Part 16 (2/2)

Zoe raised her chin and looked at the ceiling, imagining a warren of rooms up there. 'How does it work?'

'They're ”chat hostesses”. That's all. Sitting in front of a web cam and ”chatting” or whatever they have a mind to do, if you get my drift. Catering to the more discerning gentleman who's had his fill of the Asian girls. A little pricey, but you get what you pay for. Two dollars a minute. Not that I see a penny of it. Because this ain't a brothel. My only comeback is the rental of the equipment and bandwidth with it. What they do ain't my affair.' She put a mug on the table. 'There you are, pet. Drink up. You look like you need it.'

'Are they up there now?'

'Just one. Our big clients are South America and j.a.pan.' She looked at her watch. 'South America's in the office now, and doesn't like to get caught with his trousers round his ankles by the boss, and j.a.pan? Well, he's only just waking up. We won't catch him at his randiest for another twelve hours. So?' She gave Zoe a friendly smile. There was a smudge of red lipstick on her front teeth. 'What section of the law do you want to argue about? You see, me,' she held the hand with the smouldering cigarette against her chest, 'I love a good debate. I should have been on Question Time Question Time, me. One day they'll ask me.'

'They will. They surely will.' Zoe cleared her throat and reached, for the hundredth time, into her satchel. Pulled out the photos of Lorne. 'Jacqui. Look, I'd love to have a debate. But I'm not here about the setup you're operating.'

'Operating? Be careful the vocabulary you use.'

'The equipment you're renting.' She rubbed her forehead. She was hot and sticky in this s.h.i.+rt, and Jacqui's tea tasted awful. She so, so wanted to go home forget all this. 'What I really want to know is if this girl ever pa.s.sed across your radar screen.'

She spread the photos out. Jacqui took a long puff of the cigarette, pushed the smoke out of her mouth in a thin, straight stream, and squinted down at the photos, taking in every detail. She'd done this before, Zoe thought. Probably, if she'd been in the business a while, she'd done it a lot of times speaking to the police about the victims of rape, abuse, domestic violence. Prost.i.tution, lap-dancing, pole-dancing. Lying naked on a bed in front of a tiny video camera and a mic. All these things lived in a hinterland just on the other side of the law sharing boundaries with the dangerous and the violent.

'No.' She sat back, closed her eyes and took another puff. 'Never seen her.'

'OK.' Zoe put the wallet into the satchel and began to get up. She'd done what she could.

'But ...' Jacqui said. 'But wait ...'

'But?'

'But I know who would like her. For his videos. He's cornered the young totty market, hasn't he? He likes them to look like teenagers.'

'Who's that?'

'I don't know his name. Not his real name. London Tarn they always called him. London Tarn.'

Zoe sank slowly back into her seat. 'London Tarn?'

'It's London Town,' Jacqui explained. 'Just ”Tarn” because of the accent. You know like in EastEnders EastEnders, but he-' She broke off, squinting at Zoe suspiciously. 'What? You look like someone just sucked the blood out of you. You've heard of him, have you?'

'No.' She clutched the satchel to her chest. Drew her knees together. 'No. I've never heard of him.'

'You sure?'

'I'm sure.'

'It's just that for a minute there, when I said his name, you looked like-'

'I'm sure sure.' She started tapping her foot, suddenly irritable. She was awake now. Wide awake. 'Tell me about him. London Tarn. He makes videos?'

Jacqui took another slug of smoke and eyed her. 'Yeah he's been around years now, must be pus.h.i.+ng sixty. When he started, he used to be just soft p.o.r.n. Hi Eight. He used to run a club too out in Bristol, one of your old-fas.h.i.+oned strip clubs and when that closed down he put everything into the videos. He didn't have any proper production equipment the only time I went to his place it was just him in a flat in Fishponds, with one VHS here,' she put a hand out, 'and another here, and a bit of wire between them, and that's how he'd copy them. Then he'd sell them in the markets. You know, the stalls at St Nicholas.'

'And after that?'

'After that he was a gonzo.'

'A gonzo gonzo?'

'Yeah. He'd make vids of himself. This was in the nineties, mind.' She tapped her ash into the ashtray and crossed her legs getting comfortable for this reminiscence. 'I never knew him then, that was after my time, but I seen the movies. He'd be there in his glory with some poor girl he'd talked into doing whatever. Never bothered with lighting or anything, which I always thought wasn't professional. A bit slack, if you want my way of looking at it. But they do say, don't they, some people like it the, you know, warts-'n'-all look. Either way up, it was a seller. And on the back of that he picked up pretty swift on the Internet deal. Give him his due, he was in there. And after that came the bukkake stuff.'

'Bukkake?'

Jacqui laughed. 'Doncha know what that is?'

'No.'

'It's all about humiliating the woman. They say it was an old j.a.panese custom what they'd to do to the womenfolk if they got caught putting it around. The men of the village would take them out and bury them up to their necks. Except instead of stoning ...' She broke off. Gave a nasty smile. 'Nah, you're the detective. You go and find out. But, anyway, it's what he built his empire on. Bukkake, the nastier the better. I've seen some of it looked like some sort of snuff movie, really dirty. Gritty. You'd think looking at it the girl was going to be butchered. Still, it sold by the shedload just stacks of the stuff. Makes you wonder about human nature, don't it?'

'OK,' Zoe said, very slowly, 'what's he doing now? Where is he?'

'Oh, he's mega. Mega-mega.' She waved a hand in the air as if they were talking about a different universe. 'Private jet, probably, servants. The works. He's up there, now, sweetie, and there's no taking him down.'

'Which country?'

'Here. In the UK.'

In the UK. Zoe cleared her throat. She'd just changed her mind about having a week off. 'You mean, in this area?'

'I think so, yes. And, believe me, if he set his eyes on a girl like that one on your photos he'd get dollar signs lighting up in his eyes. Why? What's happened to her? Is she hurt?'

'You don't know his real name? Do you? London Tarn?'

Jacqui gave a low, guttural laugh. 'No. If I knew his real name I'd be after him. For that tenner he borrowed off me in the nineties.' She tapped another column of ash off her cigarette. 'I mean, fifteen years. The interest he owes me, I could fly round the world. Go and say hi to my customers in South America, eh?'

38.

The sun had already left the north-facing slopes outside Bath. The garden at Peppercorn Cottage would be in darkness. But the fields up at Lightpil House were slightly angled towards the sun and got more daytime. Another two or three minutes. The sun melted down over the hill, spread itself out, and then it was gone, leaving just a few flecks of grey cloud in the amber sky.

Sally couldn't move David Goldrab's body so she'd reversed her car to block the entrance to the parking area so it couldn't be seen. Not that anyone ever came up here. Then she found a cardigan in the Ka, pulled it on and sat on the bonnet with her knees drawn up. She wondered what on earth to do. The muscles in David's face had tightened, drawing his eyes wider and wider open, as if he was amazed by a rock that lay a few feet from his face. It was cold. She could hear everything around her, as if her ears were on stalks the hedgerows, the fields, the faint s.h.i.+ft of breeze in the gra.s.s, the dry rustle of a bird moving in the branches.

After a while she saw that the blood on her hands had dried. She did her best to flake some of it off with her nails. She cleaned off the phone, too, on the sleeves of her cardigan and dialled Isabelle's number. 'It's me.'

'Hey.' A pause. 'Sally? You OK?'

'Yes. I mean I'm ...' She used her fingers to press her lips together for a moment. 'I'm fine.'

'You don't sound it.'

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