Dangerous (7 page)

‘Nothing, really. You shout, that’s all. And you move your legs, like you’re running. You went to see your mum yesterday, didn’t you.’

‘So?’

She shrugged. ‘Just saying. You always come back from her with a fucking face on you.’

Marcus sipped the tea. It was hot and strong, delicious. Paulette started jabbering on same as always in her high-pitched voice, so he tuned out. Minutes later, he tuned back in. ‘ . . . So I said it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and he renegotiated and then I agreed. Earl’s Court Motor Show! Don’t you think that’s great?’

‘What?’ he asked.

She tutted. ‘Listen, will you. I’m going to be Miss Healey at the Motor Show.’

‘What does Miss Healey do?’

‘I lie on the bonnet of their new model car,’ said Paulette. ‘In an evening gown. It’s all very tasteful.’

‘What, every day?’

‘While the show’s on, yes. October twenty-first to the end of the month. Of course I have breaks.’

‘Well good.’

‘Is it true you’ve taken over from Lenny Lynch?’ she said, eyeing him curiously.

‘Yeah, it’s true.’ Marcus was used to Paulette’s sudden changes of topic. She hardly ever came up for air between one subject and the next.

‘I heard that blowsy tart Delilah went missing from the Blue Banana.’

Marcus’s black eyes stared into Paulette’s. ‘I heard that too.’

‘Turned up drowned, they say. Down Limehouse.’

Marcus put the empty mug aside. ‘Time I was up,’ he said, and Paulette took that as a signal that she was to drop the subject.

But Paulette was secretly delighted with this new turn of events. Lenny Lynch had been the uncrowned king of Soho. And now Marcus –
her
boyfriend, and God how she was going to crow about this to all her mates – was taking Lenny’s place!

Marcus Redmayne was on the up.

And by God, she was going with him!

13

Clara hated everything about being poor, but what she hated most was the constant, grinding humiliation of it. It was Tuesday. At three o’clock, Hatton would knock on the door and that would be it; they’d be out of here.

The funeral directors came, and the faces of the two men were a picture of distaste as they took in the squalor of their surroundings.
They know this is going to be a council burial
, thought Clara.
No money in it for them. Not even a bloody tip for taking away the corpse.

She couldn’t fail to notice their sneering glances and the lofty way they talked down to her and to Bernie, who was clutching at Henry as if he might vanish, just like Mum would soon, when they took her body away.

Clara made the men a cup of tea, offered them the last of the stale cake – which they refused – and tried to maintain a dignified front as they sat at the table and prepared the forms that would consign Mum to a pauper’s grave.

With tea and paperwork out of the way, the two men fetched a makeshift coffin from the hearse and tramped up all the stairs with it. For once, the people clustered on every flight fell silent. Bernie started to cry as the men came into the flat carrying it.

‘Shh, Bern,’ said Clara, patting her sister’s shivering shoulder. Mum’s old gold wedding band, thin as wire with years of wear, glinted on Clara’s right hand. She’d taken it off her mother’s body; it was a keepsake she’d treasure. She didn’t want some morgue attendant wrenching it off her and selling it.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Bernie. ‘I can’t. This is
wrong
.’

‘Mum wouldn’t want you getting upset,’ said Clara, watching Bernie with concern. Her sister had always been the caring one, the soft one; she looked like Mum and she was more like Mum in nature than Clara could ever be; sweeter, less pragmatic. Clara was the tougher of the two – more like Dad, she supposed, although she wasn’t proud of that – but right now she was glad of it. She had to be tough, to cope with all this. Life had kicked the Dolans hard, and it seemed it wasn’t finished with them yet.

She poured more tea for Bernie and when the undertakers came out of the bedroom carrying their sad burden, she showed them out of the flat. Down on the other flights, there were people still sitting, silent now as the men passed by with the coffin. Watching. Suddenly, Clara cracked.

‘Seen enough, have you?’ she yelled. Faces turned up and stared at her. She went back into the flat and locked the door and stood shaking against it.

Oh Jesus, what would they do now? How were they going to manage . . . ?

Bernie was still weeping at the table, Henry clinging on to her and grizzling. Clara went to them, her heart full of sorrow. She patted her sister’s shoulder and hugged Henry.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said firmly, but she could see that Bernie didn’t believe it and she didn’t believe it herself, not any more.

Best to keep busy, she told herself. What else could she do? She got clean linen from the cupboard, and went to strip the bed.

An hour later, she was down in the yard at the back of the building, stuffing some of the sodden newspapers into the bin. Headlines flickered past her eyes but she couldn’t take them in. Some rich American called John Kennedy had married Jacqueline Bouvier. The whites had hung on to Rhodesia. A record number of houses were being built. None of it meant a damned thing. She put all the old soiled sheets into the dustbin too. The metal stink of the blood whooshed up as she did so, filling her with nausea. Bile surged into her throat.
Poor Mum.
Even if it was a wicked waste, she didn’t have the heart to wash the sheets. Her stomach turned over at the very thought.

She trudged wearily back up the stairs. The young black woman who seemed to live on the second floor, the one who had smiled at her a couple of times, looked at her as she passed, seemed almost about to speak; but Clara carried on up to the top floor and knocked three times at the door. Bernie let her in. She seemed agitated – even more than usual.

‘Clar?’ There was alarm in Bernie’s voice.

‘What’s up?’ asked Clara, locking the door behind her.

‘I dunno. I was in the bedroom, and I looked out the window, and I saw the doctor down in the road. He had two policemen with him. Come and see.’

Bernie led the way into the shadowy bedroom with its bare bed, empty of life now, all sign of Kathleen gone. ‘You can only see them from in here,’ she said, and nudged open the curtain to show Clara.

Sure enough, there they were, in a huddle on the pavement two doors down on this side of the road. Had they been standing a few yards further back, Bernie wouldn’t have been able to see them. They were talking, and the doctor was indicating their building, and the policemen were nodding, looking up at the top-floor windows.

‘What do you think they’re doing?’ asked Bernie anxiously.

Clara’s guts heaved with dread at what she was seeing. She could think of only one explanation. The doctor must have gone back to the surgery and checked his records. Having found out that she was lying about her age, he’d returned with two helpers to do the unthinkable: take Henry and Bernie away and place them into care. If she let that happen, she would never see her brother or sister again.

‘Oh God,’ was all that Clara could say.

‘What is it, Clara? You’ve gone white!’

Clara took a calming breath. Her heart was racing and she felt like she was going to pass out. She heaved in another breath. Then another.

She watched the small group move to the front of the building, picking their way through the heaps of rubbish, then they disappeared inside. Soon they would be hammering at the flat door, and if Clara didn’t let them in, the coppers would break the door down.

She drew in another breath. Finally she was able to get the words out: ‘Bernie – we have to go.’

They only had time to grab their coats and Clara’s bag before she pushed them all out of the flat door and down the stairs. Maybe they could get out onto a fire escape? Maybe someone would help them? But who?

Leaning over the banister, Clara saw the coppers and the doctor coming up.

Fuck.

They had to find a hiding place and quickly; with the doctor and the police already on the stairs and climbing, if she didn’t get Henry and Bernie off the main stairway in the next few seconds they’d meet head-on.

She herded them quickly down a couple of flights, thinking she would go into one of the neighbours’ flats and with any luck they wouldn’t give them away. Why would they? All the people around here hated the police.

But for once all the doors were shut. Clara guessed that someone else had spotted the police outside and word had spread. There was no one on the stairs; no one to help. She was starting to panic, she daren’t knock at a door – chances were no one would open up, and she’d only end up alerting the police to their presence.

Then she spotted the young black woman who’d smiled at her, peeping out of a half-closed door on the landing below. Seeing the stark fear on Clara’s face, the woman lifted a finger to her lips and hurried out. She ushered Clara and the kids into the reeking communal toilet.

Inside, there was scarcely room to breathe – not that they wanted to. It stank to high heaven. Clara shot the bolt and they clustered together, clinging to each other like shipwrecked sailors.

‘Got to be quiet now, Henry,’ hissed Clara, pulling him in close against her and putting an arm around Bernie. Clara could hear her own heart, thundering in her chest.

Outside, the tread of the coppers and the doctor kept coming closer, closer . . .

Oh God, let them keep going, please let them keep going . . .

The footsteps went on by. Moments passed and all Clara could hear was her own terrified heartbeat and the
drip, drip, drip
of the cistern overflow. Then there was a knock on the door and it was all she could do not to scream out loud.

Clara gulped, unable to get words out. ‘Who is it?’ she whispered.

‘Me! It’s me,’ said a female voice.

Clara unbolted the door. It was the young woman. She made
come on, come on
motions with her hand, and Clara pushed Bernie and Henry out and hurried down the stairs. Then she paused.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Go. Shoo! Hurry up.’

And Clara was off, away, down the stairs and out the door with Henry and Bernie.

14

There was a geezer hanging around Soho like a bad smell, who always seemed to make it a point to be a pain in Marcus’s neck. Jacko Sears was his name; he was a newcomer to the Soho scene and was trying to muscle in on Marcus’s business. Things had got to the point where something would have to be done about the tosser soon, else he might get even bigger ideas.

‘I’ll ask around, see what’s known,’ said Pete. Though his real name was Pete Driscoll, he was known around town as Pistol Pete, thanks in part to his gunslinger looks – the skinny build and Rhett Butler moustache – but also because he was handy with a gun. Marcus had known him since their schooldays, when they’d run wild together, and he was the first person he turned to in a fix. It was Pete who’d taken care of the Lenny Lynch situation for him.

Before too long, Pete came back.

‘So what’s the news?’ asked Marcus.

Pete shrugged. ‘He’s from Manchester, seems him and his brothers have a bit of a reputation up there. Jacko’s the youngest of the gang. The two older Sears boys, Fulton and Ivan, are still up north, but Jacko’s decided to make a name for himself down here. Pulled a gun on Con Beeston over in Greek Street and told him he was taking his club over. And he did.’

Marcus digested this. His own rapid takeover of Lenny’s empire was not at all unusual by Soho standards. Anyone could take a club by force then walk into a Post Office and get a club licence for two shillings and sixpence. And the temptation was strong, especially when there were so many clubs in Soho and such rich pickings to be had.

Marcus never ceased to be astonished at the sheer number and variety of clubs available to the public on these streets. Theatricals had the Kismet in Charing Cross Road, journalists frequented the Candy Box, lesbians had the Festival in Dean Street and the homos had the Duce or the Alphabet. Underworld faces drank in the Mazurka, run by an ex-Windmill girl, and there were clubs like the Premier where the Old Bill went in and took their money like a weekly wage for palling up to the villains, arranging the suppression of evidence and payments for services received. For himself, Marcus liked to run a fairly straight gambling and drinks club, but he wasn’t against keeping a few tame coppers on the payroll. You never knew when it might come in handy.

‘Word is, he wants to take your clubs off you,’ said Pete.

‘He’ll find that harder going than mugging poor old Con,’ said Marcus.

‘He’s out to cause you trouble.’

‘Well, fuck him,’ said Marcus succinctly, and that was the end of
that
conversation.

When he got home, had a shower, a shit and a shave, he went to his wardrobe and there was even more stuff of Paulette’s in there. Fuck, she was getting keen. And he wasn’t. Oh, she was a party girl, OK to pass the time with, to look good around town with him, to take to bed and smash the life out of now and then, but this wasn’t part of the deal and it was starting to get annoying.

‘All this stuff in here,’ he said to her.

‘Yeah? What about it?’

‘Thin it out, will you? This ain’t a fucking five-star hotel. I need some space too.’

‘Christ, you’re always moaning,’ she complained.

Yes, Paulette was good-looking, and obliging, but she was turning out to be bloody expensive too. Every week he gave her seventy pounds, which she seemed to have no trouble at all in spending. Last Christmas she’d asked for a fucking
horse
, would you believe it? So he’d bought her one, a fine dapple-grey Arab mare for three hundred pounds, which
he
now paid to have stabled at Ennismore Mews. Turns out she was a lousy rider, always falling off the damned thing and onto her arse along Rotten Row.

A club owner had to have a showy mistress, that went without saying; so he tolerated her. And she came in handy, fending off the women who were forever chucking themselves at him. Not that he minded the odd fling, but it got annoying when they were too persistent or possessive. He’d yet to find any woman he’d trust enough to develop deep feelings for. He’d never been in love; only in lust.