Free The Labyrinth of Drowning by Alex Palmer

Coco?’
    ‘She had someone to help her. Some guy, I don’t know who he was. He used to bring her down and take her up.’
    ‘Can you describe him?’
    ‘I hardly ever saw him. He was a big guy, black hair, Italian probably. Head like a bullet. Never washed. You could smell him before you saw him. I stayed out of his way.’
    ‘Did you ever talk to Coco? Find out anything about her while she was there?’ Grace asked.
    ‘She didn’t speak enough English. One thing though—I’d give her a break sometimes when there was no one else around. Icouldn’t let her go, but I’d let her out of that room and get her a cup of tea and something to eat in the kitchen. She wanted to use a phone one day. She kept pointing to my mobile. She was crying so I let her use it. I think she called Peter, whoever he was.’
    ‘Peter. That’s all?’
    ‘That’s all I could understand. But I do know that whatever that call was about, it made her happy. That’s when she started to jack up.’
    ‘What did she do?’
    ‘When the men came into the room, she’d be curled up in a heap. Sometimes she’d be in the corner on the floor. She wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even look at them. If they wanted sex, they’d have to force it. Look, the place we run—a lot of our clientele is suburban dads. This is their break. They want someone to give them a good time. Marie would leave the clients there, and often enough they’d come back to me and say they didn’t want that. It wasn’t what they’d paid for. Then Marie started getting angry with Coco because she wouldn’t cooperate. One day, madam dragged me down there and told me to sort her out. What was I supposed to do? Coco was wrapped up like this tight little ball. You could see her shaking. I lost it. I shouted at that little bitch for once. I said, you can’t fucking do this! It’s creating too many bad vibes. That shut her up. Anyway, after that Coco disappeared.’
    ‘Disappeared?’
    ‘She wasn’t there any more. That was maybe three weeks ago. I never saw her again. Then a bunch of cleaners turned up and went through that room like a dose of salts. Marie came and saw me. She had that look in her eye. She hadn’t forgiven me for swearing at her. If I told anyone about Coco, I was going to regret it, she said. She meant it, too.’
    Easy enough, once the brothel was closed, to take someone down in the service elevator and out the back door to a waiting car, Grace thought. But where to from there?
    ‘Were you expecting us tonight?’ she asked.
    Lynette shook her head.
    ‘You were, weren’t you? Someone called. When? Early? Late? And what about your workers?’ Grace asked. ‘Quite a few of themweren’t there tonight. You had customers waiting. Did you call them or did someone else?’
    Lynette refilled her glass. ‘It was just a normal night.’
    Someone had called, Grace felt certain of it. But too late to stop Marie making preparations to meet her lover, who instead had sent along his watchdog, Kidd, to keep an eye on her. Not much of an exchange for her.
    ‘Who’s Marie’s boyfriend?’
    ‘I wouldn’t have a clue. I’ve never seen him and I don’t want to.’
    ‘Was there anyone there tonight that you recognised? Anyone you’d seen before?’
    ‘In your mob?’ She grinned. ‘No, no clients. None that I recognised anyway.’
    ‘It was your more exotic workers who didn’t turn up tonight, wasn’t it? The Asian and African workers.’
    Lynette shrugged, waving Grace away with one hand.
    ‘Does Marie look after them as well?’ she persisted.
    ‘No. She didn’t have anything to do with them. I handled the bookings and the money, that’s all.’
    ‘Do those workers cost more?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘And do they get paid more as well?’
    ‘Of course they do.’
    ‘You’d know that, wouldn’t you? If you look after them,’ Grace said, watching the sudden panic in the woman’s eyes. ‘Let’s assume they’re not getting paid as much as