It was all coming back to haunt him and Smith was mortified at the thought of his skulduggery becoming public knowledge. Like all men of his ilk he was most worried about the ignominy of being caught, the public shaming. Worried about how he’d be perceived then by friends and colleagues.
Paulie knew all that was going through his mind and wanted to laugh at him. It was always about Smithy and his standing in the community. Well, he should have thought about that when he was up to his skulduggery! No one had forced him into this situation, he had chosen it. Loved being in the company of faces, loved feeling like a million dollars in front of his mates.
Did Smith think Paulie Martin had actually liked him or something? Did he think they were mates? Did he not know they were using each other? Was he that fucking stupid? He really was a prick, but Paulie was going to lean on him and get that child every bit of help he could. This bloke was a joke. All he thought about was himself. Even the brasses laughed at him, and he liked a brass, did David Smith. Liked them young as well. Legal, but not so’s you’d notice.
Young and vulnerable-looking . . . look great on the front page of the Sun that would. And that was where Paulie would put him if he didn’t toe the fucking line! Paulie owned him, had done from the first second he had taken a drink for services rendered.
Paulie had no personal allegiance to him. He was a filth, and worse than that he was a bent filth. At least with the others you knew where you were and they afforded you a bit of respect. Whereas this ponce thought he was something special? Well, Paulie was about to disabuse him of that notion once and for all.
‘Look, Dave, you get on their case and you tell them it’s because if you don’t help out a friend he is going to tell the world about all your little schemes and scams. I also want you to tell Baxter that Joanie Brewer is to be treated like fucking visiting royalty. It’s bad enough what’s happened without him acting like he’s doing her a favour by even listening to her.’
Smith nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘You have got to come through for me now, Davie boy, like I have come through for you over the years. This is called a deal, see, and I kept my end of the bargain, didn’t I? Well, now it’s your turn. You shit bubbles of pink chewing gum if I tell you to, right?’
The Chief Constable nodded once more, his face white and strained, all bravado gone.
‘I said, right ?’
Paulie was bellowing now and Smith started babbling with fright.
‘OK, Paulie. OK.’
‘Don’t try and cunt me about, Davie boy, because I am on the verge of killing someone meself and we don’t want that dead body to be yours, do we?’
He nodded once more and Paulie knew he had said enough for the time being. Smith was clearly not happy with the situation but knew he could do nothing about it. This would teach him to keep himself inside the law in future. So at least some good had come out of it.
It was getting rid of Paulie once and for all after this that was going to be the poser. The Chief Constable knew now that he had to distance himself from Martin as soon as possible. This little lot could blow up in his face if he wasn’t careful. It had just come home to him exactly what he was up against.
The first time he had taken a gift from Paulie it had been given so discreetly that it had not felt as if he was actually doing anything wrong. Plus it was his boss at the time who had encouraged him. In fact, he had been the one who had introduced Smith to Paulie in the first place so it hadn’t seemed half as bad as it should have done. If his boss was up for it, why shouldn’t he do the same?
His wife had loved it, the extra money and the lifestyle, and if he was honest he had loved it all himself. Women when he wanted them, on tap twenty-four hours a day. He had even arranged for women for his friends and watched their incredulity as they saw what he could command by a simple phone call. He had loved showing off his power.
He had pretended that Paulie was in awe of him, and wondered now if he had actually believed that himself. Until this moment his veneer of respectability had never been challenged. Now it had been he was regretting everything he had ever said or done with Paulie Martin. Every boast, every promise, was standing out in his mind amplified one hundredfold.
‘Be sure your sins will find you out.’
His mother had had no idea how true that saying really was.
Penny Cross had worked in Supa Snaps for five years and she loved her job. She loved watching the photos when they flicked into view and she could garner a glimpse into other people’s lives. She was a gossip and consequently loved the little insights she got into people’s holidays or birthdays or just days out.
Kira’s face was on the front page of the local paper. The little girl’s disappearance was the talk of the place at the moment, especially as she was known to them all. Penny had been miffed that the photo was a school one and not one of the ones she had developed over the years. Joanie loved a photo of the kids, Penny knew that better than anyone.
It was Joanie who had told her that her husband was having an affair. Like most of the local people Penny had her cards done every now and again. Joanie had been kind to her afterwards, but Penny knew her husband had gone because the bird, a certain Pauline Garston, had been able to have babies. She had already had two by him when Penny had found out about her.
Pauline had been ten years younger and a lot more fertile. Penny could laugh about it now but at the time it had crippled her.
But that was in the past.
It was Monday morning and she had a backlog from Saturday to get out so she’d better move her arse up a gear.
As she sipped at her coffee she suddenly saw pictures of Kira Brewer coming out of the machine and her heart skipped a beat.
Kira must have dropped the film in on Saturday though Penny hadn’t seen her. Who had been working here with Penny then? The young school leaver, Maurice, it must have been. Funny, there didn’t seem to be any envelope with customer details in the rack.
Penny picked up the photographs and stared at them. She didn’t like what she was seeing, especially after what had just happened. The girl going missing and everyone looking for her.
Then she was frightened; she was not sure what to do. Should she give the photographs to the police or to Joanie? She didn’t want any trouble.
She stared down at the disturbing pictures again for a full five minutes before she dialled 999. She would give them to the police, see what they made of them. But the fear stayed with her as she placed them in a brown envelope and put them in a locked drawer ready for the police when they arrived.
Della could hear the shouting before she even got inside her house. As she slid the key into the lock she was scandalised at the thought that her neighbours could hear this noise.
It was Joseph and his son arguing but it was Joseph who was shouting. She couldn’t imagine Little Tommy doing that somehow. He was always so quietly spoken. She pushed her way into the lounge and saw Tommy cowering on the sofa, Joseph standing over him, one fist raised.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
The two men looked at her for long seconds before Joseph lowered his arm.
‘What are you doing back so early?’
It was the way he said it - as if she had done something wrong, something sneaky. She had only come back into her own house!
‘I beg your pardon? Do I have to get permission to come into me own home now then?’
Tommy watched for his father’s reaction, expecting him to fell her with one blow as he had Tommy’s mother if she had ever dared to answer him back like that.
Instead Joseph smiled, actually smiled as he said, ‘You came in while we were having a family argument, love. Sit yourself down while I make us a cuppa, eh?’
Della was slightly appeased by his tone but she was still wondering what was going on.
‘Were you going to hit him?’
She turned to Tommy.
‘Was he going to hit you?’
Tomm
y didn’t answer her, but he liked her more and more as her voice mounted in volume.
‘I am talking to you, Joseph Thompson, so you had better answer me!’
Joseph walked from the room and went into the kitchen. It was obvious to everyone that he was not going to say a word.
Della turned her attention to Little Tommy.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Tommy pulled himself up with difficulty; it was obvious he had been crying.
‘You’d better ask him, Della. I am sorry you had to witness all this. Truly sorry.’
‘I think I should be told what occurred. Tommy?’
He shook his head sadly.
‘You really need to talk to my father.’
Joseph came back into the room then.
‘Get out, you useless bastard! Get out of this house and keep out of my life. If I ever clap eyes on you again, I’ll kill you.’
Della was shocked to the core. She would never have believed that Joseph was capable of talking like that to anyone, let alone his own son. Tommy stared at his father and she could see the hatred in his eyes, the same hatred that was mirrored in his father’s.
‘Go on, tell her, Tommy. Go on, I dare you.’
Joseph was nearly laughing now for some reason.
‘It’s you who’ll be in trouble, son, remember, not me.’
Tommy walked from the room slowly and heavily. Each step felt as if he was walking through water.
‘You thought you had it over my head, didn’t you? Well, think about it, boy, and think about it hard. I done nothing, remember? Nothing. It was to all intents and purposes you, not me. It was your mother who saw to that, mate. Remember that when you next get the urge to open that fat trap of yours. It was your mother’s doing, not mine.’
Della watched Tommy leave and for once in her life was struck dumb. When he had gone she said quietly, ‘What the hell is going on here?’
Joseph shook his head sadly as he answered her.
‘He never got over his mother’s going and he drags up the past all the time. I admit I wasn’t always kind to her, Della, but it’s hard on a man to have a bedridden wife nearly all his married life. And then on top of it all I was lumbered with him and all.’
He shook his head again and opened his arms wide to encompass her and the room.
‘You don’t know what all this means to me, Della. This life I have with you. No cooking and cleaning for a sick woman and a child who listened to every bad word she said about me. She put a gulf between me and him that Jesus Himself would be hard pushed to cross. She was jealous, and he is like her in that way. He knows I’m really happy for once in my life. Hates the fact that I have a good-looking real woman who I adore. He can’t stand it so he came here and dragged up the past again. A past best left dead and buried.’
He looked defeated, shrunken, and Della’s heart went out to him.
The compliments helped as well.
She was adored, was she?
Well, that was a first. Her misgivings forgotten, she put her arms around him and hugged him close.
‘You’ve got me now, mate.’
He smiled as he said, ‘I know that, Della, and I thank God for the fact every day of my life.’
As Tommy made his way home he felt the sickness rising inside him. He would not tolerate his mother being mentioned by that thug of a man. His mother had been good even if she was weak, and she had had to put up with that man and his bullying until she had died.
Well, there was more than one way to skin a cat and he would see to it that his father paid for those words and for what he had done in the past.
He had always watched Tommy like a hawk. Even today still reminded him of certain things so that he could keep him in his place.
Now, though, that was all out of the window. This was war. And if it were left to Tommy, he would win this war outright. Della was going to find out exactly what she had taken on.
The WPC looked at the photographs and sighed. This did not look good; it did not look good at all. In fact, it put a different complexion on everything.
She bagged up the photos and took Maurice Delray’s phone number and address. Then, clutching the bag tightly to her chest, she left Supa Snaps.
Penny Cross watched her leave and wondered if she had done the right thing. Joanie was a good mate in her way, and Penny was sure that those terrible photographs could not have had anything to do with her. But then her natural gossipy ways came to the fore. Plus, she reasoned, Joanie was on the game. That type of thing was probably her stock in trade.
She picked up the phone and started to ring around her cronies to see what they made of it all.
After all, the photographs would soon be common knowledge anyway.
Chapter Thirteen
Maurice Delray was nervous. His mother Oleta was staring at him like he had just grown another head. Her shock was absolute. She felt a wave of hot fear wash over her, and it was all because of the policeman in their front room. He looked so incongruous standing there in his uniform in their clean and tidy home. Oleta was terrified that her Maurice was in some kind of trouble.
As she looked at her son she saw the strain in his face and the terror in his eyes. If he was going down the same road as his brother Wendell then she was going to have to be harder than she had ever been before but she would save this child of hers from the path of wrongdoing.
Wendell was doing eighteen years for armed robbery, as lost to her now as if she was still in St Lucia and he back living with a father who had never done an honest day’s work in his life.
She had tried to make a good life for them all once she’d reached England but it had been hard. Wendell had never been one to take orders from anybody. He was his father’s son in that respect.
Now she worked twelve hours a day in the canteen of a factory in Barking and she was buying her little flat and sending her youngest son Maurice to college. She had turned them around, made a decent life for them separate from the one her husband had chosen. And she was reaping the benefits of her hard-won lifestyle in her son Maurice. So what was all this about? She was practically wringing her hands with terror and disappointment.
‘What do you want?’
Maurice’s voice was quivering with fear and tension. The West Indian inflection was there, barely discernible but there nonetheless. The policeman guessed it was due to nerves.
‘We want to talk to you about Kira Brewer.’
Maurice saw his mother’s face blanch.
He didn’t know who the girl was, he said, had never seen her in his life. The policeman showed him her picture then.
‘She’s the little girl who went missing. You must have seen it on the news or in the newspapers?’
It was then that the PC realised there was no TV in this room, only a small portable radio. The place was pristine, so clean it was shining. The sofa and chairs still had the original plastic covers on them and the carpet had a runner going round it to keep it clean.
All the walls had religious prints on them, beautifully tinted in pastel shades. They each showed Jesus looking handsome and blond, His eyes looking up towards the heavens.
The boy nodded slightly.
‘Did you see her in Supa Snaps on Saturday?’
The boy pondered for a moment, aware that this was an important question and giving it his full attention.
He shook his head.
‘No, I didn’t see her in there. I would have remembered. But the name of the person who brought the film in to be developed would be on the envelope.’
The policeman nodded.
‘But there was no envelope, you see. We wondered if maybe you had done the photographs as a favour for a friend or relative?’
Maurice shook his head once more.
‘No. I wouldn’t do anything like that. I could lose my job.’
The policeman believed him; there was an innate honesty in this boy which shone through. Either that or he was a very good act
or but the PC didn’t think that was the case. The boy had nearly had a heart attack on seeing him there.
Most of the kids he dealt with lied as a matter of course, and lied well. He saw the boy’s mother relax as he answered the questions in his clear and concise way. He was glad she wouldn’t have any trouble, she looked a nice woman.