‘He’ll kill you,’ Jon Jon growled.
Bernard laughed then, rubbing his hands together as if they were cold.
‘Tell him he’ll have to join the queue, Jon Jon. This ponce is mine. Do me a favour, son, fill in the Rottweilers on your way out. And send in my Jimmy - he’s in the car outside. Tell him I want the lighter fuel and the pliers. We’re going back to the sixties for you, Jesmond, old stylie!’
He wanted revenge and Jon Jon was willing to let Bernard get it for him. He was also shrewd enough to realise Bernard wanted to know more about where Jesmond’s money was stashed.
As he walked away Bernard said quietly, ‘Let me know about Paulie, I’ve always fancied a ruck with him.’
Jon Jon laughed.
‘He’s talking bollocks, Bernard. Paulie is a lot of things, but a beast? Never in a million years.’
‘We’ll see, son. And Jon Jon . . .’
He turned round to face the collector.
‘You’re a good kid. If you ever fancy a change of scene, give me a call, son.’
Jon Jon nodded and left the room. As he reached Jesmond’s minders the screaming started.
‘What’s going on, Jon Jon?’
He noticed none of them ran in to help their boss. It was the old, old story. The king was dead, long live the new king.
Bethany was curled up on Joanie’s sofa with a glass of milk and a packet of crisps. Joanie was running her a bath. Bethany had wet herself at some point and her clothes were soaked. There was no way she could be left like she was. Joanie had given her one of her own outsize T-shirts to wear. As she picked up the discarded clothes she saw the state of Bethany’s underwear. There was dried blood in her panties which had obviously been on her for days.
Joanie sighed with frustration. Poor little cow. Monika obviously hadn’t bothered to tip her the wink about her periods starting. She must have been so scared. She poured some of Kira’s Matey in and watched the bubbles forming through tear-filled eyes as the extent of her friend’s neglect of Bethany hit home.
‘Come on, love, get in here.’
Bethany walked into the little bathroom and Joanie pulled the T-shirt up over her head. She saw bruises on the girl’s solid body. She didn’t have proper breasts: they were just fat. Bethany was like a little Michelin girl. As she settled back in the warm water she winced.
‘You sore, sweetheart?’
She nodded.
‘Has someone been hurting you, Bethany?’
‘I can’t tell anyone, Joanie, or they’ll come and get me. They told me they would.’ Even though Bethany was a drama queen there was real fear in her eyes.
‘Who told you that, sweetie? Tell Auntie Joanie and I promise I will take care of you.’
She could see that Bethany wanted to believe her. But fear was a stronger emotion than love at times and Joanie knew that fear was the key here. She had to go slowly or she would lose this opportunity. Bethany had to tell her the truth because she wanted to. If Joanie forced it out of her she knew she would never get the whole story.
‘Can I stay here?’
It was more of a plea than a question. As Joanie stared into those big brown eyes she felt her heart jolt. This child was beautiful beneath the grime and the flab and she was unloved and needed attention. Joanie would give her all she needed. But she also knew from personal experience what usually happened to girls like Bethany. People took them and then they used and abused them.
It was what had happened to her.
‘’Course you can stay here, for as long as you like. But you can’t drink here, you know that, don’t you?’
Bethany nodded.
‘I won’t need to drink here, will I? I won’t be on me own all the time.’
All the loneliness she’d known was in her voice, in the resigned set of her chubby shoulders. Joanie was gently washing the girl’s hair. It was matted underneath and she picked up some conditioner to try and detangle it.
‘Where did these bruises come from?’ she asked casually.
Bethany was still lying back in the water, enjoying the feel of Joanie’s hands massaging her head. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t answer for a while. Joanie felt a strong urge to walk round to Monika’s and launch her into outer space for her complete callous neglect of this child. Monika should never have had children; she was completely selfish, always had been and always would be. When they’d had words about this in the past, Monika had argued she was only emulating her own mother. But Joanie’s own mother had not been much better, and she had done the best she could. She’d been determined that her own kids would not know the misery she had endured. She knew just what it was like to be Bethany but after Kira’s disappearance had forgotten all about the poor kid.
Now she said, ‘You have to tell me who hurt you. I mean it, Bethany, I have to know.’
Bethany didn’t answer her, just stared at her with those big sad eyes.
‘What about me mum, Joanie? Will you tell her I told you?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to. Now let me rinse this off your hair and then I want you to start talking, all right?’
Bethany nodded and lay back in the warm water, enjoying the comforting feel of it. She had always envied Kira her home life and felt even more guilty now as she remembered just what she had done to her.
Jealousy had at times got the better of her. Kira had always been loved and cared for, had basked in her family’s attention all her life. The only time Bethany had ever felt valued was in this tiny flat when Joanie had done her best to make her feel part of the family.
Now, as she lay in the water, she felt Joanie’s love enveloping her and knew she could trust her. If she had said she would take care of Bethany, that was exactly what would happen.
So she lay there and enjoyed the ministrations of her mother’s best friend.
Paulie was in a meeting with Big John McClellan. John was a face from South London with his fingers in nearly every pie in the smoke. He had done twenty-three years in prison and walked out richer than when he had gone inside as he had continued to run his businesses through his sons, and being a shrewd businessman had gone from strength to strength.
John’s biggest asset was the fact that he had no conscience. From the earliest days of his career he had made sure that anyone who disrespected him or tucked him up paid a high price. There was many an old lag still walking around with a scar from eyebrow to mouth, the sixties punishment for those offences.
Now he was after Paulie to come in on a deal bringing cocaine in from Amsterdam to Harwich in plastic containers of fruit. The fruit was actually filled with the white powder, and as the plastic housing had been treated with an agent to disguise the smell the dogs would overlook it.
John had already organised a couple of dummy runs and now he was ready to go into the big leagues. It would be worth a fortune to the right investors and he needed people with a decent wedge to help him secure his contacts. Hence this visit to see his old mate Paulie Martin.
He, for his part, was happy to do business with Big John because it was always a guaranteed few shillings. Big John never invested a penny without first looking at all the angles and he always made plenty of dosh.
Paulie remembered years before, the two of them sitting on a beach in Sussex waiting for a consignment of cannabis to be unloaded from small vessels. When they saw it they waded into the water to drag it on to the beach with fishing rods.
What a laugh those days had been!
It had bonded the two men and that bond had stayed close all these years. Now Jon Jon was being introduced to this face he had only ever heard about before and he was impressed. He also knew he would have to wait until they had finished their business before he could tell Paulie what was going on with Jesmond.
He listened to them talking about old times and envied them their experience even as he told himself that as soon as all this was over he was going to take stock of his own life, once and for all.
He would nor
mally have been excited to find himself in the company of a living legend, but now too much was going on for him to really enjoy it. He glanced round Paulie’s offices and took in for the first time just how expensive everything here was. It had cost plenty of money and it looked that way.
It was Paulie’s nature to choose only the best, and Jon Jon knew he would be the same in his shoes. But if this was ever within his reach, he also knew he would be happy with it. Paulie, though, couldn’t ever have enough. He felt that any money spent was money wasted even if it was earning him and did his best to replace it as quickly as possible.
Jon Jon was brought back to the present by hearing Paulie saying to Big John: ‘Take Jon Jon with you, then. He’s a good kid and he could do with the experience.’
Paulie smiled at him.
‘You go with John and you listen and learn, right? Because this will be your arm of the business. You might as well learn about it from the best.’
Big John was grinning at him, and Jon Jon found himself smiling back. Big John looked like the archetypal villain: square-headed, completely bald with expensively capped teeth. Heavy-built, running to fat but still powerful enough to make most men think twice before having a row with him even if they didn’t know who he was.
But it was his eyes that were his most arresting feature: pale grey and completely devoid of any feeling, except when he grinned and then he looked benevolent. Almost.
Jon Jon left with him ten minutes later to find out about the finer points of cocaine smuggling. But he was seeing Paulie at nine that night in the club in King’s Cross.
He would wait. He knew he had no choice.
Joanie had dried Bethany and dressed her once more in the T-shirt, then she had made her something to eat and now they were curled up together on Kira’s bed. As Bethany munched away she tried to put what she wanted to say into words but they escaped her.
She could taste the butter in the sandwiches. It was so long since she had eaten something so good. She lived on takeaways and sweets usually and it was such a novelty to be fed like this. She was also enjoying the feeling of being held by Joanie. She felt safe and warm.
But would Joanie still want her around once Bethany told her what had been happening? In the end she knew that she would just have to tell the truth and be done with it.
‘Come on, Bethany. You’ve dithered enough for one night and your mum will be here before we know it. She must be wondering where I’ve got to.’
Joanie hugged the girl to her.
‘No matter what you might think, love, there’s nothing that can shock me or make me feel any differently towards you.’
‘Are you sure about that, Joanie?’
She nodded.
Bethany put the plate on the duvet and licked her fingers slowly before replying.
‘What if I was to tell you I saw Kira the day she disappeared?’
There, it was out at last, and she felt the burden of guilt start to slide from her. She could also see the stunned expression on Joanie’s face and wished she could do something to make it better.
‘What do you mean, you saw her, Bethany? Where?’
‘We had a row up the high street. I was horrible to her, but I didn’t mean it. She ran off and I followed . . .’
Joanie was trying to take in what the child was saying.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’
Bethany lowered her eyes before she said sadly, ‘I was too frightened.’
‘Frightened of who, love? Tell me who you’re so scared of.’
Bethany started crying again.
‘Pippy . . . he took me and Kira away in his car with him when I’d caught up with her, said he was going to show us where some children played. But I knew he wasn’t going to show us anything like that because . . .’
She was choking now, unable to get the words out.
Joanie’s head was spinning from what she had just been told.
‘Because you had already had dealings with him, is that what you’re trying to say?’
Bethany nodded, unable to answer the question outright. As Joanie absorbed what she was being told she saw the distress and guilt on the child’s face and felt an overpowering urge to kill Pippy.
‘Where did he take Kira, sweetheart?’
‘I don’t know, Joanie. I was dropped off at a house in Ilford, off Mortlake Road.’ Bethany was crying once more. ‘The man likes me, see? He gives me things.’
‘Oh, dear God, Bethany! What on earth is going on here?’
Bethany took these words as proof of her own guilt. Pulling away from Joanie, she threw herself down on the bed, burying her face in Kira’s Barbie quilt where she cried her heart out.
Finally Joanie pulled her into her arms, fighting against the child who was trying to push her away.
‘I’m sorry, Joanie, I never dreamed they would hurt her. It was because of her long hair and her lovely face that I told them about her. Pippy has parties, see. I’ve been to them. He said did I know anyone else I could bring - someone really pretty. They dress you up in makeup and let you drink and smoke. They give you tablets to make you feel funny and you can’t stop laughing . . .’
She was trying to explain as best she could just what had made her do what she had.
‘I like it. It’s nice, see? They’re nice to you most of the time, only hurt you if you try and stop them . . .’
She was crying once more. Joanie’s head was spinning. She couldn’t take this all in. Her overwhelming need was to find out about Kira.
‘So do you have any idea where he took her, sweetheart? Where she might be now?’
Bethany shook her head.
‘I never saw her again after that day. And when I asked, Pippy hit me and told me if I ever said anything to anyone they would kill me.’
‘Did this have anything to do with Tommy or his father?’
Joanie had to know the answer to that question.
Bethany was crying harder than ever now. Her whole face was swollen with tears and Joanie could see that this was just the tip of the iceberg where this child was concerned. She had been carrying all this around for so long it had broken her.
‘Please, Joanie, I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
‘You have to answer me, sweetheart. I need to know what happened to my baby.’
She was trying to keep the terror out of her voice so she didn’t frighten Bethany into silence. The thought that a child had had to deal with all this was almost mind-blowing. And when the poor girl had also been abused, sexually abused, her own mother had not been interested enough to try to find out what ailed her.
Joanie remembered the blood and the fingermarks she’d seen at the top of the girl’s arms and on her thighs. With her own experience of life she didn’t need to think too hard to realise how they had been put there.
She hugged Bethany, smelling the difference in her after only a few hours away from her mother. She knew that Bethany would stay her responsibility now and partly take Kira’s place because Joanie felt to blame for what had happened to her. She should have seen what was happening. She wondered at a world where a dog was removed if neglected yet a child was abandoned to her miserable life even though the school and everyone else involved could tell something was badly wrong.
‘Kira told me about the photographs Jeanette took of her. I took the film into the shop and gave it to Maurice. He works there, does some of the films for Pippy. You know, the photos and that . . . I stole it with the money and the ring.’
Joanie nodded even though she had no idea what the girl was talking about, but she knew she would find out eventually. At the moment she was just going to let her talk, get it out of her system. Only ask a question now and again. She didn’t want to bombard Bethany just yet. That would come soon enough when Jon Jon was told. Only then would any of them be able to make proper sense of what had happened to her daughter.
Bethany was absolutely terrified of what she was revealing. Joanie knew she had
to let her talk herself out before she would be able to put it all into some sort of order. Before she told Jon Jon anything she needed to know as much as the child did.
‘Who introduced you to Pippy?’
‘Lorna. It was her who said that we could earn some money, easy money, and not have to go to school.’
Joanie smiled painfully at the girl.
‘Did Lorna know Tommy and his dad?’
She clammed up again.
‘Can I have a drink of water, Joanie? I feel sick.’
She nodded.