2
“Any of you lot seen Shell?”
Five pairs of young eyes reluctantly left their appreciation of Orlando Bloom’s glistening pectorals and glanced towards the door.
“’ere, Vicki. Come and get a load of this.” The invitation was issued by a skinny girl with bright red hair and a nose stud. But Vicki Flinn had laid eyes – and other body parts – on more naked flesh than Stud and the other kids had wolfed down TV dinners. She was unmoved by heat’s latest centrefold, spread as he was across a corner table at the Copper Kettle caff.
“I’m in a rush, Rose. Any idea where she is?” Vicki asked.
Maybe the nasal attachment gave the girl an authority denied the others, but Rose was clearly their mouthpiece. “We ain’t seen her for ages. She ain’t been in school all week. You ’ang round with ’er more than us, anyroad.”
Vicki frowned. It was true. She was a couple of years older than Shell. Been on the game that much longer. Shell was the only one who’d shown any interest. Rose and her cronies got what they wanted from shoplifting, not dropping their knickers. Kids who lived at home and had family – such as it was – didn’t want to know. Shell was different. She and Vicki had big plans. They were going to work the streets together, get some readies, then leg it. They’d get out of Birmingham, start a business some place: hairdressing maybe, or a sandwich bar. First she’d got to get Shell away from Mad Charlie.
“You sure she ain’t been in?” It was nearly 10am. They were supposed to have met outside the Odeon at nine, go to Mac’s for a bite to eat, then pick up a few bits and pieces in town. Rose’s attention was elsewhere; one of her badly-bitten nails was tracing a line round Orlando’s navel. “Rose! Are you listenin’?”
“I’ve told you once,” she glared. “You wannit in writin’ or sumfink?”
Given the girl’s patchy school attendance, Vicki reckoned that was well optimistic. She stood in the middle of the floor, chewing her bottom lip, working out the next move. Her red leather skirt was only slightly longer than the leopard print blouson she’d nicked off the market. There was a ladder running up the inside of one black stocking.
“You want somethin’?”
Vicki turned. The question came from a huge woman with a washed-out face behind a none-too-clean counter. Her hair looked like a mauve meringue. A nylon cap was perched on top, but it was only a gesture towards public health regulations. Any beneficial effect was largely negated by the smouldering cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth. Vicki curled her lip.
“You’re jokin’, ain’t you?”
The woman plonked sausage-shaped fingers on the mounds of fat floundering around the vague location of her hips. “I ain’t Benny ’ill.” Vicki watched the cigarette keep time with the woman’s mouth, apart from odd flecks of ash that were floating towards the Eccles cakes. “And if you ain’t buyin’ you can bugger off. I don’t want your sort in ’ere.” She extracted the dog-end and ground it underfoot. “And get a move on or I’ll call the Old Bill.”
Vicki knew that after a quick once-over, the woman had jumped to several fast conclusions. She dragged a hand through her Gothic crop and tugged the hem of her skirt. Her stick-thin legs were none too steady atop pink plastic wedgies. The place wasn’t crowded and it wasn’t the Ritz but she felt a blush creeping up her neck and over her face. The miserable cow. There was no need to talk to her like that. She felt like giving her a mouthful and throwing a cup of cold tea in her ugly mush. Still, the old bag had given her an idea. In the girls’ line of business, cops were an occupational hazard: she reckoned her mate had been nicked. It’d be a first for young Shell. She smiled picturing the girl cooling her heels in a police cell down at Highgate nick. She’d better get herself down there, find out when they were letting Shell out. The overnight accommodation might well have been at Her Majesty’s pleasure, but it sure as hell wouldn’t have done a lot for Ms Lucas’s.