The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) Read Free Page A

freighter that was meant to leave at dawn, and you go running off just because of a phone call. Jesus Christ, Tony. No bloody wonder Dagwood wanted shot of you. Five hours you’ve been gone. What took so bloody long?’
    Jo Dexter stood in the middle of the main room housing the Sexual Crimes Unit, arms folded across her front. She looked as if she’d been waiting for McLean to come home, like an errant child. Any moment now she was going to start tapping her foot.
    ‘It’s Emma. She’s woken up. I had to be there. Sorry.’
    ‘Shit. There you go again. I can’t even give you a proper bollocking, can I?’ The DCI slumped back against an unused desk, dropped her hands to her sides. The room was almost empty, just a couple of PCs on the back shift manning the hotline phones and pretending they weren’t playing Words with Friends on the vice squad special computers; the ones that weren’t blocked from the worst of the internet. ‘How is she?’
    ‘It’s … complicated.’ McLean pictured the scene in his mind. That face he had watched for almost two months now, suddenly come back to life only to be covered withconfusion and fear. ‘She doesn’t remember anything. Well, apart from her name.’
    ‘You need time?’ McLean could see that Dexter really didn’t want him to say yes. Like everyone else, they were permanently short-staffed. That was why he was here, after all.
    ‘No. She’s going to be in the hospital a while yet. Think I’d rather throw myself into the job right now. Otherwise I’m just going to fret.’
    ‘Fine. Well, you and DS Buchanan can make a start on processing these girls then. We can’t keep them in the cells much longer. Immigration’ll be here soon, and I’d like to find out who put them on that ship before they get here.’
    ‘Why were they taking you onto that boat? Where were you going?’
    McLean sat at the table in interview room one, the nice one where they put people who were ‘helping the police with their enquiries’ rather than the more skanky holes where the low-lifes were questioned. Opposite him, the young woman stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Her long blonde hair had a natural curl to it that was almost hidden by the layers of grease and grime. Her face was thinner than a supermodel’s, sharp cheek bones poking out through skin the colour of curdled milk. Her eyes were sunken pits, the traces of bruising yellowing them like some weird attempt at alternative make-up. He was fairly sure she understood everything he was saying, but like all her companions from the van, she was playing the silent act.
    ‘Were you trying to get home, was that it?’
    She looked up at him then, fixed him with a stare from her grey-blue eyes that left no doubt as to just how much of an idiot she thought him. Still she didn’t speak, scratching at the inside of her left elbow with the long fingernails of her right hand. The track marks were easy to see, but old.
    ‘Look, I know you speak English. I know you’ve been working as a prostitute somewhere in the city. I know that probably wasn’t your idea. You thought you were coming here to get a job cleaning, or maybe working in an office. But the men who brought you here had other ideas, didn’t they.’
    Alongside him, Detective Sergeant Buchanan shifted in his seat impatiently. McLean tried to suppress a grimace, but something must have shown on his face. The girl looked straight at him, flicked her eyes across to the other detective and back again, then raised both eyebrows. It was the briefest of interactions, but it was the most he’d got out of any of them so far. Eight down, seven still to go.
    ‘You couldn’t get us some coffee could you, Sergeant?’ McLean voiced it as a question but even the dumbest of officers should have realized that it was a command. Buchanan opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again with an echoing pop. He dragged his chair backwards as he stood, the noise setting