“They don’t…” Red said uncertainly.
“Yes they do!” Vera turned on him in fury, arm outstretched, pointing. “They’re asking everybody bloody questions! That’s why I clocked them.” Her lips thinned. Her eyes were large and fearful. “You don’t know, you just don’t know…”
Red lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “About Connie-yes, I know, that’s why they’re here. I wanted to help. I thought you cared. Somebody killed him, you know it, I know it.” He was on the verge of tears. “Well, you might be able to stomach what goes on…”
“Me?!” Vera shrieked. “You live with that slime-bag, Mark Lewis, not me! I have never been involved in it all, I’ve never wanted to know.” She wrenched her outdoor coat off the hanger and dragged it on over her dress.
Red gripped her arm. “But you are involved, aren’t you?” His tone was low and venomous. “You lied to me. I covered up for you. But this other stuff with the kids and Jackson…” He shook his head in disgust.
Vera pulled her arm free, struggling into her coat. “I am shacking up at his place because I got nowhere else.” The mask slipped, and behind it was a trembling, abject creature terrified half out of her wits. “He won’t leave me alone until this all blows over, and now you’ve gone and got the cops in here.” Vera said hoarsely, “He’ll think I done it-not you-me!”
The door was pushed open and Brian, the receptionist, came in. Vera slammed her vanity case shut, picked up her wig box, and barged past him into the corridor. Brian yelled after her.
“You’ve got another spot, Vera!”
“I’ll do it.” Red was sitting at the dressing table, shoulders slumped, toying with a hairbrush.
Brian leaned on the back of the chair, looking at Red in the mirror. “Those two queens-I’ve just had a complaint. They’ll have to go.”
Red sighed heavily and started powdering his face. “Oh, all right, I’ll come clean. I don’t know them. They latched onto me at Lola’s club, gave me a few quid to get them in.” He met Brian’s accusing stare in the mirror. “It’s the truth, I swear before God! Now can I have some privacy-my tits need readjusting!”
A chill wind with a flurry of drizzle hit Vera in the face as she stepped into the street. She blinked, looked quickly up and down, and set off at a trot. The blue Mercedes ghosted around the corner behind her, with just its sidelights on. Vera started to run, hampered by the small cases she was carrying. The Mercedes speeded up, Jackson’s head sticking out of the window.
“Hey! YOU! Vera!”
Vera kept running. The Mercedes came alongside and mounted the pavement. Its brakes squealed, and Jackson was out, pinning her against the wall, his hand gripping her by the throat.
“I’ve bloody protected you, slag, and you…” He gave her a stinging slap with the flat of his hand. “You bring the filth to the house!” He slapped her again, back of the hand. She felt his ring snag her cheek. “Why did you do that, Vera?” Jackson snarled, fingers digging into her throat, forcing her head up.
“It wasn’t me. I swear before God, Jimmy, it wasn’t me.” Vera was gasping and choking, spittle running down her chin. “I wouldn’t, would I, I wouldn’t…”
Jackson eased back, releasing his grip. “What?”
Vera massaged her throat, trying to calm him, talk him down.
“I need you, why would I tip off the law about you?”
“Who is it to do with, then, Vera?” He gathered the front of her coat in his bunched fist and drew her closer. “Is it Red? How much does he know?” He shook her. “Where’s Red? Eh? Eh?”
It came out in a gabble. “I dunno, she’s not on tonight, she had a cold. She’s stayin’ at Mark Lewis’s.” Vera let out a long quivering moan. “It’s the truth, Jimmy, honestly… that’s how she knows everything.”
Jackson looked back along the street. A taxi was standing outside the wrought iron, glass-domed entrance to the club. Two figures came out, tripping across the pavement in their high heels, hurrying to avoid the thickening rain. One of them wore a red wig. They climbed in.
Jackson let go of Vera. She dodged past him, staggering in a blind panic, banging into the wall.
Half-stunned, she heard the car door slam. Jackson drove off the pavement and did a U-turn, blue exhaust fumes billowing up. Vera leaned her head against the wall, watching his taillights disappear, feeling the trickle of blood on her cheek.
Otley had gone the whole hog and taken the lot of them to a greasy spoon diner two blocks along from Waterloo Station. Leading the ragged-arsed, snot-nosed, filthy, stinking tribe in, he felt like Fagin, devious mastermind of London’s poor dispossessed youngsters, the forgotten underclass.
Alan Thorpe he knew well, most of the others he knew by sight. He made it his business to put names to faces. Tennison might have muscled in on his graft in uncovering the kids in Manchester and Cardiff, but Otley was confident that there was more than one way of skinning a cat. This sorry, scurvy bunch held the key. Otley was about to turn it.
He bought burgers and fries all around, with plenty of Cokes, milk shakes, and tea to wash them down. They occupied two tables, set at right angles, in a corner next to the steamy window. He told them to keep the noise down, but with food inside them, fags lit, they were a rowdy, foul-mouthed lot. More than once, Otley saw the manageress casting a disapproving look to their corner. But with their bellies full, he’d got them relaxed, got them talking, and the last thing he wanted was to start throwing his weight around by showing his I.D. So he held tight, hoping there wouldn’t be trouble.
Otley reared back, hands raised defensively, as another kid sidled in and sat down.
“Hey, what is this! Think I’m made of money, do you?” The kid’s two grimy fists rested on the scratched Formica table. “S’okay-here!” Otley tossed a fiver. “Get what you want, and a cuppa for me.”
The kid, whose name was Frankie, scurried off to the counter like a starving rat.
Alan Thorpe went on with his tale. “So how it works-he, Jackson, picks yer up from the station, right?” He squinted up at Otley with his one good eye. “Wiv me? An’ that ’ouse-one you was at-he takes us there, like, an’ he-”
“He never done me!” Disco Driscoll boasted, tapping his chest. He looked about twelve but was possibly fourteen, a half-caste kid in a torn green baseball jacket. Filthy matted hair hanging over his eyes, mouth smeared with ketchup. “I got me own gaff!”
“No, you ’aven’t, yer fuckin’ liar!” Thorpe shot back.
Otley half-covered his face, looking over his hand at the other customers. It was after one in the morning, but it was still pretty busy, with overspill trade from the station.
“I’m not,” Driscoll said, pulling a face. He turned to Otley, and said fiercely, as if it was a matter of real pride, “He done ’em all, but he ain’t done me, he done ’em all.” He gave a defiant nod.
A pug-nosed boy named Gary Rutter said, “He keeps yer there, like, gives yer stuff. He gives yer gear, so, like, yer don’t mind stayin’-know what I mean?”
Frankie returned from the counter with a cheeseburger and fries, a raspberry milk shake for himself and tea for Otley, slopped over into the thick saucer. He plonked the change down onto the greasy table, strewn with mashed chips and ketchup.
“The woman behind the counter said you can’t take the cup out, and that you’re a pervert!” he chortled, giving Otley a gap-toothed grin.
“Know what that means, do you?” Otley asked Frankie.
“Him? He don’t know nuffink,” Alan Thorpe said derisively.
A middle-aged man and woman got up from a nearby table and went out, muttering darkly and shaking their heads. Otley huddled over the table, keeping his voice low.