The Know (18 page)

Joanie walked into Kira’s bedroom and stared down at her youngest child who didn’t seem any the worse for her latest ordeal. She was dogged by bad luck, this child. If poor Kira ever did anything it turned into a three-ring circus. Joanie only hoped her child’s life was not to be plagued by bad luck for ever.

As she pushed her daughter’s hair back from her forehead and looked at her beautiful face, she wondered at a sister who could drug and leave someone so small and vulnerable - and all for a worthless bullyboy like Jasper Copes.

Joanie would have forgiven her eldest daughter a lot, but feeding Kira Temazepam was the final blow. If she wanted Jasper Copes so much, so be it. Jeanette could live with him and all it entailed, including his drunk of a mother and all his racist mates. The only decent member of the family was his sister Junie, and she had had to live her mother down all her life. But then, Joanie had had to live her own mother down so she could sympathise with the child on that score. But the Copeses’ filthy house and the mother’s drunkenness were Jeanette’s problem now and Joanie felt she never wanted to lay eyes on her again.

Was the girl so stupid she didn’t see her own heritage would always be there between them? Her father had been a Muslim, a nice enough fellow but a Berserk all the same. And that Turkish blood was in Jeanette whether she liked it or not.

But Jon Jon was right: let them have her because Joanie had taken just about all she could. Jeanette was fifteen soon and was already out of control; always had been if her mother was honest. She was selfish, arrogant and ignorant, and she was never going to change. Jealous too of this poor child who needed all the help she could get. But then, that was Jeanette all over: self, self, fucking self.

Joanie put her hands over her face and cried like she had never cried before. All night she had had an inexplicable conviction that her life was at a turning point. Out with Paulie she’d thought it was for the better; now though she was not so sure.

It was as if a dark cloud was hanging over them all. As stupid as it was to believe in such things, it felt more real to her at this moment than every punter who had ever passed between her legs, and they were legion.

If Jeanette stood in front of her now Joanie would rip her to pieces so it was just as well she wasn’t. She only hoped Jasper Copes was worth the hurt he had caused because she had a feeling he wasn’t worth the proverbial wank.

She sobbed all night until in the end Jon Jon shouted at her, but she could hear frustration and fear in his voice rather than anger.

Joanie did a lot of things when she was upset. She shouted, screamed, threw things, even cried. But this deep endless sobbing was a first. And Jon Jon didn’t know how to cope with it. With any of it.

 
Paulie sat in the dark in his own lounge and sipped brandy poured from an antique crystal decanter. He stared around him. In the gloom the room looked eerie. Yet he knew that to most people, even if they did not consider it a comfortable room, this would be a place to admire. It was most definitely not a room to sit and relax in. He had never relaxed in his own home, not really. He always felt like an outsider here. It was mad because he’d provided all this for his wife and daughters. But they were separate from him somehow; existed beside him, not with him. He paid for everything and they smiled at him and occasionally thanked him. He knew no more about his girls now than he had when they were newborn babies.

They were in the country again. They were always in the country these days and Paulie didn’t mind. He knew he should mind, but he didn’t. He never knew what to say to them when they were around. In the past he had gone down there for weekends; now he left them to it, only speaking occasionally on the phone to one or other of them. Of course, it normally was because they needed something. Usually something to do with the horses or a trip they were planning. He knew they called him Barclays behind his back and it had made him smile once. Not any more, though. It rang far too true these days.

He thought of Joanie’s mad house, and then considered his own home with its three en-suite bathrooms and a garden you could lose a circus in. Yet it felt sterile, unused. Even his mother, on the few occasions she had been allowed through the front door, had observed that the Borgias would be better hosts.

She had a point and all. Even he felt like an unwanted fart in a packed lift, and it was his fucking house, all bought and paid for by him!

He poured more brandy and turned on one of the lights. The room took on a rosier hue, and suddenly he decided he was going to turn on every light in the house. He was laughing as he ran around, flooding the place with light.

‘Might as well have a fucking party!’

He was hollering out into the empty rooms, seeing them all lit up for the first time ever. Lamps, overhead lights, even the garden and outside lights were turned on. He ran out on to the drive and looked at his house. It looked really welcoming for the first time he could remember.

Inside once more, he drank the brandy in one large gulp, coughing with the after-burn as it made its way into his stomach.

He wondered what Joanie would think of his house. She would love it, he knew that much. But he wondered what she would think if he told her he actually preferred to be round her flat with her mad dinner-party collection and her noisy kids who, although bastards, were also a lot like their mother: what you saw was what you got.

He was sorry he had left her so early. He had been going to a club owned by a mate in King’s Cross but at the last minute had not fancied it. He wished she was here now so they could have a laugh and reminisce about the old days.

It was crazy really, he had everything everyone else wanted: money, prestige, he was a face known to all and sundry. He commanded the best tables in restaurants, the respect of all his peers. Yet he would rather spend his time in the company of a small-time hustler and brass who had three kids by three different men and who sold her crump for a few quid to whoever cared to request it.

He felt the sting of tears.

What had his life come to when Joanie’s son meant more to him than his own flesh and blood, was like the son he had never had? Yet even if Paulie had been given a son, he knew the boy would have grown up as indifferent to his father as his daughters were. Sylvia would have seen to that.

There was no love left on either side, and now he was being honest with himself he admitted that his daughters didn’t really love him either.

Paulie sighed.

What was there to love anyway? As someone had once pointed out, he was a deceiving, conniving whoremonger. How many times had he been called that before? Too many times really. Years ago it had made him laugh. Now he was reaping what he had sowed and it hurt. Sometimes, like tonight, it hurt so much it was almost a physical pain.

He buried his head in the arm of the chair and said one word over and over: ‘Joanie.’

Chapter Nine

‘Something was going on over there last night, I can tell you.’

Joseph listened half-heartedly to his son’s chatter, glad that this was his last day here and consequently the last time he had to hear the saga of his son’s newfound mates the Brewers.

It still rankled that because of them Joseph’s own behaviour was curtailed. He couldn’t do or say what he wanted any more. His vitriolic attacks on his son had become fewer because Jon Jon Brewer was liable to give him a dig if he upset their babysitter. Joseph couldn’t wait to get away. His son couldn’t wait for him to go. Each had a hidden agenda and each knew what the other’s was.

But they had called a truce and so far it was working.

‘I think that Jeanette is a little mare - know the kind I mean, don’t you, Dad? Trouble, that is all that girl causes.’

Joseph had tuned out his son’s chatter, only coming back to reality when he heard his plans for Kira.

‘You be careful with that girl . . . remember last time, the trouble?’

His son gazed at him, that dead, unblinking stare that Little Tommy had had since he was a baby. It was unnerving, as if he was an empty vessel.

Tommy moved then, walked over to his father and, leaning on the kitchen table, looked into his face as he said casually, ‘No.
You
remember it much better than I do, you go on about it all the time! Kira and me have something special. I love her,
really
love her. But not in a bad way. I leave that kind of love to the perverts.’

‘You don’t know what love is.’

Tommy grinned.

‘What are you telling me? That
you
do?’

His father dropped his eyes first and this did not go unnoticed by either of them. Joseph just wanted to get out of this place once and for all.

There had been a subtle shifting of power here and his son was now the decision-maker. That fact alone made Joseph feel inadequate. It had taken him a long time to subdue his wife, but his son had been easy prey. Now, it was as if he was coming out of a cocoon and what had emerged was a strong-minded individual with a nasty streak.

It was definitely time for Joseph to move on.

‘By the way, tell your lady love that I will pop over once you are both settled in properly.’

It was said as a threat and both men were aware of that fact. They fell silent then, a hard unyielding silence that jangled the nerves.

 
Heidi Marks read the report before her carefully. It seemed this child Kira Brewer had been in hospital for alcoholic poisoning but staff there had believed it to be a prank, a one off. However, a follow-up had revealed the child to be possibly drugged and undoubtedly left alone. A brother who she now knew had a file the size of a phone book had said the girl had been left with an older sister, who also had a large file devoted to her, and that he had only been gone twenty minutes. He thought the older sister, Jeanette, had possibly gone out to look for him.

It was feasible except for the child being knocked out. She saw that the social worker had written in red pen that the child ‘looked drugged or maybe drunk, possibly both?’ Alcohol had played a part before, as they well knew.

The older children had both been in and out of care while small due to the mother’s convictions for prostitution. But she was, it seemed, a good mother in her own way. The anomaly was, most prostitutes’ children were well dressed and well fed as this was one of the main reasons women went on the game in the first place.

The older children were typical of their age and background. Truants, petty thieves, yet seemingly adult enough to survive in their world. Jeanette Brewer had run away from home and from council care on many occasions. She had been in homes up and down the country, and had left during the night and refused to go back once collared. Same with the boy, Jon Jon. What kind of name was that anyway?

The youngest child, however, had never been near them. Never been in care, and until now had never even come to their attention. The school said the girl was very well behaved, slow due to her learning disabilities but well nourished and cared for. In fact, she was better fed and dressed than many of her contemporaries. She tried hard, attended regularly, and was a well-liked and balanced little girl. In fact, the school went to great pains to maintain that she was one of their more privileged pupils, having a good family network looking out for her. She was almost always escorted to and from school, and her mother was a caring parent, interested in her daughter’s education.

So what was the score?

Heidi would think carefully about this before rushing in, but if the other children were anything to go by maybe this one had slipped the net? She read and reread the case notes on all three children. There was something wrong here but she could not for the life of her put her finger on it. She had a twenty-four-carat shit detector in her brain and it was working overtime as she tried to piece together exactly what it was that was bothering her here.

The mother she understood was now going into full-time paid employment - another no-no for prostitutes who almost never seemed to get out of the quagmire that easy money led them into. Money easily earned was easily spent, that had been proved over and over to her. She had visited women who earned hundreds of pounds a night and yet still didn’t have a slice of bread in the house for their children or else failed to put decent shoes on their feet.

But then, that was generally after the drink or the drugs got to them. Most took up pastimes like that in order to carry on doing the job that paid them so well.

It was a vicious circle.

Men were lucky really; she had always thought so. Look at this poor woman: three kids and no man on the horizon so she had sole responsibility for their care while their fathers went through life impregnating women and then moving on to the next one without a second’s thought for the children they had abandoned. Often not even knowing they had left anything behind other than an odd sock or maybe a shirt. Yet the end result of their lust became a living, thinking, breathing person who would have to deal with the fact their own father was an unknown quantity. Life had kicked these poor children in the teeth before they had even drawn breath on their own.

Heidi Marks felt sad for them, but then she often felt sad.

She had that kind of job.

 
Joanie was back at work and enjoying it as much as she could considering all she had to contend with. But what was bothering her most was that she had lost all desire to see Jeanette. Had lost all interest in her, in fact.