‘Yes, he was in shock. Poor Eric,’ said Betty. ‘It must have been so hard on him’. If only he’d been able to see – ‘

‘ – he could have saved her.’

Mallory leaned down to the driver’s window of the cab. ‘This is police business. I’m commandeering the cab.’

‘No English,’ said the driver.

‘Police!’ Thrusting her shield and ID into the cabby’s face, she said, ‘Badge. So, now you know English.’

As she was handcuffing the girl to the handle of the cab door, the cabbie was protesting in his native tongue, which had many accompanying hand gestures, and one of them was obscene in any language.

Mallory crossed the street to the pay phone. After five minutes of conversation, she was back at the cab door, undoing the cuffs and giving directions to the driver.

‘No English,’ he said.

She opened the door and, jerking on the material of his coat, she spilled his short body out on to the street. ‘You want to ride in the back seat or the trunk? If you don’t tell me now, I’ll decide for you. Oh, and I noticed the hack license picture isn’t your face. Maybe this is a stolen cab.’

‘I guess I’ll ride in the back seat,’ said the driver, rising to his feet and reaching for the handle of the back door. But Mallory and the girl were already in the front seat, and the cab was pulling away from the curb.

‘Why didn’t you call for a police car?’ said the girl, who had been silent till now.

‘Paperwork,’ said Mallory. ‘If I go through the paperwork, I have to turn you in. You’re already dope sick. If I turn you in, you’ll be in custody when the real misery comes on. Is that what you want?’

The girl turned her face to the window.

‘I didn’t think so,’ said Mallory. ‘I want to know what kind of business you do with Palanski. He wasn’t meeting you in a public place for sex.’

The girl kept her silence, pressing angry lips together – a prelude to a tantrum, and taunting evidence that this was still a child.

‘If you’re thinking Palanski will get you out, he won’t. He’ll be keeping a low profile for the next few days. And if you’re thinking he’ll kill you for talking, you’ve got good instincts. But I won’t let that happen.’

‘I suppose you want my life story too. What’s a kid like me doing in a – ’

‘No, I know your story. All the stories are the same. You can’t go home again.’

Nothing passed between them until Mallory was taking the cab out of Manhattan through the twilight lamps of the Lincoln Tunnel.

‘It wouldn’t do any good to tell on him,’ said the girl. ‘No one would take my word against a cop.’

‘You’re right about that. Palanski would say you were just an informant. He’d get off with a reprimand for not turning you over to Juvenile officers – unless there was someone else to corroborate your testimony.’

‘The Johns would never talk. That’s nuts. Rich bastards, they’d – ’

And now she shut her mouth again, knowing she’d said too much. Mallory smiled. ‘Okay. Let’s see if I can work this out. Palanski lined up the Johns for you. He does the background work, shadows them, gets to know their habits. Then he tells you where to plant yourself so they’ll run into you. Does he feed you lines too, or do you know how to get them to take you home?’

The girl’s head lolled to one side as she closed her eyes. ‘I give them all the same line – “It’s cold, mister. Do you know how I can get out of the cold, and maybe get something to eat?” Sometimes they just give me money. One of them tried to flag down a cop car, and I had to run for it. Palanski screws up sometimes. But you’d be surprised how many men want to take me out of the cold.’

‘Then Palanski shows up at the John’s door the next day, right? He shows them a mug shot and the date of birth. How old are you?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘And the Johns pay up, and they pay well.’

He wouldn’t even need to solicit the bribe. This was New York City, and they all knew the drill. The wallets had flown from their pockets, the money had spilled into Palanski’s outstretched hand, and he had tipped his hat and smiled on his way out the door.

‘Where are you taking me?’ The girl’s eyes were open now and looking out the windows on a landscape that was not Manhattan any more.

‘Someplace safe. A friend of mine arranged for you to spend a few days in the country. A few days is all I’m gonna need.’

‘I can’t go three days without a – ’

‘I know.’ Mallory reached inside her jacket and pulled out the three bags of white powder she had retrieved from the waters of Bethesda. She showed them to the girl and put them back in her pocket.

By the time the car pulled into the circular drive, she knew the girl’s name was Fay, and Fay could never go home. If she did, her mother the drunk would beat her to death. Or perhaps the mother’s new boyfriend might get first dibs on the girl’s young body. Mallory pulled up in front of the large and graceful old building with a white Georgian facade. Edward Slope’s car was parked near the freestanding wooden sign.

‘Mayfair Research Facility? What kind of a place is this?’

Mallory kept silent until she and the girl were in the lobby which might have passed for the ground floor of a fashionable hotel. When the girl saw the first white-coated attendant, she tried to bolt. She pulled at Mallory’s hand, which would not release her. Now the attendant had Fay by both arms and was forcing her down the hall and away as she screamed out to Mallory. ‘You said you wouldn’t turn me in! You promised, you promised!’

She broke free of the attendant and ran to Mallory. ‘We had a deal. You promised.’ She was crying now, the garish make-up washing down her face like yesterday’s Halloween mask. She was stripped to childhood again. She wrapped her arms around Mallory’s waist as the attendant tried to pull her away.

Dr Edward Slope was glaring at Mallory. ‘I told you to prepare her for this. You never listen to me – or anyone else.’

He sat down on his heels and gently turned the face of the child toward his own. ‘You think it’s going to hurt. It won’t. I want you to go with this man. You’re already feeling sick, aren’t you? Yes, I can see that. He’s going to give you something to take the pain away. It’ll never hurt you again. You have my word on that.’

She loosened her grip on Mallory, but the look of betrayal remained. A deal had been broken. Nothing would change that, and they both knew it.

When she was gone down the hall with the attendant, Slope turned to Mallory. ‘There’s a limit to my influence here, but I pulled every string I could. I just hope you know what you’re doing. An underage Jane Doe is illegal as hell, so I’m passing her off as a relative incognito. She’s in the program, but only for the three days of detox. What then?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just need her off the street for a couple of days. Oh, and I need a Polaroid of the kid. Can you manage that for me?’

‘Yes, of course. But what happens to the child when the three days are up?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve got enough problems right now.’

‘Kathy, sometimes I think you’re growing into a real human being, and then you exasperate me this way. You got her this far, that’s good. But after the detox – what then? You can’t just dump off a little girl like she was a sack of potatoes.’

‘Doris does all the cooking in your house – that’s her job, right?’

‘What?’

Mallory’s hands went to her hips. Her words had a cautioning edge. ‘If you’d ever tried to prepare a meal, you’d know what an art form it really is, making every dish come out at the same time.’ Her voice was on the rise now, and angry. ‘Well, I’m cooking! I’ve got six dishes going at six different speeds, and they all have to be done at exactly the same time or the whole thing falls apart on me.’ One long fingernail jabbed at his chest. ‘You go do your own damn job! Get off my back!’