Absent Light by Eve Isherwood

Author:Eve Isherwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“DEAD?” HELEN’S EYES WIDENED.

“Suspected drug overdose. We got there as the ambulance was arriving. Not that it was much use.”

“Right,” she said, sinking into the nearest chair. Yesterday’s suspect becomes today’s victim. “You’re sure it’s her?”

Stratton gave a dry laugh. “We’re waiting for a positive I.D. but the girls identified her as the same woman in the photographs.”

“You’ve talked to them?” Adam always maintained that prostitutes were not generally forthcoming with information, stemming from a grave distrust of the police.

“Obviously they were upset, but they were pretty co-operative.”

“And the cause of death was definitely an OD?”

Stratton frowned. His brown eyes hardened. “A syringe was found at the scene.”

“Heroin,” she stated dismally.

“We’ll have a clearer idea after the post-mortem. Until then we’re treating it as suspicious.”

She supposed she should have felt some satisfaction. She didn’t. She felt cheated. She wanted answers and, with the woman dead, they’d be even harder to come by.

“According to the girls she worked with, she was a heavy user,” Stratton said, as if to bolster his argument.

We die as we live, something she’d been taught a long time ago. “Any previous drugs offences?”

“Incredibly, no.”

“And she was a prostitute?”

Stratton nodded. “Moved from Essex seven months ago. Usual story, running away from a pimp.”

“And is Albion Place being used as a brothel?”

Stratton shook his head. “No offence has been committed.”

“So they just live together?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“The other girls say anything about her coming into money?”

“They mentioned some money. We’re following that line of enquiry.”

She gave him a sharp look. Hello, she wanted to say, this is Helen, you don’t have to use the jargon with me.

Stratton sat down next to her. “You mentioned tailing Lake before you followed her back to her address.”

“Yes.”

“Where exactly?”

“To a rough bit of Smethwick.”

“Could you take us there, identify it?”

“Probably, but I don’t know where Freya, sorry Karen, went. I lost her, or she lost me, and it wasn’t the sort of location you hang around in.”

“Was she picking up drugs, do you reckon?”

“Well, it wasn’t the kind of place you pick up a loaf of bread,” she said, eyes smiling.

“No,” Stratton agreed with a short laugh.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Naturally, we’ll be talking to her associates, tracing the family.”

And piecing together her history, she thought. “Finding out why her path crossed with mine.”

“If,” Stratton said.

She expressed surprise.

“What we need is hard evidence, Helen, not imaginative ideas.”

It was the nearest he’d come to criticism, she thought. His strict adherence to sticking purely with the facts was so very different to Adam. She ought to be glad. “Any chance you’ll recover the money?” she asked speculatively.

He threw her an exasperated look. “Hold up, you’re jumping to conclusions again.”

“You don’t think it was her, do you?” It was impossible to keep the dejected tone from her voice.

“We don’t even know for sure whether your mother was being blackmailed.”

“Why else would she part with over a hundred grand in cash?” She said, dismayed.

“That’s what your dad said.”

“Surely, he should know?”

“It’s never good to get ahead of the evidence, Helen.

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