The Runaway

by Martina Cole

  She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Get him out of here, Mum.’

  Ron, drunk and on his dignity, bellowed, ‘ “Get him out of here”? Are you talking about me, young lady? Only if you are, I’ll have you know that I put the fucking roof over your head these days, and it would do you no harm to remember that.’

  Stepping towards the bed, he poked Cathy in the chest as he ranted: ‘I took your mother off the streets and turned her into a real professional. No one talks to me like that, especially not a jumped-up little girl who should keep her big trap shut and her snotty nose to herself!’

  Standing up, Madge bolstered her chest with one meaty forearm and said, ‘Are you quite finished?’ Her voice was quiet, dignified and calm. A sure sign to Cathy that her mother was ready to explode at any moment.

  Ron, on the other hand, unaware of Madge’s little ways, carried on regardless. ‘No, I ain’t fucking finished. When I am you’ll be the first to know, all right? Now get your arse in that front room and pour me a drink.’

  Cathy watched wide-eyed as her mother figured out whether she was going to kill him or kiss him.

  To Cathy’s horror, kissing won.

  Taking Ron’s arm, she pulled him from the room, cajoling him with a merry voice as she cried: ‘Come on then, let’s get a nice drink down our gregorys, and then we can all have a laugh, eh?’

  Ron, stretching himself to his full height, smiled benignly at her and allowed himself to be removed from Cathy’s room. Over her shoulder Madge winked at her daughter before rolling heavily painted eyes at the ceiling.

  Lying down again, Cathy wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. If this was how her life was always going to be, maybe it wasn’t worth the effort.

  Ron, full of drink and bravado, began baiting Madge in the lounge next door.

  ‘You treat her like a fucking china doll. She should be out grafting, bringing in a few bob. With her hair and eyes, she’d earn a fortune. A bleeding fortune.’ His voice was low now as he contemplated the vast sums of money to be earned off that little girl with her huge blue eyes and thick blonde hair. He wouldn’t be averse to breaking her in himself; unless that toerag Docherty had got there first, of course. The thought annoyed him.

  Pouring Ron a large Scotch, Madge closed her eyes tightly. Ron’s eyes had strayed a few times towards her daughter’s burgeoning charms and she had ignored it. Now, though, he was putting it into words, saying it out loud, and Madge was not happy about it.

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Ron.’ The steely tone was back in Madge’s voice. There was a coldness, a hardness, she could project in her voice, and anyone who knew her well always dropped the subject that had upset her. Madge with a drink taken could be a lunatic. Like most whores, she harboured grudges and gave vent to them every now and again. When she did, her outbursts were of Olympian standards.

  ‘Leave it out, Ron,’ she warned him now. ‘The girl was upset. At the end of the day, she’s still my kid.’

  He snorted derisively through his long beaked nose. ‘Pity you don’t think of that when she’s walking around like a replica whore. All that make-up on, those little tits pressing against her clothes . . . She’s her mother’s fucking daughter all right.’

  Madge looked at the man beside her, seeing the thinning hair, the moist mouth and slack lips, those grimy fingernails. Without a second’s thought she threw her drink in his face.

  ‘How dare you? How dare you talk about my child like that? I might not be an ideal mother, I know that, but she’s still my baby. My flesh and blood. No one speaks about my kid like that. No one, do you hear me?’

  She pressed her face to his and screamed into it: ‘You jumped-up pox doctor’s clerk! Look at you - take a fucking good butcher’s hook, mate. You’re a piece of shit. You and all your cronies, you’re scared of your own shadow. You’re a coward, mate, a twenty-two-carat coward. Now you want my girl, do you? You want my baby. Putting me on the game ain’t enough. You want the two of us whoring for you, do you? Well, let me tell you, even if I did want her on the bash, I wouldn’t let you touch her with a barge pole. My girl is worth fifty . . . no, a hundred of you and all your ilk, mate. She’ll be somebody.’

  Laughing scornfully, she said to him then: ‘Who the fucking hell do you think you are, with your tin pot club and your one-inch cock? What use are you to any woman, eh? Even an old whore like me. At least Eamonn could get me going, mate, get me all loved up. You couldn’t turn on a fucking light switch!’

  Somewhere in Madge’s drink-fuddled brain she was aware that she was going too far. But the drink seemed to have triggered something inside her. All her anger and frustration came bubbling to the surface and Ron was the recipient of her hatred of herself, her life, and all the ugliness she’d had to endure.

  ‘A step up, your club?’ Her voice was a screech by now. ‘That’s a fucking laugh! I’ve had better punters down the docks, mate. And as for you - I’ve been fucked by four-foot sailors with more going for them than what you’ve got. That dinky little cock, and all your moaning and groaning and sweating . . . It makes me sick to my stomach to think of you. So now you fucking know.’

  Ron was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. He had never been spoken to like that by a whore. Especially not one of his own whores. He was enraged and his back slap to Madge’s face shocked them both. Then the real fight began.

  With her extra bulk, Madge was a formidable opponent. Grabbing at Ron’s hair, she dragged him unceremoniously off the settee, her heavy breasts straining with the exertion. She had fought men all her life, it was a part of her job, survival to her. This time, though, it was personal. It was an act of vengeance. Madge had been abused all her life; now this man wanted to abuse her child. She felt the white heat of anger and jealousy as it rose inside her. Felt the strength of her hatred of him, and of all men, overwhelm her. She dug her nails into his neck and spat into his eye.

  Looking blearily up into her face, Ron saw that the woman was completely out of control. The watery eyes, caked with mascara and blue eyeshadow, were positively manic. Madge had lost it. After years of being abused she was fighting back.

  Ron was every man who had roughed her up, every decent woman who had made a joke at her expense, every punter, good, bad or indifferent, who had contemptuously dropped money into her hand.

  Using the last of his strength, the man pushed her away with all his might, sending her careering across the room. She landed with a heavy thump against the far wall. As Ron got to his feet, she watched him warily, her heaving bulk trembling now from head to foot.

  ‘I’ll break your fucking neck, woman.’ As he advanced on her, both were unaware of Cathy standing in the doorway watching everything. She flew across the room and pulled frantically at Ron’s hair.

  ‘Leave me mum alone! Let her be. Go home, Ron, for Christ’s sake!’

  He shrugged her off without a thought.

  ‘Go home, man. My mum’s drunk and so are you. Come back in the morning.’ Cathy’s voice was high-pitched, terrified.

  The long-suffering Sullivans next door were once more banging on the walls for quiet. Used to noise and shouting, they didn’t take the situation seriously enough actually to do anything. Like battered wives, whores were to be ignored or at best tolerated. Such people were always left to their own devices. It was the way of the world.

  Ron began to beat Madge in a calm methodical way. Shock had given way to rage by then. As he began systematically to punish her, Madge crumpled to the floor. Curling up, she covered her head with her arms and let herself relax as all people used to violence learn to do. Blows are easily absorbed by a slack body; only the tensing of the muscles causes real pain. Madge was used to pain, she lived with it every day, took her life in her hands at work. A beating wasn’t such a big deal to her.

  Not so for Cathy, though. Picking up the breadknife from the table, she stood beside Ron, beseeching him to stop hurting her mother. She could see Madge’s body taking the blows and as Ron
’s anger was almost spent, he drew back his leg for a final kick.

  It was when he did this that Cathy plunged the knife into his neck. It was a reflex action. She just wanted him to stop hurting her mother.

  The girl watched in horror as his skin opened, inch by inch. It was like a slow-motion picture. She looked dumbly at the knife in her hand, realising for the first time what she had done. Ron, bewildered now, looked at the girl in front of him and registered her huge terrified eyes and trembling hand as he fell heavily to his knees, his hand to his neck.

  After what seemed the longest time blood began to pulse from the jagged wound. His carotid artery sent dark red jets two feet into the air. His hands were covered within seconds. With every beat of his rapidly failing heart more blood was pumped out of his body. It was only when Cathy was sprayed with its warm rankness that she began to scream.

  The sound seemed to be coming from someone else and the volume was overwhelming in the small room.

  Madge watched her lover die and finally, after what seemed an age, she started screaming too.

  DI Richard Gates pushed roughly through the small crowd in the hallway and bellowed: ‘All right, all right, had your look? Now move outside, and please be quiet. We’ll take statements later from all of you.’

  He was hustling them out of the doorway as DC Fuller walked into the Connors’ flat. Two bobbies were stationed outside the door to keep onlookers at bay as Gates, smoothing down his thinning hair, walked into the small lounge.

  The carnage that met his eyes was unbelievable.

  ‘Fucking hell! What happened here?’ The words were out of his mouth as soon as they entered his mind.

  The blood-splattered walls ran crimson, and the slender girl before him seemed to be soaked through with blood. The deep red stain on her white nightdress looked obscene somehow. She held a knife. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he walked towards her and took it from her gently.

  A pair of terrified blue eyes looked into his beseechingly. Against his better judgement, the policeman wanted to take the suspect into his arms and comfort her. Instead, placing the knife on the table, he looked around him once more.

  ‘All right, Madge. What’s happened here then?’

  ‘Please, Mum.’ The girl’s voice was thread-like, the note of pleading in it audible to everyone. Gates sighed heavily. He had known Madge for years, from his beat days. Now, at twenty-nine, he was the youngest DI in the East End, and had cut his teeth running in the likes of Madge and her cronies. They had a sort of hostile friendship, one that was mutually beneficial at times. Whores were natural born grasses, and always ready to cover their own arse. Gates smiled grimly at her.

  ‘What’s he then?’ He poked Ron’s corpse with his foot. ‘Not a punter, surely? Pimp? I know Ronnie was a worker.’

  DC Fuller said snidely, ‘He won’t be working any more, will he?’

  The smirk on his face set the tone for the night. It was an old whore’s problem. The dead man was a piece of scum. They would wrap it up quickly and go home. It was already cut and dried. No one respectable, so no one to worry about, and apart from all that blood, no different from most other East End murders. Knives were the order of the day, unless you had poke and could afford a gun.

  Cathy stood as still as a statue, the shaking of her legs visible to everyone in the room.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, love?’

  Gates’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. Taking her arm, he led her to the sofa and lowered her on to it. He went into a bedroom and brought back a heavy coat from the bed, draping it around her.

  ‘She’s in shock, and I ain’t fucking surprised. Poor little mare.’

  Cathy was sobbing now. The unexpected display of kindness had opened up the floodgates of emotion once more.

  ‘She stabbed him.’ Madge pointed at her daughter with a trembling hand.

  Gates looked at her in disgust.

  ‘It’s true, Mr Gates. We was fighting and she came out and somehow he ended up dead. She’s always had a temper, little mare! You couldn’t control her half the time . . . She picked up the knife and the next thing I knew he was stabbed. I don’t think she did it deliberately, she was trying to help me, like.’

  ‘Sling them in the motor, Bernie. Forensics are here. We’ll sort this out down the station.’ As Madge walked from the room, Gates whispered to her: ‘You’re a real bitch, Madge, do you know that? Your sort never change. You bring scum into your home with a teenage girl there . . .’ His voice trailed off in contempt.

  Madge dropped her head in shame.

  ‘Get in the car, whore, and think on what you just said.’ His voice was low, tired-sounding, disgusted.

  He picked Cathy up effortlessly and carried her down the stairs, placing her in the front seat of the car as the neighbours stared at them with ghoulish interest. The blood soaking Cathy was very noticeable and Mrs Sullivan, a kind woman at heart, pushed her eldest son in the chest and said quietly: ‘Away round to the Irishman’s house. Tell him what’s happened and say Cathy needs him.’

  Then, gathering her own brood around her, she herded them once more up the stairs and out of the coldness of the night.

  Inside the police station, Cathy was given hot sweet tea and wrapped in a blanket. Her hair was sticky with blood and fingers stained brown with it. Gates came into the cell they had placed her in carrying a bowl of warm water and washed her gently.

  She stared at the man all the while, saying nothing. To her he looked frightening, with his large round face and piercing blue eyes. Usually he had a friendly expression that onlookers found engaging; only now, with his anger carefully suppressed, did he look formidable and frightening. Cathy mistakenly thought the anger was directed at her, his gentle ministrations notwithstanding.

  A large man, with thinning blond hair and huge biceps, he was an unknown quantity to her. His large belly jutted before him and Cathy could feel the warmth of it through the blanket. When his heavy hand came out to wipe her face, she flinched involuntarily.

  Gates stared down at the frail teenager and sighed heavily. This girl had struck a chord in him somewhere. He knew Madge, knew the problems of whores and their children, and though he would never have admitted it out loud in a million years, sympathised with Cathy Connor. Madge was going to leave her high and dry, and he knew what lay in store for the young girl then. At nearly fourteen she would be detained indefinitely at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, a thought that made him rage inside himself.

  People like Madge had nothing in their minds but themselves. Unlike most whores, who sold themselves for their children, Madge was the one in a million who actually liked what she did; revelled in it even. Now she would let her child take the consequences of her own lifestyle without a second’s thought.

  ‘Cathy?’ Gates’s voice was quiet, low, his most distinctive feature. ‘Come on, love. Tell me what happened and we’ll see if we can sort it all out, eh?’ Putting one heavy arm around her thin shoulders, he pulled her roughly against him, her head cradled on his barrel chest.

  ‘Cry - that’s right,’ he said, seeing the big fat tears rolling down her face. ‘Let it all out, and then we’ll have a chat and see what can be made out of this mess.’

  He held Cathy until she fell asleep, and then carefully laid her on the bed, putting a pillow under her head and covering her with a blanket. Fuller, watching through the spyhole, was struck dumb with amazement.

  Madge looked demented: her hair was wild, her make-up streaked all over her fat face. Her cheeks were swollen and blotched red from crying - over her own situation though, not Ron’s death. Sitting on the narrow cot in her cell, she stared at the pale yellow walls covered in graffiti and felt the tears flow once more.

  What was she going to do?

  The question had been hammering in her brain for the last few hours. Other than being given a cup of tea and a few cigarettes, she had had no contact with anyone at all. Restlessly, she sat herself up and tried to tidy her hair. All t
he time she was scheming. Inside herself she knew she should be protecting her daughter, but the fact was she had looked out for number one all her life and couldn’t stop now.

  Madge could not do time. Adult time. The few occasions she had been banged up in Holloway as a teenage delinquent had been an education, and Madge, knowing what lay in store, couldn’t bear to face more time inside.

  A long time inside at that.

  Life.

  She convinced herself once more that Cathy was young, would be out in no time and would cope quite adequately. Whereas she herself, the wrong side of forty and used to being outside, couldn’t.

  Anyway, Cathy had wielded the knife.

  Cathy had stabbed Ron.

  Cathy was quite old enough to take the consequences of her own actions.

  But a glimmer of shame deep within her could not be ignored. Getting up, she paced the cell. Her heart was beating a tattoo inside her chest and her breath was coming in heavy gasps. Fear had taken hold of her and she knew it. She could taste it inside her mouth and it was bitter.

  Gates watched his superior officer, DCI Bannister, with a resigned expression on his face. Bannister was of the old school. Find a suspect and nail them, was his philosophy.

  The airless room was making both men testy, and Bannister, watching his DI in turn, smothered a small impulse of dislike.

  Since Gates had come into his life he had for the first time found himself at a loss. This man looked more like a criminal than a policeman with his hair cropped close to his large balding head, his bull neck and hard blue eyes. Gates also had a strange philosophy of life, made apparent by his obvious kinship with many of the criminals he dealt with.

  Being born in the East End, he had taken a circuitous route to respectability. His father had been a pub landlord who had, in his day, entertained some of the leading criminals of his era. DI Richard Gates was an anomaly to everyone who met him, and knowing this, he played on it relentlessly. His soft voice struck terror into the hearts of his men and criminals alike. With his brawny arms and big belly, he could look amiable one day and menacing the next.