Marta frowned and looked at Janine.
‘We’re still trying to establish where Rosa was killed,’ Janine explained.
‘But she went out. She never came back here.’
‘We have to make sure. Marta, did Rosa have a boyfriend?’
‘Only Mr Harper.’
Harper! Janine felt a rush of shock.
‘What?’ Richard exclaimed.
‘Harper?’ Janine said, struggling to absorb it. ‘Rosa and Harper?’
‘Yeah,’ Marta looked a little disconcerted at their reactions. ‘He takes care of this place.’
‘Harper!’ Janine looked at Richard, shaking her head with incredulity, her skin tingling. ‘I bloody knew there was something. I knew it.’
Once the minibus had left to take the girls to the police station, Janine, Richard and Shap clustered in the hallway.
‘He’s not just being economical with the truth – his story’s got more holes than a string vest,’ Janine said. ‘He was sleeping with her for God’s sake. He knew she was living at the brothel, he’s running the place. The woman’s dead and he doesn’t say a word.’
‘The pair of them kept it bloody quiet,’ said Shap. ‘No one at the club knew.’
‘You sure about that? Not just keeping their mouths shut?’ Janine asked.
‘Andrea rang in,’ Richard pointed out. ‘If she’d known Harper was seeing Rosa, I think she would have told us.’
‘She didn’t tell us about this place, not till she absolutely had to.’ She took in the striped wallpaper, the cheap nylon carpet, the tasselled shade on the ceiling lamp.
‘Not the same though,’ said Shap. ‘She knew this place was off the books, maybe even knew that Harper was running it. But if Andrea had known Harper was going with Rosa and then seen him deny it when she’d been killed, she would have shopped him.’
Janine thought he was right. ‘OK, so Rosa and Harper kept their affair under wraps at the club but, more to the point, why did he keep quiet about his relationship with Rosa when he spoke to us?’
‘’Cos she was illegal and he was up to his neck in it, managing the brothel, sex slaves near enough,’ Shap pointed out.
Richard raised an eyebrow.
‘They were hardly at liberty,’ Janine agreed.
‘Or he kept quiet because he killed her,’ Richard said simply.
Shap looked from one to another, the question plain on his face.
‘I don’t know,’ Janine answered. ‘That’s for us to find out, isn’t it? No harm in giving him the impression we favour him for it. He’s been mucking us about for long enough. Let’s shake him up.’
Richard looked at her with interest.
‘We’ll arrest him for her murder. That should loosen his tongue. And while we’re about it, you,’ she said to Shap, ‘can have another of your little chats with Andrea.’
