Dangerous (44 page)

‘Clar?’

‘Yeah, Jan?’

‘Do you think Gordon likes me?’

No,
thought Clara. Then she looked at Jan’s hopeful bright-eyed face and said: ‘I think he does. Maybe. He’s shy, that’s all.’

‘Honest? You think he does?’

‘Honest. I do.’

Jan was beaming again. She looked almost beautiful when she smiled like that, and Clara thought that if Gordon could learn to like her, he’d be getting a good deal. Then Jan’s face fell.

‘About Sal . . . ’ she started.

‘It’s sorted,’ said Clara. ‘Let it rest now.’

‘They’re saying you found out who did it,’ said Jan.

‘It’s done, Jan. Shut the fuck up about it, will you? She’s at peace.’

‘Yeah.’ Jan sighed. ‘She is. She never had much peace when she was alive, always grubbing around after money like she did, so let’s hope she’s got some peace now, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ said Clara. ‘Let’s hope.’

120

It was a secure unit, Victorian, with high red-brick walls topped with barbed wire. Marcus met up with Colin Drewmore – who was a psychiatric assistant and an old mate of an old mate who could give Marcus the inside dirt on what was going on – a hundred yards away from the guarded main gate.

Colin was a fit-looking man in his forties with a hawkish face, a bald head and sharp grey eyes, dressed in white tunic and trousers. Marcus guessed that you’d need to be fit in there, handle whatever crap happened to erupt with the inmates. And you’d need those sharp eyes to look out for all those
very
sharp objects.

They wandered off along the road and Marcus got straight down to it.

‘So – what’s the word?’ he asked as they strolled in the sunshine, the high walls on their right. He thought of all those poor bastards closeted inside, some of them clean off their heads and dreaming they were Edward the Seventh, others heavily tranquillized because they had dangerous impulses. Marcus guessed that he knew which category Fulton Sears would fit into.

Colin shrugged. ‘He’s sedated a lot of the time.’

‘Right.’

‘He talks a lot. Mumbles. You know. A lot of them do.’

‘And says what?’

‘Talks about a woman. A bitch, he calls her. Laughing at him. Says he’s going to kill her.’

Marcus stopped walking, turned and looked full in Colin’s face. Colin gulped. Those black eyes seemed to bore straight through him.

‘What I want to know is,’ said Marcus slowly, ‘is there any chance he’ll be let out?’

Colin shrugged again. ‘You know these bleeding-heart liberal types we get coming in here sometimes, sympathizing with the bastards, saying it’s inhuman to lock them up. Bollocks, I say. One geezer ripped his old lady’s eyes out – you saying he shouldn’t be locked up after that? I should say so. But you see what we get? Soft upper-crust twerps who think these people can be healed, reformed, made better.’

‘And can they? Can
he
?’ asked Marcus.

‘Not a fucking chance. But whether or not he’ll smarm his way around one of these nice well-educated middle-aged frumps who come in here, convince them he’s as sane as you or me, who knows?’

‘So he could get out. Next year, the year after, who knows?’

‘That he could.’

Marcus pulled out his wallet, counted out five hundred. Thought of Clara. And Pistol Pete’s head and hands on his desk. He slipped the money into Colin’s palm. Looked into Colin’s eyes. ‘Right then,’ he said.

Colin nodded, and pocketed the cash.

121

From the unit where Fulton Sears was being detained, Marcus drove over to the flat to see Paulette. She was surprised to see him. He hadn’t been anywhere near her since his wedding day.

‘Oh! It’s you,’ she said, scooping up her apricot toy poodle into her arms and looking at Marcus with hostile eyes.

‘Yeah, me again. You OK?’

‘Do you
give
a shit?’

‘I’m still paying the rent on this place, aren’t I?’

‘Yeah. You are. But I guess you’re getting your jollies off little wifey now, aren’t you? Well, when marriage palls, you can come back to me, I don’t mind.’

Paulette was doing her pouty Brigitte Bardot thing, looking at him with smoky eyes. Then she gave a sudden, brilliant smile and put the poodle down and slipped her arms up around Marcus’s neck. Marcus gently took hold of her arms and disengaged them. Paulette’s smile slipped.

‘Paulette,’ said Marcus.

‘Yeah? What?’

‘It’s done. You and me.’

Paulette’s jaw dropped. ‘
What?
’

‘The rent’s paid up to the end of the month and I have this for you.’ He handed her a brown envelope. Paulette looked inside. It was stuffed with fivers. ‘That will give you time to find something else, make other arrangements. OK?’

Paulette’s mouth was moving, she was gulping for air like a fish yanked from a river.

‘But, I . . . for fuck’s sake! I’ve been with you for
ten years
! You
bastard
!’

The poodle yapped at Marcus, sensing its mistress’s mood.

‘If that thing bites me, I’m going to kick its arse,’ warned Marcus.

Paulette snatched the poodle back up.

‘Poor baby, poor Binky, you’re frightening him,’ she snapped. ‘What, you got someone else lined up to be your girl around town then? You got someone else on the side that wifey don’t know about, you
arsehole
?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Marcus, and turned away from her. Let her think that, if she wanted. It was a damned sight less complicated than the truth.

‘
Motherfucker!
’ screamed Paulette as Marcus walked out the door.

122

Clara had to go back, just one last time. There was something eating at her, eating into her soul, and she couldn’t rest until it was done. It was late in the evening, not long after Bernie’s death, not long after Clara had realized, painfully, that they had all been living a lie, and she was in the Blue Bird nightclub and the Everly brothers were filling the act’s break with ‘Crying in the Rain’. Marcus was over at the Blue Heaven seeing Gordon about something or other. Counting the money again, she supposed.

‘Liam?’ Clara went to the big man who had accompanied her to Bernie’s on that fateful day. Liam was built like a tank, in his thirties, with keen brown eyes and a mop of dark curly hair. He seemed none the worse for the pasting Ivan Sears had given him.

‘Yeah, Mrs Redmayne?’

‘Call me Clara, for God’s sake. I need to go out and do something.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ said Liam, as Clara had known he would.

‘Just need to pick up something first,’ said Clara, and she went to the table Marcus always occupied when he was in, the prime table at the front near the stage; from underneath it she took what he kept concealed there: the hammer.

She left the spiked knuckledusters.

She wouldn’t need those.

123

Ted Hagan had been verger at St James’s church for fifteen years, and he loved his job. The vicar was a sweet man, mildly eccentric, but that didn’t matter. Every day was full of joy for Ted because he could work in and around the church grounds, making them perfect, keeping everything running as smoothly as an oiled clock.

Whistling, he walked up the path in the sun, happy to be going in to work. He had the surplices to send off to the laundry, the prayer books to straighten, the hymns for today’s christening to be put up on the board, and Mrs Milner would be in soon to do the flowers; her husband grew red hollyhocks and deep blue delphiniums, they would look so nice.

And then he stopped walking.

He stared.

His mouth fell open.

‘Jesus!’ he burst out. And then clapped a hand over his mouth, asking forgiveness for taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Then he stood there, his happy mood disintegrating as he saw what some vandal had done in the night. He strode over to the place and stared again. Where once there had been a headstone, beautifully carved and lovingly inscribed, there was now nothing but a pile of rubble, jagged bits of stone that had been pulverized by some unthinking, uncaring
shit
.

Oh God, he mustn’t curse and swear, not even in his thoughts, it was bad.

But
this
was bad too.

This was awful.

He bent and picked up a chunk of wrecked masonry. There was just the remnant of a name there. FRANK.

He bent again, picked up another piece and read it: HATTON.

Frank Hatton.

Poor soul, his grave had been destroyed. Ted looked around him. All the other graves were untouched. He let out a sigh at the wickedness of the human race. He was going to have to tell the vicar about this,
right now
.

124

‘Oh. Hi! It’s you,’ said Sonya when she opened the door of her flat over the sweet shop and found Paulette standing there.

‘Yeah, hi!’ Paulette air-kissed Sonya’s cheeks, thinking that the Russian or Yugoslavian or whatever the fuck Sonya might be was looking very chic today. She was obviously about to head out the door, dressed in a chocolate mink coat, high heels and dark glasses. Rings glinted on her fingers. Big gold earrings glittered when she flicked back her white-blonde hair.

Paulette hadn’t brought Binky out with her today; she’d left her precious little man yapping his head off in the flat. She had things to do, Sonya to visit in particular, and she was worried that Sonya might not like dogs. Time was moving on, and soon Marcus’s largesse would be coming to an end. She still kept a horse in livery, she still had her personal grooming to keep up to the required standard. She was a party girl, and she had to carry on looking the business, even if she had lost her meal ticket.

‘Did you want something?’ prompted Sonya. Paulette had never visited her before, although she had always known where she lived. Paulette in fact had always made it a point to look down her nose at Sonya, to be bitchy and unkind because she was the head man’s girl and not just the kept girl of his second-in-command. So why the social call now?

‘Um . . . well, yes. This is a little awkward, if I could come in . . . ?’

Sonya stepped back, let Paulette into the flat.

‘Have a seat,’ she said, and glanced at her watch.

‘I won’t keep you. I only wanted to say that I was so sorry over what happened to Pete,’ said Paulette.

‘Oh! Well, that’s kind of you,’ said Sonya.

‘Not at all. It was a tragedy. Awful.’ Paulette swallowed delicately. ‘Do you have someone else in your life now?’

Sonya heaved a sigh. ‘Marcus gave me a job in one of the clubs. Hat-check girl, bit of a come-down. I hated it, and the pay was shit. But a girl has to live, and I’ve got used to a certain lifestyle,’ she said. ‘So yes, I do have someone, he’s . . . nice.’

The MP who now kept Sonya
was
nice. Flamboyant and elegant, he liked living rich and high. He wasn’t Pistol Pete, but beggars could not be choosers.

‘Marcus and I have split,’ said Paulette. ‘It was a mutual thing.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, it was all wearing a little thin. On both sides.’ Paulette gave a vivid smile. ‘So I’m back on the market again. Free and single. And I wondered . . . I just thought, if you have any contacts who might be interested . . . ’

So that’s why she’s here
, thought Sonya. She’d heard the word going around and knew that Paulette wasn’t telling the truth. Marcus had dumped her, and everyone was saying it was because he was – of all crazy things – in love with his wife. Sonya wondered if that was true. Maybe. Maybe not. He’d certainly done well out of Black Clara’s clubs, that was for sure.

Sonya looked at Paulette sitting there, her honey-blonde hair carefully curled, her grape-green eyes so hopeful. Paulette had never been nice to her, but Sonya had been taught good manners and kindness at her mother’s knee, so it was Paulette’s lucky day.

‘Actually,’ said Sonya in that charmingly accented lilt of hers, ‘there’s a party tonight. They have asked me to bring along some friends, so if you’d like . . . ?’

‘I’d love it!’ gushed Paulette.

When they got to the posh address in Belgravia, each of them done up to the nines, Sonya knocked on the door. They could hear music seeping out through the walls of the place, could hear laughter and the clink of champagne glasses.

The level of noise shot up dramatically as the door was opened by a tall narrow-hipped blond man wearing nothing at all. His large erection was jutting out from a haze of mouse-coloured curls. Paulette thought she’d seen him somewhere, and then she realized: it was in the papers, and he was a well-respected Cabinet Minister. He smiled at them and his cock bobbed an exuberant welcome.

Behind him, she could see a pale-skinned nude woman with dark hair bent over a semi-circular table, her tiny breasts swinging as a portly man entered her energetically from behind. He looked round at the door at the new arrivals but he didn’t stop what he was doing.

‘Come in, come in,’ he called. ‘The more the merrier!’

Sonya didn’t even blink; neither did Paulette.
Off with the old, on with the new
, she thought. Sonya had been forced to settle for this, and now she was too.

It was going to be
that
sort of evening.

But what the hell.

They were both used to it.

125

Fulton Sears wasn’t exactly sure where he was. There had been the flat, the dog, the altar. One moment everything had been fine, and then things had sort of . . .
disintegrated
. People had passed through the flat, talked to him, but he wasn’t too clear about what they were saying or even who they were.

Her
brother. Henry. He remembered Henry, standing there looking at him.

Clara’s brother.

Oh, Clara.

All her stuff, someone had smashed it, pulverized her watch. The table was broken. Her comb, still with her hair attached to it. Her handkerchief, still holding her scent. But . . . she was a bitch, a whore, she’d laughed at him and he was going to kill her very soon.

You promise?
the hopeful voice in his head asked him.

Very soon
, he promised.

They had brought him here – wherever
here
was – and now he was in a small pink-painted room. They had dressed him in pale blue trousers and a tunic. They spoke to him gently. Fed him. Helped him take a bath. Soon, they told him, he would start to feel better, just take your medication, Fulton, be a good boy.