“What will you do now?” he had asked. “So alone, and just sixteen. Where will you go?”
“School, I guess,” she said. “I’ve an aunt in Wales. Perhaps I’ll spend the holidays with her.”
He had paid the bill, taken her out along the street. At some of the doors, girls caked in makeup, spilling out of corsets, touted for business. Flipp, openmouthed, couldn’t help but stare.
“Filth,” muttered Rhodes, taking her arm and speedily steering her along Greek Street. “I’m so sick of filth. It’s all I ever see in this job, day in, day out.”
He stopped at the corner and looked down, earnest and haunted, into Flipp’s eyes. “When I’m with someone like you, I get to forget that, just for a while. You make me remember what I’m doing this for. People like you. Clean and decent and innocent.”
His hands were shaking, holding hers, twining their fingers together.
“I need you, Philippa,” he said. “I need you in my life. Don’t leave me.”
He had played an evil trick, made her feel he was the vulnerable one, made a sixteen-year-old girl feel that she would bear the guilt for his bitterness and cynicism if she didn’t give herself up to him.
Flipp, the handcuffs biting into her skin, swallowed bile at the memory.
“You did it,” she said, weeping, “because it was your job. You’re a copper. You’re meant to catch killers. Don’t make out it was some kind of favour I should be eternally indebted to you for. That’s just the way you twisted it. And I hate you for it, Pete. Do you get that? I hate you.”
“That’s what the girls always say,” threw in Cordwainer, laconic now that his work of trussing Rocky was done.
“And what have you got to do with it? How come you’re both here? I don’t understand.”
“Oh, me and Charlie boy go back a long way,” Rhodes said carelessly, sitting down on the bench beside Flipp and ruffling her hair. Cordwainer took up a place on her other side. “Used to play cards together, didn’t we, Big C? Back when you were up in London.”
“We’ve stayed in touch,” confirmed Cordwainer. “Superintendent Rhodes is looking forward to visiting my new casino resort when it’s built.”
“Well, it won’t be, will it?” said Flipp, taking what slight vengeance she could in the circumstances. “You’ve seen the Gazette today, have you?”
She could see that Cordwainer was struggling to retain his appearance of nonchalance, but he managed a dry, “That’s a mere blip. It can be ironed out. I have the planning permission in the bag and, what’s more, I can prove Michelle was acting maliciously—a woman scorned. As for the pet journalist, well. We can soon deal with him.”
“You can’t force the whole world to adjust its morals for you,” Flipp said. “You just can’t. You’ll be stopped.”
“I won’t be stopped,” Cordwainer insisted. “Nobody can stop me.”
“How did you find us?”
Rhodes grinned and kissed her neck. Flipp tried to duck away, but it was impossible without incurring a collision with Cordwainer.
“I got a little tip-off,” he said. “From a very nice young lady in Goldsands. Told me you’d run off with a gentleman called Rocky. Well, I had a friend in Goldsands—I think you know him—so I gave him a call. Imagine my surprise to find out that you had been working for him.”
“There isn’t much Rocky does that I don’t know about.” Cordwainer took up the story. “I knew he had a friend with a boat here. It seemed the obvious move to make—a moonlight flit over the Channel. So I asked around at the harbour, and here we are. What a merry dance you’ve led the pair of us, Flipp.”
His mock-tragic expression could not conceal the spark of lust in his eye. His excitement at having run his quarry to earth was evident.
Flipp sat back for a moment, letting the fog in her mind clear. The two men she feared the most flanked her, while the one she loved lay lifeless on the floor. What could she do? What could anyone do? There had to be some way out of this.
“What about Rocky? Please don’t hurt him. Please let him go. He’s done nothing against you. He just wants to start a new life. If I come quietly, will you at least just let him disappear? He doesn’t want any trouble, I swear.”
“He might not want it,” Cordwainer said, “but he’s invited it fair and square. You must see that. I can’t let this go. He knows far too much.”
“Please.” Flipp’s voice was wobbling dangerously again, threatening to crack. “I’ll do anything. Anything you ask.”
“You’re coming home with me,” Rhodes said, extending a hand adamantly.
“Home?” spat Flipp. “What kind of home is it, when you have to be locked inside with no access to clothes, just so you don’t escape?”
“Goodness, Rhodes, is that what you did to her?” Cordwainer asked with a note of admiration.