The Business Of Dying

Brave words, too. Whether they'd be matched by deeds or not, though, remained to be seen.

The remainder of the meeting was spent organizing who was going to be doing what, and took about ten minutes, including questions. Welland was going to be leading the raid on Mark Wells's place as soon as the paperwork came through, which annoyed me a little bit. Since it had been me the bastard had hit, I wanted to be on the team which brought him in, but I suppose at the same time I also wanted to find out more about Molly, and it was going to be difficult to do both.

It was 9.20 when Malik and I left to go round to the Coleman House care home. Times were hard in our division of the Metropolitan Police and budgets tight, so we decided to save the taxpayers some money by taking the bus. In the end, though, it would probably have been quicker to walk. An accident on the Holloway Road had snarled up the traffic and we were stuck in it, stopping and starting, for what seemed like hours.

I told Malik about my dream as we sat there watching the world go by, or not as the case might be. It had genuinely rattled me. 'You know, I know it sounds stupid, but it was almost like some sort of premonition.'

He couldn't resist a grin. 'What? You think Les Dennis might be in danger?'

'I'm serious, Asif. This wasn't like any dream I've ever had. You know me. I'm not superstitious, and I'm not spiritual or anything like that. I'm not even a Christian. So it's nothing to do with my state of mind. It was just it was so vivid that when I woke up I was absolutely positive this Molly girl was dead.'

'Explain the dream to me again.'

I went through it all with him, missing out the details of the dead customs men, and whispering so that none of the other passengers, a mixture of old grannies and foreign students, could hear what I was saying. I didn't want them thinking I was some sort of nutter.

By the time I'd finished, we'd travelled the sum total of about thirty yards.

Malik shook his head and gave me the sort of look that suggested he thought it was grossly unfair that he should be taking orders from someone with such a tenuous grip on reality. 'Look, Sarge, I wouldn't worry about it. You know, a dream's just a dream. The chances are this girl's all right.'

'I hope so. I didn't like the sound of the fact that she hasn't been seen for a couple of weeks.'

'Only by the local streetwalkers. Maybe she's changed. Maybe she's realized that prostitution and drug addiction is no way to lead a life.'

I laughed. 'Do you really believe that?'

'Well, it's unlikely…'

'Dead right it is.'

'But it's possible. And anyway, maybe she's just plying her trade somewhere else. There's got to be more chance of that than of her being dead in a ditch somewhere.'

Malik said these last few words a bit too loudly and a couple of people turned round and gave us funny looks.

'Yeah, you're right,' I said. 'You've convinced me.'

But he hadn't.

***

We exited the bus on Junction Road when it became obvious that we weren't getting anywhere and took the tube, which thankfully was still running pretty much as normal. It was 10.20 when we got out of Camden station. It was slowly turning into a sunny winter's day, so we walked the rest of the way.

Coleman House was a large redbrick Victorian building on a road just off the high street. One of the third-floor windows was boarded up, but other than that it looked quite well kept. A couple of kids, a boy and a girl, sat on the wall in front of the entrance, smoking and looking shifty. The girl was wearing a very short skirt and a huge pair of black platform-soled trainers that, set against her spindly legs, made her look mutated. They both looked at us as we approached and the boy sneered. 'Are you coppers?' he said.

'That's right,' I told him, stopping in front of them. 'We're investigating a murder.'

'Oh yeah? Whose, then?' he asked, looking interested. Morbid little bastard.

'Well, why don't we start with you telling me your name?'

'What's it got to do with me? I haven't done nothing.'

'You can't make him give you his name,' said the girl confidently, looking me in the eye. I put her at about thirteen, and she would have been quite pretty except for the angry cluster of whiteheads around her mouth and the excessive use of cheap make-up. Thirteen, and she was already a barrack-room lawyer. I had a feeling they were all going to be like that in a place like this.

'I'm not trying to,' I told her. 'I'm just interested in knowing who I'm talking to.'

'If you want to talk to him, you need an appropriate adult present.'

'So, when did you graduate from law school then, young lady?'

She was about to come up with some other smart-alec answer but we were interrupted before she could get it out.

'Can I help you, gentlemen?'

The speaker was an attractive white female, early forties. Quite tall – about five feet nine – and, from the sound of her voice, someone in authority.

I turned in her direction and smiled, opening fire with the charm. 'I hope so. My name's DS Milne and this is my colleague, DC Malik. We're here as part of an ongoing inquiry.'

She managed a weak smile. 'Really, what now?'

'It's a murder investigation.'

'Oh.' She looked taken aback. 'Was there any reason why you were talking to the children?'

'I was just introducing myself.'

'No you weren't,' said the girl. 'He was trying to find out who we were.'

'Well, I'll take over from here, Anne. Aren't you and John meant to be with Amelia?'

'We're just having a quick smoke,' said the girl, not bothering to look up.

'Perhaps you'd better come inside, gentlemen, and we'll talk in there.'

I nodded. 'Of course. And you are?'

'Carla Graham. I manage Coleman House.'

'Well, then, please lead the way,' I said, and we followed her through the double doors and into the building.

The place had the unwelcoming feel of a hospitaclass="underline" high ceilings; linoleum floors; health-related posters on the walls warning against shared needles, unwanted pregnancy, and a whole host of other obstacles to a happy and fulfilling life. And there was a nasty reek of disinfectant in the air. Dr Barnardo's this wasn't.

Carla Graham had a spacious office at the other end of the building. She ushered us in and we took seats facing her across her sizeable desk. There were more doom-mongering posters in here as well. One showed a huge photograph of a young child, no more than five, covered in bruises. The caption above it read: Stamp on Child Abuse. Below the photograph it added: Not on Children.

'So, what's happened?' Carla asked. 'I hope none of our clients are involved.'

'Clients, meaning children?' It was Malik asking the question.

'That's right.'

'We don't really know, which is why we're here.' I then told her about the discovery of the body the previous day.

'I didn't hear anything about that,' she said. 'Who was the poor girl?'

'Her name was Miriam Fox.' Carla's expression didn't hint at recognition, so I continued. 'She was an eighteen-year-old prostitute, a runaway.'

She shook her head and sighed. 'What a waste. Not a shock, because the potential for this sort of thing to happen's there all the time. But a terrible waste, all the same.'