Lady Bag

by Liza Cody

  ‘How do you know? What makes you so certain Chantelle knew that Nat was boinking Gram?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember.’ I was ploughing back through the mud in my mind to the night I saw Chantelle and Natalie coming out of the theatre together. I warned one of them about Gram. Beware of Gram Attwood. But I’d said, ‘wee bear’. Sometimes I do get my words the wrong way round. Maybe I got the women the wrong way round too.

  ‘I don’t know which one of them I warned, but they were both there. They both heard me.’

  Smister said, ‘If Chantelle heard you warning Nat about Gram, her boyfriend, wouldn’t she want to know why?’

  Of course I would. I mean of course she would. She’d be crushed. And jealous. Murderously jealous?

  ‘On the other hand,’ Smister went on, oblivious, ‘Chantelle told the cops about this mad homeless woman who accosted them that night. But she couldn’t understand a word the woman said. And then she thought she saw a couple of vagrants in the area when she picked up Nat the next day on her way to work.’

  ‘But she’s unemployed. You said… ’

  ‘Hairy Clairey said.’

  ‘She’s never wrong.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says my mother.’

  ‘Oh well, that proves it then.’ Smister sat back with his arms folded and the familiar mute mule expression on his pretty face.

  Then I wondered if Chantelle was the secretive sort, who would never admit, even to her best friend, the humiliation of having been made redundant. No one fails faster than a perceived failure. No one becomes invisible and friendless faster either.

  But the Devil would know. The Devil shoves his lethal beak into every corner of your soul.

  I said, ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It was the Devil who killed Natalie, and I can prove it. The murder weapon is under his kitchen sink.’

  ‘I hope there is something worth looking at in 17 Milton Way,’ Smister said, still sulky and mulish. ‘Because I told Brother Eddie about Nat’s new boyfriend.’

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘Are you crazy? The Devil will strike us dumb and sentence us to eternal damnation in the land of ice.’

  ‘Strike you dumb? I wish.’

  ‘Why are you so upset?’ Electra asked, pushing even closer to my knees. ‘If the police find the murder weapon it’ll let you off the hook.’

  Smister said, ‘It’s got bugger-all to do with you anyway. Edward doesn’t know your name. He doesn’t even know mine. According to Old Fanny the only suspects are vagrants—you and your mates. They think it might’ve been a burglary gone wrong. But Edward thinks the cops are ignoring less obvious leads. That’s why he was so keen to hear about the boyfriend.’

  ‘Yes but Old Fanny knows my name, well, most of my name. And they’ve got my DNA from the mews house. If they go poking around Milton Way they’ll find it again. We were bloody there, Smister—only two nights ago.’

  ‘But it was your house, you eejit. Yours and your mum’s.’

  ‘Years ago.’

  ‘Luckily the slit-hound and his fancy piece are piss-poor housekeepers. Besides, they can get DNA from prehistoric monsters these days. What’s a few years?’

  ‘It’s the coincidence, sludge for brains—my DNA, my old house, my ex.’

  ‘It is a bit leery,’ Smister admitted, ‘but what you gonna do, eh? How else’re you going to clear your name and make sure your old Devil gets what’s coming?’

  ‘I was going to keep my head down and hide. But you got caught with Natalie’s credit card and then you broke into 17 Milton Way and stuck your big nose in where it didn’t belong.’

  ‘My nose is fucking perfect. How’re you going to keep your head down, you loser, when you and your dog were on TV?’

  ‘And whose brilliant idea was that?’

  ‘And whose genius idea was it to drive to sodding Acton and wind up in a pub car park fifteen minutes’ walk away from the chief suspect?’

  ‘I couldn’t remember how to turn right, you son of a bitch.’

  ‘Daughter of a bitch, you sexist pig!’

  ‘I don’t appreciate your use of the word “bitch” as an insult,’ Electra said softly.

  ‘Fuck off, both of you!’ I yelled, but then I noticed that all the other passengers had moved away and were huddled at the far end of the carriage.

  We got out at the next stop and waited in silence on the draughty platform for the next train. The last thing we wanted was to attract attention from the Transport Police.

  In the end I said, ‘I’m the softest target in the whole of London. The Devil always wins because there’s no blessing for the meek in his system.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you aren’t all that meek,’ Smister said. ‘In fact, you’re a bolshy cow, and I don’t understand why you rolled over and gave away all your bolshiness to Gram Attwood.’

  ‘You haven’t met him.’

  ‘I’ve met lots of him—using and abusing buggers.’

  ‘And you lapped it up. Or have you conveniently forgotten Kev? Because it seems to me you gave up membership of the “Told-You-So Society” the minute you took a whacking from him and came back for more.’

  ‘Kev.’ Smister sighed. ‘I haven’t thought about him in yonks. You know what Momster? We’re a couple of love’s bitches, for sure.’

  ‘The Devil never beat up on me.’

  ‘No, he just pounded your emotions into gravy granules to spice up his meat.’

  ‘I’m not going to fight with you anymore. It’s just I think that you and your mouth have put me deeper in the brown stuff.’

  ‘But if I’m right about Brother Eddie he’ll insist the cops go and talk to Gram. He’ll tell them how odd it is that the man Nat loved never came forward when she died. And then they’ll see how bogus he is and search the house.’

  ‘Or we could run away to Cornwall. We could take Electra for walks by the sea. She’s never seen the sea.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Electra said.

  ‘Fantasies,’ Smister said.

  ‘You could buy a cute little swimsuit and a sarong and prance around on a Cornish beach. We could rent an old fisherman’s cottage… ’

  ‘And a young fisherman… ’

  ‘And sleep with the sound of waves to soothe us. We could both get well. Sea water and salt air heal wounds.’

  We passed the rest of the journey musing about our dream getaway, and nobody mentioned that we could afford neither the petrol nor the cottage. But we were friends again and warm from the wine.

  When we got back to the pub car park there was a note from Abbie stuck to the door of the ambo. It invited Smister over to the pub for a drink. I wasn’t invited, but I didn’t mind because I still had a few gulps of wine hidden behind the front seat. I fed Electra and then settled down to drink my sleeping draught.

  I was dreaming about skating effortlessly down a snowy street towards the sea when something hit the door with such a crash that the ambo rocked on its axles.

  Chapter 36

  Drives Badly Bradley

  ‘Open up!’ roared the monster, making the black air quake with fear.

  Electra let out a tiny, ‘Help!’ and cowered down.

  ‘Police, open up!’

  I reached over to comfort Smister but his bunk was empty.

  ‘Open the door,’ Electra whimpered, ‘before they turn the ambo over.’

  But I didn’t have time—the back doors were wrenched open, metal screaming against metal, and a huge shape stood silhouetted against the car park lights, looming, lowering, glowering and wielding a crowbar.

  Electra gasped with horror and fled. I wasn’t quick enough.

  The black shape said, ‘Show me your driving licence.’ He smelled of cigarettes, beer and fried onions. ‘Don’t just sit there like Piffy on a pillar. Do as you’re told
—driving licence.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. He came in like the SAS in the middle of the night because he wanted… ‘What?’

  ‘Get up,’ he thundered. ‘You’ve been driving without a valid licence, begging and making a public nuisance of yourself. Drunk and disorderly. Get your clobber together. We’re going for a little ride.’

  I didn’t have any clobber and the only thing I’d taken off before going to bed was a pair of shoes. I put them on, but I left my hat and raincoat behind as a message to Smister: I’d been abducted by a cop with a rock hard face.

  I stood in the rain waiting for Hard Face to open his patrol car door. There was no point running because the bastard had cuffed my hands behind my back. The rain pelted like gravel on my head. I couldn’t wipe my eyes so I could hardly see. Even so I peered around for Electra. I couldn’t believe she was going to abandon me.

  ‘Electra,’ I called, ‘Smister, Abbie. Electra!’

  ‘What’re you shouting for?’ Hard Face said. ‘No one can hear you. They’re having a lock-in.’

  I squinted through the torrents of water at the pub. I thought I saw a curtain move and a face look out at the car park.

  He pushed down on my head and shoved me into the back of his car. He wasn’t gentle about it and I tipped over on my side. He tried to slam the car door on my foot.

  ‘Ow-ow-ow,’ I shrieked, because I don’t believe in going quietly. I drew my knees up to my chin and lay, foetal, on the back seat. I could feel my foot swelling up. My ribs and shoulder were howling. My hands were puffy and trembling. My head was drumming and my brain went into spasm.

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Hard Face was angry with me already—and we’d only known each other five minutes. ‘It’d be your own fault if I drove you out to the motorway and left you to stagger around till some truck driver mowed you down.’

  Too late, I remembered that the remaining painkillers were stashed in Smister’s sleeping bag, and any money I had left was in the pockets of my raincoat. Even if I got away from Hard Face I wouldn’t be able to get back to the pub without scoring a few quid.

  Hard Face took all his corners too fast, on purpose—to throw me around on the backseat. I was glad now that Electra skedaddled. Lurching on the back seat always makes her…

  ‘Oh you disgusting old troll,’ Hard Face screamed. ‘You’re going to clean that up.’ He stopped the car and I rolled, fell, and lay wedged behind the front seat. He couldn’t even drag me out or turn me over to remove the cuffs, so he had to drive on. He went on driving too fast and I went on throwing up. I couldn’t help it.

  Misery multiplied: pain, carsickness, shakes becoming rattles. Kill me now, Mr Hard Face, end my sorrows. Or are you too the Devil’s little helper, sent to big up my torment?

  At the cop-shop an immense woman with the nose of a bare-knuckle fighter hauled me out of the squad car. ‘Bradley, Bradley, Bradley,’ she said, ‘you’re an arsehole. I know you think only women have the cleaning gene but this time you can sluice out your own unit. I’ll look after the prisoner because I know you so it probably isn’t her fault.’

  She almost carried me to the women’s cloakroom—my foot was in agony and my guts ached from heaving. I was a straw doll to her and she said quite cheerfully, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll be asking me why they call him “Drives Badly Bradley”.’ She wasn’t gentle, but she wasn’t unkind either. She filled a basin for me and helped mop me down with handfuls of paper towels. All I could smell was my own vomit.

  She uncuffed me and brought a cup of sweet tea to the cell. I asked her to phone the pub so I could find out how my dog was. I wanted to talk to Smister but I didn’t want the police to find out about him. So I asked to speak to Electra.

  ‘Electra?’ she asked. ‘Ducky, I wouldn’t talk to anyone at the damn pub if I was you—they all know Bradley there. What you need is a solicitor. Unless you’re just going to plead guilty and get it over with.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Vagrancy? What’re they going to do, anyway? Couple of hours in here? An exclusion order from the pub?’

  She went away and I didn’t see her again. But when it came time for it they didn’t charge me with anything. They fingerprinted me, took my DNA, photographed me and stuck me back in the cell to ‘sober up’. In the morning a squad car came and took me all the way from Acton to the Earls Court Road nick.

  Chapter 37

  Back With The Man In The Machine

  ‘Angela Mary Sutherland?’ The custody sergeant stared at me over his half-glasses and wrinkled his nose. I smelled strongly of puke.

  ‘That’s not my name.’

  ‘What? Speak up.’ He consulted his list again. ‘What is your name then?’

  ‘Mad Old Bat With Dog,’ I said. But Electra wasn’t there anymore. She ran away.

  ‘There’s nothing to cry about,’ he said crossly. ‘Just tell us your name, okay?’

  ‘I hurt my head. I can’t remember.’ Everything ached, especially my head. I couldn’t put any weight on the foot Bradley smashed with the car door. I was hollow inside; emptied out, except for jagged, writhing worms of hurt.

  ‘Well, Angela Mary Sutherland, I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay with us for a while.’ The custody sergeant picked up a phone and barked, ‘Get the quack down here, ASAP.’ He read out a list of charges which included assaulting a police officer and absconding from police custody.

  I lay on a plastic mattress and realised that there would be no absconding on one foot. Electra was gone: there was no friend to guide me, scold me, hold me. An empty place opened like a chasm where my hand should rest. She should be curled up sleeping behind my knees. Where was she? Was she curled up behind Smister’s knees, sleeping warm in the ambo? Was Smister even in the ambo? Maybe he’d moved in with his friend Abbie to a cosy bedroom with a cupboard for his frocks and a dressing table with a mirror for his make-up. She’d take him to her doctor so that he could renew his prescriptions for hormones and sleepers. She’d understand completely why he was the sort of woman he needed to be; because she was the same sort.

  I was holding him back. If he’d ratted me out to Hard Face Bradley I’d understand, really I would.

  They took me to the medical room to see the doctor. He was part of the machine, the grinding cogs and pistons of police procedure. He was imposed upon me like everything else. But he bound my foot and told me to keep it elevated. He told the custody sergeant that it should be X-rayed as there might be a couple of bones broken. He wanted to take a blood sample because he thought I could have a chest infection as well as severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

  I wouldn’t let him take any blood. Once they’ve got your blood they never let go of it, so next time they needed a rough sleeper to accuse of murder they’d have a huge ‘clue’ to plant at the scene of crime, all ready in a glass bottle. With my wrong name on it.

  ‘Okay, then?’ the custody sergeant asked.

  ‘I’m not happy about it.’ The doctor was a good six inches shorter and looked like the brainy kid who got swatted in the playground.

  ‘It’s just a super-size hangover.’

  ‘Her foot?’

  ‘She isn’t going anywhere on it. Just give us some aspirin.’

  ‘I might have to do a bit better than that.’

  Fairy tales do come true. He made the sergeant fetch some water and then he gave me two white bombers that looked mighty like max-strength co-codamol. ‘Keep drinking lots of water,’ he said. ‘I’ve instructed them to give you two more tablets in four hours. Have you had any breakfast?’

  I didn’t feel like breakfast, but he insisted I ate some toast and drank more sweet tea. Nice doctor. I never saw him again because after that my old friend DC Anderson came to fetch me.

  Anderson didn’t look very pleased to see me. He said, ‘You nearly got me bus
ted back to Uniform. If you try to abscond again I’ll personally chop your other foot off.’

  He made me wait in a grubby white interview room. I laid my head on the table, facing away from their spy-camera, and went to sleep.

  ‘Conducting the interview is DI Sprague with DC Anderson in attendance. Also present, Ms Kaylee Yost, duty solicitor, representing the prisoner.’

  Kaylee Yost looked about twelve years old. She was stooped and skinny, self-conscious of her acne, and unsure of herself. She reminded me of Too-Tall. I’d be absolutely okay with a firecracker like that on my side.

  ‘Angela Mary Sutherland… ’

  ‘That’s not me.’ I was going to have to stick up for myself. I’d had a short kip and a white bomber. I wasn’t feeling too bad.

  ‘No?’ said Dl Sprague. ‘Then enlighten us.’

  ‘T-tell them your name,’ Kaylee muttered turning rose red. She was embarrassed that I’d made her open her mouth. This was going to be fun.

  ‘Just Bag Lady. I hurt my head. Do you want to count my stitches?’

  ‘Don’t play games with me,’ Sprague said. ‘You’re Angela Mary Sutherland, and we have your fingerprints and DNA to prove it.’

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  Blah, blah, blah; I tell them something important to me and they take no notice—not the basis for a relationship of mutual trust and respect.

  Drone, drone, drone, like an annoying fly—‘… your denial notwithstanding… later you rely on in court may be used in evidence against you.’

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you?’

  ‘You’ve just been c-cautioned,’ Kaylee informed me blushing hectically. ‘Wake up. Pay attention.’

  ‘Where’s Electra?’

  ‘Who’s Electra?’

  ‘Her dog,’ Anderson said, sounding softer. ‘A greyhound. Maybe she’s still at Acton nick.’

  ‘She ran away.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ Sprague said. ‘What were you doing in Acton, anyway?’