Free No Questions Asked by David Menon Page A

isn’t pulling their weight?’
    ‘Well like I said, detective, she does bring in some punters and we all genuinely like her’ said Brett.
    The more Adrian listened to what Brett had to say about Lucy Thompson the more he believed they were being sold something. Something here just didn’t add up. Lap dancing clubs weren’t known for their compassionate employment policies. If a girl didn’t deliver the goods she was out and off the Christmas card list for good. So what was it about Lucy that made them keep her? What did she bring to the party that allowed her to keep hold of her job?
    ‘You must have many girls here who are struggling single Mums like Lucy was?’ Adrian questioned. ‘Don’t you?’
    ‘Yeah we do’ Brett confirmed. ‘But we also have a lot of girls who use the place to earn money to put themselves through university. They’re not from the kind of cozy middle class backgrounds that allow them to take a gap year. If they want to get somewhere they’ve got to work twice as hard as those from higher up the social scale. All these years of Labour in this area and they still haven’t sorted that one out. In fact, Labour politicians, especially Labour women politicians, look down on these girls for making ends meet the way they do. But I say that if Labour had done what they were supposed to have done in all the years they’ve been in power round here those girls I’m talking about wouldn’t be working in this club’.
    Joe couldn’t help but see his point on that one. He wondered himself why so many areas in the northwest that were considered to be traditional Labour heartlands remained as deprived as they were thirty, forty, even fifty years ago. No wonder some of the people in those places were turning to other parties and questioning where their loyalty to the Labour party for decades had actually got them. It had got their daughters into places like this and all the middle class Labour women politicians who wouldn’t know a real working class struggle from a number 17 bus would shut places like this down if they could.   
    ‘Well the social commentary is interesting, Brett, but we’re in the middle of a murder investigation’ said Adrian.
    ‘Well what I’m trying to say, detectives, is that Lucy is an unremarkable employee who didn’t have any kind of dodgy connections as far as I could see’ said Brett. ‘She was always on time and she gets on really well with all the other girls’.
    ‘Who owns this place, Brett?’ asked Joe.
    ‘It’s owned by a company called Northwest Holdings’ said Brett. ‘But I’m sure you knew that’.
    ‘Yes’ said Adrian. ‘Just like we know that Northwest Holdings is a front for the activities of Bernie Connelly so I suggest you start talking about what really goes on here and why Lucy Thompson was kept on. You can tell us here or down at the station, Brett. It’s up to you’.  
    ‘Yes’ said Joe. ‘So it’s make your mind up time’.
     
    Terry Latham had grown up knowing that nobody understood him. It didn’t come as much of a surprise considering he’d never really understood himself for any of the years when he’d been able to think about such things. His mother had been the only one to ever stand by him and now she’d gone he was alone. He’d always known what he was doing was wrong. But he’d also known that he hadn’t been able to stop himself. That’s why he’d ended up on the sex offenders list. And that’s why he’d come to the attention of Bernie Connelly.
    Bernie was driven down to the garage on the Gorton estate that he used for such purposes. If you didn’t know it was there you’d drive straight past it without a clue. It was at the end of a side alley that led from the main street to the backs of some council houses and a piece of grass-covered land that stretched for the ten meters or so down to the brook. On the other side of the brook was an industrial estate. And here, in the garage with all the