Eyes Wide Open - Michelle Kelly

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       Yet I go up to her, smiling in a way that I hope looks friendly.

       ‘Got a fag?’ I say, in my most non-threatening manner. She looks at me, her eyes a little unfocused, swaying on her part-time stilettos. Her lips are glossy, her teeth white and even. If I was in any doubt, the teeth give it away. None of us has teeth like that.

       She reaches into her bag and pulls out a half-empty packet of fags and a lighter.

       ‘Are you okay?’ I ask. She looks at me in surprise, then looks around and frowns. I see a light dawn in her eyes as she takes in her surroundings and the faces looking at her. She takes a step back, the fag packet still held out in front of her. I take one before she changes her mind.

       ‘I was looking for the taxi rank,’ she says.

       ‘It’s back that way,’ I wave my arm vaguely. She doesn’t take the cue to leave but just stands there staring, then passes me her lighter. I light my fag, glancing back over my shoulder to see the others looking in our direction, having all moved a little closer together. Them and us. I belong over there. Yet something in the girl’s face gives me an urge to make sure she really is okay. There is something unsullied about her, in spite of the condoms in her bag and the smell of cheap wine coming off her.

       A car crawls past, its headlights sweeping over me, and I wonder what she sees in its lights. It carries on, equally slowly, and I don’t need to look back over my shoulder to know that the others will have stood to attention, forgetting about us for the moment. I make my decision.

       ‘Come on, I’ll show you the way to the taxi rank.’ I walk past her and she follows me, falling into step so that we’re walking side by side, both in our short skirts, pulling on our cigarettes. Normal girls.

       She keeps giving me little sideways glances, nervous yet curious. Like she wants to ask questions but is worried I might turn on her, steal her handbag and pretty jewellery and disappear into the shadows with the others, who will of course have seen and heard nothing. On another night that might be my intention but for reasons I can’t explain, that’s not the case tonight.

       ‘I don’t know my way around here,’ she says unnecessarily, then more surprisingly, ‘I’ve not been out clubbing before.’

       ‘Why are you on your own?’ I shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t get involved, but I find myself wanting to know.

       ‘My friend Hazel left me. She went off with some guy.’

       ‘Shit friend,’ I say. She nods.

       Then she starts to talk, and we stop walking for a bit and I listen. I’m good at listening, always have been, but the things she tells me I’m not expecting. It feels like the night is listening too, the very air holding it’s breath to hear the rest of the story, and I almost want to interrupt her and move her on. I’m losing money playing counsellor.

       But I don’t. I listen, and the night listens with me, and for a moment I really wish I could help her, but I can’t. It’s not such an unusual story, really, just a terrible one, and I realise that in spite of the posh shoes and the shiny teeth she’s a lot like me, more so than I thought. Maybe not-so-normal girls after all.

       I tell her, a bit. I tell her, ‘Me, too,’ and she just nods, like she kind of expected it. Well, let’s face it, I’m not selling my cute little ass on cold street corners ‘cos my life is all moonlight and roses, am I? Then we stop talking and just walk in silence for a little while. I feel like I know her now, and almost don’t want to watch her go. I think about what she’s going back to, that life so different and yet not so different from mine, and I don’t know if I’m jealous of her or terrified for her.

       But I don’t say any of that. We get to the end of the road that will lead her back to the taxis and I point out the way.

       ‘You’ll be okay from here.’

       ‘Thank you.’ She looks like she means it, her eyes all wide and grateful, like a rescued puppy. I shrug. It’s no big deal.

       Then her face crumples a little.

       ‘My dad’s going to kill me,’ she says. ‘I’ve got school tomorrow.’

       I try not to laugh. I dropped out of school last year. I would have been taking exams this summer.

       I walk quickly back to my spot, heels jabbing at the pavement. I’ve still got her lighter. I pause, about to run back and give it to her, then shrug and put it in my pocket. It might come in handy. I get the vague feeling I might see her again one day.

       In fact, it’s the last time I see her. Alive, anyway.

      DI Matt Winston looked out of the window of his office and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was raining, again, so heavy that it was impossible to see anything beyond it. Not that the view behind Coventry’s main police station offered any comfort to the eye. Before, Matt had always liked the rain. Enjoyed the sound of it, and the way it blurred the stark city into a watercolour of greys and lilacs. Now, it just made him feel lonely, and restless.

      He looked up just as WPC Kaur came into the room, her face twisted into a grimace. Something had happened, something big. A murder, maybe. He felt his stomach twist, with a mixture of excitement and the guilt that inevitably followed at the thought of how someone dying was the only thing that could snap him out of his self-induced fog.

      ‘A body’s been found in Waterloo St. Female, blow to the head. Crime scene’s being processed now, though there are locals crawling all over it.’

      Matt felt almost disappointed as he stood up and swung his jacket over his shoulder. Waterloo St was bang in the middle of Hillfields, Coventry’s notorious red-light district, and crawling with drug dealers and addicts. Otherwise known as ‘Crackhead Central’, even by those who lived there. Chances were the victim would be a local prostitute fallen foul of her pimp. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the unfortunate woman – someone had to – but rather that cases like this were always difficult to solve. There were never any witnesses, rarely any family pushing for a resolution, and generally even CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service, were less than interested in pursuing these crimes. They usually led to dead ends and frustration.

      ‘Do we know who she is yet?’ he asked, already pulling up a picture in his mind. A junkie, most probably, with a couple of kids in care, who had upset one of her peers or tried to rob a punter and got unlucky. There had been a serial killer preying on the girls a few years back, but a blow to the head sounded more like a one-off attack of aggression. Bound to be a pimp.

      Kaur hesitated, and an expression Matt couldn’t quite read passed over her fine-boned features. For a second, it almost looked like disgust.

      Then she told him. And Matt felt sick.

      She was silent on the way to the scene, staring out of the window at nothing, her face turned fully away from him so that he wondered if she was still annoyed at his initial lack of interest. There was certainly nothing to see on the other side of the glass; the rain was coming down in sheets, meaning any evidence at the scene was very likely to have been ruined, although depending on how long the body had been there it may have been ruined anyway. It was busy for a Sunday evening and, stuck in traffic, Matt wished he was in a squad car rather than his Merc. But of course, a dead prostitute didn’t warrant sirens. Not even this one. Kaur sniffed next to him, and he saw an almost imperceptible tremor cross her shoulders and understood why she was keeping her face out of his vision. She was trying not to cry.

      ‘It might not be her,’ Matt said, his

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