Tommy made noises of agreement, trying to cover for the tittering he’d been doing at my reaction to the fat jibe. He’d pay for that later.
“This man, where did you meet him? Was it on the street, the same way Sheena met her clients?”
Our teas arrived, but the plump woman with a spray tan who put them on the table did so without appearing to earwig. Maybe she was trying to be discreet or had heard worse. She’d already gone back to the counter when Donna almost spilled her hot chocolate and our teas by jumping up. “No, I would never do that.”
“Donna, please sit down.” Tommy’s voice was calm. “Anything you tell us is completely confidential. We won’t tell your mum or the police. We just want to find Tanya and Sheena.”
He’d no right to promise that, but I let him. The last thing we needed was for her to clam up.
Tommy’s words seemed to calm her, and she sat back down.
I repeated my question. “How did you meet this man, Donna?”
“Someone set it up.”
“Who?”
She swallowed as though she was debating whether to tell us, then said, “Sheena’s friend Lorna.”
“The counselor from the drop-in center introduced you?” Whatever I’d expected, it hadn’t been that. “I don’t get it. Isn’t she supposed to get girls off the streets?”
Donna shrugged as if it was no big deal. She couldn’t see the hypocrisy of this woman’s actions. “Lorna said we could earn a lot of money and we’d be safe.”
She made it sound like Saint Lorna had been looking out for her, not exploiting her.
“How did you meet Lorna?” Tommy said. “Did Sheena introduce you?”
Donna’s eyes moved towards her lap. “Yeah, she told me she was cool. That I’d like her, but…” For the first time she looked uncertain.
“But, what Donna? What didn’t you like about her?”
“I didn’t think it was right what she was doing. She should have been getting Sheena to stop, you know. Having sex for money. Not doing what she was doing.” A muffled sob. “With me it was just the one time, but with Sheena it was loads of times.”
Straightening up in my chair, I said, “What do you mean? Did Lorna set Sheena up with other men?”
Donna nodded. “She said it’d be safer. That Sheena wouldn’t have to worry about ending up dead in a ditch or in some nutter’s basement.”
For all we knew that could have been her fate.
“Donna, when you went with this man, did he give you money? Or did Lorna deal with that side of things?”
She tore open a sugar sachet and dumped it in her mug, stirring it into her hot chocolate before she answered. As she stirred, her hands shook, and I noticed her nails were chewed.
“Lorna dealt with that. She said that people were funny about money and it’d make it easier.”
Easier for who? Lorna to collect her share? The unscrupulous bitch wasn’t just pimping them out, she was profiting from vulnerable young women. Saying it was an abuse of trust was a massive understatement. What chance did women have when one of the counselors, who was there supposedly to get them off the streets, was making sure they remained in the sex industry?
As the words tripped out, Donna stared straight ahead, shoulders hunched. “After that one time when she set me up with that guy, I should have told Sheena to stay away from her. But when she offered us 500 quid each just to put on a lesbo show, I said I’d do it. Unlike that other time…” She paused and finally made eye contact. “I’d be safe because Sheena would be there and she knew how to boot a punter in the balls.” The small chuckle that erupted from her throat seemed out of place. “She had to do that once when a guy smacked her one and tried to get something for free.”
Sheena must have talked about her punters a lot, because her friend spoke like this was normal. To me it was chilling. Strip away the confident outer shell and the adult clothes and makeup, and Sheena and Donna were just kids playing at being grown-ups.
“You didn’t go, did you?” I said it gently, not wanting to sound like I was blaming her. “Who was this man? Where were you to meet him?”
Donna didn’t seem to hear my question. “Lorna said we didn’t have to sleep with this guy. We just had to dress nice. Put on a girl-on-girl show for him. She said he was nice. That he just wanted to watch us kiss, rub against one another. She said it was easy money.”
“What happened?”
Donna shook her head. “I don’t know. I got sick. Food poisoning. Sheena said not to worry. That she’d ask someone else to take my place.” Her face crumpled. “She’s dead because of me. Isn’t she?”
“Donna, what happened is not your fault,” I said. “In fact, if you’d gone, you’d probably be missing too. Or…” I didn’t finish the sentence. But Donna knew what I’d been about to say.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Donna sobbed. “Oh my God. She’s dead.”
I got up and sat down beside her, placing my arm around her shoulder as the woman behind the counter eyed us. “We don’t know that she’s dead.” It wasn’t a lie. Sheena was alive when her finger was bitten off. There was a chance, however slim, that she was alive. Until the police found a body, there was always a chance.
Donna began to shake. “I lied about the food poisoning. I didn’t want to go. Sheena said it’d be fun. That we’d have a laugh. Make a lot of cash so we could go on holiday together. But it’s not me. The time I did…” She broke down. “I felt so dirty afterwards. I scrubbed myself clean.”
“Donna,” I said gently, “do you know who Sheena took instead?”
“No,” she said, “Sheena didn’t say who she was taking.”
“Who do you think she’d have gone with?” Tommy said. “Was there anybody she’d talk about? Anybody she’d met on the streets that she was pally with? Someone she trusted?”
Donna shrugged. “No. Not really. We didn’t talk about that.” She paused as if she was thinking. “Oh, there was this one girl she mentioned a few times. Kim. She was called Kim. She met her when she first started.”
“Do you know her surname?” Tommy said.
Donna shook her head.
Inwardly, I groaned. There would be lots of girls with that name on the streets. I’d hoped Donna would give us the name of someone we could actually find, but at least we had a name.
“All I know is that she wasn’t from here. I think she was Russian or Romanian or something. She had an accent.”
I leaned in towards her. “Donna,” I said softly, “you do know that the police believe Kim has also gone missing?” It had to be the same girl.
Donna shuddered. “No, I didn’t. Honest. I stopped reading the papers after Sheena went missing. The things they said about her were horrible…I worried that if the same thing had happened to me, they’d be saying those things about me too.”
Donna was so shaken up that when we offered to take her home, she agreed.
Before she got out the car, I urged her not to contact Lorna ever again. I promised her that once we were done, we’d tell the police all about Lorna’s little sideline.
She didn’t need any encouragement. “Because of her, Sheena’s probably dead and that could have been my fate too. She’s an evil witch.”
She’d get no disagreement from me.
Chapter 10
“I’m sorry, but Ms. Chanderpaul can’t talk to you right now.”
We were back at the Helping Hands, and it was the same receptionist from before. This time her smile was less than friendly. Luckily for us, there was no sign of the two security guards.
“Oh, I think she will,” Tommy said, flashing her a smile.
She looked at him stony-faced. “I can take your number and have her call you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, striding past reception, heading towards a corridor with rooms on either side. Her office had to be this way.
“Hoi, you can’t go down there,” a man shouted.
The figure of a security
guard appeared. He must have been in the staff toilet because he was hitching up his trousers and buckling his belt. The desk where the other one usually sat had been empty.
He glared at us, then turned to look at the receptionist who was trailing behind us. “Is there a problem here, Katie?”
The receptionist’s unlined face creased. “These two people want to see Ms. Chanderpaul. When I told them she was busy, this one”—she pointed a scarlet nail in my direction—”barged on through.”
At this point, two doors opened. A man with gray hair and glasses came out of his office with a bemused expression on his face as he took in the view. A tall, dark-skinned woman appeared in another doorway. She walked the short distance down the hall towards us, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.
“Can I help you?” She had a warm voice.
“Yes,” I said. “We’d like to talk to you about Sheena Andrews and Donna Di Marco.”
Any trace of a smile was gone. “Sorry, but I cannot discuss the people who come here.”
“Oh,” said Tommy with a smile, “that is a pity. We’ve just been talking Donna who seems to be a friend of yours. She had some interesting things to say about you, and she’s waived her right to client confidentiality.”
The counselor’s expression was frosty. “We can discuss this in my office. Okay, very well.” She beckoned us into her office. “I can spare five minutes.” She nodded in the direction of the security guard. “It’s okay, Graham. I appreciate your diligence, but I can handle this from here.”
Although he didn’t look too happy about it, he did as he was told and padded back down the hall, muttering as he went.
In contrast to the reception area, Lorna’s office was a hodgepodge of mismatched furniture. A row of battered filing cabinets lined one wall beneath posters warning about the dangers of HIV and hepatitis. Next to the big bay window was a battered wooden desk. Stacked neatly in two plastic trays were files, and there was a “World’s Greatest Mum” mug filled with pens sitting next to a laptop. Somehow knowing that she had children made her actions seem worse; Sheena and Donna were just children. Instead of chairs for visitors there was a dark blue beanbag sofa. Lorna motioned towards it, and we sat down as she deposited herself in the chair behind her desk.
“Who are you and how can I help you?” She had a singsong voice that was a mixture of West Indian and Scots. Her fuchsia suit made the best of her mocha coloring. Monster or not, she was a striking woman, and I could see why vulnerable young women would hang on her every word. She must have seemed glamorous and exotic to them.
Tommy’s face was set in hardened lines. “We know about your little sideline, Lorna.”
Lorna’s eyebrows slightly furrowed as though there was an item on the menu at a fancy restaurant that she wasn’t quite sure about. “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said, her steely gaze falling on Tommy and then moving on to me.
I leaned over towards her and said in a low voice, “If your security guard is standing outside, you might want to ask him to step away from the door in case he hears something he shouldn’t.” I’d heard someone creeping around outside the door and assumed it was him.
“Very well,” she said, pulling herself out of her chair and walking towards the door. There was a click as it opened, and from our position on the couch we listened as Lorna spun Graham a line about us being the worried parents of a runaway. Then she asked him to leave.
We heard him say something like, “If you’re sure, doctor,” then the clump of footsteps as he tramped back down the hall.
Lorna reappeared. “Now, where were we?” she said, lips set in a thin line. “Oh, you were about to tell me who the hell you are and what you’re trying to imply.”
Lorna remained impassive as we introduced ourselves as Tanya Baker’s cousins. If we told her who we really were, she’d probably have thrown us out of her office. We’d already got her attention with our allegation, but it seemed wise to calm things down. For now.
I finished the introductions by saying, “We just want to find out what happened to Tanya.”
Lorna nodded. “That’s understandable, but I don’t think I ever met…” She paused for a moment as if she’d forgotten who were talking about. Maybe that’s how she dealt with the guilt—if she felt any guilt.
“Tanya. We have a picture of her if that’d help.” Taking out the small wallet I carried instead of a purse, I flicked to the photo of Tanya. Although she was twenty-two, she looked years older thanks to her sunken cheeks and lanky hair. The photo had been taken for a bus pass.
Lorna shook her head. “I think I saw that picture in the newspapers, but I didn’t recognize her.” A trace of sadness that might have been regret crossed her face—if people who pimp out kids can feel regret.
“I see so many young women in this place, you see. We try to help them, but it’s not easy. You think you’ve got through to them about how dangerous their behaviors are, how it can only end one way, but they keep coming back time and time again. So many are addicted to drugs. Others are pimped out by their own partners or by men they owe money to. We even had a client last year who was forced onto the streets by her own mother who was hooked on crack cocaine and needed her daughter to make the money to pay for it. Can you believe that?”
“Look,” Tommy said, “that’s all very tragic, but we’re not here to save every woman on the streets. We’re here to find our cousin, and I think you can help us with that.” The counselor made a harrumph noise as Tommy went on. “We spoke to Donna Di Marco. You may know her; she’s a friend of Sheena Andrews.” He shot her a scornful look when she shook her head. “Please don’t lie to us about not knowing them, because we know for a fact that you do. You even offered them work.”
Tommy stopped talking and eyed me. “What kind of work was it again, Nancy?”
“I believe the old-fashioned word for it is prostitution, although Donna called it…” I paused to flick through my notebook. “Putting on a lesbian show. She said it was for a man you set her and Sheena up with. She also says—Donna, that is—that you also set Sheena up with other men.”
Lorna stiffened in her chair. “Donna Di Marco is a lying, conniving little tart. You can’t believe a word that the girl says.”
“Oh”—I smirked—”so you know her, then? She says ‘you know’ all the time, doesn’t she? Very annoying.”
Lorna moved back in her chair. “What do you want?”
“We want to know who Sheena’s last client was and whether you set up Tanya as well.”
“And if I don’t know?”
“Simple. We go to the police. If they don’t act, there’s a very good investigative journalist that I know. Before you know it, your part in prostituting young, vulnerable women will be all over the papers, and the police will have to act. Your career and reputation will be in tatters, and you’ll have plenty of time to think about that when you’re behind bars in an orange jumpsuit serving time for profiting from prostitution.” My eyes bored into hers as I repeated my question. “Who was Sheena’s last client?”
“Donald Cassidy.”
At first I didn’t know why the name sounded familiar. Then it clicked. It was the name of Sheena’s therapist, the one she had supposedly told about Maria Fredericks abusing her.
At that realization, my gut tightened. Cassidy would have had to kill Sheena to stop the world from knowing that a well-known child psychologist liked to get his rocks off watching schoolgirls writhing around.
Lorna went on. “But I don’t know your cousin. I’ve never met her before.”
We’d had enough of her and were heading out the door as she bleated away, when she stopped us in our tracks. “I’m not the bad one in this.” Her once-warm voice was filled with self-pity. “Those girls were selling themselves anyway getting into cars with strangers. At least my way I knew they’d be safe.”
I knew we’d more important things to do, that the callous bitch could keep, but her whiny words made me
want to belt her one.
I marched over to her chair as she watched me as though I was pond scum and she was so damn smart. My face was now so close to hers she must be able to feel my breath on her face.
“You’re a fucking pimp, Lorna.” I spat out the words, saying her name as if it was two words. “A stinking, rotten, greedy pimp. Those girls came to you for help, and instead you had them working for you. How does that not make you the bad guy?”
There was no shame on her face. She only cared about herself. My hand was raised, about to smack her across the face, when Tommy grabbed my arm.
“She’ll keep,” he said. “It’s Cassidy we need to find. Maybe the connection he had with Sheena saved her life.”
His words stopped me from wiping the holier-than-thou look off Lorna’s face. But the lady didn’t know when to shut up.
“If it weren’t for me, those girls would be getting into strangers’ cars for the price of a packet of cigarettes. I offered them a safe way of making good money.”
She had to be kidding.
“Safe? You probably sent Sheena Andrews to her death, you callous cow. And Suzy Henderson.”
Tommy had got up and opened the door, but I wasn’t finished yet. “Soon everyone is going to know what you are. A shitty pimp.”
And I meant it. If there wasn’t enough for the police to go on, I would go to the papers. I knew a grubby little journalist who’d be more than happy to do a bit of digging; who’d pay Donna Di Marco for her story. If there was any more evidence needed to nail the bitch, he’d find it and splash it all over the newspapers.
Chapter 11
“We need a plan. We can’t just burst into his office, slam him against the wall, and demand to know where Sheena is.”
Tommy was right. That would have been way too much fun. “Are you sure? We don’t have to leave any marks. We can beat him on the soles of his feet using a copy of the Yellow Pages.”
Throwaways (Crime Files Book 2) Page 5
