by Martina Cole
It was how it had always been. Patrick spoke and she responded by doing whatever he wanted. As she walked to the bedroom with Sol she felt as if she was in a dream. She had learned to tune out the real world in care, and that stood her in good stead now.
Patrick was collecting from his girls. He pulled up beside them and smiled his endearing smile. Then he complimented each one of them before holding out his hand and letting them stuff it full of cash.
One girl, Bonita, a beautiful black girl with wide eyes and terrific legs, didn’t give him the money straight off.
‘Hey, Patrick. Channy Baker has been round the Cross – he took money from Camelia and Joely. I saw it with my own eyes, man. He wants in.’
Patrick kept on smiling.
Ten minutes later he had picked up two men from a bar and was inside the Hound Club in King’s Cross, a private drinking den that was patronised by whores and pimps. Channy took the kicking of a lifetime as Pat watched. Then he took the man’s money and his weapons before personally kicking him in the face.
So it took him longer than usual to get back to Sol’s place.
He let himself in and poured himself a drink, but they were still out of sight. It wouldn’t be long, he decided, before he had Tiffany exactly where he wanted her. On her back with whoever he wanted, when he wanted, for money or for crack.
He opened the bedroom door and watched his girlfriend, the mother of another of his children, performing for him with a disgusting man.
It was a sight that gladdened his heart.
All women were the same. He had proved his own theory time and time again.
Chapter Five
Tiffany opened her eyes with difficulty. She could hear a hammering noise and it took a few seconds before she realised it was at her front door. As she dragged herself from the bed she saw that it was nearly twelve o’clock and her heart started beating erratically as she realised she had overslept. What the hell was Anastasia doing?
She rushed semi-naked into the child’s room. The little girl was sitting in her cot. Her soaking nappy was on the floor and she had been crying, that much was obvious.
‘Mummy ...’
Her face creased with pleasure and Tiffany picked her up and hugged her tightly. The hammering on the door was still very much in evidence.
‘All right, I’m coming.’
Her voice was harsh and Anastasia started to whimper.
‘Did I make you jump, sweetie?’
Tiffany hugged her again as she opened the door.
‘Package for Tiffany Carter.’
She signed for it awkwardly and the boy placed it in her hallway, trying his hardest to sneak a peek at her tits. She ignored him. Putting the child down, she opened the package.
It was a game she had ordered for her daughter and Anastasia was soon clapping her hands with glee. She left the child playing and pulled on a dressing gown. In the bathroom she squatted to pee and saw her reflection in the mirror tiles around the bath. She looked terrible. Her eyes were dark hollows and her skin was grey. She had lost hours sleeping. Normally she was up and about for her daughter, getting her breakfast and making sure she was dressed beautifully for playgroup. The thought of what could have happened frightened her.
She remembered that her dope and cigarette lighter were on the table in the lounge. If Anastasia had got out of the cot . . . Fear made her sweat. In future she would set the alarm on high. This must never happen again. The acrid smell of her own body reminded her of the night before and gradually she pieced the evening together as she showered. The heat of shame engulfed her once more, but she put it firmly out of her mind.
As Anastasia tucked into her Weetabix Tiffany dragged her handbag out from under the table and opened it. She counted out four hundred pounds and some loose change.
The feel of the money in her hands was fantastic. She was going to go out and blow it all on her and the babes. After all, there was plenty more where that came from. She smiled then, a real smile that made her look like the young girl she was.
Like her mother before her, money was her god.
As she put the notes back in her bag she saw the crack pipe. Patrick must have put it there. It was made from a piece of ebony, a beautiful little thing. Her first instinct was to throw it in the bin and she nearly did. But something stopped her. Instead she placed it in the zipped compartment where she kept her make-up.
Putting it out of her mind, she concentrated on getting her daughter dressed. She would take her to McDonald’s for lunch as a treat to make up for being such a useless mother. She was determined it would never happen again.
Anastasia was happy. Her belly was full and Mummy was smiling. What more could a little girl want?
Louise was going through the washing. The smell of her husband’s socks emanating from the washing basket made her smile. It was only from his work boots, she knew, but his feet were a family joke. Suddenly she was assailed by a memory.
She had just had Marie and her husband had picked her up from the hospital. They had driven straight to his mother’s with the new baby and her mother-in-law had always insisted everyone remove their shoes before they came into her house. Kevin’s feet had been ripe that day and they had all laughed like drains as he had been despatched up the stairs with a bar of soap and stern orders to ‘scrub them buggers till they smell like everyone else’s’.
She could remember looking down at her newborn daughter’s face and wondering when the rush of love that was supposedly the norm was going to occur.
It never did, not with either of the girls, only with her Marshall.
Now he had made her heart sing from the moment she had set eyes on him. She felt the familiar sting of tears as she thought of him. His little hands, perfectly formed. She always thought of his hands, she didn’t know why that was. Sometimes she couldn’t remember his face. She found herself panicking in the middle of the night, trying to remember what her son had looked like. Trying to picture him. Then she would get out of bed and come down to the lounge where photographs of him stood everywhere.
She would light a cigarette and stare at them until the panic subsided and she could find solace in sleep once more.
Every time she thought of him putting that gun into his mouth she felt a wave of nausea. That someone could actually do that to themselves was beyond her comprehension. And for someone who’d had the whole world at their feet to do it made her wonder if there was any justice in the world at all.
Yet her daughter, the cause of every ill that had befallen the family, was walking round as large as life and still breathing. Mixing with normal folk, people who didn’t know what she was. What she had done.
Louise sat at the table and lit a cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. If only there was some way she could pay Marie back she would feel better. The hatred she felt for her own child always amazed her. Even when her elder daughter had been a toddler Louise had disliked her, resented her and the intrusion she had made into their lives. Yet she knew her daughter looked like her. Was the living image of her at the same age. People were supposed to love their kids because they were part of them, surely? It was an inverted form of self-love. Or at least that was what she’d always thought.
But for herself, she had never wanted any part of her elder daughter. In fact, if she had found Marie with her head blown off she would have felt only relief. A weight would have been lifted off her mind.
Marie had always been trouble. At school she had spent her whole time bunking off, getting drunk. At thirteen she was already on the pill. Louise could remember finding it in her daughter’s school bag: Ovranette. Years later it was supposed to have been a big killer, caused blood clots or something, but not for her daughter. Didn’t stop her getting pregnant either. Fourteen and a belly full of arms and legs. Fifteen she was pushing a pram. No shame about it either. Bold as brass, walking round with the child. Another little slut brought into the world because of a quick fumble. No love, nothing. Couldn’t
even name the father properly. Everyone knew it could have been literally anyone.
The shame at the time was almost unbearable. But Kevin had said if she wanted the baby, let her have it. If she was big enough to get pregnant, she was big enough to look after it. In fairness to him he had thought it might calm her down, but the reverse was true. It made her worse.
Louise lit another cigarette and made herself a coffee. She wondered briefly what Tiffany was doing with herself. She was so like her mother it was unbelievable. Same looks and demeanour. Even had the same temper, banging her head on the floor when she couldn’t get her own way. Marie just laughed at her. When the council had given her daughter a flat Louise had felt that, just for once, God was being good to her. The day Marie had walked out of the house she had felt such relief.
Then she had had the other one, the boy. Black as the ace of spades and that bitch didn’t give a toss. Flaunted him. Thought she was so clever. Marshall had been like a man demented over it. Called her every name he could lay his tongue round. He was right and all. Having a baby again, another fatherless one, was bad enough - but to have one by Patrick Connor! Drug dealer, whore master . . . and that was just what the nice people said about him. It was going too far. It was a deliberate slap in the face for them all.
But by then Marie had been on the game and on drugs. So people just shook their heads and winked knowingly when they saw her. The waste of her daughter’s life would always be a sore spot. Marie had had the looks to be anything she wanted. She could have had anyone she wanted. Men were lining up for her then. But in the end they were getting it from her for free or for a small price so her mystique shot out the window with the last of her morals.
She’d been a slut then and she still was. You couldn’t write off all those men, no matter what. It was like a smell that clung to her, making her different from everyone else. How they had held their heads up Louise didn’t know. Then the murders.
Finally, that bitch had been found out. She had been taken away and locked up and it was the happiest day of her mother’s life when it had happened. It was a relief to see the back of her. To know that once the shock wore off they could get on with their lives. Their decent lives. Yet she knew Kevin had missed his daughter. He had always had a soft spot for her. Always wanted to be near her. All over her, he was. That’s why she was like it. She’d learned early that male company was an earner.
He was always giving her money, getting her things. It never occurred to him to get her to work for a living like everyone else. That’s why she went on the game. Easy money as far as she was concerned. Getting paid for something she did naturally anyway, that was Marie’s logic. She was the talk of her block of flats, always fighting and drinking, turning up here in the middle of the night with her vicious mouth and her drunken ramblings.
If Marie was in front of her now her mother would beat her, beat her like she should have when she was a girl. Let her know exactly what she thought of her.
Louise wiped a hand across her face.
She felt ill again and took another anti-depressant. It was all Marie’s fault, coming home after all these years and causing more trouble.
Well, if she came back here again Louise knew what she would do this time. What she should have done years ago. What she should have done when Marie knocked on the door not six weeks ago.
She would kill her.
Alan opened the packages that he had hidden at the back of the scrapyard. They contained cocaine which would be cooked in a microwave and sold as crack. He knew this and was not that happy about it, but he needed the money badly.
He was a gambler. It was his one passion in life and that fact had broken Beverley when she’d found out. His womanising she had laughed off. It had become almost a game between them. While he gave her what she wanted for herself and their three daughters she was cool about it. It was the gambling that had finally brought her to her knees.
She believed that he was cured now. That the psychiatrist had cured his compulsion to bet on anything and everything.
When he had got into debt with Mikey Devlin he had honestly believed he was just having a run of bad luck and that soon it would be over. Instead he got himself in deeper and deeper. The worst thing was, before Mikey, he had rung up loan companies and mortgaged the house and business to the hilt as well. He was a desperate man and desperate men were exactly what Mikey was always looking for. Especially desperate men with a scrapyard and no previous convictions.
At first it had seemed like the answer to all Alan’s prayers. He was out of debt in no time and the money was rolling in. Then the fright set in. One night the Old Bill arrived and he had literally shat himself with fright at the thought of getting his collar well and truly felt. It turned out they were looking for two youngsters who had broken into a warehouse nearby, but it had been enough to take the gleam off what he was doing. It was Alan’s wake-up call and he knew that he had needed it badly.
Now he was still making a mint but wanted out before he was locked up somewhere and the judge threw away the key.
But it just wasn’t that easy telling Mikey he didn’t want to do it any more. Mikey had once facially scalped a bloke he’d thought was going to grass him up. When their little disagreement was finally resolved and the man was deemed innocent, Mikey had apologised profusely and given him a rather large drink. About ten grand. But did that make up for the fact he looked like a reject from the space shuttle crash? Not as far as Alan was concerned.
So he was in a quandary. He knew he was on borrowed time; deep inside he knew a capture was on the cards. If scams went on too long it was inevitable. Most people got a lump through sheer greed. They kept up a scam even though it was getting shaky and more and more people were getting involved. The more people in the game, the greater the likelihood of a grass being among them. It was common sense really. Someone gets banged up for one offence and talks their head off to get out of doing bird. Consequently, whoever they were ducking and diving with gets the full bifta of the law while they get a quick eighteen months. Old Bill have a field day and everyone’s happy. Except that Alan knew that if it ever went off over the scrapyard he would be the one getting twenty-five years, not eighteen months.
It was his yard, his premises and his money that was supposedly backing this lot. Mikey was out of the frame through pure and unadulterated fear. No one would dare finger him. Any grassing was going to bring the knock straight to Alan’s front door.
As if these thoughts had conjured him up, Mikey’s car pulled up in the yard. Alan saw the headlights and walked out of the shed to greet him.
‘You locked that bleeding dog up?’
Carlos the Rottweiler was a bone of contention between them. The dog hated Mikey who normally fancied himself a dog lover. Normally the wilder ones loved him but Carlos would rip anyone apart, it was in his nature. So Mikey had drawn a blank where he was concerned and now he hated the animal.
‘He’s in me office, having his tea.’
Mikey walked into the yard. He wasn’t a big man but he was heavy. His bald head and big gut made him look fatherly, until he opened his mouth. Then he was a loud and obnoxious individual with a wicked temper. He was chauvinist and racist with the tattoos to prove it.
In his hand-made suit he looked what he was, a diamond geezer, and proud of it.
‘Has it arrived?’
He walked back into the shed with Alan as he spoke.
‘They put fucking “Hospital Supplies” on the package. Is he fucking stupid or what?’
Mikey grinned.
‘He is a cunt but I’ll talk to him, OK? Help me load it in the car and then we have to do a drop at Thurrock services for about midnight. Jimmy Baxby is a partner now and we are supplying him and all, so the parcels should start coming thicker and faster.’
Alan forced a smile on to his face. He was getting in deeper and deeper and there was nothing he could do about it.
‘Put a few bets on with what you’ll be getting,
eh, Al?’
Mikey was actually being friendly to him and that worried Alan Jarvis more than anything.
Karen Black was waiting in the car park. As Lucy approached her she considered her own position and decided she might as well get what she could out of it.
Everyone knew that the factory was losing stuff hand over fist, and everyone also knew that it was Karen Black and her partner Gregory the supervisor who were the main dealers. The factory made paper products: kitchen rolls, loo rolls, serviettes and such like. It was a rival to Bowater Scott, and the workforce all received monthly ‘goodie bags’, free stuff that the firm supplied ostensibly to stop thieving. Instead it increased it as people sold stuff on and then wanted a bigger profit.
Karen and Gregory supplied restaurants, cafes, even some local shops. They also sold off market stalls all over the smoke so it was a big earner for them. Now Lucy decided that she wanted in. If she was getting married then she’d need some extra cash and what better way to get it?
She was smiling amiably as she walked over to the woman who was the cause of so much heartache in the firm. But as she was also the union rep she got away with murder.
‘I have the address here.’
She handed Karen an envelope with the details scrawled on it.
‘Good stuff.’ Karen grinned. ‘Glad you ain’t my sister.’
The barb hit home. If Marie had been her sister Karen would have taken on the world for her, she implied. The Blacks didn’t care that their relative had been on the streets and a druggie. That didn’t bother them. The blood tie did. Bethany had been family and that was that. Unlike Lucy’s own family who believed that what the neighbours thought was more important than whether you were having a nice time, or a good life. The neighbours were her mother’s yardstick for everything.
When the Patels had moved in her mother had had a blue fit. The thought of Indians in the street had done her head in. That was until she found out Mr Patel’s son was a pharmacist, and that he owned the pharmacy in the little block of shops nearby. He had assumed saintly proportions then.