At first it hadn’t made sense, and then it had. There was nobody that would’ve taken a blind bit of notice, except herself. And the sodding cops were of course on the completely wrong end of the stick, barking up the wrong tree, hadn’t a clue that just because it was an escort service, that didn’t mean it had to be sex and nothing but.
She turned away as two of these police came out of the door and gave her a look. God, she thought, a girl can’t even stop a bit before she’s accosted.
“Hello, sunshine,” said one, cuter than the other.
The other said, “Time to move it along, love.”
Fuck you. That’s what she wanted to say. Just fuck you and the horse you came in on. You want to keep running around this murder with your pants down, go ahead, arseholes.
Standing there, leering, they quite put her off. But not being one to back away immediately from any uncomfortable situation, she reached into a slim shoulder bag made of silvery disks that lapped over each other like fish scales. She removed her compact and opened it. She didn’t need to study herself, her eyes or lips or stylish haircut that cost a fortune; she just wanted to assert her right to stand on a city street.
The two uniforms stood there with their big bland smiles and looked at her as if no matter how good she looked, she’d never get invited to the party.
If only they knew. If only they knew that with what she knew, well, she could be a career changer for them, move them right up to captain or inspector or something. If they knew what she knew, she’d be at that party pronto; she’d be ushered in, sat down, and served a glass of Champs straightaway.
She checked her watch-small, platinum, a face circled by some kind of stone she didn’t know, except to know they weren’t diamonds. A gift from one of her clients.
She couldn’t stop here, nor did she want to, with these two buffoons with their truncheons and guns and grins and City of London police insignia on their uniforms, thinking they were special or better than the Met.
Yet there was something-a conscience?-a little brightness in her she couldn’t put out that had her taking a step toward the station door before the two seemed to form a wall against her entry. But she thought of Kate, the best among them she knew, who worked days as a stenotypist and was happy doing just that. Kate hadn’t liked being with King’s Road Companions, but she’d wanted the money to put aside for the future and to take care of an old lady, not even family but a godmother or someone. Whoever paid any attention to godparents, anyway? Well, that was Kate. Kate had loved the very ordinariness of her steno job, liked having to catch the tube every morning, liked being jolted and crushed before erupting into the “antic air” (as she called it) of Piccadilly. Kate had loved almost the dullness of the job. Who could love the dullness of things? she wondered. But if you liked it, did the dullness then shine? She stopped at that thought, thinking she must have a little philosophy in her.
The two coppers still stood there, leering.
So she turned and walked away into the night. The days of the Smoke were long gone, and she wasn’t old enough to have seen it anyway, but there was still the heavy mist that slid in from the river, which wasn’t far off.
A lot of the girls had stopped temporarily when police said they might be in harm’s way, given the two recent murders, that a killer was targeting escorts, and they’d brought up Jack the Ripper-or, more likely, the newspapers had done that.
She stopped in Newgate Street to adjust one of the straps of her sandals. They weren’t what you’d choose for walking, but she hadn’t far to go, only to St. Paul’s. She wondered if her guy’d got religion or something. That was a laugh.
They were to meet round the west side of the cathedral, and he’d said that if she got there before he did, just to wait on a bench in the churchyard, wait by the Becket statue. He was always late, but what did she care? He had to pay for the missed time anyway.
She had started walking again, shoes now under controclass="underline" beautiful shoes, awful walking. St. Paul’s loomed before her. Made her shudder, almost. Someday she would really have to go up to the Whispering Gallery. She’d lived in London all her life, in Camden Town and Cricklewood, and not done a tenth of the things tourists did.
He wasn’t there, no surprise. She wandered into the churchyard, found the statue-whoever Becket was, they didn’t keep him in very good condition, as he looked to be falling apart in these bushes. As she looked at the statue, there came the bells. The reverberation shocked her and she clamped her hands over her ears. Nine o’clock. Five more strikes.
Into the din, or rather through it, came a voice: “DeeDee.”
Deirdre turned and got another shock.
There was a gun. There was her scream. There were the bells.
39
The unflappable DI Dennis Jenkins from Snow Hill station said to Jury, “We pulled her up straightaway only because she had form-soliciting four years ago in Shepherd Market. Name’s Deirdre Small. ID in the bag-” Jenkins gestured toward a clutch of silver scales now with one of the technicians. There were several others scouring the walk on their knees.
Deirdre Small lay in the center of them on the walk, a small ship adrift in her own wake.
“So here’s another pro working for an escort service.”
“Same agency?”
Jenkins shook his head. “This one’s called Smart Set. Has the ring of upmarket sophistication, no? Anyway, I guess it is a leg up-pardon the pun-from the street. Although Shepherd Market… well, if you’re going to trawl the curb, might as well choose Mayfair, no?”
Jury’s smile was slight, almost apologetic, as if Deirdre Small had opened her eyes and caught him at it.
“Same MO, it looks like. Close range, chest. Whether the same weapon, we won’t know till later. It must have happened at nine.”
Jury frowned. “Then you got here fast. It’s only nine-forty.” The bell marking the half hour had rung ten minutes ago.
“That’s because the person who found her got to us fast. He’s over there-tall guy, balding. He was her boyfriend, or client, I should say; he said he was to meet her here at nine and he was seven or eight minutes late. So he found her at nine-oh-seven or -eight. He must have been breathing down the shooter’s neck, assuming Deirdre Small was on time. He says she always was. Now, my guess is the killer took advantage of the bells”-Jenkins looked upward toward St. Paul’s bell tower-“to muffle the shot.”
At this point, one of the SOCO team put something in Jenkins’s hand and walked off.
Jury frowned. “But the client could have walked right in on the shooting.” He paused. “Unless, of course, he was the one.”
“My instinct says…” Jenkins squinted at the tall man with the half-bald head. “No. He was pretty quick off the mark calling emergency. He could simply have walked away, left the body to be found by one of these good people.” He nodded toward the ring of onlookers being discouraged from coming closer by the crime scene tape and the half-dozen uniforms in front of it. “But, then, on the other hand, he might have thought his name was down on the books and he’d be picked up later and in much hotter water. Still, I think, no, it wasn’t him.”
“If someone else, whoever it was had to be pretty nervy. That is, unless he knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The boyfriend’s habitual lateness.”
Jenkins turned to look at Jury. “That would mean someone who knew them.”
“Friend of hers? Friend of his?”
“He’s married. Unsurprisingly.”
“Jealous wife?”
Jenkins shrugged. “It’s possible. Possible he was followed, too. Or she was.”
A metal gurney was being loaded onto an ambulance.