by Martina Cole
‘Can you come down to the station with me, son? Just to eliminate you, fingerprints and that.’
The boy nodded, but he clearly wasn’t happy about it.
‘We can send an unmarked car for him, if you want?’
The PC realised that the mother had no idea what he meant.
‘I mean, Mrs Delray, we can send a normal-looking car instead of the police car. That way no one will know where he’s going.’
He saw the thanks in her face. The neighbours were all important to her and he understood that. This woman was still trying to live down Wendell. The copper knew all about him but was shrewd enough not to let on about it.
Maurice smiled at his mother and she smiled back.
Sometimes the PC hated his job, but he tried to make it as easy as possible for the people he had to deal with. He was in the minority at his station and not the most popular guy on the block. Most of his colleagues saw it as their mission in life to make life as hard as possible for everyone and anyone who was not Old Bill.
But seeing this woman’s face now it was worth every second of the aggravation not to be that sort of policeman.
Della was worried by the way she had seen Joseph behave to his own son. When she had thought about it later, she concluded that she had not been told the whole story. He had not even given her the bare bones of what had happened between them. He had bullshitted her with that love and adore bit. She wanted to know what it was really about.
Now she was pestering him, though, he was getting upset once more. She could see the anger build in him.
‘Just leave it, Della. It’s family business.’
‘I am your family now, aren’t I?’
He sighed and wiped his large hand across his sweating face. He looked nervous and angry, a lethal combination with Joseph Thompson but she wasn’t to know that. She still pushed the issue, unaware of what she was risking.
‘But what did you mean when you said, ‘‘Tell her, Tommy. Go on, I dare you’’?’ She was determined to get to the bottom of it all.
‘I didn’t mean anything.’
Della was not to be put off.
‘Well, it must have meant something. That’s not a statement you make unless there is something to tell.’
Joseph grabbed her arm and shoved her towards the sofa.
‘It didn’t mean anything! I was just upset. Now can we drop the fucking subject? Fuck me, girl, what was your last job? Giving out the food parcels in Auschwitz? ’
She had never in her life been spoken to like this before. As she lay on the sofa it occurred to her that Joseph wasn’t so amenable as she had first thought. In fact, he was dangerous, looked capable of really harming her.
As she stared up at him her eldest daughter came in at the back door. Della had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.
Della’s eldest daughter Patricia was her father’s girl: short, dumpy and very meek. Her own three daughters were like their grandmother: outgoing and loud enough to be heard when it mattered.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’
Joseph was beseeching her with his eyes and against her better judgement Della covered things up. She didn’t want anyone to know that all in the garden was anything other than lovely.
‘Nothing, love. Put the kettle on.’
Pat did as she was told, but there was something not right here and she knew it. More to the point so did the girls.
They all stared at their new granddad with wide eyes except the youngest, Aurora, who jumped straight on his lap for a cuddle.
Only today the sight didn’t fill Della with happiness; it made her uneasy and she wasn’t sure why.
Joseph’s temper was bubbling away under the surface and that worried her.
It worried her a great deal.
Lorna was outside Jon Jon’s block of flats when he walked past without seeing her. Her heavy belly seemed to be weighing her down and she puffed as she tried to catch up with him.
‘Jon Jon!’
He stopped deliberately by the kerb and waited for her to catch him up.
‘What?’
It was a question and also a dismissal. She was not at all sure she was doing the right thing now. He looked down into the face that had just missed being pretty.
‘I ain’t got all fucking day, Lorna.’
She bit on her lip before answering him and it made her look very young. He had a glimpse of the girl under the makeup and veneer of hardness for a few seconds. He saw his own sister if she wasn’t careful. Jeanette was going the same way as this piece of filth only she was too stupid to see it.
‘I heard a bit of gossip . . . I thought you should be told.’
He laughed at her.
‘What am I now then, a fucking fishwife? Do I look like you?’
She shook her head as she said, ‘It’s to do with your sister. Your sister Kira, I mean.’
Jon Jon was all ears now.
‘What about her?’
Lorna was still not sure if she was doing the right thing. She wanted brownie points with Jon Jon but maybe this was not the way to go about it. Earl was bibbing from the car and she knew Jon Jon was in a hurry. She needed to state her case as quickly as she could.
She kept telling herself that her cousin wasn’t a spinner so what she had told Lorna was as near the truth as to make no difference.
‘Well, out with it then?’
She was frightened as she said, ‘It’s Little Tommy Thompson.’
Jon Jon sighed as he said pointedly, ‘And?’
‘He’s been done for noncing before.’
Jon Jon wiped a hand over his face.
‘You been talking to Monica?’
She shook her head.
‘No. Jon Jon, I heard this from me cousin, Carly Lanesborough. She knows him from when they lived over in Bermondsey.’
He grabbed her arm.
‘Get in the car!’
He pushed her inside and she landed in the back awkwardly, her huge belly making her movements clumsy.
‘Drive! We’re going to Bermondsey.’
Earl drove.
He didn’t even question what was going on, he would know soon enough. That was the good thing with Jon Jon. There were no long drawn-out discussions, you just went and did what you had to do.
Carly lived in a nice little flat with her husband Colin. She was the antithesis of her cousin and Jon Jon was glad about that. If he had had to endure another Lorna he might not have hung on to his precarious patience. As she made them all coffee, Carly filled him in on what she knew.
‘I was over your way visiting when I saw about your sister like. Everyone knows about it anyway, with the news and all.’
He nodded.
She was trying to justify gossiping, he could understand that.
‘Anyway, I heard about this Tommy, and if it’s the same bloke as the one I knew, he was accused of noncing a young girl. Nothing came of it, I’d better state that now.’ She put up her hands as she said it. ‘But he was accused by the girl’s family and moved away afterwards with his father. No one knew where, they just disappeared like. But if it is him then it’s a big coincidence, ain’t it?’
Jon Jon nodded.
‘Tell me what you know about him, Carly. What did he look like?’
‘He was a big fat geezer, and he lived with his dad. They weren’t around here that long. He used to have a load of dolls and that, and some of the kids used to go in his flat and play with them.’
Jon Jon could feel his heart racing at her words.
‘Anyway, one little girl said she was touched and that was that. As you can imagine the neighbours were all out for them then, but the next thing we knew the complaint was withdrawn and they fucked off and no one thought any more about it until this all happened.’
‘Do you know why the complaint was dropped?’
She shook her head.
‘I did hear tell it was because it was the dad’s girlfriend’s grand-daughter or niece
or something, but you know what gossip’s like. Anyway, they live over by Canary Wharf now in the council flats. The name was Rowe, and that’s about all I know.’
Baxter stared at the photographs and felt his heart lurch. Of all the things he had anticipated, these had never figured.
He looked down at them once more and saw a Kira he had never expected to see. She looked so far removed from the child in the school picture it was unbelievable. Plastered in makeup, she looked like a grown woman but it was the eyes that commanded his attention.
She looked all-knowing.
She looked like she was offering a good time, looked like an eleven-year-old ancient.
She looked like her mother.
This was a born-again Joanie and that was the real shock. He felt as if he had been punched in the stomach, as if the breath had been forced from his body. No way was he expecting anything like this. But it was the thought of talking to Joanie that was worrying him most.
If these denoted what he thought they did then Joanie was either very much in the dark or she was a better actress than any Academy Award winner.
He stared at the photos once more. He could not believe what he was seeing.
Jeanette was packing up her few bits and pieces and going home to her mother. She was glad to be going back, truth be told. Jasper knew how she felt and in fairness to him he understood. If he could have, he would have lived somewhere else as well. Karen was not someone you would choose to spend any time with. Now that the drink had got her she was a nightmare.
As Jeanette packed, Jasper’s mother gave her a running commentary on everyone’s opinion about her sister’s disappearance.
Not sparing a second’s thought for Jeanette’s feelings, she said, ‘She’s dead, love, sure as sure.’
The girl closed her eyes for a moment in distress.
‘Do you mind, Karen? That’s my little sister you are talking about.’
The words were clipped, rude, and this did not go unnoticed by Karen Copes who was at the stage of drunkenness where she was just looking for something like this to happen.
‘I’m only telling you what I heard.’
The words were slurred and barely intelligible. Karen was having trouble focusing her eyes and blinked as she tried to front up to Jeanette. She noticed inconsequentially how tidy the room was now. Jeanette had cleaned it from top to bottom and this annoyed Karen for some reason. It was like a slur on her and her house.
‘Too good for us these days, ain’t you?’
Jeanette didn’t answer her, she knew it was pointless.
‘Think your shit don’t stink? Well, I heard your mother is for the high jump, lady. That little sister was being abused and she knew all about it.’
In one part of her brain Jeanette knew that it was just the drink talking, knew that this was Karen all over, spoiling for a fight. She always wanted to fight when she had had a drink and it was usually poor Junie who bore the brunt of it.
But she also knew that there was probably a grain of truth in the fact that there was a rumour. The rumours on the estate were always over the top, that was why people loved them so much. She had loved them herself when they were not about her family. Now, though, her honour was at stake but for Jasper she was willing to let the slur go. So she carried on packing even though the urge to fell this woman was foremost in her mind.
Karen took this for proof of what she had said.
‘Nothing to say then? The truth hurt, does it?’
‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Karen?’
She laughed so hard she had to support herself against the doorjamb.
‘Going home to Mother of the Year, are we? Joanie the brass.’
Jeanette closed her eyes and attempted to hold on to her temper. She could say what she liked about her own mother but no one else was going to. Not in Jeanette’s hearing anyway.
‘If you were half the mother mine is you’d be all right, Karen.’
The bait had been taken and Karen was over the moon. She had been determined to get a reaction and now she had got one. They stared at each other for long moments, the air heavy with animosity.
‘I might have my faults but at least I’m there for my kids.’
‘Your kids loathe you! You are a joke, the local drunk. On a man it’s bad enough but on a woman it’s disgusting.’
Jeanette’s words were spoken low and vehemently. Karen knew the girl really meant what she was saying.
‘My mother, for all her faults, is a good woman, a decent person. And do you know something? Unlike your kids we love our mother. Anything she’s ever done was for us, for our benefit, and we know that even if you don’t!’
‘If your mother is so fucking marvellous then why is your sister on the missing list?’
In part of her mind Karen knew she was being unfair, knew that what she was saying was evil, hateful, but still she said it. This girl was not leaving without a row, Karen was determined on that much. She was like everyone else. They all thought that they were so clever, so fucking great, when they were no better than she was.
They all lived on this poxy council estate and they all barely survived, dreaming of the day the council moved them somewhere better, although by then the damage had already been done. The kids were out of hand and the parents had split up or grown too used to this environment to survive anywhere else.
It was laughable the way some of them still put on their airs and graces, with their fucking flat-screen TVs and their gardening programmes. This was the arsehole of the world and the sooner they realised it the better.
She had heard about Jon Jon talking of buying a house. Who the fuck did he think he was? Who the fuck did any of the Brewers think they were, this one included?
‘You’d better take that back, Karen.’
She laughed.
‘The truth hurts, don’t it? Your sister is missing, ain’t she? Or have I missed something? Perhaps she was just mislaid, is that it?’
Jeanette licked her lips as she watched the harridan before her spew out her malice. It was as if she had burst a canker and all the vile putrid pus was running out of this woman’s mouth in hateful words.
Jeanette realised that she could have been anyone. That Karen was ready to blow and she was merely today’s unlucky target. But it was so spiteful what she was saying, and so unfair to her mother who, whatever Jeanette thought of her privately, had taken good care of them in her own way.
‘Ain’t the cards told your mother where the little girl is then? She makes a fortune off everyone else with her readings. Can’t she consult the Tarot and get the address where that poor child actually is?’
Jeanette was holding on to herself but it was taking every scrap of effort she possessed. Jasper’s mother was still standing only because she was Jasper’s mother. No other reason. If she had been anyone else Jeanette would have wiped the floor with her by now.
But Karen Copes wasn’t finished yet. In fact, she was just getting started.
‘I’m amazed you ain’t been collared for a stint on the pavement. I mean, it runs in the family, don’t it? Whoring is the family business - even your granny was flashing her clout to all and sundry. Yet you put yourself above me and mine? Not one of you knows who your father was. Not one of you has any idea where you come from. You’re all fucking mongrels, scum, the lot of you!’
She picked up her cigarettes and lit herself one, pulling on it heavily before she said in a conversational tone, ‘Is that what happened to Kira then? Been bashed out, has she, and didn’t come home?’
It wasn’t just the words that sent Jeanette over the top, it was the smirk that accompanied them. The blow when it landed was harder than anything Karen had experienced in her life.
Karen Copes had been clumped by everyone within her orbit at some time or other. Husband, children, friends and family had all been driven to hit her at some point because of her bad mouth. But she had never taken what she was taking now off anyone.
It was a
s if Jeanette was possessed. All her worry and fear and hurt lay behind every blow and every kick. All the words that had just been spoken were in her mind as she attacked this woman who had inadvertently given her an excuse to vent her emotions. When Jeanette had finished she looked at the bloody body on the floor and started to cry. What had she done? How could she go home to Joanie now with more trouble to lay at her door? She couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fair to her mother. Not now. Jeanette had just set the seal on her own continued exile and she hated herself for it.