The Girl in the Ice

10

It was bitingly cold outside. The main entrance of Lewisham Row Police Station was lit up, but the car park was a pool of darkness. Long rows of cars twinkled with frost under the street lamps, and beyond, the traffic crawled steadily by. Erika’s hand was still throbbing. She pointed the key fob to her left and clicked, then did the same to her right. A car down the far end of the car park gave two pulses of orange light. She cursed and set off, dragging her case through the deep snow.

She stowed the case in the boot and got inside. The car was freezing, but smelt new. She turned on the engine and activated the central locking. When the heaters had warmed the inside up a little, she pulled out of the parking space and drove slowly towards the exit.

Ivy was standing on the pavement outside. The children were huddled together under her arms, shivering uncontrollably. Erika stopped level with them and opened her window.

‘Where are you going, Ivy?’ she asked. Ivy turned, the wind catching a wisp of her long grey hair and pressing it against her face.

‘What’s it got to do with you?’ said Ivy.

‘I can give you a lift.’

‘Why would we get in a car with a kiddy-bashing pig?’

‘I’m sorry. I was really out of order. I’ve had a bad day.’

‘You’ve had a bad day. Try being me, love,’ snorted Ivy.

‘I can take you wherever you need to go, and the kids can warm up,’ said Erika, noting the little girls’ bare legs underneath their thin dresses.

Ivy narrowed her eyes. ‘What do I have to do in return?’

‘All you have to do is sit in the car,’ said Erika. She dug out a twenty-pound note. Ivy went to take it, but Erika held it away. ‘You get it when I drop you off, provided there’s no more knives, or biting.’

Ivy shot the little boy a look and he nodded obediently. ‘Fine,’ she said. She opened the back door and the kids clambered in, crawling across the back seat. When Ivy got in beside Erika, she gave off a nasty, tramp-like whiff. Erika swallowed the fear of Ivy’s proximity.

‘Seat belts,’ she said, thinking that it would be safer for her if they were all strapped down.

‘Yeah, we wouldn’t want to break the law,’ laughed Ivy, pulling the seatbelt round and fastening it with a click.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Catford,’ said Ivy. Erika pulled out her phone and clicked on her Google maps app. ‘Bloody hell,’ said Ivy, ‘I’ll direct you. Go left.’

The car was a very smooth drive, and as the street lights played over the windscreen, the unusual combination of Ivy, her grandchildren, and Erika settled into an almost comfortable silence.

‘So. You got any kids?’ asked Ivy.

‘No,’ said Erika. She put on the windscreen wipers as a dusting of snow hit the windscreen.

‘You a lezzer?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t bother me. I don’t mind lezzers. You can have a good drink with a lezzer, and they’re good at DIY . . . I tried it once, mind. Didn’t like the taste.’

‘Of what? DIY?’ joked Erika.

‘Very funny. Sayin’ that, I’m thinking of going lezzer again. I’ll have to split the money but I’m getting sick of the taste of cock.’

Erika looked across at her.

‘Come on love, you didn’t think I worked in Marks and Spencer’s, did yer?’

‘Where do you live?’ asked Erika.

‘Why should I tell you where I fuckin’ live?’ Ivy lurched towards her, but her seatbelt locked, holding her in place.

‘Easy . . . You just told me that you’re “sick of the taste of cock”. I thought asking for your address wouldn’t be too impolite?’

‘Don’t you try and be clever with me. I know you. Like your job, do you? Got any friends?’ There was a silence. ‘No I thought not, never off duty, are you? You lot would shop your own mother . . . Left here.’

Erika put on the indicator and turned. ‘I don’t live anywhere, right now,’ she said, figuring she could offer up some info of her own. ‘My husband died recently, and I’ve been away, and . . .’

‘And you lost your marbles, yeah?’

‘No, but I came close,’ said Erika.

‘My ’usband was stabbed. Years ago. Bled to death in my arms . . . Go right here. You’re all right though, ain’t yer? Good job. I could’ve been a police officer, or something better,’ sneered Ivy.

‘You know this area well, then?’ asked Erika

‘Yeah. Bin ’ere me whole life.’

‘What bars do you recommend?’

‘What bars do I recommend?’ she said, mimicking Erika.

‘Okay, what bars do you know?’

‘I know ’em all. As I just said, I’ve been round ’ere for years. Seen places come and go. The rough ones last the longest.’

They passed the Catford Broadway Theatre, the front lit up, still advertising the Christmas pantomime.

‘Drop us here,’ said Ivy.

Catford High Street was deserted. Erika pulled up by a pedestrian crossing, next to a Ladbrokes betting shop and a branch of Halifax.

‘There aren’t any houses,’ said Erika.

‘I told you, I ain’t got a house!’

‘Where are you staying then?’

‘I’ve got business to attend to. Come on, wake them up,’ snapped Ivy to the boy. Erika looked through her rear-view mirror. The two girls were asleep, their heads leant together. The boy stared back at her with a white face.

‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ said Erika. His face remained impassive.

‘Leave it out, just give me the money,’ said Ivy, unclipping her seatbelt and opening the car door. Erika fumbled in her coat and brought out the twenty. Ivy took the note, stuffing it in the folds of her parka.

‘Before you go, Ivy, what do you know about pubs in Forest Hill? The Stag?’

‘There’s a stripper there who’ll do anything once her pint glass is full of pound coins,’ said Ivy.

‘And what about The Glue Pot?’ asked Erika.

Ivy’s whole body language changed. Her eyes went wide. ‘I don’t know nothin’ about that place,’ she said hoarsely.

‘You just said you knew all the bars around here. Come on, tell me about The Glue Pot?’

‘I don’t ever go in there,’ Ivy whispered. ‘And I don’t know nothin’, you hear me?’

‘Why not?’

Ivy paused and looked at Erika. ‘I’d get that hand looked at. Little Mike, he’s HIV positive . . .’

She got out, slamming the door, and vanished in between the shops, the kids trailing after her. Erika was so focused on Ivy’s reaction to hearing the name of the pub that she didn’t take in what Ivy had just said. She quickly opened her door and followed them to the entrance of a dank alley. She peered down, but it was too dark to make them out in the shadows. ‘Ivy,’ she shouted. ‘Ivy! What do you mean, you don’t ever go in there? Why don’t you?’

Erika started down the alley, the street lights quickly fading. She felt something soft and squelchy under her feet.

‘Ivy. I can give you more money, you just have to tell me what you know . . .’

She pulled out her phone and flicked on the light. The alley was filled with empty needles, condoms, and discarded packaging and price tags. ‘I’m investigating a murder,’ she continued. ‘The Glue Pot was the last place this girl was seen . . .’

Her voice echoed. There was no response. She reached a ten-foot high chain-link fence with metal spikes on top. Beyond, she could just make out a scrubby yard with some discarded gas canisters. She looked around.

‘Where the hell did they go?’ she said under her breath. She doubled back down the alleyway, but she could see no way out – just the high brick walls of the buildings either side.

When Erika came back to the car, her door was still open, the warning alarm gently chiming. She looked around and got back in. Had she imagined them? She spent a few seconds worrying that she had hallucinated the whole episode – Ivy, the kids – and then she felt a throb of pain in the back of her hand, and saw the square sticking plaster.

She quickly activated the central locking, then pulled away with a squeal of tyres. Fresh adrenalin surged through her body. Something wasn’t right about Ivy’s reaction to The Glue Pot. She had been terrified. Why?

Erika didn’t care how late it was, or how deprived she was of sleep. She was going to check out that pub.