

  ‘Dicky Bolton is selling off his scrapyard, and he’s offered it to me at a good price. I’d put someone in to run it like, but I reckon it could be a good investment.’

  Pat nodded in agreement. ‘That’s a good earn. Dicky needs shot because he’s gambled himself into a corner. He was always one for the fucking horses, even when we were young. His old man used to bail him out, but now he’s dead Dicky’s gone through all the cash and can’t lay his hands on any readies. No, you take the yard on, it’s a potential goldmine if it’s run properly.’

  Danny smiled happily. ‘That’s what I thought, Patrick, but I wanted to run it by you first.’

  Patrick knew Danny Boy was asking his permission to take the scrapyard on, and he appreciated the lad’s sense of decency. It was something that would go a long way in their world. Respect was everything to them, and so it should be. Without it, you had nothing.

  ‘Offer him ten per cent less than his asking price, that’s what he will be expecting anyway. Then see one of the Conroys, they know the scrap-metal game inside out.’

  Danny was thrilled at the advice and it showed.

  ‘By the way, Danny, exactly how much did the bookies take last week? Only old Lenny said you were late on the pick-ups?’

  Danny smiled again, an easy smile. ‘I have it out in the car, ready for you to look over, Pat. I was late because I had a lot of running about to do, remember?’