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  Wednesday looked from one to the other with obvious interest.

  Pat sat down behind his executive desk. His legs felt weak.

  ‘Goodbye, Wednesday.’

  His voice had a note she had never heard in it before. She had seen her boss deal with violent drug dealers and bona fide faces. This woman was intriguing. Who was she that she could rattle Patrick Connor?

  ‘Shall I bring through some coffee?’

  The girl was smiling at Marie as she said it, evading Pat’s eye.

  Marie nodded in a friendly way.

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  Alone she and Pat looked at one another for long moments. He broke the silence as Marie knew he would. It was a knack she had developed in prison. Quietness scared people, she’d found. If you waited long enough they would speak first and it gave you the upper hand. And with Pat, you needed that edge. He would lie about what he’d had for breakfast, couldn’t help it, it was part of his make-up.

  ‘You look well, Marie. How’s things?’

  It was lame, they both knew it was lame, and it made Marie smile. That changed her face and she saw him relax.

  ‘How do you think I am, Pat? I’m confused, scared, but most importantly, keen to know about me kids.’

  Pat stared at her. She knew his mind was crunching like a 1950s gearbox.

  ‘Have you seen them at all? Have you kept in contact with our son? That’s all I want to know, Pat.’

  He was biting his top lip, a nervous action she remembered from years gone by. Then his mobile rang. It was a loud tune, Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Cry’. It seemed appropriate to them both and he stared at it, then at Marie, who grinned.

  ‘Clever. Never seen one close up before. One of the women on my wing had one, a PO smuggled it in for her, but I never actually saw it meself. They turned her cell over and that was that. Four days on the block for wanting to phone her daughter. But then, unlike me, she had a number for her, an address. She actually saw her child.’

  Pat wiped one large hand across his face.

  ‘What you want, Marie?’

  ‘Don’t try your Jamaican accent on me! You never left London all your life. I heard through the grapevine you was finding your roots – well, save it for the silly little birds who are interested in it. Where’s me kids?’

  ‘How the fucking hell would I know that?’

  She looked into his piercing blue eyes and sighed.

  ‘You never bothered with your own son, is that what you’re telling me?’

  He couldn’t look her in the eye but stared at his hands instead. He was ashamed and they both knew it. Annoyed, Pat tried to justify himself.

  ‘I didn’t need this shit, Marie. I was having enough trouble keeping meself . . .’

  She sat quietly staring at him as he attempted to dismiss twelve years of neglect. With that accusing stare levelled on him he tried, unsuccessfully, to excuse what he had done.

  ‘What good would I have been to him, eh? Think about it. I wouldn’t have been able to take care of him, would I? I mean, think about it, what would I do with a kid?’

  She was shaking her head in despair.

  ‘So he didn’t have either of us then. What about Tiffany, have you seen her?’

  Patrick was quiet for a moment.

  ‘No. Why would I? She wasn’t mine, was she?’ he said at length.

  It was what she’d expected.

  He opened the desk drawer and took out a bundle of money, twenties and tens, all rolled up with an elastic band around them.

  ‘Here you are, girl. I was gonna give you something anyway, get you on your feet, like.’

  Wednesday came in with the tray of coffee. Marie brushed past her and walked from the room. Pat’s mobile rang again and the tune brought back more painful memories. It made her think of blues in Brixton, walking along the Railton Road looking for a dealer. Standing around half-naked in the freezing cold, staring into car windows and smiling at strange men. Brought back the salty smell of sex and the uncomfortable feeling of being fucked unceremoniously in the back seat of cars. New cars, old cars. Cars that had kids’ toys in the back, or a briefcase. Cars that said so much about their owners’ lives, if they only knew it.

  It made her aware once more of the wasted years she had spent in prison until in a strange way they brought her salvation.

  She still wanted to cry for her little boy, left without a father and a mother. Unlike her daughter Jason had known who his father was, had had a sort of relationship with him. He must have been terrified going into care, being alone with no one to look out for him. And you read such stories in the papers . . . kids being abused, left unloved, starved, beaten.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’

  Marie looked into the old lady’s face and nodded.

  She realised she was standing in the middle of the street oblivious to passers-by and traffic. The pain in her heart was tangible. It felt like a hand was gripping it tightly. She thought she was going to faint.

  She could still see the kids’ faces looking at her with big expressive eyes on that last day in court. Could still smell their hair as she’d hugged them close. A year on remand had cleaned her up, made her realise what she was missing out on all those years she was drugged out of her brains.

  It had been too late then and it was too late now.

  She began the long walk back to the hostel, the cold air cutting into her lungs. She didn’t want anything from Pat, especially not money he had made off young girls and women. That money was tainted with tragedy and shame. She could do without it.

  ‘Who was she then, Pat?’

  Wednesday’s nasal voice was getting on his nerves.

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own fucking business for once?’

  Wednesday was miffed and it showed.

  ‘I was only asking!’

  She stormed from the room, her tight little ass wiggling for all it was worth. Pat was oblivious. He knew that Marie was going to bring trouble, big trouble, and wasn’t sure how he could stop it. If she knew the full SP, would she kill him?

  He had a feeling she was capable of it for all her newfound calm. She was always a funny one, was Marie. Could pick an argument with her own fingernails if the mood was on her.

  And he had tucked her up big time.

  He realised that much, just wondered how long it would be before she got wind of the whole situation and what would be the upshot then.

  Tiffany smiled at her daughter’s little face. Anastasia really was a very pretty child, all wide eyes and crinkly black hair. She was light-skinned, very light-skinned. If her hair was relaxed she could pass for Greek or Italian.

  Tiffany loved her with a passion that had surprised her. She wondered if her own mother had ever felt like that about her, but doubted it.

  Tiffany would kill for her child. Her mother had killed for a fix.

  A knock at the front door sent her leaping from her chair. She was smiling widely as she opened it.

  ‘All right, mate?’

  Patrick smiled into the girl’s eyes. She was just how he liked them: skinny, adoring and malleable. He wondered if the fact that she was Marie’s daughter added to her attraction. Sometimes she frowned and it was like looking at Marie again. Tiffany didn’t have her mother’s stunning looks, or her lush body at the same age, but she had the look of her.

  That innocent look that belied the fact they would fuck anything for a few quid. Well, Tiffany wasn’t that bad yet, but he was working on it.

  ‘I talked to me mate. He says you can audition for him tomorrow night. It’s the Aida Club by Tobacco Dock. Wear a schoolgirl’s uniform, he’s a right fucking perve.’

  ‘It is a lap dancing club, ain’t it?’

  Tiffany’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Of course it is, but the girls always come out in costume like, then someone pays for it to be removed. It’s good money, Tiff, I promise.’

  Anastasia put her hands on Pat
rick’s trousers and he jumped as if he had been burnt. The little girl was upset and Tiffany picked her up gently.

  ‘For crying out loud, Pat, she was only touching you.’

  ‘These trousers cost me over three hundred quid and I’m not about to have them covered in her old crap.’

  He could see the confusion on Tiffany’s face as she stared at him and it reminded him of her mother’s expression when she had sat in his office earlier that day. Anastasia looked from one to the other, her face a picture of puzzled innocence as she felt the tension between them.

  Tiffany felt the familiar sinking of her heart as she watched father and daughter survey one another.

  ‘She is your child, Pat . . .’

  He took a deep breath and sighed.

  ‘Look, Tiff, I have seven kids to my knowledge and I love them all, your brother included. But I ain’t the hands-on type, you know that. I give you money and I see you both all right but I have never connected with any of them.’

  Tiffany knew he was telling her the truth but all the same it galled her. He was the only man she had ever been with and he had pursued her. Christ, had he pursued her. Always taking her out, giving her things, and then she was pregnant. Like her mother before her she soon found out that Patrick Connor was not only unreliable but downright cold and callous. At six months old Anastasia had been taken to hospital and Tiffany had rung and rung his mobile to no avail.

  She knew he was with someone else and it hurt her, hurt her so much she had felt an actual physical pain, but there was something about him that held her to him though she didn’t know for the life of her what that was. But once his arms went around her she was his. No matter what he had done.

  He was Pat, and he was a law unto himself, and if you wanted to keep within his orbit you learned that lesson fast.

  He had arrived home a few days after Anastasia was discharged, made a fuss of Tiffany and the baby, and she had forgiven him.

  But it had hurt, hurt her deeply.

  Now she was aware that her days with him were numbered. He was into youth, extreme youth. He needed little girls with no brain and no idea about the real world. She was getting into the lap dancing club because she knew deep inside that soon she would be the sole breadwinner for her daughter, and also that what she wanted for her child was going to take money, real money, to achieve. Anastasia would have the life she had wanted for herself, all those lonely nights spent in the children’s home and later in foster care.

  Anastasia was going to get everything, Tiffany was going to see to it personally. She might look a bit like her own mother but that was where the similarity ended. Her child was her world and she would do anything for her.

  It was a promise she was to keep but the price was to be far higher than she’d expected.

  Patrick was already walking towards the door. She watched him sadly. He was annoyed and it showed. Now he would walk out on her for a few days because she had had the nerve to make a remark.

  ‘Have you seen me mum yet?’

  Even as she said it she was telling herself to shut up, not to antagonise him further, but she couldn’t help it.

  ‘She’s been round to Carole’s so she’s obviously on the prowl.’

  Patrick looked at her coldly.

  ‘If I see her I’ll offer her her old job back. I like to keep things in the family – or haven’t you noticed that yet?’

  As the front door slammed behind him Anastasia whimpered and Tiffany felt the old longing for him return. She felt an urge to run to the door and beg him not to leave her for days on end as he usually did, but she fought it. Instead she hugged her little daughter close and wondered if her school uniform was still in the top cupboard in the bedroom. Once she was financially secure she would feel better able to cope with Patrick Connor and his mood swings.

  But at times like this she felt so very, very lonely. He was all the family she had ever really known.

  As Pat pulled up outside Sonny Lee’s flat he was fuming inside. Tiffany had the knack of making him feel guilty; her mother had had the same way about her. Anastasia meant literally nothing to him. Oh, he liked showing her off to his mates when she was dressed up and looking cute, but the actual everyday care of kids, especially little kids, pissed him off.

  Sometimes he wondered why he let women have his babies, it changed them inside. A lot of them changed on the outside as well – stretch marks and flab being just a few of the things he hated about some of his exes. Still, the punters didn’t give a toss and that was the main thing. All his kids’ mothers were on the game, and soon he knew Tiff would be just like them. She had a shock coming to her at that club and he was intrigued to see how she would handle it.

  Before he rang the buzzer of Sonny’s flat he checked inside his sports bag. He had two hand guns and a large bag of cocaine. Pat liked Sonny; he was an earner and was also sound. Would keep his mouth shut if he was caught and do his time without too much trouble. Young men today opened their traps to their briefs before they were even charged. It was laughable. Big men on the streets and little boys in the filth shop if they thought they had a good capture.

  Winning Patrick’s trust took time and effort and Sonny had come up trumps for him more than once. As he buzzed for entry Pat was smiling again.

  Sonny’s flat was smart, all black leather and cream walls, completely at odds with his appearance. He looked like a walking flag of Ethiopia, Jamaican through and through. In fact Sonny was a Brixton boy, had never even been to Jamaica, but that didn’t bother him too much. His mother was white, a school teacher, his father an African businessman with the gift of the gab. Sonny had never met him, nor had his mother seen him again after their three-week fling.

  Now Sonny was playing with his dreadlocks and smoking a large joint. His permanent grin was in place and he gave off the sweet odour of grass and sweat. He was a plastic Rasta, Jamaican when it suited him, like Connor.

  ‘That fucking skunk stinks!’

  Pat was waving his hands in front of his face in mock horror.

  ‘It’s the plants in the bedroom. Fuck me, the electric bill is like the National Debt!’

  Both men laughed.

  ‘Can you smell it outside, Patrick?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nah. Are they nearly ready?’

  ‘A few days, that’s all, then we can harvest. Have you got the stuff ?’

  Pat nodded as he was given an ice-cold Bud.

  ‘Tell Devlin if he fucking shoots anyone with that gun it’s a serious drink, right? He knows that, don’t he?’

  Sonny nodded, his grin wider than usual.

  ‘I think he wants to shoot Dicky Tranter with it. I know they’ve had a fucking big tear up over money. Dicky is a cunt to himself. He always has to have a touch, it’s in his nature.’

  Pat sighed and dropped on to the black leather sofa.

  ‘Dicky has been asking for a serious word for a while. He was the same at school, a prat to himself. Have you got me money?’

  Sonny was weighing a gun in his hand and smiling.

  ‘You ever shot anyone, Patrick?’

  His voice was genuinely interested.

  Patrick laughed.

  ‘As I said to Old Bill not six weeks ago, Sonny, that’s for me to know and you to find out!’

  ‘You’re a bad man and no mistake. How’s that little woman of yours?’

  Sonny realised he had said the wrong thing from Patrick’s expression but pressed on.

  ‘Still giving you hag? Listen, you ain’t had hag till you lived with my old woman. Liselle could aggravate Jah himself when she gets going.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Over Lakeside with her sister. I thank God every day for that place. It is the easiest place for shoplifting in the country, she reckons – and she should know, she’s done them all.’

  ‘She still skanking?’

  ‘It’s in her blood, innit? She can’t help it.’

  Pat laughed.
r />   ‘Usual rates for the guns and the sniff. There’s a good few cuts in there so you should do a nice bit on top for yourself, OK?’

  Sonny nodded.

  ‘Can you deliver some rocks for Irie?’ he asked. ‘He’s selling out like mad. I had to chase him for the money. I think he smokes most of them himself.’

  ‘Jimmy has a new cook and I’m going to try him out. But tell Irie that if I hear any more about him then he is rowed out once and for all, right? Tell him he’ll disappear like Wilson and I will see to it personally, OK?’ Patrick still looked calm and relaxed. Sonny wasn’t smiling now.

  It was the first time that Pat had ever given an inkling that he knew what had happened to Tony Wilson, and it shocked Sonny. Word on the street had put Patrick’s face in the frame and so did Old Bill, but so far it had only been speculation. Patrick Connor was harder than most people realised. Sonny knew that, had always known it.

  If he was branching out again Sonny wanted part of it, but not if it meant a large lump of bird. He had already done one stretch and wasn’t inclined to do another, especially not for Patrick Connor.

  ‘You largeing it up, Pat?’

  Sonny’s voice was jocular.

  Patrick looked at him with piercing blue eyes.

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you, Sonny?’

  Chapter Three

  Lucy was at work. She hated her job but she liked the money. The other girls were all a good laugh and she enjoyed her days there. But her new supervisor, Karen Black, was giving her grief. As luck would have it she was a cousin of Bethany Jones, the same Bethany Jones who had been beaten to death by Marie. Unlike Lucy’s own family, Karen hadn’t had a problem with her cousin being on the game. In fact, she always pointed out that Bethany had sold her arse for her kids, making her cousin sound almost saint-like in her maternal devotion, though in fairness to Bethany she had been a good mother to all intents and purposes.

  Now Marie was out and it was common knowledge, old enmities had flared back into life and going to work was almost a torture.

  Lucy had liked Bethany, she had been a naturally up person, always joking and laughing. Marie had loved her.