Dangerous (12 page)

A handkerchief.

Fulton stooped, picked it up, was about to hand it back to her, but she was off, tottering along the pavement under the weight of her burden, so instead he kept it. Lifted it to his broken nose. Sniffed a delicate, flowery perfume. Then he tucked it into his pocket.

He would go on looking when –
if –
he had a moment, keep Ivan sweet, but he was going to take his time over this, hang around down here, keep her in view. He didn’t even know her name, not yet: but he was going to find out – just as he would probably find out what had happened with Jacko.

Eventually.

But no rush, eh?

24

Seven o’clock
, thought Clara as the alarm went off. She leaned over and thumped it irritably. Same old routine. Same old
shit
.

‘Frank? Time to get up.’

Frank didn’t reply. Out on the piss again last night, there he’d been, drunk as a lord, and she had been called upon yet again to guide him back home or he’d fall in an alleyway and die there. Sighing, she grabbed her robe and went over to the window and yanked back the curtains. Daylight. Pale sun. Some clouds. Another
fucking
day.

She stretched, yawning. ‘Frank? Come on.’

Jesus, he’s going to be in a right mood this morning
, she thought. She turned back to the bed, went over there and shook his shoulder. ‘Frank?’

For the first time she saw that he was much paler than normal. And very, very still.

‘Frank? Wake up.’

No answer. She stretched out a hand and laid it against the bristly mottled chin. She snatched her hand back with a gasp. His flesh was like chilled meat.

‘Frank?’ she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

Clara turned away from the bed and quickly left the room. She found Bernie sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and reading the paper. Poor dead Richie Valens was singing ‘Donna’ on the radio. When Bernie was small, she’d always been fairly cheerful in the mornings, but somehow all her childhood ebullience had dropped away from her. She had become ever more jumpy, introverted, less inclined to smile. Clara had long since acknowledged that Bernie had been hit much harder than she had by Mum’s death; in fact, Bernie hadn’t really been the same since. But right now, Bernie’s state of mind was the least of her problems. She sat down beside Bernie at the kitchen table, dizzy with shock.

‘Morning, Clar,’ said Bernie, turning the pages.

Clara looked at the paper over her sister’s shoulder and saw the state of emergency was still in force in Rhodesia. She saw that the Macmillan and Khrushchev talks were still going on. She saw that Britain and the United Arab Republic were in agreement after the Suez crisis. She saw it all, but she didn’t take in a single word.

‘Want some tea?’ asked Bernie.

Clara shook her head. Bernie looked at her older sister. ‘What’s up with you then?’ she asked.

‘Bernie,’ said Clara, ‘Frank’s dead.’

It brought it back to her, the memory of finding Mum dead. But whereas Kathleen has endured an awful, painful death, Frank had slipped away in his sleep, the lucky sod. No pain for him.

Clara dutifully called for the doctor, and then the undertakers came and took poor Frank away. A massive heart attack, the doctor said; and Clara thought that Frank had drawn a long straw for once. No drawn-out illness.

No suffering.

He’d simply passed in his sleep.

‘This must have been an awful shock for you, Mrs Hatton,’ said the doctor.

‘Yes. It was.’

Clara put on a black dress that afternoon, and told Bernie to do the same. She pulled all the curtains in the house closed.

‘Will we have to leave again?’ asked Bernie anxiously as they sat at the kitchen table having their tea.

‘What?’ Clara asked, surprised. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, when Mum died, we had to leave,’ said Bernie.

Clara stared at her sister’s wide, ever-anxious eyes. She saw that Bernie’s lips had been gnawed until they were raw, and her nails were bitten right down. Clara leaned over and patted Bernie’s hand. ‘No, Bern. We won’t have to leave.’

‘You know, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,’ said Bernie.

‘What?’

‘Living there in the slums. The smell. The . . . desperation.’ Bernie was frowning, creasing up her sweet little pixie face with concentration. She shuddered and looked at Clara. ‘Sometimes I think that I should
do
something about it.’

‘What?’ Clara looked at her blankly.

‘Something to help,’ shrugged Bernie. ‘Don’t you think we should?’

Clara looked at her sister like she’d just sprouted another head. ‘Bernie,’ Clara pointed out, ‘Frank made his living collecting rents on those places. His living now keeps us
out
of there. So no, I don’t think we should.’ The thought of having to see that place again, of maybe going back to those filthy streets, and to that mould-ridden place crawling with vermin, caused a horrified thrill to run through Clara’s body. She hugged herself, blanked it from her mind. Poor, soft-hearted Bernie, she must be mad.

It was strange, how empty the house seemed without Frank. Clara didn’t actually
miss
him, but it was as if there was a hole in all their lives, and he had been a bit of a father-figure for Henry, who was no longer a sweet little boy: now he was a troublesome little sod at the best of times. Still, these things happened.
Death
happened. And at least it had been a merciful end.

25

Frank’s funeral took place on a Friday, a week after his death, at the Houndsditch church he had attended as a boy. It seemed wrong somehow that spring was under way and Frank would miss it. But that was life; it went on, even if you’d rather it didn’t.

Clara was surprised to find that Frank’s funeral attracted a large turnout. Of course he’d been around the area for years, working first for Lenny Lynch and then for this other one, this Redmayne bloke.

After today
, Clara thought,
I am never coming near this place, ever again.

Clara hadn’t known Lynch and she didn’t know Redmayne either, but she was under no illusions about Frank’s employment. She knew that Lenny Lynch had been the worst of slum landlords – as bad as that Peter Rachman everyone seemed to be talking about – leeching off the poorest, most desperate members of the community, sending men like Frank out to collect from them using intimidation.

And if Frank’s methods failed, Clara knew that the next step for Lynch had been men with wooden staves to threaten non-payers or ultimately, if no money could be wrung from them, they would be thrown out onto the streets. Maybe Redmayne was better, who knew? Clara was only grateful that she and her family were no longer under the power of such people.

Near the back of the church, Marcus Redmayne nudged his mate Gordon. Gordon was on his left, Pistol Pete on his right.

‘Who’s that then?’ he asked.

‘Hm?’

‘The woman at the front with that mousy-looking girl. The one with the black hair.’ He watched as Clara turned. Jesus! ‘And the tits,’ he added.

Gordon sniffed. ‘That’s the widow. Clara Hatton.’

‘You’re fucking joking.’

‘No, that’s her.’

‘You’re shitting me. You sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

Marcus couldn’t believe it. He stared hard at Clara, her face caught in profile, admiring her almost luminous white skin, so stunning against the contrast of that heavy fall of black hair, decorously tied back in a bun at the moment. He pictured it coming loose, tumbling down to those lushly curving hips, and felt a sharp stab of excitement in his groin.

Frank Hatton
, that old soak, had trapped
this
in his bed? How, in God’s name, had he managed it?

‘What the hell did she marry a dried-up old stick like Frank for?’ asked Marcus.

‘Shut up,’ hissed Gordon, as Saul’s ‘Dead March’ started up. He glanced back. The pall-bearers were carrying in the coffin, stepping solemnly up the aisle with their burden. Everyone was standing up. ‘Here comes Frank now, show some bloody respect.’

At the end of the service, Bernie went off home to get the funeral tea ready and check on Henry. At twelve years old, Clara had deemed him too young to attend today. She was playing her role of dutiful widow to the hilt. And why not? Frank had been fairly good to her and to Bernie and Henry too. There had been no malice in him. Still, she was glad when the service was over.

Outside, she stood at the church door with the vicar, his cassock billowing in the brisk spring air, trying not to let her eyes rest upon the large untidy plot at the far side of the graveyard where the paupers who could not afford a proper burial or even a headstone were laid to rest.
Mum must be in there
, she thought. She gritted her teeth and shook hands with the assembled mourners, thanking them for coming to pay their respects to her late husband.

‘Thank you,’ she said to a flamboyant-looking young man whose glossy dark hair cascaded onto the shoulders of his military-style navy greatcoat. He had an apricot silk scarf tied around his neck and when he came close she was enveloped in a cloud of sandalwood and musk aftershave.

A peacock
, thought Clara, looking into hazel eyes that beamed with warmth as he smiled, lighting up his smoothly tanned and extremely attractive face. She could see that he was vain of his beauty, but instantly she liked him.

‘He was a good man,’ he said. ‘Frank worked for me once. Very reliable.’

‘Yes, he was.’

‘I’m Toby. Toby Cotton. My card,’ he said, and pressed a small oblong of white vellum into her hand before moving along.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said next to a thin man in glasses who shivered in the breeze.

‘I’m sorry we’re meeting under such sad circumstances,’ said Gordon, his face colouring a little, and moved on. Clara’s eyes were drawn back to that unkempt plot.

Mum’s in there
, she thought in anguish.
She must be.

Now there was someone else standing in front of her. She blinked away a sudden sting of tears as she thought of dear sweet Mum, who had been ruined by loving their father, finished by it. That was a trap that Clara herself was never going to fall into.
Never.
She swallowed hard and fixed a polite smile on her face. At least poor Frank’s grave would be properly marked: she’d be sorting out a headstone this week.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said to a tall grim-faced man of athletic build with black hair. His intense deep-set black eyes rested upon her face with something close to amusement. His cheekbones were so fiercely sculpted that they could have been carved out of stone. Clara stared at him, riveted, feeling like she’d had all the air punched out of her.

Marcus looked into Clara’s eyes and stopped smiling. ‘Mrs Hatton? I’m Marcus Redmayne,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ So
this
was Redmayne. She had pictured someone older; someone plainer. He was startlingly attractive; very masculine and tough. Suddenly her heart was beating fast and she could feel a blush creeping up from her neck to flood her cheeks with colour.

‘Frank worked for me,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she said, and it was an effort to keep her voice steady.

‘I thought you’d be older,’ he said.

Clara’s face froze. A tear trickled from her eye and she quickly wiped it away. ‘That’s funny – I thought
you
would be, too,’ she said, gathering herself. What was wrong with her?

‘My condolences, Mrs Hatton. If there’s anything I can do . . . ’

‘There isn’t. But thank you for coming,’ she said, and he moved on.

Almost without thinking, without hearing, she shook the hand of the next in line, then the next, and the next. It took an enormous effort not to turn her head and follow Marcus Redmayne with her eyes. But at last it was over, it was done. She paid the vicar and thanked him, said he would be welcome to come back to the house for refreshments if he wanted. He thanked her and said he would be happy to join them.

Back at the house, sandwiches were eaten and tea drunk, and Clara didn’t see Redmayne among the mourners. She felt a pang of something dangerously close to disappointment. His face seemed to have imprinted itself on her brain, like a brand.

Toby Cotton was there, and he buttonholed her immediately. ‘You poor darling,’ he said, touching her arm. ‘Do you miss him terribly?’

Clara looked into Toby’s eyes and felt that she’d found a friend. ‘Not terribly, no,’ she said. ‘In fact – hardly at all.’

Their eyes met and she saw surprise in Toby’s before he let out a laugh. Clara moved on quickly, before she let herself down by laughing too, at her husband’s wake. Suddenly, she felt light and airy and – yes –
free
.

She went out to the kitchen to powder her nose, looked in the mirror at her reflection and thought
It’s true. I’m free at last.

A laugh did escape her then, a laugh of unstoppable, purest joy. She lifted her arms above her head and twirled, ecstatic. Then she saw a long dark shape in the mirror and whirled around with a gasp of dismay.

Oh Christ – it was him, it was Redmayne. She hadn’t even seen him come in, but now he was leaning in the doorway, arms folded, watching her.

‘If it ain’t the grieving widow,’ he said.

Clara opened her mouth to speak and not a single sound would come out.

‘I’ll catch you later, Mrs Hatton,’ he said, and turned and left.

‘
Damn
,’ said Clara with feeling.

But her ebullient mood refused to desert her.
Fuck
Marcus Redmayne with his black knowing eyes and his dangerous good looks.

Frank was gone and she was free.

After this, things could only get better.

26

Not long after the funeral, Clara got Henry a private tutor. She’d heard bad reports about him, that he played around at school, distracted the other pupils, caused havoc; the headmistress had complained bitterly, and so Clara had asked her very-careful-with-money Frank if they could get a tutor for him.

‘Fuck off, what you think I am, the bleeding king or something?’ had been Frank’s reply.