Free Dead Beat by Val McDermid

contact with her friend, that’s fine by me.”
    The woman, who in truth didn’t look much older than nineteen, nervously chewed a hangnail. I was beginning to wish she’d light a cigarette so I’d have an excuse to open the window—the smell of her cheap perfume was making me gag. As if reading my thoughts, she lit up and exhaled luxuriously, asking, “You’re not working for her pimp, then?”
    “Absolutely not. Do you know where I can find her?” I wound down the window and gulped in fresh air as unobtrusively as possible.
    The girl shook her head and her bleached blonde hair crackled like a forest fire. “Nobody’s seen her for about six months. She just disappeared. She was doin’ a lot of smack and she was out of it most of the time. She was workin’ for this Jamaican guy called Stick, and he was really pissed off with her ’cos she wasn’t workin’ half the time ’cos she was out of her head. Then one day she just wasn’t around no more. One of the girls asked Stick where she’d gone and he just smacked her and told her to keep her nose out.”
    “Where would I find Stick?” I asked.
    The girl shrugged. “Be down the snooker hall most afternoons. There or the video shop down Lumb Lane. But you don’t want to mess with Stick. He don’t take shit from nobody.”
    “Thanks for the advice,” I said sincerely. “Why are you telling me all this?” I added, taking thirty pounds out of my wallet.
    The notes vanished with a speed Paul Daniels would have been proud of. “I liked Moira. She was nice to me when I had my abortion. I think she maybe needs help. You find her, you tell her Gina said hello,” the girl said, opening the car door.
    “Will do,” I said to the empty air as she slammed the door and clattered off down the pavement.
    It took me ten minutes to find the snooker hall off Manningham Lane. It occupied the first floor above a row of small shops. Although it was just after two, most of the dozen or so tables were occupied. I barely merited a glance from most of the players as I walked in. I stood for a few minutes just watching. Curls of smoke spiralled upwards under the strong overhead table lights, and the atmosphere was one of masculine seriousness. This wasn’t the place for a few frivolous frames with the boys after work.
    As I looked on, a burly white man with tattoos snaking up both his bare arms came over to me. “Hello, doll. You look like you’re looking for a man. Will I do?” he asked jocularly.
    “Not unless you’ve had your skin bleached,” I told him. He looked confused. “I’m looking for Stick,” I explained.
    He raised his eyebrows. “A nice girl like you? I don’t think you’re his type, doll.”
    “We’ll let Stick be the judge of that, shall we? Can you point him out to me?” I demanded. It seemed like a waste of time to tell this ape that I was neither nice, nor a girl, nor a doll.
    He pointed down the hall. “He’s on the last table on the left. If he’s not interested, doll, I’ll be waiting right here.”
    I bit back my retort and headed down the aisle between the three-quarter-sized tables. At the end of the room, there were four competition-sized tables. A chunky black man was bending over the last table on the left. Behind him, in the shadows, was the man I took to be Stick. I could see how he’d earned the name. He was
    At the edge of the light, I stopped and waited till the man at the table made his stroke. The red ball he’d been aiming for shuddered in the jaws of the pocket before coming to rest against one cushion. With an expression of disgust, he moved away, chalking his cue. The thin man walked up to line up his shot and I stepped forward into the light.
    He frowned up at me, and I met his eyes. They were like bottomless pools, without any discernible expression. It was like looking into a can of treacle. I swallowed and said, “George from Leeds said I should talk to you.”
    Stick straightened up, but the frown stayed in