by Martina Cole
At her time of life, she wanted a nice man with a few bob and no real complications. Willy Gabney didn’t even have the usual baggage as he had never married or fathered any children that he knew of. He had seemed to share Pat Kelly’s daughter with him if all he said was true. It was certainly the case that he and Kelly went back years.
All this was part of Willy’s charm really. He was the big dependable man she had been looking for all her life. And if he wasn’t exactly Rudolph Valentino she remembered the old adage: you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re stoking the fire.
All the way to Rettenden they laughed and joked. Maureen liked him more every time she saw him. Even Duane liked him, and that was a plus. He was normally funny about her amours, though she was honest enough to admit that there had been more than a few of them over the years. A few too many for Duane, anyway.
She shrugged the dark thoughts away. She had Willy now and that was enough for her. More than enough. Plus he wasn’t bad in the kip, so all in all she had fallen rather pleasantly on her feet.
Long may it last.
Lenny Parkes was a small man with a big personality.
An habitual offender, he happily divided his time between home with his wife Trisha and their two children, Mary and Ian, or inside a top-security prison with his mates. All in all he was a contented con. Gutted if he got a capture, but with the frame of mind that allowed him to do long bird with a smile and a cheery wave.
Providing no one upset him, of course.
His only real hatred was the police. He saw them as the enemy, as taught to Lenny by his father and his father before him. Lenny’s real pride and joy was his eleven-year-old daughter Mary, an ugly girl who wore too much make-up, and had a fat body and the eyes of a much older woman.
She was what he had made her, albeit without realising it. Mary tried to be what she thought her father liked in his women: sluttish, fast-mouthed and sexually able, or so she thought. She dressed too old, picked up sassy sound-bites from TV and tried to come across as a streetwise woman.
She was a deeply disturbed child who put on an act most of the time. She lied constantly, caused trouble for her friends, was a nightmare for her teachers and all in all was heartily disliked.
Her mother saw through her like a pane of glass and there was a long-established rivalry there from when Mary was a small child. Her father’s absences made the girl vulnerable and when he wasn’t about, her mother tried to make up for Lenny’s spoiling of their daughter by giving her a harsh crash course in perspective. Trisha knew she was wasting her time, though.
Mary gravitated towards the dirt of society as her father did. She was comfortable with people no one else would want to be with. It was behaviour learned from a father who took her to slum pubs and working men’s clubs and let her sit in with what she thought were real men. Just like her dad.
Consequently, Lenny thought Mary was great, while everyone else, including his cronies, secretly bemoaned the fact that she was a pain in the arse with her frequent interruptions of their conversation and thin veneer of sophistication which made her look far more whorish than either she or her besotted father realised.
Ian, two years older and a nice boy, was overlooked in favour of Lenny’s little girl.
As Trisha opened the front door to the police, Lenny and his precious baby were on the sofa, cosily watching Alien together.
When DI Kate Burrows walked into the front room Lenny closed his eyes in annoyance.
‘If there have been any robberies today, Miss Burrows, I had nothing to do with them. I was at the hospital having blood tests for suspected diabetes.’
Kate smiled gently. ‘I have come to speak to your daughter who I’m surprised to see is still up at this late hour.’ It was a quarter to one in the morning.
Lenny’s face darkened even as Mary’s face paled.
Trisha Parkes was on to her daughter immediately. ‘Have you been thieving again, you little mare?’
Mary, realising that she was in over her head, did her little girl lost look and hoped for the best. ‘No, Mum, of course not! Bloody hell.’ Her voice trembled and she tried to calm herself down.
‘What’s she supposed to have done?’ Lenny’s voice was harsh. He turned off the sound to the TV and stood up and looked at Kate and her retinue belligerently.
She stared back at the man before her, deliberately keeping him waiting before she answered. She saw the anger welling up inside him and smiled inwardly.
‘Mary was babysitting at a flat today when she should have been at school. The flat belonged to Kerry Alston. I am sure you have heard of her.’
‘What’s this got to do with Mary then?’ Trisha’s voice was scared as if she knew what was coming. Shoplifters didn’t get routed at one o’clock in the morning. This was serious.
‘Kerry’s youngest child is missing. It seems she left the children with Mary as usual so your daughter was the last person to see the kids. I have a responsible adult at the police station if neither of you wants to make the trek, but Mary’s coming with us.’
Lenny screwed up his eyes in disbelief. ‘You’re bringing her in?’
‘Got it in one, Lenny. This is serious. A child is missing and your daughter is a witness. We have to bring her in, take a statement and then see what develops from there.’
Even Mary picked up the seriousness of what was being said and the first cold fingers of fear touched the back of her neck. She started to whine, ‘I never did nothing! I was only helping because Kerry is so wicked to them! I am the only person who helps them. She don’t feed them properly or nothing.’
She looked at her shell-shocked father and said hysterically, ‘She beats them up, Dad, and I have to go round and make sure they’re OK.’
Lenny looked at his little daughter. Her make-up was smeared and her roots were coming through. Suddenly he saw her as the policewoman saw her. As others saw her. As her own mother saw her. And he felt a sickness inside him. What had Trisha said to him only that very morning? ‘She’ll be pushing a pram before her fourteenth birthday and we’ll have you to thank for that one, Lenny.’
There had been another row over her at breakfast. As usual she didn’t want to go to school. They’d had the whole gamut. Belly ache, feeling sick, etc. In the end she had slammed out of the house leaving the air blue and her mother fit to be tied. Lenny had found it amusing as usual. Now he saw that she was in trouble, real trouble, and she was scared. For the first time in ages Mary was acting like a child. The spoiled child he had created.
‘Get your coat and wash your face. Now!’ His voice was loud and Mary rushed from the room to do as she was told.
‘Has anyone any idea where the child could be?’ Mary’s mother asked, obviously concerned.
Kate shook her head sadly. She liked Trisha who’d had a hard life and tried to make it as easy as she could for her kids though she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Especially with her daughter.
She also guessed that Lenny didn’t know the half of it and that gave Kate the edge so far as Mary was concerned. She had already been warned that the girl was an habitual liar, willing to grass anyone and everyone to get the blame shifted from herself. At eleven she was also an accomplished shoplifter and a regular truant from the local school.
‘How long has the little mite been missing?’ Trisha’s voice was sad.
‘We aren’t sure, Mrs Parkes. But we understand that the mother, Kerry, went out and left her children with your daughter all afternoon. What time did she get in tonight?’
Before Trisha could open her mouth Lenny butted in, ‘You ask her when you get down the Bill shop, OK?’
Ten minutes later a chastened Mary was put in the police car with her mother. As Lenny walked to his car, Kate stopped him.
‘I counted eight Special Brew cans in your lounge. Surely you aren’t going to drive?’
He sighed heavily. ‘Fuck you, Ms Burrows. Not content with hassling me, you start on my family. Is that off
icial new Old Bill policy, eh?’
She looked deep into his eyes. ‘Every second that passes is vital for the missing child. We have search parties out, we are combing the area with teams of officers. Now, that little girl is just two years old. Your daughter was the last person to see her and until we find out what happened, she might even be a suspect. Do you realise how serious this is, Mr Parkes? A two year old is missing and no one, including the mother, has any idea where she is. If the child turns up safe and well, I’ll be happy. But if she doesn’t, I’ll want answers and I’ll want them soon. Do you understand me?’
Lenny looked into her eyes and felt the first stirring of fear. Not for the missing Mercedes, but for his beloved daughter. All his wife’s wise words came back to him as he phoned a cab to take him to the police station.
Kerry was silent in her holding cell. She had not even asked where Alisha was, assuming she had gone to her grandmother’s house.
If Mary opened her mouth, she would kill the little bitch. But she trusted Mary enough to know that the girl wouldn’t put herself in it. Kerry stared around the cell. She had read all the graffiti and drunk her tea. She had smoked her last cigarette.
As she lay on the bunk she sighed deeply. Fear was weighing down on her. If they searched the flat, and she had a feeling they had done that already, the shit could hit the fan at any moment. Then she would be in double trouble.
She wished she had a joint to calm her nerves. The Valium from the duty doctor had not been enough for an habitual user like herself. It barely took the edge off.
Lenny Parkes would break her neck and that was just for starters. But if Mary used her loaf and they didn’t find the evidence, which she had hidden well, they might just scrape through this.
Maureen stormed back into her flat at 12.20 a.m. and she was fuming. Willy Gabney had only fucked off and left her in the middle of a bare knuckler in Rettenden, without a bleeding word!
She could not believe it!
She’d had him sussed as a gentleman and then he’d upped and left her in the middle of nowhere and expected her to get herself a lift home! She had had to blag a ride to the nearest station from a man with bad breath and an A-reg car!
If Willy Gabney had the front to ring her or come round here again she would smash his bleeding face in and tell him a few things as well. Who did he think he was!
She felt the sting of tears then. She had liked him. Really, really liked him. And he had treated her so well. She had thought she had fallen on her feet at last. But he turned out to be just like the rest of them.
A big, fat, untrustworthy ponce.
She made herself a strong drink and picked up the phone. Then she started calling all her friends and telling them what had befallen her. She needed sympathy, and she needed it now.
She was still on the phone when Patrick Kelly tried to get through at two-thirty in the morning. He’d guessed that something had happened to Willy, and his guess was confirmed. Someone had rung his mobile and told him Willy was being detained for a while but that he would be back soon with instructions for Mr Kelly.
But was he coming back dead or alive? And, more to the point, did his kidnappers know where Patrick was now?
He left the flat and got into his car. He wasn’t sure where to go, something that had never happened to him before. Patrick Kelly always knew what to do. At least that was how it had been before all this. But the Russian was scaring him, seriously scaring him, and Patrick admitted that to himself.
He was driving along a road in the middle of the night with no real destination in mind. If it hadn’t been for the fear inside him it would have been laughable. His world was upside down.
What was Kate’s saying of old? Show me the company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are. Never had a few words made so much sense to him, even though they were a bit late in sinking in.
He wished he could go to her, but even if she let him he would put her in danger. They had taken Willy and he was a hard nut to crack. If they could take him, they could take Kate. Patrick had better warn her and fast.
Fear was making him feel physically sick now. He finally admitted to himself he was in over his head.
Chapter Seven
It was just past 3 a.m. and Kate was tired out. Mary Parkes had given them nothing except denunciations of Kerry and what a bad mother she was and how Mary went round there to be the heroine of the hour. None of which rang remotely true. Mary was hiding something, and now the social worker had said enough was enough for the poor little girl and she was to be brought back at lunchtime the next day. Kate saw the smug expression on the eleven year old’s fat face and suppressed an urge to slap it hard.
Questioning her had been a waste of time. Mary insisted she had left the kids in the flat asleep as usual. Due to her own age it was impossible to press her harder as the law still regarded her as a child. Pity her parents hadn’t treated her like one, then she might not have been in the police station at all.
Kate had a strong feeling Mary Parkes would see the inside of a few more police stations before she was much older.
Still, she had spoken to Jenny Bartlett and faxed through everything about the case so far. The DI was hoping to join them in a day or two. At least Kate knew now that real help was on the way. Specialist back-up. Somehow she felt sure all these cases were linked. There was a common denominator, something she was missing. There had to be.
As she sipped her lukewarm coffee she saw WPC Joanna Hart tearing down the open-plan outer offices towards her. She rose as the girl pushed open the glass door to Kate’s office and said breathlessly, ‘Has Mary Parkes gone home yet?’
Kate nodded.
‘You’d better get her back then. Wait until you see what we found in Kerry’s bedroom!’
Willy opened his eyes to hazy darkness. He closed them again quickly. He was still in shock. He knew that whoever had him now, had followed him and was annoyed with himself for not being more careful. Whenever he was driving Pat, Willy kept a look-out from force of habit. It was being with Maureen that had made him careless. Thinking of her alarmed him. Did they have her too? Was she OK? Did they have Pat as well?
He tried to calm himself down. This had been a professional kidnap which meant he would be treated well enough until such time as he had outgrown his use. And in the meantime he had better decide what he was going to do if the opportunity to run presented itself. He needed to see where he was, try and work out how many of them were about if he did a runner, and whether he could gain access to some kind of transport.
On another level, he wondered if his cousin had won the fight. Willy never could keep his mind on one thing for long. It was the way he was made.
Tommy Broughton opened his front door and saw Patrick Kelly standing before him with a face like thunder and the outline of a gun visible through his jacket.
‘Hello, Tommy. On your own, are you?’
‘Yeah. The old woman’s away on holiday with the kids. What’s wrong, Pat?’
Patrick walked into his house univited and grinned at him nastily.
‘I was hoping you could tell me that, mate.’
Tommy’s face paled. ‘I don’t know nothing, Pat, except the Filth was at the club with a warrant for your arrest. I tried to get in touch but you weren’t available so I assumed you had done a poodle. I was waiting till you contacted me.’
‘Which I have, Tommy. Haven’t I? Personally like.’ He walked through to Tommy’s lounge and sat down heavily.
‘By the way, Harwick phoned and left a message for you,’ Tommy told him. ‘He’s still trying, whatever that means.’
Patrick nodded.
‘What’s that all about then, Pat?’
He looked at the man before him and sighed.
‘Wouldn’t you like to know? Give you something to talk about, would it?’ Then, taking the gun out of his jacket, he pointed it at his former friend and colleague. ‘You have exactly five minutes to tell me what is going on with Boris the
Russian spider and Duggan and now me. Now think long and hard before you open your trap because I have guessed most of it, Tommy, and I want the whole truth, not the edited version. Are we both clear on that?’
Tommy nodded. He was in big trouble and he knew it. He had sent his wife and kids away for a holiday because he was scared, caught up in things that went right over his head. Now Patrick Kelly wanted answers and he had to give them. Either way he was a dead man.
Duggan had made it all sound so easy and so lucrative. Patrick had been the proverbial sleeping partner. He had known nothing of what was going on at the club. Now, though, he had woken up with a vengeance.
Tommy wondered briefly if Pat would kill him in his front room. His wife would go ballistic if he did. It had just been decorated.
Kate looked at the photographs and shook her head wonderingly. Kerry Alston must have been mad if she’d thought she could get away with this. She threw them on to her desk in disgust.
‘Get her out of the cell and into an interview room - now. And get her social worker back, and her brief. She’s going to need them.’
Kate had marvelled at a woman who could be so calm and collected while her small child was missing. But after looking at the photographs she wondered if Kerry had known exactly where her child was all along.
She pressed her eyes with her hands, rubbing at them viciously. Every day her job seemed to teach her a little bit more about the human ability to destroy whatever was good and innocent. It depressed her, and made her more determined to stamp out all the badness she could. But she had a feeling she was fighting a losing battle.
Mary Parkes was sitting with her father on the settee at home. She was feeling jubilant. She had talked herself out of trouble once more. As her mother eyed them sideways Mary ignored her as if she was beneath her notice.