by Sarah Flint
Anna’s office was swathed in shadows as they approached, but silhouetted in the headlights was the outline of a woman sitting on the steps. The woman had her arms wrapped around her body and wore nothing on her legs apart from a pair of knee-length boots. A short skirt just about covered her dignity and a fake-fur jacket was pulled down across her midriff. The woman lifted her head as Charlie parked and she immediately recognised Caz, a prostitute she had worked with during a previous job. It had been Caz who she had referred to the District Source Unit and it was Caz who Charlie suspected was now providing vice and drugs information to Angie.
Caz squinted towards the car as Charlie got out, smiling towards her and looking questioningly towards Ben as he emerged from the passenger seat.
‘Wotcha, Charlie.’ Caz’s voice wavered as she forced open her frozen mouth. She tried to lick her blistered lips but her tongue was dry and the effort seemed to start a series of tremors shuddering through her body. ‘It’s bin a while.’
‘Caz, what are you doing here?’ Charlie ran to the boot of her car and pulled out several blankets. ‘You’re freezing.’ She wrapped the blankets around the shoulders of the young girl, who was by now shivering violently. ‘Come into the warmth of my car.’
Caz nodded towards Ben, who, by now, had clearly realised that Charlie and the girl were known to each other and was in the process of tempting Casper out into the cold.
‘Is this your fella?’
Charlie felt the heat rush to her cheeks, thankful it was still dark, as she remembered the sight of him dressed only in his boxers earlier that morning.
Ben grinned and waved towards them both, holding tightly to Casper, who was straining to chase a fox that had darted into the undergrowth on the common. ‘I’d better give him a run before he changes his mind again. I’m not due to see Anna anyway for an hour or so.’ He blew her a kiss and walked away, before turning one last time and winking. ‘And there’s a good cafe around the corner that does a wicked full English breakfast.’
She felt her stomach contract at the thought. What she wouldn’t do for a plate of bacon and eggs right now, but she really needed to get into work. She turned back towards Caz. The girl looked as if she would benefit from some food too, anything warm and nutritious. She was skin and bones. Drugs had stripped her body of every semblance of health and vitality and the freezing air had sucked any last colour from her hands and face and frosted her lips with a tinge of blue.
‘Well?’ Caz asked again, pulling one of the blankets up over her head, leaving only a small hole from which she peeked, but keeping her eyes trained on Charlie’s face.
‘Well…’ Charlie felt awkward giving away personal information to a prostitute so she smiled instead. ‘Let’s just say I’m working on it.’
Caz kept her gaze fixed on Charlie. ‘I’m working on stuff too,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m working a lot.’
Charlie met her gaze and nodded knowingly, suspecting what she meant. The urge to probe Caz further, however, was nullified as they were both lit up in the headlights of an approaching car. Caz turned towards it, sucking her breath in with a gasp, her eyes flying immediately to the registration number.
‘It’s only Anna,’ she closed her eyes, expelling a cloud of condensation into the air. ‘Thank God.’
Charlie had become quite friendly with Caz during their previous contacts and knew that she had been counselled by Anna since childhood, in fact it had been Caz who had given her the idea to recommend Anna to Ben.
‘Were you expecting trouble then?’ Charlie touched Caz’s arm. ‘You know we can help if you need it.’
Caz pulled the blanket round her even tighter. ‘Yeah I know that Charlie, but I’m fine. I know where I can get ’elp if I needs it. There’s a lot of ’elp around these days, if yer know what I mean.’
Charlie was amused at the blatancy of Caz’s clues, now believing she was indeed correct in her suspicions. The prostitute shouldn’t be making her new work status so obvious though and she knew Angie wouldn’t be impressed if she found out. Any talk was dangerous, but maybe Caz knew that her secret was safe with Charlie.
Anna was walking towards them now, looking concerned. ‘Are you both OK?’ She checked her watch. ‘What are you doing here so early?’
‘Caz was here when I arrived,’ Charlie explained. ‘I was dropping Ben off on my way into work.’ She paused, mirroring Anna and also checking the time. ‘He’s just walking Casper before his appointment. I don’t know how long Caz has been here, but she’s freezing, so I’ve wrapped her in some blankets.’ She indicated towards where her car was parked, immediately in front of Anna’s. ‘I always keep them in my boot, in case of emergency, after watching a programme about people freezing to death in blizzards.’ She smiled. ‘I was just about to get her a coffee from the garage and get her warmed up in my car before heading in.’
Anna flicked the key fob and the locks to her car clicked shut. She chose another key and swiftly opened the door to her office. A warm waft of furniture polish fanned out into the cold air. ‘Well it sounds like you’re busy, so I’ll look after Caz. You get on, but thanks.’ She nodded to Charlie before putting an arm around Caz’s shoulders and guiding her inside, her voice gentle and soothing. ‘You go on up Caz and get comfortable and then we’ll talk. I’m glad I decided to come in early. It must be your lucky day.’
*
Hunter was waiting for Charlie in the yard at Lambeth HQ when she arrived.
‘No time to go in now,’ he indicated an unmarked police vehicle positioned by the exit barrier, its engine running. Paul sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s go. We’re needed at a crime scene. One of our local girls has been murdered.’
Charlie was about to remonstrate when he stopped her with his hand.
‘I know what you’re thinking, and we’re still going to do the brothel. I spoke to the others last night, after you phoned, and asked them to come in early to help. Bet is searching the name Dimitri and has almost finished typing up the paperwork and Naz and Sabira will be going to court to get the warrant. We’ll roll on to the brothel afterwards.’ He blew on his hands as Charlie drew level with him, and shoved them deep in his pockets. ‘DCI O’Connor asked for us specifically to attend this new case because you recognise most of our girls and the team all know their pimps and domestic arrangements.’ He pulled his hands back out of his pockets and rubbed them together in anticipation, clearly raring to go. ‘So he thinks we should be able to kick-start the initial enquiries. The poor girl was badly beaten and almost scalped.’
Hunter climbed into the passenger seat and indicated for her to get into the rear. ‘As soon as we’ve finished at this crime scene though, we’ll be in a position to move on to the brothel,’ he shouted above the noise of Paul revving the engine. ‘It won’t be forgotten.’
She jumped into the back, trying her hardest not to look disappointed. Sometimes having the ability to recognise so many faces was a bonus, but occasionally, like now, it detracted from the work that she really wanted to do. She leant back against the headrest and closed her eyes, Bet’s words about getting justice for the baby swirling about randomly.
In her head, Charlie knew that catching a prostitute’s killer was as important as catching a baby killer, but in her heart…
Chapter 11
Anna Christophe gazed at the sleeping figure of Caz on her couch. The young girl had fallen asleep in the time it took for the kettle to boil. Now she lay curled up in a foetal position, her thumb in her mouth, her blonde hair damp from the frost, plastered against her head. Her expression was childlike, innocent even, despite the needle-track marks on her arms, the obvious signs of infection and the yellowy brown tinge around her left eye, the result, no doubt, of the last argument she’d lost with her violent pimp. Anna watched as the girl’s pale green eyes flickered with a look of terror so animated that it made her want to lean forward and gently wake her from her nightmare.
The psychologist swallowed hard at th
e pitiful sight. It was only minutes earlier that she’d kissed the forehead of her eleven-year-old daughter, sleeping in her fresh-smelling duvet surrounded by soft toys and love. The child had also been sucking quietly on her thumb, a habit she’d retained and had failed to break before starting secondary school.
The two images were comparable and yet so devastatingly different.
A sudden sadness swept through her for the nineteen-year-old girl forced into such a brutal existence, an existence that she herself had experienced to a degree; one that time had locked away in the innermost sanctuary of her mind but was now seeping back excruciatingly into the present as she gazed down at her young client. She recognised in Caz the same hurt, pain and anger that she had known as a child when both parents were suddenly and tragically killed in a car accident.
She took a sip of her coffee and rubbed at her temples, trying to block the memories. With no other family, she had been forced into care and left to deal with her grief alone. The social workers had tried their best, but nothing and no one had been able to penetrate the awful black hole in which she found herself, a world where there was no love, only separation, injustice and despair. It was a world that, in many ways, mirrored that of the girl on her couch. She’d dealt with her issues gradually through counselling; her own recovery endowing her with the strength to help others, but the sight of Caz, or other similar souls, always gave the painful recollections room to stab at the wafer-thin protective layer behind which she hid.
Anna wondered whether to wake her, but at the same time she didn’t want to disturb her from her slumber. The girl was quiet now; a far cry from the screaming, spitting wildcat Anna had first met just over three years earlier. She flipped open the file in front of her and read through the details for the hundredth time.
Full Name: Charlene Zara PHILIPS
Date of birth: 28 January 1998
Sex: Female
Ethnic Origin: White/British
Address: NFA. Believed living at Flat 59, Milton House, Poets Estate, Tulse Hill, SW2
Next of kin: Mother – Dead/ Father – Unknown/ Brothers – Joseph aged 28 years, Michael aged 26 years, Edward aged 23 years.
Brief History: Family chaotic – Mother – alcoholic until death. History of abusive relationships. Brothers taken into care for long periods and now involved in crime. Contact details unknown.
Transferred to Davis Trust from Lower Addisley Care Home after displaying self-harming and mildly violent tendencies. Threatened another girl with a pair of scissors and involved in numerous fights. Taken to hospital twice after self-harming – Cut her left wrist with scissors. Took an overdose of aspirin and vodka. Neither attempts life-threatening.
Anna remembered her first NHS referral appointment with Charlene Zara, or Caz as she insisted on being called, recognising the same powerful rage she’d once had, the total rejection of help, the glint of desperation that all the outwardly-hostile behaviour failed to conceal. Although instinctively recoiling from the threatening teenager, she’d determined there and then to try to uncover the sadness at the root of her hostility and help in whatever way she could.
On the first occasion she did little more than to listen to the abuse directed at her. The second occasion was no better, nor the third, nor fourth, but gradually, over the next few weeks and months, she’d persevered and very slowly Caz got used to the environment. To Anna, it was a wonder she actually turned up at all, but there was something that kept her coming back.
Over the years, Caz had spoken about her day-to-day life, her scraps with the other girls in care, the uncontrollable rage she felt at the injustice of being punished when she believed she had done nothing wrong. How she could steal without being caught, how the weed that she smoked took away her cares, how attentive the paramedics, doctors and nurses had been on the various occasions she’d been rushed to hospital.
She’d never spoken about her obvious loneliness and feelings of rejection; the reasons she fought, stole or took drugs. Nor had she ever spoken about her descent into hard drugs and the reasons for her hospital admissions, the deep emotional needs that had fuelled the self-mutilation.
Caz’s circumstances had changed with time. At eighteen, the care system relinquished its responsibilities and spat her into the world outside to make room for the next itinerant, rootless child. Caz was left to make her own way and with no particular friends, except one slightly younger girl, Ayeisha, she was quickly sucked into the world of crack cocaine and prostitution. Friends came and went; some murdered, some imprisoned and some dead from overdoses. Anna listened, but inside she wept at her inability to do anything other than wait… and hope.
With the arrival of Razor, even Anna’s optimism was almost extinguished. Caz belonged to Razor and Razor controlled everything she did. Emotionally, however, she did seem more stable. She now had a central figure in her life and Anna was forced to concede that, although the lifestyle was depressingly familiar, Razor did at least provide Caz with a concrete, though questionable, form of security. Caz idolised Razor, working the streets and making her body available for him whenever he chose, and in return Razor gave her board, lodgings and drugs, needing her in his own way, as much as she needed him, albeit only for money and sex. Even when she turned up with visible marks of violence, Caz would defend Razor blindly.
It had been difficult to watch, but Anna knew that if she was to help Caz, she would have to keep her trust and be patient. She knew too, from personal experience, that Caz would reach a crisis point, a time when she would have to decide which way she wanted her life to go. It had been at this point in Anna’s own life when she had been supported by a mentor and it was what she intended to do for Caz when that time came. The payments from the council had stopped when Caz had reached eighteen, but Anna had been determined to continue unpaid. The chance to do for Caz, what her mentor had done for her, was worth more than money. It was the opportunity to rebuild a life, just as hers had been rebuilt.
Now though, as Anna regarded Caz’s adolescent body, ravaged by her lifestyle, she wished, once again, that she could give her the ‘happy ever after’ the young hooker craved.
As she watched, Caz shifted, stretching out both arms and pushing away the blanket. She pulled at her jacket, releasing the top button and unzipping it. With one hand she reached inside, clutching at a small, scruffy black bag secreted within. Anna had seen her with it before but had never seen its contents. It didn’t appear to be materially valuable, but to the young prostitute it was obviously of vital importance and worth guarding jealously. She unclipped the opening and held it close to her body, her hand roaming sleepily inside. Anna watched transfixed as her fingers moved through the contents, a handful of condoms, various items of make-up and a plastic container full of needles until it found the item she sought.
Tucked beneath was a soiled and dirty ragdoll, its hollow body testament to the years she had clearly carried it. Caz’s hand wrapped itself around the doll, her grubby fingers moving gently against the frayed material. Her other hand returned to her mouth, her lips sucking rhythmically on her thumb. An expression of extreme sadness swept across her face as if a shadow had blotted any last remaining light from her life and Anna recognised at once the rejected child she remembered so well from their first meeting.
Very gently she shook Caz by the shoulders, willing her to wake up and reach out to her. She had never seen the young prostitute looking so vulnerable before. As Caz stretched her legs out slowly and extracted her thumb from her mouth, Anna prayed that today Caz would begin the process of eradicating the demons from her past.
Chapter 12
Charlie held her breath as the mortuary assistant pulled out the tray on which their victim lay. The unidentified girl had been pronounced dead on arrival at King’s College Hospital and had been taken straight to the council mortuary at Greenwich, a small section of which was kept aside for the use of police dealing with suspicious deaths.
The crime scene was yet to be forens
ically examined, but visually it had yielded nothing more than a large coagulated pool of blood and a pile of sodden ambulance dressings lying in an area of desolation and filth. It had been a clump of hair fanning out across the grey concrete that had sparked Charlie’s curiosity. Until their arrival on scene, the hair had simply been described as long and dark, as it had appeared in the gloom of the night. With the first rays of sun peeping over the rooftops at sunrise, however, it became apparent that each strand shone with an autumnal intensity. If their victim was a prostitute, as her appearance suggested, then she had long red hair, not dark hair… and there was only one prostitute that Charlie knew who fitted that description. She just had to confirm it.
The body on the tray was partially clothed and still wrapped in a bright red ambulance blanket. There was little to see of her face other than a bloody mess. Charlie stepped forward and, with gloved hands, peeled some of the coverings back so she could get a better overall view of the young girl’s head and body.
In the fluorescent strip lights she was clearly a redhead, her hair, or what was left of it, being nearer to ginger than auburn. Some of her hair looked to have been tugged out from the roots, while other parts appeared to have been cut or sliced off, but while this detail had been described, the specific hair colouring had been omitted. A fuller description might have assisted identification a little earlier, but it couldn’t be helped. It had been dark; the accompanying officer was young in service and the girl’s head wet with blood.
Now as Charlie eyed the body, she recognised the height and proportions of the only prostitute that worked the Lambeth streets who had ginger hair. While she couldn’t distinguish the facial features, everything else fitted. The victim had to be Redz and Redz was Grace Flaherty, a nineteen-year-old girl, with the flame-red hair colouring synonymous with the Southern Irish and an accent that had never diminished over the years she’d lived in London. Charlie knew her well. She knew the majority of the prostitutes, pimps and street dealers in Brixton Town Centre and the surrounding borough having made it her mission since being posted from Charing Cross to Lambeth Borough nine years previously to get in amongst them, talking to them, searching them and, where necessary, arresting them. More recently, in the Community Support Unit, she, Hunter and the rest of the team dealt with the prostitutes as victims of domestic abuse, their vulnerability to violence in every form bringing them to regular notice. Charlie spoke with the girls in a respectful way, knowing how their histories had shaped them and continued to dictate their actions… and they, in turn, gave Charlie a heads-up on any serious threats or retaliations likely on the streets of Lambeth; from the sleepy backstreets of Streatham, to the bustling diverse town centre in Brixton, the throbbing LGBT clubs of Vauxhall and the tourist hotspots of Waterloo and the London Eye.
