The Business

by Martina Cole

  ‘Are you all right, Jamsie?’ She was sorry for asking him, she didn’t want to hear what he answered her. But she knew he was waiting for her to open up the lines of communication, he was looking at her as if he had never met her before, as if she was a complete stranger to him.

  ‘Are you going to answer me, Jamsie?’

  He nodded his head and she noticed that even his dreads, that normally looked so alive, so unruly, were suddenly looking very lank and sorry for themselves. ‘I’ve fucked up, Jorge. I’ve fucked up big time.’

  Jamsie saw the beauty of her eyes, and knew just how much he really did care for her. He knew he should have guessed that his greed would be uncovered eventually. Imelda had always had the power of the gab, but he couldn’t blame her for his predicament. He had seen the arrangement as a subtle dig at Kenny Boy and everyone around him. He had ruined everything himself, and now he knew he had to pay the price. Kenny Boy had beaten little Lisa to a pulp, and her friend had been good enough to call him from the hospital and fill him in on the details.

  Lisa would live, but she would not be out clubbing for a good while; he had arranged a few quid for her since she would be out of circulation for at least six months. He also knew that her friend was as loose-lipped as Lisa, so she would be telling all and sundry, in strictest confidence of course, exactly what had happened to her friend; who had done the dirty deed, and why it had been done to her in the first place. It was a complete abortion, and the worst thing of all was that it was an abortion of his own making.

  ‘What have you done, Jamsie?’

  Jordanna had guessed he was not the faithful type and she had accepted that. She wondered briefly if Kenny had found out about one of his extra-curricular activities. Kenny Boy was capable of causing the Third World War if the fancy took him. But she knew that Kenny Boy would have spoken to Jamsie on the quiet, would not have brought that hurt to her front door. Then a fear gripped her heart as she asked him quietly, ‘Have you got someone else pregnant, Jamsie? Is that what this is all about?’

  Jamsie went to her then, his heart sorry for what she had felt compelled to ask him. ‘No, never in a million years, Jorge.’

  She believed him, convinced herself in those few minutes that nothing else could be that bad, could hurt her as much. She was to find out that she was wrong about that assumption, so very, very wrong.

  Paula Derby was sixteen but she looked about twelve. It was the heavy make-up, it made her look even younger than she was. She was built like a boy, much to her own consternation, and she had been a runaway for just over two years. Until she had been introduced to Imelda she had lived on the streets and survived by begging.

  Her babyish looks, and her pleasing smile, had made that quite a lucrative enterprise. But she had found the first winter on the pavement very hard. As a minor who looked like a minor, she had not been able to use a lot of the hostels or homeless shelters. She had found out just how dangerous the streets could be; she had been raped within the first three weeks by two city boys overloaded on drink and drugs. She had suffered two muggings by other homeless women, losing her boots the second time. She had developed a hacking cough, and a penchant for letting her body be used in return for food, drink or drugs. Imelda had been like a saviour when she had been brought to her house by another runaway she had met while begging in Covent Garden.

  Imelda had put her up, fed her food and the brown. She had scrubbed her, supplied her with new clothes, and helped her get a regular stint on the pavements at Kings Cross.

  Like many of the girls, she was now almost totally dependent on Imelda, and looked to her for her every move. That Imelda took a cut for her trouble was expected; in reality Paula had never had it so good.

  Imelda also passed on the brown to her, and she depended on her for that as well as everything else. So, sitting in Imelda’s filthy flat, drinking a large vodka and Diet Coke, watching her as she expertly burnt them both a nice little bit of forgetfulness, she felt quite relaxed and at ease with herself. Two minutes after she first felt the hit of the drug, the front door was kicked off the hinges.

  Mary arrived at Jordanna’s within twenty minutes of her phone call. She let herself inside the house with trepidation; her granddaughter had been hysterical on the phone, and she assumed Jordanna had been told about the latest developments. What she was unprepared for was the blood. It was everywhere; all over the ceiling in the lounge, the walls, all over the furniture and the floors. It was all over her granddaughter. What really frightened Mary though was the man lying on the floor. Jamsie had been stabbed over and over and the weapon, a large bread knife, was sticking out of his back. It was obvious, even to the uninitiated, that he had been dead long before that final thrust.

  Mary half expected to see Kenny Boy standing there; this was his kind of reaction, his kind of act. Jordanna was sitting on the white leather sofa. She was quiet now, her hands were folded in her lap and her legs crossed. If she had not been dripping in blood she could have been waiting for her appointment in the doctor’s surgery.

  Mary immediately went onto autopilot; she was all about getting her granddaughter to walk away from this. She was already plotting how to sort this out in her head. Kneeling down, she took Jordanna’s hands in hers and said softly, ‘Did you do this, lovey?’

  Jordanna nodded slowly. ‘I’m like me mum, ain’t I?’ She started to laugh loudly, her whole body was suddenly shaking with mirth. Her head was thrown back and her laughter filled the room with its intensity.

  ‘I listened to him telling me how he was in league with me mother, about the young girls they had put on the game, and look what I done, Nan. I didn’t even let him finish what he was saying. You see, she warned me about him, and I didn’t listen. She warned me that people weren’t always what you thought they were.’

  She was laughing again, her lovely face strained and white with sorrow. ‘Like her, my mother, I just fucking killed him. I went to the kitchen and I came back with the bread knife and I killed him.’

  She was laughing uproariously once more. ‘Murderers, that’s what we are, me and me mum. When people don’t do what we want them to, we kill them. I remember the blood from Lance, his head was nearly gone. His brains were everywhere, all over my nightie. I remember nothing but blood from my childhood. Thick, sticky blood. I still wake up in the night and smell the heavy stench of fresh blood. I feel the fear that paralyses me, I have to lie there in terror until I am able to move my arms and legs once more, until I can feel the constriction leave my throat so I can talk or scream once again. Except, I never do. I try and keep it all inside me. Why upset you, or anyone else with it all? No one can help me, no one can ever help me now, can they?’

  Jordanna sighed heavily, and she said quietly and very sensibly, ‘I just wanted to stop him talking, Nan, that was all. As soon as he mentioned her, I knew I had to make him stop. She poisons everything she touches, and she does it without a second’s thought for who she might destroy along the way.’

  Mary was distraught. That this poor girl had ended up like this was a crying shame. Born to anyone else but Imelda, she would have had a chance. But for Imelda the drugs and all they entailed had always taken priority over everyone and everything. Mary often wondered if Kenny Boy was a victim of her drug taking; she had dropped anything she could lay her hands on through her pregnancy with him. That had to have taken a toll on him of some kind. But Mary loved these kids, more than she had ever loved her own. She hated her daughter with a vengeance that was so powerful it was almost tangible in the quiet of the room.

  A few minutes later, Mary opened the door to her grandson. The blood didn’t bother him, or the body, but his sister’s tears did. He held her to him tightly, whispering endearments, and promising her that everything would be fine.

  Mary wondered at what was going to be the upshot of this latest madness to have overtaken her family. She was trying to figure out how they were going to walk away from this lunacy in one piece and she just couldn’t se
e how they were going to sort it out. It was far too complicated.

  Basil chased Paula out of the flat with his loud cursing and his obvious anger. She had understood immediately that there was serious trouble afoot; the front door coming off its hinges had been the main clue for her, and snatching the nearest wrap to her, she had left Imelda to face the music alone.

  Imelda waited silently for the beating she expected, but it had not arrived. Instead she had been amazed as Basil said to her angrily, ‘Get your coat, and move your arse. Kenny Boy is looking for you and he’ll kill you if he finds you.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  Basil looked at Imelda then, she was finally bloating, and her beautiful hair, that had once shone like spun gold, was now lank and thinning. Her eyes had bags big enough to hold the weekly shop and her teeth had been ground away over the years so they now looked too small for her face. The heroin had finally caught up with her, she finally looked like what she was. A filthy skagger, she lived in filth and was happy to do just that. All she ever cared about was making sure she had the next dose of chemicals to put inside her once luscious body. She looked like a parody of the girl he had once lusted after. No man had been immune to her charms and yet she had found her only real love in a needle.

  Because of that, she spent Christmas alone with only her kit to keep her company. Easter, even her birthdays, had been celebrated with an extra armful. She had dedicated her life to the needle and, somewhere along the line, she had lost the knack of actually living. Of being a part of real life, of the real world. Imelda existed in the twilight zone, and her actions over the years had caused so much hurt and hatred because of that.

  Well, her son was not going to be captured and caged for the likes of her, and that is what would happen should he get his hands on this woman. Basil had sent him over to join Mary at Jordanna’s, had told him he would be better off seeing how his sister was, and deciding how he was going to deal with Jamsie before he turned his attention to his mother. She was going nowhere, and that had been his mantra for years about Imelda.

  Now Basil was here, attempting to save this woman from being obliterated by her own son, and she had the cheek to ask him what was going on as if she was unaware of anything untoward.

  ‘You know what, Mel, you are thirty minutes from meeting your fucking maker. You and Jamsie have finally gone too far. Now, move yourself before Kenny Boy gets here with a sawn-off shotgun or his tool kit. You’d be surprised what he can do with a pair of pliers and a cordless drill.’

  The fear of being found out was now enveloping her and Imelda realised then just how precarious her position actually was. Kenny would rip her apart with his bare hands if the anger he had nurtured so carefully was allowed a free rein. She owed her life to Basil.

  ‘Thanks, Basil, thanks for warning me . . .’

  ‘I am doing this for Kenny Boy and Jordanna, not for you. You ain’t worth doing time for, Mel, you ain’t worth nothing. Your son might go down one day, but it won’t be because he beat a piece of shit like you to death. He needs you gone, once and for all, and I will make sure that happens.’

  ‘But where am I going to go?’

  It was always about her, she had not even asked how much Kenny Boy knew, how much her daughter knew, or what might be happening to Jamsie at this very moment in time. She had not enquired about her daughter’s reaction to the latest aggro, but then that was par for the course with her.

  ‘Well, my advice would be fucking Mars or, failing that, South America, but I can’t see you going there, can you? Just come with me and I’ll hide you out for a few days. When I can, I’ll get you shifted somewhere. But get moving before he lands up here looking for you.’

  Imelda ran into her bedroom and started throwing things into a black bin bag. She was terrified now, she knew it was all over for her. She would have to earn for herself once more and she wouldn’t even be able to sign on. Kenny Boy would find her in a heartbeat if she did that, any registered court bailiff would be able to find her in minutes. And, as most of them moonlighted as bouncers, it was easy enough to get a favour like that done. She would have to move as far away as possible from Kenny Boy, maybe Scotland or even Ireland, and as she had no real life to speak of now, how was she supposed to create another one somewhere else? Her habit would suffer; she knew she would have to stay on the outside of the criminal world. Her world, the only one she knew. She would be an outcast, and without anyone to give her a boost she would be forced back into the rough trade just to survive. She looked around her flat, saw it as others must. It was like a squat, but it was warm and comfortable enough for her. The thought of leaving it terrified her. She knew deep down that she couldn’t survive on the streets, not at her age. She would also have to change her name, her looks. She’d have to dye her hair and hope no one recognised her; there was bound to be a bounty on her head. It was becoming more and more daunting for her by the second. Fuck Jamsie and his fucking schoolie scam. She had already convinced herself it was his fault; as always, she was the innocent victim.

  Imelda Dooley left the flat twenty minutes later. She would never return. She was placed in a small house in Peckham, and she was watched over by a large West Indian man called, of all things, Nebuchadnezzar Arnold. He was known as Arnie for short, but he was better known for his famously short temper, and his absence of anything even resembling an inquisitive nature. He looked after people for a large amount of money, and he never asked any questions concerning them. It was a very lucrative profession and it suited his rather solitary nature. He fed them, he ignored them, and he forgot about them. Locked in a back bedroom with a small portable TV and her stash, Imelda’s dilemma became very clear to her as the days crept by. She had blown it, and this time there was no going back.

  Basil waited three days before he finally felt he could talk to Kenny Boy without him losing his mind. He spoke to him for a long time, and explained in graphic detail why he had done what he had. Kenny Boy had thanked him courteously and hugged him in gratitude. He had then smiled gently, and asked, politely, to be taken to see her.

  ‘I mean it, Mum, if you don’t do this one thing for me I will kill you.’

  Imelda looked at her son’s face and saw the determination there, saw the truth of his words. She knew she was being given a second chance and, even though she was still on her usual opiate high, she was sensible enough to know this was not something she could refuse.

  She looked into her son’s eyes; they were her eyes, deep blue and thick lashed. He was a really handsome man. He was also a vicious, dangerous man, and he was so disgusted at her, was so revolted by her and her life, and what he felt she had caused because of her addiction and the selfishness it had caused, she knew she had to do what he asked. She nodded, afraid to speak, knew her voice could cause him to lose control.

  ‘You have to finally pay for your fucking mistakes, and you have to make things right for your daughter. You ruined her, you left her unable to ever know a really happy day. You saw her as your property, as your fucking own personal whipping girl. Well, it stops now. You will do this one thing for her, and you will do it with a good heart and you will let her think it was all your idea.’

  Imelda nodded once more, afraid of this young man she had bred, afraid of the same lad she had believed was her saviour. He had offered her a lifeline of sorts; if she did as he requested, she would one day be welcomed back into the fold. It was that which made her know she would do as he requested. She knew it would give her some small measure of respect, and stop her son from having to hunt her down, because he would do just that. She had no doubts on that score.

  ‘When do I have to do it?’ Her voice was gentle, almost a whisper. It was drenched with fear and trepidation at what he wanted her to do. But it was preferable to the alternative; she was too old to go on the trot, and too lazy to start over at her time of life.

  ‘Tonight, and you make sure you don’t fuck it up.’

  Detective Inspector Ralph Myers
was an old friend of Michael Hannon and Jimmy Bailey. He was well known around the West End of London for his amazing capacity for alcohol consumption and his very liberal views regarding certain criminals and their business dealings. His large frame and his thick head of grey hair were instantly recognisable to everyone in the know, and his penchant for the company of Faces was seen by other policemen as their pension scheme. He was a fixer, and he was very good at it. He could fix almost anything, from getting a change of court venue or judge, to making sure evidence was accidentally lost or spoilt. He could guarantee a reduced sentence for certain drug dealers; he would tell the judge in chambers that the person convicted had been of enormous help to them by serving up their friends and relatives and the judge, for a good drink, would use that in his summing up. That way, everyone would go away happy, especially the person convicted to a five-stretch instead of a fifteen. So he was the man who was chosen to oversee the investigation into the murder of Jamsie O’Loughlin. His body had been found in Imelda Dooley’s flat, he had been stabbed to death. He made sure that Imelda Dooley was charged as expected, and that her statement of guilt was worded correctly. It was all done with the usual decorum and haste he was renowned for.

  Imelda was sentenced to eight years, and her long-time addiction to heroin was used as a motive.

  Jamsie O’Loughlin’s association with the accused’s daughter was never mentioned. Imelda’s incarceration caused more than just her close family to breathe a sigh of relief. She was finally gone from their lives and, for once, she was seen as doing something altruistic. Only a few people knew the truth and they were not talking.