Sweetie (24 page)

Women were always talking, but men, well, they just held it all inside, didn’t they? She stroked the dark hair back off his forehead and gazed into his hand -

some face, gently massaging the back of his neck.

His eyes closed with pleasure and his dark eye -

lashes looked even darker against his pale skin. He sighed and reached across for her, pulling her towards him. They stayed like that for a while, saying nothing, Grace massaging his neck and shoulders as John’s breathing became slow and regular, his eyes still closed.

‘You tired?’ she asked.

He opened one eye and, smiling slightly, said, ‘A bit. Not that tired, though.’

With her other hand Grace stroked his thigh, squeezing it.

‘Shall we go up?’ he asked, excited at the prospect after so long.

‘No, let’s stay down here. TJ’s a light sleeper, don’t want to wake him.’

Grace moved across the sofa and straddled her husband’s lap, taking his face in her hands and slowly kissing its familiar contours. She heard him draw in his breath sharply and thought he was going to sneeze, but when she pulled back she could see the tears begin to roll down his face, her tenderness 237

pushing him to the brink. A surge of love shot through her then for this big, beautiful man who now appeared so vulnerable, almost lost. She pulled him down on the sofa and lay on top of him, gently moving against his body.

That night they made love like they hadn’t for years; not since the kids had come along anyway. It was a role reversal of kinds as Grace took the lead and tenderly made love to her husband, taking her time. A new, stronger bond of passion was forged.

Afterwards they lay in each other’s arms on the sofa, a gentle breeze caressing their naked bodies, their legs entwined.

‘We’ll be all right, John, really we will.’

‘I don’t know, Gracie . . . I don’t know if I can handle this any more. I’m scared. I look at Adam and realise how close we came to losing him and the fear just rips through me. I feel out of control, helpless.’

Not in all the ten years she’d known him had he ever made an admission of this kind. Her John never showed fear.

‘We can handle anything together, John, because we’ve got each other. We just have to stay strong.’

He buried his face in her breasts and fell asleep like that. The next thing Grace knew, sunshine was streaming through the window and Adam was standing by the sofa saying, ‘Mummy, why hasn’t Daddy got his pyjamas on?’

*

238

DCI Woodhouse tiptoed round the broken glass and rubble from where the explosives had ripped their way through the vault beneath the Old Street branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The whole place was a bloody mess, and this was the last thing he needed right now. Initial estimates placed the bank’s losses at somewhere around two and a half million pounds in cash and valuables. Empty safety deposit boxes littered the floor along with discarded pieces of silver and jewellery deemed not worthy of such a grand theft.

The gang, five men in balaclavas bearing sawn-off shotguns, had entered the building through the back entrance around 6 p.m. the previous evening, while the last of the cashiers were totalling the amounts in their tills and placing them in the vault before going home. It was an audacious robbery, carried out in the middle of rush hour, but who was to know? Every

thing had seemed just as normal

from the outside.

The bank had closed for business at 4.30 p.m., its plate-glass doors locked and blinds drawn. Only those staff remaining inside the building, who had been gagged and tied up and made to lie on the floor, had any notion what was taking place. One of the cashiers, a woman in her forties, a single mother of three, had gone for the emergency button beside her till early on in the raid, before they had all been made to lie on the floor, and had paid for her bravery with 239

her life as two shotgun cartridges were released into her chest.

Now there were ambulances on the scene, and shocked members of staff were being wrapped in blankets despite the heat. An innocent employee had been killed and someone needed to tell the family.

The DCI was short-staffed enough, what with the attacks on his own patch. Now he was well and truly bogged down. As if he didn’t have enough going on back in Bethnal Green and Dalston, his superiors had insisted that he supervise the preliminary enquiries into the robbery and the murder of the cashier as well.

In truth, he was on much surer ground with this sort of crime. His years in the force had given him an unparalleled knowledge of the criminal gangs who might undertake such a professional operation and he was able to issue a list of possible suspects to the investigating officers within half an hour of arriving on the scene. This had been a carefully organised raid, not the work of chancers or amateurs, and he guessed the shooting had been carried out in error.

These gangs usually liked to keep their work clean; it was money they were after, not blood.

He had dragged Watson along with him, for com -

pany as much as anything else but also to delegate a list of tasks that needed to be tackled back at Bethnal Green while he was held up at Old Street.

‘Make sure all the evidence sheets are back in the 240

right files, won’t you? Those two rookie investigators from West End Central will have papers strewn every where. You could see they didn’t have a clue when they arrived yesterday. I need more experienced detectives, preferably trained men from Homicide, not these Work Experience teenagers they keep sending me.’ Woodhouse was busy making notes as he issued his instructions to Watson. ‘Any joy at the funeral yesterday?’

‘Didn’t make the service, sir, got held up by a burglary at the paint factory. Little thugs, I imagine, didn’t really get away with much, just a few sprayers and that. I did manage to poke my head in at the wake later.’

‘And?’

‘Well, there’s a definite undercurrent of hostility and impatience. People want to know why we haven’t made an arrest yet.’ Watson shuffled his feet uncomfortably, hoping his words didn’t sound like a criticism.

‘Can’t blame them really, but without going round and taking bootprints from every man within a two-square-mile radius there’s not much else to go on.’

Woodhouse broke away to shout at a young officer,

‘Can you not touch those boxes until they’ve been dusted?’

‘I did overhear an interesting snippet though, sir.

It might be nothing, but I thought anything was worth paying attention to at the moment. You 241

never know, even in idle gossip there may be some truth.’

‘Oh, yes, lad, everything’s worth considering.’

‘That Foster woman, grandmother of Chantal and Maria . . . I overheard her talking to Lucy Potts’s mother about George Rush, the caretaker at Columbia Row Primary School.’

‘Yes, Mrs Foster. Quite a leading light that one.

You’ve got to watch her, though, a right sharp piece of work. I knew her old man. The Fosters aren’t exactly squeaky clean. I went through Rush’s statement about the night Maria was attacked but he has a rock-solid alibi from the barmaid at the Royal Oak. It seems he may have just popped out for a pint straight after the concert and before locking up, leaving the way clear for the attacker to get into the school. Certainly that teacher said he was nowhere to be found when she arrived. What were they saying about him anyway?’

‘That he’s a weirdo and a pervert, the usual stuff.’

‘You mean, the usual stuff people say about all single men? You have to be careful with hearsay, Watson.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But when you get back there this afternoon, you might want to go walkabout . . . see what the word on the street is. And get down to that betting office again; see what the word is there too. I don’t trust that Jew Harry either.’

242

Watson took his leave after this and Woodhouse stared after him, wondering.

After her first decent night’s sleep in weeks, Grace felt clear-headed and resolute. Their lovemaking had restored her to her usual level-headedness and the morning found her brisk and businesslike. She felt glowing, contented and loved. John had taken the van to work, so she loaded the Jag with the three kids and some food she had bought to take over to Sue’s.

TJ had been an angel but he wanted his mummy after twenty-four hours away from her. ‘Not long now, sweetheart, we’re on our way home.’

‘Can we get an ice lolly, Mummy?’ asked Adam.

‘After lunch, babe,’ said Grace, checking in her rear-view mirror as she pulled away from the curb.

‘Oh, that’s ages!’

‘Adam, make sure TJ doesn’t play with the windows, will you?’ she said, fishing in her bag for a few barley sugars that she knew were knocking around. ‘Here you go, you can have two each.’ She reached back and handed the crumpled bag to him.

‘But I want an ice lolly, it’s hot!’ Adam threw the paper bag of barley sugars on to the floor.

‘You keep that up and you won’t get anything. I mean it, Adam.’

She and John had spoken about this the night before, the way they had to start laying down a few rules with their eldest again. Their talk had resolved 243

a lot of issues, and deep inside Grace knew that despite everything she and John were more solid now than ever before. Since the attack they had taken a softly, softly approach with Adam, letting him watch telly all day. Like any kid, he was beginning to push his luck now and they had decided it was time to start getting him back to normal.

The traffic inched along painfully and Grace lowered her window to poke her head out and see if she could spot what was going on up ahead. A bus had broken down on the corner of Hackney Road and the cars trying to get past it were blocked by traffic coming the other way. Oh, great, she thought to herself.

She was stuck in traffic for fifteen minutes, and all the time she sat in the car she was thinking furiously.

The attack on Chantal had been less than four weeks ago. Since then there had been attacks on Adam, Lucy, Wayne and now Maria. Five kids in four weeks, two of them dead. It beggared belief.

When the car finally pulled up outside Sue’s house after the painful journey there was relief all round. It would have been quicker to walk.

‘Can we play in the paddling pool, Mummy?’

asked Adam.

‘We’ll see,’ said Grace, struggling with the baby, TJ and bags of shopping. ‘Adam, wait a minute!

Don’t get out that side, get out on to the pavement, love.’

244

As she tried to organise herself, Potty came bounding down the street looking like a pools winner. She was dressed in a pretty yellow sundress and her hair was pinned up. She looked the best she had in years.

‘You’re looking lovely, girl, what’s his name?’

Grace said with a wink.

‘Oh, you’re such a tease, Grace. Here, give me those bags, you look like you’re going to topple over with that lot.’

‘You coming in to see Sue?’

‘Yeah. What happened to you yesterday? Didn’t see you in the pub after the church.’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute, when old flappy ears isn’t about.’ Grace nodded in Adam’s direction.

‘Got ya.’ The front door was open and they pushed it back to let TJ, who was struggling to get inside, be the first through. Grace could see Sue stand up from the kitchen table and walk towards her son.

She scooped him into her arms and squeezed him to her. ‘Hello, my little soldier. You been a good boy for Auntie Grace?’

‘Good as gold,’ she said. ‘How you feeling, love?’

‘Oh, you know.’ Sue smiled weakly. ‘I don’t really know what I feel at the moment. I’m still numb from it all. Come in, come in, I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Terry not about?’ Potty asked.

‘No, he took the girls to school and then went on to work. I think it’s doing his head in sitting around 245

all day so I told him to go in. The sooner we try and get back to normal, the better. Besides, the girls have got the dress rehearsal for their end-of-term play tomorrow. I didn’t want them to miss it. Mind you don’t slip on the floor, it’s still a bit wet.’

Sue seemed a bit erratic, moving rapidly from one topic to another. The mop and bucket were propped up against the kitchen door and there was a strong smell of bleach in the air, as if she’d been trying to clean all the bad feeling away from the grieving house -

hold. Potty and Grace followed her into the kitchen, with Adam behind her. Lizzie Foster was sitting at the table with a cup and saucer in front of her. She always refused to drink out of a mug, she was of that generation who always had to have bone china.

‘Morning, where’s my mum?’ said Grace without any visible warmth.

‘Grace, Potty.’ Lizzie nodded a greeting. ‘Your mum’s took some bits to the cleaners.’ Lizzie was speaking to Grace but couldn’t help noticing Potty.

‘Blimey, girl, you’re looking good.’

‘I’m feeling good, Lizzie. This job’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Gets me out of that bloody flat, instead of looking at him drinking all day. Head of Housekeeping has put me in Bonner Road Chest Hospital for the next week, and I prefer it over there.

Breaks my heart looking at all those sick kiddies at Queen’s. You know half of them are never coming out of there, poor little sods.

246

‘Anyway, I decided to spend a bit of money on myself, for a change. Now I know I’ve got some money coming in each week, it don’t half make a difference. First time I’ve bought something in years that hasn’t come off the sale rail,’ said Potty, lifting up the skirts of her sundress with pride.

‘You look gorgeous, love, you really do,’ said Grace before Lizzie had the chance to make any sarcastic remark.

‘Right then, tea,’ said Sue. Grace noticed that her clothes were hanging loose on her. She must have lost half a stone in a week. She went and put her arms around Sue and said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to the wake.’

Sue could feel herself go limp and tearful, as she did at the slightest display of emotion or kindness, and moved Grace gently away from her.

‘Didn’t you? I didn’t even notice.’

‘I did,’ said Lizzie pointedly. She and Grace held each other’s gaze for a moment.