But Grace had not banked on Evelyn. The tiny woman pushed past them both with the aid of a heavily laden leather shopping bag.
‘Feck off, you! You’ll not stop me going about me daily business, madam.’
She stormed towards Pat’s bedside and Violet moved out of her way. Kate and Grace followed.
‘When your man wakes up and tells us to go, we’ll go. Until then, Grace, we’ll do what the feck we please. Now, move out of me light so’s I can get a good look at him.’
Grace did as she was told. Eve looked capable of blue murder and Grace knew of old that the little woman had a tongue that could cut through glass as and when the fancy took her.
Kate looked down at Patrick’s face and felt the sting of tears. He looked so old. Old and haggard. His lifeless features so unlike his usual appearance that they frightened her. He looked broken and battered, so very white and quiet.
In a way she wished Grace
had
frightened them away - then she wouldn’t have had to see this parody of Patrick Kelly that was lying in front of her.
The sound of the ventilator was unbearable.
A small part of her wished she had never come.
Jeremy Blankley walked out of the tower block where he lived, whistling contentedly. A tall man with a rangy walk, he fancied himself as a bit of a John Wayne. He had a long unshaven face, stubble well flecked with grey, and hideous false teeth. He dressed far too young for his age and consequently stood out from the crowd, gathering smiles from people that he wrongly assumed were friendly. It never occurred to him that he was being laughed
at
, not
with
.
Jeremy was with a young boy of twelve, Kieran Pargiter. Kieran was a rent boy used by the older man as bait. They went regularly to the West End, where Kieran befriended the young lads who were new. Runaways mainly. He introduced them to his ‘mate’ Jeremy, who offered them a place to stay. It was easy. Some of the smaller boys were never seen again.
As they walked towards a car, a dirty C-reg Escort that Jeremy used for mini-cabbing, they were approached by two men. He guessed immediately who they were and shouted out: ‘Filth!’
He began to run. The younger of the two men had him in seconds. Kieran, however, got away.
When they had bundled him into an unmarked green Sierra Jeremy spat on the floor and said aggressively, ‘This had better be good, mate.’
The beating, when it started, shocked him more than he had ever been shocked in his life before. When it was over he heard a voice say, ‘Was that good enough for you, cunt, or would you like a finale? How about a drum roll and a pickaxe handle round the old loaf o’ bread?’
The other man laughed then said in a music hall voice: ‘Here, hold up, Harry, I do believe he’s trying to escape again. What a wanker! Shall I stop him this time?’
The two men laughed heartily and a third man who was in the driving seat leaned back and said, ‘We’ve been looking for you for a while, Blankley. Now you are going to Grantley to see some photos of you doing what you do best. Like little children, don’t you?’
Jeremy’s heart sank into his boots. He had thought they were after him for kiting - chequebook fraud. He’d never have believed in a million years they were after him for anything else. Surely they had all been too clever? Keeping it in the family more or less. What the fuck was going down here?
And, more to the point, who else had had a capture?
Boris was relaxed. He had showered, changed, and was having a drink ready to go out for a meal then on to a club he had recently purchased in Surrey. He was smiling as he walked down into the cellar of his house in Soho.
‘How is Mr Gabney?’
His men stood up respectfully as he walked towards them. As usual his sheer physical presence was enough to command their attention.
‘He has eaten much, and washed and changed his clothes. He is thinner but still dangerous.’
Boris nodded. ‘Open the door for me.’
They unlocked the steel-plated door and he entered the damp cellar as if it was the finest restaurant. Willy was sitting up on the Z-bed. He looked haggard and drawn, but at least he now had light and a few novels to pass the time.
‘You are well, Mr Gabney?’
Willy guessed that this was the big boss and in spite of himself he was impressed.
‘Are you ready to talk to me, Mr Gabney? Only I know you were Mr Kelly’s number two and that you were party to everything he did.’
Willy looked up at the large man with what he described to himself as poofter’s hair and sighed aloud.
‘I will never tell you anything, mate. Patrick and me were more than business associates. I loved that man like a brother. You can burn me, bury me alive, rip me arms off - I’ll not utter one fucking word other than a large “Ouch”. Do you get my drift?’
Boris smiled and it completely changed his face. Willy knew that in other circumstances he would have admired, respected, maybe even liked this man before him.
‘You are a brave man, Mr Gabney. I respect what you are saying. If only Mr Kelly had had more friends like you.’ He raised his arms in a show of openness. ‘But soon we will need to talk. Once I explain my own situation you will understand why I had to do what I did. I cannot be seen to be robbed, Mr Gabney, not even by your illustrious friend Mr Kelly.’
The sarcasm was not lost on Willy, who said quietly, ‘Patrick Kelly never ripped off anyone in his life. Remember that for the future. Even if someone had a touch with
your
money in
his
club, you were barking up the wrong tree believing he was behind it. You could have found that out with a simple question. Patrick was looking for you, mate, to find out what the score was. He wasn’t interested in what you had as such. He was just hagged that it was all going down on his fucking premises, without his permission or knowledge.’
Boris looked amused and Willy went back to his book as if the man before him was just a nuisance. He heard the Russian’s shoes move away across the cement floor and breathed a sigh of relief. He was scared, shit scared, and just managing to conceal it.
If Patrick was really brown bread, then Willy had lost the person he cared for most in his life. Patrick was so generous, he had even shared his only child with his friend. Mandy had been the light of their lives after Renée’s death. She had kept them both together, often joking that she had two dads. He remembered the looks they’d received at school evenings, the two big men with the tiny blonde girl. Willy knew his own appearance was unusual. In fact, he knew he looked downright scary. But Mandy had never noticed, she’d loved him with all her heart.
He felt the sting of tears but tried to console himself with the thought that Pat was with Renée and Mandy at last. Willy wondered how long it would be before he joined them.
Kate felt the eyes of the team upon her and ignored their unusual interest. She had seen the tabloid stories about Patrick’s shooting around the station; noticed people reading the newspapers in the canteen and quickly putting them down when she walked by.
She didn’t give a shit, and this came over in her attitude.
Most of her colleagues admired her but this was a hell of a thing to live down. Those who had met Patrick at different times understood the attraction, and knew it had been a genuine love match. Others relished the gossip that he had just been using her. After all, a DI in his pocket was a handy thing for any criminal. Especially one like Patrick Kelly. But they didn’t know how Kate and Patrick had felt about one another, how hard it had been for them to follow their hearts. The trouble their different lifestyles had caused them.
They didn’t know
anything
.
Golding, she knew, had often wondered what Patrick Kelly, with all his looks, money and kudos, was doing with a middle-aged DI. He’d left people in no doubt that he considered it some kind of business arrangement on Kelly’s side, if not on Kate’s. He constantly reminded them of Patrick’s penchant for brainless blondes who were large on knockers and short on intelligence.
Now, as she looked around the dingy canteen, at the dirty cigarette-stained Formica tables and chattering men and women, Kate felt a feeling of unreality descend upon her. Pat was dying. He was going to die and she was as far from him now as if he was on the moon. He would never know how much she loved him. How much she still wanted him. How much he meant to her whatever their disagreements. Whatever their different lifestyles.
She felt Jenny take her arm and lead her gently from the room. A radio was playing ‘Zoom’ by Fat Larry’s Band and the words seemed to blast away the last shreds of her self-control.
In her office she broke down, trying to keep her tears silent but occasionally giving way to muffled sobs. The other woman held her tightly as her shoulders shook and her whole body felt as if it would crumble from grief.
‘Get it out of your system, Kate. Let it go, mate. Just let it all go.’
And she did.
Jeremy Blankley was so frightened he thought he might have a heart attack. In the cell, he looked around at the green-painted walls, at the pornographic graffiti everywhere, and smelled the usual reek of urine, old farts and badly cooked food. He felt the sting of tears.
He had done a nonce stretch once before, when he was younger. He remembered in vivid detail being asleep in his cell when the PO in charge had brought in three lifers brandishing broom handles in righteous anger. He had been used, he knew that. The lifers had been allowed to let off steam and he had been hospitalised for nearly three months.
This time, though, with little kiddies involved, he was a walking dead man. He knew that if they put him on VPU, the Vulnerable Prisoners’ Unit, even the rapists would look down on him. And that was the best he could hope for. He would be the worst kind of beast, hated by everyone around him from the POs to the other prisoners. He would have to look closely at everything he ate; constantly be on his guard. There were a hundred and one ways to get at someone like him in a prison, from glass in his food or soap, to salt forced into his mouth, and rape with a blunt instrument.
He would have to look over his shoulder for the duration.
When the cell door opened he jumped with fright. He was pleased to see it was a woman, an attractive one with sad dark eyes and a tall slender figure.
Jeremy smiled tremulously. She looked him over as if he was so much dirt and her voice when she spoke frightened him with its intensity.
‘I am Detective Inspector Kathryn Burrows and I am going to put you away for so long, Mr Blankley, that you will never again see the light of day unless it is through a barred window. Do you understand what I am telling you, you filthy piece of shite?’
Jeremy nodded, his eyes trained on the floor. He could no longer meet hers which were filled with contempt and hatred.
‘Whatever prison you go to on remand, I’ll make sure they know all about you. That is a promise, Mr Blankley, from my heart.’
She was quiet for a few minutes then and the silence crashed in on him as painfully as any noise.
‘You had better think long and hard about what you are going to tell me in the next few hours, and you’d better get a damn good brief because I am going all out to get you, and I will. I don’t care if you have friends in high places - I don’t care who you think might be able to help you. I will have you, boy, and I’ll enjoy doing it.’
She left the cell as quietly as she’d entered it.
The duty sergeant looked Jeremy over before shutting the door and then he heard a voice next door shout, ‘Is he a fucking nonce? Am I celled up next to a nonce?’
Utter loneliness and desolation washed over him like a wave.
Kate sat in her office going over the files from Robert Bateman’s office. She was amazed by the things social workers considered acceptable; the conditions in which they left young children because they were in the care of a so-called parent. Well, she would collate it all, and somehow she was going to match up these mothers and put them together in such a way that they would lose both their children and their liberty.
She wasn’t so sure now that Jackie Palmer was innocent. It was beginning to look like some kind of conspiracy. Something that tied them all together . . .
As she stared at the reports and read the appalling things that had happened to the women she was looking at putting away, the memory of Patrick’s near-lifeless form overlaid everything.
She exhaled sharply, shaking her head as if she could physically remove the image. She rubbed at her eyes, feeling the mascara crumble beneath her fingertips and not caring.
She would throw herself into work as she knew Ratchette would use any excuse to dismiss her from this investigation. Patrick Kelly was dying and the Chief Inspector wanted to distance himself from their association as fast as possible.
She didn’t blame him; even understood him. He was like all rats that deserted sinking ships: he was looking after number one. Patrick would have applauded it, not taken it in the least personally, so why should she?
Now they had Jeremy Blankley she would concentrate on him, and what he was capable of, and what she knew he had already done. Every time she thought of those photographs she felt sick. That anybody could do that to a child, could
want
to do that to a child, was beyond her comprehension.
She pictured Patrick again and wondered if the Russian had any idea of the mayhem he had caused by his actions? She knew that Patrick had got into something that was over his head. That the lap-dancing club had proved a viper in his bosom. She wanted to do something about it all, but what?
Willy was missing, and there was skulduggery of Olympic standards going on all around her, and it all led back to Patrick Kelly. But she could not get involved, not officially. Unofficially she intended to find out as much as she could. But even then she could not let this investigation suffer.