'OK,' I nodded. 'So why were you so keen to talk to me?'
'Is it true, what you said back there? You're not after Moira for anything?' There was a look in her pale blue eyes as if she desperately wanted to trust someone and wasn't sure if I was the right person. Her skin looked muddy and dead, and there was a nest of pimples round her nose. She had the look of one of life's professional victims.
'I'm not bringing her trouble,” I promised. 'But I need to find her. If she tells me she doesn't want to make contact with her friend, that's fine by me.'
The woman, who in truth didn't look much older than nineteen, nervously chewed a hangnail. I was beginning to wish she'd light a cigarette so I'd have an excuse to open the window – the smell of her cheap perfume was making me gag. As if reading my thoughts, she lit up and exhaled luxuriously, asking, 'You're not working for her pimp, then?'
'Absolutely not. Do you know where I can find her?' I wound down the window and gulped in fresh air as unobtrusively as possible.
The girl shook her head and her bleached blonde hair crackled like a forest fire. 'Nobody's seen her for about six months. She just disappeared. She was doin' a lot of smack and she was out of it most of the time. She was workin' for this Jamaican guy called Stick, and he was really pissed off with her 'cos she wasn't workin' half the time 'cos she was out of her head. Then one day she just wasn't around no more. One of the girls asked Stick where she'd gone and he just smacked her and told her to keep her nose out.'
'Where would I find Stick?' I asked.
The girl shrugged. 'Be down the snooker hall most afternoons. There or the video shop down Lumb Lane. But you don't want to mess with Stick. He don't take shit from nobody.'
'Thanks for the advice,' I said sincerely. 'Why are you telling me all this?' I added, taking thirty pounds out of my wallet.
The notes vanished with a speed Paul Daniels would have been proud of. 'I liked Moira. She was nice to me when I had my abortion. I think she maybe needs help. You find her, you tell her Gina said hello,' the girl said, opening the car door.
'Will do,' I said to the empty air as she slammed the door and clattered off down the pavement.
It took me ten minutes to find the snooker hall off Manningham Lane. It occupied the first floor above a row of small shops. Although it was just after two, most of the dozen or so tables were occupied. I barely merited a glance from most of the players as I walked in. I stood for a few minutes just watching. Curls of smoke spiralled upwards under the strong overhead table lights, and the atmosphere was one of masculine seriousness. This wasn't the place for a few frivolous frames with the boys after work.
As I looked on, a burly white man with tattoos snaking up both his bare arms came over to me. 'Hello, doll. You look like you're looking for a man. Will I do?' he asked jocularly.
'Not unless you've had your skin bleached,” I told him. He looked confused. 'I'm looking for Stick,' I explained.
He raised his eyebrows. 'A nice girl like you? I don't think you're his type, doll.'
'We'll let Stick be the judge of that, shall we? Can you point him out to me?' I demanded. It seemed like a waste of time to tell this ape that I was neither nice, nor a girl, nor a doll.
He pointed down the hall. 'He's on the last table on the left. If he's not interested, doll, I'll be waiting right here.'
I bit back my retort and headed down the aisle between the three-quarter-sized tables. At the end of the room, there were four competition-sized tables. A chunky black man was bending over the last table on the left. Behind him, in the shadows, was the man I took to be Stick. I could see how he'd earned the name. He was over six feet tall, but skinny as his cue. He looked like a stick insect, with long, thin arms protruding from a white t-shirt and twig-like legs encased in tight leather trousers. His head was hidden in the shadows, but as I approached, he emerged and I could see a gaunt face with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes surrounded by black curly hair grown in a thick halo to counteract the pinhead impression he'd otherwise have given.
At the edge of the light, I stopped and waited till the man at the table made his stroke. The red ball he'd been aiming for shuddered in the jaws of the pocket before coming to rest against one cushion. With an expression of disgust, he moved away, chalking his cue. The thin man walked up to line up his shot and I stepped forward into the light.
He frowned up at me, and I met his eyes. They were like bottomless pools, without any discernible expression. It was like looking into a can of treacle. I swallowed and said, 'George from Leeds said I should talk to you.'
Stick straightened up, but the frown stayed in place. 'I know a George from Leeds?'
'George from the Hambleton Hotel. He said you could help me.'
Stick made a great show of carefully chalking his cue, but I could tell he was sizing me up from under his heavy eyebrows. Eventually he put his cue on the table and said to his opponent, 'Be right back. Do not move a fucking ball. I have total recall.'
He strode across the hall and I followed him as he unlocked a side door and entered a stuffy, windowless office. He settled down in a scruffy armchair behind a scratched wooden desk and waved me to one of the three plastic chairs set against the wall.
He pulled a silver toothpick from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. 'I'm not like George,” he said, the traces of a Caribbean accent still strong in his voice. 'I don't usually talk to strangers.'
'So what's this? A job interview?'
He smiled. Even his teeth were narrow and pointed, like a cat's. 'You too little for a cop,' he said. 'You wearing too much for a whore. You not twitchy enough for a pusher. Sweatshirt like that, maybe you a roadie's lady looking for some merchandise for the band. I don't think I've got anything to be afraid of, lady.'
I couldn't help smiling. In spite of myself, I felt a sneaking liking for Stick. 'I hear you might be able to help me. I'm looking for somebody I think you know.'
'What's your interest?' he demanded, caution suddenly closing his face like a slammed door.
I'd given the matter of what to say to Stick some thought on the way there. I took a deep breath and said, 'I'm a private inquiry agent. I'm trying to get in touch with this woman.' Again, I took out the photograph of Moira and handed it over.
He glanced at it without a flicker of recognition. 'Who she?'
'Her name is Moira Pollock. Until recently, she was working the streets round here. I'm told you might know where she went.'
Stick shrugged. 'I don't know where you get your information, but I don't think I can help you, lady. Matter of interest, what you want her for?'
In spite of his nonchalant appearance, I could see Stick had taken the bait. I reeled out my prepared speech. 'Some years back, she was in the rock business. Then she dropped out of sight. But all those years, her work's been earning her money. The record company held on to it and they won't hand it over to anyone. Now her family badly need that money. They want to sue the record company. But to do that, they either need to prove Moira's dead or get her to agree.'
'Sounds like a lot of bread to me, if it's worth paying you to find out. So you working for this Moira's family?'
'A family friend,' I hedged.
He nodded, as if satisfied. 'Seems to me I might have heard her name. This family friend… They pay your expenses?'
I sighed. This job was turning into a cash-flow nightmare. And none of my payees were the kind to hand out receipts. 'How much,” I groaned.
Stick flashed his smile again and took a joint out of the desk drawer. He lit it with a gold Dunhill and took a deep drag. 'A monkey,' he drawled.
'You what?' I spluttered with genuine surprise. He had to be kidding. He couldn't really think I would pay five hundred pounds for a lead on Moira's whereabouts.