We watched SOCO removing currency in varying states of distress from the dustbin. Some of it was unrecognizable, some of it looked fresher than the cash in my wallet. No doubt there’d be bills somewhere which were completely untouched by fire. So far all the visible notes had been in twenties, in stacks of what looked like thousands.
I looked at Sutty. ‘Still think I put it there?’
My phone started to vibrate as he gave me an evil look, and I used it as an excuse to walk down the road. It was the Chief Scene of Crime Officer returning my earlier call.
It wasn’t the news I’d been hoping for.
‘The two other dustbins have been landfilled already,’ I told Sutty when I returned. ‘They spoke to one of the refuse guys and he said they were basically ashes anyway.’
‘I’d say the same thing if I found a few grand in the back of my truck, but I guess that’s that.’ Even Sutty sounded disappointed. It was galling to know we’d been standing so close to answers on the smiling man in each instance, and that we’d let them slip through our fingers. Even if the contents had been incinerated, a forensic examination might have told us something about him.
‘How much longer?’ Sutty barked at SOCO.
‘We’ll be here a while,’ said the officer. ‘But there’s no chance we’ll run these serial numbers today, if that’s what you mean.’
Sutty exhaled through his nose for what seemed like an impossible amount of time, but when he spoke he sounded almost calm, nearly rational. I realized he might be afraid.
‘Given that both your team and mine have let crucial evidence slip through our fingers, I suggest we all get a move on.’
‘Couldn’t agree more. I’m doing my job. You breathing down my neck won’t make it any quicker.’
I was surprised when Sutty pursed his lips, swallowed an insult and nodded.
‘Collier,’ he said, turning, moving like a black cloud towards the car.
I followed at a distance.
7
‘There’s been a development,’ said Sutty, slamming the door of the box, and leaning against it. I sat at the table, opposite Collier.
He smiled. ‘So I’m free to go?’
‘Be still, my beating fists,’ said Sutty. ‘A development in the case. Not medical science. You’re still halitosis on legs.’
‘What’s halitosis?’
‘It means your breath could take that door off its hinges. Might be your quickest way out of here.’ Collier looked at the table. ‘Thought not. There’s been a development in the suspicious death at the Palace. The short version is that there’s money involved. Now, that suggests a few things to me. One of them being organized crime. So it just got a lot more important and you just got a lot more fucked. If it’s nothing to do with you, tell me how your key card ended up in room 413 at the foot of a dead body.’
‘What?’ He looked between us. ‘I left it at work, on the desk.’
Sutty watched him closely. ‘What about this hooker? This Cherry …’
‘I don’t know her real name,’ said Collier. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’
‘How’d you meet?’
‘That bar over the road from the Palace, after a shift, the rock club.’
‘Grand Central?’ I said.
‘Yeah.’
Sutty pushed himself off the door. ‘She a rocker, Marcus?’
‘Y’know, bit alternative, maybe a bit gothic. Anyway, she started talkin’ to me. I could tell she was on the clock so I offered her a deal. Told her I worked in an empty hotel. Maybe she could use a room there to trick out of?’
‘And what,’ I said. ‘You take a cut?’
He didn’t answer.
‘No,’ Sutty gurgled. ‘Not a cut. You wanted to make a friend. Forensics from 305 was interesting. That is the room you had her tricking out of, isn’t it, Marcus? Your DNA profile was one of seventeen found in that bed.’
‘So what? She’s pretty,’ he said. ‘Colourful …’
‘Well, I’m afraid it looks like someone’s toned her down a bit.’ Collier looked up. ‘We’re working on the assumption that this girl wedged open a fire door and went back to the Palace after your shift, when you thought you’d kicked her out. Same night someone brained the security guard and a dead body appeared on the top floor. She saw someone, or someone saw her, or both. Now, we’ve been to her address and she’s gone. Neighbour says the police dragged her away, but guess what? We didn’t.’
Collier was sweating.
I leaned forward. ‘You can do the right thing, here. This girl isn’t in any trouble, she’d be doing us a favour. There’s no reason not to help on this one.’ I looked at Sutty. He nodded. ‘It’ll work for you, too. Screwing a girl’s not the crime of the century, but this bloke in the Palace just might be. Help us out and we’ll put in a good word for you.’
Collier looked at me. ‘I’ll talk to you,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want him in the room.’
Sutty shrugged. Opened the door and stepped out. Once he did, Collier let out a sigh.
He looked miserable.
‘It’s the truth I don’t know Cherry’s real name …’
‘But there’s got to be something. A regular she was seeing, a pimp she mentioned …’
He looked at me. ‘I don’t know his real name.’
‘His?’ I said. ‘Cherry’s a cross-dresser? A man?’
He nodded down at the table. I was already out of my seat and going for the door.
8
Sutty hung up the phone and started sanitizing his hands. ‘That canal body-dump,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Stromer says there’s no evidence of gender realignment or anything like that, but the guy was wearing a lot of make-up. Obviously that could make him anyone from your generation, but he did have a tattoo above his groin …’
‘Of?’
‘The three winning reels of a fruit machine. Cherries. So I think it’s safe to assume the queen is dead.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘Crushed larynx, apparently. Stromer’s sending the report.’
I hit the desk. ‘We must have been right behind them.’
‘Hm,’ said Sutty.
‘Cherry saw something in the Palace. We can be sure of that now.’
‘And someone must’ve seen her. So from the top …’
‘The smiling man walks up and down Oxford Road for a few days, burning money in dustbins …’
‘We don’t know the others were money,’ said Sutty.
‘OK, burning something, personal effects. Then, for whatever reason, he breaks into the Palace and heads to the fourth floor.’
‘Where either he, or someone else, brains our security guard.’
‘Cherry sees whatever happens, and the smiling man ends up dead.’
‘Then someone traces her, him, whatever, crushes her throat and dumps her in the canal.’ He looked at me. ‘Fucking us in the process.’
‘If she was working out of there, and Marcus wasn’t with her, it stands to reason she had another client, someone who can tell us what happened.’
We looked at each other for a second, then I got up and went down the hall looking for uniform. It took me a while to find the right person. I needed a young woman, someone the girls on the corners might talk to, and someone who knew their operation well enough not to be messed around.
Constable Naomi Black came highly recommended.
I found her in the canteen. She got points for sitting alone, even more for reading, and probably an extra few years on her life expectancy for bringing a packed lunch.
I knew her face from the backgrounds of various crime scenes in the last few months, but as far as I could remember we’d never spoken. She was brand new to the job but already had a reputation for being organized, concise in her reports and completely off-limits in her private life. She’d probably be my boss in three years.
‘Constable Black,’ I said, sitting down opposite her. ‘How do you feel about some extra work?’
She looked at me dubiously then smiled. ‘Sell it to me.’
Having explained the situation, I left my informal meeting with her somewhat cheered. We were at the absolute beginnings of a lead, and I felt like she was a good fit for following it up. When I’d told her the potential reward for her canvassing the city’s streetwalkers was probably me buying her a drink, she’d smiled politely.
‘Can I just get the drink, or do you have to come with it?’
I smiled. She had good instincts.
By the time I got back to the office, Sutty was on his way out.
‘What’s happening?’ I said.
‘Had a call from SOCO …’
‘They’ve traced the cash?’