by Martina Cole
She stood up unsteadily. ‘You make me laugh. I know all about you lot. I know everything about everyone.’ She looked from David to his father Billy and sniggered. ‘Oh yes, I know what you cunts get up to in Suzy’s flat, remember that, Billy Reilly. You fucking better remember that I know that.’
She looked triumphant as she swayed precariously in front of them. ‘Now, as I said, mine’s a Bacardi.’ She was staring at Billy as she said this and David Reilly looked at his father closely.
‘What’s she on about, Dad?’
Billy waved him away. ‘How the fuck should I know?’ he said irritably. ‘She’s off her face, silly mare. Get her a fucking drink and then she’ll piss off.’
Tash listened and started laughing. ‘I’ll piss off then, will I, Billy? I’ll piss off when I’m good and ready.’ She belched and peered at the man sitting next to him. ‘Oh, got Noncey Norman with you today. You’ll miss my kids, won’t you, Norman?’
Somewhere in the back of her drink-fuddled brain, Tash was aware that she was going too far. But the course was set now. She was going to pay back a few debts today. When she had first got drunk she had sought oblivion, a few laughs, but their snide remarks had turned her good-natured camaraderie into vindictiveness.
At least, that was how Tash saw it.
David felt the change in the atmosphere and looked from his father to his uncle.
‘What’s she going on about? Why will you miss her kids, Norm?’
The older man shrugged inside his donkey jacket.
‘How should I know? Look at the state of her. Fuck off, Tash. Go home, girl, and sleep it off.’
‘David, will you just go and get the drinks, please?’ his dad asked, sounding annoyed.
David walked up to the bar and ordered but he kept an eye on the men at the table. Billy was leaning towards Tash and wagging a finger in her face. David couldn’t hear what he was saying but he saw Tash punch his father’s hand away and laugh defiantly. He came back to the table with three pints of lager.
‘Where’s me drink?’ Tash’s voice was even more slurred now.
‘You get nothing. Now, for the last time, Tash, will you fuck off ?’ David shouted over to Marlene behind the bar, ‘Why don’t you bar her and her fucking cronies? Slags the lot of them.’
Wiping her large rough hands on a tea towel, the landlady made her way over to the table. She took Tash by the arm. ‘Come on, love, let me get you a cab home, eh?’
Marlene was eighteen stone and known to have a punch like an Irish navvy. She needed a rep like that, running a hard pub, and she was respected by the men and women alike who frequented her establishment. She also kept a sawn-off under the bar like most publicans in the area.
Tash shrugged her off aggressively. ‘Fuck off, will yer! What is it with you lot today?’ She pulled out her purse and opened it with difficulty. ‘I got money. I can buy me own fucking drinks.’
The older woman shook her head. ‘Not in here you can’t, not today. You have had enough, lady. Now don’t make me throw you out, dear, I really don’t want to have to do that.’
Marlene’s voice was friendly but there was an underlying threat to it that was wasted on Natasha who was too drunk to care.
‘They took me kids. Even me new one, what’s his name . . .’ Tash waved her hands around as she tried to remember. ‘You know who I mean. He’s lovely he is, right little hard man already.’
Marlene placed her hands under the girl’s oxters and pulled her from her seat. In seconds Tash was standing up and being steered towards the door.
‘Come on, love, we’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Fucking bar her, the slag! At least those kids ain’t got to put up with her any more.’ David’s voice pierced Natasha’s alcoholic haze.
Throwing Marlene off, she ran back to the men’s table. Pointing a none too clean finger at them, she said loudly, ‘Shame on you.’
She stared at Billy and Norman. ‘Tell him - go on, tell him about Suzy’s place and then see what he has to say about me, you pair of old wankers!’
Billy was up and out of his seat in the blink of an eye. Taking her by her large topknot, he dragged Tash physically from the pub. He threw her through the double doors and she landed heavily on the tarmac of the car park. At that point he started kicking and punching her.
It was over in seconds. David and Marlene had pulled him off and Natasha lay bleeding and dazed on the ground.
‘Who’s rattled your bleedin’ cage, Billy? The girl’s out of her brains. You should have ignored her.’ The landlady’s voice was full of censure.
Billy spat on to the tarmac, breathing heavily. ‘Well, she gets on my bleeding nerves. Drunken whore, with her big trap going all the time.’ Then he stalked back into the pub, leaving his son staring down at Natasha who had fallen asleep where she lay.
‘I’ll get her a cab. Fucking pub’s not worth the hag.’ And Marlene went back inside.
David studied the young woman with her bad skin and teeth and the remains of too much make-up on her once pretty face. She started to vomit and turned on her side instinctively.
The sight made his own stomach revolt and he walked back into the pub hastily. There he sat with his father and uncle, drinking and chatting, but what Tash had said stayed with him for the rest of the day.
Evelyn wiped Patrick’s face with a cool wet cloth and was gratified to see that he had a bit of colour in his cheeks. She hoped against hope that they would operate on him soon, so everyone could finally relax and get on with their lives.
Turning away from the bed, she pulled herself up a chair, just as a young man walked in with a chart and a fresh drip bag. Eve smiled at him and got out her knitting. She watched as he changed the drip and took Patrick’s obs. Five minutes later he was gone.
Eve sat knitting and watched the ward around her. Through the glass walls she could see the life of the ICU. It was more interesting than sitting looking at Patrick who was, to say the least, not very good company at this time.
She was knitting herself a jumper, a bright red and green baggy jumper for the winter. It was double knit so it would wash well, and be exceptionally warm. As Eve grew older she found the cold less and less bearable - not like Lizzy her granddaughter who would traipse out in six feet of snow in open-toed sandals!
Eve smiled at the thought, and stood up. Her legs were cramping - another sign of old age.
She walked stiffly out of the ward and down to the tea machine. As she put in her money, she saw the young doctor again, only this time he had taken off his white jacket and was talking loudly on a mobile phone. Eve could see signs everywhere asking people to turn off their phones because of the machinery in ICU.
‘All right, mate, I’m on me way. Stop worrying, for fuck’s sake. It’s sorted.’ The voice was all wrong. Everything about him was all wrong. Eve realised he didn’t recognise her from Patrick’s room, and for the first time in years didn’t curse the anonymity she seemed to have taken on with old age. Hurrying back to the ward she went up to the main desk where a lovely young woman was sitting going through the files.
‘Are you a doctor?’
The girl nodded. She was a student but didn’t like to admit that unless she had to.
‘Can you come and look at my son-in-law, please? He’s desperately ill and I think someone has put the wrong bag on his drip.’
Even as Eve spoke she knew it sounded lame, but the fear in her voice communicated itself.
The student followed her down to Patrick’s room. She checked the drip and then read his notes. Then she looked at Eve and walked quickly from the room.
Two minutes later there were three nurses and a registrar standing round the bed and pandemonium broke out.
Eve went out to the phone booth outside the ward and phoned Kate. She was sweating with fear, and relief. Then she saw Grace marching towards her and sighed. This was all they needed now with everything else that was going on.
Willy lay on the Z-bed half as
leep. He was tired and disorientated from lack of rest and worry. They wouldn’t tell him about Patrick, or about anything else for that matter. They just asked him over and over about Girlie Girls and what Patrick had done with their money.
It was getting physical now. They were continually torturing him in small ways. The cigarette burns on his arms and thighs were sore, but nothing Willy couldn’t handle. He knew the next stage would be around his eyes and though he didn’t relish the idea, he would have to swallow it. There wasn’t anything else he could do.
Getting up carefully, he tried to count again but it was getting more and more difficult to concentrate. From feeding him and being polite they had turned to this. It was no more than he had expected, but he was getting older, and it was harder to take.
He decided that if he got out of this alive he was going to retire. Leave all this to the younger chaps. He’d had quite enough.
As the door opened Willy braced himself. He had only one thought in his head as they walked towards him with vodka for his burns - it made them smart like fuck - a large pack of Marlboro Lights and this time a small blow torch, the kind chefs used on cooking programmes to caramelise things.
Willy closed his eyes in distress and told himself: here we go again!
Kate was on her way to the hospital when she was waylaid by Leila. As she unlocked her car, she saw the pathologist running daintily across the car park towards her.
‘What is it, Leila? I must rush.’ Her voice was sharp and this was not lost on her friend.
‘Everything OK?’
Kate shook her head. ‘I haven’t time to explain, so can you be quick? I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Well, I think I’ve finally got the name of the boy on the dump.’ She saw Kate’s interest and went on: ‘A woman, or girl actually, was found dead in Hartle, the next village along. She’d been dead a while. I think it’s her son. She’d obviously dumped him then overdosed on heroin. I’m matching the DNA, but I’m pretty sure it will be him. It seems a smell was coming from her flat and eventually someone got the police. She had died leaning against a radiator, so every time the heating came on she burned that bit more. Maggot-ridden and stinking . . . what a way to go. She was twenty-three. Tragic, but at least we can rule him out now. It looks like she dumped him in a bin van then topped herself.’
Kate was nonplussed. ‘So another young mum just decided to kill her kid out of the blue? This is getting weirder by the bloody day.’
Leila shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Sign of the times, perhaps? I don’t know. At least we know who he is. He can be buried now. If we ever find the rest of him, that is.’
‘Did she have any family, the girl?’
Leila nodded. ‘Oh yeah, the youngest of six. Seems they gave her a wide berth.’
‘Which means the child was abandoned, too, I take it. Poor little sod.’
Leila looked into Kate’s eyes and said gently, ‘At least we can close this one.’
As she opened the car door Kate had a thought. ‘Was this girl under Social Services, by any chance?’
‘I assume so,’ Leila said. ‘As a registered addict, she must have been. Why?’
‘Do me a favour and see if you can locate a picture of the child from somewhere - see if there’s a file on him.’
‘OK. I have to have a photo anyway. The police in Hartle are trying to locate one now. Are you thinking what I’m thinking then?’
Kate didn’t answer, just waved and got into her car. Leila watched as she drove away at speed and wondered what was going to be the upshot of these cases. Perhaps the boy on the dump had been used in paedophile photographs as well. It seemed that was the direction Kate’s mind was going on this and Leila wouldn’t be surprised to find it was true. She wouldn’t be surprised by anything any more. Like Jenny said, an addict would sell anything, literally anything, for heroin. Their own flesh and blood included.
Depressed now, she walked slowly back inside the concrete building. Why the hell did they have these kids if they didn’t really want them?
It was something many people wondered on a daily basis.
Patrick had been given a large dose of morphine in the drip bag, enough to kill him, but thanks to Eve it had been removed before there was time for it to do any permanent damage.
Kate looked down at him, thinking how vulnerable he was, and how much he would hate to be like this. It was as well he didn’t know.
She stifled a yawn with her hand. She was tired, so tired. Taking his hand, she stroked it gently, feeling the familiar sensation of the fine hairs on the back of it and almost weeping.
A shadow passed over the bed and she looked round to see a strange little woman staring down at Patrick.
‘Can I help you?’
The woman smiled. ‘I’m Maya, an old friend of Pat’s. You must be Kate?’
She nodded and held out her hand. The little woman took it and her grip was surprisingly firm.
‘How is he?’
‘Not too good. But he’ll get over it, I’m sure of that.’
The other woman heard the longing in Kate’s voice and patted her arm reassuringly. ‘He’s hard inside. Always has been harder than anyone realised. Not that he hasn’t good heart, he has that too. He’ll get over this if it’s humanly possible.’
Maya sat down heavily on a plastic chair, her short legs barely reaching the floor.
‘I remember him when he was an up and coming villain.’ She grinned. ‘He was a nice kid. I’ve known his family for years. Where is Grace, by the way? I expected to see her here standing guard over him.’
‘To be honest, if I’m here she goes off and only comes back when I’m gone.’
‘No change there then?’ Maya chuckled. ‘Renée, his wife, used to love winding her up. She was never jealous of Grace and her possessiveness over Patrick. But then, I think she guessed.’
Kate looked at her with interest. ‘Guessed what?’
Maya looked at the man lying so still in the bed as she spoke.
‘That Grace was his mother, of course. She was fifteen when he was born and so like most families did in those days, Patrick’s grandmother took him on.’
Kate was staring at her in complete and utter disbelief. ‘Is this just gossip?’
‘Could be, but a lot of people believe it,’ Maya told her. ‘I heard it many years ago after his mother died. He was devastated. Adored her. But that was when I was first told she wasn’t in fact his mother, but his grandmother. I never asked him - well, you don’t, do you? I don’t know if he ever knew or guessed, but she was a girl, old Grace. So was Violet. Both of them on the bash down at the docks. Haven’t you ever wondered about the age difference between him and his sisters?’
Kate didn’t answer. If what the other woman said was true, and Pat had known, then he’d kept it from her. This knowledge cut her to the quick. And all the time at the back of her mind a small voice was asking her what else Patrick had decided she wasn’t fit to know.
Just then Benjamin Boarder walked in with another large black man.
‘All right, Maya? Long time no see.’ He looked at Kate. ‘This is Everton and he is going to look out for Patrick for a while, OK?’
Maya frowned. ‘He needs a minder then? What’s he been up to?’
Benjamin grinned easily. ‘You are bad-minded, Maya. This is what we’d do for anyone like Pat, love. Everton’s a gofer really for whoever else is here. Tea, coffee, a sandwich. No big deal. It’s just a friendly gesture.’
Maya smiled, but she wasn’t convinced. She looked down at Patrick again, her mouth a grim line. Her guttural voice was sad as she said, ‘Poor Patrick, he would hate to be like this. Any strong person would.’
Benjamin steered Kate over to the door.
‘I was shitting it, Kate. I heard they were trying to arrange police protection for him, and that’s the last thing he needs. Make sure the idea is dropped and soon, OK? Patrick needs to be looked after by people who know the score and ain’t in
the pay of anyone we don’t know.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll talk to Ratchette. But I’m warning you, Ben, this is getting harder and harder by the day for me. Why doesn’t that Russian bastard show his hand?’
He hugged her to him. ‘I know, mate, but at least we have a common goal - Patrick’s best interests.’
He stared down at her white strained face. ‘I have had the house in Rettenden watched. Not a soul has turned up there. Not a thing has happened. They are clever, very clever.’
They were quiet for a moment then Benjamin said, ‘You need a long sleep and a good meal.’
She smiled sadly and said in a low voice full of emotion, ‘I need a lot of things I can’t have, love. Patrick Kelly being one of them.’
‘It will all work out, Kate, I promise.’
He tried to sound more convinced than he felt. He liked this woman a lot. She had balls. Old Bill or no Old Bill Kate Burrows was all right. He wouldn’t mind her batting on his team if he was in the shit, he knew that much.
Not forgetting that there was a chance that she might be able to do him a favour in the future.
A man had to look at all the angles.
Especially in his line of business.
Colin looked out of the window of the Portakabin and saw a large white van pull up outside the yard. The dogs automatically ran to the gate barking and he admired them from his vantage point. They were magnificent animals. They scared people and they were noisy, everything a good guard dog should be. They were trained to attack, but only on command. He knew the folly of not training a dog well, something stupid people only found out at their own cost.
Most dogs will turn on an owner, acknowledged fact. Shepherds were notorious for it. But he knew that if you loved a dog, and never, ever abused it, you had a friend for life. Colin loved his animals and he never abused them. Consequently they adored him and afforded him a lucrative living.
