by Martina Cole
‘I’ll get it all to you tomorrow, OK? Can you see yourself out?’
He sounded distracted, looked harassed now and drained. Kate felt an enormous liking for this dutiful son and pity for his plight.
‘Of course, Mr Bateman.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, would you call me Rob? I feel like an elderly neighbour when you call me Mr Bateman!’ Then he rushed upstairs.
Kate placed her glass in the kitchen sink and glanced around her at the chaos of someone else’s life. As she walked through the hall on her way to the front door she could hear him talking loudly, as if speaking to a child, and her heart went out to him. She shut the door behind her, thanking God her mother was still hale and hearty at seventy years old.
It occurred to her that, like Robert Bateman, she might one day be left with someone completely dependent on her. It was a sobering thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bernice was pretty in a childish way. At twenty-one she looked about fifteen and she knew it. As the man approached her she grinned coquettishly. For a split second she thought she had a punter, a live one, which would have been handy for her. She had had a shit shift that day. But she recognised this man and he never paid for sex. Arm in arm, they walked along the darkened road.
Inside her flat she pulled off her coat and put on the kettle. As she made the coffee she lit a small half joint, bemoaning the fact that she had no puff left. Lately there’d been a dearth of good grass, and all she could get was poor quality solid. Bernice was a grass smoker, preferred its lift to the stoned nonchalance of black.
Pouring a hefty measure of vodka into her coffee, she carried the two mugs back into the lounge. Her friend was sitting on the sofa with her little boy on his lap. He was telling him a story and as she watched the tableau she felt a moment’s sorrow that her son had never had a father figure to look up to.
She wished she had had one herself. Her mother said once that her father was a nice man with nice eyes, but she was fucked if she could remember his name. All her numerous brothers and sisters had different fathers so it didn’t matter too much. At least that is what she had told herself all her life.
She was still speeding and she hoped the joint would bring her back down; if it didn’t, she would have to ask a neighbour for a couple of Valium.
‘Good night’s work?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing spectacular, a couple of wanks. The parlour is shit these days. I’m thinking of going up the City. Suzy reckons I could earn much more and work less hours. All the City gents are after a quick flash before they go home to the legal. I don’t know though, the travelling is the pain, ain’t it?’
The man nodded in sympathy. Then: ‘Don’t you ever tidy up? Shall I phone the council and get them to drop off a skip?’
She laughed uproariously at his wit. ‘It is a bit of a shit hole, ain’t it? But I can’t be bothered with it any more.’ She ran her hands through her cropped hair. ‘Mind you, I never could be bothered, could I?’
The man laughed with her. ‘Bet you was a slut even when you were a girl, weren’t you?’ Now his voice was cold, hard.
The girl looked at him in complete outrage. The last thing she needed tonight was this visitor jumping on his high horse.
‘How dare you? If you just want to give me a hard time then you can piss off. I can get that fucking anywhere.’ She was hurting and it showed. Her tiny heart-shaped face wore a frown, making her look her age for once. Her eyes, a deep brown, were full of anger.
She looked at the man before her and said contemptuously, ‘What is it with you lately? One minute you’re all sweetness and light and the next you’re a right arsehole. Well, listen to me, mate, I don’t fucking need this shit from you or anyone else.’
She was standing now. Her short skirt had ridden up and exposed her pale thighs. By the harsh light of the naked bulb the cellulite was glaringly visible. Her high heels were worn down at the sides so she rolled her ankles to compensate and her tiny breasts were quivering with annoyance under a bright orange crop top.
‘You’re no different from the punters, mate. You think you know it all, just like them. Well, you bleeding well don’t. I know what you want - a blow job. That’s what you always want. Well, you can piss off. The freebies stop here.’
She was angry.
A night of strange men demanding outlandish favours and arguing over payment had taken its toll. The speed had made her paranoid and she had argued with another of the girls, coming off worst to the amusement of the onlookers. It had rankled. Tina was only seventeen and already a loud-mouthed slut who had gradually taken over as the wit of the massage parlour, a position that had been Bernice’s until recently. She was not a happy bunny and hearing her degradation exposed by the man sitting opposite her was the last straw.
‘I mean, what makes you think you’re so great anyway?’
She was glaring at him, her eyes deep pools of annoyance and uncertainty. Her son was cuddling into the man, obviously frightened of her, and somewhere in her drug-crazed brain she knew she was over-reacting. Going too far. She should be used to abuse by now. The punters handed out enough, God knows.
Picking up her son, Mikey, she tried to comfort him. As she held him close and whispered soothing words in his ear he pushed her away, his strong little hands making her aware in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing to do with her.
Which only induced more anger in her already muddled brain. She dropped him unceremoniously on to the chair she had just vacated.
‘You little fucker!’
The man was grinning at her.
‘Temper, temper, Bernice. You left him alone this evening as usual. Now all he needs is for you to have one of your tantrums.’
The child was staring at her with a mixture of fear and undisguised dislike. She was so wasted from the drugs and the drink and the nagging sense of failure that had dogged her young life that she felt a sudden urge to kill him.
It was irrational, she knew, but everything was too much for her lately. Her job was getting her down, no one to tell her what to do or praise her when she did something right. Although, as she reasoned in her darker moments, how often did that happen? She was too busy earning enough to keep herself so out of it she had to ask what day it was.
Bernice suddenly felt an overwhelming need to cry. Everything about her life was crap, complete crap, and now someone she’d regarded as a friend was telling her so to her face. Telling her something she tried to hide from herself with yet more drink and drugs.
Mikey was walking to his bedroom, his little body in its Postman Pat pyjamas looking so small and vulnerable she wanted to pick him up and comfort him. But she knew it was too late for that. At three years old he had well and truly sussed her out. Everyone did eventually, why should Mikey be any different?
‘Out, you. I want you out now.’
The man was lounging back on her sofa, long legs stretched out in front of him, seemingly quite at ease. Then he stood up and put out one big hand to ruffle her hair.
‘Calm yourself down, girl, I was only joking. Winding you up.’
She smiled uncertainly. Hoping it was true. He was the only friend she had.
‘You are a cunt!’ she said, almost affectionately.
When the knife slid into her belly she thought at first she had been bitten by something. It was only when he repeated the action that she realised he had stabbed her. She dropped to her knees, her face a picture of shock. She pressed her hands over the wounds and watched the deep red blood running through her fingers.
He looked down at her, his face blank.
‘I never really liked you, Bernice. Why would I? You are a fucking whore, like all the others. I only befriended you so I could observe you at close quarters. Marvel at the inborn ignorance that put you on the game. I knew I would do something to you at some point, but I wasn’t sure when. That’s always the hard one, don’t you think? When should you do something? When will you get the appropriat
e response to your carefully thought out actions?’
She was doubled over in pain as he brought the knife down again, this time between her shoulder blades. She slumped forward and he knew she was dead.
He sat and stared at her for a few moments. Then he wiped his hands across his face as if he had just woken from a short nap and started to weep. It was a cold, lonely sound.
Mikey could hear it as he watched late-night erotica on the colour portable in his bedroom.
He ignored it.
His mother cried all the time; it was a safe sound to him - it meant that someone was in for a change.
That he wasn’t alone.
Kate was alone with Patrick, who looked better. His face seemed to have some colour in it and as he lay there he looked so heart-wrenchingly handsome it took all her will-power not to kiss him over and over.
How many times had she watched him sleep? Especially when they were first together. She had never quite been able to believe that she had captured such a prime specimen of manhood.
He had reached her on every level, and that had been frightening at first because after Dan she had sworn never to let herself go again. Always to keep a small part of herself back. With Patrick that had been an impossibility. Murderer, whoremaster, she didn’t care. She could forgive him anything.
Was that how his Renée had felt about him? It must have been, Kate decided. He had been faithful to them both in turn, she was as sure of that as she was of her own name. He had been lucky enough to find two loves in his lifetime.
She only hoped that lifetime wasn’t over.
A noise outside caused her to look quickly towards the doorway. Her mother had told her of the strange man’s visit and it had bothered her. But she consoled herself with the fact that if Boris had intended any harm, he had had ample opportunity to inflict it and hadn’t done so. She would go and see him at the first opportunity, Kate decided. See if they couldn’t sort something out.
She had had a call from Jenny saying that an old friend had told her that Patrick was going to be charged with Tommy Broughton’s murder if he regained consciousness. But Kate had guessed that one for herself.
She shuffled in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She had been sitting by the bed for over three hours and now it was coming up to midnight she knew that she should make a move.
But she couldn’t. After putting off the visit, now she was here beside him it was like being asked to leave a newborn child with strangers. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She pressed her lips to his fingers and was astounded to feel him grip her hand. She nearly snatched it away in fright. Then, looking at his face, she saw that his eyes were open. Patrick was staring at her but it was a blank stare.
He closed his eyes again and made a guttural sound in his throat. For a second she wasn’t sure if she had imagined it. Had wanted it so badly she had hallucinated it.
Now he was quiet again, his eyes closed and his breathing regular. Kate pressed the buzzer to call a nurse. She was praying that he was on the mend. Somewhere at the back of her mind she knew she was here for the night now. She couldn’t go home and leave him after this.
She slipped off her shoes and settled herself more comfortably in the chair. If he did come out of it all, she would more than likely have to visit him on remand until he was sentenced on a murder charge. That’s if they could make it stick. She had already lied for him once. She wondered what they would make of her part in it all. She would lie again, on oath if necessary, she knew that as well as she knew her own name.
She would protect him as he would have protected her in the same situation.
As a nurse came into the room Kate stood up to greet her, an uncertain smile on her face. ‘I think he squeezed my hand.’
The nurse nodded and went to adjust a machine by his bed.
‘Don’t get too excited,’ she said quietly. ‘It could just be reflex.’
Kate nodded, but inside she was already convincing herself he was on the mend. Willing him to wake up and recognise her.
If the power of thought was as strong as it was reputed to be, then Patrick Kelly would be up and about in no time.
Jacky and Joey were on their last legs. Willy knew that and the fact didn’t bother him one iota. As far as he was concerned, he was just paying them back. Not for himself but for Patrick.
When Boris came into the cellar Willy was scared, but didn’t show it in any way. He was expecting to be finished off and was hoping they would do it cleanly. He’d had plenty of time to think over the last few weeks, and he regretted only one thing. He should have got himself a woman sooner than this and had a few kids. It was what male and female were put on this earth for: to procreate. To make children and give them the best that life could offer. Not necessarily money or worldly things but a lust for life coupled with a sense of decency. Of wanting to live as one with the rest of the world.
If he had not taken the path he had chosen, he would not have ended up in a cold cellar, tortured, beaten and waiting to die. Praying it would be quick.
It was a waste though. All those years he had been grateful to Patrick Kelly for giving him part of his life, allowing him to share his daughter, when Willy should have had a daughter of his own. Should have had someone else to care for, to work for. To cherish. How many times had Patrick told him to get himself a decent bird over the years? To go out and get a real life.
Willy was disappointed in himself.
If they topped him now at least he would die in the knowledge that life was of your own making. People only did to you what you let them do. How many times had his mother said that to him as a kid? Too many. In the end he had exasperated her with his lifestyle and his wild ways. But it had taken all this to make him see what had been staring him in the face since he was a boy.
Everyone needed someone.
Shyness with women had always been his downfall. Now he had someone, and he loved her. Maureen was a sort, bless her. But she was a good sort and at the end of the day what did it matter what she had done in the past? It was the past that made you the person you were now. Maureen had been round the turf more times than Red Rum, but that was her prerogative. She was grown up and had lived by her own lights. She had had a few knocks, was battered round the edges, but she had genuinely cared for Willy and he had felt cared for.
Had felt wanted.
For once in his life he had been half of a couple and it had felt good. He had been comfortable with Maureen. Liked her conversation, even her irascible temper. She had made him laugh, really laugh, and he had enjoyed that.
Now that he had finally sussed out what it was all about, Boris was standing in front of him with a gun and a smile. Willy decided to take whatever came with good grace. There wasn’t much else he could do.
‘You did well, Mr Gabney.’
Willy didn’t answer him. He could feel the cold now, it was seeping into his bones. He wasn’t sure if it was fear or the dampness of the cellar.
‘So Mr Kelly was innocent all along - but he was losing his edge. Once that goes, vultures like our two friends here are quick to take advantage.’
Willy shrugged. ‘Pat trusted Tommy. Had no reason not to.’
Boris nodded. ‘I suppose not. I am sorry for the attempt on his life - I am sure he will understand it was just business. He would have done the same in my shoes.’
‘If Patrick had ordered a contract it would have been carried out properly, you can take that as gospel. He never suffered fools gladly and there’d have been no half measures with an order of his.’
Boris smiled at the far from subtle put-down. He was not insulted, merely amused. Old-style villains like Gabney were dying out. The real money nowadays was in drugs and the older faces tended to steer clear of that fiercely competitive market. The Russians were not so choosy.
Boris jerked his head at the two men on the floor. ‘Why didn’t you kill them?’
Willy shrugged. ‘To be honest, mate, I couldn�
�t be arsed. They’re your prisoners, like I am. I think the ball is in your court at the moment, don’t you?’
Boris squatted down and placed the gun by the side of Jacky’s head. He pulled the trigger. Brains and blood showered over Joey who had opened his eyes and was now in a state of catatonic shock as he looked into Boris’s calm smiling face. After a few seconds he shot Joey, too.
He threw the gun on to the Z-bed and adjusted the immaculate lines of his Armani suit.
‘Can we drop you off anywhere, Mr Gabney, or would you prefer us to call you a cab?’
Benjamin Boarder was outside the hospital. He had been watching Kate since Jacky and Joey’s abduction. He knew who had them and he also knew that the chances were, Boris the Russian would be back at some point.
Benjamin owed everything he had to Patrick Kelly, who had given him his first few quid to start up a debt-collecting operation. He had been nineteen years old then and full of bravado and pride. Patrick had liked him, and after an introduction by a known face, had given him five grand to buy a debt. Benjamin had collected it from a well-known Welsh dog breeder and lunatic and his reputation had been set.
He had met his wife, a tiny redhead with a quirky sense of humour, in a night club when he was bouncing to earn extra money. She had been a virgin, which had been a shock in itself. Another shock was her family’s ready acceptance of this large half-caste man who obviously adored their daughter Chantel.
Seven children later he had never looked at another woman and didn’t want to. He still wanted to touch her every second of the day, still found her exciting. Before Chantel he shagged anything that moved and was remotely fuckable. Since Chantel other women had ceased to exist for him.
He had seven fabulous kids and a blinding house, a big car and plenty of money - if not in the bank at least in holdalls hidden throughout the South East. He had left a letter for Chantel telling her where all the money was hidden in case it went pear-shaped.
