‘Has she said the child’s missing?’
He shook his head. ‘No. She is saying the child’s safe and well. Only I went to this Lisa Buck’s house - she exists, there’s no doubt about that - and no one knows where she is at the moment. There’s no answer to the door and no one has seen her for days. The house is smart, a bought council house. It’s locked up and the neighbours say she is on holiday. I don’t believe for a moment that she has Kathy’s child.’
‘You want us to check this out?’
Robert nodded. ‘Kathy is out of her nut most of the time. But she is not a bad person.’
He watched as Jenny’s eyebrows moved up towards her forehead at an alarming rate.
‘She isn’t,’ he insisted. ‘Listen to me. Mad and bad are how women are portrayed all the time. Either one or the other. Kathy has problems, I do not dispute that, but in her own way she loves the kids.’
‘I think this Kathy needs a visit.’
There was a finality in her voice and, seeing the look of sadness on his face, Jenny softened.
‘Look, Robert, I know you care about the girls you deal with and I admire you for being so kind and for your dedication to them. But if a child is unaccounted for then we have to try and find out what’s going on.’
He nodded. ‘I know, that’s why I came.’
‘Don’t feel bad, you have done the right thing coming here.’
He stood up slowly. ‘I just hope I’m wrong,’ he told Jenny, ‘and that the child is with this Lisa Buck. But somehow I don’t think she is.’ He looked defeated and Jenny felt a small spark of affection for him.
‘You are a nice man, you know.’
He grinned, back to his old girlish self. ‘So they tell me.’
Willy had company.
Jacky Gunner and Joey Partridge were now guests of the Russians, too. As the three men looked at each other they all wondered separately how the fuck they were going to get out of this place alive.
Joey was lying on the floor, his arms screaming after days in cuffs. He knew that if they tightened them he could end up losing his hands at the very least. And by the shocking sight of Willy Gabney, that was a distinct possibility.
Unlike them, Willy wasn’t cuffed.
‘Well, well . . . if it ain’t fucking Mutt and Jeff come to visit me.’ Willy’s voice croaked as if he hadn’t used it in months. ‘Who you tucked up this time then?’
Jacky Gunner was incapable of answering. His face was too swollen from a well-aimed kick with a steel toe-capped boot. But from where he was lying on the floor he could see the burns all over Willy’s thighs and the stench of charred flesh made his stomach revolt.
Joey and he were well in trouble, serious trouble, and they both knew it. Not just from Boris but from the man sitting on the bed contemplating them thoughtfully. Willy Gabney had a score to settle and they knew that unless he was dead he would settle it, no matter how badly injured he was.
At the moment they were more scared of him than they were of the Russians.
Lucas Browning and Suzy Harrington were old mates. She had first worked for him when she was fifteen after running away from home and being introduced through a friend of a friend. The pair had got on like a house on fire straight away.
Suzy was one of the only few toms that Lucas had ever genuinely liked. They recognised each other as a kindred spirit. Both were completely amoral and both were violently opposed to any kind of regulation of them or their chosen form of business. They used each other as and when it suited them, both having contacts that could be useful to the other. It was a good arrangement and it suited them down to the ground.
In short, they were more or less best mates.
‘You look well, Suzy.’
She grinned. ‘You still look bleeding terrible and you smell worse, Lucas. You never change.’
He laughed like a drain, a loud rip-roaring laugh that was rarely heard outside the confines of his seedy flat. ‘Only you would have the front to say that to me out loud!’
‘So shall I make us a cuppa?’
He nodded. ‘Unless you fancy something harder. I have a case of twelve-year-old Scotch in the bedroom.’
‘Sounds good to me, mate. I’ll go, it would take you a week to get there. You are really piling on the weight, Lucas. You wanna be careful. A strain on the heart, weight is.’
He wheezed as he lit up a joint.
‘You want to get out more . . .’
‘Leave it out, Suze,’ he interrupted her. ‘What are you, me fucking mother?’
She grinned as she collected the Scotch from the bedroom. There was a girl on the bed, half naked and in a deep sleep.
‘Who’s that then?’
Lucas flapped his hand. ‘Don’t ask. I’m trying out this new drug, Rohypnol. Apparently it’s great. You slip it in their drink and then the person does whatever you want. But the best bit is they can’t remember for ages. If they’re in a position to remember at all, of course. I’m thinking of using it for the more specialised films, if you get my drift.’
Suzy nodded, losing interest as she tried to locate two clean glasses from a small melamine cabinet by Lucas’s chair. ‘God, don’t you ever clean up in here?’
‘You know I don’t. It’s all part of the image,’ he laughed wheezily. ‘Now what is it you wanted to see me about?’
She poured them both a generous measure of Scotch and, taking the joint from his hand, took a deep toke before replying.
‘I’ve got a right little earner and I think we could take it to the bigger boys,’ she said seriously.
He sipped at his own drink. ‘What is it?’
She looked at him for a few seconds before she said in a low voice, ‘Kiddies. Little kiddies. Photos, whatever. I have a network of mums now who I did deals with to use their kids in photographs. It was strange, really, how it all started.’
She settled back in the chair to make herself comfortable.
‘I deal a bit where I live, and one of me regulars came over for a bit of tick, like. You know the score - you get them in debt as soon as you can, keeps them coming, don’t it? Anyway, she was a bit out of it and she was telling me about a girl nearby who was using the kids in photographs, for nonces like. I was shocked, but not as shocked as I acted. Anyway, I found out who it was and I paid her a little visit. It was pennies and halfpennies with her but I muscled in and now it’s ready to go big. You see, I have got stuff on film and also on disk so we can look at a wider market. What I need, though, are the foreign contacts. I mean, these kids are lovely - blonde-haired, blue-eyed little angels - and the rub is, the mothers are up for it at a price.’
Lucas was looking interested. She leaned forward and told him: ‘I also have a few adults who are willing to take part in the activities, and with all that, Bob can only be your uncle and I can only be your aunt. A rich auntie and all. Because there is wedge in all this stuff, serious wedge.’
Lucas picked up the excitement in her voice. ‘You, little Suzy, are the lowest of the low.’
It was said with undisguised admiration and, laughing, she answered him, proudly.
‘I know. Good though, ain’t it? If we can get the distribution we’re looking at real dough. And let’s face it, Luke, even the advertisers on the telly know the value of kids. They’re the new market. It’s like all the beasts have finally come out of the woodwork.’
She didn’t tell him that some of the people she had worked with were now in prison, awaiting trial. She was sure enough of herself to believe that they would keep her out of everything. Her reputation should guarantee her that much.
The fat man finished his drink in one gulp and poured another.
‘I think I know just the bloke for you. He’s a right Brahma, a really nice bloke, and he has contacts in the film industry. Well, our kind of film industry anyway.’
They both laughed uproariously.
‘The only thing is, Lucas, I have a bit of a problem.’
Her voice was seri
ous now and he picked up on it immediately. Smiling nastily he said, ‘I get it. So now we come to the real reason you wanted me involved.’
‘Oh, you are such a fucking tart at times,’ Suzy chided him. ‘Honestly, Lucas, I would have come to you sooner or later. I usually do.’
He acknowledged what she said with a small movement of his head. ‘So what’s the problem?’
She giggled uncertainly as she looked at him. ‘I’ve lost one of the kids.’
Lucas stared at her for long moments. ‘You’ve what?’ She could hear the disbelief in his voice.
‘You heard me. I lost a kid.’
His whole body seemed to convulse as the coughing fit hit him. And through a fine spray of phlegm and alcohol he roared, ‘How the fuck have you managed that!’
Suzy relaxed back in her chair. ‘I gave her to a bloke called Stanley Acomb and he fucked off with her. The mother is easy at the moment, but I don’t know how long that will last. She’s a skaghead - a piece of shit.’
Lucas raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, it takes one to know one. I suppose you want me to get the kid back?’
She nodded.
He sipped on his drink again. ‘Consider it done. But in future, Suzy, now I am part of the equation, you never leave any of the kids with clients alone. OK?’
She agreed, relieved that she had sorted out a problem and also that she had back-up. Big back-up to further her career.
‘I’ll drink to that, Luke.’
They clinked glasses.
‘Now do me a favour and cover up your todger. It looks like a little baby mouse asleep on two Brussels sprouts.’
They both laughed uproariously again.
Kate stared into Jeremy Blankley’s eyes and felt nothing. Not even pity. All she could see were those terrible photographs.
Blankley was lying in a holding cell, battered and bruised. She knew he would be pissing blood for days and that no one was going to get him a doctor. His face was unrecognisable and he would have difficulty talking. One arm was hanging limply at his side and for one awful second she thought it was broken. But he used it to wipe away the tears that were falling silently from his eyes.
‘You’ve just had a small taste of what’s in store for you daily if you go inside without our protection. So think hard about what you want to say to me, OK?’
He didn’t answer her and Golding pushed past. Looking down at the broken man he said quietly, ‘There’s fifty more like that just waiting to get a crack at you. Remember that, Blankley. Keep that in mind.’
He followed Kate from the cell. ‘He’ll come through, ma’am,’ he muttered. ‘Let him get over the tears and the self-pity, because that’s all it is. Then he’ll want to save his sad arse and we’ll have him.’
Kate didn’t have the heart to answer and they were both silent as they walked back to her office. Jenny was waiting there. Kate saw from her expression that what they had done didn’t bother her nearly as much as it bothered Kate herself. She felt more every day that she was stepping out of her usual self and taking on the personality of someone else.
Someone who was ruthless, utterly ruthless, and without a single shred of decency.
When she saw Leila laughing with Dave Golding outside her office window she wondered if what had happened was a good thing really. It seemed everybody else thought so. Kate just saw it as a means to an end. Or tried to convince herself of that.
She was changing inside, she knew she was. She sometimes wondered if Patrick was reaching out from his sickbed and putting all his own thoughts into her head, because he would have seen nothing wrong with what had occurred in this police station. In fact, he would have applauded it.
Everyone else seemed to see things in black and white. Maybe they were right. Christ, Kate wasn’t sure about anything any more.
Jenny smiled at her sympathetically. ‘Good news at last.’
Kate raised an eyebrow in half-hearted interest. ‘What’s that then?’
‘They are going to operate on Patrick tomorrow - your mother rang earlier.’
For the first time in what seemed like aeons Kate felt herself give a bona fide smile.
‘Thank God! At last something seems to be happening.’
‘They are going to remove the blood clot and see what other damage they can repair. He ain’t out of the wood yet, Kate.’
She put her hand up to her mouth in a gesture Patrick would have known meant she was about to cry though she was doing everything in her power to stop it happening.
‘The other bit of good news is, your mother has made us another roast dinner. Beef this time, with Yorkshire puddings that are apparently like diddy-men.’
Kate began to laugh then, a high-pitched sound that bordered on hysteria. She laughed long and hard for what seemed like hours though it was in fact only minutes. But she felt the tension drain out of her with every painful breath she drew.
David Reilly watched as his father put on his coat to go down the pub.
‘Are you all right, son?’ Billy’s voice was troubled.
David smiled. He was a good-looking man with thick blond hair and jutting cheekbones like his mother’s.
‘Why don’t you come and have a beer?’ his father persisted.
He shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m knackered, Dad. Gonna have a few indoors and an early night.’
‘Fair enough. I won’t wake you when I come in then.’
Billy left the house a few minutes later and David watched him walk down the pathway. He looked around the room. It was smart and well-kept, with beige walls and leather furniture. The two men had bought everything between them, as they had lived together ever since David was a teenager and his mother Molly had died of cancer. Breast cancer. It had been a lingering death and he had shrunk from her pain even as she tried to hide it from him. Since then there had been just the two of them and it had been enough. His father seemed to have no interest in other women and at first that had pleased David, who was still mourning his mum. But as the years went on and he realised that Billy was still a relatively young man it had begun to bother him.
Then a few weeks ago at work - they both worked in an industrial park outside Grantley in a builder’s yard - something weird had happened. One of the other blokes had complained that some photos of his kids he had put up in the canteen had gone walkabout.
They were nice photos, David had seen them. Three little kids on a beach in Greece without their kecks on. The usual sort of photos people took of their kids on holiday: sandy bums and large hats.
The funny thing was, though, the man said he had last seen them in Billy’s hands. Billy had taken them down to admire them, apparently. Then he had put them back, or so he’d said. Nothing fishy about it, really.
Except after that conversation with the kids’ dad, Billy had acted strangely. Nothing David could put his finger on exactly but he hadn’t seemed right. Then all that with Tash in the pub . . .
David hated Natasha Linten - he hated all the slags who frequented the Wheatsheaf. At some point the women got passed round everyone. Except him, of course. He wouldn’t touch them with someone else’s let alone his own. But his father had usually been very tolerant of them.
The other day, though, Tash had issued what sounded like a threat and his father had taken it as such.
David walked slowly up the stairs and went to his father’s bedroom. He felt disgusted with himself for what he was thinking. He couldn’t believe he was, really. But if his father was a beast then he wanted to know.
He had heard about Lenny Parkes hammering a nonce in the Fox Revived. Everyone had been talking about it for days. Now word was out that Kerry Alston, who was always chatting to Dad and having drinks bought for her by Billy, was also inside for noncing. She’d been noncing her own fucking kids!
He wiped a sweaty palm across his face and started his search. He went through all his father’s drawers and wardrobe.
Nothing.
David was feeling better. He had just p
ut two things together that were no more than coincidences. But he pulled out Billy’s divan anyway, just because he always did everything properly and that included searching his own father’s bedroom.
Nothing - again.
He went downstairs and poured himself a beer, drinking it standing at the kitchen table looking out over the postage stamp of a garden his mother had loved so much. Then, after rinsing the glass, he went back up the stairs and into his father’s room again.
David looked around him. It was a nice room, with heavy wooden furniture, flowery wallpaper and curtains to match. Taking off his jumper, he flexed his considerable muscles and physically dragged the wardrobe away from the wall.
Behind it was a large brown envelope.
David licked his top lip and tasted the acrid saltiness of his own sweat. Picking up the envelope, he sat on the bed and weighed it in his hands. He didn’t want to open it, but he knew he had to.
He placed it on the bed, then put the wardrobe back in place. He smoothed down the counterpane and checked the room over to see if it looked disturbed. It didn’t.
Then he went downstairs and poured himself a large brandy before he opened the envelope. He tipped the contents out on to the kitchen table and then he bit on his lip until he tasted blood. Sickness rose in him and he threw up in the spotlessly clean white sink, tears already flowing from his eyes. As he sat back down he gulped at the brandy to steady himself. Then, hands shaking, he looked through all the photographs one at a time.
He was still staring ahead of him when the sun set and darkness gradually crept into the kitchen.
He was still crying silently in the unlit room as he heard his father’s key in the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Jenny had never felt such a fool in her life.
Kathy Collins had her daughter in her arms when they knocked on the door. The child was without a nappy and dressed only in a vest. She was half asleep. Kathy had looked at her askance, as if seeing the police on her doorstep was an unusual occurrence.
She smiled politely. ‘Can I help you?’