She saw him looking at her. He was smiling indulgently. ‘I like a bit of colour,’ he explained. ‘Christ knows, this world is bloody boring enough.’
Kate thought he had a point.
‘So it seems at times,’ she agreed. ‘This is vivid, but it works.’
He seemed pleased. ‘It’s because it’s all so modern-looking. That’s the secret. Modern furniture can take colour. The older style can’t.’
Kate heard his computer buzzing and said, ‘Have I interrupted you?’
He was busy shutting it down and shook his head.
‘Glad you came. I work too much, really. I am a sad bastard when all is said and done. Can I get you a coffee?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t stay too long, I’m on my way to the hospital.’
He nodded his head sympathetically. ‘So I heard. Is your chap any better at all?’
Kate was surprised by his knowledge but just shrugged it off. She knew how gossip spread around the station and Robert Bateman seemed to know everyone.
He must have read her mind, for he said in a friendly way, ‘It was the desk sergeant, Camilla Holder. She can’t resist a chat if you know what I mean. And be fair, dear.’ He rolled his eyes in mock horror. ‘She’s fifteen stone and with that nose, my God, she gives new meaning to the word drab! No wonder she gossips, eh?’
Kate put her head back and laughed aloud. He was priceless.
Robert put his hand gently on her arm.
‘You’re a nice woman, Kate. Sit down and have a quick G&T. One won’t kill you.’
He was already at a large Art Deco cabinet, taking down glasses and mixing the drinks. Kate watched him. He was camp as a row of tents and yet he had an air of assurance that was wholly masculine. As he passed her the drink he smiled and his even teeth and fresh complexion made him look almost handsome.
He grinned at her. ‘Drink up, love. A slug of alcohol never did anyone any harm. Though of course you didn’t hear it from me. Most of my clients think that life is unbearably boring unless they have a bottle of vodka, fifteen joints and a few sniffs of the okey-doke nightly!’
Kate laughed again, aware that he was studying her closely. She took a gulp of her drink.
‘Down the hatch!’ Robert encouraged her.
A loud crash from upstairs interrupted their jollity. Robert seemed unperturbed by it.
‘It’s me father, he’s bedridden. Won’t be a sec.’
He hurried out and Kate sat down again. The crash had made her jump out of her seat, heart beating like the clappers with shock. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself. Five minutes later Robert was back in the room.
‘He has senile dementia. I have looked after him for the last nine years. I have a woman during the day.’ He chuckled at this. ‘To look after me father, of course!’
‘It must be difficult, Mr Bateman.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘It is, dear, believe me. It’s like living with a stranger.’
Kate didn’t know what to say. Another thump from above brought him to his feet again. Placing her glass on the small table by her side, Kate stood up.
‘Look, I’ll let you get on. Have you the missing paperwork from the files?’
‘I’ll get it all to you tomorrow, OK? Can you see yourself out?’
He sounded distracted, looked harassed now and drained. Kate felt an enormous liking for this dutiful son and pity for his plight.
‘Of course, Mr Bateman.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, would you call me Rob? I feel like an elderly neighbour when you call me Mr Bateman!’ Then he rushed upstairs.
Kate placed her glass in the kitchen sink and glanced around her at the chaos of someone else’s life. As she walked through the hall on her way to the front door she could hear him talking loudly, as if speaking to a child, and her heart went out to him. She shut the door behind her, thanking God her mother was still hale and hearty at seventy years old.
It occurred to her that, like Robert Bateman, she might one day be left with someone completely dependent on her. It was a sobering thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bernice was pretty in a childish way. At twenty-one she looked about fifteen and she knew it. As the man approached her she grinned coquettishly. For a split second she thought she had a punter, a live one, which would have been handy for her. She had had a shit shift that day. But she recognised this man and he never paid for sex. Arm in arm, they walked along the darkened road.
Inside her flat she pulled off her coat and put on the kettle. As she made the coffee she lit a small half joint, bemoaning the fact that she had no puff left. Lately there’d been a dearth of good grass, and all she could get was poor quality solid. Bernice was a grass smoker, preferred its lift to the stoned nonchalance of black.
Pouring a hefty measure of vodka into her coffee, she carried the two mugs back into the lounge. Her friend was sitting on the sofa with her little boy on his lap. He was telling him a story and as she watched the tableau she felt a moment’s sorrow that her son had never had a father figure to look up to.
She wished she had had one herself. Her mother said once that her father was a nice man with nice eyes, but she was fucked if she could remember his name. All her numerous brothers and sisters had different fathers so it didn’t matter too much. At least that is what she had told herself all her life.
She was still speeding and she hoped the joint would bring her back down; if it didn’t, she would have to ask a neighbour for a couple of Valium.
‘Good night’s work?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing spectacular, a couple of wanks. The parlour is shit these days. I’m thinking of going up the City. Suzy reckons I could earn much more and work less hours. All the City gents are after a quick flash before they go home to the legal. I don’t know though, the travelling is the pain, ain’t it?’
The man nodded in sympathy. Then: ‘Don’t you ever tidy up? Shall I phone the council and get them to drop off a skip?’
She laughed uproariously at his wit. ‘It is a bit of a shit hole, ain’t it? But I can’t be bothered with it any more.’ She ran her hands through her cropped hair. ‘Mind you, I never could be bothered, could I?’
The man laughed with her. ‘Bet you was a slut even when you were a girl, weren’t you?’ Now his voice was cold, hard.
The girl looked at him in complete outrage. The last thing she needed tonight was this visitor jumping on his high horse.
‘How dare you? If you just want to give me a hard time then you can piss off. I can get that fucking anywhere.’ She was hurting and it showed. Her tiny heart-shaped face wore a frown, making her look her age for once. Her eyes, a deep brown, were full of anger.
She looked at the man before her and said contemptuously, ‘What is it with you lately? One minute you’re all sweetness and light and the next you’re a right arsehole. Well, listen to me, mate, I don’t fucking need this shit from you or anyone else.’
She was standing now. Her short skirt had ridden up and exposed her pale thighs. By the harsh light of the naked bulb the cellulite was glaringly visible. Her high heels were worn down at the sides so she rolled her ankles to compensate and her tiny breasts were quivering with annoyance under a bright orange crop top.
‘You’re no different from the punters, mate. You think you know it all, just like them. Well, you bleeding well don’t. I know what you want - a blow job. That’s what you always want. Well, you can piss off. The freebies stop here.’
She was angry.
A night of strange men demanding outlandish favours and arguing over payment had taken its toll. The speed had made her paranoid and she had argued with another of the girls, coming off worst to the amusement of the onlookers. It had rankled. Tina was only seventeen and already a loud-mouthed slut who had gradually taken over as the wit of the massage parlour, a position that had been Bernice’s until recently. She was not a happy bunny and hearing her degradation exposed by the man sitting opposite her was the last straw.
‘I mean, what makes you think you’re so great anyway?’
She was glaring at him, her eyes deep pools of annoyance and uncertainty. Her son was cuddling into the man, obviously frightened of her, and somewhere in her drug-crazed brain she knew she was over-reacting. Going too far. She should be used to abuse by now. The punters handed out enough, God knows.
Picking up her son, Mikey, she tried to comfort him. As she held him close and whispered soothing words in his ear he pushed her away, his strong little hands making her aware in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing to do with her.
Which only induced more anger in her already muddled brain. She dropped him unceremoniously on to the chair she had just vacated.
‘You little fucker!’
The man was grinning at her.
‘Temper, temper, Bernice. You left him alone this evening as usual. Now all he needs is for you to have one of your tantrums.’
The child was staring at her with a mixture of fear and undisguised dislike. She was so wasted from the drugs and the drink and the nagging sense of failure that had dogged her young life that she felt a sudden urge to kill him.
It was irrational, she knew, but everything was too much for her lately. Her job was getting her down, no one to tell her what to do or praise her when she did something right. Although, as she reasoned in her darker moments, how often did
that
happen? She was too busy earning enough to keep herself so out of it she had to ask what day it was.
Bernice suddenly felt an overwhelming need to cry. Everything about her life was crap, complete crap, and now someone she’d regarded as a friend was telling her so to her face. Telling her something she tried to hide from herself with yet more drink and drugs.
Mikey was walking to his bedroom, his little body in its Postman Pat pyjamas looking so small and vulnerable she wanted to pick him up and comfort him. But she knew it was too late for that. At three years old he had well and truly sussed her out. Everyone did eventually, why should Mikey be any different?
‘Out, you. I want you out now.’
The man was lounging back on her sofa, long legs stretched out in front of him, seemingly quite at ease. Then he stood up and put out one big hand to ruffle her hair.
‘Calm yourself down, girl, I was only joking. Winding you up.’
She smiled uncertainly. Hoping it was true. He was the only friend she had.
‘You are a cunt!’ she said, almost affectionately.
When the knife slid into her belly she thought at first she had been bitten by something. It was only when he repeated the action that she realised he had stabbed her. She dropped to her knees, her face a picture of shock. She pressed her hands over the wounds and watched the deep red blood running through her fingers.
He looked down at her, his face blank.
‘I never really liked you, Bernice. Why would I? You are a fucking whore, like all the others. I only befriended you so I could observe you at close quarters. Marvel at the inborn ignorance that put you on the game. I knew I would do something to you at some point, but I wasn’t sure when. That’s always the hard one, don’t you think?
When
should you do something? When will you get the appropriate response to your carefully thought out actions?’
She was doubled over in pain as he brought the knife down again, this time between her shoulder blades. She slumped forward and he knew she was dead.
He sat and stared at her for a few moments. Then he wiped his hands across his face as if he had just woken from a short nap and started to weep. It was a cold, lonely sound.
Mikey could hear it as he watched late-night erotica on the colour portable in his bedroom.
He ignored it.
His mother cried all the time; it was a safe sound to him - it meant that someone was in for a change.
That he wasn’t alone.
Kate was alone with Patrick, who looked better. His face seemed to have some colour in it and as he lay there he looked so heart-wrenchingly handsome it took all her will-power not to kiss him over and over.
How many times had she watched him sleep? Especially when they were first together. She had never quite been able to believe that she had captured such a prime specimen of manhood.
He had reached her on every level, and that had been frightening at first because after Dan she had sworn never to let herself go again. Always to keep a small part of herself back. With Patrick that had been an impossibility. Murderer, whoremaster, she didn’t care. She could forgive him anything.
Was that how his Renée had felt about him? It must have been, Kate decided. He had been faithful to them both in turn, she was as sure of that as she was of her own name. He had been lucky enough to find two loves in his lifetime.
She only hoped that lifetime wasn’t over.
A noise outside caused her to look quickly towards the doorway. Her mother had told her of the strange man’s visit and it had bothered her. But she consoled herself with the fact that if Boris had intended any harm, he had had ample opportunity to inflict it and hadn’t done so. She would go and see him at the first opportunity, Kate decided. See if they couldn’t sort something out.
She had had a call from Jenny saying that an old friend had told her that Patrick was going to be charged with Tommy Broughton’s murder if he regained consciousness. But Kate had guessed that one for herself.
She shuffled in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She had been sitting by the bed for over three hours and now it was coming up to midnight she knew that she should make a move.
But she couldn’t. After putting off the visit, now she was here beside him it was like being asked to leave a newborn child with strangers. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She pressed her lips to his fingers and was astounded to feel him grip her hand. She nearly snatched it away in fright. Then, looking at his face, she saw that his eyes were open. Patrick was staring at her but it was a blank stare.