“It’s you lot who let them run wild in the first place. Where are their parents when they’re out drinking and taking drugs and having sex till all hours? When they come to us, they’re already fully trained sluts. We don’t have to force them to do anything. And there were no drugs involved.”

“Two of the girls are cocaine addicts,” Annie said. “Susan and Kathleen. And Mimosa was on ketamine the night she was raped and killed.”

“I don’t know anything about no ketamine.”

“Isn’t it true that Mimosa wanted to leave your little group? Isn’t it true she wanted her own life back? Maybe she had somewhere to go, had found someone else? She wanted her freedom.”

“She was free to go whenever and wherever she wanted.”

“Where’s Jade, Sunny? Where’s Carol Fisher?”

“How should I know? And it’s not my fault if they make a bad lifestyle choice and take drugs.”

“It is if you supplied them, got them hooked in the first place.”

“I told you. No drugs.”

“So our men won’t find anything incriminating in your flat?”

“They will find nothing.”

“Very well,” said Annie. “Now you’ve decided to tell the truth, Sunny, what about Tariq Jinnah?”

“What about him?”

“Was he one of your drug connections?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know Tariq slightly, yes, from the community center. He bought food from my restaurant sometimes. That’s all.”

“Come on, Sunny. We think he was one of the people responsible for the attack on one of my officers. A female, alone, four men.”

Sunny spread his hands. “What can I say. They’re hotheads, Tariq and his friends. Young people today. That’s why I have little to do with them. They do odd jobs for me, that’s all. They have their own businesses going on, and I suppose they wanted to scare the police away.”

“Well, they went the right way about it, didn’t they?”

“As I said. They are hotheads. Young and foolhardy.”

“They not only knew that she was a police officer, but they also knew what she looked like, even down to the color of her hair in the pitch-dark,” Annie said. “As far as I know, you, Faisal and Ismail were the only ones we talked to on the Strip. Not Tariq or his friends. Did you describe us to them?”

“I might have mentioned something,” Sunny mumbled.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But I didn’t tell them to do anything. Just, you know, keep an eye out, scare you off if you came around asking questions.”

“Why did you want us scared off? What were you afraid we’d find out?”

“Nothing. We just like to be left alone. Most cops aren’t interested in what goes on around here, anyway. They don’t bother us.”

“Bother you doing what?”

“Just living our lives, you know.”