Little Boy Blue

68

Charlie stared at the unshaven lump opposite her, trying to hide her distaste as he crammed a dripping fried egg sandwich into his mouth. Chewing noisily, the middle-aged cabbie eventually looked up, catching her gaze.

‘You having something?’ he asked.

‘I’ve already eaten,’ Charlie replied, lying. She was trying to lose a bit of weight and the fare at the transport café didn’t fit the bill.

‘Suit yourself,’ the cabbie replied, taking a noisy slurp of his coffee, before popping a chipolata in his mouth. Charlie was paying for his breakfast this morning and he was clearly going to get the most out of her generosity.

‘You spoke to one of my colleagues yesterday?’

The cabbie nodded.

‘You told her you were working on Tuesday night?’

‘I work every night, love. Don’t have a choice.’

Charlie smiled sympathetically.

‘And you had an unusual pick-up between the hours of midnight and one a.m.’

The cabbie shrugged. ‘You get all sorts doing a night shift. But this one was a bit odd.’

‘Odd how?’

‘Well, it was a bloke for a start. I thought she… he was a bird at first. Long legs, long hair, nice clothes and that. But the voice was too low and he had an Adam’s apple, so…’

‘So what specifically was odd?’

‘You mean apart from that?’ the cabbie replied, laughing.

‘Come on, there are lots of gay pubs and cabaret bars in that area. You must see stuff like that all the time.’

‘It was more the state of him,’ he conceded.

‘Go on.’

‘I could hardly understand where he wanted to go at first. He was white as a sheet and he’d been crying. He was trying to suck it in, but his make-up was a horrible mess,’ he laughed again. ‘I wasn’t going to let him in, but he gave me a twenty up front, so…’

‘Where did you take him?’

‘To an address in St Denys – Newton Street. Only cost a tenner, but he didn’t care. Got straight out of the cab when we got there and didn’t look back. You ask me, he was about to puke. I don’t know what they take in these places but -’

‘Can you describe him to me?’

The cabbie paused, then said:

‘Tall, like I said. Thin, very thin. He was dressed in a kind of cat suit, so you could see there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Hairless too – no stubble or anything.’

‘Can you describe his face to me?’

‘Dark eyes, no eyebrows except what was drawn on -’

‘Anything on the sides of his face?’

‘Yeah, now you mention it, he had a little scar on the right side of his face. Make-up couldn’t hide that.’

Charlie nodded, then pulled a photo from the file on her lap.

‘Was this the person you picked up on Tuesday night?’ she asked, offering the cabbie the photo. He took it between his greasy fingers, then after a moment’s consideration handed it back.

‘Yeah, that’s him.’

Charlie took the photo and, having confirmed the address of the drop-off, thanked the cabbie and hurried on her way. Finally they had something to work with.

Her cabbie had just placed Samantha near the scene of the first murder.