Streetwise

by Roberta Kray

  ‘I thought you women talked about that stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, right. It’s always top of the agenda whenever we meet for the first time. We tend to skip the usual formalities, like where you come from or what you like to do, and get straight down to the nitty-gritty. Hey, what’s your boyfriend like in the sack?’

  ‘You mean that’s not true?’ he said. ‘God, I’m disappointed. I always imagined —’

  ‘No, no, no!’ she interrupted, raising a hand. ‘Kindly keep the dark corners of your imagination to yourself. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve already got an imaginary boyfriend and an imaginary dog. That’s as much as I can handle in one day.’ She swung the Mercedes out of the car park and headed for the high street. ‘And George? What’s all that about? How could you call my dog George?’

  ‘What’s wrong with George?’

  She gave him a sideways glance. ‘So do you think we got away with it? Do they believe we’re a couple?’

  ‘Well, you could have been a little more affectionate, but they’ll probably just put that down to your uptight nature.’

  ‘I’m not uptight.’

  ‘Says the girl who refuses to talk about her boyfriend’s prowess in the bedroom.’

  ‘Prowess?’ she repeated, raising her eyebrows. ‘Is that what you call it?’

  He grinned at her. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Spare me. And just out of interest, how long exactly are you planning on keeping this beautiful relationship going?’

  ‘Why, are you bored of me already?’

  ‘Promise me one thing. When the time comes, I can dump you, right? A girl’s got her pride to consider.’

  Chris took his phone out of his pocket, checked his messages and gave a grunt. ‘You’d think she could at least send a text.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Jenna,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her since Friday. She won’t answer my calls, doesn’t reply to my texts. I mean, for God’s sake, all I want to do is talk to her. Five minutes – you’d think she could spare me that.’

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t want to talk.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  Ava shot him a quick glance. ‘Probably because she knows what you’re going to say and doesn’t want to hear it. She must have been told that you turned up at Wilder’s and that you weren’t in an altogether good frame of mind. I imagine she’s waiting for you to calm down a bit before she makes contact.’

  ‘I’m perfectly calm,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I just want to know what the hell she’s playing at.’

  ‘Which, roughly translated, means you don’t care what she does so long as she doesn’t do it with Wilder, huh?’

  Chris’s grey eyes darkened. ‘There are thousands of men out there, hundreds of thousands. Why did she have to pick him?’

  Ava, trying to lighten the mood a little, said, ‘Good thing I’m not the jealous sort or I might not take too kindly to you banging on about your ex.’ She saw his expression and grimaced. ‘Oh right, sorry, not a subject for humour. I’ll shut up, shall I?’

  Chris didn’t reply. He turned his face away, gazed out of the window for a while and then went back to staring at his phone as if by the very force of his will he could make it spring into life.

  Ava felt suddenly uneasy about it all. If Jenna kept on ignoring him, he might snap and do something stupid. What if he decided to go back to the bar or go to her home and have it out with her? If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up getting arrested for harassment – or worse. She opened her mouth but then smartly closed it again. She wasn’t his keeper and it wasn’t her place to lecture him on what he should or shouldn’t do.

  Ava tried to push her concerns aside, to concentrate on the road ahead. Anyway, she had problems of her own to deal with. The way things were going, she’d probably be the one to get arrested. The meet with Danny had been disappointing. She’d tried not to raise her expectations, but a part of her had still hoped for a glimmer of enlightenment as regards Jeremy Squires and the uttering of her name. And what had she learned? A big fat nothing.

  She swung a right at the northern end of the high street and skirted around the Mansfield Estate until she came to Lincoln Road. She travelled another twenty yards and then pulled the car on to the forecourt of the Lincoln Pool Room and switched off the engine.

  Chris unfastened his seat belt. ‘You may as well come in,’ he said. ‘I need to look through the books. I’ll be half an hour or so. Do you play pool?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you can grab a drink or a cup of coffee. Save you sitting out here on your own.’

  Ava, although she’d never been inside the Lincoln, had heard plenty about it. It was another of the businesses owned by the Streets, a place where the local boys hustled, did their dodgy deals, drank too much lager and then beat the shit out of each other on a Saturday night. She hesitated, but decided that, on balance, it was probably safer being inside than sitting alone outside in a spanking new Mercedes.

  She got out of the car and walked with Chris towards the entrance. The wide low-slung building was painted white and adorned with a generous smattering of graffiti. Two of the windows had cracks running down them and another was boarded up. The bins were overflowing and sodden heaps of litter – empty crisp packets, tin cans and fag ends – had gathered in the pools of rainwater.

  Inside, the clicking of the pool balls merged with the rhythmic complaints of a rapper sounding off about his ‘bitch’. The place was surprisingly busy for a Monday afternoon and about three-quarters of the tables were in use. The furniture, designed for utility rather than comfort, consisted of a line of hard bench seats set back against the wall. Chris headed towards the bar running along the left side of the hall.

  The man behind the counter was wearing jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was in his sixties, but still solid looking. He had a creased leathery face and a nose that had been broken more than once.

  ‘Lenny,’ Chris said. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Not so bad, ta. How’s that brother of yours? I heard you had a spot of bother at Belles.’

  ‘Makes a change from here, eh? Yeah, he’s fine. You know Danny, he always bounces back.’ Chris turned to Ava. ‘This is Big Lenny,’ he said. ‘He’s run this joint for the last twenty years. Lenny, this is Ava, a friend of mine.’

  Ava noticed how he didn’t introduce her as his driver. She smiled at Lenny. ‘Hi.’

  Lenny gave her one of those curt nods that certain types of East End men seemed so fond of – a spare acknowledgment of her existence and nothing more – and immediately turned his attention back to Chris. ‘You want to come through to the back?’

  ‘Sure.’ Chris glanced at Ava. ‘You want something to drink?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll have a Coke.’

  ‘A Coke for the lady, please, Lenny.’

  Lenny obliged with a half pint of something flat and brown. He put the rather grubby glass down on the counter without even looking at her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  Lenny walked off to the end of the bar and flipped open the counter.

  ‘You’ll be okay on your own?’ Chris asked.

  ‘I’ll see you later.’

  After he’d gone, Ava sat down on a bar stool and gazed across the pool hall. The clientele was predominantly young and male, although there were a few girls playing too. She watched the two boys closest to her as they strutted round the table lining up their shots, but her mind was only half on the game. The other half was already drifting back to the messy killing of Jeremy Squires. Somehow, she had managed to get herself embroiled in the death of a man she hadn’t even known. How had that happened? One minute she’d been living an ordinary, predictable existence, the next she was being interviewed by a pair of cops who clearly had her in the frame for murder.

  Ava gave a shudder as she reached for the glass. She took a tentative sip of t
he cola-type liquid – it definitely wasn’t Coke – and almost spat it out again. It was warm and flat and decidedly nasty.

  ‘Yeah, tastes like gnat’s piss, doesn’t it?’

  She turned to see Solomon Vale standing next to her. She glanced from him to the glass and then back up at him again. ‘All things considered, I think that might be a slur on the virtues of gnat’s piss.’

  Solomon grinned, pulled up a stool and sat down next to her. ‘So how’s the driving going?’

  ‘The car’s outside. You want to check it for dents?’

  ‘Is someone feeling a touch defensive?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s not been the best couple of days. I’ve had the cops on my back about the shooting at Belles.’

  ‘You and me both,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but they don’t think you’re involved.’

  Solomon looked her up and down and smirked. ‘You? Why would they think that?’

  Ava stared back at him. ‘There’s no need to act so surprised. Why not me? Don’t you think I’m capable? You shouldn’t be fooled by appearances. For all you know, I could be a fully trained assassin.’

  Solomon took a swig from his bottle of water, thought about it and then placed the bottle on the counter. ‘In my experience, small as it is, fully trained assassins don’t tend to hang about once they’ve done the job. They get their well-paid asses out of the picture as fast as they possibly can.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  Ava gave a shrug. ‘So maybe they just think I’m the sort of woman who goes around shooting men on a Saturday night. Either way, they’re sure I had something to do with it. Believe me, I know when a copper’s serious or not. I’ve been there, seen the hunger in their eyes.’

  Solomon gave her another incredulous look. ‘You?’

  ‘No, well, okay, not me exactly, but my dad’s been banged up more times than I’ve had hot dinners. I know coppers. I know what they’re like.’

  ‘But I still don’t get it, babe. Why should they be giving you hassle?’

  Ava explained to him about Squires calling out her name, making her a primary suspect so far as Old Bill were concerned. ‘So you see, I’m right in the middle of it all without having a clue how I managed to get there.’ Sensing that a thin thread of hysteria was starting to creep into her voice, she quickly moved on. ‘But enough about me. Are you working here at the moment?’

  ‘If you can call it that.’ Solomon’s eyes raked the room with something like contempt. ‘I’m stuck here until Belles opens again. That could be days, weeks even.’

  ‘The prospect of which doesn’t fill you with joy and happiness.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The prospect sure as hell doesn’t.’

  Ava nudged her glass away, not intending to drink any more of the vile substance it contained. ‘Well, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you. I just spent the last hour in the Fox with Silver Delaney.’ As soon as she said it, she wondered if she shouldn’t have. She barely knew Solomon and anything she said could easily find its way back to Danny. ‘I mean, I’m sure she’s very nice once you get to know her properly, but —’

  ‘That girl’s about as nice as a cobra with a headache.’

  Ava smiled with relief. ‘Oh, right. So it’s not just me then.’

  ‘No, babe, it’s not just you.’

  Suddenly, above the noise of the music, the chatter and the clicking pool balls, there was the sound of a disturbance coming from the entrance. A frazzled-looking guy rushed into the pool room and waved his arms at Solomon. ‘Hey, Sol, come and give me a hand, will you? It’s all kicking off out here.’

  With an obvious show of reluctance, Solomon rose to his feet. ‘Just what I need,’ he murmured. As he was walking away from her, he looked back over his shoulder and said, ‘You want to stay away from Silver. She won’t do you any favours. She’s trouble, that one.’

  ‘Thanks. I sort of gathered that.’

  For a second he looked as though he was about to say something else, but then he gave a small shake of his head and strode off towards another kind of trouble.

  47

  DI Valerie Middleton stared hard at Guy Wilder. Most law-abiding people would show some concern at having been caught out lying to the police, but he was cool as a cucumber. He sat back on the leather sofa with his legs crossed, his whole body posture as relaxed as it could be. He didn’t betray even a hint of anxiety. She was wondering now whether they ought to have taken him down the station and conducted the interview there. He was in his comfort zone here in the bar and nothing seemed to faze him.

  ‘So,’ she continued, ‘are you saying that you didn’t know that Lydia Hall’s mother was actually Karen Quinn?’

  Guy frowned, pausing before he replied. ‘To be honest, she might have mentioned it, but Lydia talked about all sorts of things. I wasn’t always listening properly.’ He flashed a charming smile at Valerie. ‘It’s the curse of the barman, having customers tell you their life story, all their childhood miseries, their marital problems. After a while, you tend to switch off.’

  ‘But that name would have meant something to you.’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘The Quinns were a big family in these parts, powerful, important. Terry Street used to work for them and then took over after Joe was murdered.’

  ‘It’s all a long time ago, though, isn’t it? Ancient history.’

  ‘But you must have heard the rumours about Terry’s rise to power. That he was the one who killed Joe and not his son. Did you tell Lydia about that? She would have been interested, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘She might have been, but no, I didn’t tell her anything. I’ve found it’s never wise to repeat rumour and gossip. Mind, if that was what she was after, I’m sure she wouldn’t have had too much difficulty in tracking it down. Kellston’s full of people who wouldn’t think twice about filling her head with all sorts of rubbish.’

  DCI Butler, who’d been quiet until this point, leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. ‘But none of that rubbish came from you?’

  ‘No, none of it came from me.’

  ‘Still, you can see how Lydia might have taken against Terry Street, might have wanted to hurt him or his family. Her mother, Karen, lost her grandfather and her father. Joe Quinn was murdered, Tommy Quinn was banged up. Lydia could easily have blamed Terry for all her mother’s problems and for her eventual overdose. Did you know Lydia’s mother committed suicide too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Guy said. ‘She did tell me that. She also told me that her mother was a drug addict and an alcoholic.’

  ‘So you did listen sometimes,’ Butler said.

  Guy flashed his smile again. ‘If you hear something repeated enough times, you tend to remember it.’

  Valerie, who was more than aware of the bad blood between Guy Wilder and the Streets, was sure that he was hiding something. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t talked to Lydia about the Quinns. He wouldn’t have been able to resist it. But was he actually involved in what she did next or was he simply trying to distance himself? When it came to murder, people often got defensive. She glanced around the bar, all clean and tidy and ready for opening in the evening. There was no sign of Noah Clark today. She looked back at Guy. ‘Did Lydia own a gun?’

  Guy laughed. ‘A gun? Where on earth would Lydia get a gun from?’

  ‘Not too difficult round here,’ Butler said.

  ‘You can’t seriously think that she shot that Squires bloke. Not little Lydia. She didn’t have it in her.’

  ‘How would you know? You’ve already told the inspector that you weren’t especially close. Why couldn’t she have done it? What was to stop her?’

  Guy’s shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug. ‘Nothing, I suppose. She just never struck me as the type who’d do anything so… so violent. And why would she? What did Squires ever do to her?’

  Butler looked down, ran his fingertips along the glass top of the table, and t
hen slowly looked up again. ‘Maybe it wasn’t Squires she was aiming for. Maybe it was Danny Street.’

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Why not? She might have seen it as payback for all the damage Terry Street inflicted, or allegedly inflicted on her family. When she found out she’d got it wrong, that she’d shot the wrong man by mistake, she took her own life. Or perhaps she always planned to do that anyway.’

  ‘You don’t think that’s a little… far-fetched?’

  Valerie kept her eyes fixed on him as she asked the next question. ‘When was the last time you saw Lydia?’

  Guy’s face remained expressionless. ‘Oh, it must have been last week sometime. Let me see… Wednesday or Thursday? No, hang on, it was definitely Thursday. There was an exhibition at Beast and Noah and I went along to provide the cocktails.’