Angel of Death by Charlotte Lamb

graffiti-scribbled lift to the fourth floor.
    A small girl with a face like a petulant kitten opened the front door of a flat on the corner looking over the river and the grey expanse of buildings on the south bank.
    ‘Mmm?’ she mewed at him, dyed blonde hair cascading down one side of her shoulders.
    ‘Miss Liddie? Miss Delphine Liddie?’ Was Delphine really her name? Or had she invented it to give herself a more interesting persona?
    ‘Mmm,’ she admitted warily. ‘Who’re you?’
    He pulled out his warrant card and showed it to her. ‘Sergeant Neil Maddrell.’
    He saw her withdrawal, sensed she was thinking of slamming the door shut in his face, and added quickly, ‘About your missing flatmate – has she shown up again yet?’
    ‘Nah.’
    A couple of women with shopping bags came past, staring.
    ‘Nosy cows,’ the blonde girl muttered. ‘You’d better come in.’
    The flat was so grotesquely untidy that for a moment he thought it had been burgled; litter on the floor, the furniture, cans of coke standing on radiators, full ashtrays on tables, magazines and CDs lying on the carpet.
    Delphine Liddie swept stuff off an armchair to join the other rubbish on the floor. ‘There you are. Take the weight off. Want a coffee?’
    Briefly he hesitated, wondering how clean the cup was likely to be, then decided to risk it. Accepting hospitality made him more acceptable himself, in his experience. The public was always more forthcoming to someone they had fed or given a drink to. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Black or white?’
    ‘Black, please.’
    She vanished into a tiny kitchenette; he heard her clinking and banging about, then she came back with two mugs of black coffee.
    He accepted one, saying, ‘Thanks’, again, and noting with relief that the mug looked perfectly clean. She sat down on a bean-bag shaped like a bright yellow banana, nursing her own mug, staring at him with those big, panda-like, mascara-ringed eyes. Her skin had an improbable tan, certainly not gained naturally – it probably came from a bottle, thought Neil.
    ‘So, tell me about your missing friend. When did you last see her?’
    ‘Last Sunday. She was up early, for once, Tracy don’t get up in the mornings much, but she had a lunch date, she was all dolled up for it, must have took her hours just to do her make-up, and she woke me up to borrow a few quid for fares, selfish cow, although she knew I’d been out late on the Saturday night. I only had a ten-quid note, so she took that, and promised to give it back that evening. Said she would get it off Sean.’
    ‘Sean?’
    ‘Finnigan. Tracy’s been going with him for a month or two.’
    ‘You’re sure of that? Have you seen them together? You’ve met him?’
    ‘Once or twice he come here to pick her up. Not my type, mind. Oh, looks good, got some great clothes – but I like older men, men with a bit of character.’ She fluttered her lashes in Neil’s direction but he was not flattered. He wasn’t even middle-aged yet – what did she mean, older men? ‘But he’s loaded, his dad runs some business, computers, Tracy said, and Sean’s his only kid.’
    ‘Was it Sean she was meeting for lunch?’
    ‘Yeah, or why would she say he’d give her a few quid when she asked him? Said he owed her. But she never come back and I never got my money, did I?’
    ‘What did she mean, he owed her?’
    ‘How the hell do I know? Tracy said he was going to have to pay for his fun, whatever that meant. She’s nice enough, but she can be a tough little cow. Needs to be, like all of us. The world’s always trying to get us, we have to be tough to survive.’
    ‘What about her family? Have you contacted them?’
    ‘She ain’t got a family. There’s her dad, but he’s in a home you can’t get any sense out of him, Tracy says. He doesn’t know who he is, let alone who you are. Nobody’s at home, OK?’
    ‘And her mother?’
    ‘Died of cancer while we was at school. Real cut up, Tracy was. Loved