Peppermint, she thought, and soap or shampoo. Yes, it was shampoo; rather a nice smell, too. She was ashamed of her surprise.
The children were still playing, but they stopped chucking stones at the cars as she came down the stairs. By the time she reached them, they’d formed into a semi-circle, waiting for her.
‘Gi’s a fiver, then,’ said the girl who’d wanted a pound earlier. She couldn’t have been more than six years old.
‘Nah. She’s rich,’ said one of the bigger boys. ‘Look at her. We need a tenner. Or the watch. Look, it’s a Rolex. Come on, gi’s a tenner.’
The greed in his expression was mixed with hate. Even more uncomfortable, Trish looked at the others and saw them as small, taunting devils in a peculiarly modern kind of hell.
It’s never the child’s fault, she reminded herself. You’ve spent your life working for children like these; you can’t be frightened of them. Get a move on.
‘Come on, slag,’ said the eldest, taking a step towards her and showing her the stone he was holding. His dirty hands were much bigger than she’d expected. ‘Where’s the tenner then? ’S’all we want. Nothing to you. Hand it over.’
Talk about demanding money with menaces, she thought, trying to keep up her courage. It was the clearest example of that particular crime she’d seen since the last batch of baby thugs had come Trick or Treating last November and tried to bully her into giving them something. At least then she’d been on her own ground.
‘I’m not going to give any of you any money,’ she said as clearly now as she’d said it then, stepping out, straight into a puddle. The children shrieked with laughter, dancing round her, yelling gross insults. There wasn’t much that shocked her, but some of the names they shouted were vile. One of the little girls flung a stone at her. It was only a pebble really, but it hit Trish’s arm hard. Surprised, she looked back and saw that one of the bigger boys had a broken brick in his hand. He drew back his arm to throw.
‘Leave her alone,’ said a familiar voice from above her. Trish looked up and saw the shampoo-smelling young man, leaning over the parapet of the walkway above. ‘Let the lady go.’
The children scuttled away without protest, letting the bricks and stones drop unobtrusively as they ran. What kind of hold could he have over them, Trish wondered sickly, and how had he got it?
‘Thanks,’ she said, barely looking at him as she walked fast towards the exit.
‘Take care how you go now,’ the young man called after her. As she reached the bent concrete bollards that marked the pedestrian route out, she looked over her shoulder. He was still there, watching her, and waved. She had difficulty suppressing a shudder. The children were back, too, staring at her from the shadows beyond the cars, like feral cats. Thoroughly uncomfortable, Trish walked away in the opposite direction from her flat. She wasn’t going to lead any of this lot there, if she could help it, even though the diversion meant she wouldn’t have time to visit David. She found herself getting deeper and deeper into a hinterland, where nothing looked familiar and every face she saw seemed hostile.
This is not Bonfire of the Vanities, she told herself caustically. Get a grip.
Eventually she found her way to the familiar safety of the Leather Market and then Long Lane. Fifteen minutes later she was walking back up Blackfriars Bridge Road towards the river and the comfortable familiarity of her own building.
One of the lofts below hers had just been sold for over seven hundred thousand pounds. Reminding herself of the price seemed to put a bigger distance between the flat and the Mull Estate with its creepy air of violence and the aggressive children. Odd that they’d disappeared at a word from the young man who looked far too expensively dressed to belong anywhere near them. Odd and more sinister than the rest.
The street door clunked shut behind her, and the smell of beeswax polish filled her nostrils. Spicy and invigorating. She’d never really noticed it before, even on the days when her cleaner had been. Now it smelled delectably welcoming.
The wide spaces of polished wooden floor between the big black sofas and the fireplace seemed more luxurious than ever, as did the high white-painted brick walls, which showed off her collection of unframed modern paintings.
It was lucky the marauding children hadn’t seen this, she thought as she went to put on the kettle, or they’d have demanded a lot more than ten quid.
Chapter 5
Mikey watched the tall, dark-haired woman rush away and spat his gum on to the filthy walkway, wondering about her. He didn’t think she could be a teacher or a social worker, not with the Rolex the kids had spotted, nor with that haircut, and he knew she wasn’t police. Too smart as well as too spooked by a few kids. And anyway he knew most of the filth round here.
But why would anyone come looking for Jeannie Nest here these days? It didn’t fit. And that worried him. He liked to know what was going on in even the nastiest corners of the estate. That way he could stamp on any dangerous hints of disloyalty.
He took out another piece of chewing gum and leaned on the parapet, breathing in the menthol, feeling the surge of it freezing up the back of his nose, as he tried to work it all out. The kids came back out after a while, checked to see if he was still there, then started collecting a heap of stones. Every now and then they looked up to see if he’d moved. They were scared of him – all but Kelly, who’d come running to tell him that ‘a lady’ was asking questions – but they wanted to be like him, which meant they showed him proper respect.
Mikey didn’t blame them for trying to get money out of the woman with the Rolex, or for throwing stones at her. He’d probably have done it himself at their age. He wouldn’t have bothered to stop them if he hadn’t wanted her out of the way fast – and before she could get to anyone who might be mad enough to talk to her.
He looked at his own watch. One day that too would be a Rolex, but for the moment it was the nearest thing he’d found at Argos. It would soon be time for his next call, but he couldn’t be early. He needed the clients to wait, worrying about whether he was going to come, sweating just enough to make them want to please him. He always liked seeing the sweat and hearing them stammer as they made their excuses.
‘Hey, Kelly!’ he called. The draggled six year old picked her feet out of a puddle and looked up, squinting against the light. He beckoned.
‘Yes, Mikey?’
‘You know that lady?’
‘Yes, Mikey.’
‘If she comes back again, I want to know, OK? I’ll give you another pound if you tell me when you’ve seen her and what she was doing.’
Her eyes sparkled and her gappy smile grew enormous.
‘Yes, Mikey.’
‘And don’t tell me lies, Kelly. I’ll have other people checking, people you don’t know. So if they haven’t seen her as well, I’ll know you’re lying. Like always, OK?’
‘Yes, Mikey.’
‘Good girl.’
She pushed back her matted hair with both hands, beaming up at him. One day she’d be pretty. And useful. But not to him. He wasn’t planning to be here in ten years’ time, and he had a rule. None of his girls would ever be under sixteen. Too dangerous, and anyway he didn’t approve of that sort of thing.
The place was filling up now. People who had day jobs were drifting home, while the others were leaving for the pub or the takeaway. In thirty minutes or so, the crack dealer would drive in, like ice-cream vans in the old days. Unlike the vans, dealers didn’t need to play a silly little tune. Everyone who wanted them was always waiting.
A hooded boy slipped out of one of the ground-floor flats and was soon joined by four others. They’d done their main business of the day, nicking mobiles off other schoolkids, but they came out most evenings for whatever else they could pick up. They weren’t into jucking yet on this estate, but it’d probably come. Cutting someone’s leg – painfully but without risking too much damage – was a passport into several of the gangs that operated in the south of the borough, and it
was bound to leak northwards. Even on this estate most of the boys carried knives. Mikey never had, not even in his schooldays. He’d seen how they could get you into trouble more often than out of it, and there were plenty of other ways to make people scared of you.
No one came anywhere near him, which he liked. He didn’t mess with the gangs or the dealers, and they didn’t mess with him. Their businesses were what you could call complementary, so they respected each other. And none of the older residents would talk to him, but he didn’t care. Their silence was like a special suit that stopped the dirt of the place getting anywhere near his skin.
Business over, he strolled to the opposite side of the estate and ran easily up to the top floor. Like always, he enjoyed the power his fitness gave him. He worked hard enough at it, too. The hours spent in the gym were sometimes boring, sometimes quite a laugh as he watched the gays preening and saw how the steroid-addicts thought building up huge amounts of muscle was worth the risks they were taking.
When he’d first come back here from his great-aunt’s house in the country four years ago, at the age of sixteen, he’d tried to tell one of them about the heart attacks and the ‘roid-rage, and the law. He could still remember the pain of his broken collarbone and how the broken ends had grated together when he’d moved. ‘I’ll give you ‘roid rage,’ the bloke had said with his foot on Mikey’s chest.
He’d stopped trying to help anyone after that. And now the iron-pumpers left him alone, too, unless they needed him. Then they showed all the respect anyone could want. No one dissed him these days, or passed remarks about his size.
He looked back at his sixteen-year-old self in pity. Trying to help this lot of meatheads had been a right waste of time. They didn’t even know enough to want to get out of here. All they thought of was making themselves look more powerful, with muscles and pitbulls, instead of getting the real thing.
For himself, he’d be out of here as soon as he’d got control of the business. It shouldn’t be long now. He’d been patient and kind, and he’d worked hard. It was starting to look like it’d soon be payback time. Then he’d have the kind of life he deserved, the kind he’d have had years ago if his grandad hadn’t been so fucking stupid. And if Jeannie Nest had minded her own business.
Thinking about how they’d wrecked everyone’s life between them was the one thing that could really rile Mikey, so he didn’t do it often.
‘Don’t get angry, get even,’ he muttered to himself, thinking of the shitty years he’d spent with his great-aunt in Norfolk, bullied by her old man, bored out of his skull, and always cold. Nothing like that was ever going to happen to him again.
When he got to the flat, he opened the door with the key his grandmother had given him when he first came back, calling: ‘Nan? You in there? It’s me.’
‘Make us a cup of tea, will you, love?’
‘Sure.’ He leaned over his grandmother’s plump shoulder and kissed her.
His younger self had despised her for her wrinkles and whiskers, and for being a sad old bag who mumbled round false teeth that didn’t fit properly, and who smelled bad and wore too much white slap on her face and too much red lipstick. He knew better now. Now he had more time for her than for anyone else in the world. But he did wish she’d modernise the business like he always told her.
Patience, he told himself as he felt the anger pushing inside his head again. Hang on in there. She’ll give in soon.
She looked up from her account books and smiled round the pen she had in her mouth. He knew that sucking pens helped her keep off the fags.
‘You’re a good boy. You’ve been doing well, too. The books are looking all right. But I don’t like you letting off that pair in Reynolds Tower. They owe us more than seven hundred quid now.’
‘They haven’t got it, Nan.’ He moved into the narrow kitchen to get her tea and called back over the sound of running water. ‘And no amount of coming the heavy is going to get it. Not yet, anyway. But she’s starting a job next week – office cleaning. I’ll wait till she’s had her second pay packet and put a bit by, then I’ll have a go.’
‘What? Get heavy?’
‘No. Just the verbal pressure. I know how to make her scared of us without laying a finger on her, Nan. Then I’ll make sure she gets used to paying us back, a little bit more each week, till we’ve had it all. No blood, no mess, just all the interest she owes, then the principal. Right?’
Old Lil Handsome eased her back against the chair, and rested one hand over her aching kidney. Nothing could stop that hurting, but it helped knowing her family had produced some brains at last. Mikey was a good boy even if he was impatient. Sometimes she wondered what he was up to when he didn’t come back for days at a time, but mostly she could convince herself that he was a good boy.
He worked nights for a mini-cab firm, and he did the collections for her, and she was sure he was running a couple of working girls. But just occasionally she thought there could be something else as well, and she couldn’t make up her mind whether it was better to know or not. She hoped it wasn’t drugs. A bit of thieving she could cope with, but not drugs. Sometimes when he came back to the flat he had a look about him that she didn’t like at all. But today he was fine. She put down her pen, waiting till he brought her tea.
It was strong and sweet, like she wanted. She lit another fag; the third of the day. She didn’t usually let herself have the third till bedtime, but Mikey’s report was worth a celebration. She sucked in the smoke, relaxing as it hit, holding it in her lungs, feeling the power. At last she let it pour out again in a blue sigh. She couldn’t think why anyone would want crack or skunk or smack – or whatever the new thing might be. This was the business: a straight fag. And legal, too. Amazing.
‘Thanks. But don’t wait till the second pay packet, Mikey. By then she’ll have spent the first and she won’t feel so rich. Get over there the minute she’s come home after the first pay day. It’ll be more money than she’s seen for a long time. She’ll be feeling right wealthy till the first time she goes to spend any of it, then it’ll seem less straight off. So make sure she spends it paying us back, not buying stuff from mail-order catalogues, nor extra food for the kids. Us.’
He turned it over in his mind, which she liked, then he said quietly, ‘OK. Good thinking, Nan.’
She let out the breath she’d been holding, and decided not to give him any more compliments. Too many could make him think he didn’t have to try so hard. And she wanted him to try as hard as she’d had to, so he’d value what she was going to give him one day – when she was sure of him.
‘Have you thought any more about going to the ones who’ve already got debts on the catalogues, Nan? Or the druggies?’
Not again, she thought, sucking in the smoke to give her patience. She shook her head, hoping that would be enough to keep him quiet. But he had her stubbornness too.
‘I know you don’t like going looking for customers, but we could really clean up. I know exactly who owes what. There’s one old slapper in Kingston Buildings who ran up over a grand on catalogues last Christmas, buying designer gear for her kids. She’s not going to pay that off quickly. I mean, she’s on family credit, isn’t she? I can offer her and all the rest of them the cash to pay off their debts at one per cent less than the catalogues charge. We’d have a much bigger business in no time. It’d be like the old days you’ve talked about, Nan, before anyone ever had any catalogues.’
‘We don’t need a bigger business, Mikey. And I’ve always waited for them to come to me, like I told you. It’s safer that way. As for the addicts, I couldn’t trust them to pay any of it back, and I don’t like drugs anyway.’ There wasn’t any point explaining all over again, and his eyes had got the tight look she hated, so she stopped. ‘What’ve you got for me today?’
He unzipped the centre pocket of his leather jacket and took out a neat roll of notes, pinging off the rubber band. Unfolding the list she’d given him that morning, he counted off the fives
and tens he’d been collecting all day from this estate and the others all round.
‘It’s all there, except for the Reynolds Tower two.’
‘Good,’ she said, checking off the amounts listed against the pile of notes.
Some were torn and dirty, but some were as crisply fresh as if the people who’d handed them over had got them straight from a cash machine. They couldn’t have, of course. The people she did business with didn’t have access to cash machines because no bank would let them near an account. If they had, the customers wouldn’t have come to her in the first place. So these crunchy notes must have been nicked to pay her off with. That didn’t worry her. Not her problem, was it?
She hated banks nearly as much as she hated the companies that sent glossy catalogues, enticing people to buy stuff they couldn’t afford and threatening to ruin her business. She’d looked at one of the catalogues once and seen all the nonsense they wrote about credit being what they called ‘subject to status’. She’d never heard of anyone who’d been refused, however poor they were. So long as they sent up the first payment with a Postal Order when they ordered something, it’d be delivered straight off. Washing machines, designer clothes, toys, furniture; they could get anything, just by posting a letter. Of course, if they didn’t complete the payments, they wouldn’t get a second chance. Still, it wasn’t right.
The smoke caught in her eyes and she swallowed some down the wrong way. A fit of coughing seized her and she had to put down the money and the pen and the fag as she bent over her table, fighting to breathe. Her eyes were streaming and her throat was all scrunched up. After a bit Mikey put his hands on her shoulders and lifted her up.
‘Careful, Nan. Careful.’ He rubbed her back, good boy that he was, and told her to breathe like she was having a baby or something. Later on he fetched her more tea for when she’d stopped coughing. He’d stubbed out the fag, too, which was a waste.
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