Absent Light (17 page)

The woman led her past a row of shops. And then it dawned on Helen that, far from being in control of the situation,
Freya
might be luring her into a carefully prepared trap. Helen stopped dead in her tracks. It made sense to turn back, or, at the very least, let someone know where she was going.
Never go anywhere without alerting a colleague,
she'd once been instructed. Reaching for her mobile phone, she decided to call Stratton. Then she remembered his response the last time: disbelief coupled with concern for her mental state. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. There were plenty of people about. It wasn't as if she were walking down an alley alone. Fuck it, she thought, slipping the phone back into her bag, pressing on.

This suburb of town seemed better off, less run-down, she thought. She actually passed a pub she'd once had a drink in with Ed. It sold Banks's bitter and white wine on tap that tasted vile. She'd searched in vain for somewhere to chuck it. Then, just as the memory faded, the woman tagged onto the end of a bus-queue. Helen moved off a few paces, and waited for some other travellers to line up before falling in behind them.

Two buses arrived, off-loading and redistributing their cargo. The woman moved forward. She talked to nobody but gave a deferential nod to a black man with a scarred face. Stealing a glance, Helen saw the woman's skin had a ghastly grey pallor and, despite the chill night air, she was sweating. Another bus arrived, marked for Smethwick. Some hung back, others got on, Freya included. Helen pushed forward, praying there'd be enough room on the bus for herself as well as the three others ahead of her. She just made it but was forced to stand. Feeling horribly exposed, she tried to disguise her height by bending her knees slightly and shrinking behind a fleshy woman wearing a bright purple sari.

By looking in the window's reflection, she could see that Freya was sitting roughly halfway down the bus. She had her head down as if she, too, were avoiding detection.

At the first opportunity, Helen sat down. They'd been travelling for roughly ten minutes. It felt warm and she felt sleepy. She looked out of the window and viewed the urban hinterland. High-rise flats stood like sentinels. Minarets spiked the skyline. The road was plagued with road works and drivers intent on cutting each other up at every opportunity. Rolled coils of razor wire sat on the tops of walls protecting factories. In among the decay, there were also neat rows of houses with satellite dishes. Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, lay further on, midway between the industrial sprawl of West Bromwich and Perry Barr. In sunshine, it looked like a thriving, bustling neighbourhood. In truth, it was the seat of Yardie power where murder and gun-crime were rife.

The bus stopped. Helen wasn't sure where. There was a brief, silent exchange of glances among the passengers.
Freya
got up, walked straight past Helen and got off. Helen did the same. Fortunately, there were others.

The urban landscape changed again. They passed a sex-shop with metal bars at the window and a yellow neon sign promising
Adult Entertainment.
Next to it was a kebab shop that was closed, a dodgy-looking dental surgery with dung-coloured Venetian blinds, and a second-hand clothing shop. Although the woman seemed intent on getting to her destination, Helen couldn't be sure that she was unaware of being followed, couldn't be certain that it wasn't part of a plan. Still she pressed on. She hadn't come this far to turn back.

The shops faded into obscurity and Helen found herself walking through a maze of deprived-looking yet familiar streets and eventually out into a wasteland that seemed to be the result of a battle. The landscape was littered with burnt-out cars and redundant sofas. The mothers were thin, the children thinner. But the young men, black and white, looked strong. Strong with hate. In that underworld of a place, the only things that seemed to move were people's eyes. She realised that she'd been there once before, not on foot, alone, but in a locked police vehicle with many others. SOCO had been called out to a squalid house where six black men had been hacked to death with machetes. Helen gave an involuntary shiver at the memory. She remembered the blood. Litres of the stuff, fresh, not rust-coloured or black, but brilliant, oxygenated red. The floor was slippery with it.

Then Freya turned round and looked straight at her.

Helen froze, stood quite still. They stood there, eyeing each other, for no more than seconds though it felt like for ever. When Freya took up the lead again, she moved more swiftly, dodging in and out of alleyways, displaying a razor-sharp knowledge of the territory. Seriously unnerved, Helen again resumed the chase. It was risky. It was foolhardy. She was engaging in a dangerous game and, worse still, her concentration felt impaired. Fear was taking its toll but she had no choice. She had to stay with it, to know, to find out. Desperate to locate her bearings, she found herself casting her eyes over her surroundings. Boarded-up houses sat alongside their run-down neighbours. Of those that were intact, some had steel doors and waste pipes that only came half way down the walls, the hallmark of the crackhouse. At once, she thought back to the marks on the woman's arms.
Track-marks,
she thought, joining the pieces together. Perhaps this was where she got her fix, she thought, slowing, glancing around, taking her eye off her quarry. Maybe that explained her sweating pallor, her need for money. Stop it, Helen told herself, don't run ahead of the evidence.

Then she lost her.

In an alien part of the city, with no idea where Freya was, Helen reasoned this was no time for panic. It was, nevertheless, time to get out. Retracing her steps back to what seemed more like a main road, keeping her head down, breathing slowly, walking quickly rather than running and drawing attention to herself, she emerged into what passed for a community with the sense of bobbing to the water's surface for a much-needed gulp of air. In spite of her inner grip on her feelings, her head pounded. Her brow and upper lip were beaded with sweat. She felt nauseous as she had a flashback of the time her parents picked her up from hospital and recalled her mum's expression of surprise.

“
He?”

“
Most muggers are blokes, Mum.”

“
Silly me, of course.”

Was her mother confused because she knew that it wasn't a man? Did she laugh because she'd already crossed paths with the woman who called herself Freya Stephens?

Helen pulled out her mobile phone to call Stratton but just as suddenly Freya reappeared, walked up the road and boarded a bus for Oldbury. Casting caution to the wind, Helen buried the phone in her bag and jumped on behind her. Soon she found herself swaying and bracing in time with the vehicle's stuttering motion. Although it was now dark, Helen easily pictured the brutal landscape. She could already sense the change in density in the air, and the distinctive smell of soot and metal even though most of the surrounding steel and chain factories and engineering businesses had long since shut down. Early on in her career, she'd gone to a disused factory there. She remembered driving into a yard pitted by potholes and dark slicks of oil. It was surrounded by tall walls of iron mesh, through which a street of impoverished houses could be seen, their walls caked in graffiti. Ascending a narrow flight of iron steps, her white protective suit rustling, the heels of her boots, and those of her colleagues, chimed with each tread. Inside one of the offices was the victim of a gangland killing. Thinking about it now made her want to close down inside. The unfortunate male had been flayed before death. She photographed the scene and felt as if she'd personally witnessed his agony. Even after her heart-rate settled back to a normal rhythm, the surge of adrenaline dissipated, leaving her feeling faintly sick, the images had stayed with her for months afterwards.

They'd stopped again. Freya got off the bus. Helen stalked her. A keen wind had picked up, knifing her in the face. For a heartbeat, she wondered again about the intelligence of coming alone, but her need to know, her desire for justice, was stronger.

Freya seemed to be walking with more ease, less urgency, indicating that she thought she'd shaken off her pursuer. She turned off into a concrete maze of decrepit-looking dwellings with sporadic street lighting. They were all the same, broken-down, ravaged, uniformly depressing. Groups of young black men with lustreless eyes watched from shadowy doorways. Helen had only a vague idea of where she was, and it occurred to her, as she walked through ravenous-looking streets, that whether it was day or night there would be no difference here. Suppressed violence permeated the atmosphere. Children with cheap clothes, suspicious eyes and shaved heads stared at her approach. Rap music blasted out of upstairs windows. So this was where the woman who called herself Freya Stephens lived, Helen thought, as she watched her enter a shabby-looking dwelling between two boarded-up units.

The house bore the innocuous-sounding name, Albion Place. Crossing over the road to get a closer view, her foot connected with something. She crouched down, eyes taking in a selection of spent shell cases. Years before, it was an unusual occurrence. Now, it was normal. A symptom of drug culture, the gun had also become the ultimate status symbol, the carrier younger, more reckless, more indiscriminate and cruel. With a shudder, she wondered whose turf she was encroaching on and, hurriedly looking round her, straightened back up as if she'd seen nothing more innocent than a tennis ball lying in the gutter.

In the fading glow of an overhead streetlight, she saw that the garden in front of Albion Place was a weed-infested jungle littered with broken milk bottles and empty cans of lager, crumpled in the middle. A battered pushchair lay dumped on the path to the door. It was difficult to tell whether it was a recent addition or had been there for some time. The front door of the house, which was brick-built and blackened by the elements, had a frosted glass panel that had been smashed once with something heavy, offering little protection from the violence outside on the street. The curtains at the downstairs window were open, revealing grubby nets set at half-mast on the window-frame. A television sat winking in one corner. A long sofa with a swirly pattern was positioned against a wall. An ugly-looking main light, hanging down from the centre of the ceiling, bathed the three scantily clad female occupants in an eerie orange glow. They all held cigarettes. One of them was laughing. Helen heard the click of fast-approaching footsteps behind her and shrank into the shadows. The footsteps receded. There was a sharp rap at the door. She watched as a small, squat man wearing a heavy overcoat was welcomed into Albion Place like an old, much-missed friend.

Making a mental note of the name of the street, she headed back to the nearest piece of civilisation, intent on hailing a cab. There were certain places where it was inadvisable to walk alone. This was one of them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

S
TRATTON MORPHED FROM LOVER
to policeman before her eyes. He was standing in her kitchen, holding her. With each new piece of information, his grasp loosened.

“She
looked
at you?” he said, aghast.

“As clear as day.”

“Christ, you were taking a risk.”

He was absolutely right. She felt awkward and mumbled an apology.

He didn't speak for a moment, just looked at her pensively. “You figure you were being used by this woman to put pressure on your mum?”

“Seems logical.” She waited for Stratton to respond but he didn't. He had that murky look in his eye that told her he was not entirely convinced.

“You say your mother cashed in a series of investments totalling a hundred K, and that was unusual?”

“Very,” she averred.

“No sign of any blackmail notes?”

“None, according to Dad.”

“No one's asked you or your family for more money since your mother's death?”

“No.”

“So there's no real evidence of a crime being committed?”

“Not yet,” she conceded. She didn't think her dad would see it that way.

“Or that the woman who calls herself Stephens is a prostitute.”

“I know,” she said, feeling the shakiness of her argument.

“All right,” Stratton said, clearly glad that he'd got that straight with her. “Why not go after the golden goose?”

“You mean my father?”

“Well, he's the real source of finance.”

“Because my mum's a soft target…was,” she said, reddening. “It explains why I was hurt but not killed. Like we said, I wasn't the target, my mother was. I don't know,” she said, struggling to think coherently, “perhaps women go after other women.”

Stratton was thoughtful. “Women don't go in for blackmail in the same way as men. If they do, the threat is usually some form of exposure.”

“You mean a secret?”

“Uh-huh. Plus, the stakes aren't usually that high. Blackmail for money is a man's game.”

“Like driving vans at people,” she retorted. “What are you saying exactly?”

“I'm not, simply making observations.”

“You're going to give me that sexist stuff again,” she said, with a nervous smile. “Maybe she had an accomplice.”

“Possibly, but then the money would be split.”

She realised he had to be cautious but what she really wanted to hear was some full-blooded conviction. “OK, forget the accomplice. Maybe she gets a genuine kick out of doing it. It's part of the thrill, part of the game.”

“That what you think?”

No, she didn't. She waited a beat before she spoke. “She's desperate. She looked dirty and dishevelled, down on her luck. If she's feeding a habit, she's prepared to chuck caution to the wind. All that matters is getting her hands on enough loot for the next fix.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she registered the flaw in the theory. If the woman had already extorted a hundred grand from her mother over the past five months, it was worth thousands of tricks and bought an awful lot of smack. Why stay in a shit-hole like Albion Place, presumably selling her body, she thought, when the woman could be hundreds of miles away and feel the wind in her dyed hair. Stratton cut across her thoughts.

“Did she strike you as a drug addict when you first met her?”

She gave a shrug. “I noticed some dodgy-looking marks on her arm but I didn't tumble to it straight away. Not every addict fits the stereotypical down-and-out image, as you well know. There are plenty of well-heeled businessmen who think nothing of using cocaine and heroin. It's as commonplace as a trip to Spearmint Rhino.”

Stratton cracked a smile that swiftly faded. His eyes locked with hers. “We need to talk to your father.”

“Frankly, he'll welcome the opportunity. No one crosses him or his family.”

Stratton frowned as if he didn't like the emotiveness of her language. “Whatever this woman's connection,” Stratton continued, “we need to investigate every possibility.”

“Possibility?”

“Taken in isolation, the withdrawals from your mother's account are not necessarily sinister…”

“But…”

“Added to the other events,” Stratton said, “there may well be more to it, and that means we can't keep this between ourselves any more, Helen. I know there are risks, but you don't have a choice.”

And neither have you, she thought. It's what she believed he'd say. Actually, she felt glad. This was too big for someone not to take seriously, and it wasn't simply about her any more. There was her father to consider.

“I'm going to phone in,” Stratton said, “initially speak to Harmon, explain what's happened, then we'll take it further. We'll need to speak to your dad. You'll be asked to make a full statement.” He looked grave.

“It's all right, Joe,” she said, touching his arm. “I'm not going to implicate you. As far as Harmon or anyone else is concerned, you've just come on the scene.”

She saw the open relief in his face, but she knew that it wouldn't be easy.

It felt as if the coach-house was erupting with police activity. She'd talked until her voice was hoarse. She'd drunk more tea than she was accustomed to. She felt as if she'd been invaded – mentally and physically.

“I don't understand why you didn't report the incident with the van?” Detective Constable Wylie was speaking. The way he was watching her, with sharp eyes, conveyed that he was a man who'd rather not be there.

“I was afraid,” she said. “I wasn't thinking straight. I…”

“You must be aware that the longer it takes to get an investigation underway, the smaller the chance of success.”

“Yes, but…”

“And you say you checked Freya Stephens's address and number and found them to be false,” Wylie butted in. “That was remarkably clear-sighted of you.”

“Habit,” Helen smiled hopefully, thinking it wasn't a very convincing argument.

“And was it habit that made you take these photographs?” Wylie said, spreading them out on the coffee table.

“Yes,” Helen said, feeling numb.

“But you still didn't think to inform us?”

Look, who's the victim here, she wanted to say? “I told you my mother died,” she said, feeling tired. Christ, she could have knocked his head off his shoulders.

“We're both very sorry for your loss,” Harmon said, looking suitably sombre.

Wylie grudgingly mumbled a condolence. Helen thanked them and thought hers was a ludicrous response. You thanked people for gifts, for small acts of kindness, for letting you go first, not for expressing sympathy for sorrows they couldn't possibly share.

“So you only found out about the cashed investments this morning?” Harmon's voice was soothing.

Helen turned to her with relief. “That's right,”

“Then you saw the woman and followed her late this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Have you any idea what you could have been walking into?” Wylie said, back on the offensive, rolling his eyes at what he clearly considered to be her blatant stupidity.

Before she had a chance to answer, to say, yes, she was a complete fool who should and did know better, the doorbell rang. Helen stood up but Harmon signalled for Wylie to answer it. He didn't look pleased, like he was asked to leave the theatre before the final act. Helen slumped back down. There was the sound of the front door to the coach-house being opened and closed. She heard the sound of muffled voices, one belonging to Stratton, then the thump thump sound of two pairs of feet coming up the stairs. Both she and Harmon swivelled their eyes and stood up.

It was Stratton followed by Wylie. Both lower-rank officers leapt into action. An extra chair was brought. Helen became acutely aware of pecking orders. She felt her heart lift, glad that Stratton was in charge. “Right,” he said authoritatively, addressing Harmon. “I've spoken to Dukes.”

Helen's stomach lurched with shock. The last time she'd come across Detective Chief Inspector Dukes she was being carpeted.

“He's given the go-ahead for Miss Powers to have a WPC stay with her.”

Helen stared at him with incredulity.

“We'll also make sure a mobile unit regularly stops by to make sure there's no unwelcome company.”

“Is this really necessary?' Helen said, feeling a stab of alarm. She hadn't expected this kind of attention.

“You've been attacked twice. Until we've interviewed the woman and followed all lines of enquiry, we're not taking any chances. Are we all up to speed?” Stratton said, looking in Harmon and Wylie's direction.

“I've got one or two things I'd like to ask,” Wylie said.

Stratton nodded a
go ahead
.

“This woman who calls herself Stephens,” Wylie said, the question aimed at Helen. “You ever had any dealings with her before?”

“No.”

“What about your family?”

“Not that I know of.”

“The first time you met Stephens, was that when she booked a photographic session with you?”

“Yes.”

“How many photographers work here?”

Helen paused, wondering whether Wylie's dissertation was supposed to impress Stratton. She glanced across at him but failed to read his expression. “Ray, who owns the studio, and myself. Ray's on holiday. Still is,” she said, thinking she ought to call him and explain what was happening.

“Where?” Harmon interjected.

“Somewhere in the West Indies.”

Harmon looked at Stratton who nodded. Helen read the exchange. They were going to check Ray out.

“So she could only pick you?” Wylie continued.

“Yes.”

Wylie stroked his chin and fired another question. “Does she have a local accent?”

“No. She's not from round here.”

“Did she say that?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say where she was from?” Harmon's voice cut authoritatively through the air.

“She was vague, mentioned the London area.”

“Nowhere specific?”

Helen shrugged. “Might have been Essex.”

“You didn't say that before,” Stratton blurted out, making her jolt.

“I didn't think of it before,” she said, eyeballing him.

There was a brief embarrassed silence broken by Harmon. “And now you think she's working as a prostitute here?” She was looking at Helen.

“I wouldn't like to be that specific but I think it's a fair assumption.” And, aside from being some of the most vulnerable and broken members of society, nine out of ten prostitutes were class A drug users, she thought. It probably explained the marks on her arms. If Freya was a working girl, Helen wondered who her pimp was. Could he have some involvement? she thought with a flash of inspiration.

“With regard to your father,” Stratton said, “we're liaising with Staffordshire.”

“You're treating it as a separate enquiry?” Helen said, bewildered.

“As a
line
of enquiry.”

There was a resounding silence, one Wylie
,
it seemed
,
felt compelled to fill. “It's important we know what the motive is.”

“It's important we know what the crime is,” Stratton countered, a steely look in his eye.

“Thought we were working on the premise that Mrs Powers was being blackmailed,” Wylie said, none too pleased, by the tight set of his jaw, to be picked up on a technicality.

“That's a possibility, not a premise,” Stratton said, a penetrating expression in his eyes.

Forget the point scoring, the semantics, Helen thought, flickering with irritation. “It's about money,” she burst out, a bit too loudly judging by the way the others were looking at her. There were only two other motives she could think of: love and hate.

“All right,” Stratton said slowly. “
If
that's the case, she's not asking for much, bearing in mind the risk.”

“Maybe it's to pay a specific debt,” Harmon cut in. “Or she considers it the right amount to pay her back for some unspecified injustice.”

Helen flushed and fixed her gaze tenaciously on Stratton. Should she openly question the current assumption that it was a woman acting alone? Perhaps it was best to let them decide that for themselves. Maybe they thought, like Stratton, that it was too small an amount for more than one person to be involved. She let it drop. In any investigation there was bound to be contradictory evidence and, whatever assumption they appeared to agree on now, it could easily be debated and changed in the privacy of the police station.

“Any other angles?” Stratton pressed. The room, once more, fell silent. Helen could feel her heart clamouring in her chest.

“Good,” Stratton said, rising to his feet. “Wylie, I'd like you to drive over and talk to Mr Powers. Christine, you're with me.”

WPC Lauren Blazeby arrived. She seemed a nice enough woman, Helen thought. Around thirty years of age, she was of medium height and build, red-haired and freckle-faced. She smiled a lot, which eventually, Helen thought, might grate a bit.

She didn't know the protocol, didn't understand what was expected of her. Should she treat the woman as her protector, a guest or baby-sitter? Embarrassed to eat alone, she offered to cook something for both of them even though she didn't feel hungry. Blazeby said she'd already eaten. Relieved, Helen settled for coffee and a packet of Bourbons in front of the television. She found herself worrying about the state of her surroundings. Although she was meticulous when it came to work, she fell far short on the domestic front. She came from the sweep the room with a glance school of housework. You could scrawl messages in the dust on the television. The carpet needed a good vacuum and the grate was full of ash. As for downstairs, it looked as if half the West Midlands police force had tramped through.