Dead Tomorrow

not use under-age or trafficked girls, they were left alone–subject to them allowing random, unannounced inspections from police officers. Most brothel owners and managers, including this woman, respected this, but Bella had learned never to let anyone confuse tolerance with friendship.
    She showed the woman, Joey, the three e-fit photographs.
    ‘Have you seen any of these people before?’
    She studied the picture of the dead girl closely, then each of the two boys and shook her head.
    ‘No, never.’
    ‘How many girlsdo you have here this evening?’ Bella asked.
    ‘Five at the moment.’
    ‘Any new ones?’
    ‘Yes, two new arrivals from Europe. A girl called Anca and one called Nusha.’
    ‘Where are they from?’
    ‘Romania,’ she said, adding, ‘Bucharest,’ as if trying to show her willingness to be helpful.
    ‘Are they–um–free?’ said Bella, delicately.
    ‘I’ve seen their ID,’ the madame said anxiously. ‘Anca’s nineteen, Nusha’s twenty.’
    There was a sharp, rasping ring. The woman’s eyes went up to a wall-mounted television monitor. On the poor-quality colour screen they could see a balding, bug-eyed man in a suit and tie.
    She winked at the two police officers and said, a tad awkwardly, ‘One of my regulars. Would you like to see them separately or together?’
    ‘Separately,’ Bella said.
    She ushered them hastily down the hall and through a doorway into a small room.
    ‘I’ll go and fetch them.’
    She closed the door. And now Nick Nicholl noticed the smell Bella meant. There was a sharp, hygienic tang of disinfectant, mixed with a potent, cheap-smelling, musky scent. He stared in shock at the small, pink-painted room they were in. There was a double bed with a leopard-skin-patterned bedspread and a folded white towel, a television monitor on which a pornographic film was playing, a bedside table with some toiletries and a roll of lavatory paper on it, a wide mirror on the wall and a pile of erotic DVDs.
    ‘This isso tacky,’ he said.
    Bella shrugged. ‘Normal. See what I mean about the smell?’
    He nodded, breathing it in, slowly, again.
    A few moments later the door opened again and Joey showed in a pretty girl, with long dark hair, dressed in a flimsy, pink see-through nightdress over dark underwear. She looked sullen and nervous.
    ‘This is Anca–I’ll be back!’ the madame mouthed, closing the door.
    ‘Hello, Anca,’ Bella said. ‘Take a seat.’ She indicated the bed.
    The girl sat down, her eyes darting between them. She was holding a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, as if they were stage props.
    ‘We are police officers, Anca,’ Bella said. ‘Do you speak English?’
    She shook her head. ‘Little.’
    ‘OK, we are not here to cause you trouble, do you understand?’
    Anca stared blankly.
    ‘We just want to make sure you are all right. Are you happy to be here?’
    Anca had been well briefed. She had been told by Cosmescu that the police might ask questions. And she had been warned of the consequences of saying anything negative.
    ‘Yes, is good here,’ she replied in a guttural accent.
    ‘Are you sure about that? Do you want to be here?’
    ‘Want, yes.’
    Bella shot a glance at her colleague, who appeared to not know where to put himself.
    ‘You just cameover from Romania? Is that right?’
    ‘Romania. Me.’
    Bella showed her the three e-fits, then watched her face closely.
    ‘Do you recognize any of these?’
    The Romanian girl looked at them, with no glimmer of a reaction, then shook her head. ‘No.’
    She appeared, to Bella, to be telling the truth.
    ‘OK, what I want to know is who brought you here.’
    Anca shook her head and delivered a line that Cosmescu had drummed into her. ‘No understand.’
    Patiently, and very slowly, gesticulating with sign language, Bella asked her, ‘Who brought you here?’
    The girl shook her head blankly.
    Nick suddenly flipped through the pages of his notebook for some moments, then stopped. Reading out aloud, slowly, in Romanian, he asked, ‘You have a contact here in England?’
    Anca looked startled to hear her native language, however badly pronounced it was.
    Bella looked equally astonished–and had no idea what he had said.
    The girl shook her head.
    Nick turned a page and looked at his notes. Then, harshly, he read out in Romanian, ‘If you are lying we will know. And we will send you back to Romania. Tell me the truth now!’
    Startled, and looking scared, the girl said, ‘Vlad.