Friendless Lane Read online

  ‘Ain’t seen nothing of her,’ she said.

  She risked a glance at Reggie, expecting him to be staring at her, his eyes piercing her grassing soul. But he was busy sorting out his now empty crate, pushing it under the bar. Relief flooded through Kelsey and she charged upstairs before he could ask any more bleedin’ questions.

  [#]

  A flatbread pizza called. There were two leftover naans from last night’s supper, begging to be smothered in tomato paste, covered in cheese and slammed in the oven. Lilly’s stomach rumbled as she answered the final email and prepared to lock up the office.

  And a huge glass of Sauvignon Blanc. You couldn’t eat naan pizza without a nice glug of that, could you?

  The sink was full of dirty cups. Again. She really ought to wash up before she left for the night. They’d be much worse tomorrow, with slimy rings that needed to be scrubbed. She shut the kitchen door and went to the answer machine. She was about to switch it on when the phone rang. Leave it, she thought. Leave it.

  ‘Lilly Valentine,’ she said into the receiver.

  ‘Miss Valentine.’ It was Gregor Stone. ‘I didn’t know if I would catch you.’

  ‘You almost didn’t,’ Lilly told him.

  Stone chuckled softly. ‘I just wondered if there was any update on Gemma.’

  What was this guy up to? For someone who had spectacularly failed to keep tabs on Gem whilst she was alive, he was bloody interested in her now she was dead.

  ‘I think you need to speak to Officer McNally,’ she said.

  ‘Sure.’ The ‘r’ just kept on rolling all the way to the Mississippi. ‘I’ll do that. I don’t mean to pester y’all.’

  Lilly immediately felt guilty. The man was just showing concern and she was being testy.

  ‘No, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I think there’ve been some developments.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘As I understand it, but you’ll need to speak to Jack.’

  ‘I will do that, Miss Valentine,’ he said. ‘And I do appreciate your help. If ever I can reciprocate.’

  ‘Actually, you can,’ said Lilly.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I have a client who’s concerned for her child,’ said Lilly. ‘She’s barely able to control her and is worried the child has got herself into some trouble. The police don’t want to know and the last time she tried social services they weren’t much help either.’

  She assumed he would put her off, that he’d repeat the party line. She was trying her luck and she knew it.

  ‘Why don’t you bring her in to see me?’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Call up Debbie, my lovely PA, and tell her it’s urgent.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Lilly. ‘I’ll do that.’

  [#]

  She could almost taste the naan bread’s spongy thickness and the unctuous gloop of the melted cheese as she carried Alice from the car. She hurried to avoid another soaking.

  ‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ she told Alice and opened the door. ‘Cats and dogs.’

  Alice narrowed her eyes as if she’d never heard anything so preposterous.

  ‘Rain, rain go away, come again another day,’ Lilly sang out. She kissed her daughter. ‘Can you say rain?’

  There was a pause, as if Alice might be considering it.

  ‘Noooooo.’

  Lilly laughed. Her daughter might be strange but she was at least consistent.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ Sam called from the kitchen.

  Lilly plopped Alice on to the sofa with a green plastic snake that she liked to bite and headed to say hello to her son. She found him, still in his boxer shorts, munching on the remnants of a naan bread.

  ‘Tell me there’s one of those left,’ she said.

  He waved the empty wrapper. ‘Sorry.’

  Lilly took the plastic from him with a mournful sigh.

  ‘If you’d told me to save them, I would have,’ he said. ‘But you know how it is. You never call, you never write.’

  She flicked his ear. How had she raised such a smartarse? More importantly, what was she going to make for tea? She decided on some wine while she pondered. However, she’d barely got herself a glass from the cupboard when her mobile rang. If it was Gregor Stone again, he could whistle.

  She checked caller ID. It wasn’t Stone.

  ‘Kelsey?’

  ‘Thank fuck you picked up.’ Kelsey’s voice came out in a rush.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Muffled music played in the background and someone laughed loudly.

  ‘I’m at the club,’ said Kelsey.

  Lilly’s pulse quickened. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, and thing is, them boys are here.’ Her words were jagged with nerves. ‘At least some of ’em, anyway.’

  ‘Have you called Jack?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Right,’ said Lilly. ‘I’ll do that. You stay put.’

  She was about to hang up when Kelsey interrupted.

  ‘Wait. I don’t want you to call him.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Lilly asked.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. If I ID them, Jack won’t keep me out of it.’

  ‘He gave you his word,’ said Lilly.

  Kelsey snorted. ‘Excuse me if I don’t trust the word of a copper.’

  ‘He wouldn’t put you in harm’s way.’

  There was a pause on the line as Kelsey spoke to someone, her hand clearly over the mouthpiece.

  ‘For what it’s worth, Lilly, I don’t think he’d put me in it if he could help it,’ she said. ‘But he might get no choice. These boys ain’t gonna roll over, are they? They’re gonna fight it every which way with the best briefs and all that.’

  Lilly pressed her left temple, feeling the throb beneath the skin. She and Jack went back years. They’d had their ups and downs, but she trusted him completely. He would protect Kelsey come what may. Even in a murder case.

  ‘I can’t mess with this lot,’ said Kelsey.

  That was precisely why they had to be stopped. How many more girls like Gem were in their clutches? How many of them would come to the same end?

  ‘I’m coming over there to speak to you,’ said Lilly.

  ‘I don’t think you should do that,’ Kelsey replied.

  ‘Too bad.’

  [#]

  Lilly dropped Alice at Jack’s, telling him she was meeting a friend.

  ‘Going anywhere nice?’ he asked.

  ‘Just an exercise class with Penny.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The village hall.’

  It was an absurd lie. Penny Van Huysan was glamorous and rich. She had a personal trainer. And a tennis coach.

  Fortunately, Alice came to the rescue and pulled a strop.

  ‘Nooooooooooo,’ she yelled at nothing in particular.

  Lilly took her chance and legged it.

  [#]

  Orlando’s was on Latymer Street in Tye Cross. Lilly recognized it immediately. She had come here years ago, when it had been Fat Eric’s, to try to help a girl called Mandy, but a bouncer eating a doorstep sandwich had flung her to the pavement rather than let her in.

  She stood for a second in the pouring rain, trying not to think of everything that had happened since the last time she’d been here. The sign on the blacked-out windows read ‘Gentleman’s Club’ and was abutted by the image of a top hat cocked at a cheerful angle. Lilly supposed they called this rebranding. Didn’t matter what they did to the place. It was the same; somewhere for men to exploit women.

  The rain bounced off the road, the gutters now overflowing, and Lilly steeled herself. She drew back the thick purple curtain that separated the world outside from the world within. It was damp to the touch.

  She took a step inside and found the air suddenly hot, the music deafening. The large room was dotted with tables full of men of every age, shape and colour. Men mostly chatting. Men mostly drinking. Men mostly ignoring the girl writhing around o
n the stage in a pair of red knickers.

  ‘Can I help you, love?’

  A bouncer was sitting on a stool by the curtain: black shirt and trousers, standard uniform. Lilly pasted on a smile.

  ‘Hi. I’m looking for a friend of mine.’

  The man smiled back. ‘Is that right?’

  His head was shaved very low, but the contrast between black stubble and pink scalp evidenced male pattern baldness.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lilly, as breezily as she could manage. ‘She goes by the name of Misty.’

  The man raised an eyebrow. ‘We don’t let the girls have visitors at work.’

  ‘I wouldn’t usually ask, but it’s urgent.’

  She scanned the room for Kelsey. Apart from the dancer, who was now sporting nothing but her vajazzle, there were only a couple of girls wandering through the tables, stopping to place a hand on a customer’s shoulder or laugh at a joke.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ said the bouncer. ‘Not tonight, eh?’

  He slid off his stool and held open the curtain, letting in a cold blast of air.

  Damn it. Somewhere in this room were the men who had tortured and killed a young girl. Something had to be done about it.

  ‘Please,’ she said to the bouncer.

  ‘You’ll have to go, love.’ He took her elbow in his hand and exerted a gentle but insistent pressure. ‘Give her a call, eh?’

  As he moved her through the curtain, Lilly looked over her shoulder, desperate to find Kelsey. Where was she? At last a door on the other side of the room opened, and Kelsey appeared, fiddling with the straps of a hot-pink bra. She caught sight of Lilly being manhandled from the club and her mouth fell open.

  In seconds, she was at the curtain.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Sonny, let her in, would you?’

  ‘We can’t have no trouble, Misty,’ he said and put Lilly out into the rain.

  ‘She ain’t a dealer, you twat, you can bleedin’ well see that.’

  ‘So what does she want?’

  Kelsey put her hands on her tiny waist, just above a frayed suspender belt. ‘She needs to hand me some keys. I’m staying at her place and she needs to tell me the alarm code and that.’

  ‘So sort it out there.’

  ‘In that rain?’ Kelsey threw up her arms in exasperation. There were bruises like dirty fingerprints near her shoulders, which she’d tried to camouflage with a thick layer of orange foundation. ‘I ain’t going out there dressed like this.’

  The bouncer looked at Kelsey as if noticing for the first time that she was wearing nothing but underwear.

  ‘All right.’ He let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘But be quick.’

  Kelsey winked at him and gestured for Lilly to follow her across the room to a free table in the far corner. The floor was sticky, as was the tabletop when they sat.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she hissed.

  ‘I need to speak to you,’ Lilly replied.

  Kelsey picked at the edge of her stocking. ‘Look, I know Jack’s your bloke and everything …’

  ’He’s not.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Kelsey waved Lilly’s protest away. ‘I know you think I should trust him.’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘The truth is, these people are too messy. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Lilly put her hands on the table and instantly regretted it. ‘It’ll be okay.’

  ‘If it ever got out that I grassed, if anyone even suspected it, I’d probably end up like Gem.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ said Lilly.

  ‘Put it this way, if it was between losing a murder case and keeping me out of it, what do you think would happen?’ Kelsey looked around the club as if the answer might lie in the dirty glasses and empty bottles. ‘I’m just a sad little junkie working in a strip club. Who’d even notice if I went missing?’

  Lilly didn’t speak. She knew that Kelsey had no one. Just like Gem.

  ‘Would you at least tell me which ones they are?’ she said eventually.

  Kelsey shook her head. ‘Sorry, Lilly.’ Then she got up and walked towards the door at the back of the room. It had a no entry sign stuck to it that flapped slightly when it closed behind her client.

  Lilly sat on her own for a second, wondering if Kelsey had acted deliberately when, on the way to the door, she had waved at a group of Asian men standing at the bar.

  Chapter 5

  You come home with your eyes so puffed up from crying they look as if you’ve been punched.

  You’ve thrown up so many times, you’re not even pissed any more.

  Mum’s waiting up for you, but you can’t face another row with her shouting and not listening to a word you say. Your head is banging and you just want to go and lie on your duvet.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ you say. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  You close your eyes because there’s no answer to that one, is there? One minute you were dancing and drinking with Cal, trying not to make Raz angry, the next you were face down on that mattress, breathing in that smell.

  How did you even get upstairs?

  Cal said he had something to show you, but there was no way you were going anywhere with him. Then Raz came over and smiled his lovely smile.

  ‘It’s all cool, babe,’ he said. ‘You’ll like this.’

  You went upstairs, Cal dragging you because you were really out of it and could hardly stand. Then when you got to the bedroom door, you refused to go in. Or at least in your head you refused. In your head you screamed at him and punched him in the face. Then you tripped. Or did Cal push you? You fell forward on to the bed. You wanted to get up and run, but you wanted to just go to sleep as well.

  Cal was behind you, speaking to someone else? Who was it? Raz? Yeah, you think it was Raz.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Mum repeats.

  You open your eyes and look at her. She’s not mad, though, she’s not even worried. She just looks unbelievably sad, like when Grandpa died.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ you tell her.

  It doesn’t kick off like it normally does. She doesn’t say ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? What sort of answer is that?’ Or ‘You can always go and live with your dad if you don’t want to speak to me.’ Instead, she steps forward and hugs you. And you let her. You haven’t let her hug you in a very long time, but it feels lovely.

  ‘We can get all this sorted,’ she says and hugs you tighter.

  You nod because you know it’s true. Your mum can get all this sorted.

  [#]

  At a safe distance from Orlando’s, Lilly waited in her car. She was near enough to see the arrivals and departures, but far enough away so as not to arouse suspicion. She hoped.

  She’d been there an hour. Watching. Waiting. Now she was bored, cold, tired and she needed a wee.

  Her mobile rang.

  ‘Hey, Jack.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How was the class?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The exercise class,’ he replied. ‘In the village hall.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Look, Lilly,’ he said. ‘If you’re on a date, you don’t have to lie about it.’

  She laughed. A date? Did he really think she was out on a date?

  ‘I’m not, Jack.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘Really.’ She was still laughing. ‘I’m not on a date.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘I mean fine. It’s fine that you’re not on a date.’ He coughed. ‘So if you’re not on a date and you’re not at the village hall, where are you?’

  Oh Jesus, she was going to have to tell him, wasn’t she?

  ‘It’s Kelsey,’ she said.

  ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lilly. ‘She’s had cold feet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Too nervous to go through wit
h it.’

  ‘Oh shite.’

  ‘Thing is,’ said Lilly, ‘in a roundabout way she’s shown me who the men are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack stopped abruptly. ‘Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.’

  ‘That depends what you think I’m doing,’ Lilly replied.

  ‘Mary Mother of God, Lilly. These people are dangerous. You can’t go playing private detective.’

  A group of men came out of the club, laughing and slapping one another on the back. One was thrusting his hips back and forth, making the others fall about. They weren’t the ones who had been standing at the bar.

  ‘All I’m doing is checking what car they get into,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll give you the reg plate.’

  ‘I’ll get over there now,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be daft. By the time you arrive, you’ll probably have missed them, and anyway you’ll draw too much attention with Alice in tow. I’m fine here, totally inconspicuous.’

  He didn’t speak, clearly furious with her.

  ‘I’m not going to approach them,’ she told him. ‘They’re not even going to know I’m here. Now if you really want to make yourself useful, get over to the cottage and check on Sam for me.’

  [#]

  Another thirty minutes dragged past. For heaven’s sake, how long were they going to stay in there? Surely one bare arse looked much like another? Her stomach rumbled and she rifled through her pockets until she found a lone fluff-covered Polo.

  This had been a stupid idea. A classic Lilly misadventure. All rushing in, no forward thinking.

  She checked her watch. Another ten minutes and she’d admit defeat. She’d leave it to Jack, like she should have done from the outset.

  After eleven minutes, she started the engine. What a waste of a night! There wouldn’t even be any chippies open at this time.

  She was pushing the gearstick out of park when a meaty hand opened the velvet curtain.

  ‘Night, lads,’ said Sonny.

  A man in a navy jacket stepped out. He was smiling, a fringe of black hair flopping in his eyes. Was he one of the guys at the bar? Lilly thought he might be. Though he hadn’t been wearing the coat inside. He lit a cigarette and passed the lighter behind him to a man still just inside the club. When that man stepped out, Lilly was certain. His red beanie was a giveaway. Worn far back on his head, the top drooping down into the nape of his neck. Sam had one just like it. And the man had definitely been wearing it inside.