Blood Atonement

Harris would ask the same, Foster thought. Sod the action plan. 'It's in relation to a current investigation,' he replied. 'We'd like a word. Any chance we can come in?'

The man smiled bitterly. 'Yeah, cos I'm always inviting police into my house, aren't I? Tell me what it's all about and then we'll talk about whether you can come inside.'

'It's about Leonie,' Heather said.

The man's face froze. 'You found her, have you?' He sounded eager, expectant.

'No, but we have a case that shares some similarities with hers,' Foster explained. He felt a few spots of rain.

'Look, we've told you what it's about. Can we come in?'

Stamey looked at them for a few seconds impassively, then drew back and unhooked the chain. 'Come on,' he said, walking off in front of them. He was wearing blue jeans and an incongruous pair of navy-blue carpet slippers.

Foster and Heather followed him down a long hall.

'Nice place,' he lied.

'Yeah, well, it's home,' Stamey said, failing to conceal his pride.

'What's your game again?' Foster asked as they arrived at a large sitting room. Everything in it was cream - the leather sofas, the walls, the thick shagpile carpet and the rug by the cream fireplace, even the lampshade. With the overhead light, the cumulative effect was so bright Foster almost felt his retinas detach.

The only colour emanated from a huge wall-mounted plasma TV screen showing a loud action film. A boy and a girl, who Foster guessed to be around ten or eleven years old, sat entranced.

'Fuck off upstairs and watch this shit in your rooms,'

Stamey said to them, picking up a remote control from the coffee table and turning it off.

The two kids trudged away.

'What was your question again?' he said to Foster, irritably.

Foster could see the contempt wasn't reserved for him. It was a default setting. 'I asked what you did for a living.'

'Carpenter,' Stamey answered, and sniffed. 'Some other stuff, too.'

I bet, Foster thought. Houses as big as this weren't bought on the wages of your average chippy.

A slim, attractive woman in her mid-thirties with blonde hair appeared in the doorway, waiting for the children to sidle past her before she spoke.

'Who are these two, Mart?' she asked, saving her most unsavoury look for Heather.

'Detectives,' he said, sitting on one of the sofas and spreading his legs and arms wide. 'They say they're here about Leonie.'

'Have they found her?' she asked, contempt giving way to agitation.

Heather shook her head. 'I'm afraid not.'

Foster sat down on the other sofa, trying to suppress a wince. More than an hour in his car had seized him up, and his leg and collarbone were beginning to ache, as they always did at the end of the day. He was a long way from his red wine and painkillers.

'Can I get you a tea or a coffee?' the woman asked.

Both Foster and Heather shook their heads.

'A glass of water would be nice, though,' Heather said.

Foster marvelled at how much water she drank. Apart from wine, it was the only thing he saw her drink.

'Grab me a can of lager, sweetheart,' Stamey said, and the woman Foster presumed to be the mother of his children padded away. Stamey turned his saturnine face on them but said nothing. Foster had taken an instant dislike to him but reined it in. He sat forward.

'I'll be up front with you, Mr Stamey. We have nothing new about Leonie's whereabouts. But in the course of our investigation into the recent disappearance of a fourteenyear-old girl in London we noticed a few similarities.'

'Is this the one that's been in the news and plastered all over the papers?'

Foster nodded. 'It is, yes.'

A look of bewilderment spread across Stamey's face.

'Her mother was offed, wasn't she? Nasty bit of business.

Some fucking nonce, I expect. You lot are too lenient on them. Let them out in the community and all that shit.

Best thing to do is put them down like dogs. If you're gonna let 'em go, then you wanna cut the balls off 'em first.' He sniffed once more.

Foster didn't like being harangued on law and order by someone he suspected to be a small-time crook but he let it slide.

'I don't see the connection with Leonie,' Stamey added.

'Hang on, are you saying that Leonie's mum was murdered?'

'I

was wondering if we could go through the details of your niece's disappearance one more time?' Foster asked.

'Details? I don't know what you mean. As far as we knew, her mother OD'd on smack. Stupid bitch. She'd had all sorts of problems with it. The place was a fucking dump. She was opening her legs to anything with a cock.

She took a hit one night and that was it. Leonie saw the writing on the wall. Her and Gary were going to be taken into care. I was . . . away at the time, so I couldn't take her in. My brother Davey was working away and he don't have a clue anyway, so he'd have been no good. My other brother, Christopher, passed away a few years back so there was nowhere for the poor little mite to go. So she had it away on her toes and I don't blame her. Gary's gone into care and he's up to no good all the fucking time from what little we hear.'

'How old is Gary now?' Heather asked.

'He'd be about eleven. The same number of foster families he's been through probably.'

'You're sure Leonie ran away?'

'Well, I was until you showed up. And so were your colleagues when they looked into it. Which wasn't very much.'

'No one's heard anything from her?'

'Not a peep.'

'Any idea where she might've gone?'

'London, I presume. She was a bright girl - brighter than her dozy fucking muppet of a mother, at least. But I can't imagine what she's got herself involved with on the streets of London. Actually, I can, but I don't wanna.'

'There's no family there she could have gone to?'

'There's no real family beyond us, to be honest. You probably know that my brother's doing time, and I've told you the other one's dead. His wife has shacked up with a new feller. That's about it really. We're hardly the fucking Waltons.'

His wife came in with the beer. He leaned forward and sprung it open slowly before taking a hearty swig. 'These two are here because they reckon that Leonie's disappearance might've something to do with that girl who's gone missing, the one who's been all over the news.'

'The girl whose mum was done in?' his wife replied.

'Yeah. Can't see why. Gilly was a smack addict and she smacked herself up too much and died. Don't think someone topped her. Can't see who would want to, for a start.'

'We're looking for a girl who went missing on her fourteenth birthday, like Leonie,' Foster interrupted. 'Of course it might be, and probably is, just a coincidence, but we felt it was worth seeing if there were any more similarities.

All we have on file are the bare facts of Leonie's case and we want to know more. Didn't she have a father?'

Stamey snorted derisively. 'Take your pick from half of Essex. Let's just say my sister was not exactly stingy with her favours.'

'Didn't Leonie and Gary share the same father?' Heather asked.

The snort turned to a whooping laugh. His wife joined in. 'Did you hear that, love?' he said, shaking his head.

'She asked if Gary and Leonie had the same dad?' The mirth continued for some time.

Foster looked at Heather, who was wearing a fixed grin.

Finally Stamey calmed down. He looked at Heather and raised a hand. 'Sorry, sweetheart. Really sorry. But you'll realize why that tickled me so much when I tell you that Gary is a half-caste. His dad's a nigger.'

Foster felt Heather stiffen at his side at the mention of the word. He decided to step in before she arrested him for discrimination.

'Martin,' he said, looking Stamey in the eye. 'We'd appreciate it if you watched what you said in front of us, please.'