was on duty?’
‘Him.’ She cocked her head towards the manager, who was stacking shelves.
I pulled a face in frustration. The manager had already told me that he hadn’t seen her.
‘Helly Hansen …’
‘You know her?’
‘No. Her jacket – it was a Helly Hansen.’ The covetousness in her voice surprised me.
‘I thought you hadn’t seen her?’
‘I saw her earlier, when she arrived. I’ve always fancied a jacket like that.’
I kept my excitement down. ‘You saw her arrive?’
‘It was busy. Something like half past seven, seven o’clock. People going into town for Saturday night, people coming home from a day out shopping. It got dead quiet after that.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Positive. If that’s the one you’re looking for, that’s when I saw her.’
At least two hours. What was she doing there two hours before the minibus picked her up? It was a blow. It tied in with the group’s story. That it had all been pre-arranged, that the girl had been there waiting for them.
Or did it?
If a pimp had brought her up from Cardiff, why had he arrived so early? Even a deep-city hustler would have to realize that a service station whack in the middle of Baptist nowhere was no place to drop one of his girls off to trawl for casual trade.
‘You should ask Tony Griffiths.’
‘What?’ I did an auditory double take.
‘You want to know about her, you should ask Tony. He was the one what brought her in.’
‘Bryn, she was carrying a rucksack …’ I could hear the plea in my own voice. Sanction this. Please make it so I can take this forward with an official blessing.
There was no response at the other end of the line. I was used to it. Where Bryn Jones was concerned, silence was a communications tool. He was a born moderator, always giving you the chance to reconsider what you had just said to him.
‘A rucksack, Bryn.’
‘I know. We watched the footage.’
‘Hookers don’t carry rucksacks.’
‘DCS Galbraith and I discussed that.’
‘She was hitchhiking.’
‘That’s an assumption. You’ve no evidence to support it.’
‘What would a tart be doing with a backpack?’ I asked, and immediately sensed the flaw in the question.
‘Sex toys, fantasy outfits, sleazy underwear, unguents, cosmetics, spermicidal jelly, Mace, condoms,’ Bryn enumerated, ‘and a big woolly jumper and nice warm tights, because she’s coming out into the cold night air.’
‘Bryn, she looked like a hitchhiker.’
‘That’s an emotive reaction, and you should know better. Face it, on that screen she just looks fuzzy.’
‘Those bastards are lying.’
‘Probably,’ he admitted calmly.
‘You can say that and just walk away from it?’
‘Yes, because we have no evidence of a crime having been committed. And yes, they probably are lying, because it’s normal behaviour when white middle-class males get discovered in flagrante delicto with a prostitute. It’s a function of the squirm reaction.’
‘Did Emrys Hughes hand in a bag?’
‘What kind of a bag?’
‘A carrier bag. I found it in the minibus. It had some aftershave and designer underpants in it.’
‘I expect he gave it back to whichever of the men had left it behind.’
‘Bryn, the bag was from Hereford.’
‘So? People travel to Hereford to shop.’
‘None of those bastards that I saw walking down that hill would have bought those things. They don’t fit.’
‘You’re speculating again.’
I paused, bringing myself back under control. ‘What if I could find the person who gave her the lift to the service station?’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Are we talking about a pimp?’
‘No.’
‘We would be interested in that.’ He paused. ‘DCS Galbraith has asked me to pass a message on to you.’
Which meant that Jack Galbraith knew that I would be calling Bryn. ‘And what would that be, sir?’ I asked, switching to formal.
‘Don’t blow this up into something it isn’t in an attempt to climb back on board the big ship.’
‘No, sir.’ I had a sudden flash of my fingertips clutching the gunnels with Jack Galbraith’s polished brown brogues poised over them. ‘I have to go, sir,’ I said, catching sight of the truck in my rear-view mirror. I cut the connection and got out of the car as it approached, weaving to avoid the worst of the potholes in the lay-by. A small truck with a standard cab, but an unusually high-sided, open-topped rear.
The driver’s window rolled down. I assumed that the head that poked out belonged to Tony Griffiths. ‘I got a call from the office to meet someone here.’
I held up my warrant card. ‘They said that this was the best place to intercept you on your route.’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘I don’t know you.’ He glanced down at my warrant card and scowled. ‘What kind of a name is that?’
I beamed up at him. ‘My parents embraced the spirit of Europe.’
He wasn’t impressed. ‘I don’t remember being the witness to any incident.’
‘I’ll come up,’ I said, swinging round the front of the truck before he had a chance to say that we were fine the way we were. I climbed into the passenger’s side of the cab. It was overheated, despite the open window, and smelled of something stale and bad that I couldn’t put my finger on.
His look of suspicion shaded off into new knowledge. He pointed a finger at me, pleased with himself. ‘I heard about you. You’re the city cop they shifted up here. What did they catch you doing?’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Kiddy-fiddling, was it – with a name like that?’
I overcame the urge to tip his face into the steering-wheel boss. I needed him.
‘What’s
