M. Arlidge - Pop Goes the Weasel

Southampton was awash with sex.

The streets were dark and so was Charlie’s mood. After her bollocking by Helen, her first instinct had been to hand in her warrant card and run home. But something had stopped her and she was relieved now, ashamed of her thin skin. What had she been expecting? Helen didn’t want her back and Charlie had played straight into her hands, allowing her enthusiasm to compromise her investigation into Sandra McEwan.

She burned with shame – what had happened to the talented cop she used to be? – and that shame drove her on now. Having failed in her first attempt to unmask Alexia’s killer, Charlie had gone back to basics, hitting the streets in search of information. Perhaps by talking to the street girls who seemed to be at the heart of McEwan’s war with the Campbells, she could dig up a lead. Schoolchildren were wandering home; it was only a little after 4 p.m., but already darkness was beginning to descend. That creeping, suffocating gloom that winter does so well. Charlie’s spirits dropped a notch further.

The prostitutes who hung about the port were happy enough to take a look at Charlie’s photo once they realized she wasn’t going to bust them. Their memories were hazy, but one long-serving girl eventually pointed Charlie in the direction of the Liberty Hotel, a filthy and dilapidated place that rented rooms by the hour rather than by the day. Charlie had visited it before and her heart sank at having to return. It was a place full of loneliness and despair.

She pressed the buzzer. Once, twice, three times before eventually the door opened a crack. She shoved her warrant card in the face of the Polish thug who ‘greeted’ her. Snarling, he let her inside, turning his back on her as he stalked up the stairs. Charlie knew he’d be little help – his job was to see all but say nothing – so Charlie focused her attention on the working girls who appeared with impressive regularity from behind the many closed doors. The building was a tall terraced house, set over four floors. It was astonishing to consider exactly how much copulation took place here every night. Used condoms littered the floor.

Charlie was talking to a girl named Denise, who was seventeen at best. She and her boyfriend had a drug habit and clearly it was up to Denise to earn the money for both of them to indulge. Why do these girls value themselves so cheaply? This was the bottom end of the market – the more expensive girls plied their trade in the north of the city. Down by the docks you were expected to do anything for a few pounds, however painful or unpleasant.

A lot of coppers treated prostitutes like dirt, but Charlie always found herself wanting to help them. She was already manoeuvring to get Denise away from her parasitic bloke, guiding her in the direction of a refuge she knew, when suddenly all hell broke loose.

A scream. Long, loud and desperate. Then the thundering of feet charging downstairs, doors being slammed, pandemonium. Charlie was on her feet and racing up the stairs. As she turned the corner, she collided head on with a terrified prostitute. It knocked the wind out of her temporarily, but still the screaming went on, so Charlie dragged herself onward, past more worried faces, forcing the breath back into her lungs as she mounted the stairs. As she reached the top landing, she was surprised to find that she had blood on her shirt.

The screaming was coming from the last door on the right. Removing her baton from its holster, she extended it, ready to fight. But as soon as she entered the room, she knew that she wouldn’t be needing it. The battle had already been fought and lost. In the corner of the room, a teenage prostitute was screaming incessantly, frozen by shock. Nearby on the blood-saturated bed was a man. His chest had been ripped open, revealing his pulsating heart to the open air.

Suddenly it all made sense. The reason Charlie had blood on her shirt was that she had collided with the killer as she fled the scene of her latest attack. Stunned, Charlie turned to run after her, then paused. The man was still alive.

Charlie had a split second to decide. She hurried over to the man, pulling her coat off and clamping it to his chest in an effort to stem the blood loss. Cradling his head, she urged him to keep his eyes open, to talk to her. Charlie knew that the killer had such a good lead that she had probably got away and her best chance of IDing her was to prise some information out of her victim before he died.

‘Call an ambulance,’ she barked at the screaming girl, before returning her attention to the man. He coughed up a hunk of blood. The mist of it settled on Charlie’s face.

‘Can you tell me your name, love?’

The man gurgled but managed nothing.

‘The ambulance is on its way now, you’re going to be ok.’

His eyes were beginning to close.

‘Can you tell me who did this to you?’

The man opened his mouth. Charlie craned forward, putting her ear to his mouth to hear what he had to say.

‘Who attacked you? Can you give me her name?’

The man was struggling to breathe, but he was determined to say something.

‘Her name? Please tell me her name.’

But the man said nothing. All Charlie heard was the last breath escaping his body. The killer had got away and Charlie was left holding her latest victim.

Helen stalked the street outside the Liberty Hotel, her eyes raking the walls of the dilapidated terrace for CCTV cameras. They had had a lucky break – Charlie literally bumping into their killer – and as a result of her testimony and the crumbs gleaned from the Polish sex worker who’d disturbed the attack, they had their best description of the suspect so far. She was Caucasian, in her twenties probably and tall, taller than your average girl, with long, powerful legs. She wore dark clothes, probably leather, had a pale face and long black hair cut in a fringe. But no one had seen her face well enough to give more than generic descriptions. The guy who took the money from the girls clearly never dragged his attention away from the TV long enough to actually look at who went in and out of the building. The other working girls said she wasn’t a regular – a couple of them had crossed her path as she took her client upstairs, but she had kept her head down, didn’t meet their eyes and, besides, they had their own clients to attend to. It was infuriating to be so close and yet have so little. A grab from a CCTV camera could change everything, however, so Helen scoured the walls. It was an area where crime was rife so people often employed extra security here, but her investigation revealed only one camera, poised above the entrance to a down-at-heel off licence. It hung limply, pointing at the wall, clearly the victim of vandalism. Was this work of children or had their killer disabled it? It would be of little use either way.

Heading back to the hotel entrance Helen spotted Charlie, who was now wearing a paper suit and a blanket. Her clothes had been taken away for forensic analysis and she was being looked after by a young WPC.

‘Would you like me to call Steve?’

Charlie looked up to see Helen standing over her.

‘Lloyd… DC Fortune’s already done it.’

‘Good. Go home, Charlie. You’ve had a big shock and you’ve done all you can. We’ll speak later.’

Charlie nodded, still taciturn with shock. Helen placed a comforting hand on her shoulder then moved on, impatient to see what the crime scene might offer them. Climbing the stairwell to the top floor, Helen paused to interrogate a group of forensic officers crowded round a partial footprint. The outline of a heel and toe was printed on the wooden board in blood.