Free The Judas Sheep by Stuart Pawson Page B

Dew. She straightened her skirt, checked her image in the tarnished mirror, lifted her chin high and walked back out through the bar.
    ‘Good night, Danielle,’ the barman called after her, drawing the attention of the few men in the pub. If shepulled a trick he was in it for a fiver. If she didn’t, and it was still raining at closing time, he might get a freebie in exchange for a lift home.
    ‘Night, George,’ she replied, and stepped out into the darkness.
    The rain had turned to snow, but she’d only walked about two hundred yards when a red Sierra pulled alongside. The driver leant across and the door swung open. It was him.
    ‘It’s twenty-five quid,’ she said, settling beside him and pulling the door shut.
    ‘’Ow much without a rubber?’ Shawn Parrott asked.
    ‘I don’t do it without no rubber.’
    He nodded. ‘Fair enough. You got a place?’
    She made an instant decision. You have to, in her trade. ‘No. Old man’s at home. Do you know the glassworks?’
    ‘I know it.’
    ‘Go there. It’s dead quiet.’
    They parked in the deep shadows at the back of the abandoned factory. A thin film of snow was beginning to settle on the dereliction, muffling the roar of the traffic at the other side of the wall. Danielle stroked the back of his neck and raised one leg so that her foot was against the dashboard. ‘Doesn’t the snow look lovely,’ she whispered, trying to inject some romance into the transaction.
    ‘Get in the back seat,’ Parrott responded.
    They undressed the lower halves of their bodies and embraced. Parrott tried to kiss her, but she turned sideways and he roughly mouthed her ear. She went through the preliminaries like a robot, making moaning noises and arching her back as if this was the lover of her life in a cheap B-movie. Parrott’s coat was draped over the back of the driver’s seat and she explored it with her free hand. There was something in one of the pockets. She flicked the button open and delved inside. It was a watch, made from a warm smooth metal. It felt expensive. She put her arms more tightly around him, faking interest in his attentions, and slipped the watch over her wrist. That would do for a nice little bonus – she’d give this one his money’s worth. Her hands wandered downwards, feeling for him, so she could help him enter her.
    It was a disappointment. She was going to have to earn her fee tonight. ‘Who’s been working too hard?’ she cooed. ‘Relax, everything’s all right.’
    But it wasn’t, and he didn’t look the sort who’d pay her for nothing, even if it wasn’t her fault. She poked her tongue in his ear and said: ‘Tell me what you like best. Tell Danielle what turns you on.’
    His hands fell to her waist and started to grope their way under her sweater. He’s a tits man, she thought, with relief. He’s just a bloody tits man.
    But the big hands didn’t stop at her breasts. They skimmed over them and up through the neck of her jumper.
    ‘What do …?’ she protested, as his fingers tightened round her throat, choking off the rest of the question and, a few desperate seconds later, the rest of her life.
     
    Reginald Arthur Smith, better known as Rats, had the last laugh. He rang his agent as I drove him to the station and told her about Mrs Norris’s disappearance. Next day, the UK News, known as Yuk! News to its enemies and emulators, claimed a front-page exclusive. A few weeks later they were to print the full Rats story, with pictures, allegedly paying him about twice my annual salary. I wouldn’t care if I could sleep at nights, but I can’t.
    Gilbert banned me from the Thursday-morning meeting, telling me not to come back until I had a note from the doctor. He changed his mind as soon as he saw the story in the paper, and I spent the rest of the day with our press liaison people and talking to the media. I repeated: ‘At this stage of our enquiries we have not established a link between the disappearance of Mrs Norris and