Monty handed her another note.
Polly sneezed again. He handed her one, too. ‘Bless you.’
***
He found her in a bus shelter, just down from the railway station. A nervous-looking middle-aged couple hovered just beyond the shelter, not wishing to get too close to the feral-looking woman curled up on the bench. They clasped matching green grocery bags, his with milk and orange juice; toilet paper peeked over the top of hers. Monty glanced from one to the other of them.
‘She was like this when we got here. I think she’s just asleep. She’s not sick or anything.’ The man sounded as if he was expecting to be accused of leaving the woman to die.
Monty moved over to the bench, brushed back strands of knotted hair and felt for her carotid. ‘She’s okay.’
The whoosh of a bus’s air brakes masked any sigh of relief the couple might have uttered.
‘This is ours,’ the woman said, waving a hurry-up to her partner and diving for the opening door of the bus. The driver shrugged his question at Monty. He shook his head and the bus took off from the curb, leaving him alone with the woman on the bench.
He shook her shoulder. ‘Champagne Charlie?’
She moaned. Without opening her eyes she said, ‘Whadayawant?’
‘I want to buy you a coffee, have a chat.’
‘Piss off.’
‘Just a chat, Charlie.’
‘Fifty will get you a blow job.’ She was on automatic, still hadn’t opened her eyes.
‘That’s not what I want. I want to talk to you. It’s about my daughter, Lorna Dunn. I’ve been told she was a mate of yours.’
At the mention of Lorna’s name, a pair of bleary brown eyes opened. Charlie pulled herself into a sitting position, filling the air with an unpleasant musky odour as she attempted to focus on Monty.
‘You look like her, it’s the...’ She pointed to her own hair and made pinching gestures with her fingers, as if trying to pluck lost words from the air.
‘That’s right, red hair’s a family trait.’
Monty tried to assess Charlie’s physical and mental condition. Stick-like legs were curled under her body in a position unique to the female sex. Above her legs, concealing little, she wore a strip of red micro skirt. There was no doubt in his mind the sleeves of her black vinyl jacket hid a highway of track marks. Under the streetlight the pupils of her sunken brown eyes were as big and round as eight balls. He was beginning to wonder if she was worth the effort when she finally spoke again. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘There’s a McDonald’s over the road,’ he nodded towards the golden arches. ‘I’ll buy you dinner.’
She unfurled her legs and made as if to stand, then seemed to think better of it. Bringing her arm to her mouth she started to suck on the skin of her wrist, leaning forward on the bench to view each side of the bus shelter as she did so.
‘Maybe I’d better not,’ she mumbled through her sucking. ‘If Pedro catches me slacking on the job, I’m history.’
Monty handed her a twenty. As she reached and took it he saw how the top of her wrist was raw from sucking. ‘Tell your pimp this was for services provided. I’ll give you more after you’ve had your feed and you can put it in one of the station lockers so he can’t take it from you.’
The streetlight caught the nicotine-tarnish of her smile.
***
Champagne Charlie took a bite of her second Big Mac, running a weary hand through her tangle of dyed black hair as she chewed. Aware that she wasn’t getting something for nothing, she regarded him through eyes dark with suspicion.
‘Well?’
In between sips of a milkshake Monty gave a similar story to the one he had spun Peter Sbresni, only in this version the pathos fell like tears from each sentence.
Despite his Academy-Award-winning performance, his words seemed to have little effect. She picked up an empty burger wrapper and began to lick the juices with a long, studded tongue. Monty ignored the pathetic attempt at sensuality and started to reminisce on Lorna’s upbringing, striving to touch the right emotional chord. Before he knew it he was recounting one of Izzy’s antics.
‘I’ll never forget catching her in the kitchen with an empty bag of flour. She was about three years old, it was just before her mother and me split. When we walked into the room it was like suddenly being caught in the middle of a blizzard. She’d said she wanted to make it pretty like in her Hansel and Gretel book.’
Charlie put her burger wrapper down and scratched at her arm through the vinyl jacket. ‘I never knew my parents, brought up in foster care.’ Her words were vacant and empty of expression, as if she was too far gone even for bitterness.
But then she surprised him. ‘She was always talking about you. Said you’d promised to take her to Disneyland when she was a kid. The silly cow thought that’s why you robbed the liquor store.’ She giggled and folded one of her fries in half before popping it into her mouth.
Monty stopped sucking on his shake as a wave of shame crashed over him. How easily he had slipped into the stereotype of the ex-con, never even contemplating that the real Dunn, still locked away in prison, might have genuinely cared for his daughter.
Monty tried to meet Charlie’s eye, but she looked at everything except him. She licked at the specks of salt on her lips as she stared around the place, a creamy strand of mayonnaise glistening on her chin.
‘The cops said Reece Harper killed her,’ he said.
‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!’ she sang to the restaurant as if it were the chorus of a song. A bit wacky was clearly an understatement. He made a placating motion with his hands. ‘Shhhh ... do you want us to be thrown out before you’ve finished your burger?’
She laughed, high and sharp. ‘I have finished.’ She burped to prove it and sat down again. Monty handed her a cigarette and they both lit up. There was a No Smoking sign over the door but he doubted anyone would be brave enough to challenge them. He pushed a paper napkin towards her, hoping she’d wipe the mayonnaise off with it. She didn’t.
He returned to his question. ‘So, why not Harper?’
Charlie stared at him through the curling smoke of her cigarette, trying to remember. For a girl like this, four years must seem like a lifetime.
‘I sometimes gave him a turn, felt kinda sorry for him. He was a bit slow, but always a gentleman. He would never have hurt no one.’
‘Some of the other girls said he was pissed off that night because Lorna turned him down.’
‘Lorna was more choosy, she wasn’t so good at closing her eyes and thinking of England.’ She giggled at the tired joke.
Monty pulled his face into an expression of fatherly concern.
‘Reece stank like a fart and was ugly as a sack of smashed crabs, but I gave him a mercy fuck all the same. We talked for a while after, then he calmed down and went home.’
‘So, you mean after the fight with Lorna he...’
‘Reece was no murderer, that’s what I told the cops then and that’s what I still say now.’
‘Remember which pigs you spoke to?’
She said nothing. Her eyes narrowed as she jetted a stream of smoke into Monty’s face. He knew he was onto something; it was as if she was trying to think things through, trying to balance the reward with the risk.
Finally she said, ‘You said you’d give me some dosh for the railway locker.’
Monty dug into his pocket and produced a crumpled fifty. He unfolded the note and laid it on the table just out of Charlie’s reach, then repeated his question.