Gangster Girl

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  He hadn’t disappointed her. Coke and sex, sex and coke. Bloody hell, he’d blown her mind with the lethal combination. And now she posed, almost in her birthday suit, excitement rumbling under her bold boobs, waiting for his next move.

  Abruptly his fingers ceased moving. The music stopped. He stood up. Began to undress. She knew what he wanted her to do. She slid down until she was positioned on her back on the piano. He scrambled up next to her. She saw the small, transparent bag of coke he held in his hand. He turned the bag upside down and sprinkled the coke around her belly button. Then he dipped his head and began to lick the drug slowly and slickly from her body. The sensation of his tongue against her skin made her sigh as she moved her hips. She gripped his hair with her hands. Pulled his head up.

  Her question was thick and hoarse with desire. ‘What’s your name?’ He knew who she was, what she did for a living. That was her only problem with coke, it made her chat away like there was no tomorrow. But he’d been more cagey.

  He grinned back at her, lips smeared with cocaine. ‘Tommy.’

  Chapter Six

  Three days later, on a cool, blustery Thursday morning, Clarke and Johnson watched the grieving widow and the funeral procession leave the detached house in Hampstead. The house was big, red bricked, raised high over three floors and with a solitary aspect that suited Clarke and Johnson fine because they didn’t need anyone beaking around while they went about their business. They were parked up on the opposite side of the street under a large tree with sprawling branches that cast massive shadows over their car in the gloomy, grey morning light.

  They gave it one minute. Two. On the third they looked at each other. Nodded and then pulled down their hoodies like two South Bank skateboarders. Johnson asked, ‘Have you got your warrant card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. We can flash it if anyone disturbs us.’

  They gazed at each other again. Nodded once more. Then eased out of the car. Heads down they ran towards the side of the house. They stopped beside a white box, positioned on the brickwork underneath a slim, stained-glass window that held the wires to the security system. Johnson pulled out a pocket-knife. He flicked the steel blade out. Jammed it inside the box and wedged it open. He lowered his head and stared at the criss-cross of wires. Gently he pinched one of the wires and eased it towards him. With a single cut he disabled the system,

  ‘The silly sod should have got himself a decent system. He could have asked me, I’m a security consultant on my days off these days.’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t expecting the police to break in. People are funny like that.’

  He tilted his face towards Clarke. Then at the large black fence that led to the back of the house. Clarke moved towards the fence, but was stopped by Johnson’s irritated command.

  ‘I’d better do it. All that booze you’ve downed over the years has turned you into a total slob. If you climb that you’ll most probably have a heart attack on the other side, the local coronary unit will start wanting overtime. And how tasteless would that be when the mourners came back and find another stiff in the back garden?’

  Clarke showed him the finger. Johnson ignored him as he shoved the knife back in his pocket and then scaled the fence. Less than thirty seconds later he was on the other side.

  ‘Meet me at the front in one minute. If I ain’t there, get the fuck out of here.’

  Sweating like a pig Clarke leant up against the wall. Took out his hip flask. Pulled off his hood. Greedily swallowed the throat-burning booze. He clasped the flask to his chest as his heart thundered inside his unfit body. He didn’t want to be here. If he had his way he’d have turned his back and walked away. He took a few calming breaths and then made his way to the front of the house. Johnson was already in the open doorway. He quickly ushered Clarke inside the grand looking hallway.

  ‘What took you so fucking long?’

  ‘You said a minute—’

  ‘It’s two minutes over.’ Suddenly he stopped as he leant closer to Clarke and sniffed. ‘You’ve been at the sauce again. If we fuck this up because of you . . .’

  ‘I thought you were in a hurry? But you’ve got time to give me a health and safety lecture? You worry about his safe-deposit box, not my liquor intake.’

  Johnson checked his watch. ‘We’re in here twenty minutes tops. I need to be back at base because I’ve got a meeting to go to. I’ll do upstairs, you do down here.’

  Johnson followed his words by flying upstairs. Clarke pushed the first door he came to. He wasn’t sure what room it was but it was long, with fancy artwork on the wall, and French doors leading to the garden. A long table, with a pretty tablecloth was laid out with food and refreshments for the wake. He reached the table. Picked up a cracker with cheese and a pink sauce he didn’t like the look of. Popped it in his mouth anyway. Not bad, he decided as he munched. Using his arm he savagely knocked over the vase in the middle of the table. Flowers spilt across the table, along with a card that read: He was one of the best. From an old friend.

  ‘Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.’

  Daisy stood between Jerome and Angel, under darkening clouds, with the other mourners around Charlie’s graveside. Charlie, being the popular guy he was, had a great turn out. Opposite Daisy, Charlie’s widow, Priscilla, stood sniffing, with a handkerchief pressed to her nose, leaning heavily on her daughter Jennifer. The daughter Charlie had often told Daisy she reminded him of. Sure, they had the same-shaped face, were of a similar height and age, but Jennifer Hopkirk had her blond hair cut in a bob while Daisy’s hair was black and hit her shoulders. On Priscilla’s right side stood Randal Curtis with his arm around her. Daisy held back her own tears as she remembered another funeral at this cemetery. Frankie Sullivan’s. That funeral had been big as well. If there was one thing cockney gangsters enjoyed more than killing each other, it was burying each other. The road leading to the grave had been jammed with Mercs, Jags, Bob Marleys and other flash motors that had brought men who were decked out like Italian football managers. And the flowers. She’d never forget the flowers. Huge wreaths, with flowers arranged into words like The Face, The Don. The massive one that had been shaped into a double barrel shotgun. That must’ve pissed off the cops who’d gathered on the other side of the graveyard.

  ‘Come on.’ Jerome’s whisper interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to the present.

  He took her hand as he steered her away. As she moved she noticed a woman wearing a distinctive uniform, with a flat-brimmed cap under her arm, talking to Charlie’s widow. She was tall, somewhere between fifty to fifty-five, with deep black hair that framed her long face in a short cropped layered style, with arched eyebrows and a face that drew you to its toughness. She wore no make-up. No jewellery. Not even a wedding ring.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered.

  Jerome looked over. ‘Barbara Benton. Or “Basher Babs”, as she’s known at the Yard.’

  ‘The Yard?’ Daisy looked back at Jerome.

  ‘Yeah – you know – New Scotland Yard. She’s the deputy commissioner. And they’re saying that when the commissioner steps down next week she’s going to be named as his successor at a gala dinner at City Hall. She’ll be the first police chief to wear women’s clothes since J Edgar Hoover.’

  A sad smile crept across Daisy’s face as an image of the long dead former head of the FBI and the rumours he liked to doll himself up in women’s clothes. ‘Charlie knew everyone didn’t he?’

  ‘You find anything yet to do with this Maxwell Henley and the class action while you were packing up his stuff?’

  Honestly, Jerome, this isn’t the time or place, Daisy almost said, but she checked herself. Jerome was just doing his job, and Charlie would want to know that he was trying to get justice for victims in the Woodbridge abuse case. An image of Charlie’s medicine cabinet loomed unbidden in her mind. She still hadn’t found the key to it. Still didn’t know what was inside. Maybe she should tell Jerome about the medi
cine cabinet? As she opened her mouth Jerome’s mobile pinged in his pocket. He pulled it out and swivelled away from her as he read the text message. She clamped her lips tight together. No, she wasn’t going to tell him about the medicine cabinet. He had enough on his plate.

  He twisted back around when he finished his call and said, ‘We should go.’

  The wind flicked up, shooting a surprisingly cold pulse of air over Daisy. As she crossed her arms over her black coat her eyes spanned the distance. Spanned over the other graves. Her chill increased and it had nothing to do with the wind.

  Eyes still firmly fixed on the distance she said, ‘I’ll see you back at the car. I’ve just got something I need to do.’

  She left him and strode purposely for a few minutes to a part of the cemetery where the graves were older. A wind chime hanging from a tree tinkled in the cold summer breeze as she nodded briefly to a tall woman she passed as she zigzagged through the graves. She stopped when she found the grave she was after. A grave she hadn’t visited in nine years. Not because she hadn’t wanted to but because it was so painful. Black marble, gold writing.

  FRANKIE SULLIVAN

  A HARD MAN ON EARTH

  AN EVEN HARDER ONE IN HEAVEN

  She’d chosen those words herself. She knew her dad would have approved.

  The grave lay next to Frankie’s mum. When she was young he would take her to visit his mum’s resting place. It was only years later she learnt that he hated his mum with a vengeance. She opened her bag and pulled out a single red rose. She got ready to crouch down but froze when she looked down. When she saw what was on his grave. Fresh carnations organised in a tidy arrangement, attached was a card: You’re always in my thoughts big guy, xx.

  Someone else hadn’t forgotten her father either. But she couldn’t think who that might be. Her dad didn’t have many close mates, the only two he’d kept close by his side had gone the same way as him and all his women were long gone once the will had been read. It should’ve been her tending his grave.

  ‘Love you, Dad.’

  As the wind chime sang its lonely song in the distance she laid the rose tenderly on his grave.

  The blast of the car horn made Daisy jump. She turned to find Jerome staring at her through the open window of his metallic-silver sports car. She turned her back on her dad and made her way towards Jerome. Got into the car.

  ‘You can’t honk your horn in a graveyard. It’s disrespectful.’

  ‘Why not? You can’t wake the dead . . .’

  A ripple of pain shot through Daisy. When she was fifteen that’s all she’d wished for.

  ‘Whose grave was that?’ Jerome asked as he drove the car forward.

  Daisy bowed her head. This was her moment to tell Jerome about her dad. Go on, do it. Do it. But she couldn’t. ‘No one, really. Just someone I once knew.’ She lifted her head and pulled down the make-up mirror. She checked out her face. She looked like what she felt, absolute crap. Pasty, blotchy skin and bloodshot blue eyes. Even her fading lipstick looked like it wanted to run a mile from her face.

  They didn’t talk for the rest of the journey as they followed the procession back to Hampstead. Less than half an hour later they pulled into the huge driveway of Charlie’s home. Jerome pulled the car to a stop as Daisy watched Charlie’s wife get out of her car, supported by her daughter. They walked slowly towards the house. Daisy stepped out of the car. Took a huge breath. She couldn’t wait for this day to be over. As she moved towards the house a scream came from inside. Daisy sprinted across the driveway. Ran inside the house. What she found made her gasp.

  Chapter Seven

  Thirty-three-year-old Ricky Smart wasn’t sure who threw the first punch in Belmarsh Prison’s shower block, but he made sure that the next one came flying courtesy of his fist. He had a face girls had gone gooey-eyed over all of his life. The best blend of his Jamaican and Irish heritage – bronze skin, dark smooth and shaded eyes, full lips that moved from cocky grin to menacing snarl in seconds, a six-two frame topped with a number one cut that kept his hair painted to his skin. He landed an almighty blow on the bridge of the man coming at him like a bull let loose in the street. Blood spurted out of his opponent’s nose as he crumpled, groaning loudly, to the concrete floor. One down, one to go, Ricky thought as he eyed up his next opponent.

  His eyes skated quickly towards his cellmate, Paul King, who lay prone on the floor clutching his stomach. Ricky had walked into the shower room to find his teenage cellmate receiving the kicking of his life. They’d been sharing a cell since Ricky had been transferred from Brixton prison to Belmarsh two months ago. It didn’t take Ricky long to hear the whispers that Paul was connected to one of London’s most feared gangland families. Stella King ruled the roost, with her son Tommy close by her side. Paul was Tommy King’s cousin on his dad’s side. Most of the prisoners feared the Kings, so they stayed well out of Paul’s way. But there were those who had close ties to a rival gang and Paul’s appearance in Belmarsh was their chance to get even. But Paul just wanted to do his bird quietly and liked talking about his baby son and girlfriend. He was no fighter.

  The other man charged. Ricky let him get within a couple of inches, then neatly twisted on the back of his right heel, stepped to the side. As the man staggered towards thin air Ricky grabbed his arm. Twisted it behind his back. Marched him, struggling, towards the wall with the sinks and a single mirror. Ricky gripped his hair, yanking his head back. He whispered, ‘Spread the word – anyone touches that lad and it won’t just be their remission they’re losing, you get me?’

  Ricky rammed his head into the mirror. The glass cracked as a single stream of blood poured down it. A noisy blast of pain shot out of the man. But Ricky didn’t let him go. Ricky slammed his head into the sink below and let him drop unconscious to the floor. Ricky spun around the same time the other thug got to his feet. The man took one look at the fury on Ricky’s brown face, then hightailed it out of the room. He had reason to be scared. Ricky’s prison record stated he was inside for GBH of a very aggravated variety.

  Ricky walked briskly over to Paul, who still lay on the floor. He crouched down. ‘We need to get out of here.’

  Paul nodded as he rose shakily to his feet. Ricky gave him a quick once-over, but didn’t touch him. In prison, regardless of the situation, you soon learnt that you had to stand on your own two feet. They walked steadily out of the shower area, Ricky moving with his usual swagger, back towards the block. It didn’t take them long to bump into one of the screws. A prison officer who all the inmates nicknamed Robocop because he truly believed in the principles of his job.

  ‘Problem, lads?’

  Ricky gave him a lazy smile. ‘No, sir. You know us prisoners, we can’t resist a little bit of handbags now and again.’

  The screw gave them a long, penetrating look. He flicked his head to the side indicating that they should hop it. Ricky knew their attackers would keep their mouths shut. The first rule of being inside was to never give anything up to the screws. The two men walked back to the block. Up to their landing. Once they were back in their cell, Paul groaned as he lay on the bottom bunk. Ricky crouched down and pulled up the younger man’s prison regulation top. He winced when he saw the purple bruises covering Paul’s stomach and rib area.

  ‘You might need to see the quack.’

  Paul briskly shook his head. ‘I’m alright. Compared to the stuff I used to take from my fuck face step dad, this is a picnic.’ He shifted his head so that he gazed straight into Ricky’s eyes. ‘I owe you one though.’

  Ricky didn’t answer as he stood back up. He heaved himself up onto the top bunk. Pulled his stash of tobacco and Rizlas from under his pillow. Lay down as he began to make a roll up on his chest. He sprinkled some grass into it, a drug easier to get inside prison than out of it. Four more days and he was out of this human cesspool.

  ‘You got anything lined up when you get out?’ Paul asked.

  Ricky sank into his pillow. ‘Yeah, some peop
le to go and see, a few favours to call in.’

  Paul snickered. ‘So you’ve got nothing then?

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘I’m sure but in the meantime perhaps I can help you out. I’ve got a cousin who can always use a guy who’s a bit handy. He goes by the name of Tommy King.’

  Tommy King. The name hung in the air as tension tightened Ricky’s lips. He raised the spliff to his mouth, licked the edges and sealed it. He eased his head up and looked under his pillow. But didn’t pull out his matches. Instead he took out a small photo. He eased back down as he gazed at the picture. Ricky finally answered. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. No problem.’

  Ricky nodded. That was the great thing about prison; it was so good for networking. His thumb caressed the face of the woman staring at him. A woman who had disappeared twenty years ago. And he knew that only one person had the answers to the questions about what had happened to her. And now his cellie was opening the door that would lead him to this person.

  Daisy walked the police officers solemnly to Charlie’s front door. They had arrived on the scene soon after Barbara Benton had contacted the nearest station. With the call coming from the deputy commissioner herself, the police had arrived at top speed five minutes later. Daisy closed the door, looked around still reeling at what had happened at Charlie’s. Someone had gone through his home like a category 5 hurricane, turning out drawers, cutting through fabric, overturning furniture. The house was such a mess that Charlie’s widow had fainted after letting out that single anguished scream.