Streetwise

by Roberta Kray

  ‘Hi,’ Ava said.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lydia said. ‘I didn’t realise Tash was with anyone or I wouldn’t have kept her so long. Have you been okay?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. I’ve just been checking out the exhibits.’

  ‘Seen anything you liked?’

  ‘Oh,’ Ava said, not wanting to offend. ‘This and that.’

  Lydia smiled at her. She was a slight, pretty girl with silky blonde hair and wide blue eyes. ‘It’s okay, you don’t need to be polite. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste.’

  Tash spotted someone she knew and waved to them across the room. ‘Oh, there’s Amanda,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to nip over and say hello.’

  As Ava watched her disappear again, she found herself thinking of that nice comfy sofa that she’d sacrificed – and all the delights of trashy afternoon TV. So much for Tash needing company; she could have easily come on her own! Her gaze flicked over to settle on Wilder again. If she hadn’t let Tash persuade her into coming, she’d have never seen the exchange between him and Borovski, and wouldn’t have had to decide what, if anything, to do about it.

  Lydia saw her looking and said, ‘That’s Guy Wilder. Would you like me to introduce you?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. No thanks.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Lydia said. ‘I think you’re the first woman who’s ever turned that offer down!’

  Ava gave a thin smile. ‘Yes, he does seem kind of popular, but we’ve already met… sort of.’ She glanced over at Wilder again, remembering what her dad had told her. It was hard to imagine how a man so outwardly handsome could harbour such inner resentment. ‘And he is very good-looking. It’s just that… to be honest, he’s not really my type.’

  ‘I suppose you’re immune to his charms.’

  Ava frowned, not understanding. ‘Immune?’

  ‘Well, you know, with you and Tash being…’

  It took Ava a moment to realise what she was saying, and then she laughed. ‘Oh, we’re not… we’re not a couple, just flatmates, nothing else.’

  Lydia’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean… I thought… Jesus, I’m always putting my foot in it.’

  Ava laughed. ‘You haven’t. Don’t worry about it.’

  Lydia looked down at the floor and then up again. She pulled a face. ‘Now I feel like a complete idiot.’

  ‘Don’t. It doesn’t matter, honestly.’ Ava had intended to make her excuses and leave – Tash clearly wasn’t in need of her support – but she didn’t want Lydia to think that she’d taken offence. As such, she felt an obligation to stay on for a little small talk before heading for the door. ‘So, have you worked here for long?’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘Only a few months. I moved here in July. It’s interesting, though. I like it.’ She leaned in and lowered her voice. ‘Well, most of the time. To be honest, Morton’s a bit odd, but I think he’s harmless enough.’

  Ava grinned at her. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Lydia bared her teeth in a half-grimace. ‘I hope so. Hey, have you seen the Rogue’s Gallery yet? Why don’t you come and take a look.’

  Ava, who was now yearning more than ever for that sofa, suddenly found herself being led towards the rear of the room. So much for making a quick escape. Still, Lydia seemed nice enough, if a little nervous, and she had the cocktail to finish. She drank the last inch as they squeezed through the crowd and then she placed the empty glass in a handy space between two cabinets.

  The Rogue’s Gallery was in a completely separate room to the rest of the exhibition and Ava’s eyes widened as she went inside. The cabinets in this area did not contain real animals at all, but ones that had been created using the body parts of several different species. Some were mythical like dragons, griffins or unicorns; others were works purely of the artist’s imagination.

  ‘A lot of taxidermists don’t approve of this,’ Lydia said. ‘They don’t consider it real taxidermy. But it’s kind of interesting, don’t you think?’

  Ava wasn’t sure what she thought. It was like stepping inside another universe, where creation had taken a completely different path. There was a rabbit with wings, a two-headed lamb, a fish wrapped in squirrel fur. Some of the exhibits were just plain strange, others faintly frightening, like the rat with three tails pulling the bloody entrails from its own stomach. ‘It’s certainly weird,’ she murmured.

  Lydia tilted her head and gazed through the glass. ‘Yes, they are a bit bizarre. They remind me of a book I used to have when I was a kid, all about fantastical creatures, mermaids and the like.’

  The room was busy, but above the buzz of conversation Ava was convinced she heard Guy Wilder’s voice. She swung around, her eyes scanning the crowd, but he wasn’t there. Had she just imagined it? As she slowly turned back towards the cabinets, her gaze came to rest on the rat again. She wrinkled her nose, not wanting to look and yet feeling oddly compelled to do so. And then, from somewhere deep inside her, she was assailed by a sudden sense of dislocation, a notion that nothing and no one were what they appeared to be. She wrapped her arms around her chest, but it was too late. A coldness was already seeping into her bones.

  12

  Vic Delaney stood by the side of the swimming pool, pushed his hands into his pockets and scowled down at the water. An empty cheese-and-onion crisp packet was floating on the surface, bobbing around, shifting from one place to another as the wind caught its edges. He thought about getting the net from the pool house and fishing it out – but why should he? It wasn’t his job. That was what he employed the bloody staff for. Not that any of them earned their wages; a pile of lazy, good-for-nothing skivers the whole fuckin’ lot of them.

  Vic wasn’t in a good frame of mind. He’d woken up in a temper that morning and, like a festering sore, it had been growing worse ever since. Now he was just about ready to blow his top. Walking over to the small metal table, he picked up the glass of brandy, knocked it back in one and refilled the glass.

  It was starting to sleet again and still he didn’t go inside. The cold evening air made him shiver and the booze wasn’t good for his blood pressure – he’d been told to lay off the alcohol by his doctor – but he wanted to stay angry. Anger was his fuel for getting things done and something had to be done about Danny Street. In his mind, he went over the meeting with Terry, his hackles instantly rising. Who the hell did he think he was, giving him advice on what to do? Just leave them to it. Jesus, what kind of a response was that? Danny Street was a nutter, a druggie, a fuckin’ weirdo, and he didn’t want him anywhere near his daughter.

  Vic lit a cigar – another vice that had been banned by his doctor – and began pacing impatiently round the pool. He kept his eyes fixed on the crisp packet as if it represented everything that was wrong with the world. He thought about Silver and slapped a hand against his thigh. She wasn’t a bad kid. She was just easily led. And not having a mother hadn’t helped either. What kind of a woman just took off like that, leaving her child behind? A bitch, he decided, a selfish shitty bitch. And okay, so the marriage hadn’t exactly been perfect, but blood was blood and nothing should get in the way of it.

  ‘Boss?’

  Vic turned and glared at the man who had just stepped out from the open French doors that led into the living room. ‘What time do you call this?’ he snarled. ‘I said six. Ain’t you got a fuckin’ watch?’

  ‘It is six, boss,’ he said.

  Vic lifted his wrist, screwing up his eyes as he peered at the dial of his own watch under the dim pool lights. It was true, it was six o’clock exactly, but that only annoyed him all the more. Even the fuckin’ time was conspiring against him. ‘What you got for me, then?’ he snapped. ‘What’s going down?’

  Raynard, who was used to his employer’s irascible moods, didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘No change,’ he said. ‘She’s still hanging out with Street. Only one odd thing; last night the two of them went to a shop on Kellston High Street, place called Beast.’

  ‘
Beast?’

  ‘Yeah, they sell stuffed animals. And the shop was closed. It was after nine. They had to ring the bell to get in. They stayed for about twenty minutes.’

  ‘Who’d they meet there?’

  ‘Can’t say for sure, boss. I reckon it was the owner who let them in – a bloke called Morton Carlisle – but there’s no knowing who else was inside. No one came out before them though, so I reckon it might just have been those three.’

  Vic puffed hard on his cigar, coughing as the smoke invaded his lungs. ‘What do we know about this Carlisle geezer?’

  ‘Not much at the moment. I’ve put a few feelers out, but it’s early days yet. He’s in his sixties, been in the trade a long time. He opened the shop in Kellston a couple of years back. That stuff’s becoming popular again, all the rage apparently. There’s money in it now.’

  Vic frowned, trying to figure out what the angle was. What the hell was Danny Street up to? He glared at Raynard again, but only because he had no one else to take his frustration out on. In truth, Raynard was the only person he trusted these days. Vic had inherited him from an old pal, a Clacton villain called Badger Campbell. Badger had managed to get himself garrotted by a rival gang, and Raynard – not wanting to end up on a cold slab beside him – had decided to hotfoot it to London and take his chances elsewhere. That had been three years ago and Vic had never regretted hiring him.

  ‘You want me to have a word with Carlisle?’ Raynard asked.

  Vic thought about it, but then shook his head. ‘Nah, not yet.’ Raynard, despite his slim build, was very persuasive when it came to ‘talking’. What he lacked in muscle, he made up for in sheer sadism. He liked to hurt people and to do it slowly. ‘Let’s try and find out what the fuck’s going on first.’

  ‘Okay, boss.’ Raynard gave a nod. ‘And Terry Street? What about him?’

  Vic snarled, his upper lip curling to reveal a row of brown stained teeth. He was still seething about the conversation that had taken place at Belles. Disrespectful, that’s what Terry had been – and no one disrespected Vic Delaney and got away with it. ‘Let’s go inside before we freeze our bollocks off. We’ll talk about it there.’

  13

  It was ten to eleven and Ava was about to take a shower and go to bed when the phone started ringing. She stared at it for a moment, tempted to ignore it and let it go to the answering service. She was tired and wasn’t in the mood for talking. It was probably for Tash anyway. No one she knew would ring her at this time of night. But then she had one of those uneasy thoughts that something bad might have happened to her mum or dad, an emergency, an accident, a sudden illness…

  Ava jumped off the sofa, crossed the living room and snatched up the receiver. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s only me,’ Tash said.

  ‘Oh, hi. You okay?’ She felt a small wave of relief flow over her.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine but… Look, I’m at the Fox. Terry Street’s here. He’s been here for a few hours now. We’ve just called last orders, but Terry says he’s not leaving until Joe Quinn gets here.’

  Ava frowned. ‘Joe Quinn? But he’s been dead for years.’

  ‘Exactly. And Maggie’s in a spin. I wondered if… well, I wondered if you could get in touch with Chris, maybe get him to come down and pick up his dad. I wouldn’t ask, but we don’t really know what else to do. He seems kind of confused.’

  ‘All right, I’ll try and call him.’

  ‘Thanks, love. You’re an angel. I’ll see you later.’

  Ava put the phone down, picked up her bag and dug out her mobile. If Chris was at Belles it would take him a while to get back to Kellston, especially if he had to call a cab. She found his number and pressed the button. It was answered after a couple of rings.

  ‘Chris Street.’

  ‘Hi, it’s Ava.’

  ‘Yeah?’ he asked shortly.

  She hesitated, wishing now that she’d taken a minute to work out what she was going to say and how to phrase it in a suitably diplomatic fashion.

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me,’ he said drily. ‘You can’t make it in the morning, right? Doctor’s appointment, dentist, imminent hangover? I was wondering how long it would take.’

  Ava scowled down the phone, offended and annoyed by the presumption. ‘As it happens, none of the above. I just got a call from a friend who works at the Fox. Your father’s there. I think… er, I think you might want to go and pick him up.’

  ‘Had a skinful, has he?’ Chris gave a snort. ‘Well, he hasn’t got far to walk. I’m sure he’ll make it home on his own.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Ava paused again. ‘Apparently, he’s a bit… a bit confused.’

  ‘Pissed, you mean.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I don’t think so. He’s saying that he won’t leave until he’s seen Joe Quinn.’

  Chris drew in his breath, a sharp sound that travelled down the line. ‘But Joe Quinn’s —’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m calling you.’

  ‘He’s probably just pissed,’ Chris said again, but his voice lacked its earlier certainty. ‘Okay, I’ll get over there and sort it out.’

  ‘Are you at Belles?’

  ‘No, I’m at home. The duty manager’s dealing with the club.’

  Ava, still riled by his earlier response, felt an unwelcome rush of sympathy for him. She knew what it meant to have to worry about a parent. Before she’d had time to think about it properly, she blurted out the offer. ‘Do you want me to come over? It’s no trouble. I’m only down the road. I can be there in five minutes.’

  ‘No, it’s…’ He stopped. ‘I dunno… maybe that would be better. Could you?’

  ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘I’ll start walking,’ he said. ‘You can pick me up along the way.’

  Ava put the phone down, wondering what had possessed her to volunteer her services at this time of night. She might be his driver, but this was over and above the call of duty, especially after the long haul to Manchester. Still, if she wanted to keep the job, it was worth going the extra mile. And that was the only reason she was doing it. Wasn’t it? Before she could examine her own motives too closely, she grabbed the car keys from the coffee table, pulled on her jacket and rushed out of the flat.

  Outside, the cold air hit her like a slap in the face. She half walked, half jogged to Violet Road where the Kia was parked. Shivering, she jumped in, switched on the engine and the heat and headed for the south side of Kellston. It was a good thing she’d only had one cocktail this afternoon, else she wouldn’t have been fit to drive. She had, she thought, shown considerable restraint. Being surrounded by dead stuffed creatures, real or otherwise, was enough to drive anyone to drink.

  The traffic was light and Ava kept her eyes peeled as she approached the area where Chris Street lived. It was only a few minutes before she saw him, his shoulders bent, his head down against the freezing wind. She gave a quick beep of the horn and drew up by the kerb.

  Chris gave her a nod as he got into the car. ‘Ta,’ he said softly.

  ‘No need for thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m your driver, aren’t I? It’s what I’m here for.’

  He gave her a quick glance. ‘You pissed off about what I said before?’

  Ava did a U-turn in the road and headed back towards the Fox. She kept her eyes straight ahead, her voice low and steady. ‘Why should I be pissed off just because you thought I was the kind of person who would ring in with some lousy excuse as to why I couldn’t come to work tomorrow?’

  ‘You are pissed off.’

  ‘Only a bit,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll get over it.’

  ‘I could have got a cab.’

  ‘Yeah, and waited half an hour.’

  There was a short silence during which Ava wondered if she’d overstepped the mark. But, much as she wanted to keep the job, she knew it would only work if there was at least a modicum of mutual respect. She’d been walked over too many times by her ex and
didn’t intend to throw herself under any other man’s boots.

  ‘Well, if it helps,’ he said, ‘I appreciate you coming out tonight.’

  Ava gave a light shrug of her shoulders. ‘Yeah, it helps.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry if I suggested that you were anything less than the perfect employee. I’ve got used to people taking the piss. The minute I take anyone on, they’re already looking for ways to skive off.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because you employ the wrong people.’

  ‘I employed you,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t count. I’m only on trial, remember?’