Authors: Martina Cole

The Know (56 page)

It was a lovely house, right enough, but she was happy in her old flat where she still felt at any minute she might see Kira run into a room.

Funny, but when she finally had the opportunity to live in the house she’d dreamed of, hold her dinner parties for real, she found she didn’t want to. There was a lesson to be learned there somewhere, she knew, but today she didn’t have the strength to think about it.

It had been a lovely service. All Kira’s friends from school had attended, and all the neighbours. The flowers had been amazing.

Joanie slipped her arm through Jeanette’s and they walked slowly towards Jon Jon, waiting by the grave-side. They hung back as they saw Big John McClellan and his two eldest boys go over to offer their condolences.

Joanie’s son was a man of substance now, and still only eighteen years old. Paulie had signed the parlours over to him before he’d topped himself. Jon Jon had not wanted to accept them at first, said it was blood money, but Joanie had made him see sense. Paulie owed them.

These days she preferred to remember him purely as her pimp: a man who’d flogged her arse for as long as it was profitable to him. A low life. A nothing.

It was far easier that way.

Jasper was here too, holding Jeanette’s other hand now. Joanie accepted his presence. After the events of the last months she felt any kind of love was not to be sneezed at and as no one else would put up with Jeanette, she supposed she’d better get used to having him around. Especially as the girl was pregnant by him. Jon Jon didn’t know yet, of course. She was saving it up till the right moment.

So much for Jeanette’s new start at school, though already she was talking about home tutors and Joanie child-minding so that was something.

Out of the corner of her eye Joanie noticed Baxter in his good black suit. She’d noticed that about CID over the years - they all knew how to put on a show at a funeral. That way they could eyeball the mourners while paying their respects: not that there’d be anything to learn today and Baxter had turned up trumps for them in Rumania. His superiors were turning a blind eye. Paulie’s legacy to them, she supposed.

So far as the general public was concerned, the police hunt for the killer of Kira Brewer and two unnamed children was still very much in progress - but the filth and Joanie’s neighbours knew the real score. Sylvia had buried her husband in an unmarked grave. Pippy Light and Kieron McClellan didn’t even have that much to mark their unlamented passing. The police knew full well who had settled accounts, but Big John had been plastering money around wholesale and there’d be no comebacks.

These days Joanie ran the parlour in Ilford, still involved herself with the girls and their lives. Still tried to get through the days without too much to drink, still tried to keep Bethany on the straight and narrow.

She was twelve now, revelling in the new figure that threatened to become as top heavy as her mother’s. This, coupled with her precocious knowledge, made her one dangerous piece of jail bait but Joanie would do the best she could for her. The girl had loved Kira in her own way.

Jon Jon kept an eye on his mother. She was doing well today and he was proud of her. There’d been a long painful interval between the recovery of Kira’s pathetic remains and today. The inquest had been a living nightmare. He’d forbidden his mother and Jeanette to go anywhere near and thanked God that they’d listened to him. The McClellans had kept close throughout, smoothing things over behind the scenes. Paulie’s last bequest to him, Chief Constable David Smith, was on their payroll now, with no question of anyone being a grass in return like Paulie had been.

And finally the day they’d all dreaded had arrived - the day they would say goodbye to little Kira. So far it was going better than any of them would have believed.

Jon Jon looked around him. Even Jasper being here didn’t annoy him the way it would have done. Big John had taught him a lot in the last few months, about not sweating the small stuff and the value of restraint. Plus the fact that, if a problem finally got too irksome, a man in Jon Jon’s elevated position could always pay someone else to take care of it for him. But he’d see how things panned out, give his sister her chance of happiness. God knows, she deserved it.

He saw Sippy with Earl and some other cronies, sneaking a quick joint before the interment. Jon Jon smiled. There was no disrespect intended. For them weed was a sacrament and in no way out of place on this solemn occasion.

Jon Jon still had a few scores to settle, a few debts to repay, but slowly he was working his way through it all. Closure, the Yanks called it. He preferred to think of it as acceptance.

It started to rain, a fine cold spray that he knew would soak straight through the mourners’ clothes. One of them was still a sick man, but had ignored doctor’s orders and insisted on attending. Jon Jon opened his umbrella and went over to Darren Weeks, standing on his own. The people from the estate still thought of him as Little Tommy and no one wanted to be tainted by association. That was something Jon Jon had to fix.

He held the umbrella over them both. The other man’s huge bulk spilled out one side. It was more of a symbolic gesture than anything, but its value to Darren was incalculable.

‘Thanks, Jon Jon.’

‘Any time, mate.’

Jon Jon knew they were being watched and that was the point. He wanted everyone to know that Darren Weeks had as much right to be here as anyone. More than most, in fact.

Jon Jon held his mother close as they said their last goodbyes to Kira. Jeanette’s sobbing was loud and Joanie dimly remembered her own mother saying that you shouldn’t cry while you’re pregnant because the tears drain the water from around the baby. She nearly said it aloud but stopped herself in time.

She hoped Jen had a girl. Joanie needed someone unspoiled and untainted to channel her love into, and a grand-daughter would be perfect.

She stared down at her child’s white coffin and silently said goodbye. The rain stopped suddenly and weak sunshine broke through the clouds. It was Kira’s blessing on them as far as Joanie was concerned.

She looked at the girls from the parlours, all dressed in black, their painted faces looking solemn. Even Lazy Caroline had turned out today. The cemetery was packed out. Hundreds had come to pay their last respects.

It was like Jon Jon said: you never forgot something as terrible as this, but joy and happiness left lasting memories too. She was not to dwell on that terrible death, he had said, but to concentrate on Kira’s life, short as it was.

Remember the laughter and the overwhelming love.

You just had to make new memories for yourself, hope that one day they’d be as precious as the ones you already had.

And that was exactly what Joanie was going to do.