Harm

by Hugh Fraser

  I shake his outstretched hand. His grip is too firm and his dark, hooded eyes contain a warning. He is middle aged, neither short nor tall, and whipcord thin, with smooth serpentine skin drawn over a fine bone structure.

  ‘Please to come this way.’

  He ushers me towards double doors, which are opened by my erstwhile captors. We enter a large, high-ceilinged reception room with cut glass chandeliers and fake regency red plush furniture trimmed with gold leaf. Old masters peer glumly at us as if uncomfortable on the pink brocade wallpaper. I expect the Ugly Sisters to flounce in at any moment and order me to sweep the floor. ‘I am Manuel. Please to sit. You will have drink? Your usual Scotch whisky?’

  I nod, noting his familiarity with my drinking habits. He waves Shorty to the drinks table, and I check that he pours both drinks from the same bottle.

  ‘I am sorry for the necessity of dealing with your friends in this way.’

  ‘They’re not my friends.’

  ‘That is good. They serve purpose and now are gone.’

  ‘What purpose?’ I ask, as Shorty hands me my drink.

  ‘To bring you here to me, Señorita Walker.’

  ‘You didn’t need to cut their heads off to get to me.’

  ‘They cut heads?’

  ‘They cut heads.’

  Manuel grabs Shorty’s wrist as he sets down his drink and asks him a question. Shorty’s answer unleashes a volley of Spanish invective and several vicious blows to the head. Shorty almost falls off his platform shoes as he totters to his position by the door.

  ‘I apologise for my operatives. They were not supposed to cut head, only to kill.’

  I begin to get an idea of what could be going on here. They didn’t kill me with the others because the cobra here has heard about me from somewhere and wants to use me. My guess is that he somehow arranged for Martin and Randall to be ripped off by Rodolfo so that they would come over here to sort him out, bringing me with them. There’s only one way they could be sure Martin would hire me for the job.

  ‘You got to Randall?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  The stupid idiot. They will have got the rip-off together with him, on the promise of a big pay day and a career in the drug trade if he convinced Martin to hire me for the trip. I get into Mexico with cover and anonymity and he gets wasted along with Martin.

  ‘I know you will not come for simple invitation.’ He got that right.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘There is a man I wish you to kill.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That need not concern you.’

  ‘Why me?’ I gesture at the guards. ‘You seem to have plenty of local talent.’

  ‘This man is well protected and difficult to get to. He likes beautiful blonde women from the North. You are such a one, and you have the skills required.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘His name is Enrico Gonzales.’

  ‘Is he in the drug business?’

  ‘He is Minister of Justice.’

  2

  LONDON, 1956

  I wake up and nudge Georgie to get out of bed. It’s her turn to go and get milk. She groans and turns away, pulling the blanket off me. I stare at the mould on the ceiling and feel the cold on my legs. I get up on one elbow and look at little Jack sleeping on the other side of her, wondering how he always starts off lying between us and ends up next to the wall. Sleep on, Jack, there’s not much to wake up for. I get out of bed and put on my skirt, blouse and coat. I take the pot from under the bed and go through the kitchen, past Mum snoring on her mattress on the floor. I unlock the door onto the landing and go down the stairs to the back yard and into the privy with the stinking broken toilet that the nasty Polish landlord won’t fix. As I empty the pot, something skitters past my feet and down a hole in the floor. The toilet’s nearly overflowing so I poke down into the foul mess with a bent stick we keep there that reaches some way round the bend. A deep groaning comes from somewhere down below and the level in the bowl lowers itself a couple of inches. I straddle it and pee.

  I take the pot back upstairs, and then go out the front door and into the street. No one’s about this early. The dirty old tenement houses on each side glower down at me, cold and hard. Curtains of old blankets and bits of tattered cloth are closed behind dirty windows.

  I pull my coat round me as a bitter wind whips my bare legs and head round the corner and along Golborne Road towards Ladbroke Grove. If I can get to Jean’s Café before the milk’s delivered I should be able to … I stop dead and duck into an entry as a gang of Teddy Boys come round the corner in front of me, laughing and jostling each other. I know a couple of them from our street and I can see they’ve been on an all-nighter in some shebeen. They’re drunk, pilled up and trouble and I don’t feel like being grabbed and felt up this morning, thank you. They see a West Indian bloke on the other side of the street and jeer at him. One of them chucks a stone at the man as he hurries on his way and they move on without seeing me.

  I reach the corner of Ladbroke Grove and weave round an old tramp lurching along the pavement snarling some nonsense. I’m in luck. The milk cart is almost at the café. As I get there, I see Jean’s boy inside wiping tables. The cart draws up and I go and stroke the horse’s head. The milkman’s a scrawny old boy with a red face. He gets down and dumps a full crate outside the door of the café. While his back is turned, I slip round the rear of the cart, lift a bottle, put it under my coat and walk slowly back up Ladbroke Grove.

  Back in our street, a small, worried-looking man clutching a brown paper bag hurries past me on his way to some job he hates. An old woman in curlers opens a first floor window, shakes some bedding out and leaves it hanging over the windowsill. A toddler in a filthy pullover and no trousers is crying on a front step, banging his fist weakly on the door. He looks appealingly at me but I don’t go to him. He’s there for a reason and you never interfere. A football bounces towards me as I reach our house. I kick it back to a couple of kids playing in the road and go inside.

  The hall isn’t much warmer than the street outside. In the kitchen Mum is still snoring. I put the milk on the table and fill the kettle before waking Georgie. She gets out of bed and shuffles through to the kitchen. Jack has wet the bed again and I lift him up and put him on a chair at the kitchen table. I take the wet blanket off the bed, let down the drying rack in the kitchen, hang the blanket on it and hoist it up out of the way, hoping it doesn’t drip.

  The kettle’s boiled and I fill the teapot and put the frying pan on the stove. I pour a glass of milk for Jack and Georgie and cut bread. The dripping in the frying pan melts and I dip slices of bread in it, fold them over and give them one each. Jack doesn’t like milk but I’ve always made him drink it because they say it will stop him getting rickets like some of the other kids in the street.

  I put a cup of tea beside Mum and dump the gin bottle in the bin, hoping she doesn’t wake up before I take them to school. I put some newspaper and wood bits on the fire, light it and tell Georgie to take Jack to the privy and then get ready for school. She opens the door to the landing and Elvis tells us not to step on his blue suede shoes from upstairs. Lizzie must be up early for once and out of the bed she earns her living in. Her door shuts and a man in a smart overcoat clatters down the stairs. Georgie pulls Jack back into the kitchen as the man hurries past, holding his hat over his face. Georgie looks back at me.

  ‘Go on, you’re all right,’ I say, as the front door closes.

  I coax some coal onto the fire and sit and watch as it catches and ekes some meagre heat into the room. I look at Dad’s picture in his uniform on the mantlepiece. I wonder where the old sod is now. I’m glad he left us even though it’s hard without him, with Mum being on the drink and everything. But I don’t miss his shouting and his hitting and his hands all over me. He left us a wad of money from some robbery and went on the trot with a young’un. So we got chucked out of the house in Kensal Green and moved to these tw
o rooms with a few bits and pieces on a horse and cart. Now Mum’s drinking the money and I’m stealing food to put on the table and wondering how the rent will be paid when it runs out, which it will soon.

  I put the rusty metal fireguard in place and look for the kids’ coats, which should be hanging behind the door. Mum has put them over her feet and I take them off her and shake them out. Georgie and Jack come in and I wet a cloth under the tap, wipe their faces and hands and put them into their coats. At least they get a free meal at school and maybe a chance to get a decent job when they leave. I left on my fourteenth birthday last year when Dad did a runner. I never listened or paid attention in the lessons so I can just about read and write and add up, but not too well. Barlby Road Primary was rebuilt after the war and the new classrooms were all fresh paint and clean floors, but I never knew what the teachers were on about most of the time, so I just messed about with Claire from our street in the back row and got hit with a ruler or cuffed round the ear. We bunked off most days and went up Whiteleys in Queensway until we got chucked out, or over the park until it was time to go home. The school inspector came to our house once but he soon went away again after Dad knocked him out. Dad put me on his knee and we had a laugh about it then, but I want Georgie and Jack to learn things and pass exams and that.

  On the way to school Georgie asks me if she can go to her friend Mary’s house after. I say she can, although I know I’ve got to nick some eggs or something for her to take with her. She’s had her tea there a few times now and I’ve got to give them something.

  When I drop them at school, Jack won’t let go of my hand at the gate. I know he’s being bullied because of his clothes getting ripped and messed up and I’ve told him he’s got to stand up for himself. I know who’s doing it and I could take care of it myself but he’s got to learn to fight and it might as well be now. I push him through the gate, walk up the Grove to the bridge and back along the canal. I get to our street and along to the basement where my mate Claire lives.

  Johnny Preston is leaning on the railing combing back his black brylcreemed hair, with a couple of his heavies standing near him, all wearing the drape and the Crombie coats. He’s a big man with a reputation for being cruel and vicious. I knew him as one of Dad’s mates and I’d heard he was in prison, but he’s out now and looking at me. As I go towards the stairs to the basement he moves in front of me.

  ‘Hello, Rina.’

  ‘All right, Johnny?’

  ‘How’s your mum these days?’

  ‘She’s all right, thanks.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll come round and see her.’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘You’re going there now, aren’t you?’

  ‘If you like.’

  As I turn, I see Claire’s scared face at the basement window. It’s only a few yards to our house. Johnny follows me up the steps and in through the front door, leaving his two thugs loitering on the pavement. The Irish woman on the ground floor is shouting at her kids as we pass her door.

  We go up the stairs and into our kitchen. Mum is sitting at the table with a cup of tea in front of her and a glass of gin raised to her lips.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she says, dropping the glass.

  ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I say, although I know it isn’t. Johnny is looking at Mum and half smiling.

  ‘Now, there’s no need to get bothered, Alice.’

  ‘What do you want?’ says Mum.

  ‘How about a nice cuppa tea?’

  Mum looks at me and I go to the pot by the stove and pour him one. Johnny looks around the kitchen and wanders into the back room. Mum looks at me anxiously and pours herself another gin with a shaking hand.

  Johnny comes back in.

  ‘Is this how he left you?’ he asks.

  Mum looks down at the table, saying nothing. ‘You and three kids in two lousy rooms?’

  He sits down opposite her.

  ‘Can’t be easy. Eh, Alice? After that nice house up Kensal Green?’ I put the tea in front of him. He looks up at me.

  ‘Sit down, Rina,’ he says.

  I sit between the two of them. Johnny unbuttons his coat and leans forward.

  ‘Isn’t anyone helping you, Alice?’ Mum shakes her head.

  ‘We’ll have to see about that.’

  Mum looks at him. He takes her hand. ‘You know he got shot last night?’

  I feel my stomach lurch up into my throat. I think I’m going to be sick.

  Mum stares at Johnny. He nods slowly. ‘Oh fuck,’ she says.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alice. I told him he had to pay them, but he wouldn’t do it.’ He takes a drink of tea. ‘Typical of old Harry, always thinking he could get away with it.’

  Mum looks up and says, ‘Where was it?

  ‘Bermondsey.’

  ‘Who …?’

  ‘Alice, you know I can’t.’

  Mum nods and looks down at the table again, breathing heavily. I stand up and get a glass of water from the tap. I feel scared but I don’t know why. I don’t care about Dad, he was a right bastard and he probably deserved it, but Johnny’s up to something and it doesn’t take long to find out what.

  I turn and lean on the sink as he says, ‘So, Alice. That means you and me have a bit of business.’

  Mum doesn’t look up. ‘What business?’ she says.

  ‘Where did he put it?’

  Mum looks at him. ‘Put what?’

  ‘Come on, darling, you know what I mean.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All that lovely money he stole from them rich people.’

  ‘I don’t know about any money.’

  ‘Well, I know you do, Alice.’

  ‘On my life, Johnny, I don’t.’

  ‘Now, Alice, there’s no need for any aggravation about this …’

  ‘He give us a few quid when he left and that’s it.’

  ‘Harry told me, as I sit here, that he told you where he’d hidden it …’

  ‘He never …’

  ‘And if you’ve got any sense, you’re going to tell me where it is.’

  ‘If I knew, we wouldn’t be living in a shit hole like this.’

  ‘And if you’re very nice to Johnny, he might just see you all right.’

  ‘I swear I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, you fucking do!’

  Johnny stands and kicks a chair against the wall.

  ‘I did three years for that bastard and he fucking owes me!’

  ‘Johnny, I don’t know …’

  ‘Right, you stupid fucking cow!’ Johnny goes to the window and tears back the curtain. He opens the window and whistles to his mates to come in. He takes off his coat, folds it, puts it over a chair and opens the door. The two men enter and stand each side of Johnny. I see that one of them is his runty little brother, Dave, who’s a mean little sod.

  ‘Come here, Rina,’ he says. I don’t move.

  Johnny takes a cut-throat razor out of his inside pocket and opens it slowly.

  I go round the kitchen table towards him and he grabs my arms, turns me round to face Mum and holds me against him with the razor at my throat.

  ‘She’s turned out a nice bit of stuff, hasn’t she, boys?’ Dave and the other one laugh.

  ‘Who’d a thought an old dog like you and a pig like Harry could make a nice bit of skirt like this, eh?’ His hand’s on my tits, then it’s moving down.

  ‘Johnny …’

  Mum starts to get up, but Dave goes behind her and pushes her back into the chair.

  ‘Where the fuck is it?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know!’

  ‘Don’t fucking know? Don’t fucking know?’

  Johnny spins me round and throws me onto the table. I feel the gin glass break under my shoulder blade. My legs are wrenched apart and my arms are pinned down. Johnny opens his flies and I scream with pain as his cock gouges into me. A hand’s clamped over my mouth. I rip my teeth into it and taste blood. The hand lifts. I scream again. Then a fist hits me a
nd it goes dark.

  3

  I swallow the rest of my whisky slowly and meet Manuel’s eyes. ‘So where do I find this Minister of Justice?’

  He smiles. I expect a forked tongue to appear. ‘What they say of you is true. The professional.’ He gets to his feet and beckons the tall one over. ‘Roberto, show Señorita Walker to her rooms.’

  Turning to me he says, ‘We talk later of details. Please now to relax. Perhaps to swim or walk in gardens or what you wish. Adios, Señorita Walker.’

  Shorty opens the doors and Manuel leaves. Roberto smiles and indicates the French doors at the far end of the room. He still wears his estate agent’s linen suit, and I follow his tall, elegant figure onto the terrace reflecting that, if you are going to be abducted, it may as well be by people with good manners.

  He leads me to a bungalow with a flat roof and a tiara of cornice work, one of several beyond the swimming pool. The accommodation within is predictably opulent and completely inappropriate for the sweltering midday heat. Too many ornate tables and chairs of various sizes are dotted about in inconvenient locations. In the large master bedroom, suede leather drapes are tied back to reveal a four-poster bed bearing a gold silk bedspread that Louis the Fourteenth might have coveted. The suede theme continues, via the bloated sofa and armchairs, to the bathroom walls and toilet seat. The pale beige colour lends it a distinct resemblance to human skin. As Roberto bows and turns to leave, a woman in a maid’s uniform enters and stands inside the door with her hands folded in front of her. She’s about thirty-five years old, petite and pretty with dark hair tied back, and a slim compact figure.

  Roberto turns back. ‘This Juanita,’ he says. She smiles and nods.

  I return her smile. ‘Hello, Juanita.’

  Roberto leaves. A guard with an AK slouches past the window, glancing in as he passes. Juanita and I smile at each other again. Her face has a fine bone structure and her clear brown eyes have a watchful look. She hesitates before indicating the wall of fitted wardrobes. I give her the nod of assent she seems to require and she opens the first one to reveal a rail of dresses and various garments above rows of expensive shoes. She takes out a black silk trouser suit and a silver evening dress and offers them to me. I take the suit and note the Sonya Rykeil label. The dress is by Valentino, and they are both in my size. I put them back on the rail. Fiorucci jeans hang next to Calvin Klein. I am clearly to be dressed in some style for the Minister of Justice. Juanita goes to the dressing table and shows me rows of expensive cosmetics by Dior, Clinique, Chanel, and drawers of underwear and bikinis. The bathroom is similarly well equipped with all a modern girl could need.