Deep Cover (21 page)

The hard man gave a very slight nod of his head. ‘How old are you?'

‘Old enough.'

‘That's not what I asked.'

‘Twenty-four . . . but I'm not working the street. Not for anything, not for anyone.'

‘What's the accent?'

‘Potteries . . . Stoke-on-Trent way.'

‘Got a name and an address up there?'

‘Penelope Lawrence, Two-one-four Rutland Street, Hanley.'

‘I'll make a phone call. Come back in a couple of days Penelope Lawrence, but you'll have to work. We don't carry passengers.'

‘Two days?'

‘Two days.' He lowered his head and wrote her name and address on his notepad.

The man and the woman sat contentedly side by side in the living room of their house in east London. The man turned to the woman and asked, ‘Cocoa?'

Kathleen Vicary smiled. ‘Yes, please . . . it will help us sleep.'

SIX

T
he hugely built West Indian male seemed to Penny Yewdall to appear from nowhere, emerging out of the throng that negotiated the steps from Piccadilly Circus underground station to Regent Street. Gold rings adorned his fingers, his shoes were of crocodile skin, and he wore a full-length leather coat with an expensive looking suit beneath it. He towered over her and she caught a powerful scent of aftershave. They made eye contact. ‘Pretty chick,' he sneered.

Penny Yewdall ignored him and glanced away.

‘Pretty chick, pretty white chick . . . pretty honky chick . . . little snowdrop chick. Come with me girl, I can show you how to make some real money . . . real bread.'

She still ignored him.

‘Real soft bed, chick . . . warm bed, clean sheets, better than this cold and damp stairway, pretty chick.' The man's harassment of her was public, naked, yet not one person intervened on her behalf. ‘Good clothes, new clothes.'

She continued to ignore him.

‘Real money, chick,' he chanted, ‘jewellery, good clothes.' Then he bent further towards her, hinging at the waist with powerful stomach muscles, so close that Yewdall smelled his minty breath through the fog of aftershave, and then the man said, ‘Harry Vicary says to be careful of a geezer called “Mongoose Charlie”, he offs people for Yates.' Then he melted away into the crowd, leaving her alone once more, sitting in the drizzle with one or two very low denomination coins of the realm in her little plastic beaker, but comforted by the realization that she was being monitored. The crowd had hidden eyes.

She left the stairs at dusk having developed a strange trance-like detachment from the world, which she realized is the norm for down-and-outs – it was evidently the way they survived, mind and body separated from each other. They spent the days lost in their thoughts and memories and fantasies, and the nights lost in their dreams. Again she ate takeaway food from stalls in the street, curled up in doorways snatching sleep – occasionally she was moved on by a uniformed police officer but somehow survived until she felt it was time to go and sit on the stairs at the ‘Dilly Lady' for another day. On the third day, in the forenoon, she walked to Kilburn and entered the premises of WLM Rents.

‘I expected you yesterday,' the man said coldly as she approached.

‘You said two days.'

‘I meant the day after the next day.'

‘I thought you meant two full days I had to wait.'

The man sniffed. ‘Never mind. We can help you.' He opened a drawer and tossed her two keys on an inexpensive key fob. ‘It's 123 Claremont Road. Do you know it?'

Couldn't be better, Yewdall thought, but said, ‘No . . . I can find it.'

‘Left out the door, on the left just before the railway line.'

‘Got it.'

‘Your room will be the ground floor room, on the left once you are over the threshold.'

‘OK.'

‘But you'll be working.'

‘Not on the street.'

‘No. Other jobs.'

‘OK.'

Penny Yewdall walked the greasy pavement in a steady drizzle to the address she had been given, the very address central to the investigation, and her room was the room in which the Welsh girl, Gaynor Davies, had been strangled. It could not, she once again thought, it just could not be better. She reached the house and rang the front doorbell. There was no answer. She tried the first key in the lock. It didn't fit and so she let herself in with the second of the two keys. The house was gloomy. Even mid-morning it had a gloom about it and the smell of damp was strong and gripped her chest. ‘Hello,' she called. Her voice echoed in the hallway. She walked forward and closed the door behind her, and then let herself into the ground floor room to the left of the hallway. She stepped into the room and stopped. A man stood in the room – tall, muscular, cold eyes. Yewdall and the man stared at each other.

‘I was told this was my room,' Yewdall spoke nervously.

‘Where you been, girl?'

‘None of your business.'

The slap sent Yewdall reeling backwards until she fell against the wall and then to the floor. The urge to retaliate was strong but she resisted it. The handler was correct. She had to role-play, and weakened, emaciated female dossers take the slaps, they don't hit back.

‘Where you been!' The man advanced and stood over her, fists clenched. ‘Where you been! Where you been!' The man's eyes burned with anger.

‘Begging . . .' Yewdall panted. ‘I've been begging.'

‘Make any money?'

‘Hardly nothing . . .'

The man pulled her up by her upper arm and threw her against the wall. He felt in her pockets and pulled out a handful of loose change, and the plastic bag containing twenty pence pieces. ‘What's this?' He held the bag up to her face.

‘Money. It's all I have.'

‘Since when do dossers collect twenty pence pieces?' Unlike the large, black police officer, the breath of this man was hot and malodorous, a mixture, it seemed to Yewdall, of gum disease, tobacco and alcohol.

‘I nipped a guy for them. He was milking parking meters.'

‘You nipped a guy for them but you won't work King's Cross? Mr Yates, he won't like that.' The man gripped her forearm.

‘Who's he?'

‘The man . . . he's the man you work for. You live in his house, then you work for Mr Yates and Gail Bowling – you work for them both.'

‘But I knew the guy.' Penny Yewdall turned her head away; she looked down towards the floor. ‘Known him for years. We had a thing going once so I didn't see myself as being a brass . . . he wasn't a stranger.'

‘How does he do it, the parking meters?'

‘He uses tweezers – slides them in and the coin pops back out. Filth to worry about and CCTV cameras but he's real quick, real lively.'

‘In London?'

‘No . . . up in Stoke-on-Trent.'

The man sneered and relaxed his grip, but still held her. ‘Now I know you're telling the truth – can't do that in London but up in Stoke they're still fighting the Second World War . . . primitive. Anyway, get yourself washed and clean your clothes, Mr Yates wants to see you – you'll be working tonight.' He dropped the bag of coins on the floor and let go of Yewdall's arm, then left the room, and went out of the house.

Yewdall stood dazed for a moment, and then collected herself and went to the bathroom, where she stripped and washed herself, and then washed her clothing, rinsing them as much as she could. She wrapped herself in a towel and unlocked the bathroom door. Josie Pinder stood in the hallway. The two women looked at each other.

‘I heard you come in,' Pinder said – short, frail, she had to look up at Yewdall. ‘Are you OK?'

‘Just a slap . . . yes . . . OK . . . I've had worse. He says I'm going to work.'

‘Yes, they start you as soon as. That's Sonya's towel . . .'

‘I . . . sorry, I don't have one . . . I was told to wash.'

‘She's out, dry yourself and put it back; I'll tell her I used it.'

‘Thanks,' Yewdall mumbled. ‘I have clothes that need drying.'

‘Bring them to my room; I'll put them over the radiator for you.'

‘Good of you.'

‘OK, just do as you're told; that way you survive. The last girl in that room, a Welsh girl, teenage runaway, she made good money working King's Cross . . . Michael brought her back here.'

‘Michael?'

‘The guy who had the room, he died on Hampstead Heath . . . in the snow. He brought her back one night, bringing her off the street . . . rescuing her . . . left her here; said he would get her money to send her back to Wales but Rusher and “Mongoose Charlie” came round and strangled her. They made us watch. Watching someone get strangled . . .'

‘Oh . . .'

‘Well, that was “Mongoose Charlie” just now. They work for Yates. They left the Welsh girl in the room, told us we'd seen nothing, but said if we grassed then that would happen to us.'

‘Oh . . .' Yewdall sank back against the wall.

‘Yeah . . . right . . .' Pinder slid past her. ‘Bring your kit to my room. That one –' she pointed to the door at the end of the landing – ‘you haven't got much there so they won't take long to dry – heater's full on.'

The man closed the curtains of the front room window and sat in the deep armchair and picked up the telephone. He dialled the number which he had been given. ‘They've been,' he said when his call was answered. ‘Checking up on her, heavy duty boys.'

‘Yes, we know. I mean we know they're a heavy team,' the voice replied. ‘What did they want?'

‘Usual stuff . . . what you'd expect . . . asking for her. I gave the angry father response . . . don't know where she is, she put her mother through hell . . . the number agreed, sent her to good schools, Our Lady of Lourdes . . . so she brings trouble to the door and runs away, sent us a postcard from London, so that's where she is, London – that's what I said.'

‘Good. When was that?'

‘Midday.'

‘Midday today?'

‘Yes. I didn't phone you earlier because I can be seen from the street, and it would have looked suspicious if I had picked up the blower immediately.'

‘Yes . . . good thinking.'

‘They hung about. They waited. Two guys with pinched faces – had wrong 'uns written all over them. I left the house and walked to the shop at the end of the street. One of them followed me so they were checking me out. They just sat in the car smoking fags, yellow BMW, no idea of blending.'

‘Bit clumsy for Yates.'

‘Well, you'd know that, I wouldn't, but they tipped the contents of their ashtray in the road.'

‘Did they indeed?'

‘Yes, they did indeed. And it's nice and dry up here. I saw the weather, you have rain in London.'

‘Yes, we do, intermittent showers, as they say.'

‘Well, dry as a bone here, no threat of rain either. So I'll go out later, much later, walk around – I won't miss a bright yellow BMW – pick up the fag ends; two lovely DNA profiles for you.'

‘Thanks. Take care though.'

‘Don't worry; it'll be much later though. I'll phone you in the morning when I have them safe.'

‘We'll send a motorcycle courier to collect them. Appreciate this.'

‘Your old man angry with you, girl?'

‘My old . . . you mean my dad?' Penny Yewdall sounded alarmed. ‘You've seen him?'

‘Yes.' The woman had a hard, unforgiving face, Yewdall thought; a menacing tone of voice and cold, penetrating eyes. She reminded Yewdall of Mrs Tyndall – the formidable Mrs Tyndall – head of maths at her school. She had first seen then how true it is that fear is a great learning tool, as when one can recall with great precision the details of an incident in which one nearly lost one's life. Exposed to Mrs Tyndall as she had been, it was, she realized, little wonder that she, and the rest of the form, had made such rapid headway with quadratic equations. But then, and now, she felt sorry for Mrs Tyndall's family. And here was Mrs Tyndall again. Formidable, overbearing, but this time her name was Gail Bowling. Hard as nails, with a lump of granite where all other mortals have a heart. ‘Yes, we've met him, we like to know who we have working for us.'

Yewdall allowed a look of fear to cross her eyes.

‘But you checked out alright – you wouldn't be standing here if you didn't.'

‘That's right,' Curtis Yates added, sitting in the armchair by the log fire, pulling leisurely on a large cigar. ‘So we can't make you work the street, but if you want a roof, you need to earn it.'

Yewdall nodded. ‘I need a roof.'

‘We all do.' Gail Bowling, dressed in a severe black dress and black shoes, handed Yewdall a package. ‘Take this.'

Yewdall stepped forward and accepted the package. It was about the size of a paperback book, felt solid, and she thought it quite heavy in proportion to its size. She stepped back, allowing herself to seem nervous.

‘Deliver it,' Bowling ordered her, curtly.

Yewdall glanced at the package. ‘There's no address on it.'

‘Here.' Gail Bowling handed Yewdall a slip of paper on which was a typed address.

‘I don't know where this is. I'm new in London.'

‘You've got a lovely long train journey ahead of you.'

‘Oh.'

‘Rusher will drive you into Richmond – you needn't change.'