Hard Girls by Martina Cole
But she still felt that there was something missing. She guessed it was because for the first time ever, they had not had make-up sex. She wondered if Patrick was thinking the same thing. Was he also secretly questioning their failure to consummate their new-found togetherness? He had not even caressed her in a sexual way and, although she had not thought about it at the time, now, as she remembered it, she felt slightly snubbed by him all over again. She assumed he had been shagging for England with Eve and the fact that he didn’t seem to want her was now taking hold in her mind. The two-faced bastard had not even tried to kiss her properly, he’d just lain there, holding her in his arms, until she had dropped off.
She quickly went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was still slim, still attractive and although she wasn’t a spring chicken, she wasn’t that much different to the woman he had met all those years ago. She put on some lip gloss and brushed her hair, immediately feeling much better just for doing it.
Back in her front room, she sat on the floor and spread everything she had on the dead girls out in individual piles. She accepted that there could be a man out there somewhere who was just choosing the girls at random, who had no real reason other than that he wanted to kill somebody. But the viciousness of the girls’ deaths told her that this was personal. It was someone with an axe to grind. Why they wanted to grind the axe in the first place, she still couldn’t work out. She felt though that, if she could work that much out, she would be a step closer to finding the man responsible.
They had interviewed so many people, had investigated so many men, and yet they were still no nearer fingering a suspect than they had been at the start of the investigation. Kate had spent hours poring over the details of the crimes, re-reading the witness statements, and trying to look at it all from a fresh perspective.
She picked up Janie Moore’s files, then she picked up Sandy Compton’s paperwork and placed it on the floor beside Janie’s. She stared at them for long moments then, sitting back against the sofa, she placed Candy Cane’s papers in the middle of the other two. She picked up the first piece of paper from each pile and read them. She did the exact same thing with each piece of paper that came to hand. She read them all again, as if she had never read any of them before. She picked up the other girls’ files and read them again too, placing them in different orders, straining her eyes as she tried to see something, anything, that would make her feel she was in with a chance of winning.
The phone rang and she answered it quickly, annoyed at the intrusion. It was Patrick, and he was trying to be as affable and friendly as possible. She gave him a few Brownie points for that much anyway.
‘Why don’t you come over for dinner, Kate?’
Kate shook her head, forgetting he couldn’t see her. ‘No, Pat. Thanks for the offer but I really need to work. I can’t concentrate at your house and I have all my paperwork here.’
Pat couldn’t be sure, but he felt that there was a note of censure in her voice. But he knew better than to remark on it. He knew she was still smarting from his fling, and he didn’t blame her for that, he would have felt the same if the boot had been on the other foot.
He sighed. ‘OK. I just thought you might like a bit of dinner, that was all, love. How is it going, like? Any nearer to a collar?’ He laughed then. ‘That’s not a sentence I ever thought I would say.’
Kate laughed with him, and she realised she missed this, the chatting, the closeness. ‘It’s hard, Patrick, we have nothing, literally nothing.’
He sighed. He racked his brains for something interesting to say to her to take her mind off it for a few minutes. ‘Oh, Kate, I just remembered. Terry O’Leary came round the other day, and asked me if I could do him a favour. He wants you to tell that woman from Victim Support to stop coming round the houses. The girls love her, by all accounts, but I think he’s worried she might put off the customers. Or see too much of what’s going on. Either way, he wants her to meet the girls off the premises. Would you mind having a word with her for me? Apparently she’s talked a few of the younger ones into leaving the life but, as I said to Terrence, you can’t blame the girls for that. But he don’t like her there interfering and, reading between the lines, if she doesn’t take the hint, he’ll have her out by the scruff of her neck.’
There was a long silence and Patrick broke it by saying, ‘Are you still there, Kate?’
‘Do you know the names of the girls who left?’
Patrick was annoyed now, assuming she was being sarcastic. ‘Now, how the fuck would I know something like that, Kate? It’s not like I frequent them places, is it?’
Kate laughed good-naturedly. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, I just wondered if he had mentioned the girls’ names, that’s all.’
‘Well, he didn’t and, not to put too fine a point on it, why the fuck would Terry O’Leary know the names of two Toms in his employ?’
Kate heard the incredulity in Pat’s voice and decided that, as much as she loved him, he had a lot to learn about, not just basic manners, but also the safety of the people who earned you a good wedge. ‘Get off your high horse, Patrick. I like Terry, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is a fucking pimp and, just because he doesn’t mix with his girls, doesn’t spend time on the premises they all work out of, it doesn’t make him any less of a pimp in my eyes. He is a ponce, as the old Faces would put it and now, if you don’t mind, I need to go somewhere. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
Kate had already put the phone down before Pat had even had the chance to say goodbye.
Terrence O’Leary was not impressed to see Kate standing, larger than life, on what was generally referred to as his official doorstep. His wife, on the other hand, was thrilled. ‘How are ya, Katie love? Come away in, you look frozen to the bone.’
Kathleen O’Leary was a beauty, and even after giving birth to six children, five of them boys, she still managed to turn more than a few heads. She had the thick black hair and violet-blue eyes of the real Irish along with the tiny bone structure of a fairy and good deportment and, all these things put together made for a winning combination. She was truly lovely, inside and out, and Kate had always had a soft spot for her. ‘Has that eejit seen the error of his ways yet?’
Kate laughed as she followed Kathleen into the large and expensive kitchen. It was like something from Doctor Who, all brushed stainless steel and expensive gadgets. Kate knew that it would have been what Terry wanted, not what Kathleen would have desired. Kate knew Terry well enough to know that he saw everything around him as something to either be admired or coveted. He felt that even his home wasn’t somewhere to relax in, it was somewhere to prove how well he had done for himself.
It was a shame really, but Kate understood Terry’s need to show off his wealth and his need to prove that he had expensive but elegant good taste. Unfortunately, he looked uncomfortable in these surroundings, and that was the shame of it all. Instead of enjoying his home, he spent all his time wondering how the fuck to fit himself into it.
‘Do you want a coffee?’
Kate nodded. ‘I came to talk to Terry about Patrick.’
Kathleen scowled. When she had put Kate’s cup of coffee in front of her, she said angrily to Terry, ‘Now you tell her what she wants to know.’
Kate knew Kathleen assumed that she was round there asking about Eve, and she was sorry that Pat’s fling was such common knowledge to all and sundry.
‘He’s as fecking bad. I’ve caught him out more than once, Kate.’
Terrence O’Leary was terrified of his little wife because, for all his bombast and his machismo persona, without her he would crumble. She was his life, but he never let on to anyone about that. He saw his enormous love for her as a weakness, whereas she saw his love of her as a bonus. Their boys were handsome and strong, and their only daughter was a beauty, a beauty who it seemed had inherited all the brains of the family.
Kathleen smiled at Kate, and left the kitchen quickly. Like any woman, she
Terry looked both shame-faced and less than impressed. ‘I want to ask you about the girls who left your employ because of Miriam Salter.’
Kate saw him visibly relax, and she knew he had not expected her to ask him something so mundane. Like his wife, he’d obviously thought she would be quizzing him on Patrick’s affair with Eve.
‘Is that all? Why are you interested in them?’ Then Terry was suddenly concerned, and he looked worried as he said, ‘They aren’t dead, are they?’
Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but if you give me their names I can track them down.’
He frowned. ‘Ring Jennifer or Simone, they’ll know more than I do, Kate. For feck’s sake, I’ve told you before, I rarely step foot on the premises.’ He was almost whispering now, worried that his wife might be earwigging from outside the door.
‘To be honest, Terry, I would rather you spoke to them. All I want is their names, but I don’t want anyone to know that I am looking into their lives. Believe me, Terry, I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important.’
Terry felt the urgency in her voice and, looking into her eyes, he said softly, ‘Are you sure they aren’t dead?’
‘Not that I know of, but I just want to find them and ask them if they left the house because someone had frightened them. I need to ask them if they’ve ever been hurt by a punter or threatened.’
‘Why not ask the loony woman, she’s the one who talked them into leaving. Why not ask her where they went?’
‘I tried her, but she’s not answering. Anyway, first off, I just want to get the girls’ names, and I want to research them. Their lives, where they come from et cetera. This is a hunch, no more, and it’s probably nothing. But if you could get me the names, and not let on it’s me who is asking after them, I’ll owe you a favour until the day I die.’
Kate had appealed to the criminal side of Terry’s character, and he knew that. He liked the idea of her dragging him into her conspiracy theory, or whatever it was. He liked that she didn’t want to involve anyone, not even her fellow plods.
‘Let me make a call. Drink your coffee. I’ll be back in five.’
Hayley Dart was frightened. She knew that Miriam bringing in that young DC to see her in all her battered glory would only make her husband ten times worse. He had beaten her from the day they had got married and, over the last few weeks, his anger and his frustration had caused the violence to escalate, until he was now almost out of control. Miriam was keeping a vigil by her bedside but, as much as Hayley appreciated her concern, she wished she would just go away and leave her alone. She knew that at any minute, she would be back beside her bed, Bible in one hand and a cross in the other.
Lionel would be on his best behaviour soon. He would lapse into his sorrowful mode and would be like a little child asking her to forgive him and assuring her it would never happen again. He would appear to be mortified at what he was capable of, and he would be terrified of someone he knew finding out about it. It was when he stamped on her face that she had realised he was now totally out of control. In the past, he had always taken great pains to beat her where the bruises wouldn’t show. He had only broken her fingers once before, and that had been explained away by him telling everyone she had shut her hand in the car door. This time, however, he had not been able to control himself, and she had been seriously beaten. She knew that the hospital staff had guessed long ago that she wasn’t really that clumsy. But he was the Chief Super of Grantley nick and he had power. This ensured that they didn’t probe too much into the circumstances of her accidents.
Hayley knew that her jaw would take a long time to heal and that she would be kept in for as long as the nurses could swing it. She appreciated their kindness, but she knew that her husband always held all the cards. He stood there and joked with everyone, brought the nurses chocolates, filled her bedside with expensive flower arrangements and spoke to her as if they were love’s young dream. She had seen the way women on the ward looked at him, the way they watched as he fussed over her and she knew that they wished their husbands were as attentive. She knew they looked at her and wondered what she had that made her husband still treat her like a new bride all these years later.
He was a bully and a coward, incapable of fighting a man, but more than capable of threatening and intimidating a woman or a child. He spewed filth at her, and she knew that he enjoyed doing it, knew that he was so weak and emotionally feeble that all he could do to make himself feel powerful was to vent his hate on those he knew couldn’t fight back. He had bullied the girls too but, unlike her, they had got away as soon as they could. She was ashamed that she had not stuck up for them, ashamed that she had been too terrified and too weak to defend them from his tyranny. He had a way of making her feel it was all her fault, he made her think that the girls were not good enough because she didn’t know how to raise them properly. He had even bullied his own mother. Like her, she had been weak, weak and frightened of the son she had spawned and had eventually come to loathe.
Hayley now knew she had to do something. She knew inside herself that if she stayed with him for much longer, he really would kill her. She was so glad her jaw was broken. It meant she didn’t have to talk to him, didn’t have to play the game, didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t hurting all over. She didn’t have to act like she loved her husband so that people, even strangers, would believe that they were the perfect couple.
Hayley heard the door open and saw Miriam walk to the chair beside the bed. She sat down, her heavy body appearing to collapse in on itself. Miriam always sat with her shoulders hunched up, body hanging forward, she looked as if she would fall off the chair on to the floor at any minute. But she meant well, and Hayley was grateful to her because, all the time Miriam was sitting beside her, Lionel couldn’t get away quick enough. He knew that Miriam was more than aware of what was going on and he also knew that she was a busybody. That scared him because he depended on people thinking well of him, he needed people to think he was a nice man, a good person.
As she saw Miriam smiling at her, she tried her hardest to smile back, but with her jaw wired up it was an uphill struggle.
Kate looked at the computer screen as if it would give her the information she wanted through sheer willpower alone.
Margaret Dole was laughing at her. ‘Go and get a coffee, Kate, I’ll be a while getting the girls’ details.’
‘I am amazed that their names didn’t bring up anything at all.’
Margaret shrugged. ‘Maybe they have never been nicked, did that occur to you? Oh, hang on, I’ve got something. They’ve all been residents in the same home.’
Kate felt a stirring of excitement inside her chest.
‘Nicky Marr, seventeen years old.’
‘Brookway House.’
‘How did you know that?’
Kate grinned. ‘Something Simone said. Now see if Donna Turner turns up there and all.’
‘Wow, I’m impressed, Kate. They were both in Brookway, but not at the same time. But, have a guess who else was there with Nicky Marr?’
Kate looked at Margaret for long moments before she said, ‘Terri Garston?’
‘Give the lady a cigar. Do you think this is the connection between them all? Brookway House?’
Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Nicky and Donna have both left the life, Miriam saw to that. I wonder if Miriam got involved with the girls at the halfway house her husband ran. Margaret, can you check which one it was, she may be able to help us. Also what we need to establish is whether any of the girls who were killed ever resided at Brookway. It seems to me that a lot of them rolled up there after leaving the care system or, in some cases, after getting out of prison. Now the girls all help each other out, and I think they were steered towards Grantley with the promise of a nice house to live in and easy money. Whoever killed these girls knew them wel
‘You started me off with this because the files you hacked into had some of the girls living there. Now both you and I know that the care system is sometimes lax and we know that these homes are a breeding ground for girls who are ripe for the life.’
‘Are you really saying that you think someone who worked there was cherry-picking girls and giving them the contact details for the houses and flats here? In Grantley? That this person was grooming them for the life?’
Kate nodded. ‘I think there was someone they trusted, and I think that person was the one who pointed them in the right direction. I have to say, however, that I don’t think they were being paid for each girl they provided. I think they just wanted the girls here, so they had access to them.’
Margaret looked up from the computer. She was stunned. ‘You’re not going to believe this, Kate, but they all had a sojourn there at one time or another.’
‘I knew it! That’s the trouble with the halfway houses, their records are always scant. But they always make sure that they put the residents’ full names down. Right, start searching the work records and see what comes up. Get names, addresses and phone numbers and track them through their social security numbers. Then let’s see what or, more to the point, who, pops up in Grantley.’