by Martina Cole
‘Now stop worrying. I’ll call me brief and see what can be done. If he goes to the ’Ville I have a few faces in there who can give him an easy sit, OK?’
Marie nodded. Once more someone else’s actions had turned her world upside down, but she knew what lay behind her father’s rashness. All his trouble stemmed from her and it was getting her down.
Mikey put his fingers under her chin and kissed her gently on the mouth.
‘Let me take care of you for a while, eh?’
He meant every word and Marie was grateful to him for his kindness. She needed a friend now. Mikey Devlin had turned out to be a much better man than she had anticipated and she was thankful to him.
‘Thanks, Mikey.’
She got out of the car and braced herself for Alan’s wrath. She knew how he felt about her and was sorry for him. It amazed her that she could attract both men even though they knew her past and her reputation. She concluded it was the fact she had no real interest in them that was the biggest draw. Because she didn’t have any interest in them whatsoever. Men were trouble unless you could control them, as she intended to control Mikey and use him to help Tiffany.
Inside the Portakabin Alan had a fixed smile on his face. Marie tried to look businesslike and pleasant.
‘I heard about your father. I’m sorry,’ he said.
She placed her bag by her chair and turned on the computer.
Alan watched her warily.
‘How was Mikey? Have a good time?’
Marie turned to face him, her blonde hair falling across her face as she was still leaning over the desk.
‘Yes, thank you, Alan. Though the news about my father ruined the good time somewhat, as you can imagine.’
Her sarcasm hurt him but he still retaliated.
‘Not too badly though, eh?’
He was leering at her and even though he knew that what he was doing was wrong he couldn’t stop himself. Jealousy was a terrible affliction. Now he knew what had prompted his wife’s acid comments all those times he had been on the missing list.
Marie’s face was set and hard now. He felt the full force of her anger as she bellowed at him, ‘My sex life is my business, Alan.’
He was so angry all his good intentions went out of the window.
‘So you are having sex with him then?’
As soon as the words were out he regretted them. But it was too late to take them back now.
Marie looked almost manic as she shouted, ‘Look, Alan, I work for you, remember? You are not me fucking father, who incidentally is banged up at the moment because like you he stuck his big conk in where it wasn’t needed. If I want to see Mikey Devlin, I will, OK? And you can’t stop me.’
They stared at one another for long seconds. Their relationship had shifted up a gear and they were both aware of that. She looked into his handsome face. He was weak and she knew that but he was also a kind man deep inside. She was sorry that she affected him so much as she was aware she was not worth it. All this jealousy was not worth his effort.
Marie was no good and knew that deep inside. It was her bad luck that she had this effect on people. Trouble followed her wherever she went. Always had, and it looked as though it always would.
It had been the same in prison. Women got crushes on her, screws as well as inmates. It was as if she attracted the weak and the lonely, and she didn’t want them. Wanted no one in her life except her children and it was far too late for them, it seemed. All she wanted now was to help her babies. No more and no less. The rest of her life was mere existence. She really didn’t need or want this man’s love and he was too stupid to see that she would destroy him eventually. She never meant to do it, it just always seemed to happen. She picked up her bag.
‘I’m going, Alan, before we both say things we’ll really regret.’
He stood in the doorway, his face a picture of sadness.
‘I am sorry, Marie. Please don’t go.’
She looked at him. His face was crumpled with misery and she was so sorry for him she wanted to cry. She often wanted to cry lately.
‘Please, Marie, listen to me. Who’ll do my books, eh, if you walk out on me?’
She didn’t answer him.
He was desperate. If she walked out now he knew she would never come back. He had to build some bridges, try and minimise the damage he had done. He had to have her near him whatever it cost.
‘Come on, forget it. I was out of order. If you leave you won’t be able to get a flat, will you? You’ll have to get another job and everything. Let’s just let bygones be bygones and pretend it never happened.’
She placed her bag down on the floor and he felt a rush of relief so acute he was actually shaking with it. Never in his life had he felt like this about anyone. It was as if she had put him under some kind of spell.
‘I’m sorry, Marie. As if you haven’t got enough on your plate at the moment.’
She sat down on the typing chair and put her face in her hands. She was crying so quietly he didn’t realise what was happening for a moment. She was sobbing, her shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to stem the flow of tears.
He wanted to touch her, hold her to him, but he knew that if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from wanting her there and then. Instead he put the kettle on and let her cry. Eventually, after what seemed an age, he took her the tea and saw that she had brought her feelings under control.
‘Why did my father do it, Al? It’s as if he’s gone mad and it’s all my fault. Everything is my fault somehow. Me poor mother, me sister, me father, me kids . . . it’s as if I’m cursed. Or I curse anyone who comes into contact with me.’
He placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
‘You aren’t cursed, Marie. You’re the victim really, a victim of your own looks and personality. You attract people, and unfortunately they’re sometimes the wrong people. But you have to keep trying to make it right, mate. It’s all you can do, it’s all any of us can do. Try and make everything turn out right.’
She stared into his eyes and the lure of her was so strong he wondered if he had been cursed too because he knew he would never look at another woman in the same way as he looked at her. She was in his blood, in his head, inside his very being, and he knew without a doubt that if he had to he would kill for her. That was how much she affected him.
‘I’m tired, Alan, tired of it all. I’m a magnet for trouble, always have been. I’m sick and tired of always having to be sorry, apologising for living. Ruining people’s lives without a second’s thought. Look at my daughter – look how she turned out. Patrick Connor has taken her and turned her into a watered-down version of me. Maybe it’s in the DNA, who the fuck knows?’
‘Like I said, all you can do is try and make it turn out right.’
She laughed sadly.
‘That’s a tall order, Alan. Jesus Christ Himself would have His work cut out sorting this lot.’
‘Drink your tea, mate. Things have a habit of sorting themselves out, you’ll see.’
She tried to smile at him but it was so hard. She was fed up with putting on a brave face. Had been trying to do it for thirteen long years. It was getting harder and harder by the day.
‘What do you mean, Patrick?’
He lit her another pipe and handed it to Sadie before he carried on talking again. As she inhaled the crack he suppressed a smile. It was so easy to make them do what he wanted. He was losing interest in her now. Before the week was out he would have her where he wanted her. But he smiled at her anyway, one of the winning smiles that made him look so handsome and affable.
He was undoing her top now and as he grabbed a breast he enjoyed the sight of his black hand against the whiteness of her skin. She was a lively fuck as well, really enjoyed it. But the crack would soon stop all that and then she would perform only for the drug and he could walk on to the next girl.
He liked the power he had over his girls. Some of them were so fucked up now that they hard
ly knew what day of the week it was yet they could still perform the sex act and that was all that bothered him and them. They knew they had to do it to get the drugs. Yet still they felt affection for him – he always found that strange. If he saw them and spoke nicely to them they still held a torch for him, would do anything he asked them, and it wasn’t just from fear, though he used that if he had to. He made sure they kept in mind what he was capable of. If one of the women needed a hiding he made sure it was given in front of some of the other girls so they all learned he would take no nonsense from them.
As he slowly fucked this girl in his car, making sure she had the time of her life, he was actually thinking about Tiffany and how he could take her down properly. She was an accident waiting to happen and he was going to make sure that accident would be one no one would forget.
Sadie Beasley felt she was in ecstasy every time she made love with this man. He was everything she had ever wanted. He was handsome, sexy and hard. Everyone knew who he was, she loved being seen with him, telling her mates about him. He was also going to set her up in a little flat so she didn’t have to listen to her mother’s griping all the time. Now that would really be something. Her own drum, she would love that.
Her mother didn’t have the sense to keep a man; her father had walked away from them without a backward glance. Well, it wouldn’t happen to her. No way. She was going to make sure she kept this fucker on his toes. He was all over her like a rash and she intended to keep him that way.
She was buttoning up her clothes when someone got into the back of the car. She turned to see a young girl smiling at her.
‘She’ll be perfect, Patrick.’
Sadie looked from one to the other in amazement and saw that Patrick was grinning.
‘You like her then, Maisie?’
The other girl laughed.
‘Perfect.’
Sadie was nonplussed.
‘What the fuck are you two talking about?’
‘You are going to share a flat with Maisie, a friend of mine.’ He introduced them with exaggerated courtesy. ‘Maisie, Sadie. Sadie, Maisie.’
Sadie realised that there was something going on here that she was not party to. Maisie and Patrick clearly had their own agenda.
Suddenly she was frightened. The atmosphere was charged and she realised that all her big ideas about Patrick were deluded. He was in complete control here and she was a fool if she had ever believed otherwise.
‘I want to go home.’
Patrick lit a joint and inhaled deeply on it before he spoke. He was looking into her eyes. She had nice eyes. Sexy-looking lazy eyes that gave away her youth. She thought because she looked so grown-up, she was grown-up. She also disrespected her mother, and he found that disturbing. Black girls rarely did that, they respected their matriarchs. Wanted them to be proud of them even if they had to lie about their lives to garner that respect.
But then, girls like Sadie Beasley often had good reason to rebel against their mothers and the lives they led. He had worked that one out from the day he met Louise Carter. She had made her daughter Marie into what she was, and Louise knew it. Every time Marie did another outrageous thing her smugly condemning mother was just proved right. Marie had made her mother even more powerful with her actions, though she had never realised that. This girl’s mother was doing the same thing. If they wanted to prove the mothers wrong they should get a good job and make something of their lives because that was definitely not what the mothers expected.
Instead the girls played right into their hands. And his. He marvelled at his own acumen and patted himself on the back because, unlike the mothers, he knew exactly how to control these girls.
‘I want to go home now!’
He grinned.
‘Listen to her! Demanding things.’
Sadie was really scared and knew that she had to get out of the car. All the things her mother had said to her about Patrick Connor came flooding back into her mind in a rush of fear.
‘You will do what the fuck I tell you to do, right?’
She didn’t answer him, just stared at him with those big eyes, so he slapped her across the face.
‘I said, right?’
She nodded. He relaxed. He didn’t want to mark her too much. Anyway she was a shitter. All mouth and no fucking push, like all her kind.
‘Now Maisie is going to teach you all you need to know about being one of my girls, OK? From how to dress to how to put on a good show. You listen to her and you do what she tells you. I don’t want to hear any stories about you because if I do I will go round your mother’s and rip her fucking heart out. Do you understand what I am saying?’
She nodded, her whole face frozen from the terror inside her.
Patrick smiled gently and the action made him look handsome and kind again.
‘You do what I tell you and you’ll earn good wedge and get what you wanted: your independence and some street cred. If you go against me then I’ll be cross, and you don’t want to make me cross, do you?’
His voice was cajoling and friendly. He poked a finger gently into her chest.
‘Smile, Sadie. You just got what you wanted, sweetie. Not many people get that, do they? Remember the old saying, love. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. Well, you got it, girl. Enjoy it.’
Sadie felt as though she had just woken up in her worst nightmare, and of course she was absolutely right.
DI Palmer listened to the doctor’s diagnosis and sighed. He was a large man and he was sweating freely. The murder of Petey Black had been shocking if not entirely unexpected. Someone was going to kill him at some time or else he’d get a large lump of a sentence. In a way Kevin Carter had done them all a favour. The manpower it took to keep going to the Blacks’ house was phenomenal.
‘In short Carter is unfit for anything at the moment. He is over the edge and needs proper psychiatric care. It will have to be arranged on remand. He cannot be released into the general population, the man is too disturbed.’
Palmer sighed again. He was itchy, the heat in the office was overpowering. He hoped to Christ they sorted it out soon; he was feeling a strong urge to put his head down on the desk and sleep. He had no real interest in what was going on here. The air was dry and he wanted to cough all the time. He sighed noisily and the doctor rolled his eyes.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I’m boring you. I was asked for my professional opinion and I am giving it.’ He stood up. ‘If you would excuse me . . .’
Palmer stood up too.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Jannet. I’m suffering here from the heating. It’s broken and we can’t turn the bloody thing off. Please, be seated and tell me what we need to do.’
The other man sat back down.
‘Carter is suffering from a severe form of depression, that much is obvious. He needs medication and psychiatric help as soon as can be arranged. He is a danger to himself and to everyone around him.’
‘Did he admit to the killing?’
Dr Jannet smiled.
‘Now you know better than that, Palmer. When he’s better you can interview him. Until then he needs care and medication.’
Palmer sighed again. He had never liked doctors and his opinion was not being changed by this supercilious prick sitting opposite.
‘So we can’t interview him then?’
Jannet shook his head.
‘He needs a suitable environment, a secure hospital. I wouldn’t recommend prison at this time unless we can’t place him anywhere else.’
‘So it’s a no-no, then?’
Jannet nodded.
‘A definite no-no. He really needs a secure place and some kind of help before he harms someone else.’
‘Fair enough. But we know he killed Black, he admitted it in the police car. His exact words were: “I will do the whole family, they need culling like rats need culling.”
Palmer grinned.
‘The worst of it is, he has a fucking point. The Blacks burned his wife
but they’re also responsible for a one-family crime wave. The dead man’s wife is on remand for an arson attack on Carter’s wife.’
‘With respect, Palmer, that’s your problem. He needs to be moved and soon, OK? I will see what I can arrange.’
The doctor left and Palmer took off his jacket. He stank of sweat thanks to his polyester shirt. He called in a subordinate.
‘Give Carter whatever he wants food and drink wise. He’s being moved to a secure hospital, no way we can interview him now. It’s taken the doctors all this time to decide that. Still, he’s a nice bloke, see he’s taken care of, OK? But be careful, he’s still a handful by all accounts.’
‘OK, sir. His daughter rang and wants to know when she can see him.’
Palmer shrugged.
‘Who the fuck knows when that will be? He’s madder than the maddest madman at the moment, by all accounts. We’ll pass him over and see what happens.’
Sadie looked around the flat and breathed a sigh of relief. It was lovely, with a TV and video and a decent hi-fi unit. It was decorated nicely, too, with pale walls and expensive furniture. She could easily envisage herself living in this luxury. There was a bathroom with mirrored walls and a large corner bath.
She was cheering up by the moment. She had expected a right dump but this was something different. This she could live with.
Patrick watched her closely. He had seen this reaction time and time again.
‘Like it?’
His voice was friendly and she smiled brightly as she answered him.
‘It’s fantastic, Pat.’
‘You got to work for it, girl, you know that, don’t you?’
She nodded.
‘I have hand-picked you to work with Maisie here and you will earn top wedge, right, but you have to be up for it. I mean, five hundred a week is a lot of money.’
‘Five hundred a week?’
Her voice was excited. He knew she was already bragging to her friends in her mind. Imagining their expressions.
He nodded.
‘And all the rocks you can inhale, girl. It will all be laid on.’
Maisie watched quietly as he groomed the girl for the bad news.
‘What do I have to do?’