It was quiet outside. I don't know why I noticed it at the time but silence reigned over the parked cars and not even the wind was whispering in the stillness of the night. The inhabitants had either not risen from their vile pits since the night before or weren't due back until the following morning and I was probably the only (live) person in the street with a steady job that didnft involve some kind of illegal import. (If you call buying whisky for my drunken manically depressed skunk of a boss, whilst occasionally trying to write an article amidst the mountain of junk on my shared desk a job.)

Outside, a stray cat screeched to a halt at the base of an ancient lamppost clawing at a mouse in her paws, ripping at the flesh yet her yellow eyes were kept fixated on the moon. She meowed and hurled the carcass to the floor, leaping at the battered Skoda in the drive across the road.

The light flickered out above me which told me two things: I couldn't finish the book I was reading and I needed to top up the meter. The cat screeched again as I threw my jeans in the general direction of the wardrobe and curled up under my covers, huddling in the oversized t-shirt I had lived in for the past two days. A gunshot sounded outside and there was sheer silence before a bloodcurdling scream that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, sounded through the stillness, shortly followed by another gunshot.

This was going to be a long night.

I remember running down the stairs pulling my jeans on as I went and then I grabbed my keys and leather jacket from the bottom of the stairs before flying out the door, slamming it behind me. Nothing else had stirred but I pelted down the street like I was being chased before I reached the alley. I knew exactly where to go, nowhere else in this neighbourhood would I hear I scream that said "help me" like that one did. It was so secluded in the dark alley and I wasn't surprised to find I was the only person out there that night, I was the only one in this god-forsaken pit who actually wanted more than the next shag, the next high or the next fight. There was just me.

That is unless you count the two corpses on the pavement.

There was a young man, around his mid-twenties I'd guess, sprawled against the wall with a bullet hole right between the eyes. He had a shock of blond hair which looked grey in the moonlight. The blood was already dripping onto the smart grey business suit he wore, Armani, I'd say l although from the way he wore it, despite being a corpse, it was a fake. No class, a pretender.

Then, in the entrance to the alley, at my feet was a girl. Bright blonde hair, strikingly pretty in a classy dress that made her look like she had come straight out of the 60s. Shame about the blood stains. It was sad really because she wasn't from this side of town, she didn't deserve to be shot down because she saw something she wasn't supposed to. She had probably just missed the last bus home and now she was just Jane Doe.

I called the police.

They didn't arrive until about and hour later and I was freezing from sitting on the curb, starring at the two bodies. Not that they bothered me, it's just worrying how much I'm now used to corpses in this town. It's meant to be the new millennium but it feels like I'm surrounded by 20s gangsters: sex, drugs, money and death. But that's The Rouge Quarter for you, whoever thought giving it a French name would make it any better was sorely mistaken.

"Oy! Robson!" Even the police where piles of horse shit. This particular moron was the DC I'd encountered before, he couldn't be bothered to make an effort in his job so he blames me for everything. I stood up.

"I called it in, Grenn. Don't even try and pin it on me, just do your job properly for once." He eyed me up again.

"I don't care, Robson, you're the only witness we've got" he replied.

"Since when do you use witnesses?" Sarcasm: always my best form of defence. He rolled his eyes and turned to watch the bodies being loaded into a nearby ambulance. DC Grenn was short, overweight and hated his job when first met him, he's still the same just older and, if it's possible, he cares even less.

"Just because you think you're a bigshot reporter for the daily rag doesn't mean you get to come to any old crime scene and take a few snaps," he said. I bit back a smarmy retort.

"I heard the gun go off," I said slowly. He looked up to see how serious I was, "I heard the scream and then the second gunshot." Cautiously he scanned the scene again, looking for a way out. That wasn't going to happen, I was the last good person in the Rouge Quarter and I'm not that good. I wasn't letting him win. "Do you really think I would've turned over and gone back to sleep after that?"

I saw the look on his face which said it all. This was the fourth shooting in the past 2 months and he was meant to be catching the killer whereas I was doing a better job through the press. Witnesses would much rather be anonymous tha threatened by the police and that was the way Grenn worked. The pen is mightier than the sword? It seems more people with open up to a nosey reporter than a drunken cop. That's what it was like in the Rouge Quarter, trying to choose the lesser of two evils.

DC Grenn flicked his cigarette onto the floor and stalked off back towards his panda car, ignoring me and my question.

Labels: crime