‘Thing is, I’m busy,’ she said. ‘Especially … if you’re willing to share a bit of info.’

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked warily.

‘Tell me where I can find Sister Cassie?’

‘Sister Cassie?’

‘Fine, you want to do this the hard way …’ Lucy pulled a wallet out and flashed her warrant card. ‘I’m DC Clayburn from Robber’s Row CID, and I’m officially requiring—’

‘Okay … wait.’ He raised his hands. ‘Sister Cassie? All this just for her?’

‘Like I say, you’re the one who ran.’

‘She’s just a numb-nut. A mental case.’

‘A mental case you’re happy to sell heroin to … along with all the other lost souls. Bit of a captive market you’ve got, isn’t it?’

‘Does ’em more good than you lot do.’

‘You cheeky bastard!’

‘Hey, at least I leave ’em happy.’

‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘They call me Newt.’

She appraised him; his greasy, spotty face, his lank hair. ‘Let me guess … because you’re always getting pissed on the profits?’

‘Because that’s my name. Kyle Newton.’

‘Okay, Kyle Newton … I’ll ask you one more time. Where can I find Sister Cassie? And I mean, where can I find her now? I don’t want to spend hours looking through that rabbit warren of misery again.’

‘I’ve not seen her today. Not yet. If she’s shooting up, she’ll be in the women’s toilets on that row of boarded-up shops. On the other side of Penrose Mill.’

Lucy nodded. ‘I know it.’

‘But I don’t think she’ll be there. Yesterday, she was saying something about going to services.’

‘Services?’

‘I don’t know exactly what it means, but … she said it once before when she was going to someone’s funeral.’

‘A funeral?’

‘I think so.’ He tried to remember more. ‘She said she wouldn’t be around till this evening because this afternoon she was attending services out on Fairview.’

‘Fairview?’ Lucy was bemused. ‘A funeral … on a landfill site?’

Newton shrugged again. ‘That’s all I can tell you. I didn’t ask, did I? Told you, she’s a nutcase. Christ knows what she gets up to most of the time.’

‘This is all I bloody need,’ Lucy said, thinking about Fairview, that hideous, decayed wilderness, with its foul stenches and its drifting toxic smoke and its gangs of weirdo scavengers scrambling across it like beetles. ‘If this is a wind-up, Newt, I’ll make your life a misery from here on. It’ll be stops-and-searches every time I see you. I’ve got good contacts in the Drug Squad, and I’ll make sure you go right to the top of their list.’

‘On my honour,’ he protested. ‘She’s taking a few others to attend services on Fairview.’