by Martina Cole
Her head went under a little bit and she emerged spitting out water and expletives, but he just walked from the room and came back with the glasses of wine. Joanie was lying in the water now, accepting of her fate.
He passed her a glass. She took it gratefully, sipped it and sighed.
‘Are you going to take your drawers off?’
Suddenly she was laughing her head off. It wasn’t a normal laugh but high-pitched, tinged with hysteria.
He put the toilet lid down and sat on it. Let her laugh. If it got it all out of her system so much the better. She was literally rocking with laughter now, the wine slopping all over her body. He leaned forward and took the glass from her then he stood up and locked the bathroom door.
He stripped down to his boxers and she watched him, laughing harder. He stepped into the bath and this made her laugh even more.
‘Aren’t you going to take your boxers off?’
This set her off again and he slipped behind her in the bath, hugging her to him as best he could as she coughed and spluttered with the force of her merriment. Then the laughter stopped as quickly as it had begun and she was leaning against him, turning slightly so she could bury her face in his chest.
She was crying now, sobbing, and he gently kissed her and held her to him tightly. He whispered words of love to her that she had never heard from him before and that he had never thought he would say.
‘I love you, Joanie Brewer. I always have, girl.’
She basked in his attention, knowing he was only telling her this because she was hurting so much. She really felt the pain could kill her. Hoped it would so she would not have to experience another day without her baby. Wished for the release of death even as she wished for her baby back.
But Kira wasn’t coming back, she knew that now.
It had settled on her in the night, this realisation that her child was gone from her for good.
Now her fear was for the others.
Jeanette, she knew, would always go her own road and this terrified Joanie more now than it ever had before. But it was Jon Jon, her first-born, who would bear the brunt of her concern from now on.
He was the only one of the three who had been a constant for her. He would always be there for her, no matter what. He had been her honorary man and had played that part in her life happily. Sometimes she felt guilty about the way she had treated him and wished she could have done it all differently. Why couldn’t she just have met one man and settled with him like normal people? Why had she lived this life of indiscriminate sexual favours and money-gathering? She blamed herself and her work for what had happened to her youngest daughter.
And now Paulie, the man she had loved for so long, was telling her that he loved her and it meant nothing.
It was too late.
She was empty of love, could neither give nor receive it. But his arms felt good around her. She needed someone to make it all better. No one could really. But at least his arms around her made her feel less lonely.
When he unhooked her bra she didn’t stop him. Paulie was like most men. Every display of emotion led to sex. He took her quickly and gently as he usually did and afterwards they lay in the rapidly cooling water without speaking. Enjoying the feel of each other’s skins. The slippery feel of their bodies as they hugged in their watery bed.
Finally he kissed the top of her head.
‘I love you, Joanie.’
And he meant it. She knew he meant it. It was what she had waited for all these years and yet now he had said it she didn’t answer him. She just nodded her head and, closing her eyes, lay against him, listening to the beating of his heart.
It was too late and they both knew that.
They dozed together then. Paulie held her as if she was precious porcelain. The knowledge that he actually loved this woman overwhelmed him. Whatever she was or had been, there was a connection with her that he had never experienced with anyone else in his life. Not even his own children.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. She looked younger somehow. The lines had disappeared for a few minutes as she relaxed against him and dozed.
‘Was Kira my child, Joanie?’
She looked into his eyes and nodded her head.
Both of them were aware he had said was, not is.
It was like the final seal on Kira’s fate.
They cried together then.
Book Two
Life for life,
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot
for foot,
Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for
stripe.
- Exodus, 21:23
Chapter Eighteen
It was amazing what you learned to live with. Joanie felt at times as if Kira had never been alive, that her daughter was just a dream she had had many years ago.
Other days she felt as if she was buckling under the sheer weight of her sorrow, and the nightmares where she saw her daughter begging for her life were so vivid, so realistic, she awoke bathed in sweat convinced they were true.
But it was three months since she’d gone and there was still no news. The papers had forgotten her daughter. Everyone seemed to have forgotten Kira outside this little community Joanie called home. She saw the pitying looks of friends and neighbours, felt the sorrow inside them even as she felt it inside herself.
There were no news crews these days, no more running the gauntlet of the national papers. Kira was just a photograph in the police files now, though one of Jasper’s friends had set up the Kira Brewer web-site, which Joanie had been grateful for even as she’d wondered what the fuck use it was going to be. Her daughter was gone from her. She was rotting away somewhere. She was dead. Otherwise she would have been home by now, her cheery little voice chattering away, her beautiful smile there for everyone to see. But the hurt, the hurt inside her mother, was not gone and neither was the anger.
There was a knock on the door and Joanie answered it, the falseness of her smile evident to her if not to the recipient. She had got over feeling excited at every knock on the door; didn’t expect to see Kira standing there any more, telling her how she had got lost and found her way home.
Joanie opened the door to DI Baxter and despite herself the hope was once more evident in her eyes as she looked at him.
He smiled sadly.
‘Can I come in, Joanie?’
She knew by his voice there was no news, at least not any she wanted to hear.
He followed her inside.
‘It’s about Tommy Thompson.’
She sighed heavily now. Tommy was the arch enemy as far as she was concerned. Jon Jon had convinced her of that.
‘What about him?’
She signalled to Baxter to sit down and he perched precariously on the edge of the sofa. She could almost feel how uncomfortable this was for him.
This was definitely not good news.
‘Is he dead?’
There was hope in her voice again.
The DI shook his head.
‘Joanie, listen to me, love. We have done everything possible to find out what happened but we can’t see that he did anything wrong.’
He waited for her to digest this piece of information before he continued.
‘In fact, we can’t find any previous convictions, for him or his father. The girl who you say accused him, this Caitlin Rowe, has denied it outright. Said it was just a rumour. Her mother has now requested she be moved by the council to stop her being tracked down again. The mother is terrified Caitlin’s going to be dragged into something she has no connection with.’
He looked at her drawn face, at the new lines around her eyes and mouth. Lines put there through sleepless nights and too much booze.
‘So that’s it then, he walks away? What about the money Joseph gave them? Can’t you prove that he did so? Find out how he came by it?’
Baxter sighed heavily.
‘Any chance of a cup of tea, Joanie?’
She w
ent into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He followed her, his heart as heavy as hers.
‘We found nothing, Joanie, nothing we can use. The Thompsons’ flat was clean of everything, love. We searched it twice. Not a thing that shouldn’t be there.’
‘Why did the father go on the trot then?’
She wanted a row now.
‘Maybe he was frightened, Joanie. Wouldn’t you be?’
She conceded the point but not with words.
He pushed his case.
‘I know I would be if I had your Jon Jon after me.’
‘You didn’t find a thing? What about the girl’s mother, this Leigh Rowe?’
‘Denied the lot of it, and if she don’t open her trap then our hands are tied. We can’t nick someone on rumours, Joanie, we need proof.’
She laughed derisively.
‘That’s a new one! It’s never stopped you before.’
‘That’s unfair, Joanie, and you know it. This is different.’
She poured water over the tea bags when in reality all she wanted to do was throw the kettle at Baxter.
Hurt him as she was hurting.
A voice whispered to her, ‘as Little Tommy was hurt’.
‘He done it, I know he done it. Him and his father. Pair of perverted cunts they are.’
The barely suppressed violence was there in her voice and he knew Little Tommy would never be safe again.
‘Without evidence, Joanie . . .’
She laughed once more. A hollow sound.
‘Without a body, you mean. That is what you mean, ain’t it?’
It was but he wasn’t about to say it out loud.
‘Look, I’m heart sorry for you and yours, I really am, but we can find no reason to charge Tommy Thompson. Rumour just ain’t enough, love, even if it seems plausible. I need rock solid evidence.’
‘You never needed that when you was after me and mine, did you? I waited hours for you lot to arrive the night she went missing.’
Joanie was near to tears. He put out a hand in sympathy but she slapped it away.
‘Fucking hours I waited in here.’
She looked around the flat as if seeing it as she had that night.
‘Not a fucking dicky bird from you lot. But that didn’t matter, did it? It was only a Brewer on the missing list. Why give a flying fuck about one of them?’
He could see the anguish in her face and had never in his life felt so badly for someone before.
‘They ain’t nothing - scum of the earth, the Brewers. The mother’s on the bash, the kids are like animals . . . Do you honestly think I don’t know what was going through all your minds that night?’
He couldn’t look at her. He knew what she was saying was true and he had been as guilty as everyone else. But he denied it anyway. He had to.
‘That’s not true, Joanie. We did all we could, are still doing everything possible . . .’
‘Oh, blow it out of your arse, Mr Baxter.’
He decided he had to tell her the truth.
‘Joanie, Tommy Thompson is incapable of any kind of sexual activity. Jon Jon knows that. He saw his medical records.’
‘He told me, but like him I don’t believe it. Tommy might not have been capable but that don’t mean he wasn’t thinking about it, does it?’
Baxter sighed once more.
‘You’re just making it harder for yourself. You don’t know anything sexual happened to her, Joanie. She might have fallen in the river . . . anything. You’re assuming the worst.’
Joanie rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
‘Get a grip, Mr Baxter, you think the same as I do. You think it’s that ponce and his father as much as I do.’
She was trying to make him share her guilt as well as her hurt.
‘I had him in my home! I was his friend. I cared about him . . . trusted him.’ She was near to tears again.
‘I read up on nonces. ‘‘Grooming’’ they call it. Getting in with the family. And let’s face it, with Jon Jon and me, who’d have thought anyone would have had the guts to pull a stunt like that? I know she didn’t fall in no river. If she had she would have turned up by now. No one saw her, no one! So she was local, is still local. It’s just finding her. Or what’s left of her.
‘Nothing happened to her that wasn’t planned by that piece of shit and his father. Where is the father anyway? How can he disappear like this if he ain’t dodgy? Even criminals have a hard job going on the trot for any length of time.’
Baxter had thought exactly the same thing but he didn’t say it. Instead he suggested, ‘Perhaps he’s topped himself, Joanie. We have to consider all the options.’
She nodded, looking happier for a second, more relaxed.
‘I hope you’re right, Mr Baxter, and I hope Little Tommy follows in his father’s footsteps. Until they are wiped off the face of the earth I will not sleep another night properly in my bed.’
‘You shouldn’t say things like that in front of me, Joanie . . .’
She blew out her lips.
‘Like I give a fuck what happens to me.’
Baxter left a while later and Joanie sat on her own and smoked, as was her habit these days.
Paulie grabbed the girl’s arse and she squealed with delight.
‘Paulie!’
He laughed, and getting out of bed started to pull on his clothes. She was a new one, a girl called Linette. She had blonde hair, natural, and green eyes. If she had not been on the game from an early age she would probably have been married by now and treasured for her good looks. Instead she was being used by a man old enough to be her father. Because Paulie used her as he used all the women in his life.
‘So, am I in the new parlour then?’
He nodded. He’d been going to put her in there anyway. The new parlour was specialising in young, good-looking girls. That was reflected in its prices and name: Angel Girls. It was situated in King’s Cross, near Spearmint Rhino, and would cater for the City types. He was giving it six months. If the profits didn’t match the overheads he would out it. But Jon Jon had done his homework and Paulie was glad to see him taking an interest in things once more. If only the boy could keep his mind on work all the time.
But he had changed so much in the last three months as to be virtually unrecognisable from the lad Paulie had taken on. He looked older and he looked harder. The boyish good looks had long gone, swamped overnight by grief.
Jon Jon was vicious, but it was a controlled viciousness. Whereas before he had been subject to quick flashes of temper, now he was constantly looking for a fight and he was finding them - and winning.
Paulie sighed as he thought about it. But on the plus side at least he had thrown himself into work and that had paid dividends for the business.
It was Joanie he worried about most.
She seemed to have caved in on herself, as if she was alive but not living. That was the only way he could describe the change in her. She walked, talked and sometimes she ate, but it was as if it was all in slow motion. All pretend. She wanted to be with her daughter, and was only carrying on until she knew for certain the child was dead. Then he had no doubt she would soon follow.
He himself was frightened to think of what might have become of Kira. Bad enough for that to happen to a child he knew. But to hear the child was actually his had thrown him. Paulie pushed the thought once more from his mind; he couldn’t think about it. Besides, he only had Joanie’s word for it anyway. And, he reasoned, how could she be sure?
She had been through more blokes than Dockyard Dolly, the stevedores’ friend, so he was not sure if Kira really was his child or if Joanie merely wanted her to be his. He knew she believed it, but he wasn’t sure he did. Either way, he didn’t want to think about it.
As Linette left the flat he smiled at her tightly. Once she was dressed he had no real interest in her any more. He was strange like that and he knew it.
But he had an ear out and a bounty on the Thompsons’ heads. If they cou
ld be found he would find them, it was the least he could do.
Little Tommy was still in constant pain, but it was getting easier by the day. He was in a nursing home in Sheffield, paid for by the government because he was in danger of retaliatory attacks in prison. No one here knew who he was, and he answered to the name of Jeffrey Palmer. He liked the name in some ways, it had an edge to it.