Egremont police paid Bobby Bailey a visit at St Bees. He had his head stuck under a low loader when they turned up. At first, his heart did a small flip, thinking they were onto him about his recent activities, or that they wanted to question him about the little girl in Dalton-in-Furness again. But it wasn’t either of those. They wanted to know about the missing girl from Keswick.
While he was still on his back, they showed him a photograph of her. He recognised her instantly. He wouldn’t forget that face in a hurry: her full lips and that distinctive sway, indicating her cocksureness, or else the fact that she’d been drinking. Sweet one, she was. He’d never seen her before and certainly couldn’t recall selling her any of his finest little sweeties. He knew he would have remembered that.
‘They all look the same.’ It was true; they all dressed like boys, and covered up their figures. It was a crying shame.
‘Can I get up?’ he asked. The coppers stood aside.
He slid out from under the vehicle. He was one of the few who could always be relied upon to fix it quickly. He wiped his hands on a cloth that was stuck in his back pocket, then cupped them and blew into them. The snow had reached St Bees, and the seaside town was covered in a thick layer. Even the beach was white, and the fair had set up close to it, on a patch of corporation land that in the past was used for access to the lighthouse.
Bobby stamped his feet and gave the two coppers his attention. They asked the same stupid questions that the last lot did, except this time it was about a different piece of candy. They showed him another photo, and it was Luke, but he shook his head again. They asked him about his movements on the night of the Keswick fair, and he lied, saying he was working the generators. They asked him who else he saw; he lied again and named a few pals who’d moved on. They asked him what time he went to bed, what he did after work, who he talked to and if he fantasised about little girls.
‘She wasn’t little; she was fifteen, you said.’
The coppers looked at one another.
‘It’s underage, Bobby.’
‘Didn’t look it,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘What did you just say?’
‘Nothing. On her photo; she looks older.’
‘Was she behaving as though she were older?’
‘Course she was, they all do.’ Shit. He’d just put his foot right in it.
‘So you do remember her?’ The coppers looked smug.
‘Well, it could have been someone like her; they all look the same, don’t they?’
‘No, I don’t think they do. Did you see her or not?’
‘Maybe. I think she might have been drunk.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Well, when she got in the car, she had to be helped.’ Shit.
‘What car?’
‘Dunno, it was dark.’ He’d said enough, he had no desire to get dragged into this one. He was an idiot.
‘Who helped her into the car?’
‘I dunno. There was a group of them.’
Each time they pushed him, he let slip more information. He was growing anxious.
‘Fucking leave me alone. I know my rights. I’ll get a lawyer.’
The uniforms nodded. ‘All right, Bobby, calm down. It’s just a few questions. Who pays your wages?’
‘Maria.’ The pieces began to fall into place in his head: they were threatening to go to his boss. ‘Are you arresting me?’ He jutted his chin out.
‘No, Bobby, we’re not. We’ll leave it for now, but you might want to contact your lawyer.’
The police officers walked away and Bobby stared after them. He tried to stay calm, but he couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t the last time he’d be seeing the coppers. He thought about the news reports he’d seen on TV in the pub about the missing girl. No one had mentioned a car, and that meant one thing: the police were either withholding the information, or they didn’t know. And if they didn’t know, then it wouldn’t be long before they came back and pushed him for more details.
He was so angry with himself for letting such a vital detail slip that he kicked the side of the thirty-ton lorry, and then jumped up and down because it hurt like hell. He swore loudly and decided to walk to the pub. The axle was fixed, he wasn’t needed until tonight, and he needed to think.
He smiled as he headed off along the seafront. The coppers thought him a lowlife; travellers, fairground workers, vagrants, gypsies – call them what you wanted, none of them were loved up with the rozzers. That said, it could work to his advantage, in that it would be assumed he was an unreliable witness, and so he could change his story and say he’d made a mistake.
Yep, that was what he would do.
The air was freezing and the beach looked like it was covered in salt; it was weird, and something you didn’t see every day. He stopped to take a picture on his phone, and then remembered that he’d done the same on the night of the Keswick fair, when the girl had got into the car. As he walked, he scrolled through his photos. He went too far and there was a picture of the little girl in Dalton: nice. He went forward again and found the most recent ones from Keswick. There she was. She was made for a bit of action, she was. Her tits barely stayed in her top and the boys around her couldn’t take their eyes off them. Another photo showed her from behind. He had been sorely tempted to follow them, but he’d had work to do. His contact from Manchester to meet. Nedzad had been good to him, giving him generous cuts, and it was always wise to stay on the right side of someone who looked like a mean motherfucker.
He’d managed to source some little blue angels from the Bosnian that were worth a fortune if he could shift them to the kiddies. Roxies. It wasn’t often he came across them, but when he did, they sold like candyfloss. Crushed and snorted, or, by the serious smackheads, dissolved and injected, they offered highs like the purest heroin. The comedown was vicious, but he didn’t give a fuck about that. Shifting them had distracted him for a while, until that posh twat had called him, terrified, not knowing what to do. It was down to Bobby to clear up again, and the good-looking ballsack dripping in Mummy and Daddy’s money owed him big-time. The idiot was always on the lookout for packets of K2. Fuck that. He had no idea how heavy the pigs had got on that stuff. It’d killed a couple of kids in the USA, and now every drug squad in the UK had taken it upon themselves to wipe it off the streets. It was easier to source Xanax or Vicodin.
If the coppers found out the girl had been spiced, it could change everything.