There was a knock at the door and Golding popped his head round.
‘May I see you, ma’am?’
Kate nodded. As she walked from the room she heard Jenny asking Natasha solicitously if she would like a cold drink. She smiled. Jenny was going to start tripping the prisoner up - not before bloody time.
In her office she raised an eyebrow at Golding.
‘Is it true, ma’am? That we can’t question Suzy Harrington?’
‘According to my superior, yes.’
Golding smiled. ‘Suppose I was to find out where that order came from - would it help?’
‘It would. Can you?’
He took out a photocopied sheet of paper and placed it on her desk.
‘This is a list of the calls Ratchette has taken today.
From what his secretary says, he was OK until early this afternoon when he took a quick call from the Home Office. I’m guessing that this was the one that gave him the bad news.’
‘How did you get this?’ Kate asked. She had to hand it to him - it was good work.
He held up his hands and said, ‘A policeman never divulges his sources.’
They shared a laugh together and Kate found herself pleased that she had Golding on the team. He had amazed her in the last week and yet she had never liked him before and had thought he did not like her.
‘How’s Mr Kelly, ma’am?’
She shrugged. ‘He has had the clot removed and now we all just have to wait.’
Golding put a hand over hers and said kindly, ‘Well, we’re all rooting for him, ma’am.’
This solicitude, especially coming from Dave Golding, was nearly her undoing. Sniffing loudly, she turned away and looked out of the window.
She had put Patrick out of her mind all day. Now, such was the intensity of her emotion, he could have been in the room with her. When she composed herself and turned back to Golding, she saw the office was empty.
She sighed heavily and picked up the sheet of paper he had left on her desk, looking through the names.
Wondering once more at the kindness people could show when you least expected it.
Chapter Twenty
Evelyn was tired out. Her eyes felt as if they had been sprayed with hot sand. She was trying not to nod off in the chair by Patrick’s bed but it was difficult. The room was so hot it induced sleepiness within minutes of sitting down.
Violet and Grace had left, both happier than she had seen them for days. In fact, everyone seemed more relaxed, even the nurses.
Patrick’s hand moved gently, his fingers half clenching, and she smiled to herself even though she knew it was reflex rather than deliberate movement. Everything seemed to indicate that the worst of it was over and Patrick was on the mend. She hoped against hope that was the case.
Kate was due later and Evelyn would be pleased to tell her that everyone seemed optimistic. In a way it was for the good that her daughter was so busy. However demanding her work was, if it took her mind off the plight of the man lying in his hospital bed then Evelyn was grateful for it.
In fact, she hoped Kate was detained for a long, long while, until something happened with Patrick. Something good.
As she rubbed her eyes and adjusted her skirt to make herself more comfortable, a man walked into the room. He was big and heavy-set with long thick black hair and a handsome autocratic face.
He glanced at her briefly, smiling as if he knew her, before walking to the bed.
Inside, an alarm bell was ringing, telling Evelyn that this man could be trouble. But his relaxed attitude belied that and she found herself politely smiling back at him.
‘How did you get in, son?’
He seemed surprised that she should address him - perhaps that she should dare to. Turning towards her, he looked her over from head to foot and Evelyn received the distinct impression, though his expression never changed, that he found her almost beneath his notice. She felt her hackles rise.
‘You have to speak to the ward sister before you can come in here,’ she said sternly.
He just stared at her so in a softer voice she said, ‘Do you know Patrick? Only I can’t remember seeing you before.’
He held out a large well-manicured hand and a smile transformed his face as he said heartily, ‘You are Patrick’s mother?’
He had the same accent as the men who had searched Kate’s house. She looked at the door to see if Everton was sitting guard outside as usual but he was gone.
Evelyn laughed nervously. ‘Jasus, no. I’m a sort of ex-mother-in-law. ’
She saw the confusion on his face and flapped a hand at him. ‘Take no notice of me. Me mouth runs away like a drunk with a Giro!’
He was still smiling, but she noticed he didn’t offer his name in return.
‘I am Evelyn, Kate’s mother,’ she explained. ‘Kate is Patrick’s girlfriend, or partner as they say these days. Though meself I thought you only had partners in a business. Then, I suppose a lot of marriages
are
businesses these days, eh?’
He nodded, looking perplexed, and then glanced back at Patrick. Evelyn watched as he stared down intently at the figure in the bed.
‘He is much better now?’
She nodded. ‘Well, he seems over the worst but we have to wait and see how he reacts to the operation. He had a blood clot removed from his brain, you see. He’s having another CT scan in the morning, if he doesn’t come out of his coma, and they’ll know more then.’
The visitor was silent as he contemplated the man on the bed. He looked at all the tubes and the drips, eyes lingering on the catheter bag that hung down by the bedside. The sight made him avert his eyes as if he had been burned.
‘But he seems to be doing well? They think he will regain his strength?’
Once more Evelyn shrugged. ‘He’s like all of us, son. In the hands of God Himself. Only He can decide our fate in the end.’
He nodded agreement then, bowing slightly, he said courteously, ‘Thank you for the information. If he awakes tell him his Russian friend visited him.’
He went to walk from the room and Evelyn pulled his arm gently. ‘Shall I give him a name, son?’
He shook his head and bowed once more. Jasus but he was attractive, she found herself thinking.
‘He will understand my message.’
Evelyn watched as every nurse, male or female, followed his progress from the ward. She herself stood and stared until he passed through the large double doors. Then she glanced at the bed.
Whoever that was, he was almost certainly on a par with Patrick Kelly. She could tell just by looking at him that he was not a man to cross; she felt that unlike Patrick, the visitor’s natural authority wasn’t tempered by an innate kindness. In fact, for all his courtesy to her she’d known instinctively that he would have slit her throat without a second’s pause if she had somehow got in his way.
Evelyn was thoughtful as she sat down and waited for something to happen - disconcerted without fully understanding why. When Everton wandered back to his chair outside the door, she wondered if she should mention the man’s visit. But she had a feeling he already knew about it. Though why she thought this she didn’t have a clue.
Patrick had been gunned down in the street in broad daylight, yet Kate had not mentioned whether anyone was to be arrested for it, or if they had any idea who had done it. In fact, the more Evelyn thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
With hindsight she wondered if her daughter knew who had shot him. And if so, why had she done nothing about it?
Curious now, Evelyn settled herself back in her chair. She would get to the bottom of it all, let no one be in any doubt of that. Kate owed her a few explanations and once she thought the time was right her mother was going to insist on hearing each and every one of them.
Suzy was a busy girl. In fact, she hadn’t had two minutes to herself since leaving the police station. Aware that she might be followed, she made her way cautiously to London where she went to see her old friend and confidant Lucas Browning.
Once inside his flat she finally relaxed.
He was sympathetic about her arrest and laughed with glee when she told him about her speedy release.
‘Good,’ he beamed. ‘I told you I had friends in high places, didn’t I?’
Suzy was smiling like a Cheshire cat, so pleased with herself she was practically preening. In fact, for the first time in her life, she felt indestructible. It was a heady feeling. She had always known they enjoyed a level of protection, but the fact that it extended so far and in the face of such serious charges amazed and excited her. She was literally untouchable and she gloried in it.
‘So who did you use to get me a tug out of there?’
Lucas shook his head reprovingly. ‘Never you fucking mind. You’ll mouth it all over the place if I tell you.’
She grinned. ‘Really? Do I know them then?’
He laughed loudly at that, throwing his head back and wheezing, ‘Everyone bleeding well knows him!’ Lucas wiped at his streaming eyes. ‘At least, anyone who’s anyone knows him. But for all that he’s a touch and I’m grateful for that.’
‘Ain’t we all!’
They both celebrated their good fortune. Then Lucas remarked in a low voice, ‘I heard about Sharon Pallister. One of yours, wasn’t she?’
Suzy wasn’t laughing now. In fact she was annoyed. ‘How did you know that?’
He smirked. ‘I get to know everything, Suze - remember? That’s what gives me the edge.’
‘Well, fuck you and your edge! I have no idea who topped her. I reckon she might have been on the rough trade a bit, I wouldn’t put it past her. She was always after money. Honest, she’d be at me daily to try and earn a bit more and, I mean, I pay well, Lucas. You have to for what I expect for my clients. But it was never enough for Sharon, yet she weren’t on drugs, I’d take oath on that. No bloke that I knew of either so it was a bit of a mystery. Now she’s brown bread no one will ever know the score, I suppose.’
‘Is all your stuff safe? I mean, they might still seize it. We can’t stop them doing that.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s well hidden,’ she teased him. ‘Right under their noses, in fact.’ Then she laughed uproariously again. ‘One of me clients is Old Bill. He keeps it locked in the evidence room for me. He can make it appear or disappear. Whatever I want, he does. For a price, of course.’
‘If only they knew . . .’
She lit a cigarette and coughed herself red in the face.
‘I must give these fuckers up, Luke. They’ll be the death of me.’
‘Have you any idea where Sharon’s little boy is?’
Suzy looked at him askance and said nastily, ‘What is this? The fucking third degree?’
Lucas sighed as if she was boring him. ‘I just want to know, is the boy off with anyone you deal with?’
Suzy sighed dramatically. Her voice was heavy with annoyance as she said, ‘Not that I know of and that’s the God’s honest truth. Sharon was a weirdo even by our standards. She was up for anything. Christ knows where the kid is.’
She puffed on her cigarette and thought for a few seconds. ‘Whoever killed her stabbed her over and over. They was well upset. I can only assume they took the bleeding kid. Little fucker he was and all. Mouthy little git! All noise and aggression. But, like his mother, he would do anything for a chunky Mars bar and a can of Coke.’
Lucas relaxed back in his chair.
‘I think it’s strange, that’s all. I’ve been thinking . . . I mean, all the girls who’ve been nicked have worked for you over the last year or so, right?’
She nodded, frowning now.
‘All the women were from your estate basically or nearby. Yet you, it seems, have no idea who could have started off all this crap - which, I might add, brought the Filth to your door. I didn’t realise just how deep it was till you asked me to come in with you and I agreed to do some merchandising. But I did a little digging on me own - as I said earlier, I like to know what’s going on - and I found out that you were less than honest with me, weren’t you? Only you let me think that everything was hunkydory when it fucking well wasn’t. You must have known the Filth would start sniffing round at some point.’
Suzy was getting annoyed and swallowed her temper with difficulty.
‘Have I ever got you a capture yet?’
He didn’t answer her, just stared at her lazily.
‘Well, you fat bastard, have I?’
‘That ain’t the point, Suze, and you know it. I certainly don’t want one, thank you very much. Now I got you out the shit today, but if this keeps on and child abduction or murder comes into it, I can’t guarantee you my continued assistance. It’d be out of my hands. The papers are all over this like a fucking cheap suit, and my contact is getting worried. He did us a right favour then he finds out that the girl he put a word in for, put his neck on the line for, is maybe not just into noncing, a pastime he rather enjoys himself, but is also a contender for the big M. And of some kids, if you don’t mind. Kids, incidentally, who are caught up in a big abuse enquiry. So, Suzy love, you tell me all you know and you tell me now, dear heart, before I get upset. If I have put meself out to distribute videos and pictures of dead kids I’ll break your fucking neck.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it, Lucas?’
He looked at her with his cold eyes and all at once Suzy had trouble meeting his gaze. When he was like this he was dangerous, she knew that better than anyone. He drew you in with his jokes and his camaraderie, but she knew he could kill her without a second’s pause if he needed to.
‘It would be the first time I did it knowingly, love, that’s the difference. The films from Romania and Amsterdam were already well in circulation before I started shunting them out. Plus, I only provide the fuckers to the distributor, I don’t even watch them. Young girls are one thing, but kids are different. And anything to do with kids brings out the worst in everyone, ain’t you noticed that yet? I have judges I supply with everything from fucking drugs to boys and trannies, but they keep well away from little kids. Do you get my fucking drift? The man I asked for the favour today needs my assurance that you are sound and I mean to give him the truth, Suze. For all our sakes, yours included.’