Born in Death (In Death 23)

“Briar Rose Marrow?”

“Do you know what bloody time it is?”

“Where you are or where I am? This is Lieutenant Eve Dallas, from the New York City Police and Security Department. Are you Briar Rose Marrow?”

The lump in the bed had a mad thatch of black hair streaked with gold, and muttered, “What the fuck is it to you?”

Since Eve figured she might’ve had the same attitude under the circumstances, she held onto her patience. “Are you Briar Rose Marrow, and do you have a stepsister by the name of Tandy Willowby?”

“So fucking what?”

“When did you last have contact with your stepsister, Ms. Marrow?”

“Well, Christ.” The lump moved, shoved at the mad thatch and revealed a pale face with sleepy and improbable purple eyes heavily lined with black, and full lips where the lip dye had faded to splotches of crimson. “How the bleeding hell should I know when it’s eight bleeding o’clock in the bloody morning? Who the hell are you again?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, in New York.”

“Cops? What do the cops want with Tandy? New York? I haven’t had my sodding coffee.” Briar Rose scrubbed at her face with her hand, then pressed it over the sheet in the vicinity of her belly. “Oh, fuck me, how many orgasms did I have last night?”

“That would be your personal business.”

The woman snorted. “The drinks, more’s the pity. Why are you waking me up on a Sunday morning about Tandy?”

“Are you aware she’s been living in New York for the past several months?”

“New York? Well, fuck me. You serious? Handy Tandy in New sodding York.”

“I take it you haven’t spoken to her recently.”

“Not since…” She scratched her fingers in her hair, and crawled across the bed to a little table where she shoved around at debris and came up with some sort of cigarette. “I’m trying to think. June maybe. Why? You’re not going to tell me she’s done something illegal. Not our girl.”

“She’s missing.”

“Missing what?” She fumbled with a lighter, then lowered it before it sparked. “Missing? What do you mean, missing?”

“She hasn’t been seen since Thursday.”

“Maybe she had herself a massive piss-up.”

“Which would be?”

“You know, a bender? A drinking binge. Though that isn’t much like Tandy.”

“I doubt it, particularly given her condition.”

“Condition of what?”

“Are you aware Tandy’s pregnant? Due to give birth in a matter of days?”

“What? What the fuck? Up the duff? Tandy? Oh, bollocks to that.” But the sleepiness cleared out of her eyes. “Just a bloody minute.” She rolled out of bed, and to Eve’s mild relief was at least wearing underwear. She grabbed some sort of baggy red shirt out of a pile of clothes and dragged it over her head. “You’re telling me Tandy’s knocked up, and nobody knows where she is?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You said you hadn’t spoken to her since June. Is that usual? That long a gap?”

Briar Rose walked back to sit on the side of the bed. This time she lit the cigarette. “Listen, we were steps less than a couple of years, really. Her widower father married my stone bitch of a mother when I was about fourteen. He was all right, too, nice sort. Then he ups and gets killed in a pile-up on the M4.”

She paused a moment, let out a long breath and a cloud of smoke. “Tandy was finishing up at University, and already had a job. My mother dragged me off to Sussex for Christ’s sake. Tandy made some tries at keeping up a kind of relationship, but the stone bitch wasn’t interested. I moved back to London first chance, but I was in a phase, you know? Mostly interested in piss-ups and getting laid. I didn’t want the big sister deal, especially with one who was bog standard while I was busy shagging wankers and gits. Cocking up right and left. I’d see her now and again, if she cornered me.”

She drew deep on the cigarette. “Even when I got myself a decent job and eased back some, we just didn’t have much in common. I saw her last spring, it was. She rang me up, said she needed to talk to me.”