Gangster Girl

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Her voice broke the silence. ‘What’s happened to my girls?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Johnson answered. ‘They’re still at your place. A mate from the local nick owed me a favour. I told him that you were blackmailing my brother-in-law and was threatening to tell my sister all about it tomorrow. He was more than happy to give me some space to have a little chat with you so that we can put things right.’

  ‘You could ruin my business.’

  Clarke said, ‘That doesn’t need to happen if you’re helpful.’

  ‘See, we’ve got a bit of a problem,’ Johnson said. ‘It seems our little secret might not be a secret for much longer.’

  Stella drew in a sharp breath. She didn’t want to be reminded about that night all those years ago. She ran her hands up and down her arms as she said, ‘That isn’t possible unless the other person involved is running their mouth. And there ain’t no way in hell they’re doing that.’

  Johnson crossed his ankles as he spoke. ‘We found out that there might be some evidence still around—’

  ‘What evidence?’ Stella reared forward.

  ‘Shut up and listen,’ Clarke bit out.

  She eased back down as Johnson carried on with his tale. ‘It seems that a lawyer might have been holding on to some things all these years.’

  ‘What lawyer?’

  ‘Someone called Charlie Hopkirk . . .’

  ‘Charlie?’ The name flew out of Stella in shock.

  ‘You knew him?’ Clarke asked.

  ‘We went back years. But we ain’t here to chat about a family reunion, so tell me the rest.’

  ‘All you need to know is we think he kept it in a safe-deposit box in a bank. We need to get it before Charlie’s widow gets her hands on it after the reading of his will.’

  Stella shrugged. ‘And what’s that gotta do with me?’

  ‘You’re going to organise your crew to go and get it.’

  ‘No. Fucking. Way.’ Stella shook her head with each word. ‘I ain’t doing no blag. I’m a respectable businesswoman now.’

  Clarke shoved his face into her space. ‘Is that a fact? Living off immoral earnings? Trafficking? Distributing drugs? All I’ve got to do, Stella, is pick up my mobile and you’ll be running your respectable business via a smuggled phone from Holloway. But I’m sure the governor will find you some light work running business classes for his “clients”, as I believe the inmates are known these days.’

  Stella ran her fingertips across her painted red lips. She knew she was backed into a corner. ‘OK. Say I do this bank job? What happens to me after?’

  ‘You deliver the deposit box, then we’ll lose any evidence, drop any charges and we can get back to our careers. Don’t forget you’re neck-high in this crap just as much as we are. We go down and you’ll be there, plummeting right beside us.’

  Stella knew they were right. If anyone ever found out about this she’d be going down for life.

  ‘So which bank are we talking about?’

  ‘That we don’t know yet. But we do know who’s sorting through Hopkirk’s gear in his office and who might’ve stumbled across the info we need.’

  Johnson stopped talking as both he and Clarke looked harder at Stella.

  ‘Well, fucking spit it out. I ain’t got all bloody night.’ She stared Johnson straight in the eye. ‘Who?’

  ‘Someone you know.’ Johnson left his words hanging in the air as if he was enjoying her discomfort. ‘Daisy Sullivan.’

  Stella’s face twisted into a mask of dismay. She shook her head. ‘No. No. No. I’m not dragging Daisy into this . . .’

  ‘Too late, she’s already in it.’

  ‘She don’t know nothing about me—’

  ‘What happened between you and that scumbag Frankie Sullivan ain’t none of our business,’ Johnson cut in. ‘But this is the plan, Mommy dearest. You’re going to introduce yourself to your little girl and find out what she knows. Make her understand that she doesn’t have a choice.’

  Stella sat, tense, on the piano stool in the Meet ’n’ Greet room in the brothel. It was the same piano on which the Russian prostitute – Elena, yeah, that was her name – would give Tommy his lessons. She’d loved hearing that piano fill the house as the girls went about their business upstairs.

  The place was dead quiet now. When she’d got back it had taken an effort to calm all the girls down, but she’d done it. Made sure they understood that the cops weren’t going to pay a repeat visit. Well, that was as long as she played ball with Clarke and Johnson.

  Fuck.

  She didn’t want to do this. Robbing banks was for seventies revivalists. But she was gonna have to do it. She didn’t have a choice. And Daisy? How the heck was she going to handle that? Just waltz into the girl’s life and say ‘I’m your . . .’

  Stella pushed herself off the stool when the door stormed open. Billy and Tommy. Billy looked frantic, his muscular chest panting with pent-up energy, while Tommy was moving like he was on the point of bursting the seams on his flash leather coat. ‘I heard what happened,’ Billy said, his lined face a storm of aggressive emotions. ‘I should’ve been here.’

  ‘Look.’ Stella held up her palm trying to bring some calm to the room. ‘It’s all sorted out.’

  When the men had quietened down she picked up her words. ‘You both need to sit down. There’s something I need to tell you.’

  So she told them the only thing she decided they needed to know for now – they didn’t need to know about the bank job quite yet – that she had another daughter called Daisy. That Daisy was also Frankie Sullivan’s daughter. Tommy whistled at that, Billy remained silent.

  ‘The problem is that she’s has got something that belongs to me,’ Stella explained. ‘I need to get it. She works for a law firm called Curtis and Hopkirk—’

  Before she could finish Billy slammed to his feet and twisted away from them. Stella’s face creased when she heard him mutter, ‘Shit.’

  ‘Billy, you alright?’ He didn’t answer, so she persisted. ‘Do you know this law outfit, is that it?’

  Silence. Then he finally turned back around. His face was emotionless. ‘Nah. Still pissed I should’ve been here when the Bill turned up mob-handed.’

  ‘Say that name of the firm again.’ Tommy cut in abruptly standing up.

  ‘Curtis and Hopkirk.’

  ‘You sure?’

  Stella nodded, giving her son a confused look.

  Tommy shot his mum a full grin. ‘I think I know just the person who might be able to help us with that.’

  The four-year-old girl knelt on the floor, playing with her teddy bear. She sang ‘Ring-a, ring o’, roses’ softly to herself as she swung her teddy around. She wiped away the tears on her cheek. Something funny had happened to her upstairs, which had made her cry. But now she was with teddy and everything was alright. The room was large with a pale, blue carpet, a red sofa, a bar and light green walls. She played in her favourite corner. The one next to the piano. Abruptly she stopped singing when she heard the voices. Big people’s voices. Men and women. Coming from upstairs.

  ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’

  ‘Fucking calm down . . .’

  Daisy shot up from her pillow as she screamed into the darkness. She covered her mouth with quivering fingers to hold back the next scream. Eyes wide she stared blindly around the dark bedroom. Her arms clutched tight around her middle trying to desperately still the trembling movement of her body. The cool air settled over her sweating face. She hadn’t had the dream since she stopped taking the antidepressant pills years ago. She had no idea who the little girl was, where the house was, in fact she knew sod all about it.

  Her hands fell from her mouth as she bowed her head and her hair flopped forwards and shrouded her face. The hungry noise of her gulping in streams of air sounded ragged in the room. Gradually her breathing slowed. Calmed down. Got back to normal. She threw the covers back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Hung onto the edge of the bed fo
r a few seconds before she got up. She moved slowly towards the dressing table. She stared at her face for a few seconds before she opened the top drawer. And there they sat – her bottle of happy pills. If she took one, just one, mind you, she might be able to shift the stress she was feeling and sleep. But in sleep the dream might come again. Shit. She rubbed the back of her hand against her sweaty forehead, itching to just reach down and take them. It would only be one. Her hand dropped from her head. Moved forward. Just one. Her hand was almost upon the bottle when her eye caught sight of the key she’d found at Charlie’s on the top of the dressing table where she’d placed it earlier. She slammed the drawer shut and instead picked up the key. Well there wasn’t going to be any sleep for her now. She might as well go to the office and find out if the key fit Charlie’s cabinet.

  Angel moaned as she hit a premier league orgasm in her new lover’s lap on top of the piano. If she’d realised that pianos could be sooo much fun she might’ve continued taking those lessons her mother had forced on her when she was seven years old.

  Angel pushed her limp hair out of her face as she gazed, dazed, at the man holding her. He hadn’t even bothered to take his clothes off, which she loved. The rough, the tough, they were the ones who always knew how she liked her lovin’.

  ‘We need to have a chat, babe,’ Tommy said, then roughly pushed her off him.

  He jumped down and as he seated himself on the piano stool she gathered her clothes and flung them on. She didn’t like the serious set of his face. She hoped he wasn’t getting all happy-ever-after on her. She eased down and stood before Tommy as she jammed her feet into her heels.

  ‘Honey I hope—’ she started, laying her palms lightly on his shoulders. But she never finished because in the blink of an eye he’d pushed her into the piano.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Her words were as furious as the movements of her hands as she tried to dislodge him. Her left shoe skidded off her foot.

  He grabbed her hair and slammed her head into the piano. She let out a cry of pain as the room rocked around her. His fingers dug into her jaw as he lifted her head to face him.

  ‘You want some more? That’s fine. You don’t, you’ll shut your mouth and listen to me.’

  Angel had represented enough criminals to know the ones that would go straight and the ones who were beyond reform; the way Tommy was looking at her told her he was beyond redemption.

  ‘You know a chick called Daisy Sullivan?’

  Angel nodded. ‘She’s my friend.’

  ‘I want you to find out what she knows about Charlie Hopkirk.’

  Daisy? Charlie? What the hell was going on here? ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she stammered.

  He grinned at her. Slammed her head back into the piano. If he hadn’t been holding her she would have fallen down. Before she had time to recover he dragged her by the hair and marched her across the room. He shoved her face above the low-level glass table in the right hand corner. She gasped when she saw what lay on it. Photos of her and him in what looked like the proof pages of a sex manual. And if that wasn’t damning enough there were scattered shots of her partaking in coke, the sort of grainy photos you saw in exposes of minor celebs in the Sunday papers.

  His words were chilling. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want all them nice lawyers at your firm to see what kind of character they’re really working with. You know, your hobbies and pastimes and that, hanging out with the criminal classes.’

  She was afraid to ask the next question. ‘What do you mean criminal?’

  ‘Don’t play me for a dick, darlin’. You knew I was never on the right side of the law when you batted your sweet eyelashes in the courthouse.’

  She shook, frightened because he was right. Sure, she had assumed he had most probably seen the inside of a cell more than once in his life, but that he was a big-time crim, never.

  ‘I heard that your father is someone everyone respects. Now wouldn’t it be a shame if I made you upload these pix on to your Facebook page and then we emailed all his friends. Or is it Twitter these days? I find it hard to keep up. And I’ve got a number for the Sundays. They love all this stuff, don’t they? They’ll have to blank out the really naughty bits but readers will get the picture – know what I mean?’

  Tears gathered in Angel’s eyes. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Tommy King grinned. ‘Has this Daisy bird said anything to you?’

  Her eyes flickered away from him as she shook her head, hair pelting into her face. Tommy jacked her head up. ‘Don’t lie to me, bitch.’

  ‘She said that Randal Curtis, the other senior partner, told her to let him know if she found anything unusual in Charlie’s things.’

  ‘Like what?’ The pressure of his hands tightened.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she yelled.

  He shoved his face almost on top of her face, his breath hot on her skin. ‘You better be telling me it all, little girl.’

  She was too frightened to even nod back.

  The grim expression on Tommy’s face deepened. ‘We ain’t too far from Holborn, so there’s no time like the present. I want you to get your sweet little arse to that office now.’

  He grabbed her hair. Yanked her head back, and kissed her ever so softly on her bruised mouth.

  Chapter Eleven

  Daisy arrived at Curtis and Hopkirk just minutes before one in the morning. The lights shone throughout the building, making it stand out bright and beautiful in the dark night. The street was quiet and deserted, except for a couple rushing towards a cab on High Holborn. There was always a security guard in place twenty-four hours a day to accommodate the lawyers who sometimes had to work late at night, including Daisy. She’d been doing it so often lately that she knew the night guard well.

  She pressed her face against the glass door and smiled when she saw Sean, the security guard, sitting at the desk. He smiled, not surprised to see her, and made his way to the main door. His keys rattled as he unlocked the door.

  ‘Another late night, Miss Sullivan?’ Sean said as he widened the door for her to step inside. Sean was a big-hearted Irish man with a shock of white hair and a growing stomach that had a love affair with his wife’s home cooking.

  Daisy smiled back at him. ‘Is there anyone else around?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just got on my shift.’

  Daisy hoped that there was no one else here. She didn’t need any distractions, just wanted to see if the key fit the cabinet. And if it did? And if what was inside could destroy Charlie’s reputation?

  She left Sean, took the lift and was soon on the second floor. She yawned as she made her way to Charlie’s office. Trust her to start feeling tired now. She tried to shake the sleep from her eyes as she opened the office door. Switched on the light. It was exactly as she’d left it, neat and tidy but with evidence of Charlie’s life here making way for the new partner. A wave of emotion settled in her gut. It finally hit her that she was never going to see her mentor again. Another male figure who’d come and gone in her life. Well, at least she still had Jerome. She shut the door, shook off her grim thoughts and quickly made her way to the bathroom. Just as she reached for the handle she heard it.

  Bang.

  A door inside the bathroom slammed shut.

  She froze, her hand hovering over the handle. She heard another bang. Without another thought Daisy wrenched the door open.

  ‘Angel,’ Daisy uttered, completely shocked.

  What shocked her was not just the fact that Angel was inside Charlie’s bathroom, but that her friend looked a total mess. Her hair flew in all directions as if she’d shoved her hand into it one too many times and her mascara streaked her face as if she’d been crying.

  As Daisy took a step inside Angel moved back, her hand rubbing frantically below her throat.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Daisy asked gently.

  Angel pushed a trembling hand through her hair. ‘Um . . . Um . . .’ she stammered, breaking ey
e contact with Daisy. ‘I was looking for some papers that Charlie has. Without them I’m going to lose my case.’ And then she burst into tears.

  Daisy shot forward and enveloped her friend into a tight embrace. Daisy was shocked by the tremors that rippled through Angel’s body.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,’ Angel chanted over and over until her voice sank once again into gut-wrenching sobs.

  This was so unlike Angel that Daisy wondered if she’d been doing gear. She’d lost documents about a case a couple of times before and never reacted like this. Strange how popular Charlie had become all of a sudden now he was dead, Daisy mused. First Randal Curtis told her to let him know if she found anything interesting; then Jerome said that Charlie might have something that would help his class-action case; and now Angel looked like it was the end of her life because Charlie had her documents.

  Suddenly Angel wrenched herself out of Daisy’s arms. She shook her hair back. ‘I’m fine. Completely OK.’ But her voice sounded as tight as a violin string. She twisted around and grabbed her bag near the sink.

  ‘Angel.’ Daisy moved towards her, concerned about the state of her friend. But before she could reach her Angel swung around. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And with that, head down, she pushed past Daisy and was gone.

  Dazed, Daisy watched the empty space for a few seconds. What the hell had just happened in here? Earlier that day at the funeral Angel had whispered that she had a hot date with the new guy in her life. Daisy rubbed her hand over her face. She was too tired to figure it out. She’d see Angel tomorrow and help her find her documents. She pulled the key out of her pocket and moved towards the cabinet.

  The key didn’t fit. She rattled it anxiously and it became stuck. By turning it very slowly, she managed to get it back out again. She held the key up to the light. It had seen better days, it was marked and chipped but she knew it was the one. It had to be the one. She took some hand cream out of her bag and rubbed some over the key. Then, very carefully, she put it back into the lock, turning it gently one way and then the other until finally it caught the latch and the door creaked open.