Night Angels Read online

  ‘Did you get the impression she’d seen someone she knew?’ Lynne said.

  He hesitated. ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘So what did you do then, Mr Pearse?’ If he’d just got someone…‘Did you contact anyone about her? Talk to the hospital staff?’

  ‘I knew the hospital had called the police,’ he said. ‘I saw them go in. I thought that was why she’d run away.’ He looked at his hands, then looked back at Lynne. ‘I thought at the time she had been working as a prostitute,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to get her into trouble, God help me. I thought I’d persuaded her to come back to the centre – after she’d been to the hospital, I mean.’ He looked sad.

  This was, more or less, what he’d said in his original statement. He’d gone back to the centre, where he’d found Nasim dealing with an influx of people. ‘We were open late that night,’ he explained. ‘There’d been some new arrivals. I thought it was lucky, at the time.’ They’d worked together to clear it, then he’d taken Nasim home. ‘It isn’t safe for her on public transport at night,’ he said.

  Nasim Rafiq had little to add. She had seen the woman when she first came to the centre, and had seen Matthew later when he came back from the hospital. Lynne confirmed her original statement, noticing Rafiq’s fingers picking at the fringes of her scarf. Her nails were bitten down. Lynne kept to the details of the statement, maintained her air of relaxation. Rafiq saw her to the door of the advice centre, giving Lynne that same rather hesitant smile.

  Lynne drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in thought as she waited at a red light. She had the information she wanted – there didn’t seem to be anything that had been missed in the first statements – but she needed to talk to Nasim Rafiq again. She wanted to know where the woman’s nervous watchfulness came from, why she had tried to warn Matthew Pearse before he spoke to her. It would be worth her while paying Mrs Rafiq another visit.

  Sheffield, Monday

  Luke was working when Roz tapped at the door of the computer room later that morning and tentatively pushed it open. He was hunched forward staring at pictures on his monitor. ‘Coffee?’ she said, recognizing in her voice the hushed tones used to address the wounded and the sick. She cleared her throat and said it again. ‘Coffee?’

  Luke banged his hand down on the keyboard. ‘Shit!’ He sounded tense and angry. He switched the monitor off.

  Roz wasn’t going to tiptoe around him. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’ she said, checking the coffee pot. Luke’s silence was eloquent of unexpressed anger. She ignored it, and poured two cups, rinsed the pot out and put fresh coffee in the machine. She put a cup down beside him and sat in the chair next to him.

  ‘Thanks.’ It was grudging, but at least he was talking to her.

  ‘Joanna said you’ve been on to the hospital and the police again.’

  ‘All a waste of time, it seems.’ He swivelled round in his chair to look at her. ‘Something’s wrong.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Look, Roz, it’s…’ She waited, but he shook his head. ‘Nothing…It just doesn’t feel right. The only thing Grey’s worried about is her group. And you…’ He sounded tired.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I talked to Joanna earlier. She knows that Gemma’s been applying for grants to get back to Russia. She’s been helping her.’ She couldn’t tell from his face whether this was news to him or not. ‘Joanna’s worried. It’s just that she can cope with worrying about grants and things, and she can’t cope with worrying about people.’

  Luke shrugged. ‘So that’s all right then,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, for…’ Roz took a deep breath and finished her coffee. Losing her temper with Luke wasn’t going to help. She wanted to tell him that she was sure everything would be fine in the end, but she could remember in the aftermath of Nathan’s illness, friends’ well-meaning insistence that it would all be OK, it would all work out, Nathan would recover. ‘How do you know?’ She’d snapped at one woman. ‘I just know,’ the woman had said. ‘I can feel it.’ Roz hadn’t wanted spurious consolation from people who claimed some kind of hotline to providence, she wanted it from the experts, and they were no longer offering it. Any attempt of that sort to offer support to Luke would be patronizing and naïve. In the end, there was work. ‘Have you had any luck with retrieving her files?’

  He gestured at the machine he’d been working on. ‘Nothing. Fragments. I can’t see any way…’

  She looked more closely at him. His face was drawn. He needed a shave, and his restlessness and the glitter in his eyes suggested to her that he’d taken something to keep him awake. ‘Luke, how long have you been working on it? Did you get any sleep last night?’

  ‘Oh, for shit’s sake, Roz! Stop fussing.’ But his tone was more normal now, more like the Luke that she knew. He smiled at her, and if she hadn’t known him so well, she would have thought the smile was genuine. ‘Go and look after your boss. She’s got her grants to worry about.’

  Roz made a face at him. You don’t fool me, Hagan. She finished her coffee and stood up. ‘Let’s get lunch at the Broomgrove,’ she said. Then wished she hadn’t said it. Lunch at the pub was one of the things they used to do, when they were closer, before they’d messed it up, before his relationship with Gemma.

  But he didn’t seem to notice, just nodded and said, ‘OK. Let me know when you’re ready,’ and turned back to his screen.

  Hull, Monday evening

  The bar was almost empty. There were just a few drinkers, marking the end of the working day, scattered here and there among the tables. Lynne Jordan sipped her coffee and shuddered. Stewed. It must have been standing on the hotplate for most of the afternoon. She wondered if she could be bothered to ask for another cup, freshly made. London and Leeds had spoiled her. She had got used to decent coffee on tap, interesting cafés and snack bars, places that were prosperous and thriving. Hull was developing, but it was a city that had lost its main source of wealth, and had yet to replace it.

  She checked her watch. One of her contacts, Marie, had arranged to meet her here. Marie was a prostitute who worked the streets around the old docks area. She used to work for escort agencies, safer work than soliciting on the streets, but like many women who ventured into prostitution, she was slipping down the hierarchy of escort, call girl, streetwalker. Lynne checked her watch again. Marie was about fifteen minutes late now. Not a lot, given the rather vague sense of time she had shown on their previous meetings, but Lynne had expected Marie to be on time for this meeting. Lynne had managed to hold back a soliciting charge – one that threatened to prove one too many and land Marie with a prison sentence. Marie owed her, and Lynne could still let the charge go through.

  She opened the small folder she had been carrying around all afternoon. It contained photographs taken from the Angel website, photographs of the Sleeping Beauty, the jeans and T-shirt picture that young Des Stanwell had identified as a ‘posh student type’, and the face from the shot that had been mirrored in the positioning of the body. She had spent the afternoon asking a few questions about Angel Escorts, trying to see if anyone recognized ‘Jemima’ from the photographs.

  But no one could help her, either with the Sleeping Beauty or with Angel Escorts. She wasn’t surprised that the immigrant support groups had no information, but she had had hopes that she might get something from the local prostitutes. Lynne had managed to form reasonable relationships with some of them. They now accepted that she wasn’t interested in moving them on or arresting them, and treated her as one of the minor hazards of a life that teemed with more serious hazards, but they had been evasive and unhelpful. Lynne wondered if they were frightened, and hoped that Marie, in a more secure environment, might be willing to talk.

  Marie arrived ten minutes later, looking anxiously round the bar before she joined Lynne. Though this pub had been her suggested rendezvous, she seemed uncertain and insecure beneath a superficially confident exterior. ‘I can’t stay,’ she said, as soon as she sat down.

  Lynne offer
ed her a drink; she refused and lit a cigarette. She didn’t offer one to Lynne. ‘Not when I’m working,’ she said. Her pale blonde hair was piled on top of her head, and her make-up, though skilfully applied, was heavy. Lynne wondered how old she was. She admitted to thirty, but she looked at least ten years older than that.

  She looked at the first photograph of Jemima. ‘Never seen her,’ she said dismissively. But that didn’t mean much. Marie worked on the street. What was happening on the streets was, to a certain extent, open and known. If Jemima had been one of the women brought into the country illegally, then she may well have been kept under strict control, except that control had broken down somewhere.

  Lynne waited a moment to see if she would say something else, but Marie remained silent. She moved on. ‘These women I’m looking for,’ she said, ‘the ones that have been brought in, are there any on the streets? Have you seen many working?’

  Marie shrugged. ‘There’s a few,’ she said cautiously. She met Lynne’s eyes briefly then looked down. ‘They’ll do anything,’ she said. ‘It’s like the druggies, don’t give a monkey’s, just want the cash.’ What can I do? She needed to make a living.

  ‘Do you know any of them?’ Lynne said. ‘Do you know who’s working them?’

  Marie shook her head. ‘I keep right away from it,’ she said. ‘I’m not daft.’

  Marie probably knew more than she was saying, but Lynne didn’t want to push her too far at this stage. ‘I’m trying to track down one of the agencies,’ she said. ‘It’s one that works online.’ Marie drew on her cigarette, listening.

  ‘It’s called Angel,’ Lynne said. ‘Angel Escorts.’

  Marie looked quickly round the room. Lynne took out a copy of the business card and pushed it across the table. Marie didn’t look at the card. She looked at her watch and then across the table at Lynne. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said abruptly, standing up. ‘I told you I couldn’t stay.’

  ‘Marie,’ Lynne said. ‘Angel Escorts?’

  ‘Never heard of them,’ Marie said. She was pulling on her coat as she spoke.

  ‘Marie–’ Lynne said.

  ‘I’ll ask around,’ Marie said.

  ‘Do that,’ Lynne said. Her eyes met Marie’s, reminding her that the charge still hung over her.

  Marie pulled her collar close round her in a nervous gesture. ‘I will,’ she said, backing away from the table. ‘I’ll call you.’ She usually would, once her funds began running low. Lynne watched Marie leave and tried her coffee again. It wasn’t just bitter, it was cold now. She took it back to the bar and, after some discussion with the young woman serving there, got another, freshly made cup. She was just turning away from the bar when she almost collided with a man who was coming through the door bringing a waft of icy air in with him. It was Roy Farnham. He stopped when he saw her. ‘Lynne – I didn’t know…’

  ‘I’ve just been…’

  They both broke the silence together, and then started laughing as they got into the ‘After you’ ‘No, after you’ that such situations engendered. He came across to the table she had been sitting at. ‘Are you on your own?’ he said.

  She told him about her meeting with Marie, and he looked interested. ‘Anything?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lynne needed to think that one through.

  ‘You were right about the Angel website,’ he said after a moment. ‘I had a look at it this morning. The Jemima pages have vanished.’

  ‘I downloaded them,’ Lynne said. ‘Any luck with the ISP? Or the phone number?’

  ‘I’m working on the ISP,’ he said. ‘No luck yet. The phone is a pay-as-you-go. We can’t get a name or an address. I’m on to the company. I want the records for that number, see what kind of activity there is on it. We may be able to get a location from that.’ He thought for a minute. ‘How are you getting on?’

  Lynne ran through her afternoon, aware as she was speaking that she had very little for him. ‘No one recognized her,’ she finished, ‘but I’ve got some more people to talk to.’ She pulled the photograph of Jemima out of her bag. ‘I wish I could remember who she reminds me of,’ she said.

  Farnham looked at it. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells with me,’ he said.

  Lynne told him about her interview with Matthew Pearse and with Nasim Rafiq. ‘You think she might know something?’ he said.

  Lynne wasn’t sure. ‘She might just have been nervous. But I think I’ll go back, just in case.’

  He picked up the menu on the table, and looked at it. ‘I came in here for something to eat. I missed lunch. Do you want anything?’

  It was one of the hazards of the job – meals missed, food eaten in a hurry, on the hoof. It could lead to a diet high in convenience food, takeaways, quick, unhealthy snacks. She looked at the menu without enthusiasm. It was a standard pub-chain menu – pseudo European and eastern food, or various deep-fried offerings and chips. She knew what the salads would be like: a plate piled high with tasteless lettuce, dressing in a plastic sachet like shampoo or shower gel. She made a quick decision. ‘I’m starving, but not for this stuff. Let’s go to the Italian down the road.’ A bog-standard pasta house, but better than what the pub had to offer.

  He shot her a quick glance then looked at the menu again. ‘Sounds OK to me,’ he said. He finished his drink, and they headed for the door. Lynne shivered as the chill of the street caught her after the warmth of the pub.

  There were just a few early evening diners at the restaurant, and music was playing quietly. As the waiter hurried over to light the candle on their table, Lynne wondered if she had made a mistake. She smiled apologetically at Farnham. ‘The food is much better here,’ she said. ‘But it’ll probably take longer.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ He seemed quite relaxed. ‘I’m in no rush.’ He was studying the menu. ‘If we’re doing this, let’s do it properly. Want some wine?’

  Lynne felt her guard dropping as they drank the first glass. She was still unsure if this was wise, but he was good company, easy to talk to, and, she had to admit it, attractive. They drifted away from work for a while as they tested the ground between them. They began to talk about the difficulties of maintaining a personal life if you were committed to the job. He was divorced, he told her. ‘Got married young when I was starting out,’ he said. ‘She couldn’t stand the pace. We never saw each other. It just died on its feet.’

  ‘Children?’ Lynne said.

  ‘One. A boy.’ He didn’t seem to want to elaborate, so she didn’t pursue it. ‘You?’

  She shook her head. ‘No marriage, no kids.’ There didn’t seem to be anything else to say. The waiter brought their food over, and Farnham steered the conversation back to work as they ate. ‘No one recognized her?’ he said, going back to what they had been talking about in the pub.

  ‘Not so far,’ Lynne said. ‘I’ve more or less run out of people to ask.’ The photograph was on the table between them. As Lynne looked at Jemima’s face, the Katya tape drifted into her mind again. Some kind of posh student type… Those eyes…She had a sudden picture of a woman talking at a seminar, making a joke about an obscene phone caller who’d left an answer-phone message with his phone number, looking up quickly from her notes. A rather diffident woman, shy, but with a quiet sense of fun. Of course! That was who Jemima reminded her of: Gemma Wishart, the forensic linguistics expert. Just another of the odd connections her job threw up. She was glad to have that nagging familiarity sorted out, even though it didn’t help.

  But the similarity, now she came to look more closely, was marked…That was ridiculous! Gemma Wishart was in Sheffield, working on the Katya tape. Except…she remembered the phone call on Friday. Gemma Wishart’s report had not arrived as promised, the woman she had spoken to had sounded flustered and uncertain, and Wishart herself had not been available, either then or when Lynne had phoned a second time. She tried to picture the face of the young woman she’d met at the seminar, but now the face of ‘Jemima’ interposed itself, and she couldn’t tell if
her memory was reliable or if she was seeing something that didn’t really exist. She was going crazy. It had to be a coincidence.

  She blinked, and became aware of Farnham looking at her expectantly. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve just realized who it is that Jemima reminds me of.’ She looked at the picture again. ‘I hope this is all a coincidence,’ she said.

  Anna waited until the light was starting to go. It had been an overcast day, and by four, the dull shadows of evening were lying across the city and a mist was starting to obscure the buildings and shop fronts. The streetlights loomed through the damp fog as Anna walked the emptying streets. She had planned to spend the day moving from one city-centre shop to another, using their warmth to protect her from the cold before she faced another shelterless night. She had hoped that she might find a quiet place to sit down, maybe doze for a few minutes, but after the morning’s encounter, she didn’t dare. Suppose the stores had warned each other, suppose they had called the police? She was too nervous to stop or to loiter, and the confusion of hunger and exhaustion had begun to catch up with her.

  She had to do something. She had to decide before she became too weak to do or to decide anything. By midday, the hunger had been acute and she’d felt light-headed, the world around her appearing both brighter and less substantial as she trekked across the cobbled pavements back towards the docks. She had to get something to eat. She could feel a cold sweat starting to break out down her back. If she collapsed in the street, they’d take her to hospital, and then…Her eyes had scanned the passers-by, trying to decide who might be friendly, who might be sympathetic – but not too friendly, not too sympathetic. Her bedraggled appearance would make what she wanted clear.

  She had tried approaching one woman, her ‘Please…’ coming out as a cracked whisper that the woman didn’t hear. She’d tried again, a bit louder, ‘Please…’ But the woman walked past, staring at the ground. It had been easier after the first time, but the people she approached ignored her, or veered past her, or crossed the road if they looked ahead and saw her. She was making herself noticeable. She had huddled herself deeper into her coat as the cold seeped in. A woman was walking past her. Anna tried again. ‘Please…?’