Denial of Murder (19 page)

‘That's a good way of looking at it,' Yewdall replied. ‘It's a fair point of view. Quite frankly I feel the same.'

‘Don't push me too hard, darlin',' Anna Day continued to look at Yewdall in a cold manner. ‘I mean, when the quiz session starts, don't lean on me too hard. I might spit at you, you and your mate both.'

‘Yes. We know. Your housemate told us – she said that you were HIV positive. She said that she was also HIV positive.'

‘We're carriers,' Anna Day explained, ‘so was Quoshie … all three of us were HIV positive, two of us still are, the two that are left, but we haven't “turned” or “converted” or whatever the term is. We haven't developed the symptoms but we can “convert” any time, and when that happens our bodies will start to fall apart.'

‘I'm sorry,' Yewdall forced a smile, ‘it can't be easy to live like that.'

‘One day at a time, sweetheart, it's one old day at a time.' Anna Day took another sip of her drink. ‘But so long as you know and so long as you know that I'm accurate. I can spit into a wine glass from two feet … and if you keep your mouth shut, or keep your mouth covered, I can still aim at your eye.'

‘My eye?' Yewdall asked, with some degree of alarm.

‘Your eye, lovey, you can transfer bodily fluid by spitting into someone's eye … in the tear ducts … in the inside corner.' Anna Day put her long middle finger to her left eye, close to the bridge of her nose. ‘It'll do the trick just as well as spitting into some old geezer's north and south. I mean, if a punter gets rough and keeps his mouth shut you can still spit in his eye. All right, all right so you'll get a right good slap but he'll get AIDS … that's what I call a good trade, especially if you don't tell him and especially if he's married and goes home to his trouble and strife.'

‘You're still working!' Yewdall gasped.

‘I've got to – a girl's got to eat but the punters know the risks and they all want protected. I mean, they take a look at yours truly and what do they see? They see an old black street worker and all they want is protected, they don't even offer more for unprotected … not with me anyway … not anymore … but if it gets rough I can spit at them but I don't tell them … I like it that they find out the hard way.' Anna Day winked at Yewdall.

‘You can get five years in prison for that,' Yewdall spoke calmly, ‘deliberate transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.'

‘Hey, girl,' Anna Day leaned forwards and placed her drink on the table top, ‘have you seen Cherry Quoshie's drum?'

‘Yes,' Yewdall replied, ‘we've just come from there.'

‘Well, I only went in once and believe me it's a palace – a real palace compared to mine. So right now five years in Holloway is very inviting – a cot for five years and all the food I can eat and lots and lots of little girls to play with because I swing both ways … I like the girls as much as I like the boys. So when the screws turn out the lights, well, then that's when the fun begins. If they're not HIV positive when they go in, they will be when they come out. Imagine a young girl getting sent to Holloway for a month for shoplifting and coming out with AIDS because she cuddled up to me one night when she was upset because she felt she'd let her family down and I kissed her on the mouth, or because I spat at her in a recreation room skirmish,' Anna Day smirked. ‘Now that's getting a life sentence with no parole for stealing a pair of jeans. Five years in the slammer sounds like my idea of heaven right now. So don't annoy me … and if I don't do it to you then I'll do it to some poor little creature who's in prison for the first time.'

‘Don't threaten me in any way,' Yewdall spoke sternly, ‘and you have to remember you don't get that in prison.' She pointed to Anna Day's vodka.

‘I can live without it if I have to.' Anna Day shrugged. ‘I've been inside a few times. You ache for a drink for the first week; after that it doesn't bother you and you sleep better and have really interesting dreams if you don't drink. Since the only time a prisoner is free is when they're asleep, well, that's a fair exchange. And don't kid yourself anyway, darlin', pretty well anything can be smuggled in if you've got the right contacts. And I've got the right contacts.'

‘So I hear, so I believe,' Yewdall replied dryly, ‘but nevertheless, try to keep your threats to yourself, especially since we're on the same side.'

‘You reckon?' Anna Day sneered. ‘Since like when has the Old Bill been on my side? Since when?'

‘We're on the same side this time.' Penny Yewdall glanced round the interior of the Thames Lighterman. It was, she saw, wholly in keeping with the sixties redevelopment of Tower Hamlets. She found it superficial and cheap, and even on a hot day like today, she felt cold within the pub. She thought the tables were too small, and the chairs round them also too small. The faded brown carpet was matted with spilled beer which had been trampled into the pile and was clearly long overdue for replacing. The bar was a single long bar behind which the Afro-Caribbean publican was serving Ainsclough and doing so with evident distaste. Prints of old London Town hung on the walls of the pub but did nothing to provide any sense of depth or history. The Thames Lighterman was not a pub Penny Yewdall would want to spend an evening in, no matter how convivial the company. ‘Yes,' she said again, ‘if Cherry Quoshie was a friend of yours, then we are on the same side, at least on this occasion.'

Anna Day nodded, picked up her drink and sipped it. ‘All right,' she said quietly, ‘… so long as you know that it's only on this one occasion, just this once that we're on the same side. I can't be seen as being a friend of the Filth. Not in this boozer. So why are you and me on the same side apart from me being a mate of Quoshie's? There has to be more than that – there's more going down than that otherwise you wouldn't want me on your side.'

‘There is,' Yewdall said flatly, ‘you're very clever … it's because she was tortured before she was murdered.'

Anna Day gasped, ‘Tortured!'

‘Yes. Tortured.' Penny Yewdall spoke softly and matter-of-factly. ‘There was a massive circular burn on the inside of her left leg, just above the ankle. It is believed to have been caused by something metal being heated until it was red-hot then pressed against her flesh. That sort of treatment can get a lot of information from anybody.'

‘Dare say it would.' Anna Day's jaw sagged. ‘It would get a lot of information from me, that I can tell you for nothing. It would get a whole shedload of information.'

Tom Ainsclough returned from the bar carrying three drinks on a tin tray. He placed the requested double vodka in front of Anna Day and a fruit juice in front of Penny Yewdall. He also bought a fruit juice for himself. He put the tray on a vacant seat and sat down at the table.

‘Thanks, darlin'.' Anna Day swallowed the vodka she was drinking then exchanged her empty glass for the full one Ainsclough had bought for her. ‘I've just told your good mate here not to annoy me because if you do I'll spit at you.'

‘Yes,' Ainsclough sat down, ‘we know. Your housemate warned us.'

‘I also told her, your mate here, that I am an accurate spitter, and she told me I could get five years inside for deliberately transmitting sexually carried diseases. Just to fill you in on what we've been nattering about when you were at the bar.'

‘Yes,' Ainsclough smiled, ‘that's true. You could also get life.'

‘I didn't know that.' Anna Day looked worried. ‘I thought five years, out in three … that's a holiday … but life … I never knew that.'

‘Life if you persist,' Ainsclough explained. ‘First offence you'll collect five years, second offence you go down for life. You're a persistent danger to public safety, you see.'

‘Oh …' Anna Day gasped.

‘So … Cherry Quoshie,' Penny Yewdall refocused the conversation, ‘we understand that she was frightened of something or someone when she disappeared just before last weekend? Did you see her after Friday last?'

‘Yes, she was frightened … and no, I last saw her on the Wednesday, the day we both get our Giros. We had a printers ink in here. She was edgy … constantly looking over her shoulder.' Day sipped her drink.

‘Do you know what she was frightened of?' Yewdall asked. ‘Or who?'

‘No … but I definitely think it was more of a “who” not a “what”,' Day explained. ‘She was frightened of some heavy face but I don't know which one. But I will tell you this, Quoshie was full of guilt, I mean, really full … brimful.'

‘Oh?' Ainsclough sat back in his chair. ‘That sounds interesting. Did she say why she felt guilty?'

‘Yes, she said that she had once helped put a good man, an innocent face, away for life. She said the poor guy was set-up.'

‘Did she mention his name?' Yewdall pressed.

‘She might have … I can't remember it, though.' Day shook her head. ‘Sorry.'

‘Cogan,' Ainsclough suggested, ‘could it have been Gordon Cogan? We believe that Cherry Quoshie's murder is linked in some way to the murder of a man called Gordon Cogan who was sent down for life, but we are unsure as to how they are linked.'

‘Gordon,' Anna Day nodded, ‘that name … that name rings a bell … yes … yes I think she did say that his name was Gordon.'

Yewdall turned to Ainsclough. ‘That's how they link,' she said. ‘That's the link we have been looking for.'

‘Has to be,' Ainsclough replied, ‘has to be.' He turned to Anna Day and asked, ‘Did Cherry Quoshie give any details of what she did to help him get sent down for life?'

‘She didn't tell me all the details, but guilt was really eating into her in a big way.' Anna Day took a deep breath. ‘Quoshie, she was a hard case … but even hard cases can feel guilty and Quoshie was carrying an awful lot of it, a real boatload of guilt and she had plenty to spare.' Anna Day paused, took a sip of her drink and then said, ‘I suppose I'd better tell you this … Quoshie told me recently that this geezer, Gordon Cogan had contacted her and that he only wanted her to go to the Filth with him. I mean, that wasn't going to happen but she did say that she told him she'd help all she could. She said that she didn't know that she was helping to fit him up. She remembers being strung out … her supplier was holding back on her horse … she didn't get any for two days, no H for forty-eight hours. For two days she was climbing the walls and in that state she would have done anything for a fix … and I mean anything. I've been there, I know how it can get you.'

‘You're a smack head?' Yewdall asked.

‘I was.' Anna Day spoke calmly. ‘I was, darlin'. It's behind me now, I kicked it. I went into rehab. I'm one of their success stories. Most smack heads do rehab then return to being a user, that's because after rehab they go back to the same streets where they're known as users … the pushers give them freebies … and before they know it they're hooked again. It's a merry-go-round that isn't so merry.'

‘But not you?' Yewdall smiled.

‘No, darlin'. I knew the dangers of going back to where I was known as a smack head, so when I left rehab and I came to live in Tower Hamlets where I wasn't known … but I was where Quoshie was that time, you live your old life from fix to fix; heroin, crack … whatever the addiction is it's always the same, you live from fix to fix. You get to the state where you start to chew your finger ends off if you don't get a fix. Like I said, I was there … you'll do anything for a fix.'

‘So, is that how you got AIDS,' Yewdall asked, ‘from using dirty needles?'

‘No … I was infected; I was deliberately infected by a geezer who was out for revenge. He offered well over the odds for some unprotected. I was younger then and I was short of cash, and I mean well short, and so I agreed. I even felt a bit complimented, to tell you the truth. A white geezer asking a black girl for some unprotected … it made me feel good about myself. Anyway he put himself together again, and as he walked away he then turned round and said, “That's what you get for being promiscuous”. So I wondered what he meant but it began to worry at me and so three or four days later I went to the clinic and had myself checked out and there I was: HIV positive. So that's how it happened to me … it was then I began to learn how to spit accurately. Dead accurate. If you get my meaning.'

‘We get your meaning,' Yewdall replied. ‘It's not lost on us.'

‘So I might look healthy, but like I said, I could convert at any time. I can take anyone down with me if I want … you two, some frightened little chick in Holloway, in for a month for shoplifting … there's justice for you but that guy, I made well sure he didn't do it to no other girl.'

‘He won't?' Yewdall asked. ‘You reported him?'

‘No, I murdered him, darlin',' Day replied calmly. ‘I chilled him. I iced him.'

A pause descended around the table. It was broken by Tom Ainsclough who said, ‘You'd better be careful what you say to us, Anna.'

‘Oh, yes?' Anna Day took another sip of her drink and grinned broadly. ‘Am I really going to sign a statement or make a taped confession in a police interview room … I don't think so. No, it won't happen so I can talk free. I knew the geezer, you see, knew who he was … I knew where he lived. So I waited outside his drum one dark and lonely night. I was all in black. I am black. I wore black sports shoes. I was as silent as a mouse – he didn't see me until the last minute and the chiv was in his stomach, right up to the hilt, before he knew what had happened. I saw the look in his eyes and he knew it was me. Then the blade went in again and again. Then I took an old woollen sock from my shoulder bag … it had a rock inside. I bounced that off his head a few times. He didn't get up. He was well still. Next day the newspapers, they were full of his murder … police appealing for witnesses … all that number, all that old malarkey … witnesses, some hope. I made well sure there'd be no witnesses.'