Frankie (13 page)

Glenn gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Piece of piss.'

‘Good. We just need some shots of the house now – try and make it look as big as possible.' He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled a number. ‘Janet, love, it's Andy. Put me through to the news desk, will you?' He waited for a moment, watching Glenn kneel down and shoot several pictures of the house. Then the news desk came on the line. ‘Yeah, it's Andy. Put me on to Phil – I think I've got a story for him.'

Frankie poured the loose change that had accumulated in her polystyrene coffee cup into the palm of her hand and counted it out. One pound thirty-eight pence. There was a pound coin in there, donated by a studenty-looking guy who seemed as if he could use a few good meals himself, but the rest was a collection of coppers.

The light was beginning to fail. She had been moved on twice already today – once from in front of the Abbey and once from Bridge Street. Even in this cold weather, tourists had flocked to Bath to see the ancient Roman Baths and grand architecture for which the town was so famous, but also to see the street entertainers – Frankie remembered her mother telling her how this was the British capital for street performers, who came here from all over the world. Clearly the council wanted to avoid beggars hassling the lucrative tourists, which was why Frankie found herself unable to stay in one place for too long. Now she found herself on the high street, sitting by the cash machine outside a bank, hoping that the punters removing their twenty-pound notes would be moved by guilt if not by sympathy to give her a few coins. So far she hadn't had much success – the truth was that
people avoid the cash machines if there is someone begging close by.

‘You looking for something?'

Frankie glanced up to see who was talking to her. Two women, about her own age, were towering above her. They were both wearing the hotchpotch of clothes that Frankie recognized instantly as being the garb of the homeless, and each of them had a number of piercings on her face. ‘What do you mean?' she asked, even though she knew exactly what they meant.

The two girls looked at each other with a vague grin. ‘A fix,' one of them answered, speaking the words clearly as though Frankie were old and deaf. ‘You looking for a fix?'

Frankie shook her head. In the four years she had been homeless, she had managed to stay off the junk – not an easy task when everyone around you had some habit or other. She'd lost count of the number of fleeting acquaintances who had succumbed to the pleasures of the needle or the pipe, and she didn't blame them – they offered a way out, a momentary escape from the drudgery, boredom and poverty. Frankie found occasional solace in a bottle of cheap booze, but she had managed to steer clear of the smack and the crack that soon became second nature to kids on the street. Suddenly she remembered the image of Mary, the skin around her nose raw from glue-sniffing. She hoped she was all right, but she knew that unless something drastic happened, her future would be a hopeless mess of addiction, her highs peddled by girls like these. ‘No,' she told them. ‘I don't need a fix.' She dropped the change back into her cup in preparation to leave, knowing the way this conversation was likely to
go, then stood up and stared defiantly into the two girls' eyes. Their pupils were dilated and their expressions strangely vacant – it was a look she recognized only too well. The two girls took a short step closer and started to jostle Frankie. ‘You shouldn't be round here, bitch,' the talkative one told her. ‘It's our turf. Fuck off out of it.'

Frankie eyeballed them impassively. In London, a week ago, there would have been only one thing she could have done: stand up to them. Show anyone a weakness in a position like this and they would lay into you before you had time to run. If it meant a fight, so be it: she'd been in plenty of fights before and had survived, for better or worse. But today she couldn't risk a fight – couldn't risk a situation where the police might become involved. In any case her hand, still weeping into its now dirty bandage, was constantly throbbing from Strut's knife wound and she'd run out of painkillers yesterday. ‘OK,' she told them reluctantly. ‘I'm leaving.' She pushed past them and started to walk down the street.

‘Hey!'

One of the girls caught her by the shoulder. Frankie turned and gave her a fierce look. ‘What?' she snapped.

‘I told you, it's our turf.' She looked meaningfully at the cup in Frankie's hand. ‘We'll take that.'

Frankie looked at the meagre collection of coins in her cup. It wasn't much, but it meant the difference between a meal and going hungry. A man who had been at the cash machine when the girls had approached her hurried past, and Frankie became suddenly aware that all the passers-by were giving them a wide berth – it was clear to everyone that this was a potentially explosive situation that could go off at any time. If these girls were desperate
enough – and every indication suggested that they were – they would do anything to get their hands on her afternoon's earnings. The three of them stared at each other, like animals defending their territory. One of the girls opened a flick knife and held it under her jacket so only Frankie could see it.

They stayed like that for a few moments, before Frankie threw her cup at their feet; the coins spilled out onto the ground, and a couple of them rolled a few metres down the road. Then she turned and walked away. She knew there was no need to run – the two of them would be on their knees by now, scrabbling around for the money. They needed it as much as she did – probably more if the drug-addled look in their eyes was anything to go by. She reached the end of the street and looked back; the girls were still there, but they had forgotten about her and were eagerly counting out the coins they had stolen.

The familiar hunger pangs were starting up again – it had been a long time since breakfast. She knew there was little chance of a meal tonight. Maybe she could scrounge enough to be able to eat tomorrow, but until she got the measure of this town she knew it was going to be difficult. She eyed up the shops – the usual parade of high-street names – but shook her head as she put thoughts of thieving from her mind.

Her hands were cold, so she put them in the pocket of her jeans to warm up. Her fingers touched the locket, and she pulled it out, gazing at it with renewed interest. It felt quite heavy, heavier than she had noticed before. The letters ‘RG' had been engraved in swirling script on the front, and to one side there was a small clasp. Frankie
pressed it in sharply, but nothing happened – clearly the mechanism was broken, or maybe the clasp was just ornamental and the locket was not supposed to open. She felt a momentary relief that she would not be forced to look at a cute little picture of someone's grandchild, but it didn't take long for her to brush aside any bogus feelings of guilt at her actions. She had done what she had to do. That was all.

And now perhaps the locket could help her. It could be solid silver – it was heavy enough. It was still not too late in the day to find herself a pawn shop where she could trade it in. She'd get less than a quarter of its value, of course, but that didn't matter – the money was more valuable to her.

It didn't take long for her to find the three gold-plated balls that indicated a pawnbroker's. The shop window was full of antique jewellery, watches and other valuable trinkets, and the wooden shop door was etched with the sign
PA ALLEN
–
PAWNBROKERS OF FINE ANTIQUES
. A little bell rang as she opened the door, making her jump slightly as she stepped inside. The shop was empty, and there was a long wooden counter dividing the customer area from a hidden section that was screened off by frosted glass. She stood there for a few moments before a plump woman in her late fifties appeared. ‘Can I help you?' she asked in a bored tone of voice, her face sullen and full of suspicion as she looked over her half-moon glasses.

Frankie reached into her jeans, pulled out the locket and placed it on the counter. ‘What will you give me for this?'

The woman picked up the locket and held it to the
light. Her face was unimpressed, but Frankie expected that – she was hardly going to let on that she thought it was valuable. ‘Wait there,' the woman told her before disappearing behind the frosted glass. Frankie saw the silhouette of another person sitting down inspecting the locket. She could hear them whispering.

As Frankie paced nervously she noticed the camera in the top left-hand corner of the shop above the front door. It made her nervous, but she needed the money. She knew the woman was going to try and rip her off, that she would have to haggle her up, even if it was just a few pounds; but she was hardly in a strong bartering position, and the woman knew that. Nobody who found their way into these places ever was.

Finally the woman returned, her face expressionless. She put the locket down on the counter and shook her head. ‘Tin,' she said. ‘Worthless.' She pushed it towards Frankie.

Frankie felt her stomach lurch. It had to be worth something – anything. ‘Please,' she whispered to the stony-faced woman, ‘just a few pounds. It's all I have.'

The woman shook her head.

‘What about the chain? That could be worth something.' But the woman was already eyeing the door meaningfully, and Frankie got the hint. She couldn't start making a scene. She bowed her head, took the necklace and left.

Outside, Frankie felt anger welling up inside her. She wasn't one for self-pity, but the events of the last few days were weighing heavily on her. She walked quickly away from the pawnbroker's, tears of frustration blinding her eyes, oblivious to everyone around her, and headed
towards the river. She had always sought out the water when things got rough in London. It soothed her – a little patch of nature in the heart of the unkind city – and if ever she needed soothing, now was the time. The route had clearly been imprinted on her subconscious from her couple of days of wandering, and she found herself on North Parade Bridge in no time at all. The rush hour was starting, and the traffic was beeping aggressively. She leaned over the side and gritted her teeth as she did her best not to succumb to her tears. Start now and she'd never stop.

The locket was still clasped in her hand. Now it seemed the focus of all her anger and frustration – she should just get rid of it, throw it into the river. If she could divest herself of anything to do with what had happened in London, perhaps she could put it from her mind, move on. She prepared to hurl it over the bridge.

Just then, the engraving on the front caught her eye. ‘RG'. The image of the terrified woman on Chelsea Bridge flooded into her head. Who was she? What was she doing now? Was she ‘RG'? Did this cheap pendant mean something to her – some sort of sentimental value even if it was worthless in terms of money? Frankie had not stopped to think of the rights and wrongs of her actions. There had been no time, and she knew, in any case, that put in the same situation again there was nothing she would do differently. There was no room in her life for equivocation or sentimentality. But deep inside she felt a little twinge of regret. She was sorry for the woman she had attacked. There was no rhyme or reason for her being dragged into the mess of Frankie's life – she'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suddenly it seemed churlish to throw away something that might once have been important to someone.

And then she thought of the little box of jewellery in her bedroom at home. Frankie had loved those trinkets, and often thought of them in her darkest hours. This locket was attractive enough in its way – a little too chunky perhaps, too brash for her taste – but for the first time in four years she had in her hand something pretty.

She put the chain over her head and tucked the locket under her jumper. You never know, she thought to herself with a rueful smile. It might just bring me luck one day.

Carter was at his desk staring at the CCTV photo of Francesca Mills that had been taken a few nights before at the cash machine. It was blurred and indistinct, but it was definitely the same person as the one fleeing the scene of the crime at Newington Park in the photo Taylor had shown him. There was a look of desperation in her eyes that almost made him feel sorry for her. He had passed this image on to Taylor, but neither of them had managed to do anything with it. The inquiries that had been conducted around the area made it clear that nobody noticed just another girl on the street.

He'd been in turmoil all day, unable to track Rosemary down and knowing that the one lead he had – the phone – had been a wild goose chase. There had been nothing he could do all day but wait and hope.

He had spent the morning reading desperately through the company profile of Lenham, Borwick and Hargreaves. It was frustrating work, especially when all he really wanted to be doing was finding the Mills girl. But every avenue led to a dead end – no driving licence, no criminal
record to speak of. Not even a claim for any government benefits. Nothing that could track her down.

The phone rang. He picked it up instantly. ‘Carter,' he said automatically.

‘Sean, it's Yvonne.'

‘Yvonne.' Carter's voice was drained. ‘Are you OK? You sound pissed off.'

‘No, I'm fine. Just one of those days. You know you asked me to put out a search yesterday afternoon?'

‘Rosemary Gibson. That's right.' His voice picked up. ‘Have you found her?'

‘Sean, was she a friend of yours?'

Carter closed his eyes – he knew what was coming. ‘An acquaintance … a contact … why, what's happened?'

‘She was fished out of the river two hours ago.'

He muttered under his breath before answering. ‘Where is she now?'

‘She's undergoing a post-mortem at Charing Cross Hospital on Fulham Palace Road.' Carter was silent for a few moments. ‘I'm sorry, Sean.'