Acid Row (14 page)

."

He listened to the pathetically immature voice at the other end spilling the same woes and misconceptions that girls had been spilling for centuries, and he wondered if she was as gullible as she was pretending or if she thought naivety was a way to win a man's sympathy.

But whose? His or the manager's? “When did he leave?”

"Yesterday. I did everything he wanted .. . you know, got dressed up ... but he said I didn't look right because my hair was too short..

."

Tyler tried to speak over her. “What time yesterday?”

But she was in full spate and didn't hear the question. '.. . so I said I'd wear a wig, and that made him really mad because he said kids only wear wigs when they have leukaemia. I said he was picking on me for nothing .. . it's only a video .. . but he said men don't fancy kids that look sick .. . and now I really hate him because he's left me here .. . and the manager says I could go to prison." She came to a halt in a burst of weeping.

He waited for her to calm down. “How old are you, Franny?”

“Eighteen,” she muttered.

“You sound younger.”

“I know.” She spoke hesitantly as if she were weighing her words. "I look it, too .. . that's why Eddy likes me. I turned eighteen in May.

You can ask the manager if you don't believe me. He's taken my passport and says he won't give it back till the bill's paid."

"I'll talk to the manager later. What time did Eddy leave yesterday?"

She blew her nose noisily into the receiver. "I don't know. He was gone when I woke up."

“What time was that?”

“Midday,” she said reluctantly as if sleeping till noon was a crime.

"We didn't get back to the hotel till two in the morning and I went to sleep pretty soon after. I reckon that's when he left, because the sheets on his side were still tucked in."

Tyler did some rapid thinking. How early did flights leave Majorca on a Friday? Could Townsend have made it to Portis-field by lunchtime the same day? Assuming, of course, he was the man seen in the car outside the Catholic church .. . and Amy was the child seen rounding the corner. Too many imponderables. "What kind of car does Eddy drive in England?" he asked the girl.

“A black BMW.”

Close.. . "The manager told me this morning that you and Eddy were at a nudist beach along the coast. Why did he say that if you've been on your own since yesterday?"

More sobs. "I didn't know what to do ... I hid in the room because I knew there'd be trouble if he found out Eddy'd gone. He was really suspicious .. . kept asking me if I was Eddy's daughter ... so this morning I pretended Eddy was waiting for me in the car, then sneaked round the back and got in through the fire escape ... I thought maybe I could find someone else to pay .. . you know, a bloke on his own .. .

but I was so hungry I called room service .. . and then the manager comes knocking on the door saying the police in England want to talk to us ... so I told him Eddy went yesterday and he goes ape-shit because Eddy didn't give him a credit card when we arrived ... he said it was in his case and he'd bring it down later .. . but he never did ... so the manager hauled me down here to talk to you .. . and I haven't got any money .. ."

Tyler held the telephone away from his ear, waiting for her high-pitched wailing to diminish before he spoke again. If he'd followed the gist of what she was saying, and she was telling the truth .. . “I'll sort it out for you. All right?”

She rallied immediately. “I suppose.”

“But' he went on firmly, ”I want answers to some questions before I do."

“What sort of questions?” she asked suspiciously. "Maybe I shouldn't talk to you without a lawyer listening."

Not completely naive then .. . "It's up to you, Franny. I'm investigating a child's disappearance, and I'm not prepared to waste time helping you if you're not prepared to help me."

“What child?”

“Her name's Amy Biddulph. She went missing yesterday.”

“Shit!”

“Did Eddy ever mention her?”

“Never fucking stopped,” she said, sounding very adult suddenly. "It was Amy this, Amy that. You don't look like her, you don't talk like her. Who is she then?"

"The daughter of your predecessor. She's ten years old and has long dark hair."

“Shi-i-it!”

“What colour's your hair?”

“Brown. He only likes brunettes. That's what he says anyway.”

“Amy's mother's brunette. And very pretty. Like her daughter.”

“Fuck him! I said he was a bastard.”

“Are you going to answer my questions?”

Another long pause while she considered her options. "Yeah, OK. He hasn't done me any favours."

Those were the truest words she'd said. “Where did you fly from?”

“Luton.”

“Which airline?”

“Easyjet.”

“Are they the ones that sell tickets over the Internet?”

"Sort of. You don't get a ticket, just a number that confirms your place. Eddy got a good deal because the plane wasn't full."

“Which day was this?”

“Tuesday.”

“And he was gone again by Friday morning?” said Tyler in surprise.

“How long were you expecting to stay there?”

She started to wail again. "He never said .. . and I never asked because I thought it was a holiday .. . you know, two weeks or something. OK, I know it was a bit last-minute .. . Like, Sunday we're mucking around at my place and Tuesday we're jetting off to Majorca ..

. but I didn't reckon he was going to leave after three fucking days otherwise I'd have made him hand over his credit card. I mean, that sucks, don't you reckon?"

“Did he book return flights?”

“I don't know.” She paused to think about it. "Probably not, because he brought his laptop with him. He said the system's supposed to be flexible, so you pay for each flight separately. It means you can book in wherever you are."

“Does he use the Net a lot?”

“All the time,” she said crossly. “He's really boring about it.”

“Do you know what his e-mail address is?”

“I only know the business one [email protected] -all lower case.”

“How many does he have?”

"About six ... maybe more. He uses codes so people can't read them by accident."

“Why is he worried about that?”

"It's confidential business stuff. He gets really twitched about people finding out what contracts he's got on the go."

Tyler warned himself against jumping to easy conclusions. It was one of the perils of the job, something policemen had referred to in the past as a 'hunch' or 'having a nose for a villain'. Too often it had resulted in heavy compensation for miscarriages of justice when alleged villains proved to be innocent, and the 'hunch' was based on nothing more than a series of unfortunate coincidences. Nevertheless ... an attraction to young-looking women .. . videos .. . the Internet .. .

?

He didn't want Franny making similar connections, so he changed the subject by asking her a series of unalarming questions about how much luggage Townsend had brought with him and whether he'd left anything behind. Then: “You said something earlier about it ”only being a video“,” he said idly. “What was that about?”

She hesitated. “Nothing much. He's always filming things.”

“What sort of things?”

She didn't answer.

“You mentioned wearing a wig,” he said lightly, 'so presumably he was filming you."

She was less willing to go into detail now that she'd calmed down.

“It's just stuff he does for himself,” she said reluctantly.

“Pornography?”

“Christ, no!” She sounded genuinely shocked.

“What then?”

“He likes watching me on video when I'm not with him.”

“Dressed or undressed?”

“Which do you think?” she asked sarcastically. "He's a bloke, isn't he?"

In other circumstances Tyler might have defended his sex, but perhaps her experience of men was as limited as the cynicism behind her remark suggested. If so, he felt sorry for her. "Is that why he took you to the nudist beach?"

“I guess.”

“Did he film anyone else there?”

“No.” Unexpectedly she giggled. "He said they were all too old and fat. In any case, most of them were men and men don't turn him on. The nudey beaches are where they go to pick each other up."

Tyler switched tack again. “Why did he leave? Did you have a row?”

“Not really. He was a bit ratty on Thursday afternoon.”

“In what way?”

"Your tits are too big .. . your arse is too big .. . you've got too much make-up on ... you look like a tart.. ." She spoke in a chant as if she'd learnt her faults by rote. "I got really smashed Thursday night, so maybe he went off me," she finished sadly.

Tyler heard the beginnings of self-recrimination in her voice and injected a little sarcasm of his own. "Why do you still believe anything he said?“ he asked. ”He's a con artist. He's taken the manager for a ride and left you to clean up his mess. Is that the kind of er bloke that attracts you? Because you haven't got much of a future if it is."

“He's so good-looking though,” she said, 'and he was really sweet at the beginning."

“Good-looking men always are,” said Tyler unsympathetically, fingering the ruts on his forehead, 'until they get inside your knickers and find you're no more exciting than the last girl they had."

“You sound like my mother.”

"Is there anything else you can think of that might help me? Did he get any phone calls?"

"There was a message for him when we got back to the hotel. It was in an envelope that had been pushed under the door ... he seemed quite excited about it. He made me take a shower so he could call someone ... it might've been to do with that. He told me to go to sleep after .. . said he wasn't interested in sex."

“And this was two o'clock in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“What did the message say?”

“Dunno.”

“Did you try to find it after he'd left?”

“Maybe.”

“And?”

“It wasn't in the bin.”

“Did you answer the phone for him while he was there?”

“They were all on his mobile.”

“Did you hear any conversations that might have been with a child?”

“He used to go out of the room.” A pause. "Most of them sounded like business. He's got problems with some of his houses."

“What sort of problems?”

"Dunno. He went ballistic every time I asked .. . said people were stealing from him. He said it would all be sorted next week."

Tyler stared at his office wall. "Who was he talking to? Customers?

Partners?"

“Dunno,” she said again.

"Can you remember him using a name? Perhaps at the beginning, when he said hello?"

“I didn't listen.”

“Try to remember, Franny,” Tyler said patiently. “It's important.”

“But it was all so boring,” she whined. "There was some stuff about contracts and dates one time. I think that might have been his lawyer."

Tyler wrote Martin Rogerson on his pad and followed it with a question mark. “Does the name Martin ring any bells?”

“Oh, yes,” she said in surprised recollection. “He said, ”Hello Martin."

“Which day was that?”

“Thursday, I think.”

Tyler held his breath for a moment, then asked her to give him her mother's telephone number and address. She refused until he pointed out that he had no intention of paying her hotel bill himself, and neither would the British taxpayer. "You're an adult and, in law, that makes you as responsible as Townsend for the debts you incur. It's a clear-cut choice. Either you sort it yourself or I'll ask your mother to do it for you. Now where does she live?"

With bad grace, the girl gave an address and telephone number in Southampton. “She'll kill me,” she said again.

“I doubt it, but I'll do what I can to make her easier on you.” He thought about telling her to show some maturity for the first time in her life, but decided against it. If she couldn't learn the lesson for herself then nothing a stranger said down the phone would persuade her.

Instead his instruction was to stay put in Southampton when she returned as he wanted to interview her face to face, then he spoke to the hotel manager for five minutes to check the truth of what she'd told him and sort out a few details. He thanked him for his assistance and asked him to give the girl something to eat while he contacted her mother.

“I am not hopeful that this woman wants Miss Gough back,” said the manager in good, but heavily accented English.

“Why do you say that?”

"In this country no mother would allow her child to do what this one does. Senora Gough cares nothing for her daughter, I think."

Nightingale Health Centre It was rare for Fay Baldwin to go into the Centre at the weekend but she had been brooding over Sophie's high-handed dismissal and her scathing message on the answer phone and by Saturday had worked herself into a fine fury. The fact that other doctors had similarly dismissed Fay, leaving just a handful of clients to see her through to retirement, was conveniently forgotten. This time she planned to make an official complaint, accusing Dr. Morrison of negligence towards Melanie's children.

In her twisted logic, the presence of the paedophile in Humbert Street was tightly interwoven with the conspiracy to remove her. She had even persuaded herself it was courage that had led her to reveal his presence in Humbert Street. Dr. Morrison had no concern for the children. She had proved it by banning all discussion of the man's existence and then accusing Fay of insanity when she dared to mention it. Fay, by contrast, was only concerned with dear little Rosie and Ben. As she should be. It was her job as their health visitor. How dare a doctor override her authority? Who above everyone had fought to preserve the safety and sanctity of the Patterson children?

She didn't particularly want her presence noticed in case Sophie had spread the word about what she'd done she needed time to prepare her case so she planned to sneak into the health visitors' office when the receptionist was busy with a patient. But she was startled to find the door to the main reception blocked by a policeman. Even more startled to see the waiting-area empty of patients and Dr. Bonfield, the senior partner, in T-shirt and shorts, standing behind the reception desk with Jenny Monroe. Harry Bonfield and Fay did not get on, and she would have left immediately, had the officer not drawn attention to her presence.