Goodnight Lady

by Martina Cole

  Limmington straightened his clothes and knelt on the floor. He pushed back Daniel’s hair from his face and, taking a hankie from his pocket, wiped his face and nose.

  ‘Come on, son, calm yourself down. We’re very, very sorry.’

  PC Dawson looked at Limmington and felt an enormous surge of respect.

  ‘Don’t bother putting this in any of the statements. He reacted as any of us would have under the same circumstances. I’ll ring for the quack, get him a shot. He ain’t in any condition to be questioned. What we have to say to him will keep.’

  With that he stood up and left the room, his jacket still crumpled up and his eye beginning to swell.

  Outside Briony and Tommy sat in the waiting room. Briony was cold inside. It was a strange feeling. As if something inside her had died along with Boysie.

  Tommy held her gently, his arm around her shoulders protectively, his own face grey and mottled.

  All Briony could see in her mind’s eye was two little scraps of humanity lying in the bed with their gentle mother. A mother who would have loved them to distraction, and done a damn’ sight better job of raising them than the woman to whom she had entrusted them.

  Briony had identified Boysie’s remains, his wife being, in no condition to do the job herself. She had stood and stared down at the lifeless body of the man who had been a son to her. Who had been cared for and loved, oh yes, loved. She had always done that, even when they were at their worst.

  But she had never really had any control over them, she knew that now. They had always gone their own way, their combined personalities and resources making that inevitable.

  Now the upshot was one dead, one arrested for a bloody and senseless murder. Even with her own past, her own way of life, she could not find it in herself to condone, or indeed even understand, an act of such callousness and absolute lunacy as the twins had committed that night. They had barbarically murdered in cold blood, in front of witnesses, two men who were well known, albeit well disliked. To do something like that in public you had to be either mentally unstable or a lunatic of the first order. The twins, it seemed, had been both these things. Now Daniel at least would have to pay the price. She couldn’t hope to help him out of this.

  Even if she had wanted to.

  It was this that saddened her more than anything: she didn’t want to help Daniel. She guessed, shrewdly, that it had been his big idea to kill them in The Two Puddings in Stratford, in front of everyone. It had his mark of showmanship about it. Oh, that was Daniel’s way all right. It had been a calculated move by him, to guarantee total autonomy in the East End. To guarantee they would never be challenged again. Well, Boysie, God love him, was dead, Daniel had seen to that. Now Daniel would have to take the can.

  It amazed her how they had even dreamt they could get away with it. It was 1969, not the days of the Wild West. Daniel’s exceptional brain should have made him aware of that, but he had a kink in his nature, brought about by God knows what, that made him think they were invincible. And they had been, until that final act of folly.

  She pushed her face into Tommy’s coat, savouring the feel of him.

  Limmington watched them as he passed through the front of the station. He mistook Briony’s demeanour for sorrow at their getting caught; sorrow at losing her boys. He couldn’t have been more wrong if he had tried.

  It was sorrow all right, but sorrow tinged with guilt and wonderment. Like many a parent before her, she was wondering just where the hell she had gone wrong.

  Liselle looked at the headline on the front page of the Daily Mirror and felt a tightness in her chest: BLOODBATH IN EAST END. She saw a picture of the twins with an airbrushed rip so the photograph was in two ragged pieces. Her eyes scanned the page.

  Last night in Stratford two local businessmen were murdered in cold blood. Mr Peter Pargolis was shot twice with a sawn-off shotgun, in the stomach and the legs, and fatally wounded.

  David Mitchell was slaughtered with a long-bladed knife.

  The Cavanagh twins, Daniel and Dennis, were arrested for the two murders late last night after a major police operation. Dennis Cavanagh, better known as ‘Boysie’, died while attempting to evade police capture.

  Liselle closed her eyes tightly. She had heard nothing from her Aunt Briony about this, nothing at all. This fact hurt her, while at the same time she wondered uneasily how her mother would be affected by this catastrophe and the newspaper coverage of the family.

  Liselle leafed through the paper with trembling hands. Sure enough, there were pictures of her mother, herself and all the family, taken by the local Barking and Dagenham Post over the years.

  Emblazoned across the top of the centre pages was a large headline reading: GOODNIGHT LADY.

  Underneath was the story of Briony’s houses in London and Essex. A picture of Berwick Manor showed Briony and Kerry standing in the doorway, smiling. Liselle began to read again, taking in every word, her eyes seeking for her own name and her mother’s.

  The Cavanaghs were born in Barking where their mother Eileen died shortly after their birth and they were given over to the care of her sister, Briony Cavanagh. Briony was a celebrated madam who ran many establishments with her friend and associate Mariah Jurgens. Her career began nearly fifty years ago, her first house bought when she was just fifteen years old. She is a well-known figure around London’s East End, and is generally described as a fair and generous woman. Many of the people we interviewed, including her parish priest, had nothing but good to say about the Cavanagh family, the twins included.

  Kerry Cavanagh, sister of Eileen and Briony, is a well-known jazz singer who recently enjoyed a revival of her career when her recording of ‘Miss Otis Regrets’ was chosen to accompany a prestigious perfume advertisement.

  Less widely known is the fact that Kerry gave birth to an illegitimate child forty-three years ago, the father being the black pianist Evander Dorsey, who now owns the celebrated Jazz Club in New York.

  Liselle put her hands to her face. She wept as she looked at the photograph of $oysie, then, pulling herself together as best she could, she went to the telephone to ring her Auntie Bernadette. That’s where the family would be gathering. That’s where she and her mother would be expected to go.

  As always, the Cavanaghs felt better when they were all together. It was as if their strength could ward off any trouble.

  Only this time, it seemed to Liselle, the trouble was just too big, and too public.

  Delia was lying in bed, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. The knock at her front door made her heart stop in her chest. She was straight, completely straight, which was why her mind was going over and over the events of her cousin’s death. She was reminded of Jimmy. It brought it all back.

  She went to the front door and opened it, peering out through the gap allowed by her security chain. It was her mother. Taking the chain off she opened the door wide, allowing her mother in.

  Bernadette walked in the tiny flat and her face screwed up with distaste at the stench. She hadn’t brought Delia up to live like this! To live like a bloody hippy! She bit back the words that were in her mouth and said instead: ‘You’ve heard about your cousins, I take it?’

  Delia nodded, biting down on her lip to stop the tears.

  ‘Oh, stop the act, Delia, I ain’t in the mood!’ Bernadette’s voice was harsh and Delia fejtthe full force of her anger.

  ‘You’ve been knocking off a bloke called Dave, ain’t you?’

  Delia watched her mother warily as she walked through to her tiny lounge. She watched her mother’s eyes scan the dirty room and felt a prickle of shame. The place was filthy.

  ‘What if I have?’ There was defiance in her tone now, brought on by humiliation at her mother’s obvious disgust for her living conditions.

  ‘Well, your dad had a call about him. As if we ain’t got enough bloody trouble on our plates as it is! It seems he’s an Old Bill, CID. That was clever of you, wasn’t it? But then, you always found troub
le, Delia, didn’t you? Well, let me tell you something, girl, if my sister ever fmds out about the conversations you had with him about Jimmy’s murder, there’ll be another one done. Do you get my drift?’

  Delia watched her mother’s eyes. They scanned her face with no glimmer of maternal sorrow at what her daughter, her beautiful talented daughter, had been reduced to. Gone was the loving smile that told Delia she would put up with her no matter what. Instead there was open animosity, and it frightened Delia.

  ‘I ... I’ve not said a word, Mum ... I swear!’

  Bernadette poked her daughter in her ample breasts.

  ‘Shall I tell you something, Delia? You was always my baby. You. Not Becky, poor Becky, who was always second best. Remember how we all used to laugh at her, at her posh ways and her posh voice? We all knew Becky would chase respectability, and deep inside I was glad. But you, miss, you was my baby, the favourite. Not any more. Not after the turn out with Jimmy and little Faithey. You don’t care a penny piece for that little girl, I’m bringing her up for you. Your dad’s her dad, he dotes on her. She don’t even bother to ask where you are any more. And I will look after her, I promise you that, young lady.

  ‘But I want to get something clear here today. If you cause any more trouble to this family, Briony won’t be in it, mate. I’ll break your bleeding neck, snap it with me bare hands, I take oath on that. Because you’re a slut, a mouthy, dirty little slut! And I’m ashamed to admit I bore you.’

  Delia stared at the floor, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. ‘You’d better take in what I’m telling you, girl, this is your last chance with me, I mean it. You get rid of that bloke. I don’t care if you destroy yourself, that’s up to you, but this family’s got enough on its plate without you causing more hag.’

  With that, Bernadette made to leave. Delia’s voice stayed her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. Truly, I’m sorry about everything, about Jimmy, about Faithey ...’

  Bernadette turned at the door and looked back at her. They stared into one another’s eyes for long moments before Bernadette answered.

  ‘Save your sorry for when you really mean it. Sorry’s an easy word to say, but that don’t automatically get you forgiveness. That’s like respect. You have to earn it. And judging by the way you live, it’ll take you bloody years!’

  With that she left the little flat and shut the door behind her. As she walked down the stinking staircase, strewn with used condoms and old chippy papers, dirty syringes and circulars, she held her breath. Then she walked out into the weak sunshine and breathed in deep gulps of fresh air to cleanse her herself.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Briony looked around the room with keen eyes. Since the shock of Boysie’s death had worn off, her survival instinct had come to the fore. She wasn’t interested in Daniel any more, felt he had had all the help she could give him. She was more interested in protecting the rest of the family. Her mother for a start.

  Molly sat hunched in a seat by the fire, a large hot rum in her hand. Every so often she wiped away a tear with a crumpled tissue, shaking her head as if in wonderment. Every so often she would read the newspaper accounts of her grandsons’ lives. Even with one of them dead and the other locked away awaiting trial for murder, she still enjoyed reading about them.

  Bernadette was white-faced and quiet. Her two nephews had been a big part of her life. She would miss them genuinely and acutely. Briony loved Bernie for this fact.

  Delia was not there, conspicuous by her absence, as was Suzy, Boysie’s wife, who was too busy selling her story to anyone who would pay for it: MY LIFE WITH GANGLAND MURDERER.

  Scheming little bitch! She’d better not bother to attend Boysie’s funeral because, baby or no baby, Briony would take great pleasure in slapping her face for her.

  Kerry sat alone on a small stool, hands around a glass of vodka, her face bereft of make-up and expression. Liselle sat beside her, kneeling on the floor, sad and quiet.

  The men, Marcus and Tommy, were closeted in Bernadette’s kitchen. The daily woman and the cook had not turned up for work, which surprised no one. Photographers and reporters were camped outside on the pavement like vultures.

  Mariah had turned up dressed in her loudest clothes and plastered with make-up and had stood out on Bemadette’s drive for a full twenty minutes while they took photos and she answered questions. ,

  ‘No,’ she had said, ‘I can’t believe any of the things the papers are saying about the twins. They were hard-working businessmen who gave a great deal of money to charity.’

  One reporter had asked cheekily if it was true she had been a celebrated prostitute in her day. Mariah had answered him just as cheekily.

  ‘If you’ve got five crisp new twenty-pound notes, son, you can find out!’

  This had gone out on the nine o’clock news to the merriment of the whole East End population.

  The Cavanagh trial was going to be big business for the newspapers and television. The twins had somehow captured the imagination of the whole country, and the newspaper headline GOODNIGHT LADY was everywhere Briony looked. Her past was dragged up and embroidered so she looked like some kind of monster. Even Joshua O’Malley had been found and had sold his story to the News of the World, saying how his sons were brought up by Briony Cavanagh because she had threatened to kill him unless he gave them over to her. This had caused another sensation. Briony was made to look like Lucrezia Borgia.

  The photograph taken outside St Vincent’s on the day of the twins’ christening all those years ago appeared regularly in the papers, Jonathan la Billiere, herself and all the family smiling out at the world. Who would have thought then that those two innocent little children would one day cause all this?

  The worst thought of all, though, was the thought of Benedict reading it all. Reading about her being a madam, a whoremaster. The papers made her sound so hard, so evil, even though many of her girls had in fact come forward to say that she had looked after them extremely well. That story did not appear. It wasn’t what the papers wanted to hear.

  Stories about Berwick Manor before the war, when it had been frequented by politicians and other well-known people, were appearing in the papers every day. Hints of scandals involving government ministers and diplomats were given prominence. Most of the stories held a grain of truth, but they were written primarily to shock, to sell newspapers. They were written for people who wanted to believe it all; wanted to believe that the rich, the famous, and the people in charge of their country ran around naked with young girls beside a warm swimming pool. One paper had even hinted at an international scandal involving the Russians, like the Profumo scandal earlier in the decade.

  There was an awful lot Briony could have said, but she didn’t. It would help no one.

  Daniel was being treated like visiting royalty in Wormwood Scrubs. Even the screws deferred to him, made conversation with him, and called him ‘Mr Cavanagh’. He had a man to do his slopping out, a man to deliver his meals to him, he even had his own cell.

  This treatment soothed him. He was on remand and once the trial was over, was convinced he would be a free man.

  He felt a shadow pass over his face and looked up from the letter he was reading.

  A tall man stood before him. He was thin to the point of emaciation.

  ‘I wondered if you fancied a bit of company?’ The voice was high, a thin falsetto.

  Daniel looked at the man for a few seconds, unable to believe the utter neck of the obviously homosexual individual before him.

  ‘If I was so hard up for company, mate, that I had to resort to you, I’d fucking top meself !’ He got up from his bed angrily as the man ran from the cell in blind panic.

  Back in his own cell Bernard Campion, better known as Gloria, sat on his bunk shaking. His cell mate and long-time confidante Ian Snelling, known as Pearl to his friends, shook his head in annoyance.

  ‘I told you not to go, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well, you can’t blame a gir
l for trying!’

  Gloria sat daydreaming of what it would have been like to have had the protection of Daniel Cavanagh. In this place it was as good as money in the bank.

  Daniel couldn’t calm himself after Gloria’s visit and put the letter to one side.

  A bloody shirtlifter coming on to him! The more he thought about it, the more it annoyed him.

  Lying there in the six by eight cell, the silly encounter began to grow out of proportion in his mind. He began to see it as an affront to him as a man of means and position. He was Daniel Cavanagh. He and his brother were the undisputed Kings of London, the Big Boys. They were the two most feared individuals since Jack the Ripper, and that long streak of paralysed piss thought he would make out with him! The more he thought about it, the bigger the insult became in his mind.

  Finally, he got up and walked from his cell. He marched along the landing kicking open cell doors and looking for the tall thin man who had not only invaded his personal space, but had also insulted his very manhood.

  He found Gloria and Pearl sitting on their bunks. Gloria’s face shone hopefully at the sight of him, convinced he had changed his mind about the offer. This was soon proved wrong as Daniel dragged the screaming man from the cell and began to belabour him with a long leather belt, used with the buckle end for maximum effect.

  Men came out of their cells to watch the drama being enacted. It broke up the day, added a charge to the sameness of their existence.

  Later on the screws reported that Bernard Campion had been taken to the prison hospital after falling down the stairs from the top landing.

  Such was life on remand at Wormwood Scrubs. It suited Daniel Cavanagh right down to the ground. It was just what he needed after his brother’s death and his own arrest. Somewhere he could still be the main man. Could sit out his time given the respect he deserved and expected, until such time as he was let loose on the world once more.