The Fire Baby

Dryden hesitated before executing his next tactic, sensing at some subliminal level that he might have already stepped outside the strict etiquette laid down by the Road Hauliers Association. ‘Then there’s the dirty pix, of course. Hmm? You had any of them, have you? Apparently they get stowed away with the immigrants. Sort of reverse trade. I’d be interested. You know, to get a cut too.’

Dryden leered hugely and tried a wink, which in the circumstances was a bonus. It meant he got to see the fist which hit him with just the one eye. He heard rather than felt the thud of the bunched knuckles pushing his eye back into its socket. The pain came a second later. A red-hot electric pulse which collapsed his spine and knees with frightening efficiency.

Then the guy picked him up by the shirt and pushed him hard up against the metallic side of the Ritz. Dryden’s vision blurred. His assailant was so close he could smell the scraps of food between his teeth.

‘Who told you that?’ he said, surprisingly quietly. Over his shoulder Dryden could see Humph in the Capri, eyes closed, headphones still on. The motorbike had moved on. Cars swept past like they always do, innocent of any crime.

‘Just heard it,’ he said, and the guy laughed in a friendly way which made Dryden’s heart freeze. Then he took Dryden’s arm, twisted it round his back and began to apply his weight. The elbow joint began to give with a series of plastic pops. Dryden screamed but the passing cars drowned him out.

The bloke was whispering in his ear now. ‘Let’s keep that to ourselves, yeah?’

‘OK,’ said Dryden, pathetically eager to comply. The vice-like grip was released, so he sank to his knees and threw up. He kept his eyes down, viewing the puke, until he heard the lorry rumble back out on to the A14. He knelt there for some time while he waited for his breathing to return to normal, and for his little fingers to stop vibrating like windscreen wipers.

Out of the hot dust of the road Inspector Andy ‘Last Case’ Newman’s battered Citroën appeared. He got out, walked over and rattled the roller-shuttered front of the Ritz before turning to Dryden. He gently opened the fast-closing left eye, looking for broken blood vessels: ‘That’s gonna be a corker. Care to tell me who did it?’

‘A driver. I suggested he was after buying porn. He took exception.’

‘We can put him down as a “No”, I think, don’t you?’ said Newman.

Dryden wanted to laugh but still felt too sick. ‘Bob Sutton. Little Alice’s father, picked up something about the pornography racket in a lay-by, according to his wife. But I guess you know that already.’

Newman nodded, thumping the roll-up shutter one last time. He peered in through a gap between the door and its metal frame. A green parrot lay silent in an ugly little bundle.

‘Parrot’s a stiff,’ he said. ‘Shame, he could have told us where the proprietor’s gone.’

There was a whiff of putrid beefburger on the air so they moved up-wind. Newman took out his notebook and flipped over the pages. ‘Ex-wife of the T-Bar owner came in yesterday. Sub-station at Shippea Hill. She hadn’t seen him for a month – six weeks.’

‘Why’d she wait so long?’

Newman shrugged and watched with rapt attention a swift dipping over a field of burnt celery. Then he remembered that he knew the answer: ‘They were separated. Ten years. But he paid her some cash, every month. He missed the date, she smelt a rat and went looking for him.’

‘Smelt a rat,’ said Dryden, and they moved even further up-wind. ‘It’s like the Bermuda triangle around here. Alice Sutton goes missing, then Bob Sutton goes missing, now this guy.’

Newman stretched his arms above his head, revealing two large splodges of sweat. ‘Doesn’t bother me. People lose themselves. It isn’t a crime. Alice Sutton is back. I’d like to find her dad but my guess is he’s still on her trail, and it led to London. When it goes cold he’ll be back.’

‘And this guy?’ said Dryden, circling the Ritz, massaging his shoulder.

‘Is more interesting,’ said Newman. ‘We’ve had him down for the illegal immigrants for some time. It’s a drop-off point. Frankly we just let him carry on so we could get an idea of when the lorries were coming through. Try and spot the ones with the human cargo. Now it looks like he’s mixed up in the porn too. Perhaps he’s stepped out of line. They wouldn’t like that. These people are capable of anything… More.’

Dryden fingered his swelling eye and walked back to the mobile T-Bar. He pulled at the gold chain around his neck, and tried Laura’s key in the lock of the chipboard door. Nothing. Newman watched with the exaggerated patience of a nurse on a psychiatric ward. ‘Johnnie Roe’s the name,’ he said. ‘Villain. You should see his file at the nick. Takes up a whole drawer. Petty in every sense of the word plus two really black marks, a GBH five years ago in a town pub. And procuring, that was ten years ago. Nottingham.’

‘Procuring?’

Newman sighed. ‘He was a pimp. He sold girls. Got it?’