‘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 this about?’ he asked, still grinning, cranking the window back up. He was wearing a high-visibility yellow tabard over stained and crumpled blue overalls. He had dark oily hair swept back behind his ears, small but smart brown eyes, and a dark complexion that was accentuated by a heavy shadow of beard growth. The way he sat hunched over the steering wheel gave him the appearance of a small man, but the shirt and overall sleeves rolled up past his elbows revealed hairy and powerful forearms.
‘You’re not in any trouble, Tony. I just need your help,’ I said reassuringly, forcing a smile, keeping it friendly. ‘Saturday night, someone tells me that you might have dropped a female hitchhiker off at a service station on the Llanidloes road outside Newtown.’
‘I don’t pick up hitchhikers,’ he came back at me, deadpan. ‘We’re told not to. It’s against company policy.’
I smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone.’
‘And my last drop was eleven o’clock Saturday morning. Bachdre Kennels, half an hour away from my place.’
‘You were seen, Tony. Seven, half past seven, Saturday night.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got a motorbike. A trials bike, it doesn’t take passengers.’
He was lying. But why? He didn’t look like a man who would give a toss for company rules.
‘My only concern is for the woman.’
He held my gaze and shook his head.
‘You were seen with her.’
He just shrugged; he knew that he didn’t have to give me any more. But he didn’t smile. That was important. He wasn’t cocky about it. I looked for the natural line of leverage.
‘I’m worried about her, Tony. She got into a minibus with six drunk guys,