After a quick shower he came back downstairs with his jeans and T-shirt on. Bracing himself, he went into the kitchen.
Alice looked him up and down, eyes lingering at his crutch.
‘They’ll be like flies around shit,’ she lisped in a camp voice.
Jon gripped his temples. ‘Just stop it, will you? This is really doing my head in.’
She laughed again. ‘Seriously, though, nice touch. Black leather belt and black leather boots.’
Jon studied her face for signs of a piss-take. ‘They’re my old shoes from when I was in uniform. Doc Martens,’ he said uncertainly.
Alice kissed him on the mouth. ‘You look fine, honey. And stop worrying, will you? Anyone would think you’re about to climb into a cage full of pit-bulls.’
As Jon slapped squares of ham between two slices of granary bread, she started folding the ironing board up.
‘Here, I’ll do it,’ Jon said. Licking margarine from his fingers, he took it from her.
‘Cheers,’ she answered, one hand on the small of her back.
‘Oh, I saw Fiona today. She called into the salon.’
‘How was she?’ Jon asked, sliding the ironing board into the cupboard under the stairs.
‘Can you get the hoover out while you’re in there?’
‘Alice, forget vacuuming. You should put your feet up.’
‘And who’ll clean this place?’
‘I’ll do it. Tomorrow before work, OK?’
Alice shrugged. ‘I’ll have to get pregnant more often.’
Christ! The prospect of one baby was frightening enough. He looked round, hoping to see an expression on Alice’s face that would tell him she was joking. But her back was to him as she sorted through the pile of ironing.
‘So how was Fiona?’
Alice’s hands paused. ‘She worried me, actually. I mean, she’s sorting herself out, looking to rent somewhere, so she’s finally free of that arsehole she married. But she was going on about what she thinks she heard in that motel room.’
Jon stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
‘She’s determined to find out what happened to that girl Alexia, or whatever her name was. She went to some escort agency, the one whose business card she found.’
He nodded.
‘The owner had interviewed someone, but didn’t take her on. So Fiona said she’s going to start asking street hookers if they know her.’
Jon pictured what went on in Manchester’s red-light areas after dark. It was a sad fact, but even many of his colleagues considered the working girls fair game for a bit of fun. Stories occasionally circulated of prostitutes being invited into the back of police vans, of freebies demanded in return for increased patrols whenever a violent punter was on the prowl. It was a brutal place for Fiona to be wandering around asking questions. ‘She needs to be very careful.’
‘I know. But she’s determined to find out if she’s alive. It’s like some sort of fixation.’
‘Listen, if she tells you anything more about what she’s up to, let me know. I don’t want her getting into trouble. There’s some very nasty operators making their living from those women.’
As Fiona drove through Belle Vue her eyes were drawn to the Platinum Inn. Lights shone behind the curtains in a few of the ground-floor rooms. Several couples were walking along the pavement, and she wondered which were genuine and which were not.
Five minutes later she was driving round the back of Piccadilly station. Spotlights ran along the top of a huge billboard poster. Stretched out in their glare was a bikini-clad woman, leaning towards the camera, lips slightly apart. Fiona just had time to see the ad was for a forthcoming plastic surgery programme on TV before the road turned left, leading her down a dark street bordered by several locked Manchester University buildings. It was a part of town she was unfamiliar with, and she slowed to a crawl. At once she became aware of women she’d been oblivious of a moment before. Now that she was looking properly, she could see more of them, some hanging back in the cobbled side streets that branched off from the road. A sign caught her eye. Minshull Street. One woman stepped to the edge of the kerb and started to beckon. The car passed under a streetlight and, seeing that it was a woman at the wheel, the prostitute’s hand fell.
Fiona speeded up a little, shocked by the existence of a world which, until a few seconds ago, she had only been vaguely aware of. She carried on, the bright lights of Canal Street just visible away to her left. The girls here were dressed more gaudily, and had exaggerated perms and overdone lipstick. She glimpsed silver platform shoes and microskirts and couldn’t decide if they were just drinkers heading into the Gay Village.
Soon she was approaching the brightly lit area of Whitworth Street. As pubs and restaurants began springing up the girls evaporated away. She did a U-turn and drove back, scanning the dark doorways and shadowy areas under trees. How had they ended up here? she wondered. How many were escaping violent fathers, husbands or partners? She stared at them, feeling sick with the realisation that, in many ways, the only thing separating her from them was the thickness of her car window.
Jon looked around the Yates’s pub. A few commuters with coats and briefcases were sipping pints before their trains home. No sign of Rick. He leaned on the bar and decided on a pint of Stella to help settle his nerves.
The change in his hand didn’t cover the cost of the drink and, sheepishly, he had dig out another fifty pence while making the decision to never drink there again.
He chose a table in full view of the entrance, put his drink down and started to shrug his leather jacket off. Then he remembered his figure-hugging T-shirt and changed his mind.
The top half of his drink disappeared in two gulps and he began fiddling with a beer mat, pondering the possibility that his new partner was reporting back to McCloughlin. Although he had initially suspected he was, now he wasn’t quite so sure. The limited exchange between them at the third victim’s crime scene indicated that Rick and McCloughlin had met, but it was a big jump from that to concluding they were in a hidden agree- ment.
Jon stared at his drink, considering his options like a chess player. Booze. That would be his next move. Get him drinking, then drop in an awkward question or two.
A couple of minutes later Rick walked in, still wearing his suit. Wilting with the realisation he had misjudged his dress, Jon gave a weak wave.
Rick spotted him and crossed the room, taking in Jon’s clothes as he did. ‘Shit, I didn’t think we were going casual.’ His eyes caught momentarily on the rip in the knee of Jon’s faded jeans.
Jon moved his leg under the table. ‘I thought we were trying to mingle a bit.’
There was an awkward pause, broken by Rick’s half-chuckle.
‘Well, you’ll certainly manage that. Drink?’
Jon tipped his glass to the side. ‘Go on then. Another Stella please.’
Rick returned with two drinks, Jon eyeing the other glass suspiciously. ‘Is that a Coke?’
Rick took a long swallow. ‘With a double gin.’
Resisting the temptation to pick up the drink and sniff it, Jon gulped down some more beer.
Rick took out the credit-card company’s breakdown of Gordon Dean’s last transactions. ‘So, his card was swiped in Don Antonio’s at seven forty-nine. Next is a bill for thirty-six quid in Taurus. Transaction went through at eight forty-one.’
‘What’s Taurus?’
‘It’s a sort of restaurant bar at the very top of Canal Street. Nice cocktails, decent menu. Might as well start there.’
Jon tried to form an impression of Taurus as they walked through the doors — muted lights and clusters of candles were fighting a losing battle with the shadows encroaching from all sides. He almost stumbled on the sloping floor that led up to the tables, half of which were taken by people dining.
The shelves behind the bar at the top of the room glowed with an impressive assortment of spirits. A glass-fronted fridge was stacked full with bottles of champagne.