by J M Gregson
‘It’s a game for cissies of both sexes! A game which has to have a handicap system, because the people who play it are such wimps that they can’t face competing on level terms.’ Agnes had been researching the mysteries of this game which in her mind had always been one for effete toffs. She was proud of the knowledge shown by this new form of denunciation.
‘Lots of people play golf now, Mum, from all social classes. You need to move with the times.’
The eternal, last-resort advice of children to parents. Agnes sniffed derisively and moved on from the particular to the general. ‘You might be able to think about golf in a few years, when I’m gone, our Lucy. Until then, you’ll be too busy with your children to bother about such silly things.’
‘I don’t suppose we’ll be in any hurry to have a family. People leave it later, these days.’
‘These days! Lots of things happen “these days”. It doesn’t mean they’re right. Your biological clock’s ticking, our Lucy.’ Agnes produced the phrase she remembered from a magazine in the doctor’s surgery with studied nonchalance, then hastened to build upon it. ‘In any case, Percy’s nearly forty. He’s going to want children pretty quickly, if you ask me!’
‘It’s not as simple as you make out, Mum. There are all kinds of things to take into account.’
‘It seems simple enough to me. I suppose you mean your precious career. Well, your fiancé says there are all sorts of perks built into the system to safeguard that, nowadays. You can safeguard your rank whilst you take years off, Percy tells me.’
Not for the first time, Lucy found herself cursing the unlikely and unholy alliance between the man’s man Percy Peach and the woman who was shortly to become his mother-in-law. ‘I’m doing well, Mum, and learning a lot. You don’t give up work easily when it’s going well.’
Agnes Blake was silent for a moment, rejoicing in her daughter’s success and in the opportunities which had not been available to her in her own youth. Then her desire to be a grandmother overcame those feelings. ‘I’m seventy years old, our Lucy. I want to enjoy my grandchildren whilst I still have the energy. I want to see them going to school, to watch them growing up.’
‘You’re good for a lot of years yet, Mum. I can see you being a sprightly ninety-year-old.’
‘And I can see you still putting off having my grandchildren, then, the way you’re going on.’
Lucy was smitten with a sudden guilt over her mother’s perfectly understandable yearnings. Was she being selfish? ‘I suppose I could have children and just take maternity leave.’
‘I don’t like that idea. Babies and infants need their mums until they go to school.’ Agnes Blake was struck by a new and triumphant thought. ‘I’m sure Percy Peach agrees with that!’
‘Percy will consult with me and go along with my wishes!’ Lucy said loftily. She suspected Percy would support Agnes. But secretly, and unfashionably in one of her generation, Lucy suspected that she herself agreed. ‘Anyway, this is all in the future and all hypothetical.’
‘Children aren’t hypothetical.’ Agnes shook her head at such nonsense and addressed herself to more immediate concerns. ‘Anyway, we’d better get on with the guest list. It’s high time these invitations were sent out.’
Lucy Blake turned her attention reluctantly to whittling down the number of people her mother had on her list. She’d have to start thinking about a dress soon; this marriage was really going to happen. It was just as well that things looked like being quiet on the serious crime front in the next two or three months.
She should have known by now that in CID work, you could never really predict the future.
The woman was very beautiful. She was twenty-four, slim and willowy, which made her look a little taller than her five feet seven. She had long and lustrous black hair and the smooth, unwrinkled olive complexion which was characteristic of her North Pakistani origins. She spoke in a low, soft, educated voice with only the faintest trace of a northern accent.
Matthew Ballack could hardly believe that she was a prostitute. He said a little awkwardly, ‘I’m visiting the people who work for me. I like to keep in touch with my staff.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Isn’t that rather dangerous? Would your wife approve of your visiting me at home?’
‘I haven’t got a wife. I’m divorced.’ He saw her face clouding. ‘And I’ve no ulterior motive. I’ve been put in charge of this section of our activities and—’
‘In charge of the toms?’ Her tone as well as her surprise said that surely that couldn’t be much of a job. ‘I’ve never met anyone in charge before. I’ve occasionally met some bruiser who said he was protecting me and wanted payment in kind.’
‘I think we might call this our escort agency. I know that we’ve always referred to it as our cleaning services arm, but I can’t quite think of you as a cleaner.’ He smiled when she did; the description sounded as ridiculous in his ears as it obviously did in hers. ‘We haven’t had anyone officially in charge before. We’re trying to formalize things a little.’
She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I haven’t got long. I have to collect the children.’
‘It won't take long. It’s just that I’ve always liked to know my staff personally.’
‘Even when they were tarts?’
He forced a smile. ‘I haven’t been in charge of people like you before.’
‘No. I should think it must be a shitty job.’
He was used to much worse words, but this mild obscenity falling from lips like hers was somehow very shocking. ‘How - how did you get into this job?’
She shrugged, allowed herself a wry smile. ‘The clientele’s changing, so like almost every other public service they’re trying to recruit a certain number of Pakis. I’ve never seen the country, never been out of Britain, but my skin and my race conform.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant how does anyone with looks as stunning as yours end up - well, not exactly on the streets, but...’
‘In a brothel? Oh, that was quite easy, Mr Ballack.’
She had remembered his name, when he had already forgotten hers. And what Matthew had essayed as a compliment had fallen very flat. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry if I don’t express myself very well, but this is a new job for me. What I really meant to say was that you look quite stunning and I’m frankly amazed that someone with your looks and intelligence and education couldn’t find some other sort of work.’ He’d managed to say what he meant at last, but the words had come out all in a rush and spoiled the effect.
She smiled at him, wondering how the man who had said he was in charge of her could know so little of this trade. ‘My parents are Pakistanis. When I was taking A-levels at the comprehensive, I got myself an English boyfriend. They didn’t like that. When I refused to give him up, they threw me out.’
‘What happened to the boyfriend?’
Another shrug; another pitying look for one so ignorant of her world. ‘He went off to university when I couldn’t. He found himself someone else there.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You shouldn’t be. It was inevitable. And I was stupid. When one is eighteen, principles seem important, but within two or three years, one learns that there are more important things. Like survival.’
‘But you’re married.’
Another quiet smile of contempt for the man who thought that could be a solution. ‘I married on the rebound. An English boy, of course, which made any possibility of reconciliation with my family impossible. He was as young as I was. Three months after the second baby, he took off. I’ve no idea where he is now.’ It was flat, matter-of-fact, and totally without self-pity.
That made it much worse, in Matthew Ballack’s sentimental view. ‘So you took to prostitution to pay the bills.’
‘Among other things. It pays well, for the few years whilst you have your looks. It leaves me with a little to spare, even when you lot have taken your forty per cent. Now that the children are at
school, I even have time to read a little, during the day.’ He was wondering now how he could terminate what he was finding a very embarrassing exchange. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you, as you said. It’s good to find an employee who seems in such good health and to be happy with her lot.’
‘Happy?’ She weighed the word, then dismissed it without comment. ‘I don’t waste my time and I don’t waste my money, Mr Ballack. I even manage to save a little. When the children are old enough, I shall resume my education and get myself a degree. If I can’t study full-time, there’s always the Open University.’
If someone had retailed this story to him, he would never have given it credence. Watching and hearing this woman, he believed every word of it. And it upset him far more than if he had met the kind of woman he had been expecting to meet here. Prostitutes should be different from this, should be grateful for attention from the man who had their welfare in his hands. Except that he hadn’t. This wasn’t a job at all. It was the final stage in Tim Hayes’s degradation of him. When it suited the man, he would cast him out altogether.
As he left, her face lit up with that ravishing smile and she said to him, ‘You don’t seem to me a bad man, Mr Ballack. I have no idea how you came to be in charge of brothels, but I think you too should have aspirations. The first one should be to get out of this shitty job.’
* * *
Tim Hayes didn’t often eat with his wife nowadays. When he said he would be home for dinner on this Monday evening, he had half-expected her to tell him in her usual surly way to look after himself. Instead, she had prepared a full meal.
It was a reminder to him of what Tamsin could do when she turned her mind to it. There was beef Wellington and new potatoes, fresh sprouts and new carrots. The meat was tender and succulent; the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape which accompanied the dish complemented it perfectly. The cutlery and cut glass sparkled on the white linen in the subdued lighting.
It looked like a romantic setting, but there was no danger of romance developing between this pair.
Indeed, Tim became more uncomfortable as the meal progressed. It wasn’t that his wife was sullen, or even indulging in the cutting sarcasm which was her other vein in recent months. On the contrary, she was more friendly than she had been for years. She asked him if he was enjoying the meal, even questioned him briefly about his day at work and how the business was going. But he was aware that she was not listening to his replies. She had an abstracted air: she looked at him several times across the table almost as if she was surprised to see him there.
He said stiffly, ‘You seem much happier, dear. Have you found yourself a new interest?’
She didn’t answer him directly. But she looked him full in the face and said with a disconcertingly bright smile, ‘The doctor’s knocked me off the antidepressants.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it? Are you sure you’re quite ready for it?’
‘I told her myself that I didn’t need them any more.’
He found himself desperately seeking for something to say. She seemed inclined to pursue her own stream of thought, whatever he chose to say to her. ‘It’s the firm’s annual dinner in a fortnight. More people than ever will be there, as our range of interests expands. Do you want to come, or shall I make your excuses as I have for the last couple of years?’
Tamsin looked him full in the face again, and this time she answered his question directly. ‘This year I’ll come. I’ll sit beside my husband and support him.’ She was trying not to show her excitement. This might be the occasion she had been waiting for. She had no idea yet how she would kill him, but there was plenty of time left for planning.
‘Are you sure you want to be there, dear? I know you don’t like big formal gatherings. I’m quite prepared to tell them you don’t feel up to it.’
‘No, you won’t have to do that. I’ll come and put on my glad rags for you. After all, I’m not depressed any more, am I? That’s medical and official.’
That was an odd phrase, he thought, typical of the strange mood of muted excitement which seemed to have taken her over tonight. ‘All right. I’ll make sure we take account of that in the table plans.’
She served him the blackcurrant cheesecake she had made herself. It was his favourite and he had a second helping before she brought in the coffee in the cafetiere. He even went and poured them both a brandy, swirling the cognac thoughtfully round his glass, trying to engage her in a conversation which remained brittle and spasmodic, even now when they should have been relaxed after the excellent meal and the alcohol. Tamsin remained in the sitting room after Tim had given up the effort and said he was going to have an early night. She stared unseeingly at the television and sipped at the brandy she had not touched whilst he was there. She was glad she had given Tim his favourite food tonight, glad that she had taken the care to see that it was cooked to perfection. It was a nice variation on the old cliché from the days of capital punishment, she thought with her secret smile.
The condemned man had eaten not a hearty breakfast but a hearty dinner.
Chapter Ten
Leroy Moore’s mind was in turmoil. He had never had a girlfriend who made him feel like this before. He had never had an employer who paid him so much for so little before. He had scarcely expected the two to come into serious contact with each other, and certainly never contemplated the employer provoking a conflict like this.
He was surprised how strongly he felt. He had been running the streets since he was twelve, initially at nights, then increasingly by day as well, as his truanting from school became increasingly bold and increasingly unchecked. Moss Side, Manchester, was one of the most violent and dangerous places in Britain to grow to manhood: even the police trod carefully there, when they entered the area at all. If you survived, you learned to look out for yourself pretty quickly. There were few moral values, and might was increasingly the only right.
From the age of fourteen, Leroy Moore had carried a knife wherever he went. By the time he was sixteen, he was a member of one of the gangs of feral black youths who were feared but for the most part secretly admired by their contemporaries. There were white gangs, too, and they fought for dominance wherever their territories overlapped. By the time he was eighteen, Moore had killed a man. It had been in self-defence, but it had been swift, violent and efficient. He had never been charged, though he had been extensively questioned by police about the crime. He had neither gloated nor boasted about the deed.
The seething underworld of the city knew the killer, of course, but there was no retribution from there. The general feeling was that the victim had had it coming to him: if it had not come from Leroy Moore, it would have come swiftly enough from someone else. It enhanced Moore’s reputation with some of the bigger fish who cruised in these dark pools. He began to get offers of jobs. He drank very little and he kept his mouth firmly shut. He was ruthless, but no more ruthless than was necessary. These qualities brought him employment and promotion.
Leroy was intelligent but uneducated - he had dodged too much schooling to acquire any qualifications. He knew that sooner or later those who lived by the sword were probably going to die by it. Violence was the only thing he knew, but sooner rather than later he was going to learn to do something else and to earn his living in some less desperate and less dangerous way.
His transition from Moss Side to Brunton was the first part of this plan. To threaten people and occasionally rough them up for Tim Hayes was a Sunday School picnic compared with the gang warfare of Moss Side. He could do it standing on his head, or at least without much thinking and without much danger to himself. And there was countryside around Brunton, something he had not met before. A few years ago, Leroy would have considered the very idea of walking for pleasure not only ludicrous but risible. Now he enjoyed exploring the Ribble Valley; he and his friends might get a little noisy in the pub at the end of the day, but it was usually after fifteen miles or so in the open air. He was beginning to acquire an increasing number of no
n-criminal friends.
The greatest influence in his life now was Jane Martin. The initial attraction had been her looks. There was no mystery about that. The smooth skin, enormous brown eyes, and lithe, gracefully moving figure would have captivated much less susceptible people than Leroy Moore. The second attraction had been her innocence. She was just over four and a half years younger than him, but the gap seemed much larger.
In a single-parent family on a housing estate, Jane Martin had hardly had a sheltered childhood. But she had been a bright girl and had never missed a day at school; her teachers had been disappointed to find that she was not going on to university. She had fought her comer on the town’s toughest estate, had even been given a suspended sentence after a fracas between rival groups in which four teenagers had been hospitalized, but she had come through all that.
To Leroy Moore, the young-old veteran of fierce, dog-eat-dog violence in the darkest area of a great city, Jane seemed the epitome of innocence and naivety. These were qualities which had great appeal for him: Jane Martin became the tangible representation of his vision of the better life he aspired to. Soon he would give up even the relatively minor violence which his work for Hayes Electronics demanded, and find himself a new and better career. He and Jane would move forward into the brighter future which her innocence demanded.
Leroy Moore had read very few books, and not a word of romantic fiction. But in the days when he had lived at home, his mother had ensured that he had a steady diet of Hollywood’s more dubious and sentimental products. Jane Martin would have been astonished and disconcerted to know that in Leroy’s surprisingly vivid imagination she often gambolled through the Alps in The Sound of Music.
Moore’s instinctive reaction to the news of what had happened to Jane at the hands of Hayes was to turn to violence. It was what he could do, what he was good at. Moreover, it had been the way he had reacted to any setback since the age of eleven, and in his view he had generally been successful. But he had been successful because he had not taken blind, unthinking, immediate action, but had thought first about what he would do. Now he knew that it was more necessary than ever to think about exactly what revenge he could take.
