Dirty Money: 'Instantly gripping and great fun from beginning to end' Bella Mackie (Farrow & Chang Thrillers) by Charlotte Philby

Author:Charlotte Philby [Philby, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Murray Press
Published: 2025-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Traffic fumes hit Madeleine as soon as she exits the station. With Highbury at one end, with its specialist cheese shops and multi-million-pound terrace houses overlooking ‘The Fields’, and the more recently gentrified Archway at the other, it is a marvel that the section of the A1 known as Holloway Road, which connects the two, remains so perfectly urban. Taking out her phone, Madeleine checks the time. 8.55 a.m. – five minutes until she is due to meet Ramona.

Waiting on the pedestrianised area outside the entrance hall, she scrolls through her contacts until she finds HARRIET – LAURA TATCHELL’S OFFICE, and presses call. When Harriet doesn’t answer, Madeleine follows up with an email.

When she checks the time again, it is 9.05 a.m. Still no sign of Ramona.

Pinging her a text, she instantly receives a reply: L8 Srry.

Really, for a meeting Ramona had requested?

Madeleine sighs and types her reply: I’m here, will do it myself – meet me in King’s Cross. Will message when I’m leaving.

The lettings agency stands between a nail bar and a newsagents, a way along the Holloway Road.

‘How can I help?’ the man behind the desk asks, clearly struck by the presence of the impeccably dressed woman in his office. Madeleine Farrow is not his usual breed of client, and with a quick glance around her, it’s not hard to see why.

‘I’m from SCID.’ She pulls her badge from her pocket, enjoying the ripple of unease that courses over him as he spots the badge. ‘Serious Crime Investigations Department,’ she adds, for clarification, as if it clarifies anything at all.

‘Right, and how can we—’

‘You rent out a space in Oldfield Retail Park, which we have reason to believe is linked to unlawful prostitution. Among other things . . .’

The man sits up straighter in his swivel chair. ‘Look—’

Holding up a hand by way of placating him, Madeleine goes on: ‘Look, you’re not in any trouble at the moment, but I am going to need you to give me as much information as you have about the company leasing the property.’

London at night is a different world from London by day, but the city at dawn is Ramona’s own special hinterland.

It doesn’t matter what route she takes this morning. She could be anywhere in the city – all she needs is the feeling of the pavement beneath her feet, something to push down against, crushing the swell of thoughts that threaten to overwhelm her; the call of the bottles in every newsagent she passes.

It would be so easy to succumb, to drown out the image of JJ in the oblivion that she knows so well. But she can’t do that to JJ, never mind to herself.

Fucking heroin. It’s like Cindy said: once you smack you can’t go back. Except Cindy had got clean, hadn’t she? If nothing else, what happened to JJ is a reminder that we are all susceptible.

Ramona should have known, she should have picked up on the signs. Even now, looking back, she can’t fathom it.

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