A Vision of Loveliness - By Louise Levene Page 0,101

using in evidence or any of that Dixon of Dock Green malarkey but they didn’t seem to have much choice about it just the same.

Suzy looked down at her blue velvet and then up at the copper.

‘The police station? Like this?’

Her voice had gone very Darjeeling all of a sudden and she’d tried to turn the charm up a notch or two, pursing her lips and batting her eyelashes down (to the frock) and back up again (to the detective) but those strokes didn’t cut much ice when your mascara was all down your face and you’d left most of your lipstick on the rim of a teacup. Jane surreptitiously wiped her lipstick on to a crusty old paper hanky she found in her jacket pocket. Crusty with what?

The policeman obviously hadn’t heard of dressing for the occasion.

‘Don’t try to be funny, miss. Just you go along with the sergeant here. We’ll take the other young lady in the Humber, Wilkins.’ It was Wilkins who had told Johnny Hullavington that the ambulance was on its way as his life’s blood trickled neatly down a nearby drain.

They might not let them change into formal daywear but they couldn’t very well refuse to let them go to the bloody toilet. Mrs Kowalski’s toilet. Suzy was gone nearly twelve minutes – time to put a whole new face on – but it wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had. Mrs Kowalski only had a thirty-watt bulb in her bathroom and the thick peachy powder and Plum Crazy lipstick were much too after six. And she’d got lipstick on her teeth.

Jane was in and out in half the time. She peeled off her eyelashes and left them in the soap dish then washed off what was left of her make-up. No sense looking like a slag. She quickly took Sergio’s bracelet off and looped it round the middle of her bra. Might give the filth the wrong idea. When she came out Mrs K was hovering in the hallway with a pair of rubber gloves and a bottle of Parazone, ready to disinfect the toilet seat. Cheek.

Chapter 25

Constant vigilance is required to form

and maintain pleasant facial habits.

There were a few drunks lurching pleasantly out of clubs in Curzon Street and Berkeley Square but there were no cars about and they got to Savile Row in about five minutes. They drove in round the back entrance and the uniformed man marched them along the gloss-painted corridors and up the stairs to the first floor.

Everyone was shouting and carrying on and a tone-deaf tramp was belting out ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ from a faraway cell. It was obviously rush hour: tarts; pimps; poofs; toughs and one very drunk, very disorderly old bag with no front teeth and a greasy tweed skirt. She squinted cross-eyed at the pair of them in their French pleats and French navy.

‘Fuck me! If it isn’t the lady with the alligator purse!’

A big hello from an old soak like her didn’t do them any favours with the filth. Not exactly a character witness.

‘Friend of yours?’

They fingerprinted them both then put them in separate rooms. Jane’s had a bench against the wall and a table and chairs in the middle. She sat down on one of the chairs. The green paint, the smell of bleach and cabbage and the tiny shrivelled brains of chewing gum under the rim of the table made it a lot like being back at school.

There was a window in the room but it was so close to the wall of the office block behind that no light at all could get in and the ailing fluorescent striplight buzzed away day and night. It was hot and stuffy but she didn’t take off her mink – might get nicked. They left her there for over an hour before the detective came back and started asking questions while a hatchet-faced old dyke in a blue serge dress and one of those upside-down nurse’s-outfit watches sat in as silent chaperone.

Had she been driving the car? No, she was not driving the bloody car. How long had she known the deceased? How fast had the car been going? Did she possess a current driving licence? Did she know it was an offence to drive a car without a licence?

‘I wasn’t driving.’

Soothing suddenly. They knew it was an accident. Foot on the accelerator rather than the brake? Happens all the time. The jury would understand. Careless driving. Driving without a licence. First offence? There’d