But sometimes, you know, it's difficult to let go. So I picked up my home phone, this time not caring who was listening in, and made a call to Malik's mobile.
It rang ten times before he answered, and when he heard my voice I couldn't tell whether he was happy that it was me or not. I wondered briefly if he knew that his superiors were on to me.
He asked me how I was feeling, having presumably heard that I'd phoned in sick, and I told him I was OK, just a little under the weather.
'I haven't been sleeping too well. I think I need a holiday.'
'Why don't you take a couple of weeks? You're bound to be due it.'
'I am. Maybe I will.'
'Anyway, what can I do for you, Dennis?'
Dennis. I was never going to get used to that from him. 'How did the raids go this morning? Have we laid any charges yet?'
'We pulled in everyone we were meant to, but no charges yet. You know what it's like with these kids. It's like treading on egg-shells. You're not even allowed to raise your voice with them in case they get upset.'
'I'm sure one or more of them did the old lady.'
'I think everyone's sure of that. It's proving it that's the problem, not that I have to tell you that.'
'How is she?'
'The old lady? Touch and go. What I think personally is that one way or another she's going to die as a result of what happened. It might take a few weeks – it might even take a few months – but either way, those kids were responsible.'
I agreed with him. 'Look, the reason I'm calling is the Miriam Fox case.'
'Oh yeah?' He spoke the words without much enthusiasm. I told him what Carla had told me about Anne's disappearance while he listened at the other end. When I'd finished, he asked me what I was doing talking to Carla. 'I thought you weren't going to bother contacting her.'
'She contacted me. I told her to if anyone else went missing. And this one seems like one coincidence too many. Two young girls, both no more than fourteen, disappear within a month of each other from the same children's home. At the same time, a girl both of them have had some association with, and who was best friends with one of them, is murdered. All three were prostitutes working the same area of King's Cross. I know people disappear, and I know we've got Mark Wells in custody, and that the evidence against him's good, but something about this just isn't right.'
'Like you said, people disappear…'
'Yeah, I know. I know. People disappear all the time, especially teenage crackheads, but with this frequency? And we know one met a violent end, and one of the others was assaulted during an attempted abduction just a matter of days ago, something I was witness to. And now we've got this thing where the evidence against the suspect in the murder – the shirt – is linked to one of the missing girls.'
'I wouldn't read too much into that, Dennis. Giving the shirt away to someone who's not around to deny it is just an easy excuse for Wells to use.'
'Has anyone been trying to find her?'
'Who? Molly Hagger? Not that I'm aware of. But if you're that concerned, you should be talking to Knox, not me. Why don't you see what he has to say about it?'
'Because I know what he'll say, Asif. That we've got a man in custody, that there's no evidence to warrant extending the inquiry further…'
'And he'd have a point, wouldn't he? You're right, it all seems a bit coincidental, but what can we do about it? On Hagger and the other girl, there's no evidence that anything untoward's happened, and, as you say, they're not the sort of girls whose disappearance is going to cause anyone any surprises.'
'I just wanted to run it by you. See what you thought.'
'And I appreciate you thinking of me. What I'd say is this. It's strange, but strange is all. Maybe you ought to keep your ear to the ground and see how things pan out, maybe have a few words with some of the street girls, but I wouldn't worry about it too much yet. There's plenty of other things to concern yourself with, and you shouldn't be thinking about them anyway. You ought to be in bed resting and getting yourself well so you can come back here and help us out.'
But I'd never be going back to help them out. I'd miss Malik, even if he had started calling me Dennis and dispensing advice just a little bit too readily. He was a good copper, though, and the thought that perhaps I had played a small part in getting him that way felt good. I told him he'd be doing me a favour if he could keep his ears open for any relevant developments among the King's Cross whores, and he told me he would. I thanked him, said that I'd see him shortly, promised him I'd get to bed straight away and take it easy, then rang off.
But I didn't go to bed. Instead, I spent the rest of the day mulling over my plans and making preparations; occasionally phoning Danny's mobile, always without success; sometimes stopping to look out of the window at the iron-grey sky and pondering the fates of Molly Hagger and Anne Taylor; wondering what secrets Miriam Fox had taken to her grave.
And all the time something was bothering me, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Something I'd missed; something that flickered and danced round the recesses of my memory like the shadows of a flame, irritating me because it was important in some ill-defined way, but I was unable to coax it out, however hard I tried.
And as darkness fell on my last night as a serving police officer, and the rain the forecasters had warned us about finally swept in from the west, I realized I was still just as ignorant of what had happened in the Miriam Fox murder case as I had been on the morning I'd first stared down at her bloodstained body.
28
I phoned a minicab to take me down to the Gallan Club, and it got me there at about a quarter to eight. It was raining steadily and, though not as cold as the previous night, there was still a bite in the air.
I'd never been to the Gallan before, even though it was only about half a mile from where I lived. I'd walked past it plenty of times though, most notably the previous day when they'd had a blackboard outside saying that tonight was contemporary poets night. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but I suppose it made a change from sitting around in the pub. It was quiz night at the Chinaman as well, and it would be the first time I'd missed it for non-work reasons for as long as I could remember.
The interior of the Gallan was small and dimly lit. The stage, empty when I walked in, was at the end furthest from the door, while the rest of the floor space was taken up by evenly clustered round tables. A bar on the left-hand side ran the length of the room. All of the tables were occupied, and a small crowd milled about the bar. Most of those present were the type of people you'd expect at a poetry evening where the headline act was someone called Maiden Faith Ararngard: fresh-faced students in long coats, sipping delicately at their beers; a group of eco-warriors with an overabundance of piercings and pantomime clothes; and a few older intellectual types who looked as though they spent every waking hour in the hunt for hidden meanings to pointless questions.
I'd half expected this type of line-up and had dressed down as far as my wardrobe would allow so that I didn't look too much out of place. It hadn't worked. Faded jeans and a sweatshirt with a hole in the elbow were never going to blend me in with this crowd, although at least I was pretty much guaranteed there'd be no undercover coppers in here. Like me, they'd have stuck out a mile.