Dead Beat Part 3

My thanks were drowned by the screech of the sash window as the woman slammed it back down. I walked back to the car, shifted a large black and white cat which had already taken up residence on the warm bonnet, and set off to find the pub.

The Hambleton Hotel was about a mile and a half away from Moira's last known address. It was roadhouse style, in grimy yellow and red brick with the mock-Tudor gables much beloved by 1930s pub architects. The inside looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since then. Even at half-past eleven in the morning, it was fairly lively. A couple of black men were playing the fruit machine, and a youth was dropping coins into a jukebox which was currently playing Jive Bunny. By the bar was a small knot of women who were already dressed for work in short skirts and low-cut sweaters. Their exposed flesh looked pale and unappetizing, but at least it lacked the bluish tinge that ten minutes' exposure to the cold spring air would lend it.

I walked up to the bar, aware of the eyes on me, and ordered a half of lager. Something told me that a Perrier wouldn't do much for my cover story. The blowsy barmaid looked me up and down as she poured my drink. As I paid, I told her to take one herself. She shook her head and muttered, 'Too early for me.' I was taken aback. Before I could ask her about Moira, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I tensed and turned round slowly. One of the black men who'd been playing the fruit machine was standing behind me with a frown on his face. He was nearly six feet tall, slim and elegant in chinos and a shiny black satin shirt under a dove grey full length Italian lambskin coat that looked like it cost six months of my mortgage. His hair was cut in a perfect flat-top, accentuating his high cheek-bones and strong jaw. His eyes were bloodshot and I could smell minty breath-spray as he leaned forward into my face and breathed, 'I hear you been looking for a friend of mine.'

'News travels fast,' I responded, trying to move away from his hot breath, but failing thanks to the bar behind me.

'What d'you want with Moira?' There was a note of menace in his voice that p.i.s.sed me off. I controlled the urge to kick him across the bar and said nothing as he leaned even closer. 'Don't try telling me you're on the game. And don't try telling me you're a cop. Those f.u.c.kers only come down here mob-handed. So who are you, and what d'you want with Moira?'

I know when the time for games is past. I reached into my pocket and produced a business card. I handed it to the pimp who was giving me a severe case of claustrophobia. It worked. He backed off a good six inches. 'It's nothing heavy. It's an old friend of hers who wants to make contact. If it works out, there could be good money in it for her.'

He studied the card and glared at me. 'Private Investigator,' he sneered. 'Well, baby, you're not gonna find Moira here. She checked out a long time ago.'

My heart did that funny kind of flip it does when I get bad news. Two days ago, I couldn't have cared less if Moira were alive or dead. Now I was surprised to find that I cared a lot. 'You don't mean...?'

His lip curled in a sneer again. I suspected he'd perfected it in front of a mirror at the age of twelve and hadn't progressed to anything more adult. 'She was still alive when she left here. But the way she was pumping heroin into her veins, you'll be lucky to find her like that now. I kicked her out a year ago. She was no use to anybody. All she cared about was getting another fix into her.'

'Any idea where she went?' I asked with sinking heart.

He shrugged. 'That depends on how much it's worth.'

'And that depends on how good the information is.'

He smiled crookedly. 'Well, you're not going to know that till you check it out, are you? And I don't give credit. A hundred to tell you where she went.'

'Do you seriously think I'd carry that kind of cash in a s.h.i.t pit like this? Fifty.'

He shook his head. 'No way. Fancy bit of skirt like you, you'll have a hole-in-the-wall card. Come back here in half an hour with a oner and I'll tell you where she went. And don't think you'll get the word off somebody else. n.o.body round here's going to cross George.'

I knew when I was beaten. Whoever George was, he clearly had his patch sewn up tight. Wearily, I nodded and headed back towards the car.

8.

The short drive from Leeds to its neighbouring city of Bradford is like traversing a continent. Crossing the city boundary, I found myself driving through a traditional Muslim community. Little girls were covered from head to foot, the only flesh on display their pale brown faces and hands. All the women who walked down the pavements with a leisurely rolling gait had their heads covered, and several were veiled. In contrast, most of the men dressed in western clothes, though many of the older ones wore the traditional white cotton baggy trousers and loose tops with incongruously heavy winter coats over them, greying beards spilling down their fronts. I pa.s.sed a newly erected mosque, its bright red brick and toytown minarets a sharp contrast to the grubby terraces that surrounded it. Most of the grocery shops had signs in Arabic, and the butchers announced Hal-al meat for sale. It almost came as a culture shock to see signs in English directing me to the city centre.

I stopped at a garage to buy a street directory. There were three Asian men standing around inside the shop, and another behind the counter. I felt like a piece of meat as they eyed me up and down and made comments to each other. I didn't need to speak the language to catch their drift.

Back in the car, I looked up my destination in the map's index and worked out the best way to get there. George's information represented the worst value for money I'd had in a long time, but I wasn't in any position to stick around and argue the toss. All he'd been able to tell me was that Moira had moved to Bradford and was working the streets of the red light district round Manningham Lane. He either didn't know or wouldn't tell the name of her pimp, though he claimed that she was working for a black guy rather than an Asian.

It was just after one when I parked in a quiet side street off Manningham Lane. As I got out of the car, the smell of curry spices. .h.i.t me and I realized I was ravenous. It had been a long time since last night's Chinese, and I had to start my inquiries somewhere. I went into the first eating place I came to, a small cafe on the corner. Three of the half dozen formica-topped tables were occupied. The clientele was a mixture of Asian men, working girls and a couple of lads who looked like building labourers. I went up to the counter, where a teenager in a grubby chef's jacket was standing behind a cl.u.s.ter of pans on a hotplate. On the wall was a whiteboard, which offered Lamb Rogan Josh, Chicken Madras, Mattar Panir and Chicken Jalfrezi. I ordered the lamb, and the youth ladled a generous helping into a bowl, opened a hot cupboard and handed me three chapatis. A couple of weeks before, their hygiene standards would have driven me out the door a lot faster than I'd come in. However, on the Smart surveillance, I'd learned that hunger has an interesting effect on the eyesight. After the greasy spoons I'd been forced to feed in up and down the country, I couldn't claim the cleanliness standards of an Egon Ronay any longer. And this cafe was a long way from the bottom of my current list.

I sat down at the table next to the prost.i.tutes and helped myself to one of the spoons rammed into a drinking tumbler on the table. The first mouthful made me realize just how hungry I'd been. The curry was rich and tasty, the meat tender and plentiful. And all for less than the price of a motorway sandwich. I'd heard before that the best places to eat in Bradford were the Asian cafes and restaurants, but I'd always written it off as the inverse sn.o.bbery of pretentious foodies. For once, I was glad to be proved wrong.

I wiped my bowl clean with the last of the chapatis, and pulled out the most recent photograph I had of Moira. I shifted in my chair till I was facing the prost.i.tutes, who were enjoying a last cigarette before they went out to brave an afternoon's trade. The cafe was so small I was practically sitting among them. I flipped the photograph on to the table and cut through their desultory chatter. 'I'm looking for her,' I explained. 'I'm not Old Bill, and I'm not after her money either. I just want a chat. An old friend wants to get in touch. Nothing heavy. But if she wants to stay out of touch, that's up to her.' I dropped one of my business cards on the table by the picture.

The youngest of the three women, a tired-looking Eurasian, looked me up and down and said, 'f.u.c.k off.'

I raised my eyebrows and remarked. 'Only asking. You're sure you don't know where I'll find her? It could be a nice little earner, helping me out.'

The other two looked uncertainly at each other, but the tough little Eurasian got to her feet and retorted angrily, 'Stuff your money up your a.r.s.e. We don't like pigs round here, whether they're private pigs or ones in uniform. Why don't you just f.u.c.k off back to Manchester before you get hurt?' She turned to her companions and snarled, 'Come on, girls, I don't like the smell in here.'

The three departed, teetering on their high heels, and I picked up the photo and my card with a sigh. I hadn't really expected much co-operation, but I'd been a bit surprised by the vehemence of their reaction. Clearly the pimps in Bradford had drilled their employees in the perils of talking to strange women. I was going to have to do this the hard way, out on the streets and in the pubs till I found someone who was prepared to take the risk of talking to me.

I left the cafe and went back to move the car. I didn't feel happy about leaving it parked in such a quiet street for any length of time. I'd look for a nice big pub car park fronting on the main drag for a bit more security. As I started the engine, I was aware of a flash of movement at the edge of my peripheral vision and the pa.s.senger door was wrenched open. b.l.o.o.d.y central locking, I cursed silently. My mouth dried with fear, and I thrust the car into gear, hoping to dislodge my a.s.sailant.

With a flurry of legs and curses, a woman threw herself into the pa.s.senger seat and slammed the door. I almost stalled in my surprise. 'Just keep f.u.c.king driving,' she yelled at me.

I obeyed, of course. It seemed the only sensible thing to do. If she was carrying a blade, I wasn't going to win a close encounter inside my Nova. I flashed a glance at her and recognized one of the women who'd been in the cafe. But she gave me no chance to ask questions. At the end of the street, she shouted at me to turn left, then right. About a mile from the cafe, she stopped shouting and muttered, 'OK, you can stop now.'

I pulled in to the kerb and demanded, 'What the h.e.l.l is going on?'

She looked nervously behind us, then visibly relaxed. 'I didn't want anybody to see me talking to you. Kim would shop me soon as look at me.'

'OK,' I nodded. 'So why were you so keen to talk to me?'

'Is it true, what you said back there? You're not after Moira for anything?' There was a look in her pale blue eyes as if she desperately wanted to trust someone and wasn't sure if I was the right person. Her skin looked muddy and dead, and there was a nest of pimples round her nose. She had the look of one of life's professional victims.

'I'm not bringing her trouble,' I promised. 'But I need to find her. If she tells me she doesn't want to make contaa with her friend, that's fine by me.'

The woman, who in truth didn't look much older than nineteen, nervously chewed a hangnail. I was beginning to wish she'd light a cigarette so I'd have an excuse to open the window-the smell of her cheap perfume was making me gag. As if reading my thoughts, she lit up and exhaled luxuriously, asking, 'You're not working for her pimp, then?'

'Absolutely not. Do you know where I can find her?' I wound down the window and gulped in fresh air as un.o.btrusively as possible.

The girl shook her head and her bleached blonde hair crackled like a forest fire. 'n.o.body's seen her for about six months. She just disappeared. She was doin' a lot of smack and she was out of it most of the time. She was workin' for this Jamaican guy called Stick, and he was really p.i.s.sed off with her 'cos she wasn't workin' half the time 'cos she was out of her head. Then one day she just wasn't around no more. One of the girls asked Stick where she'd gone and he just smacked her and told her to keep her nose out.'

'Where would I find Stick?' I asked.

The girl shrugged. 'Be down the snooker hall most afternoons. There or the video shop down Lumb Lane. But you don't want to mess with Stick. He don't take s.h.i.t from n.o.body.'

'Thanks for the advice,' I said sincerely. 'Why are you telling me all this?' I added, taking thirty pounds out of my wallet.

The notes vanished with a speed Paul Daniels would have been proud of. 'I liked Moira. She was nice to me when I had my abortion. I think she maybe needs help. You find her, you tell her Gina said h.e.l.lo,' the girl said, opening the car door.

'Will do,' I said to the empty air as she slammed the door and clattered off down the pavement.

It took me ten minutes to find the snooker hall off Manningham Lane. It occupied the first floor above a row of small shops. Although it was just after two, most of the dozen or so tables were occupied. I barely merited a glance from most of the players as I walked in. I stood for a few minutes just watching. Curls of smoke spiralled upwards under the strong overhead table lights, and the atmosphere was one of masculine seriousness. This wasn't the place for a few frivolous frames with the boys after work.

As I looked on, a burly white man with tattoos snaking up both his bare arms came over to me. 'h.e.l.lo, doll. You look like you're looking for a man. Will I do?' he asked jocularly.

'Not unless you've had your skin bleached,' I told him. He looked confused. 'I'm looking for Stick,' I explained.

He raised his eyebrows. 'A nice girl like you? I don't think you're his type, doll.'

'We'll let Stick be the judge of that, shall we? Can you point him out to me?' I demanded. It seemed like a waste of time to tell this ape that I was neither nice, nor a girl, nor a doll.

He pointed down the hall. 'He's on the last table on the left. If he's not interested, doll, I'll be waiting right here.'

I bit back my retort and headed down the aisle between the three-quarter-sized tables. At the end of the room, there were four compet.i.tion-sized tables. A chunky black man was bending over the last table on the left. Behind him, in the shadows, was the man I took to be Stick. I could see how he'd earned the name. He was over six feet tall, but skinny as his cue. He looked like a stick insect, with long, thin arms protruding from a white t-shirt and twig-like legs encased in tight leather trousers. His head was hidden in the shadows, but as I approached, he emerged and I could see a gaunt face with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes surrounded by black curly hair grown in a thick halo to counteract the pinhead impression he'd otherwise have given.

At the edge of the light, I stopped and waited till the man at the table made his stroke. The red ball he'd been aiming for shuddered in the jaws of the pocket before coming to rest against one cushion. With an expression of disgust, he moved away, chalking his cue. The thin man walked up to line up his shot and I stepped forward into the light.

He frowned up at me, and I met his eyes. They were like bottomless pools, without any discernible expression. It was like looking into a can of treacle. I swallowed and said, 'George from Leeds said I should talk to you.'

Stick straightened up, but the frown stayed in place. 'I know a George from Leeds?'

'George from the Hambleton Hotel. He said you could help me.'

Stick made a great show of carefully chalking his cue, but I could tell he was sizing me up from under his heavy eyebrows. Eventually he put his cue on the table and said to his opponent, 'Be right back. Do not move a f.u.c.king ball. I have total recall.'

He strode across the hall and I followed him as he unlocked a side door and entered a stuffy, windowless office. He settled down in a scruffy armchair behind a scratched wooden desk and waved me to one of the three plastic chairs set against the wall.

He pulled a silver toothpick from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. 'I'm not like George,' he said, the traces of a Caribbean accent still strong in his voice. 'I don't usually talk to strangers.'

'So what's this? A job interview?'

He smiled. Even his teeth were narrow and pointed, like a cat's. 'You too little for a cop,' he said. 'You wearing too much for a wh.o.r.e. You not twitchy enough for a pusher. Sweatshirt like that, maybe you a roadie's lady looking for some merchandise for the band. I don't think I've got anything to be afraid of, lady.'

I couldn't help smiling. In spite of myself, I felt a sneaking liking for Stick. 'I hear you might be able to help me. I'm looking for somebody I think you know.'

'What's your interest?' he demanded, caution suddenly closing his face like a slammed door.

I'd given the matter of what to say to Stick some thought on the way there. I took a deep breath and said, 'I'm a private inquiry agent. I'm trying to get in touch with this woman.' Again, I took out the photograph of Moira and handed it over.

He glanced at it without a flicker of recognition. 'Who she?'

'Her name is Moira Pollock. Until recently, she was working the streets round here. I'm told you might know where she went.'

Stick shrugged. 'I don't know where you get your information, but I don't think I can help you, lady. Matter of interest, what you want her for?'

In spite of his nonchalant appearance, I could see Stick had taken the bait. I reeled out my prepared speech. 'Some years back, she was in the rock business. Then she dropped out of sight. But all those years, her work's been earning her money. The record company held on to it and they won't hand it over to anyone. Now her family badly need that money. They want to sue the record company. But to do that, they either need to prove Moira's dead or get her to agree.'

'Sounds like a lot of bread to me, if it's worth paying you to find out. So you working for this Moira's family?'

'A family friend,' I hedged.

He nodded, as if satisfied. 'Seems to me I might have heard her name. This family friend...They pay your expenses?'

I sighed. This job was turning into a cash-flow nightmare. And none of my payees were the kind to hand out receipts. 'How much?' I groaned.

Stick flashed his smile again and took a joint out of the desk drawer. He lit it with a gold Dunhill and took a deep drag. 'A monkey,' he drawled.

'You what?' I spluttered with genuine surprise. He had to be kidding. He couldn't really think I would pay five hundred pounds for a lead on Moira's whereabouts.

'That's the price, take it or leave it. Lot of money involved, it's got to be worth it,' Stick said calmly.

I shook my head. 'Forget it,' I replied. 'You told me yourself, you don't even know the woman. So anything you can tell me has got to be pretty chancy.'

He scowled. He'd forgotten the pit his caution had dug for him. 'Maybe I was just being careful,' he argued.

'Yeah, and maybe you're blagging me now,' I retorted. 'Look, I've had an expensive day. I can give you a hundred now, without consulting my client. Anything more and I have to take advice, and I don't think I'll get the go-ahead to pay five hundred pounds to someone who didn't even know Moira. You can take it or leave it, Stick. A definite oner now, or a probable zero later.'

He leaned back in his chair and gave a low chuckle. 'You got a business card, lady?' he asked.

Puzzled, I nodded and handed one over. He studied it, then tucked it in his pocket. 'You one tough lady, Kate Brannigan. A man never knows when he might need a private eye. OK, let me see the colour of your money.'

I counted out five twenties on the desk top, but kept my hand on the cash. 'Moira's address?' I demanded.

'She left the streets about six months ago. She checked in at the Seagull Project. It's a laundry.'

'A what?' I had a bizarre vision of Moira loading tablecloths into washing machines.

Stick grinned. 'A place where they clean you up. A drug project.'

That sounded more like it. 'Where is this Seagull Project?' I asked.

'It's on one of those side streets behind the photography museum. I can't remember the name of it, but it's the third or fourth on the left as you go up the hill. A couple of terraced houses knocked together.'

I got to my feet. 'Thanks, Stick.'

'No problem. You find Moira and she gets her bread, you tell her she owes Stick the other four hundred pounds for information received.'

9.

I parked the car in a pay and display behind the National Film and Television Museum. I walked round to the museum foyer and found a telephone booth which miraculously contained a phone book. I looked up the Seagull Project, and copied its address and number into my notebook. I checked my watch and decided I deserved a coffee, so I walked upstairs to the coffee bar and settled myself down in a window seat looking out over the city centre.

The pale spring sun had broken through the grey clouds, and the old Victorian buildings looked positively romantic. Built on the sweatshops of the wool industry, the once prosperous city had fought its urban decay and depression by jumping on the tourism bandwagon that's turning England into one gigantic theme park. Now that the nearby Yorkshire countryside had been translated into The Bronte Country, Bradford had seized its opportunity with both hands. Even the biscuits in the tearooms and snack bars are called Bronte. But it was the Asian community who'd really revitalized the city's slum areas, producing oases of industrial and wholesaling prosperity. I'd been around a few of those in the past few weeks, hot on the trail of Billy Smart's personal mobile circus.

I tore my eyes away from the view and looked up the Seagull Project's address in my street directory. Stick's information was sound so far. The street was third on the left, off the hill that climbed up the side of the Alhambra Theatre. I finished my coffee and set out on foot.

Five minutes later, I was outside two three-storey stone-built terraced houses that had been knocked together with a board on the front proclaiming 'Seagull Project'. I stood around uncertainly for a few minutes, not at all sure what was the best way to play it. The one thing I was sure about was that introducing myself and explaining my mission was the certain route to failure. Bitter experience has taught me that voluntary organizations make the Trappists look like blabbermouths.