Close

by Martina Cole

  Kathleen was still confined to her bed and she was not eating anything of substance. For that matter, she was not even attempting to talk to anyone about what was wrong with her. Eileen was her twin and yet Kathleen still didn’t trust her enough to talk to her about anything that was going on with her.

  Eileen saw Colleen and Christopher whispering to each other, much the same as she had with Kathleen when they were younger.

  ‘What are you two whispering about?’

  Colleen laughed nervously. ‘Nothing much. We were just wondering if Lance was going to come home soon, that’s all. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  It was a fair question, Eileen knew. She knew they were both worried about Lance’s return to the house.

  She felt so sorry for him because everyone knew that their mum, the woman who had birthed them all, couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him. It hurt him, she knew it did. She knew that it had to be the worst feeling in the world knowing that your own mother didn’t care about you at all. Lance had known that for years and she had known about it since she could remember. Even these two had sussed that much out.

  ‘Lance is a grown man and he will come home when it suits him.’

  Eileen got up then and wandered from the room slowly. She was going out and the last thing she needed was anyone drawing attention to her; she was not silly, she knew that this family could blow up in a heartbeat.

  Colleen and Christy waited until Eileen was out of earshot before they started laughing with Shamus. They knew where she was going and who she was going there with. It was strange that the other people in the house had no idea about her secret life.

  But then again, she was fifteen in a few weeks and to them she was ancient and they knew that if they opened their mouths she would launch them into outer space without a second’s thought.

  Jimmy Brick and Spider were in a private club off the Caledonian Road. They were drinking Guinness and dancing warily around each other. Neither of them knew exactly how conversant the other one was with the current state of affairs. This was a very common dilemma for many people in the know.

  Conversation could be very difficult because, unless you were partnered with someone, or you had been briefed about a certain person, you could not talk freely to them without the fear of exposing information that could cause potential havoc. Spider and Jimmy went back a long way and so the situation was even more delicate than usual. Jimmy had been off the scene for many years and this was seen as cause for concern by Spider. Jimmy, for his part, knew that Spider had his own little firm and a respected firm at that. He also knew that his old mucker was wary of him because of his prolonged absence. That was something he had not discussed with anyone, of course, and would not do so unless he felt the time was right.

  So when Pat finally bowled in surrounded by his boys, young men like him who had done a bit of bird and were willing to work for someone their own age who was going places, they were overly pleased to see him.

  Spider watched Pat as he said hello to the right people, shook hands or patted the appropriate backs, and marvelled once more at the boy’s natural business acumen. Like his father he knew how to play the game. Only this young man had a hard edge to him that was apparent to anyone who had any dealings with him.

  As he sat down, Pat looked tired but both the men could also see that he was more than able to hold his own if it should come to that at any point. His new guys, his new minders, settled themselves nonchalantly around the bar. Spider saw immediately that they were in key positions so that if anything were to happen, they would be available to protect him within seconds. He was impressed; unless you knew the score, no one would have even realised what was going on. This told him that the boy was more protected and far more on the ball than anyone actually realised.

  ’All right, guys. Sorry I’m late, it’s been a heavy day.’

  The two men didn’t respond, they weren’t expected to.

  ‘Jimmy, I need you close; you must have guessed that was coming, mate?’

  Jimmy smiled slightly but it was a smile that signified agreement as if he had indeed known what was going to happen all along.

  Pat Junior smiled then and Spider saw the menace in him, the real menace, for the first time ever. He had known this boy from birth and now he watched him and he knew that he was a changed lad from the one he had seen grow up. This was a different man to the one who had come home from prison all smiles and group hugs. The man he had weighed out and whose own son had visited and seen all right.

  Pat was now someone to be wary of, was someone who had no qualms about erasing the enemy, and the enemy, it seemed, was anyone who happened to disagree with him.

  ‘I’m going to run everything as before. Brewster did a competent enough job but he did not bother to utilise all the different branches of the organisation.’

  Pat looked at Jimmy again.

  ‘You know that my father always had his finger on the pulse? Well, Lenny wouldn’t let anyone in the firm get near to anyone else. Everything had to go through him and that’s why it was so easy to take him out and buy up his so-called fucking workforce.’

  He stared at Jimmy then and it took a few seconds before Jimmy Brick realised that he was being dismissed. That Pat had said his piece and wanted him out of the frame until he needed him once more.

  Spider saw the look of shock on Jimmy Brick’s face and knew his earlier reservations were not without foundation. He also knew that Patrick Brodie Junior was a hard little fucker and he had no fear of anyone or anything.

  Jimmy walked away from the table without a word but this was not something he was ever going to forget about. He was humiliated and he looked it.

  Spider smiled at Pat and he smiled back at him with eyes that seemed to look through him as if he were a pane of glass.

  Spider knew exactly what Pat wanted and he also knew that he was going to give it to him. This boy had the one thing going for him that everyone in their world dreamed of having; a self-belief that was as intimidating to the people around him as it was natural to the man himself. He saw the new crew with him and knew they were all young and up-and-coming. He knew that Patrick was the new kid on their particular block. He had made good friends in nick and he had utilised them with the precision of an army general.

  This was a dangerous man, and the fact that he himself had not noticed just how dangerous he was, until now, bothered him more than he would care to admit.

  His son, Mac, was as close to Pat as any brother could be, and Spider wondered if his boy understood just how precarious and how dangerous this young man’s friendship could turn out to be.

  Lil was doing what she had been asked to do by her son and, even though it wasn’t hard work or even difficult work, she knew it was important work. For her son it was important and he needed someone he could trust with his life to do it. She was going through everything Lenny had used in his quest for world domination and she had to admit that, like her husband, he had no idea how to guarantee any of his main businesses. He had put them all into the hands of friends; a shrewd move in some ways but not in others. For example, none of them seemed conversant with how to make money from a club and that was easier than conning Social Security. It was a cash business, for fuck’s sake, how could you not profit from that? And, also, as she knew to her detriment, if the person died the so-called mates who owned the premises on paper often developed a terrible case of amnesia. After all, they owned everything fair and square, didn’t they? She should know, it had happened to her.

  Lil was making notes on who to aim out the door and who she was going to put in their place. She had a natural head for business; even her husband had admitted that. But she had been born in the wrong era; women were not supposed to be earners and listened to or respected. Patrick, who trusted her judgement, had still not seen fit to give her the fucking time of day. She knew she should let it go, leave the past where it was, in the past. But, somehow, she never seemed able to forget about it
.

  She concentrated on the paperwork once more and, as always when her brain was occupied, she relaxed. She worked out what was what and unravelled Lenny’s complicated system, a system that was so easy a child could have done it. She felt the rush again, the rush that was caused by sheer hard work and pregnancy. The club was quiet for the moment; early evening in Soho was not profitable for the hostesses and so she didn’t expect them in. Any that did arrive early she would assume were hiding out from either pimps or dealers; often both. That or they were trying to earn money as quickly as possible to pay off said pimps or dealers. They were fools and she knew they would not realise that until it was far too late to do anything about it.

  The life she led was not to everyone’s taste, she knew, but her almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the hostess clubs and their different earning potentials was something her son saw as an asset to him. She had started this club and she had worked this club, from both sides of the fence, and now she was determined to make it a really big earner.

  As the clock struck seven-thirty she heard the door of her office open and when she saw Ivana creep into the room she wanted to scream. The girl was always trying to get her attention and she irritated her beyond measure.

  ‘What can I do for you, Ivana?’ She tried to make her voice light and friendly; after all, the girl earned them a small fortune in her own way.

  ‘Can I ask you something in private, Lil?’

  Lil nodded her head quickly, the urge to get rid of the girl all important now.

  ‘Course. What is it?’

  She expected the usual hostess crap: how they were going to leave for another club because they’d been offered more money and that they would take their regulars etc. It was a common theme with hostesses. She also knew that a few of the girls met some of the men outside the club and she accepted and understood them doing that. Not that she would ever say that out loud, of course. The girls were not fools; if they met the man outside, he paid less for his case and was quids in and the girls got more than usual for going case in the first place. As long as it wasn’t too often and no one took the piss, Lil was quite willing to turn a blind eye. The weekend warriors were the ones who would suggest that to the girls and she wanted them out of the club anyway. Freeing up the table for moneyed punters was more important to her than the girl taking a quick one.

  Ivana was still not talking and Lil was getting even more impatient with her than she did usually.

  ‘Ivana, love, any chance you can descend to planet earth?’

  The girl was definitely nervous and Lil wondered what she had done now. Lots of the girls found themselves in outrageous situations; that was the nature of the beast. Once they left the premises and went case they were at their most vulnerable. Most girls used a short-time hotel in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was only a few minutes’ walk but they cabbed it because there was no law about soliciting on private property and, as long as they didn’t hit the pavement with their punter, they were safe as houses from Old Bill. Once inside the hotel though it was a different thing altogether. The man could turn nasty, refuse to pay any extras and she had even seen working girls who had been robbed at knifepoint, gang-raped or just battered for no other reason than that they were there. It was a dangerous game all right. So, as Lil steeled herself for Ivana’s little speech, when the girl finally plucked up the courage to talk, she was not expecting what she actually heard her say. For a few moments she thought she had to be imagining it.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Ivana licked her lips in an anxious manner and Lil was once more reminded of just how beautiful the girl was.

  ‘Well, talk to me then, I ain’t got all bloody day.’

  Ivana took a deep breath and then she repeated in a careful and controlled voice, ‘There is a dead body in the basement.’

  Lil sighed heavily.

  Of course there was, why wasn’t she surprised?

  ’Are you sure, Ivana?’ She was convinced this one was a druggie; she knew she liked a drink.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I went down there to see if Patrick was about, you know.’

  Lil nodded. All the girls were after him; for more reasons than his boyish good looks.

  ’And I saw it, a dead person. I shut the door and then came straight up here. But Lil, someone else could go down there, you know. It needs to be locked or something.’

  Lil looked at the girl with new eyes. She wasn’t even trying to score Brownie points, she was genuinely worried that someone might discover it and cause aggro.

  Lil nodded and then she said nonchalantly, ‘Did you recognise them?’

  Ivana shook her head vigorously. ‘No. It’s some black bloke.’

  She saw Lil’s skin blanch and she rushed to her. Lil could hear genuine concern in her voice.

  ‘You OK, Lil?’

  She sat back in the chair and forced herself to smile gently.

  ‘Well, Ivana, thank you for bringing that to my attention.’

  Ivana looked into her eyes and Lil saw herself as a girl and she knew then that was why she irritated her.

  ‘Look, Lil, I ain’t told no one and I ain’t going to, but don’t treat me like a mug. I came up here to stop anything happening.’

  Lil nodded and Ivana saw the tiredness and the worry that was ingrained in this woman’s face. She’d always wondered why Lil Brodie disliked her so much when she saw Lil Brodie as a role model.

  ‘I know, love. I’ll see you get something for this, OK?’

  ‘I don’t want anything, Lil. I just want to keep my job here. I like it. It suits me.’

  Lil was still feeling faint but managed to say jovially, ‘Course it does, darling. You’re still brand new.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Detective Scanlon was not a happy bunny. In fact, he was fuming. When he had been summoned, and that was the only way he could describe it, he had wondered if the whole thing was a wind-up. He was not a man to be ordered around, in fact, he had an allergic reaction to anyone ordering him about or trying to tell him anything.

  As he sat in his car outside the club in Soho and watched the people walking by, he felt the anger again. That this little shit was in a position to dictate to him was showing him just how much the world he knew had changed.

  He had been earning a crust of this kind since he had been on the beat. It had started off with him turning a blind eye. As the years had gone on, he had carried on taking money because he had got to a stage where he was dependent on it. He needed it to provide the things he now saw as his right.

  It was only now that he had been summoned like a naughty schoolboy, by a child no less, that what he had been doing finally hit him. At some point he had known that he would be called on to perform some task to justify the wages he had been pulling in all this time. It stood to reason. He had a feeling that the time to pay for it was now. And he didn’t want to do it. But the man inside this building owned him and, because of that, he could feel the enormity of what he had been doing for so long.

  He got out of the car and, waving off his sergeant, he walked through the drizzle into the warmth of the club. The brightness inside the foyer was too much for his eyes after sitting in the dimness outside plucking up his courage, and he could feel them watering. He coughed nervously as a young lady with small breasts, a tight dress and long permed hair dyed a suspect shade of red smiled at him in a friendly manner. She was sitting behind a polished counter and, perched on a high stool, she gave the impression of being far more important than she actually was. He saw the bouncer eyeing him and knew he was as aware of his name and his occupation as he was himself. The shame set in then and he asked the young lady for Patrick Brodie. The doorman motioned towards him with his head and he followed him through the club seeing the hostesses sitting smoking, waiting for the next punters to arrive. He walked across the dance floor where a stripper was bending over naked. She had just finished her act and was picking up her discarded clothes from the floor. She wasn’t even
pretty close up; in fact, she had certainly seen better days. The thick make-up that looked so glamorous under the lights was flaking off but she looked Scanlon over as if he was something she had found on the bottom of her shoe. She made him feel even more like the traitor he was. The whole place seemed to reek of decay and his eyes alighted on the men already seated around the dance floor. They had the look of men who paid for female company, from their ill-fitting suits to the scuffed and well-worn briefcases that would have been presents from the wives and children who had no idea where the men in their lives actually spent their leisure time.

  A heavy rock tune blasted through the speakers heralding the next stripper and, as she brushed past him, he smelled the aroma of stale sweat and Murray mints.

  They walked through to the back of the club and as they descended the stairs into the basement he felt physically sick. The bile was filling his mouth, burning him and he swallowed it down as best he could. His nerves were already shattered and when he finally reached the cement floor of the basement he knew that he had finally reached rock-bottom in more ways than one.

  Pat Brodie was sitting at a small table drinking a brandy and he was surprised at just how masculine the boy actually was. Scanlon nodded slightly to him in greeting and was aware that he didn’t get any kind of recognition in return. Pat Brodie just stared at him and then, after what seemed an age, he pointed to a pile of what Scanlon had thought was rags in the corner of the room.

  ’All yours, mate.’

  It was only on closer inspection that Scanlon realised it was a dead body.

  ‘Stop being so silly, Kath. Get up and come out with me.’ Eileen could hear the anger in her own voice and she tried to calm herself down even as she felt the frustration that her sister caused her.

  Kathleen was the image of her, it was like looking in the mirror except she didn’t seem to have any life about her. She had been bad enough before but lately she was even worse. Her whole body seemed to have collapsed in on her and her eyes were black-rimmed. It was heartbreaking to look at her.