He watched them kill her. Not a needle in her arm, not a quick bullet in the brain, but blows to the head with a large, heavy rock – one blow to each temple. Then they rolled her over on the plastic sheeting they had laid on the floor and stove in the back of her head. The iron, meaty smell of her blood mingled with the sweat of her killers.
He tried to remember her name.
They would throw her into the sea and let the water and the rocks cover up their dirty work. She might never be found – after all, the sea doesn’t always deliver the dead back to the living.
Or maybe they would take her to one of the many out of the way foot crossings on the Norwich to London railway line. He didn’t have the strength or the will to intervene. Not yet. All he could do was watch and commit it to his memory. Commit that last look she gave him, that last sad, defeated look, to his memory.
By the time her body was found, there would be no evidence that she had been murdered.
Cora Winterton dabbed concealer under her eyes and applied shocking pink lipstick to her lips. She peered at herself in the mirror, then grimaced. She looked terrible. Nothing a few good nights’ sleep and some decent meals wouldn’t cure, but she wasn’t going to get those any time soon. Working nights was a bitch. Especially when she didn’t get much sleep during the day. Couldn’t do it. Even after all these years her body clock wouldn’t adjust to hospital shifts. But she wasn’t going to put it off any longer. She couldn’t pretend any more that Rick had moved sites or was staying in a hostel. Besides, she had been around all the obvious places, and plenty of the not so obvious ones and there was still no sign of him. But she had to check once more, there were still some people she hadn’t talked to.
Where was he?
Her head began to swim. She leaned forward and grabbed the sides of the washbasin, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. Lack of food, lack of sleep, worry about her landlord putting up her rent – all of that. More deep breaths and her head felt better.
Two cups of coffee, one cigarette and another application of lipstick later and Cora emerged into the misty gloom of the early morning. It was a good time to see the people she wanted to talk to – before they moved on to start their begging in shop doorways, or to find breakfast at one of the hostels in the city. She hurried down the steps and out onto the pavement, striding along to the underpass, glad she’d brought her umbrella.
With its walls of graffiti and stench of urine, the underpass linking her end of town with the shopping area was a favourite spot for the dispossessed and the vulnerable. Often it was littered with cardboard, empty drinks cans and bottles, old bits of clothing used as bedding, sometimes used needles. Although there had been an attempt to make the bare concrete walls more cheerful by covering them with paintings of Picasso-like figures in lurid colours, Cora often thought someone could die down here and never be noticed. Today it was the rowdy crowd, drinking cheap cider and knock-off spirits, leaning, or in some cases sagging, against the wall.
‘Corrrrrra.’
‘Hey, Tiger, how are you?’ She smiled at the man who had pushed himself away from the wall and staggered towards her, ignoring the catcalls from the other men and women. ‘You’re up early.’
‘Keepin’ warm,’ he said, holding a can aloft. ‘Pissin’ freezin’. Coppers moved us on this mornin’. Honestly, no bleedin’ hearts in them.’
‘Can I get you a coffee?’ she said. ‘A bit of breakfast?’
‘Nah you’re all right. Bit of cash’d be nice.’
‘Tiger—’ She shook her head.
‘I know, I know, I’d piss it up against the wall.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Are you still lookin’ for Ricky-boy?’
‘Yes. Why, have you see him?’ Her heart leapt.
He shook his head. ‘Nah. We miss him though, don’t we?’ he shouted out to the others.
A general rumble of noise floated around the underpass. Tiger shrugged. ‘Sorry. Can’t help you. He’s a good mate, though. Find him soon, yeah?’
‘It’s okay,’ said Cora, ‘there are plenty of other places I can look.’ The familiar darkness settled around her head. She was never going to find him, but she had to keep looking.
And that was the depressing thing, she thought, as she tramped around the city in the drizzle that was getting harder and colder by the minute, there were plenty of other places to look, even in a city like Norwich which never used to have a homelessness problem. Now it seemed to be everywhere. People sleeping in shop doorways, in car parks, alleyways, even by the traffic lights outside the station.
And it was Martin, outside the railway station, bundled up in his sleeping bag, covered with old tinfoil, and lying on a bed of newspaper and used pizza boxes with his beloved dog, Ethel, who gave her the first bit of hope since Rick went missing.
‘Yeah,’ said Martin, sitting up and accepting a cigarette and a takeaway coffee from her with trembling fingers. ‘I saw Rick ’bout two weeks ago. Before I went to Yarmouth. Piss poor place that.