Quick Before They Catch Us

by Mark Timlin

  ‘She won’t go. She says this is where she lives, and this is where she wants her baby to be born. She’s stubborn. If she wasn’t I doubt if any of this would’ve happened. Once she set her heart on Paul that was it.’

  ‘Well they’ve got that in common,’ Melanie interjected. ‘Meena and Nick. Stubbornness, I mean.’

  ‘She’s going to phone me tomorrow,’ said Caroline. ‘I’ll pass on the message.’

  ‘She phones you,’ I said. ‘At home. Isn’t that dangerous?’

  ‘No. I’ve got my own phone in my room. Daddy bought it for me on my sixteenth birthday. He was tired of the phone downstairs being engaged all the time. And Meena only phones at a prearranged time when I know I’ll be there. She only lets it ring twice, then she hangs up.’

  ‘You’ve been watching too many spy movies,’ I said.

  ‘But it works,’ she replied. ‘I miss her so much. She was my best friend. We just have to talk.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ I said. ‘And I’m glad she’s got a friend like you.’

  Caroline smiled. ‘Now I’d better get home,’ she said. ‘I promised I’d be early.’

  ‘And you never break a promise either,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes. But not tonight.’

  ‘Shall I call you a cab?’ I asked.

  ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘I’ll go out the back way and find one on the street.’

  ‘You be careful,’ I said.

  ‘I always am.’ She stood up, put on her coat and went to the door. She hesitated, then ran back, threw her arms round my neck and gave me a wet kiss on the cheek. ‘I wish you were my dad,’ she said, grinned, then went back to the door, opened it and vanished.

  43

  ‘You’ve got a fan there,’ said Melanie after Caroline had gone. ‘So young and pretty too.’

  ‘So many fans, so little time,’ I replied. ‘But this is no laughing matter. We’re talking murder here, and that girl is in danger if anyone finds out she’s been talking to Meena.’

  ‘Who’s going to find out?’

  ‘Her father?’

  ‘Her own father won’t go telling tales.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. I saw him. He’s scared shitless. I don’t know if it’s of losing his job or his life. But whatever it is he’ll crack under the slightest pressure.’

  ‘She told you Meena only calls at a certain time when she’s by the phone.’

  ‘And how secure is that? She’s been lucky so far, but everyone’s luck runs out eventually.’

  ‘We’ve got to pray that hers doesn’t. So tell me. What happened at your meeting with the Khans?’

  I told her about the face-off I’d had, including the guns. Melanie doesn’t like guns. ‘Oh Christ,’ she said when I got to that part and looked at the door. ‘They know where we are.’

  ‘They won’t come here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If they’re not going to do me serious damage in the privacy of their own restaurant, I doubt if they’re going to in a hotel.’

  ‘There is that,’ she said, but didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  ‘They sound like really bad people,’ she said when I’d finished.

  ‘They are. You heard what Caroline said. That’s why I’m worried about her. And Meena and Paul and their family and friends. And you and me. This thing’s getting out of hand.’

  ‘And I said you’d carry on helping.’

  ‘Good call, babe.’

  ‘I didn’t know there would be guns involved.’

  ‘There’s always guns when I’m around. It seems I attract them like a magnet.’

  ‘Don’t make jokes about it.’

  ‘Who’s joking?’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Go back to London first thing and wait for her call. That’s all we can do.’

  ‘And when Meena gets in touch?’

  ‘I’ll go and meet her. I don’t know what to suggest. She won’t go to the cops or the DSS. She won’t leave the country. She’s pregnant and penniless. However much Paul loves her I don’t reckon he’ll be much help. Christ, Mel, I’m not often lost for ideas but this time I am.’

  ‘You’ll think of something.’

  ‘I bloody well hope so. Those Khan boys are just about capable of anything.’

  ‘Come to bed, love. Get some sleep. We’ve got an early start.’

  ‘All right.’

  So we went to bed, but I hardly slept and when I got the alarm call I’d booked from reception after finding out the time of the first train back to Euston I was still wide awake and staring at the ceiling.

  44

  The next morning we slunk out of the hotel like a pair of dogs with their tails between their legs. But once we were on the train I felt better. London was just a pair of silver rails away. I knew where I was in London. At least I thought I did. We travelled first class again. I still had the balance of Khan’s money and he could wait for the change. I’d put a jockey on the cheque when I’d paid it into my bank to make sure it cleared fast, and it had.

  We ate a massive breakfast and read the Sunday papers on the way down.

  It had been raining in Manchester again, but the weather started to clear on the journey and by the time we got close to London the day had brightened considerably.

  Once at Euston we cabbed it home and were safely indoors just after lunch.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ asked Melanie as she unpacked my bag and stored the purchases she’d made in Manchester away in my wardrobe.

  ‘Wait. Wait for Meena or Paul Jeffries or Caroline Lees to get in touch. Keep our heads down and see what happens.’

  ‘And if nothing happens?’

  ‘Something will happen, believe me,’ I assured her. ‘Something always does.’

  And of course it did.

  The phone rang at seven forty-five as we were watching Coronation Street. Melanie was determined to spot the star we’d seen in Khan’s restaurant. I dragged the phone into the kitchen as she lowered the volume. ‘Mr Sharman,’ said a small female voice with a faint northern accent.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘My name is Meena Jeffries.’

  ‘At last. Hello, Meena.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Sharman. You’ve been looking for me.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I believe you’ve fallen out with my family.’

  ‘You might say that.’

  ‘Caroline says I can trust you.’

  ‘As much as you can trust anyone in this wicked world.’

  ‘She says that you can help us.’

  ‘I don’t know. I told Caroline that. She has more faith in me than I have in myself, to be honest.’

  ‘We’re at our wits’ end. We can’t run for much longer. You know I’m pregnant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m so frightened for my baby.’

  ‘Surely now – now that you’re married, your family will accept what you’ve done.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘But with a grandchild on the way your father must come round.’

  ‘He means us dead. All of us.’ She said it with such dreadful finality I believed her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Meena. I’ll help if I can.’

  ‘Can we meet?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You know where I am?’

  ‘Yes. On the Island.’

  ‘There’s a park close by. Mudchute, it’s called. There’s a city farm there. Meet us by the goat enclosure tomorrow at twelve. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’ll come alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You won’t betray us will you, Mr Sharman? There’s three of us now.’

  ‘I won’t betray you,’ I s
aid.

  ‘You have a kind voice. Caroline said you are a good man. Paul’s mother said the same.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ And I was.

  ‘Just don’t let us down.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, and I crossed my fingers as I said it. Not to negate the promise, but in the hope that I wouldn’t.

  She hung up on me then and I listened to the silence at the end of the line before I gently hung up myself.

  45

  Monday morning I got Melanie off to work early, although she was still complaining about being sore from her collision with the dustbins in Manchester’s fair city. I could see her angle. She wanted to come along to the Isle of Dogs for the ride, and to meet Meena and Paul. But I was having none of it. I told her that Meena had sounded wary enough at meeting me, and taking someone else might frighten her and Paul off. She argued, but she knew I was right and at last gave in.

  ‘You’ll meet them eventually,’ I promised her.

  I paced the floors of the flat waiting until it was time to leave, drinking coffee and smoking too many cigarettes. Then around quarter to eleven I got fed up with hanging about and got in the Mustang and headed for the East End.

  I drove through Camberwell and the Elephant, then took the Rotherhithe Tunnel under the river, turned right into the East India Dock Road and right again at the signs for Canary Wharf with the tower looming over me, its head in the clouds.

  If the Thames ran straight at this point, the Isle of Dogs would be in south London and Greenwich and Deptford would be well inland. But instead, the river takes a deep curve southward and leaves the promontory hanging down like the scrotum of north London.

  Don’t believe me? Then look at the credits for EastEnders three times a week on the TV and you’ll see.

  The island aspect is completed by the fact that the land is almost completely separated from London by water, as the West India and Millwall docks cut across the top, just south of Canary Wharf, and only a few bridges connect it to the rest of the city.

  The Isle of Dogs itself is one of the most depressed areas of London, whole swathes of buildings having been flattened during World War Two, followed by more desolation in the 1970s when the docks shut down after containerisation arrived. Then in the 1980s, with the redevelopment of Docklands, the yuppies rolled in with their Beemers and Golfs, and when the recession hit they rolled right out again. Only to reappear with the recovery in the mid-1990s. But the native East Enders stayed put on ‘The Island’ as they call it as if it was the only one in the world. And to them I suppose it is.

  Caroline Lees had asked me if there were dogs there, as if by implication that is how the place got its name. There are plenty of dogs around, at least by the amount of dog shit I saw on the pavements as I drove along there are. But that’s not it. Not strictly speaking. There are two theories I’ve heard. The first is that when Charles II lived in Greenwich Palace, it’s where he kept his hunting dogs so that he wouldn’t be kept awake by their howling at night. The other is that, because of the bend in the river, it was where the bodies of dead dogs were washed up as the tide went out. I tend to go for the former. Let’s face it, if dogs’ bodies were washed up there, why not cats’, or humans’ or little bunny rabbits’, for that matter.

  Still. Everywhere has to have a name. And the Isle of Dogs is as good as any.

  Better than a lot in fact.

  I’d checked my A-Z before I left home and found that Mudchute Park was off Manchester Road. Coincidence that. And was reached by a number of dead-ended back streets. I parked outside a pub on the corner of one of them at eleven-thirty. I could see the girders of the Millennium Dome sticking up from Blackwall, and knew that if I went a little further down the road to Island Gardens, and walked through the foot tunnel, I could be in Greenwich in a few minutes and visit Dawn, Daisy and Tracey’s graves. But I had other fish to fry. I’d do it another time.

  I went into the pub, which seemed pleasant enough, for a quick half only to discover two mallards sitting in the bar. Straight up. Two birds of the feathered variety, bold as brass sitting by the bar.

  ‘It’ll rain later,’ said the barman in answer to my quizzical look at the ducks.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said and left it.

  Life’s strange enough without making it more difficult by asking silly questions.

  46

  I finished my drink and the cigarette I’d had with it and left the boozer. The two ducks waddled after me, took one look at the sky and decided better of it. I was glad. The last thing I wanted to do was go to my rendezvous accompanied by a pair of our feathered friends.

  I walked through the back streets to the entrance to Mudchute Park and city farm and found the goat enclosure by following my nose. It was as ripe as a gone-off cheese and I found a bench facing the paddock where old goats were doing what old goats do, sat down and lit another Silk Cut. It was five to twelve by my Rolex.

  I sat and was watching some little nippers throwing bits of food to the goats who snarfed them up big style when someone appeared from a path to my left. It was a woman dressed in a long black jellaba, a black headdress and veil. She wafted towards me and sat down. I looked at her and all I could see were a pair of black, sparkling eyes. I trod out my cigarette. ‘Mr Sharman,’ she said.

  ‘Meena.’

  ‘You came alone?’ Her voice was deep and the accent was pure Manchester.

  ‘Of course.’

  She seemed to relax and unhooked the veil. She was beautiful. More beautiful than the photographs I’d seen, with smooth brown skin and lips almost too red and full to be real without collagen injections. ‘Good,’ she said.

  ‘So we meet at last,’ was all I could think to say.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ she said.

  ‘By all means.’

  We stood and went through a gate into the park and away from the stink of the animals. ‘You won’t tell my father will you,’ she said.

  ‘No. I don’t think your father is interested in anything I’ve got to say.’

  ‘He’d be interested that we met.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I think he probably would.’

  Suddenly we were joined by a third party. He appeared from behind some bushes and fell into step with us. I recognised Paul Jeffries from the photos, but he appeared much older and his face was tired and lined. ‘Paul,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Knackered,’ he answered. ‘Fed up.’ Then to Meena, ‘Is he all right?’ His accent was south London.

  ‘I’d say so,’ she replied. And I realised who was captain of this little craft.

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Paul and lit a cigarette without offering me one.

  ‘You two are in danger,’ I said.

  ‘Do you think we don’t know that?’ snapped Paul.

  ‘Paul,’ admonished Meena. ‘Listen to Mr Sharman.’

  ‘I don’t know how to help you,’ I said as we stopped at the brow of a low hill and looked out over the island to Greenwich Observatory on our left and Canary Wharf on our right. In front of us a DLR train ran like a toy into Mudchute station.

  ‘Anything,’ said Meena.

  ‘Why don’t you go abroad?’ I asked.

  ‘My baby is British,’ said Meena proudly. ‘I want him born here.’

  ‘And we’ve got no dough,’ said Paul.

  ‘Where are you living?’ I said.

  ‘Over there.’ Meena pointed in the general direction of the centre of the island.

  I didn’t push her. ‘Have you got a phone?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘We use a pay phone down the street.’

  ‘Probably the best idea,’ I said,

  ‘We can’t do anything in our own names,’ added Paul. ‘Every time we’ve tried, Meena’s father finds out. It’s uncanny.’

  ‘He knows a lot of peopl
e,’ she said.

  ‘Too many,’ Paul remarked. ‘And we’ve got no money. I can’t get the dole, obviously, so I’ve picked up a bit of cash cleaning car windscreens in Poplar.’

  I felt desperately sorry for the pair of them. ‘We’ve only got a shitty little room to live in. And Meena hasn’t been out for a week,’ he continued bitterly.

  ‘I daren’t,’ she cut in. ‘I’m so worried someone will recognise me.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to approach your father on your behalf?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Meena, alarmed, and she grabbed my sleeve. ‘He won’t rest until we’re dead.’

  ‘Listen, Meena, Paul,’ I said, including him in. ‘I understand something of what’s happening. But killing you? Are you sure he’d go that far?’

  ‘And further,’ said Meena. ‘He’d do anything to regain his pride.’

  ‘Listen,’ I said, changing the subject and needing time to think. ‘Are either of you two hungry?’

  ‘Starving,’ they chorused.

  ‘OK. Let’s go somewhere and get something to eat. My treat. Or at least it’s on your dad, Meena. I’ve still got plenty of his money.’

  ‘Serves him right,’ she said, and we turned round and headed for Manchester Road again, and whatever culinary delights were in store for us there.

  47

  We walked separately, so as not to draw attention to ourselves. Paul and me together in front, Meena behind. And we didn’t. Draw attention to ourselves, that is. There were several women or groups of women in traditional dress on the streets and we didn’t get a second glance.

  ‘She’s pregnant and I can’t even walk with her,’ said Paul bitterly as we went.

  ‘That’s tough.’

  I saw that he was looking at me as we walked. After a moment’s thought he said, ‘What happened to your eye?’

  ‘I had a bit of bother,’ I replied.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I met your brother.’

  ‘Pete?’