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  Danny laughed out loud. A derisory, insulting laugh. ‘You answer to the same man I do, Patrick Kelly, and, incidentally, he hasn’t yet been informed about any of this, but then I’m sure you’ve sussed that much out for yourself. Only, I think we can safely assume that if I had mentioned this to him, you would now be talking to me through the services of a fucking medium. So cut the crap, and let’s get this sorted, shall we? Where’s the money gone?’

  Peter sighed heavily, his whole body seeming to collapse inwards with the exertion. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I collect and I pay out, that’s it, mate. I can only think that it’s Des who’s tipped you the wink. Well, you tell him from me that he’s been fucking creaming off the top for long enough and, unlike him, I don’t feel the need to question every penny that goes through the flats. The girls have to have a bit of leeway every now and then, that’s what keeps them sweet. But if Des thinks there’s a con afoot, then he had better make sure he can prove it. Since the murders, the girls have been a bit skittish, so I’ve turned a blind eye now and again, it’s called good business sense. I have also made sure that Patrick was kept out of it all.’

  Danny didn’t answer him for long moments, waiting for Peter to fill the silence, it never failed in situations like this. Guilty people couldn’t shut up, they kept trying to talk themselves out of any trouble they might find themselves in.

  ‘You tell Patrick from me that this is out of order. If he wanted to give me a tug, he should have done it himself. I ain’t a mug, a fucking errand boy.’

  ‘No, you’re absolutely right, Peter, but as I’ve already pointed out, Pat doesn’t know about this yet. Now, what you are, Peter, is a gambler. And you owe serious poke to some very serious people. So I think that is why you’ve been on the snatch. You have a bird with expensive tastes, an ex-wife who costs you a small fortune, and a coke habit that makes Pete Doherty look like a fucking choir boy, so taking all that into consideration, I think we can safely say you’re well and truly fucked, mate.’

  Peter knew when he was beaten, he also knew that this boy was here to offer him some kind of deal, otherwise he would already be history. Danny had a reputation as a hard little fuck, he was all sweetness and light until you crossed him, then he was a violent bastard. Now his sister was Patrick’s new amour it seemed his position was even more solid. Danny had earned his place in Patrick’s affections and had proved himself worthy on more than one occasion. So Peter knew he was being unfair.

  Peter wondered if that was his problem. All around him were new young bloods, all of them coming up in the world. They were making their mark, looking towards a bright new future and he was still dependent on Patrick Kelly’s earn all these years later.

  He was hocked up to the hilt, he owed money left, right and centre, and he had found himself at sixty-five years old without any real poke to his name, and without the wherewithal to start afresh. He remembered when he was a young man, he had worked hard, and he had flourished, he had made his mark on the world he inhabited. But he had never seen the need to rainy day it. Like all money easy earned, it was easy spent. Years ago, there had always been more money just waiting to be blagged.

  Now he found himself working for a wage. It was fucking outrageous what he had allowed to happen to himself. He was ashamed, he had nothing left to fall back on and, worst of all, he was now at the mercy of this little prat.

  ‘So what do you want from me then? Why haven’t you gone running to Patrick?’

  Danny looked at the waste of a man in front of him, and wondered how someone like Peter had allowed it to happen. Danny had admired him, he knew he had lived the stories and had the experience that young men like him had grown up on. He had heard Bates talked about with awe, he had been a real fucking earner in his day. Now he was nothing, he was just an old man trying to talk himself out of trouble. It was only his reputation from years gone by that had stopped Danny from dragging this out in public. He had been willing to try and help Peter, but he could forget that now, one more insult and he was done for.

  ‘Is Jennifer in on this? She’s going to be my next stop, Peter.’

  Peter sighed, he knew it was over for him. ‘ ’Course she is, but it was all my idea, she didn’t want to do it. She’s only doing what I told her to.’

  Danny liked that Peter was trying to protect Jennifer, that was what he would have done. What he expected from him.

  ‘You are a gentleman, trying to save a lady’s reputation. But come off it, Peter, do I look like I just came off the banana boat? You couldn’t have worked this out on your lonesome, you ain’t got the fucking nous. Now Jennifer, she’s got more mouth than cows have udders, and she has a mathematical way about her. At least, that’s what Pat tells me. So I think we need to ask ourselves what we are going to do next. Now that I have sussed you out, so to speak, you and me have got what some people would refer to as a connection. In plain English, that means, if you don’t fucking sort yourself out, my boot will be making a connection with your arsehole, and that is putting it nicely. Now, Patrick is none the wiser. As you so astutely remarked, Desmond is behind this little contretemps, but you see, I’ve been thinking about all this, and I have a feeling that Desmond wants you out of the picture for reasons best known to himself. So, I think me and you need to have a little chat, because I think you know more about his little scams than he realises. Am I right, or am I fucking right?’

  Danny was grinning now, his arms were opened wide, his whole demeanour friendly and approachable. Peter Bates looked at him as if for the first time, and he decided that Danny Foster was worthy of his reputation. He was hard, but so were all the people in their world. Danny Foster, however, had that something extra, he was a fucking shrewdie. He had the sense to think in the long-term and play the long game.

  Desmond would have expected Danny to come round firing on all barrels, he would have assumed that he’d take him out, but instead Danny had thought it all through, and he had come up trumps, so to speak. Now that Desmond had shown his hand, Peter didn’t feel he had any reason to keep him out of it. In fact, he had a good reason to put the fucker right in it. And that is just what Peter intended to do.

  ‘You want Des out of the way, don’t you?’

  Danny nodded simply. ‘I’m willing to gloss over your involvement, but I want that cunt finished once and for all. He is a liberty-taker, and I intend to see him broken and borassic.’

  Peter Bates laughed then. ‘You’re a holder of grudges, not a bad trait in our game. But all the same, be careful, he gathers information on people and then he uses it. How do you think I got roped in?’

  ‘Well, Peter, let’s just say that I think he will be hoisted with his own fucking petard. Now, start talking.’

  Peter pulled out a chair, offered Danny a seat then, opening a bottle of Scotch, he cleared his throat and started from the beginning.

  Eve woke up to no one. She stretched in the bed and then sat up. Patrick was gone. She was slightly disappointed, but not overly. She had expected it in a way. Patrick was probably like most older men, he would be an early riser by nature, and unwilling just yet to want the whole breakfast scenario. That didn’t bother her, she liked to read the paper and drink her coffee in peace.

  She lay back in the bed, and let her mind go over the night before. She had enjoyed it, had enjoyed him. He was quite tame sexually and she was quite voracious. She knew that a lot of older guys thought they were sexual gymnasts when actually they were quite tame. She was the product of her generation; sex was to be enjoyed by all, not something to be endured. Pat had risen to the occasion, she couldn’t complain about that, but she also knew he had been hard-pushed to keep it going.

  But, all that aside, he had excited her. He was dangerous, and she also liked that. The danger was half the attraction, she liked that he had treated her with respect. She was pleased by the fact that she shocked him, that her sexual appetite and her willingness to be a very active partner had been something new for h
im. It was clearly something that he had not experienced before with a woman he really cared about. Most men of his generation had a strange belief about women; there was the good girl they married, and the bad girl they fucked.

  Eve knew that, for the first time, Patrick had seen the sense in having both those traits in one woman. She hoped he had anyway, because she was determined to repeat the experience as soon as possible. He intrigued her, he was urbane, witty and also dangerous. At one point he had been completely and utterly hers, and though she didn’t want a husband, and she didn’t want a partner, as people referred to their lovers these days, she just wanted the excitement. No more and no less.

  Going down to the kitchen she saw that he had made himself a cup of tea before he left, the mug he had used was in the sink, and for a split second she felt a rush of affection for him. She pictured him sneaking around, trying to keep quiet so he didn’t wake her. He was a nice man, and nice men were dangerous in a different way because, if you weren’t careful, they made you start to care about them. And that was when the trouble really started.

  Chapter Nine

  Margaret Dole was waiting for Annie as she walked to her car, she was all smiles and Annie was pleased to see her. She respected her well enough, and thought she would make a good plain-clothes one day if she could maybe learn to control her strong personality.

  ‘Hey, Annie, has anyone spoken to you yet about me being on the team?’

  Annie frowned in consternation. ‘You’re already part of the team, aren’t you? I thought you were working on the computers, the website and that.’

  ‘I am. Whoever this is, he isn’t contacting the girls through the website. He uses a phone and, as we already know, it can’t be traced to anyone in particular. It’s a clean mobile and, until he puts some more money on it, we haven’t a hope in hell of catching him. He doesn’t use it for anything other than contacting the girls in question. He never uses it from the same location, and never for more than a few minutes at a time. He’s got that well sussed. No, what I was interested in was whether anyone had maybe recommended me to work with you and Kate Burrows so I could get a bit more experience, you know.’

  Annie shook her head and smiled. ‘I can ask for you, love, you’d be a real asset. So much of our work is done on computers these days. I think I spend more time filling out bloody forms than I do actually out on the pavement. It’s ludicrous but, as Kate always points out, it’s to cover our own arses, as well as make sure no one can say we didn’t follow all the correct procedures.’

  Annie saw the frown on the younger girl’s face and knew exactly how she was feeling. It was hard when you wanted to work on a particular case, especially one like this where it was high-profile and guaranteed to give you a leg up. Everyone wanted in, and who could blame them, it was invaluable experience and it gave the younger ones the chance to be a part of a large investigation.

  But Annie wasn’t sure Margaret Dole would fit in, she had a very forceful way about her that often put other people’s backs up. She could come across as a know-all, which she was and, when she lectured you on her knowledge of computers, and anything pertaining to them, she made you want to drop into a self-induced coma. It wasn’t just the way she spoke to you so directly, it was that she could make the most interesting of subjects sound boring and repetitive.

  Annie didn’t really like her, and she also knew that she drove Kate to distraction after a few minutes. People like Margaret didn’t even see that they were getting on people’s nerves, they were too busy being the big I am. Even this, waiting by her car to talk to her, made Annie feel that there was something not quite right about her. Why was she being so furtive? Why not just ask like anyone else would, in the comfort and warmth of the station house?

  ‘So you’ll ask for me then? Put in a good word.’ It was a statement more than a question, and Annie nodded her answer.

  As she drove away, Annie felt uneasy about it all. Margaret Dole had acted like she had some kind of inside knowledge and Annie wondered exactly what that knowledge might be.

  Jennifer wasn’t surprised to find Peter Bates on her doorstep with a sob story and an apologetic air about him. He was terrified, and he had every reason to be. She knew this had been on the cards for a long time and they had agreed that, when this time came, they would face Patrick together, and let him in on the big secret. She just wasn’t expecting it to be today.

  With all that was going on with the girls and the flats, the police crawling all over the place, and the fact that Des was all for keeping it quiet, she had expected a few more months before the balloon went up, as it were. By then she would have siphoned off enough to make the consequences bearable, after all, she was not as involved as the others. She had made sure of that. Plus Patrick would more than likely give her a natural swerve as a female, he would understand that she had had no real option but to go along with it all.

  It was the deaths of the girls that had caused the skulduggery to come out into the open, and it had frightened them all in one way or another. And, on a scale of one to ten, they had come off far better than the poor girls who had paid for their so-called sins with their lives. But it seemed that Desmond was not just on the grab, he had also tried to palm off his thieving on Peter Bates. Young Danny Boy had seen through him from the off though. Now all she had to do was do some digging, ask the right questions and make sure that she kept herself out of the firing line, and protected her end. Something she had been doing for years. So, with a smile and a cheery demeanour, she explained to Peter Bates that she had the problems well in hand, that forewarned was forearmed, and she was already making sure they were both kept out of the eventual showdown.

  Peter was thrilled. He had always had a grudging respect for old Jennifer James, and today he was very tempted to give himself a pat on his proverbial back but, until this was sorted out once and for all, he would leave that until he could guarantee the outcome. He knew he was not quite out of the woods yet. But Jennifer had come up trumps, and for that he would be eternally grateful.

  ‘Come on, Eve, you must like him.’

  Eve shrugged nonchalantly. ‘So what if I do? He’s a nice man, and he’s interesting.’

  Danny was unsure, for the first time ever, about how to treat his sister. Never before had he felt uneasy about her love life. It had always been her business and he had made sure it had not been anything to with him. But her involvement with his boss made him uneasy. He didn’t want her to get hurt. After all, no matter how tall and strong she was, she was still, and always would be, his little sister.

  ‘I just want to know you are OK, that’s all. It’s a brotherly thing, indulge me.’

  Eve laughed and Danny saw the humour that was an intrinsic part of her personality and yet seen quite rarely. It always showed her to be far prettier than anyone realised. There was something about her demeanour that hid her true character, she had always had a way with her. She acted like she was better than everyone else, but in reality she was quite shy of new people. Once she got to know them she was a different girl but, until then, she could come across as bolshy.

  Danny had seen it all their lives with people, even their mother had not taken too well to her only daughter. In fact, she had always had a big problem with her. Lily Foster always had to be the star of her own life story, her little daughter’s beauty and intelligence had not been something she found easy to come to terms with. Although she had liked it when Eve had been at an age where she could still be controlled, it was when her daughter had stopped being a child that the real problems had begun.

  At thirteen, Eve could have passed for twenty. Physically well developed, she had looked like a watered-down version of her mother. By fifteen, her mother looked like a watered-down version of her. Eve had blossomed, opened out like an exotic flower, and she had an easy sexuality that had been as frightening as it had been natural to her. Danny had always known, deep down, that his mother had not been like other mothers. She had used her children a
s nothing more than appendages to her and what she wanted to stand for. The beautiful mum had not been able to cope with the beautiful young daughter when said beautiful young daughter had started to outshine her. Both he and Eve had been in and out of care, and in and out of foster homes, but one thing had stayed constant: they really cared about each other. Both of them had only ever had a real relationship with the other, people came in and out of their lives, but they had only ever really had time for each other.

  It was strange that neither Eve nor Danny had ever had any long-term relationships. Neither of them had ever lived with another person, the closest either of them got was when they spent Christmas together at their mother’s, providing she was not incarcerated, of course. She seemed to be either in a mental institution or rehab, depending on how her life was going at that particular time. Men being the bugbear, naturally. Danny wondered at times how he and Eve had turned out so normal. Neither of them had substance abuse or alcohol problems, though he knew that they had had problems letting other people get too close to them. But, on the whole, he thought they had got off pretty lightly.

  ‘Do you think he’s the one?’

  Danny was laughing as he said it but deep inside he felt Eve could do a lot worse than Patrick Kelly. Age difference aside, Danny felt that Patrick had the money and the influence that a girl like Eve needed in her life. He also had the added benefit of being someone Danny knew and liked, so the usual asking around and digging into the man’s background wasn’t necessary. Plus, Eve looked happy and that pleased him, they needed to take their happiness where they could.

  Danny’s only worry was Kate really, she had been a big part of Pat’s life for a long time and, even though it looked like it was all over, that was no guarantee that it was. Longtime relationships had the benefit of memories and comfort, they were about more than excitement and sexual chemistry, even if they had once started out just like that. So Danny would keep a wary eye out and, if needed, he would step in to pick up the pieces. But it was early days, and he was just pleased to see his sister looking so happy.