The tapping was firmer, more demanding.
The man from next door had shouted, 'Don't be a bloody fool, Ricky.' He had been called 'Dad'. At the cost of a cut lip, welts on his face and a knee in the testicles, Malachy reckoned he had learned much. Fair exchange. He knew the design of the house, knew that family lived alongside it, knew that the entrance to the close was watched. He tidied the pages of his maps.
He locked the door behind him and stood for a moment on the walkway, then heard the distorted sound of the tapping, and rang the bell beside the grille gate.
Malachy followed Millie Johnson into her flat. She walked unsteadily ahead of him, leaning hard on the medical stick, but she waved him away when he went to take her arm. She was smaller than when he had last seen her, smaller than she had been in the hospital bed when she'd had the fierce bruising and the tubes in her. She sat in her chair and her small eyes pierced him. She was pale, frail, and the arm in which the pin had been put was held in a sling. Would she like tea?
Yes, she would. Did she have biscuits? She did: Dawn had shopped for her. He went into the kitchen, boiled the kettle, made the tea and did a tray of cups and saucers, milk, sugar and a plate of digestives. The woman had changed his life. He paused, in the kitchen, with the tray. The widow of the bus driver had changed his life, utterly, by going alone to an evening of bingo for pensioners. Without her…
'Hurry up. I can't abide stewed tea. It needs to be fresh out of the pot.'
'Of course, Millie.'
He carried the tray to her. She watched, hawk-eyed, as he dripped in the milk, put a spoon and a half of sugar in her cup, and poured the tea. He'd get no praise for his care. He laid a biscuit on her saucer – and waited. She sipped the tea, nibbled the biscuit and irritably brushed crumbs from her lap. He broke the quiet: 'You're looking well, Millie. Very good.'
She challenged, her gaze beading at him: 'What have you been doing with yourself?'
'Not much.'
She mimicked him, 'Oh, "not much". What's with your face?'
'Walked into a lamp post.'
'Try again.'
'Must have been dreaming, didn't see the door.'
'Do better.'
'Tripped on a paving-stone, fell in the gutter.'
'Is that the best you can do?'
'Something like that.'
'You think Dawn doesn't talk to me? Dawn talks.
Who did it?'
'Did what, Millie?'
He saw the shrewdness of the old eyes. If he shifted in the chair, they followed him. If he ducked his head, they lifted. If he threw it back, they were with him. They were aged, but the eyes were keen.
'Bless you, for what you've done.'
'Millie, I've done nothing.'
Still the eyes tracked him. 'You lie there in the bed, in the hospital. People come, you don't want them.
They fuss over you. All you do is hope they will go and leave you. When they've left you, then you can hate. I'm not good with words, Malachy… You hate because of what was done to you, but you are helpless
… You see them. They have contempt for you because you are old. You cannot fight them. You hold on to the bag, all that is left for you. You cannot stand. You are down. There is nothing in your purse but they have your bag. You hate them, and those who sent them. A priest came to me, a simpering fool. What did I feel? I told him I felt hate. I had his lecture: "We are all God's children, my dear. Hate belittles us. We must learn to forgive." Couldn't wait to see the back of him. I hated them. What I wanted, in that bed, seeing their faces, was that they be hurt…'
'You shouldn't talk because it will tire you.'
'Rubbish. Dawn told me what's happened on the Amersham. It made me laugh. I did not say it to Dawn, but I knew it. After the laughter, in the quiet, I realized it… I am attacked and then these things happen. I had not given myself such importance.
Thank you.'
'I don't think, Millie, I'll be here much longer,'
Malachy said, and his voice was a whisper.
'Thank you for what you did.' The eyes, misting, struck at his. 'Please, kiss me.'
He came off his chair, knelt by her and kissed Millie Johnson's forehead. He owed her so much, more than she could have known. Then, he stood, poured her a second cup of tea and left her.
'Tony, got a moment?'
Tony Johnson, detective sergeant, had a moment, had an hour, had all day.
'Yes, Guv, how can I help?'
His chief inspector was eleven years younger than Tony, was on a fast-track career path and was part of the new world: 'Guv' was old, where Tony came from.
He saw the man wince.
'Yes, w e l l… Do you do Enver Rahman? Is he one of yours?'
'One of mine, like having shit on your heel.'
'Tell me.'
'He's twenty-seven, runs tarts, has a fair part of vice in north London and the West End tied down. He's scum, but clever with it. Lives in the King's Cross area, nothing permanent. Pride and joy is a Ferrari Spider. I suppose that would be worth dousing in paint-stripper.' He saw the detective inspector's mouth pucker with annoyance; no bloody sense of humour, never was for any of them that had been on the command course. 'He brings in girls from eastern Europe, and he gets muscle from Lunar House.
His goons would hang about the queues at the immigration centre and look for the likely ones. Has he been arrested? No – and frankly, we've never been close to it. The girls are taught that we're all corrupt, that if they come to us the first thing we'll do is shop them to their pimps, and to Enver Rahman. They're more frightened of us than of their own… And let's say that one was prepared to shop him on a vice charge – what's to happen to her? Are we coming up with a witness-protection package for life? Because that's what she'll need. We are not. If she goes home to Ukraine, she's vulnerable to a knife slash or worse, and her father and mother. If she stays here and we're not doing twenty-four/seven guard – which we won't be – she wouldn't know where to hide. That's why we're not close to locking him away… And he has connections. What we've heard, his uncle is the godfather of Hamburg. A sparrow doesn't fart in Hamburg without his uncle's permission. Am I of help to you, Guv?'
'An airline ticket, Heathrow-Hamburg return but open dated, was bought this morning for Ricky Capel.'
Choice lying was an art form for Tony Johnson.
'Don't think I know that name. Ricky Capel? No.'
'Capel's on the computer trigger stuff for organized crime. His name came up from the airline booking.
Runs drugs in south-east London. Interesting thing is that two tickets were bought, same destination, one for Capel and the other in the name of Enver Rahman.'
'Is Capel low-life, Guv?'
'Would think himself bigger than he is, vain little swine… But it's interesting that he should travel to the city where Enver Rahman has an uncle. Big-time, the uncle, you say?'
'About as big as they get, Guv. It's what I heard. Are we going to send?'
'Be wonderful, wouldn't it? With our resources the way they are? No chance. Thanks for your time, Tony.'
'No problem, Guv.'
He went on pushing paper, moving pages on his screen. It would be hours before he could slip away into the dusk and find a callbox.
'I hear what you say, Mr Kitchen, and will do my best to oblige. First things first, you've given me no proof of identity. I regret that a rent book from a London borough's housing department is not sufficient. Not that I'm suggesting anything, but I assume they can be bought for the price of a moderate lunch. No, Mr Kitchen, I'm afraid I'll require something more reliable.'
As senior partner in the company, as a solicitor of thirty years' experience, he took few short-cuts. None on that morning. The man had been on the doorstep of their offices when he had arrived. Eight thirty, and the man had actually been sitting on the bottom step with his feet trailing on to the pavement. Everything about him – except his shoes – was shabby. He'd sensed trouble, had decided to handle the man's business himself… Had also sensed a matter of intriguing interest, which seldom came into his office in Bedford.