Gangster Girl

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Nodding, Jo-Jo pulled the hat off and laid it on the desk. The scarf flapped around her mum’s face like widow’s weeds. She reached for the scarf.

  ‘Gently,’ Stella let out through gritted teeth.

  Jo-Jo eased the material around the left side of her mum’s face back. Stella’s fingers dug into the arms of the chair as Jo-Jo did the same to the other side of the scarf. The material fell back. Jo-Jo clamped her hands over her mouth as she leapt back in horror. The right side of Stella’s face was criss-crossed with cuts from where flying glass had cut into her flesh. The skin looked red and raw and as painful as hell. A deep cut sliced over the top of her right eyelid.

  ‘Mum, I’ve got to take you to the ozzie.’ Jo-Jo was almost hysterical.

  ‘No you ain’t,’ Stella shouted, pain shooting through her head. ‘You’re going to clean me up and make Mummy look all nice and pretty again.’

  Stella stared at herself in the mirror. The reflection wasn’t pretty. Fuck, if she saw herself coming down a dark alley she’d run screaming the other way. But she was alive and that’s what mattered. Her good eye closed as her mind skidded back to earlier that day. Back to the car. Back to the explosion. She’d been running like a mad woman, knowing the cops would be on the scene soon. The plan was that she should’ve headed straight towards the car with Jo-Jo in it, but she knew there wasn’t time for that so she’d bolted to the car with Billy in. She’d twisted around when she’d realised Daisy had stopped. Yelled at her to get her arse moving. Carried on motoring forward, until she clearly saw Billy primed and ready to go in the driver’s seat. So she’d run around towards the passenger’s seat. Scanned her gaze over the car, seeing Daisy straighten up. She’d reached for the door the same time Billy’s hand had touched the ignition key. And that’s when she’d stopped. She didn’t know why, couldn’t explain it, but some sixth sense had held her back. Instead of moving forward she’d stepped back. And back. Billy twisted the key the same time she’d launched into the longest jump of her life. The next thing she knew she was lying on the grass, rolling in agony with her hair on fire and half her face feeling like acid was melting it down to the bone. But it hadn’t knocked her out. She’d scrambled to her knees, blood running down her face, blinding her in one eye, and seen the burning car and debris strewn around her. She’d kept herself low as she moved away, pain twisting her mind, until she reached an underground car park. Straightening up she’d run towards a car and tried the handle, but it was locked. She kept trying until she found one where the owner had forgotten to lock it. Lucky for her a baseball cap and scarf with some magazines lay on the back seat. She’d snapped the cap on and wrapped the scarf around her head and got the fuck out of there.

  That was the difference between her and the riff-raff. They rolled over and died but Stella King didn’t roll over and die for anyone.

  Her good eye flicked open. ‘Mum.’ She turned at the sound of Jo-Jo back in the room. Her daughter held a basin of warm water and some towels slung over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to patch you up all nice.’ Jo-Jo smiled as she reached the grim-looking older woman. ‘Make you feel better again. I’ll make your favourite—’

  ‘Shut. Up.’ Stella’s voice was hard as she moved towards the sofa. ‘Put Calamity Jane on.’

  ‘What?’ Jo-Jo stopped in her tracks.

  ‘You heard.’ Stella wearily sat down. Jo-Jo looked at her mum weirdly as she placed the basin and towels at the foot of the sofa. But Stella’s gaze was locked faraway as she stared at the blank telly screen. A few minutes later Doris Day and friends were with them in the room. Jo-Jo dipped one of the towels in the disinfected water and leant across to wipe the blood from her mum’s face. But Stella boxed her hand away. ‘Go to the second last one in the scene selection.’

  ‘But Mum?’ Jo-Jo didn’t like the look on her mum’s face. Like she wasn’t really there anymore. But she did what Stella asked. Flicked through the scene selections until she found the still image of Doris Day’s Calamity Jane peeping through the branches of a tree shining radiance. ‘That’s it,’ Stella said softly.

  Jo-Jo pressed play. The sweet, honest voice of Doris Day swept into the room singing about her secret love. Stella started to sing along in her low, throaty voice.

  ‘Mum – your face,’ Jo-Jo pleaded.

  Stella started speaking as if she hadn’t heard her. ‘I love that scene and you want to know why?’ Jo-Jo didn’t answer, just got more worried by the second as she watched her mother. ‘My brother would play it to me . . .’

  ‘Your brother?’ Her mum was definitely in shock, she didn’t have a brother.

  But Stella didn’t hear her again, just kept chatting along about some man that Jo-Jo had never heard of. Anxiously Jo-Jo reached forward and gingerly wiped through the deep lacerations and hanging flesh.

  ‘They ain’t dead you know.’

  Stella flashed her good eye at Jo-Jo. ‘Daisy and Ricky.’

  ‘Ricky?’ Stella leant up. ‘But he got blasted in the bank.’

  ‘I saw them running away. Together.’

  Stella settled back down, a nasty expression twisting the good side of her face. ‘Billy’s dead. Tommy’s dead.’ She turned her damaged eye onto Jo-Jo. Her daughter cringed back. ‘You’re the only person I can trust. I’m going to tell you a story about something that happened here years ago. I know who tried to kill me. Who took the stuff in the deposit box and tonight you’re going help me make sure that they pay with their lives. In the meantime I want you to get Daisy and Ricky back here.’

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Daisy was late. A good fifteen minutes late. She parked the car on a side street and then legged it to her apartment.

  ‘Ricky,’ she called as she advanced into the hallway of her home. No answer. She called out again. No come back. Cautiously she headed for the main room. The door was partway open. She used the tip of her trainer to push it wider. Hesitated for a nano second. Then shoved herself inside the room. No one inside. Where the heck was he? As her gaze danced around the room in confusion she heard a sound. Froze. A noise, ever so quiet, coming from her bedroom. She eased on tiptoes out of the room as she pulled the gun from the back of her tracksuit bottoms. One slow, careful step at a time she made her way towards the closed bedroom door. The sound came again. She shoved her head to the side, pushing her right ear forward trying to identify what it was. But she couldn’t. She stretched the gun outward, in a two-handed hold, on a level with her chest as she eased forward. Her teeth twisted into her bottom lip. Her finger curved around the trigger. She stopped moving when she faced the door. Dropped one hand from the gun. Pulled the gun back as her other hand inched forward. Her hand touched the round handle. Curved around it. With a force she flung the door open. Rushed inside.

  ‘Ricky,’ she screamed as her gun dropped to her side.

  She rushed over to her bed, where a glazed-eyed, sweating Ricky moaned, sprawled on his back. His eyes shone with the same intensity as the sweat shining on his forehead. She wasn’t even sure that he was aware she was there. Her palm lightly touched his forehead. Shit, he was burning up.

  ‘Ricky?’ She placed her face closer to his. ‘Can you hear me?’

  He let out a laboured breath. ‘You’re going to have to take it out,’ he croaked.

  She leant closer. ‘What?’

  ‘The bullet.’

  Her confusion deepened. ‘What bullet?’

  ‘The one that’s taken up squatter’s rights in my arm.’

  Her gaze skidded to his arm. ‘You said that the bullet had gone right through.’

  ‘I lied.’ He took in a sharp edge of air. ‘You’re going to have to take it out.’

  Her gaze skidded to his face. He couldn’t have just asked her to? No . . . he didn’t mean. She looked back at his arm. ‘That’s it.’ She shot to her feet. She shoved her hand in her pocket. Whipped out her phone. ‘We’re getting you to the nearest hospital.’

  ‘You can’t,’ he croaked.

&n
bsp; ‘Ricky,’ she yelled, cutting over him. ‘You’ve got to forget about your sister and think of yourself.’

  ‘Don’t do this to me. Please . . . Please.’ His voice got fainter. ‘Please.’

  ‘Be serious.’ She ran her hand over her face. ‘I’m not Florence Nightingale, you know.’ But there was no answer, only the laboured rise and fall of his breathing. How the hell did you take out a bullet? She wasn’t going to be able to do this on her own. She stepped back from the bed as she shoved her mobile back into her pocket. Pushed her hand into her back pocket, just above the gun. Pulled out her bottle of pills. She opened it and peered inside. Three left.

  She tipped the bottle over her mouth. A pill slid inside her mouth. She swallowed dry. Closed her eyes and waited. She reopened them a couple of minutes later, but no Frankie. She snapped her eyes shut again. Gave it another two minutes. Reopened them. Still no Frankie.

  ‘Where the bloody hell are you, Dad?’

  Ricky groaned. Shit, she knew she didn’t have time to try and conjure up Frankie Sullivan. She was on her own. She’d have to do this herself.

  How the hell was she going to find out how you took out a bullet from a body? It wasn’t like she could phone NHS Direct and ask someone. She wiped her hand over her mouth. She looked down at Ricky then began pacing. Suddenly her hand dove into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Quickly she pressed the Internet icon. Activated Google. Typed in ‘Taking out a bullet’. She blew out a huge sigh of relief when she saw that there were a number of sites with advice. She checked the first three and the advice was the same – if you weren’t able to get to a hospital and the wound wasn’t too bad and bleeding too much it might be more safe to leave the bullet in as it might be stopping the bleeding.

  She rushed over to Ricky and gingerly moved his arm. He let out another groan. She looked at the wound. It didn’t look that bad, but it was bleeding slightly. She checked back with the website for advice about stopping the bleeding.

  ‘Right, got it,’ she said as she nodded.

  Gently she lifted Ricky’s arm

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered as he let out a long, agonised groan. She held the arm up with one hand and pushed her fingers into the pressure points in his armpit. And pressed. She held the position for a few minutes. Then inspected the wound. The bleeding had stopped. A tiny smile flittered across her lips.

  ‘What are you doing?’ another voice slammed into the room.

  Daisy dropped Ricky’s arm as she sprang to her feet.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Like someone who had been found with their hand in the cookie jar Daisy stared at a shocked Jerome, who stood half in, half out, of the doorway. She was in trouble big-time now. But then that had been the story of her life lately.

  Before she could respond he stepped fully into the room and waved his hand towards the bed. ‘What is that man doing in your bed?’ Jerome moved closer. ‘Is that blood?’

  ‘Help me bandage his arm and I’ll answer all your questions after.’

  He stood there for a few seconds looking from Ricky to her and back again. In the tense silence that covered the room she could almost hear his brain ticking away.

  ‘OK,’ he finally said. He carried on, his tone professional Jerome standing in front of a judge. ‘Get that other pillowcase and tear it until you have a strip’ As she followed his instruction he moved to Ricky. Took hold of his arm. Ricky was out cold. Without speaking Daisy bound Ricky’s arm with the material. As soon as she completed the task Jerome said, ‘Now you need to tell me why a man with a bullet wound has taken up residence with the woman I was planning to marry.’

  Daisy pulled in a deep breath as her body went rigid on the bed. She was tired of lying. So she told him the truth, everything except the part about Frankie Sullivan being her old man. Jerome didn’t display any emotion as she told her tale. Finally her voice stopped.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ She couldn’t meet his troubled gaze. She knew the time was right to tell him the whole truth.

  Without raising her head she whispered, ‘There’s something else I’ve got to tell you . . .’

  But she didn’t finish because he cut in with the force of a knife, ‘That you’re the daughter of the deceased criminal Frankie Sullivan?’

  Her head flicked up as her mouth flipped open.

  ‘How did you know?’

  Daisy’s shocked question settled between them as they sat opposite each other at the dining table on the balcony that overlooked the river. The night air was cold with a real bite swirling in it. The video box with the evidence from the deposit box lay by Daisy’s feet.

  Jerome shoved his fingers through his hair. ‘Charlie told me. He knew I was serious about you and I suppose his way of testing my devotion was to see how I’d react when he told me the truth.’

  ‘I would’ve told you . . .’ rushed out of her.

  He grabbed her hand. Held on tight. ‘I don’t care about your family tree. I don’t care that your adoptive mum and aunts might not be the first choice of people my parents put on their dinner party invitation list. I don’t care that Jackie Jarvis’s husband was once a drug dealer. Don’t care that you’ve got a surrogate aunt-cum-drag queen called Misty McKenzie. In fact, I really like the ladies.’

  An astonished expression swept her face. ‘What do you mean, like?’

  ‘I contacted them and they invited me around for tea one day. They’re very nice people. I even went to see Miss Misty at her club on the day Angel died, after I left you sleeping at your place just to reassure her you were OK. They care about you. Just like I do.’ He took her other hand in his and gave her a tender look. ‘What you need to ask yourself is do you care about me?’

  She tightened her grip on him as if she was terrified that if she let him go she might not ever see him again. ‘You know I do.’ A nervous smile rippled across her lips.

  But he didn’t return her smile. ‘Do you love him?’ Her palms stiffened in his hands. She hadn’t been expecting that question. Before she could speak he rushed on. ‘And please don’t insult my intelligence by saying you love me in a different way. I saw you with him in a café in Soho.’ She gasped at that.

  ‘I was going to give you this.’ He pushed his hand in the top pocket of his tailored jacket. Grabbed her hand and placed a beautiful sapphire ring into it. ‘An engagement ring . . .’

  ‘Sorry to break up the tender reunion, folks.’ They both looked up to find a pinched-lipped Ricky standing in the doorway. His face had lost its glowing brown sheen and he held onto the door as if he was afraid to let go in case he toppled over. He stepped slowly outside, the ragged pattern of his hard breathing shooting into the wind. ‘But this is going to have to wait because me and Daisy have got things to do.’

  The two men stared at each other like knights about to do battle for the lady of the castle’s hand. Daisy shoved Jerome’s ring into her pocket.

  ‘Daisy has told me everything, Detective Smart,’ Jerome finally said. ‘I strongly disagree with what both of you are doing.’ Ricky let out a huff, but Jerome ignored him and carried on. ‘But I might be able to help.’ He turned to Daisy. ‘You said you’ve got a photograph . . . ?’

  Ricky leant heavily against the table. ‘I don’t think so, mate. The picture was taken when you were most probably still on nanny’s knee in nappies.’

  Jerome ignored Ricky’s insult and held out his hand to Daisy. She looked up at Ricky. Finally he nodded. She pulled the photo out of her bag and passed it to Jerome. As soon as he saw it he sucked in his breath. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘You know who this is, don’t you?’ Daisy said excited, leaning across the table.

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve been looking for him long enough, including jetting off to Spain. It’s Maxwell Henley.’

  ‘Who the fuck is Maxwell Henley?’ Ricky flung out.

  They all looked at the photo of the man as they sat around the table.

  ‘I’m leading on a class-acti
on case. A lawsuit, where five adults are suing Woodbridge council for abuse, including sexual, that happened to them while they were in the care of the council. One of the claimants is a member of the band Electric Star, which has guaranteed us lots of much needed media attention. Maxwell Henley was the leader of the council at that time and we suspect that he was involved in these abuses first hand.’

  ‘So why haven’t you got him?’

  ‘Because he disappeared years ago. I heard he was in Spain, so I managed to find out where his villa was but he wasn’t in residence. The woman who lives there claimed to know nothing about him.’

  ‘And did you believe her?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, what matters is she wasn’t going to tell me if she knew anyway.’ He looked back at the picture. ‘Why is it torn?’

  ‘We think that the man in the other half of the picture is Stevie King, the long dead husband of my mum, Stella.’

  Ricky leant back in his chair, a thoughtful expression crinkling the skin around his eyes. ‘So why would the leader of a council have connections with a big time hood like Stevie King? And what has this got to do with the disappearance of your sister?’

  They all gazed hard at the photo that lay between them.

  ‘There is one person I could ask.’ Daisy and Ricky’s gazes settled expectantly on Jerome as he spoke. ‘She’s been helping us with the case because she’s a leading authority on child abuse. And lucky for us she knew Maxwell Henley. Barbara Benton.’

  ‘But I have already . . .’ sprang from Daisy’s mouth. She shut it when she realised she’d have to confess to Ricky that she’d spoken to the commissioner elect of the Met police earlier that night.

  Ricky peered hard at her. ‘Don’t hold out on us, babe.’

  Resigned Daisy sank back into her chair. ‘Barbara Benton. She’s the person I went to see earlier to see if she could identify who was in the picture. She said she didn’t know who it was.’