The Business Of Dying

I did the introductions and asked if we could come in. He started to say that it wasn't a good time right now, which is what they all say when they've got something to hide, but I wasn't going to let this one go, not after drawing blanks everywhere else in the place. I told him that it was a murder inquiry, and that we weren't interested if he'd been smoking blow in the privacy of his own home. Malik, who came more from the zero-tolerance school of policing (where it suited him, of course), gave me the standard disapproving look I was beginning to get used to from my subordinates, but I ignored him.

The guy really didn't have much choice, so he let us in and turned the music down. He sat down on a large beanbag and, waving in the general direction of the other beanbags assembled around the cluttered room, let us know that we too could sit down.

I told him we'd remain standing. He looked a mixture of nervous and confused, which was fine by me. I wanted to make him take this discussion seriously, to get him to rack his brains for information that could be of help.

As it happens, I didn't get a lot. His name was Drayer. He added that his first name was Zeke, but I told him I didn't believe anyone would have called their kid Zeke, not at the time he was born, which had to have been at least forty years earlier. He insisted that it was. I asked him if that was the name on his birth certificate. He admitted it wasn't. 'And have you changed it by deed poll?' He reluctantly conceded that he hadn't.

Eventually, I got it out of him that his real first name was Norman. ' Norman 's an all right name,' I told him. 'It's no worse than Dennis, which is mine.'

'I know it's no worse,' he said, and left it at that. Cheeky bastard.

It turned out that Norman was a poet by trade. He performed his poetry in some of the local pubs and clubs and had also had a few bits and pieces published in various anthologies. 'It doesn't pay much,' he confided, 'but it's a clean life.' Looking round his worn-out living room, I wasn't sure I'd have used that description for it, but there you go. Everyone's entitled to their own illusions.

Norman appeared genuinely upset when he found out it was Miriam who'd been murdered. He hadn't really known her, he said, as she'd tended to keep herself to herself, but whenever he'd run into her in the hallway she had always smiled and said hello. 'She was a nice girl, you know. Made the effort. There aren't many like that in this city.'

We both nodded in agreement. 'It can be an unfriendly place,' I said, stating the obvious. 'Did Miss Fox have many visitors? Particularly male ones?'

'Er no, I don't think so,' he said, thinking about it. 'I saw one man go up there a couple of times.'

'What did he look like?' Malik asked.

'He was muscular, well formed. Attractive, I would think, to women. And there was a fire about him, a passion. An anger almost. As if somewhere inside him was a volcano waiting to erupt.'

'That's a truly terrible description,' I told him. 'Try again. Was he tall, short? Black, white?'

'He was black.'

I described the guy who'd just clouted me and it quickly transpired that they were one and the same. Well, at least he'd been right about one thing. There'd certainly been an anger there.

'How often did he come and go?'

'I saw him maybe two or three times in the hall or on the stairs. He never spoke to me.'

'Over how long a period?'

He shrugged. I think he was pissed off that I'd mocked his descriptive skills. 'I don't know, maybe three months.'

'And when was the last time you saw him?'

'A couple of weeks ago. Something like that.'

'Not within the last two or three days?'

'No.'

'How long have you been here?' Malik asked.

'About a year now.'

'And was Miss Fox already here when you moved in?'

'No, she wasn't. She came… I don't know, about six months ago.'

'And you can't remember any other male visitors?'

He shook his head. 'No, I don't think so. Should I have done?'

'I thought poets were meant to be observant,' I told him. 'You know, viewing their surroundings and commenting on what they see.'

'What do you mean? What are you talking about?'

'She was a prostitute, Mr Drayer. Didn't you know that?'

It turned out he didn't, which was probably because there hadn't been any other male visitors that he recalled. She'd clearly kept her business and personal life separate. I showed him the photo-me images and asked him if he recognized the blonde girl. He said he did. He'd seen her a number of times coming and going with Miriam. 'They seemed like good friends. They used to laugh together a lot. Like schoolgirls.'

'That's what they should have been,' I said.

We asked him a few more questions about his own background and what he knew about the other people in the flats, but didn't get any information of significance. If anything, Norman knew even less about his other neighbours than he'd known about Miriam.

It was just after a quarter to six when we finally got back to the station and reported to Welland, who'd taken up residence in a small office next to the incident room, from where he could control his end of the inquiry. He was pissed off because one of his witnesses in another case, a girl testifying against her ex-boyfriend who'd knifed someone in a pub fight, had decided to pull the plug and keep her mouth shut. Apparently someone had persuaded her to change her mind with a small threat of violence, leaving Welland 's case in tatters.

'I've had the CPS on the phone all afternoon,' he moaned between vacuum-cleaner-like drags on his cigarette. 'Making a fucking fuss like they're fucking whiter than white.'

Malik made the mistake of asking if she'd had protection.

Welland glared at him. 'That fucking knifing happened three months ago and the trial doesn't start until February. I can't have a man with her all that time. Where the fuck am I going to get him from? Magic him up out of thin air?'

Malik backed off, knowing better than to get involved in one of Welland 's rants. Welland finished his cigarette in three angry drags and used the butt to light another one. 'Anyway, what happened to your face?' he asked me eventually. I told him, and he shook his head angrily. 'We'll put a warrant out on him as soon as we've got his name. He might be able to throw some light on this. Did you find anything of interest there?'

I shook my head. 'Not a lot. There was no address book or mobile phone or anything, nothing that would give us any idea of her client list.'

'We're just going to have to ask around among the King's Cross girls tonight. See if they can throw up any names.'

'She's bound to have had a mobile,' I said. 'Have we got anyone checking whether there was one registered in her name?'

'Yeah, I've got Hunsdon on it at the moment, but it'll take time.'

I told him about the girl in the photographs and suggested it would be a good idea to try to trace her.

'Yeah, you're right. She might be able to help. There's a meeting tomorrow at eight thirty sharp. We'll be getting the preliminary autopsy findings, so make sure you're there. No fucking oversleeping. It's important we get momentum on this one,' he said by way of conclusion. 'You know what they say about the first forty-eight hours.'

I did indeed, but my momentum had gone for the day. The right side of my face still ached, and since I was going to have to be in early again, I decided it was time to knock off. I asked Malik if he fancied joining me for a drink, more out of politeness than anything else, since I didn't think he'd say yes. He looked at his watch for at least two seconds too long, then smiled and said why not, which was unusual for him. He generally liked to get away at the end of the shift, back to his family, which was fair enough, although he wasn't averse to socializing with the bosses if he thought it would do him some good.

We adjourned to a pub called the Roving Wolf, which was a haunt for CID and some of the uniforms. It was busy with the after-work office crowd, a few of whom I knew by sight, and I said hello to a couple of people as I pushed my way to the bar and ordered the drinks – a pint of Pride for me, a large orange juice for Malik. We found a table in the corner away from the scrum, and I lit a cigarette.