Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  ​But when was that? When had she thought all of that? As a teenager, sure, but what about earlier? What about the dreams of a five-year old, dressing up as a nurse, a doctor, an air hostess? Playing at pretend, mending dollies with broken arms or serving them drinks on a plane.

  ​She frowned into the darkness, anxious, squeezing thoughts in her brain, trying to force something out. Come on, Ollie, earliest memory.

  ​Eleven, with Dad, still playing hide and seek around the house. He always hid behind the doors. She always crawled into the dusty spaces under their beds. His huge white teeth in his dark smiling face.

  ​Meals. Going out for a pizza, or to the pub with the children’s play area. Coke and bag of crisps. Him with a pint in a huge black hand with the scarred knuckles. Mum sipping cold white wine on a hot summer’s evening.

  ​But earlier than that? Come on, Ollie. She pressed into the darkness harder, but no light popped from it, no spark of memory lit up the gloom.

  ​Where had those memories gone?

  ​Why did she have a hole in her life?

  Day Two

  Chapter Nine

  ​Ollie left Lily at school at 11.30. She made a breathless departing excuse to the school secretary that Lily was late because they’d got a last minute appointment to test for Lily’s allergies and no, I’m so sorry, but I dropped the appointment card in the cardboard recycling like all good conservationists, and ‘yes’, I will let you know if there are any issues or special needs, and ‘yes’, let’s hope that it’s nothing too serious.

  ​Ollie left thinking how easy it is to play the game if you speak the correct language of inane phrases. But why couldn’t she just do that with her life instead of fighting everyone?

  ​She was also concerned about her loss of memory. She knew where she went to school when she was younger, so that was a memory of sorts and perhaps a place to start. Maybe a walk past or a chat with one of her old teachers may jog some memories.

  ​Another phrase came to mind, ‘take a walk down memory lane’. Except her brain couldn’t find an address for any of the lanes.

  ​The June day was warm, the air still and the buzz of the busy London traffic was irritating her, so she cut up the quiet of Hearn Street to take her towards Shoreditch and then across to Brick Lane and the Red Brick Café.

  ​She’d worked these streets for years and knew all the back alleys and shortcuts. Sometimes they were needed to hide; other times as places to work. She mentally and fondly hugged their familiarity. Here she had memories. They’d looked after her through some hard times. If you can be in debt to tarmac, steel, brick and glass, then she owed them.

  ​The Red Brick Cafe was a Vegetarian Café off Brick Lane. Halfway down the Lane you peeled left into a narrow alley that led to a rundown, red brick factory complex. Part of it had been renovated, probably a better phrase would be ‘made safe’, and this enabled the owner to rent out some of the space.

  ​What had been created was almost a hippy commune from the sixties. At its centre was the café. The surrounding buildings shared their space among tile painters, junk shops, furniture restorers, stained glass window experts, artists, photographers, vinyl, CD and video resellers, tat jewelry and old clothes; basically creative specialists who’d been chased off the High Street by rents, business taxes and the high cost of running their own units.

  ​Here, they all worked together, some of them probably slept together, shared everything they could. Whether they used the rented space to also sleep no one asked and no one knew. You can always be working late, can’t you?

  ​But most important of all, no one judged you.

  ​So, if Joanna could offer her a few nights dossing down in one of upstairs storerooms in return for work in the café it would be ideal.

  ​Ollie was dragged from her thoughts as she sensed a car crawling along behind her. It had been there for a minute, on the edge of her senses before it encroached, like a spider testing the ground ahead of it before it crawls onto your skin. She resisted the temptation to turn. During her bad times, she would have done so in a flash. It would have meant a punter and money, which in turn meant alcohol and drugs. She wondered if a punter from her past had recognised her and thought she was working.

  ​After a few more seconds the car accelerated and pulled alongside her. A man leant across the passenger seat. She looked, didn’t recognise him. Not an ex-punter then.

  ‘Oleander. I need a word.’

  ‘I’ll give you two. Piss off.’

  She didn’t stop walking, worried that a stranger knew her name. White, mid-thirties, brown eyes, tidy goatee beard. His shoulders and arms looked strong. Toned. Tight black tee shirt and black leather bomber. Fancied himself. He didn’t pull away, just glanced ahead, straightened the car and leant across again. ‘We should talk. I have a business proposition for you.’

  Ollie carried on walking. ‘Here’s two more words. Not interested.’

  ‘How about this?’

  She glanced and he was holding up an ID wallet flipped open.

  ‘Bloody hell. You police?’

  He stopped the car. ‘Look closely.’

  Ollie looked up and down the road. No one was following her or nearby. If his car was a transit van, she would have run from a classic ploy to kidnap women; draw them close and then bundle them in.

  He got out and walked around the bonnet to the pavement. Ollie sensed in his confidence that he was authority. She looked in at the ID and then stepped back.

  His name was Mike Stockton. The ID said NCA in large letters – The National Crime Agency.

  Chapter Ten

  Ollie waited at a table at the back of a Costa on Commercial Street while Stockton went to get two coffees. She made him drive there alone while she walked and the only reason she went was because she was intrigued.

  ‘Nothing to do with your past,’ is what he told her. ‘Something you may want to consider. It will be worth your while.’

  What that told her was that he knew all about her past, but what the hell did the NCA want with her? Not a job, surely. Her employment history was nil. Her CV a blank sheet of paper. Any of her past temporary employers would probably write – ‘unemployable, doesn’t like authority’.

  With no work available to her, she decided to be damned. And she was. By drink and drugs that led to stealing and prostitution, that led to confrontation with authority. She didn’t like the way the world turned and she could never seem to get her head around how to work with it, or at least stop confronting it so brutally.

  Mike Stockton returned with two flat whites and two Danish pastries. He then proceeded to recount her recent life history to her. Worryingly, he brought it right up to date. To yesterday.

  She was annoyed. ‘Did you bring me here to tell me what I already know, or just to humiliate me? Or to remind me what an abject failure I am at life?’

  ‘None of those.’

  ‘But you have been watching me?’

  He shrugged. ‘You’re of interest to us, Ollie. You have a unique set of skills.’

  ‘What? Prostitution. Stealing. Failing?’ She stood up.

  Mike Stockton smiled up at her. ‘Sit down, Ollie and calm down. Listen to the deal. It’s a life changer.’

  She didn’t move, so he jerked his head at her chair. ‘You drink and eat. I talk. You don’t like it you can walk. I am not a threat to you.’

  Ollie sat. Mike Stockton waited while someone cleared and wiped a nearby table.

  ‘We have a person of interest, a male, that we need to get close to. We want to find out what he is doing. What he’s up to and with who. We want you to develop a relationship with him, using your skills.’

  Ollie opened her mouth. He held up a hand. ‘And I’m not only referring to your night-time skills. You’re a woman who knows how to survive, who’s lived by her wits and her cunning. You will need all of those. You are also more intelligent than you give yourself credit for.’

  Ollie had finished her
coffee and the caffeine was making her head start to buzz. But no pain, she thought. No monkey.

  ‘So far this isn’t much of a deal.’

  ‘In return we set you up in an apartment. Three bedroomed in Whitechapel.’ He threw a thumb over his shoulder.

  ‘You will need it to give you an acceptable image. And to entertain him. And we will pay you. £500 a week. Cash. For as long as this takes.’

  Ollie blinked, forced herself to remain calm. ‘After that?’

  ‘You’re on your own again.’

  Ollie stared at him. ‘Let me get this straight. You want me to develop a full on, sexual relationship with this man, have him trusting and adoring me and at the same time to spy on him and report back to you.’

  ‘See. You are intelligent.’

  ‘This is insane. Don’t you have your own women who can do this? Isn’t this what’s called ‘working undercover’?’

  ‘We can’t do it, Oleander. We need someone external to feed us the information. We do it internally and then try to charge him with something, case gets thrown out.’

  ‘What if I can’t get the relationship started? What if he doesn’t go for black women?’

  Stockton spoke to her persuasively. ‘Ollie, the reason we have chosen you is because we know he will go for you. You’re unusual to look at and your attitudes are different. He is an intelligent man, so he’ll be intrigued by you.’

  Ollie sat for a long minute. The motivation for her was the money and the apartment. It solved her short-term crisis. But he knew that. He also knew that she could do it. She had no moral barriers to developing random relationships and sleeping with random men for her own gain. Those inhibitions had been smashed down years ago.

  Like the spider, she took a step over the line. ‘Is he dangerous? Is he violent?’

  ‘No history. So, no.’

  ‘What sort of things is he into? I don’t want terrorist shit or guns or anything like that.’

  ‘Who knows? That’s why we need you.’ He sat forward, giving emphasis to what she’d already worked out.

  ‘Think on it, Ollie. I’m offering you security. Somewhere to live, money. Your mother can move in. Time to sort out your pathetic life. Stop lurching from crisis to crisis like a confused Brexit politician. I know you want better, so here’s your chance.’

  He pushed his untouched Danish pastry across the table. On the plate was also a mobile.

  ‘Take the cake for Lily and call me on the mobile when you make a decision.’ He stood. ‘Could be your last chance, Oleander. Your last chance to grab a start and make something of your life.’

  The Manipulator

  ‘The manipulator will misrepresent reality to create confusion and to sow doubt in the mind of their victim. They will seek to draw them closer with implied threats of disaster and by pricking their curiosity and offering rewards.’

  Chapter Eleven

  It was lunchtime, the café busy, its reputation for the best vegetarian food in Whitechapel ensuring that it was always crammed and bustling. The random, rustic, cobbled together feel of its interior and arty, wacky culture of the other units appealing to the purists, the like-minded and those who dreamed of ditching the shit City life they sweated over down the road, for the freedom of expression this offered.

  Joanna Johnson, the owner of the café, greeted Ollie with hug. She had Rasta dreadlocks that were coiled on top of her head and held in place with two knitting needles. She wore faded denim dungarees under a white apron. Piercings on her face came and went and currently there was a gold ring through each eyebrow and a large, cobalt blue stud in her nose. The blue set off the pale blue of her eyes that looked deeply into those of Ollie.

  ‘Shit time?’

  ‘That obvious?’

  ‘Yes. Plus the refuge called. I was going to call later. You busy?’

  Ollie laughed. ‘I’ve never been busy in my life.’

  ‘Grab an apron. Put in a shift for me because I’m one light. We can talk later.’

  At three pm Joanna took a couple of plates of lentil salads to a small table outside. She let her dreadlocks drop down her back.

  ‘You clean, Ollie?’

  ‘Last two years. One slippage but…’ she shrugged.

  ‘Police?’

  ‘Still trying to pin the disappearance of Stephan on me.’

  ‘Donna Small?’ Ollie nodded.

  ‘She’s a bitch, that one.’

  Or just a good copper, thought Ollie. She ate a mouthful. ‘I need a place for me and Lily. I need a place for Mum. I should be with Mum really because I’ve no idea how much longer she will be around….’

  ‘Help me out in the kitchen and on the tables for a few days. You and Lily can stay. Up in the attic storerooms like before. Mattress on the floor. Can’t pay you, but I’ll feed you both.’

  Jo ate another mouthful, then her voice dropped and she stared into Ollie’s eyes. ‘We all have a duty to help the oppressed, Ollie. More than that, we have to fight the oppressor. They have to pay.’

  * * *

  From the midnight darkness of the attic storeroom, Ollie called Mike Stockton. He surprised her by answering first ring.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘First, I want to see this apartment. I want two weeks money up front, an iPad and I want a laptop.’

  ‘Done. I’ll text you the address. And Ollie…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You only use this apartment for family and for this business. Don’t turn it into a brothel, don’t get your old cronies around for a drugs fest. You do that and the deal is off.’

  He hung up and left her staring into the darkness. There was still the faint hum from the late bars on Brick Lane and somewhere in the distance a police siren began its wailing.

  She breathed in the dust and must of years and tried to be grateful for the roof over her head. But niggling away at her was the anger. The non-stop chattering monkey that never stopped picking at her brain. The simmering injustice that had her scrabbling around in dingy attic rooms unable to provide a proper life for her daughter, impotent to help her mother see out her final days in style and comfort.

  The world had her clenched in its jaws again and was trying to shake the life from her like a mad dog with a piece of fresh kill. Stockton was right about one thing; she had to make this work for her.

  It might be her last chance.

  Day Three

  Chapter Twelve

  Next morning Ollie had a job for the Summer at the Café. Seven weeks guaranteed. She’d never had a job for that long in her life. Except when she’d worked for Danny, a high class pimp a few years ago. But that wasn’t really a job and she wasn’t really employed. They were at school together and at the time he supplied Arabs, foreign trade delegations and one-off random businessmen who wanted to try a black girl.

  The fashion style she had now of blond hair on black skin was left over from those days. The more unusual she looked the more she was remembered and the more work she got. It was good money. Good drug and drink money. Not what you know, but who you know, even in the street trade.

  Joanna explained the reason with a hint of derisory annoyance.

  ‘Siobhan’s husband has decided to rent a villa in the Algarve for the full holiday period. Something about being a teacher and he’s knackered. Well, aren’t we all?’

  We are, thought Ollie. Some more than others, but I don’t care and I’m not getting drawn into a discussion about teachers and teacher’s holidays.

  ‘To be honest, Ollie. I can trust you and pay you with food and a mattress on the floor. And, you stay off the books.’

  ‘I’m cheap.’ At least Jo was open about the way she was using her.

  Joanna laughed. ‘As a bag of chips on a Saturday night.’

  They hugged. Ollie said, ‘I do have a place to stay though. I have to move in this afternoon, otherwise that’s brilliant.’

  ‘Right place, right time, Ollie. That’s all it is.’ Joanna smiled and started coili
ng her dreadlocks to the top of her head.

  ‘Maybe your luck’s changing.’

  * * *

  Mike Stockton seemed to think so as he let her into the apartment, showed her round and pointed at the white boxes containing the iPad and the laptop.

  He pulled a roll of notes from his pocket. ‘Screw this up, Ollie, and your life will be done forever. Understand? You’re on a knife edge with your daughter and Welfare and the razor’s edge with the police and the sudden disappearance of your partner.’

  Ollie let the threats roll over her and away. There was no point blowing this before she’d started. Stockton let her take the roll and then handed her two pictures of a man, one full length the other a mug shot.

  ‘This is your target. George Sapphire. This is the small amount of background we have on him.’

  Ollie didn’t like the word ‘target’ nor the ‘small amount of background’ that was one side of A4.

  ‘Where do I find him?’

  Mike Stockton laughed and gave her a cryptic answer. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll bump into him soon enough.’

  Ollie spent the afternoon doing all the things that a mother and a daughter should do. She shopped and stocked up. She took a taxi to collect Lily from school and her mother from the Home. Then she sat them all round the table and made tea and gave them cake.

  She breathed in the feeling of security and comfort and smiled at what she’d achieved. Apartment, money, food, even a job. Could these moments be the first minutes, the beginning, of her gaining control over her life? When had she last had this much control? Had she ever?

  Her mother was saying something, but for once the monkey was quiet and Ollie’s brain was speaking to her. Don’t go and screw this up, Ollie. Don’t piss on this chance and self-destruct the way you always do.