given her.
23
* * *
A NIGHT OUT FOR SERGEANT LONGBRIGHT
‘I recognized his face,’ Kallie explained. ‘His eyes were so sunken, and yet you could see such pain in them. I felt sorry for him.’ She showed Longbright how the man had climbed out of her garden. ‘He’s the local tramp. He used to sleep over on the waste ground, but I guess when the land was dug up he was forced to move. I don’t know where he is now.’
Longbright’s shopping trip had been cut short by Kallie’s phone call to the unit. As she sounded upset, the sergeant had agreed to cover for May and stop by Balaklava Street. ‘There are a couple of hostels in the neighbourhood. I can check those. You don’t have a name, or even a nickname?’
‘No, but Tamsin Wilton at number 43 would know. She told me to watch out for him. She says he’s harmless, and he was only staring at me through the window, but it made me jump.’
‘Well, he was on your private property, where he had no right to be, so I’ll look into it. The problem with most of the hostels is that they only allow users to stay overnight. It pushes homeless people back on to the streets, and puts them in the way of trouble.’
‘I certainly don’t want to get anyone into trouble,’ said Kallie quickly. ‘He’s been living rough for a long time. I guess now the workshop is expanding its premises, he’s been displaced. He wasn’t doing any harm.’
‘That won’t be how everyone sees it. The average life expectancy of a homeless person is forty-two. Someone dies on the streets of London every five days.’
‘Doesn’t anyone treat them?’
‘The homeless can’t be registered by GPs. Most people can stand about a month of sleeping rough before long-term problems set in. They often start as sofa surfers, sleeping on friends’ floors prior to becoming homeless.’
‘God, I did that just before getting this place,’ said Kallie.
‘Then you know how easily it can happen. The statistics are depressing. Forty per cent of all homeless women are victims of sexual or physical abuse. Something as simple as a divorce can be enough to force someone into the open air. So let me see what I can turn up on this bloke. He must be pretty nimble if he could scale that wall.’
‘He was crippled in some way—his right side, I think, both the arm and the leg. So I don’t know how he managed to do it.’
Longbright saw her point; the wall was almost five feet high and covered in dense black bracken. The back gardens fitted together to form an oasis of ponds and bushes, partitioned by brick walls and wavering grey wooden fences. Entrance to one garden could only be gained by crossing several others. The school playground at the end of the street was bordered by a high wall, and there were no rear gates to the overgrown alley behind.
Longbright replaced her notebook in her jacket. She just had time to catch the Oxford Street stores. She was determined to make Bryant pay for sending her to a lap-dancing club.
‘There was one other thing,’ said Kallie. ‘There was talk of Mrs Singh being sent threats, racist stuff. I was clearing out the cupboard under the stairs, and found this.’ She dug in her pocket and produced an old audio cassette. ‘It’s from her answering machine. I played it back. There’s only one message, but it’s pretty nasty. I thought it might be helpful.’
Tonight, thought Janice Longbright, you will be Grace Kelly. She turned to the side and pulled in her stomach, checking the mirror. OK, Grace Kelly’s heavier sister. Longbright was in her early fifties, and had inherited her mother’s love of old movie stars. Off duty she dressed the part, coming out somewhere between Ava Gardner and Jane Russell, and still looked damned good. She had left it too late to train for the stage, and had found herself joining the police instead, just as Gladys had before her. Inside her was the actress who might have made the big time, if only times had been easier.
Janice stared at her stomach and sighed.
She resented being used as some kind of fishing lure on an investigation that was clearly in breach of the unit’s case remit, but was perversely starting to enjoy herself. She had purchased a black dress, a distant carbon of the original design—the unit was paying, after all. The high heels made her too tall