He got to the adult bookshop, but made no attempt to try to gain entrance by the shop’s front door; instead he eased warily towards the small white door beside it. It was chipped and peeling and had no number or door knob, but a substantial key hole, and just above it was a small eye hole for anyone on the other side to check who was at the door. He gave two bangs of his fist and waited; he then repeated it, and pressed closer.
He heard the key turning, and the door was inched open by Stevie, the pot-bellied owner, who was wearing a pyjama top, stained trousers and slippers.
‘Hello, Stevie, lemme in.’
‘Shit, we’re not fuckin’ open.’
‘Yes you are, lemme in.’
Stevie begrudgingly unhooked the chain and opened the door. He knew Allard because he was a regular customer and bought his porno magazines and steroids from the shop, but he didn’t like being bamboozled to open up. He walked along a dirty, bare-boarded narrow hallway, passing the door that gave access into the shop, Allard following behind. Above were the rooms the girls used for their clients and where Stevie had been sleeping. They continued into a small back room with racks of stacked magazines, some of them still boxed and some in an old locked cabinet as they were obscene adult pornography with graphic content. There were also drugs bagged and tagged, and bottles of extremely potent steroids.
‘What you want? Take your pick, but make it fast.’
Allard said he wanted the pills, not any magazines, and Stevie unlocked the cabinet, selecting the usual container and held it in his hand.
‘You got the cash?’
Allard dug into the deep pocket of his tracksuit jacket with his left hand as if he was about to hand over the cash, but he used his right to bring out the nunchuck he had tucked into his waistband at the back. He was so fast, Stevie didn’t see it coming, and the crack against his scalp was so vicious he sank to his knees. He tried to grab hold of one of the racks containing the magazines and it toppled over onto him. Allard stepped over the unconscious man, and picked up the container, before turning back and out into the small corridor.
He knew this area, knew the girls rented the upstairs squalid rooms. This was where he had first met that tart Angie, and this was the place the red-haired kid worked – the kid Marie had described, that took his money. Just thinking of his wife made him tense with rage. He’d find her and when he did, he’d beat the living daylights out of her.
He went up the stairs and checked each dingy room before he sat on one of the dirty sheets, opened the container and took a fistful of small yellow pills.
It was getting dark and Soho was coming alive. Gibbs and Jane met up with Moran in the car park they had used previously. By now Moran had assigned a few uniform officers to search for Angie as well as Allard. There was one positive piece of news, and that was they had now been granted permission to start lifting the paving stones at the Allards’ previous residence. As they had his passport they knew he could not escape abroad.
‘Allard will be looking for Janet, and as we’ve not been able to trace her, maybe he’s having the same problem.’
Jane said nothing. They were sitting in Moran’s patrol car and the smoke was making her eyes run as the men were all chain smoking.
‘She’s a wily lady. I mean, she took me inside that estate, I saw her get into the lift, and she was lying. Press the sixth floor, she said, it’s the one where someone stubbed their cigarette out. I saw her do it and then left. I never went up with her…’
Jane agreed. ‘We knocked on every door on the sixth floor, apart from two. Maybe we need to go back. None of the residents were that helpful, they just slammed the doors in our faces.’
Gibbs sighed. ‘Listen, this is not my case, pals. I’ve been legging it around all afternoon and it’s now getting dark; the tart could be anywhere, and so could Allard.’
Moran stubbed out his cigarette and turned to Jane. ‘You want to give it one more try at that estate, and I’ll do another round of the clubs? Spence, just drop her off, and Jane, radio in if you find her.’
Gibbs drove Jane out of the car park as Moran and Edwards started to head towards the red light district. They stopped to buy a hot dog each and then heard the ambulance approaching with the lights flashing and bell ringing. A uniform officer approached and said that there was an altercation in Berwick Street at the adult bookshop and the woman who owned it had called in the police.
Moran watched as the still unconscious Stevie was carried on a stretcher into the ambulance and the paramedics began to try to resuscitate him. His wife was sobbing and swearing at the same time as she said she would find the bastard. Her husband had only one dried wound to the side of his head; apart from that there was no other physical sign of violence. She said it had to have been some pervert after money but she had already locked up the cabinet of drugs.
Moran was standing in the corridor where the rack of magazines still lay on its side as Stevie’s wife became very agitated and wanted him to leave as she was going in the ambulance.
‘I got to lock up… you can come back another time.’
‘Shut up,’ Moran snapped.
‘I am not leaving without locking the doors, it’ll be an open bloody invitation, there’s stuff in here worth a lot of money.’
Moran turned on her and told her to be quiet again, when he saw a trail of blood, not from beneath the rack but closer to the small staircase. She tried to interrupt him again but he ordered her to go and get in the ambulance.
‘I can’t leave this place open,’ Ada wailed.
Moran ignored her and began to slowly move up the stairs. Spots of blood could be seen, and then as he reached the landing there were blood splatterings against the wall. He pushed open the door and could see the small figure curled on his side, his red hair matted with blood, his face badly beaten, blood bubbles gathered at his open mouth. Moran went over to him. The poor kid was terrified, his eyes wide, and he even tried to ward off Moran.
‘’S’all right, I’m not going to hurt you. Do you know who did this to you? Look at me, come on, I’ve got an ambulance outside. You know who beat you up?’
Ginger started crying and then nodded his head. ‘Big guy… he hit me wiv this thing on a chain. Oh God, he done me head in.’
‘Listen, you are going to be looked after, but tell me why he did this to you.’
Ginger spat out blood as Moran held him upright in a sitting position.
‘Angie, he wanted to know where Angie lives.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘What you fuckin’ think, he was crazy. I told him.’
It was another few minutes before the boy was able to give Moran the address.
Moran picked the injured boy up in his arms and carried him out.
‘Oh Jesus God, that’s Ginger. Ginger, who would want to do something like that to him, he’s just a kid?’ Ada began screaming in hysterics as Moran carried the boy out into the street to the still waiting ambulance. He spoke urgently to Edwards.
‘We get the car and get over to Janet Brown’s estate. It has to have been Allard. Radio in to Gibbs that we’re on our way.’
Jane got out of the car and slammed the door.
‘I’m going,’ Gibbs said.
‘Fine, Spence, you go, or just wait until I come out and you can take me back to the section house. It’s my day off as well, you know.’
‘It’s not my bloody case,’ he moaned.
He watched her heading up the pathway to the estate entrance. She had the photograph of Janet Brown in her hand. She turned back and gave him a smile as she went in through the main doors. He felt a bit guilty. He knew he wouldn’t drive off and leave her, he was just pissed off at losing almost an entire day off.