this time. In the blink of an eye, she curled the fingers of her right hand and lashed out with her jagged, splintered nails, carving three savage gashes across the width of Erica’s cheek. “Get out of my face, bitch,” she snarled as she rose to her feet.
Erica fell back, the box slipping from her hand, Rice Krispies spraying out across the floor. “Jesus!” she gasped, kicking out at the rubber matting, propelling herself backward until she could reach to pull herself up on the metal bed frame. “What the fuck was that?”
“You’re a selfish, patronizing bully, and I’m sick of the fucking sight of you.” Kerry was circling now, her eyes burning into Erica’s like red-hot needles.
“Oh, that’s rich.” Erica pressed her hand to the side of her face; blood trickled between her fingers and dripped onto her bare toes. “You’re lucky you’re still breathing, girl.”
“Oh, yeah?” Hackles truly up now, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. Here we go. “I’ll fucking—” She was on Erica in an instant, knocking her off balance and coming down heavily on top of her. Erica, flailing, grabbed a handful of hair; she jerked Kerry’s face back and pulled it down violently against her own forehead. Claws and teeth flashed.
I was there inside a minute. “Enough!” I shouted, throwing open the cage door and pulling Erica by the scruff of her neck from atop the now-prone hooker. And then, without hesitation, I took her by the arm and hauled her from the cage.
Erica made no attempt to struggle as I led her in her underwear across the frost-slick gravel of the driveway. She stepped obediently inside the house, looked to me for directions, followed me silently up the stairs to the bathroom.
She sat still on the side of the bath while I soaked a wad of cotton wool in TCP. She made no sound, beside a sharp intake of breath as I pressed it to her cheek. She was patient while I mopped the blood and applied a gauze, secured it in place with a cotton swab and an Elastoplast. And after a fleeting, longing glance at the gleaming bathtub, she followed me willingly back to the basement. She even carried the etorphine.
Kerry caught Erica’s defiant stare as I reunited them in the cage. She stopped pacing.
“Of course, you know you’re a day early, right?” Erica handed me the miniature bottle and accompanying syringe and took to her perch on the edge of the bed.
Kerry edged away toward the far corner of the cell, her impending fate slowly dawning across her bloodied face. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” She laughed, strangely.
I didn’t have to say a word. Erica tossed her hair, crossed her knees and smiled at the doomed whore. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, Kerry,” she taunted. “I think you’re going to go and play a little game.” She fixed me with a look then, one so commanding that it stopped me in my tracks. “And you,” she said, “when you’re done with her you can go and buy me some clean fucking knickers. I’m filthy.”
I wasn’t expecting a knock at the door so early in the morning. And if I had been, I certainly wouldn’t have expected a pair of thirtysomething strangers in polyester suits. I don’t get too many visitors.
She stood a step behind him; both had their hands folded behind their backs. Their suits were identical—navy, double-breasted, showing signs of bobbling—though his didn’t feature a pencil skirt. Hers reached just below the knee, affording a view of sporty calves clad in sheer black nylon running directly into sensible lace-up shoes that swallowed her ankles. Her face was dusky and exotic-looking, her hair jet-black and tidied into a businesslike knot. Turkish? Iranian, maybe.
Her colleague stood within inches of the doorstep, implausibly large feet firmly together, all five-o’clock shadow and a dutiful half smile.
I almost had them pegged as Jehovah’s Witnesses until I spotted the big Ford on the drive, poverty blue with a whip antenna and cable-tied wheel trims. And then I was confirming my name to a black leather wallet, flipped open right in front of my nose and snatched away too fast to allow me to focus. Not that I really needed to.
“I’m Detective Inspector Fairey, CID.”
Shit. No, really—shit. Shit shit shit. Don’t flinch. Whatever you do, don’t narrow your eyes. Keep your hands still. Look him in the eye. Smile. Not like that—smile nicely.
“This is Detective Sergeant Green.” He shot her a nondescript glance; her expression didn’t change. Her name didn’t sound very Turkish, either. I smiled at her, anyway. “We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
As a matter of fact, I do mind. “Of course.” That’s enough, stop smiling now. It’s not reaching your eyes. “What can I help you with?”
He took one of his ridiculous clown feet and placed it firmly inside the door. “Okay if we come in?”
You already fucking did. “I guess so.” I stood stock-still in the doorway. “This isn’t going to take long, is it? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
It was his turn with the false smile. “I’m sure it’ll only take a minute.” He nodded. And just stood there. Staring. Nodding. I wondered how long he’d stand there, head bobbing up and down like a plastic dog on a parcel shelf, smile turning to a grimace, waiting politely for me to step aside. A minute? Two? Five maybe? Place your bets now.
Actually, no, I haven’t got time for that. I told him okay and waved him into the hall; he held me in a defiant stare as he passed. The one called Green bowed her head and followed silently. I left the door open.
“Nice house,” Fairey remarked as he scanned the blank walls of the entrance hall. Obviously highly skilled in the art of small talk.
I led him through to the kitchen and pointed to a chair at the breakfast table. Green fared a little better; I pulled one out for her. “So, Mr. Fairey—sit down, make yourself comfortable. What is it exactly that you’d like to ask me?”
“I’ll stand,” he said bluntly. He considered me for a moment; a lingering leer I found vaguely suggestive. I hoped he was merely waiting for me to offer him a cup of tea, though whatever he wanted, he’d have a long wait. And then, finally, he spoke. “We’re here,” he said, “because we’re investigating the disappearance of Kerry Farrow.”
The ceiling fell down. Crockery jumped from the racks, shattering across the floor. The boards undulated beneath my feet, pitching me off balance. Blood pounded through my temples, spots of white light dancing around my eyes to the staccato beat in my head. I felt my palms moisten and my pupils dilate. Every hair on my body stood on end. The windows rattled. The door flew off its hinges. I reached out to steady myself but my fingers just grasped at thin air, the same air that was whistling out of me like I’d taken a kick to the stomach.
This is the other reason I stay away from hookers: there’s always some knitworn do-right from the Prostitutes’ Collective taking down numbers. Decades without a glitch, and then I’m undone by a needless whim in a moment of weakness. It’s an age-old story, and one of those things that always happens to someone else. Fuck me, I’m an idiot.
Gun. I can get to the gun, no problem. In the time it takes this Fairey to cross the kitchen, I’ll have torn open the cupboard and swiped aside the oven cleaner and the bin bags and he’ll be staring down a twelve-gauge barrel, eyes widening, trying to shake his head, trying to form the word no with his cotton-wool tongue and his cracked lips while his mind clouds with terror and despair and thoughts of his plump wife and gurgling babies and everything he didn’t tell them before he left for work today. And his accomplice will make it to her feet in time to take a faceful of blood and skull and brain, and she’ll raise her hands to shield her eyes and let out a shriek of fear and surprise, and she’ll trip on the chair as she runs for the door, and I’ll stand on her neck as she sprawls on the floor, and she’ll look up at me like a stunned rabbit,