The Know (27 page)

‘Think your shit don’t stink? Well, I heard your mother is for the high jump, lady. That little sister was being abused and she knew all about it.’

In one part of her brain Jeanette knew that it was just the drink talking, knew that this was Karen all over, spoiling for a fight. She always wanted to fight when she had had a drink and it was usually poor Junie who bore the brunt of it.

But she also knew that there was probably a grain of truth in the fact that there was a rumour. The rumours on the estate were always over the top, that was why people loved them so much. She had loved them herself when they were not about her family. Now, though, her honour was at stake but for Jasper she was willing to let the slur go. So she carried on packing even though the urge to fell this woman was foremost in her mind.

Karen took this for proof of what she had said.

‘Nothing to say then? The truth hurt, does it?’

‘Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Karen?’

She laughed so hard she had to support herself against the doorjamb.

‘Going home to Mother of the Year, are we? Joanie the brass.’

Jeanette closed her eyes and attempted to hold on to her temper. She could say what she liked about her own mother but no one else was going to. Not in Jeanette’s hearing anyway.

‘If you were half the mother mine is you’d be all right, Karen.’

The bait had been taken and Karen was over the moon. She had been determined to get a reaction and now she had got one. They stared at each other for long moments, the air heavy with animosity.

‘I might have my faults but at least I’m there for my kids.’

‘Your kids loathe you! You are a joke, the local drunk. On a man it’s bad enough but on a woman it’s disgusting.’

Jeanette’s words were spoken low and vehemently. Karen knew the girl really meant what she was saying.

‘My mother, for all her faults, is a good woman, a decent person. And do you know something? Unlike your kids we love our mother. Anything she’s ever done was for us, for our benefit, and we know that even if you don’t!’

‘If your mother is so fucking marvellous then why is your sister on the missing list?’

In part of her mind Karen knew she was being unfair, knew that what she was saying was evil, hateful, but still she said it. This girl was not leaving without a row, Karen was determined on that much. She was like everyone else. They all thought that they were so clever, so fucking great, when they were no better than she was.

They all lived on this poxy council estate and they all barely survived, dreaming of the day the council moved them somewhere better, although by then the damage had already been done. The kids were out of hand and the parents had split up or grown too used to this environment to survive anywhere else.

It was laughable the way some of them still put on their airs and graces, with their fucking flat-screen TVs and their gardening programmes. This was the arsehole of the world and the sooner they realised it the better.

She had heard about Jon Jon talking of buying a house. Who the fuck did he think he was? Who the fuck did any of the Brewers think they were, this one included?

‘You’d better take that back, Karen.’

She laughed.

‘The truth hurts, don’t it? Your sister is missing, ain’t she? Or have I missed something? Perhaps she was just mislaid, is that it?’

Jeanette licked her lips as she watched the harridan before her spew out her malice. It was as if she had burst a canker and all the vile putrid pus was running out of this woman’s mouth in hateful words.

Jeanette realised that she could have been anyone. That Karen was ready to blow and she was merely today’s unlucky target. But it was so spiteful what she was saying, and so unfair to her mother who, whatever Jeanette thought of her privately, had taken good care of them in her own way.

‘Ain’t the cards told your mother where the little girl is then? She makes a fortune off everyone else with her readings. Can’t she consult the Tarot and get the address where that poor child actually is?’

Jeanette was holding on to herself but it was taking every scrap of effort she possessed. Jasper’s mother was still standing only
because
she was Jasper’s mother. No other reason. If she had been anyone else Jeanette would have wiped the floor with her by now.

But Karen Copes wasn’t finished yet. In fact, she was just getting started.

‘I’m amazed
you
ain’t been collared for a stint on the pavement. I mean, it runs in the family, don’t it? Whoring is the family business - even your granny was flashing her clout to all and sundry. Yet you put yourself above me and mine? Not one of you knows who your father was. Not one of you has any idea where you come from. You’re all fucking mongrels, scum, the lot of you!’

She picked up her cigarettes and lit herself one, pulling on it heavily before she said in a conversational tone, ‘Is that what happened to Kira then? Been bashed out, has she, and didn’t come home?’

It wasn’t just the words that sent Jeanette over the top, it was the smirk that accompanied them. The blow when it landed was harder than anything Karen had experienced in her life.

Karen Copes had been clumped by everyone within her orbit at some time or other. Husband, children, friends and family had all been driven to hit her at some point because of her bad mouth. But she had never taken what she was taking now off anyone.

It was as if Jeanette was possessed. All her worry and fear and hurt lay behind every blow and every kick. All the words that had just been spoken were in her mind as she attacked this woman who had inadvertently given her an excuse to vent her emotions. When Jeanette had finished she looked at the bloody body on the floor and started to cry. What had she done? How could she go home to Joanie now with more trouble to lay at her door? She couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fair to her mother. Not now. Jeanette had just set the seal on her own continued exile and she hated herself for it.

Then she saw Junie watching her and held out her hands in supplication. She hadn’t even known the girl was in the house.

‘She pushed me, Junie, she pushed me too far.’

Jasper’s sister nodded nonchalantly. She had seen it all before.

‘She’ll survive. Get yourself out of here for a bit while I call an ambulance. I’ll look after her, don’t worry.’

In fact, Junie hated her mother more at this moment than she had ever hated her before. But then, she had heard every vicious word Karen had said.

 
Sylvia had all the records of Paulie’s businesses. She had been through the three safes he kept at home and was perusing these pieces of paper as if they were gold dust. Which, of course, to her they were.

She had had him followed for months, and now knew everything about him. The association with the Brewer woman had amazed her, though. Knowing his penchant for younger women she had actually felt a moment’s jealousy of this prostitute who, it seemed, had her husband’s ear. Even her son worked for him.

Now the woman’s child was missing and that was terrible.

Whatever Sylvia was she was still a mother.

She saw her own children as an investment in the future. All the time she had them she was safe. It meant she had something over Paulie’s head. Something to keep the money rolling in.

She knew everything there was to know about her husband, and the old saying that knowledge is power had never seemed so true. If he played ball, as she was sure he would, then she would accept a settlement and agree to take a back seat and forget what she knew. If he wouldn’t then she would give all her information to the relevant authorities and take her chances.

But she wasn’t too worried about that prospect. Paulie knew which side his bread was buttered and so did she. Sylvia shook her head as she glanced through the papers then she put them all away. The girls were at her mother’s for a few weeks until everything calmed down.

Sylvia ran herself a bath and lay in the hot water, luxuriating in the solitude and the aroma of ylang-ylang.

As she lay there she closed her eyes and hummed a little tune. She loved this house, but she loved it most when she was alone in it. That was something Paul had never understood, her need for solitude sometimes, her need to be alone.

He had learned, though. She had made a point of teaching him manners, as she put it to herself. If it had been left to him she would have ended up like one of those dreadful women his business associates were married to - over-the-hill blonde bimbos whose husbands had women all over the place and who could only talk about their villas and their sun beds and their stupid children.

Well, that was not for Sylvia. She was not going to end her days with a man who had no social graces and even less personality than the Labrador dog he had thankfully buried in the garden two years previously. It was the only time he had ever gone against her, when the girls had wanted a dog. They had plagued her, and she had said no, and then one day he had come back from a friend’s scrapyard with the puppy in a cardboard box.

The girls had been all over him that day and Sylvia had learned a valuable lesson. Never let them believe he had their best interests at heart, it must all seem to come from her. Consequently, the girls had always believed that he’d had no intention of getting them horses, that their mother had had to talk him into it.

She smiled as she thought of it.

‘All right, Sylv?’

Her eyes flew open as she heard her husband’s voice. For a split second she thought she was hallucinating. But there he was in the doorway of the en-suite, looking quite at ease in these surroundings despite the injunction banning him from the house. She sat up, the force of her movement making water slosh all over the floor.

‘Oh, Sylv, that’s not like you, making a mess, is it?’

She was stunned.

‘Now get your fat arse out of the bath and get it down those stairs so we can have a talk.’

Her face was all lines now, her consternation evident.

He looked her body over as she sat there and made sure she realised what he thought.

‘Fuck me, Sylv, you do look rough in the buff!’

He laughed at his own silly rhyme, knowing he was annoying the life out of her and enjoying every second.

Chapter Fourteen

The old woman answered the door and stared at her visitor with naked animosity. Jon Jon knew instinctively that this was someone who had had more fights than Mike Tyson and probably won most of them.

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for the Rowe family and someone said they lived here.’

Jon Jon was smiling his best smile, but he could tell by the way that she was looking back at him that his bright friendly expression might not be enough. He had a feeling she was not into political correctness. She saw a black man and that was it. She probably thought muggers were touting for business on the knocker these days.

‘Who wants to know?’

It was a deep voice, a real Cockney voice, and coming as it did from this tiny woman in front of him it made him want to smile. She was real old school Cockney and proud of it.

Jon Jon knew the best thing to do was to treat her like she was treating him so he said without preamble, ‘
I
want to know, Mrs Rowe.’

That was the law of the street round this way and he understood it. Then he said, more quietly and respectfully, ‘I am Jon Jon Brewer. My little sister is missing, Kira, it’s been on the news and that.’

She nodded slowly, still eyeing him up and obviously finding him lacking.

‘What has that got to do with us?’

She was so suspicious Jon Jon wondered how the fuck she ever got her meters read. He had a feeling he would have a better chance of getting into the Bank of England on a Sunday afternoon than he did of setting his foot across this old dear’s front doorstep. He also had a feeling that it was because of the colour of his skin. He was used to that now, but it still annoyed him.

He tried again in his best voice.

‘I was told you had had dealings with a certain Little Tommy . . .’

The door was shutting in his face now and he pushed out an arm and a foot to stop her.

‘Please, Mrs Rowe, this is important.’

‘Get your bleeding foot out of my door, Sonny Jim.’

She was game and he admired her for that much anyway. But she was also starting to annoy him.

If she knew what could have happened to Kira then she was going to tell him even if he had to beat it out of her. And he would do that and all, old woman or no old woman. He wanted to know and he wanted to know now. He had been keeping a lid on his emotions but it was getting harder and harder by the hour. Jon Jon sighed and forced the door open as he did so.

Earl came into view and she looked him up and down aggressively. Jon Jon could not help liking her. He would lay money that in her day she’d been a force to be reckoned with. Probably still was.

‘Open the door, lady, please.’

Jon Jon’s voice was low, almost pleading with her.

‘I ain’t got nothing to tell you.’

She planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, her body language speaking volumes.