see anything written on the pages held in place by a metal clip.
‘It’s Ms,’ Doreen corrected the woman, straightening her skirt as she stood up. Head held high, Doreen followed her into the room. Best to get things right from the off, she thought, taking in the peeling paint around the skirting boards and the faded screen over in the corner that had once been decorated with a delicate chinoiserie but was now dull and broken at its hinges.
‘Take off your clothes behind the screen. Okay? Then come out with just your knickers on,’ the woman said in a bored tone that reminded Doreen of a visit to the VD clinic.
Doreen’s heart sank as she removed her black tights. The ravages of years of drug abuse could clearly be seen in these patches of discoloured flesh. Would that matter, though? Nearly every pro she knew was a user after all, and this place was hardly a palace, was it?
Doreen tried not to shiver as she left the confines of the rickety screen and stood expectantly in front of the sauna manager.
What did she see? A forty-something-year-old prostitute whose slender body and well made-up face were perhaps her only assets. Maybe. Or did she look beyond that and see eyes that were glazed against hurting too much, hair that had been dyed repeatedly, taking any sign of its natural colour away, and a shivering woman whose need for another fix was becoming all too apparent.
‘Aye, you’ll do,’ the woman said after a few moments of wordless scrutiny. ‘Get dressed and I’ll tell you what your shifts’ll be, okay?’
Lily sat alone now in the waiting room, alternately eyeing the door where they’d gone and watching the street just in case anyone should see her here. At last the dark-haired woman emerged, a half-smile on her face that told Lily she’d been successful in getting the job.
She rose to take her turn but the white-coated woman raised a hand to stop her.
‘Naw, hen, sorry. Ye’re too young for us. Come back when you’ve got a couple mair years under yer belt, eh?’ The snigger that accompanied these words made Lily blush and she practically ran out of the shop, colliding with the woman in the raincoat, the one who had been sitting beside her for so long.
‘Hey, watch where ye’re goin’,’ Doreen yelled, then, seeing the girl’s stricken face held out a hand. ‘Aw, it’s you, hen. Here, did they no’ take ye on, then?’
Lily bit her lip in an attempt to stop the tears coming but one slid down her face anyway.
‘Och, come on, wee hen, dinna start that. Look, d’ye fancy a cuppa something? I’m Doreen, by the way,’ she added, her arm now around the younger girl’s shoulder.
‘Aye,’ she whispered. ‘Aye, I’d like that fine thanks, missus.’
Doreen Gallagher fished out the packet of cigarettes and handed one to the girl who shook her head.
‘Naw, thanks all the same. Don’t do ciggies,’ she smiled at Doreen who returned the smile with a short laugh. It was a joke that needed no elaboration. They were both street women whose drug habits were far more harmful than anything tobacco could do to them.
Soon Doreen Gallagher was sitting in a run-down cafe opposite the young girl who had now introduced herself as Lily. The older woman’s face grew thoughtful as they sipped their tea. It was the image of a pile of folded notes in her hand that made her smile suddenly. The woman, that journalist, she paid for information, didn’t she? Wee Lily might be a bit of a rookie when it came to being on the game but perhaps that was all to the good. If she had someone keeping an eye open for things on the street …?
‘Hey, wee yin,’ Doreen said suddenly. ‘How’d you like to make some easy cash?’
‘Detective Superintendent Lorimer?’ a well-educated voice asked.
‘Speaking.’
‘Sir, this is DS Jackson, Lothian and Borders. It’s about Mrs Pattison.’
Lorimer’s eyes grew dark as he listened to the detective sergeant. Why on earth had nobody checked up on this before? Had he been too caught up in the politics of the case to think of this, perhaps? As the story unfolded it became clear that Catherine Pattison had told him a barefaced lie when she had claimed to have been at home the night of her husband’s death. All three of her children, the Edinburgh cop went on, had been at their grandmother’s home in Barnton. A chance remark by one of the