‘I know who you are. What do you want?’
Up close, she had a stunningly pretty face, and there was something about the almost-perfect symmetry of it that reminded me a little of Stacy. But whereas Stacy’s complexion had been as perfect as her face, Genna’s skin was terrible — scarred with pockmarks, peppered with blackheads and acne …
‘I haven’t got all fucking night,’ Genna said. ‘Are you going to tell me what you want or not?’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Anna Gerrish — ’
‘Nuh-uh,’ she said firmly, shaking her head. ‘No way.’
‘Just a few questions, that’s all.’
‘Are you from the newspapers?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m a private investigator.’
‘Yeah, well … I’m already in enough shit for talking to the papers about Anna.’
‘Why?’
She stared at me. ‘You don’t do that round here, do you? You don’t talk to the press, you don’t talk to the cops, no matter what. You just keep your fucking mouth shut.’
‘So why did you talk to the press in the first place?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know … it just seemed …’
‘Were you and Anna friends?’
‘Fuck, no. Anna didn’t have any friends …’
‘So why — ?’
‘Look,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder towards the bar. ‘I can’t talk now, OK? But I’ve got a cigarette break in fifteen minutes. I’ll be in the smoking area out the back.’
Smoking area? I thought to myself as she turned away and headed back to the bar. There’s a smoking area? Shit. Why don’t they put up a fucking sign or something?
I went up to the bar and got myself another beer, and after wandering around the pub for a while I eventually found the smoking area. It wasn’t much, just a brick-walled yard at the back of the pub with a few plastic tables and chairs. The ashtrays on the tables were brimming with rainwater and cigarette ends, and one end of the yard backed on to the toilets, so the whole place stank of piss and sodden cigarettes and smoke. And it was still raining too. But I suppose if you’re stupid enough to smoke in the first place, you’re not going to be too concerned about standing outside in the cold and rain in a brick-walled yard that smells of shit …
There were only three other people out there: a straggly-haired man in a combat jacket, a younger man who looked like Mark Kermode on steroids, and a teenage girl with street-worn skin. They were all standing together at the far end of the yard, and I guessed from their body language and a few overheard words that the girl was trying to buy drugs from the two men, but that she didn’t have enough money, so she was trying to persuade them to let her pay tomorrow … and the two men in turn were trying to persuade her that all she had to do was take a quick walk down the street with them to their car, and she could pay them in kind right now. Her answer to that was, ‘You must be fucking joking … I’m not that desperate, you hairy cunt.’ And the straggly-haired man said something else to her, which I couldn’t quite hear, and she punched him playfully on the arm, and they all started laughing …
Strangely enough, it felt all right.
It wasn’t all right, of course … there was nothing all right about it. But it was nowhere near as shitty as it could have been, and despite everything — the cold and the rain and the underlying ugliness of it all — I actually felt pretty good. It was a relatively quiet place to be. It wasn’t too hot or too crowded. And even the rain was beginning to ease off a little, fading to a thin misty drizzle, and I found that if I stood against the wall at the side of the yard, I barely noticed it at all. And that’s where I was, sipping my beer and smoking a second cigarette, when the teenage girl walked past me with a satisfied grin on her face and her hands stuffed deep into her coat pockets, followed a few moments later by the two men. The pumped-up Mark Kermode look-alike carried on past me, following the girl back into the bar, but the straggly-haired man stopped beside me.
‘You need anything?’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m all right, thanks.’
‘You sure?’ He smiled, showing a gap in his front teeth. ‘I got Es, H, crack, weed … whatever you want.’
‘Have you got anything that’ll take me back in time?’ I heard myself say.
He frowned. ‘You what?’
‘It’s all right,’ I said, smiling. ‘I was just — ’
His eyes went cold and he stepped towards me. ‘Are you taking the fucking piss?’
I didn’t move or say anything, I just stared at him, and for a weird little moment I wondered what he’d do if I spat in his face. How far would he go? Would he just hit me? Beat me up? Break a few bones? Stab me? Shoot me? Kill me?
‘What are you fucking smiling at?’ I heard him say.
And then another voice. ‘Fitch? For fuck’s sake, leave him alone …’ And I looked round to see Genna Raven standing there, smoking her much-needed cigarette. The tone of her voice and the look on her face was that of a weary headmistress having to deal with a harmless bully for the third time in a week.
‘Hey, Genna,’ Fitch said, suddenly all smiles again. ‘You know this guy?’
‘Why don’t you go and get yourself a drink, Fitch?’ she suggested.
‘You buying?’ he grinned.
She stared at him.
He turned to me, still grinning, and said, ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’
And then he went back into the bar.
‘Sorry about that,’ Genna said. ‘But he wouldn’t have done anything anyway. He’s all mouth. Most of them are.’
I smiled at her.
She dropped her cigarette to the ground and lit another. ‘So … you’re a private investigator?’
I reached into my pocket and passed her one of my business cards. She glanced briefly at it, then slipped it in her back pocket.
‘Who are you working for?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ I said. ‘You know, client confidentiality — ’
‘It’s Anna’s mum, isn’t it?’
I smiled, but said nothing.
Genna puffed on her cigarette. ‘Well, it’s either her mum or her dad, and that dirty old bastard’s not going to want anyone poking around in his business, so it’s got to be her mum.’
I lit a cigarette. ‘Do you know Anna’s father then?’
‘Not personally, no. But I know his type.’
‘What do you mean?’
She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if I should be telling you this …’
‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to,’ I assured her. ‘It’s entirely up to you what you tell me. But if you think it might help me to find Anna …’
She sighed. ‘I don’t even know if it’s the truth or not. For all I know she was just making it up …’
‘Making what up?’
‘This stuff about her old man … how he used to fuck her and everything, you know …’
‘He abused her?’
‘Yeah … it went on for fucking years, according to Anna. Started when she was just a little kid, and the dirty fucker carried on doing it until she was … well, I don’t know, until she left home, I suppose.’
I took a long drink of beer. ‘When did Anna tell you about this?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, quite a while ago. It was after work one night. It was someone’s birthday and we all stayed on for a few drinks and stuff … Anna didn’t usually join in with that kind of thing, but I think she was pretty out of it that night. I found her crying her eyes out in the toilets … this would have been about two or three in the morning, and when I asked her what was the matter, she started pouring her fucking heart out to me about her bastard fucking father. She told me everything … and I mean everything. Poor bitch.’ Genna pulled on her cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘It’s no wonder she was so fucked up.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, her whole life, you know … everything. She was a total fucking mess.’
‘How long had she been using heroin?’