by Martina Cole
‘You can kiss goodbye to all this if I stop doing me work.’
He looked around the over-furnished, untidy room, and waved his arms about in disdain. He was playing her and she knew it, but they also both knew that the money would always take precedence over everything else. She loved lording it up to the neighbours and she loved the feeling of spending. Her spending was astronomical lately, and unlike her sister she was never one to think of the inevitable rainy day. Never thought to make the money work for her in case he ended up on another six-year holiday courtesy of the judicial system. After all the years alone and scraping a living she was going mad, and the money also told everyone in her orbit that he must love her. It was the balm on her sore heart, it was her defence against the world.
He watched as she eyed the seven grand and knew he was home and dry. He hugged her tightly then, and she enjoyed the feel of him as she always did. She craved his attention as she craved his good will.
‘Well, try not to make a night of it, eh? Remember that you have a family here.’
Her voice was still uptight and they both knew that it was not real permission. She was more or less telling him she wanted him home with her. Trying to make him feel guilty for abandoning her.
With her pregnancy, he needed her to smile as he walked out the door. The last time, when she had lost the baby, he had felt guilty, had been made, for the first time ever, to question his actions. He was determined never to feel like that again.
She had used it for so long, even his own mother had warmed to her, had silently blamed him. He was only amazed that Lena, who would normally blame him if it rained on the day she cleaned her windows, had not stuck her oar in. In fact, she had not said anything about it at all. Now he made sure Jackie and the girls were well looked after, both in public and in private. He had heard a whisper that his treatment of his wife had been leaked all the way to the Isle of Wight.
He had been banged up with Ozzy and his mates for a long time and he wanted their good will. If looking after this fat bitch would guarantee that then that was what he would do. He still resented her though, and once she was delivered, she was going to get the shock of her life. If it was another split arse, she was doomed for eternity as far as he was concerned.
But his image was his all, and at the end of the day image and reputation was what paid his wages. In their world it was all you had. So he kissed the tip of her nose gently, then looking at his brand new Bulova watch pointedly he said heartily, ‘You get a bit of sooty and sweep and lay off the fucking drink. That poor baby will be born half pissed if you ain’t careful.’
It was said in a joking way but the underlying edge was there. He was warning her and she knew it. She wondered briefly if her mother had tipped him the wink but dismissed the idea immediately. He had eyes, and a sense of smell. It wouldn’t take a blind dog long to sniff her out.
She looked at his handsome face and was amazed that someone who looked like a Greek God, and who could smile in a way that could melt the hardest of hearts, was capable of such cruelty.
And he was cruel, but even though she knew that, the pull of him was still as strong as the first time she had seen him. With him she was never happy because he made her feel ugly, like second best. Yet without him she felt bereft, as if her life had no meaning, had no purpose.
He was going to start a row with her if she didn’t let him out of the house without a fight. He had as usual presented her with two choices: either he goes out and she smiles, or he stays and fights and then storms out leaving her angry and upset. If she let him go happily, then he may be inclined to come home sooner rather than later.
A few seconds later, he got a beer from the fridge and placed the bottle of cheap Liebfraumilch she kept there on the kitchen worktop with a bang. ‘Chilling it now, are we? Not necking it straight from the bottle?’
His voice was telling her he was ready to row, and as Jackie looked through the doorway into the small hallway she saw Roxanna, all big eyes and nervous twitch.
Closing her eyes she said as gaily as she could, ‘You better get a move on, babe, it’s getting late.’
He snapped the beer open and took a deep drink. Then, putting the can on the cluttered draining board, he ran into the hall. Grabbing Roxanna he threw her to the ground and pretended to bite her. She was shrieking in delight and the noise was going through Jackie’s head.
‘Who’s her daddy’s girl then, eh?’
She was screaming, ‘I am, I am,’ when he stopped and, kissing her gently, got up and with a small wave and a blown kiss to his daughter he was gone.
Roxanna got up and ran to her mother, her happy face glowing. Jackie pushed her away none too gently and barked, ‘Get off me, for fuck’s sake. You’re like a fucking leech, you are.’
Roxanna was upset and, her natural belligerence coming to the fore, she shouted, ‘Don’t take it out on me because you made him go away.’
The girls always blamed her. He charmed them and he gave them what they wanted, and she was relegated as usual to nothing in their eyes, and her own.
The slap was loud and it was painful when it came and, as Rox ran crying from the room, Jackie felt the usual guilt and devastation at the turn her life had taken.
The first glass of wine took the edge off her anger, the second stilled her racing heart and the third saw her go up the stairs to try to make peace with her girls.
Jimmy was sitting in a pub with a man he really did not want to be with, and until Freddie and Bernie Sands arrived he had to smile and provide large Scotches for someone he instinctively loathed.
Jimmy was anxious about the whereabouts of Freddie and his new crony Bernie. They were an hour late already. Bernie had been banged up with Freddie for a couple of years, and now he was home they were both making up for lost time. Much to the detriment of wives and families.
Kindred spirits, they were hardly apart and even though this was a cause for celebration as far as Maggie was concerned, it worried Jimmy. Without a stabilising influence Freddie was as mad as a brush - that had been proven time and again since they had taken over from the Clancys. Now Freddie had Bernie, and the last thing Freddie needed was someone geeing him up even more than he did himself. Bernie was a short, fat man with shaggy blond hair and a face that belied his friendly reputation. He looked miserable even when he was ecstatically happy.
Bernie was a bank robber and a collector, he could get a debt off a dead man, or so his reputation said. And even on short acquaintance Jimmy felt this was an understatement. Jimmy knew that they were out robbing on a daily basis and this was what was giving him sleepless nights.
Since the rise in armed robberies in the seventies, security firms had upped their own security measures in defence of their cargoes, until now, in 1986, the only security vans without bullet-proof windshields were Group 4’s. They were being targeted because with a well-placed sledgehammer, a few choice words, a handgun, and enough bottle, their vans could be knocked over in less than ten minutes.
The adrenaline rush alone was enough to have made Freddie already addicted. They had been averaging two a day, every few days, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon for the last few weeks. It was so easy that they were unable to even contemplate getting a capture.
The blags, as they were referred to in the appropriate circles, were excellent bread winners and they were also something that could be done on the spur of the moment and without the usual elaborate planning of, say, a proper bank job or jewellery heist. For example, the money they had blagged that day was for a reason, it was like bunce, it was for sundries, it was to them pocket money. Some people popped security vans for bail money, or just for a decent stake.
The man sitting opposite Jimmy held up his empty whisky glass and shook it at him. His eyebrows were raised and his red-veined cheeks were stretched in what Jimmy assumed was a smile. His thoughts interrupted, Jimmy got up and went to the bar once more, aware of the looks he was getting because of the company he was keepi
ng, and wishing with all his heart that Freddie would arrive. Even though he had his creds and could take care of himself, he didn’t fancy his chances with some of the blokes sitting around, looking at him suspiciously, if they decided to come at him en masse.
Paul filled the glass with ice, and then, surreptitiously spitting into it, he filled it from the drunks’ optic. The drunks’ optics were the watered-down shorts. They were not used until the end of the night, then used only on people who were well gone and could have a fight, but still insisted on drinking. People who could not be told enough was enough, and who might be armed, or were nursing a grudge.
They were the optics they made money from by keeping their stocks up, and the ones that stopped murders from being committed.
The phlegm looked like normal bubbles on top of the whisky and Jimmy felt his stomach rebelling as he handed the glass to the tall skinny policeman with the sarcastic smile and the air of someone who was under the impression he was far too good for the place he had landed up in.
DI Halpin was a tame filth, but he was not tame enough for Jimmy. In fact he was a flash prat until he had accidentally got himself on to the Serious Crime Squad through severe boot licking and serious amounts of cash provided, naturally, by people like Freddie and Jimmy. He was making the mistake all treacherous people eventually made. They believed their own press, they saw themselves as not only above the law they had sworn to uphold, but above the people they traded with, and they always got the fright of their life when they finally realised just how deeply they were entrenched in the shit of their own making.
They were quite happy to lie and cheat old friends and colleagues, were comfortable with their double dealing and the fact that violent criminals, as well as the usual blaggers, walked free and clear while they fitted up someone they either had a grudge against or who they had once more been paid serious money to take off the street.
Consequently, the criminals they dealt with saw them as the lowest of the low. When he was a humble filth, if Halpin busted a dealer with five weights of dope, the dealer knew that only two weights would be taken into evidence, the other three would be back on the street within hours. He helped himself to monies and firearms located on searches, which he also recycled back on to the streets. He honestly believed he was above the law.
It was this greed that had brought him to the attention of Freddie and Jimmy in the first place, and tonight he was going to find out the real reason they had bought him. For the last six months he had been courted by them, had taken a luxurious holiday, and pleased his wife no end because he had finally agreed to the conservatory she had been desperate to have built on to the back of their mock-Tudor, four-bedroomed detached house in Manor Park.
Halpin was flavour of the month at the moment and he was loving it. He did not see what he was doing was wrong in any way, he saw it as a means to an end. He was still young enough to feather his nest, and after talking to colleagues he was determined that he was not going to end his days on a police pension, reminiscing about a bygone era when he was useful, and when he was still being listened to.
He had seen that time and time again with colleagues, and it frightened him. His own father had seemed like a god to him but now he saw him for the man he really was, a small man who had lived for work. Well, Halpin was determined that he would work to live. He wanted a good life, wanted money in his pocket, and if it meant he had to bend the rules to achieve that goal, then so be it.
He had married above him, and he was painfully aware of that fact. He loved his wife and his kids and he wanted them to have all the things he felt they were entitled to. He had loved being in the force, but as the years had gone on he had come to understand that there was not only a ceiling to what he could earn, but also, that to get on properly he had to court the right people. Drink in the right pubs and ignore the flagrant bending of their rules.
The feeling of pride he had felt in his job had gradually been eroded. It was on a drugs raid a few years earlier that he had finally burned his boats. Until then he had taken the occasional drink, meaning he had received money for turning a blind eye and leaving people to ply their trade as long as they were not too blatant about it. The attitude being they were better off with the devils they knew.
Then he had been teamed up with an older man who had tipped him the wink on their way to the raid. He told him that they had a deal with the man in question, and that they were to go to the pub for a couple of hours before the raid took place to give him plenty of time to sort himself out. It was stepping over the line, and this had bothered him.
But it had been the dealer’s house that had convinced him he was a mug. It had blown him away, from the kitchen that looked like something from NASA to the glass and chrome lounge. It had been a learning curve, the sheer luxury of it, the way the man’s family had been dressed, and the kids in their private school uniforms.
The dealer, a close friend of his governor’s, had opened a bottle of Scotch and sat down to chew the breeze with them. It had been an enjoyable afternoon and the beginning of his double life.
He had gone home that night and as he had let himself into his semi-detached in Chigwell, with its cream-coloured nets to stop the neighbours peering in, and its constant smell of damp, it had occurred to him that crime did pay, and it paid a lot better than he had first thought.
Now his wife was happier than she had ever been, as were his kids. Money did buy happiness in its own way, he was proof of that. As for the adages about money not buying happiness, well, he had proved that was utter crap. They were sayings to keep the poorer parts of the population quiet, mainly those without any real money. It might not buy good health but money bought the best doctors in the world. Money might not make your relationship better but it certainly kept the relationship going, because it was the lack of money that caused most of the rows in most of the households.
Halpin’s whole concept of life had been challenged and he had finally found the solution to his worries. A decent holiday built a marriage, the break gave them all a chance to recharge their batteries and the hot sun did wonders to break down barriers between man and wife. The strolling along a beach, the few drinks before bed and the smiling children crashed out from a day’s swimming and playing went a long way to making people happier.
His life was better than ever, and he felt he had a hold over the people he had to deal with. At the end of the day he was a policeman, they needed him and he held all the cards. It was this belief that allowed him to show his disdain for these people. It was also the reason he was going to be brought down to earth in the next twenty-four hours.
He heard Freddie before he saw him.
As was his wont, Freddie came in the pub like a conquering hero, smiling and laughing, a word for everyone and a drink offered. He knew his job, he also knew it was important to keep good relations with people because you never knew when you might need them. The Clancys had found that out, and it had been a lesson well learned for all concerned.
Freddie was still smiling as he sat opposite the DI, who watched warily as Bernie Sands eyed him for long seconds before drifting over to the bar.
‘Hello, mate, all right.’
It was a greeting, not a question.
Freddie snapped his fingers towards the bar. ‘Drinks all round, please.’
Paul nodded. He liked old Freddie. Since he had taken over, trouble in the bar had all but ceased, even the lairiest among them were wary of Jackson. Even Bernie Sands said please and thank you, that alone was a touch.
Freddie knew his job and he kept everyone, except himself, on an even keel. He was worth every penny, and he knew it.
As he looked at the policeman with the beer gut and the weather-beaten look of a man who had drunk too much too soon he said happily, ‘You and me need a talk, mate, because tomorrow me and you have to sort out a bit of skulduggery at the Old Bailey.’
Jimmy noticed that the man’s smile was now frozen on to his face. It was funny, but they a
lways thought they were never going to be called on for anything serious.
But Halpin was about to find out that they owned him, and that he owed them far more than he had thought possible.
Maddie Jackson and Lena Summers were in the waiting room of Rush Green Hospital in Romford, waiting for news. Jackie’s backache had been the onset of labour, and she was now causing untold aggravation to everyone in her orbit.
Rush Green had a special baby unit, and they were both concerned for their grandchild. It seemed that the child might be breech and Jackie, being Jackie, was screaming the place down.
For the first time ever the two women were in accord, they both felt that Jackie was making far more of it than there actually was. Both women had given birth at home, then got up and cooked a dinner within twenty-four hours.
Like their mothers before them, they saw childbirth as a natural occurrence, unlike the girls of the day, who saw pregnancy as some kind of illness. Saw it as an excuse not to work, not to do anything heavy.
And Jackie acting like she was the only person ever to have a child was irritating them both no end. Her screams echoed the length and breadth of the hospital, and, as they both agreed, it wasn’t like she had not done it before.
‘Can you hear her?’ Maddie’s voice was angry and even though Lena was in agreement she had to show some kind of loyalty.
‘She wants her husband, that’s what wrong with her.’ It was said in a nasty, arrogant, ‘your son is in the wrong’ kind of way.
Maddie laughed then and said. ‘Wants her husband? Didn’t we all?’
The truth of the statement made Lena want to smile. They were both thinking of lonely births with husbands who had gone out to celebrate and not come home for three days. That was, to them, how it should be. It was women’s work - why try to make the men interested in something they could never be interested in by their very nature? The two women started to laugh then, and a few minutes later when a nurse brought in a pot of tea they drank it together in peace.