DONNA AND THE FATMAN (Crime Thriller Fiction) (21 page)

‘The Dada’s upstairs.’

She flicked her eyes towards the ceiling.

‘He had to lie down.’

She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper.

‘He’s got his condition . . . ’

‘Oh.’

She nodded sadly and helped herself to a piece of shortbread. A hush descended on the room, some brief yet brimming seconds when thoughts were focused on the Dada, then Joey said, for he liked to show an interest:

‘How’s the tum then, ma? Getting better, is it?’

‘You mean my gallstone tum?’

‘The very same.’

She bestowed on him a grateful smile. She swelled with validation.

‘Healing nicely, as you’re asking.’

She looked at her son expectantly.

‘Like to see it, would you?’

‘Another time, perhaps.’

‘For mummy, Joey . . . ’

‘Fraid we’ve got to dash.’

She undid her blouse and rolled up her vest.

‘Just a quickie, then. As you’re only passing . . . ’

There was a five-inch ridge of glossy flesh, salmon-pink and vertical.

‘Had it done last month, up the Royal Free. A female ward. All girls together, which was how I liked it. Couldn’t have stood it on a mixed-sex ward. You’re in your nightie and all defenceless, and some pervert’s leering while you sleep.’

She gazed at the scar almost tenderly.

‘See that hole?’

‘What hole?’

‘Down there.’

She pointed at her side.

‘That’s where they had the tube,’ she said. ‘Drained out all the juices. Could have put a straw in, if I wanted.’

A regretful sigh.

‘All gone now, though,’ and she pulled down the vest, and did up the blouse.

Donna put her tea-plate on the table.

‘You’re looking very well,’ she said, ‘considering.’

She picked up her bag.

‘Isn’t she, Joe?’

The unresponsive Joey gaze.

‘Your mother, Joe. I said she’s looking well.’

He nodded dumbly.

‘She’s got a very good skin.’

The mother smiled demurely at the girl.

‘That’s because of my sweet nature,’ she said.

Joe gulped down his tea.

‘I thought it was because you’re a vegetarian.’

The mother swivelled her gaze towards him.

‘That too.’

Joe stood and stretched.

‘Have to go now, mum.’

‘Can’t you stay a bit more?’

‘In a bit of a rush, see. Got to make a move.’

He helped his girly to her feet.

‘You want a bit of cash, I’ve got some spare.’

‘You keep it, Jo-Jo. Buy your lady something nice.’

She smiled at baby’s girlfriend and imparted the secret of her existence.

‘I’ve been teetering all my life,’ she said. ‘Been standing on the brink, you see.’

‘But you haven’t fallen . . . ’

‘No,’ she conceded. ‘But I’ve always teetered.’

They walked back out to the street door. A fleeting clasp of hands, and the niceties had been observed. They felt themselves relax, the tension leak away. Beryl hesitated, for a moment, then touched the young girl’s arm. Tentative, half-doubtful.

‘Take care of him,’ she whispered. Thinning, grey hair, eyebrows plucked to nothing, but a soft and gentle voice, a voice like Joey’s voice.

‘Cherish him, my Joey-boy . . . ’

* * *

CHAPTER 29

The pan was simmering nicely now, giving off a milky smell. He shifted his weight on the stool. It was a pleasurable movement, for he liked to feel hard wood beneath his soft rump. It made him feel quite virtuous, to rest his fleshy peachiness on something hard and smooth.

The leather album lay open on the kitchen table. His cuttings-album, the proof of what he was. Every time they wrote about him, he cut the snippet out and glued it in. Been collecting them for years, his passing mentions, his little bits of immortality. Subscribed to all the nationals, and sent his boys to pick up every local rag in town, in case it featured you-know-who, in case it carried something that he’d done, some tale of viciousness and random spite. Described a bone too soft to be believed, the kind that shouldn’t be allowed, the sort suggestive of deficiencies in nourishment, the kind of bone that splintered when he breathed on it, that crumbled when he touched it.

It took him time to gather, though. Too much time, he sometimes thought. The slow collecting of the scraps of printed him, the short, truncated paragraphs describing what he’d done, the moist and swelling pain within his chest because they never mentioned who he was, they never named the one responsible. The Henryness of what was done was simply unrecorded. Always just a reference to what they called an ‘unknown assailant.’ That’s me, he’d proudly tell himself. I do believe the one they mean is me.

There were companies that did that kind of thing, special firms which scoured the press for mentions of their clients. Only cost a grand or so a year, he’d heard. Sports stars used them. Movie types. Celebrities, and cunts like that. Paid to have their cuttings culled. But Henry had to do it all himself, go digging through the verbiage himself. He had to trawl through all the shit and filth, the rank and loathsome pages of humanity, the stink of all those stinking little lives, go wading through the mire, go crawling through the dung of other people’s dreams, until he found the gem, the pearl, the cut and shining diamond of perfection: a paragraph of motiveless brutality, a hundred glistening words on him, and what he’d done to someone who deserved it.

A thick and much-thumbed scrapbook, what he liked to term the Book of Henry. He’d been saving all the cuttings since he turned seventeen, a fresh young lad just out of Borstal, with a smile on his face and a cosh in his hand. He began to turn the pages, reading quickly, skimming through each glued-in story and moving on to the next. His gaze came to rest on a sliver of yellow newsprint. ‘Random Assault,’ the headline stated, and underneath, in fading biro: ‘East Ham Recorder, March ’62.’

Big John, as he recalled. Big John from Bermondsey, with the squinty eyes, the runny nose, and the very lippy mouth. Got out of line, and had to learn. You’re nice to them, he thought, you’re fucking nice and kind to them, and they take advantage, they always let you down.

A misty vision swam into his brain. An underpass in Shoreditch on a rainy, Tuesday night, and he’d offered John a fag, given him a Player’s Number One. The big man bending down, the scrape of match, the orange flame, and then an uppercut that landed on his jaw, the knee between the legs, the punching to the ground. Big John from Bermondsey. Been shafted, well and truly. Buggered up, completely. He’d gone right in, and poked around. He’d had a good look round. Had a butcher’s, so to speak. Paid a visit and said hello. Passed the time of day. Henry sighed benignly. Oh youth, he thought. Oh happy days.

He poured out the boiling milk. East Ham, Nineteen Sixty-Two. He raised the mug to his waiting lips. Steam curled damply round his face. That’s me, he thought. That’s what I am. The bloke who’s waiting in the dark. The unknown fucking assailant. A sudden rush of self-regard, and the liquid lapped against his mouth as he began to suck the skin.

* * *

CHAPTER 30

They took the Westway back to town, came bombing up the motorway and powered down past Ladbroke Grove. Foot down hard, headlights cutting through the darkness. Just him and her and a stolen car, and a bleak, beguiling London night, all drifting fog and desolation.

The sort of night, you weren’t too careful you’d have a crash, you’d skid across the road and slam against a lorry. You’d be meditating on the Fatman, planning how you’ll say hello, and suddenly you’ve jerked the wheel, you’ve wrenched the leather steering-wheel and crashed into the side. You’d be bombing back to town, lost in splendid contemplation, and the bits inside your head, the brainy bits, the sub- and hypothalamus, would gradually expand. They’d pulse and throb until, engorged with blood, they burst upon an unsuspecting world. So better be like Donna bitch, live in hope and stay alert. Better slide the window down, so the air comes gusting in, and the chill starts gnawing at your bones.

Joe flicked on the heater.

‘Hope he’s there.’

He turned the knob to maximum.

‘Because he might be out.’

‘He won’t be out.’

‘Might have been invited round for dinner.’

She pulled a face.

‘You ever watch him eat?’

A memory of shining chins and dribble. Joe shut his eyes and quietly shuddered.

‘Fair point,’ he grunted.

They came off fast, and she hung a left into Edgware Road. Two in the morning and the place was buzzing, full of hip, young things with time to kill. Hanging loose and looking cool. Like us, she thought, just young kids having fun. She nudged the car against the kerb.

‘We pulling in?’

‘Thought we’d get some ciggies, Joe. Bit of chocolate, sort of thing.’

He tugged open the ashtray, began counting butts.

‘How many you smoking a day, these days?’

‘Counting everything?’

‘Totting it up.’

‘Not many,’ she muttered.

‘How many’s not many?’

She cut the engine.

‘Twenty or so.’

‘About a pack . . . ’

‘Yeah.’ She shrugged. ‘Roughly.’

‘You saying it might be more?’

She took out her lip-gloss.

‘I’m saying I’ve got stress, Joe. That’s what I’m saying.’

She dabbed some colour on her mouth.

‘Yeah, well . . . ’ He slid the gun into his pocket, felt the comforting weight on his thigh. ‘ . . . I don’t believe in stress and stuff.’

She unclipped the seatbelt.

‘That a fact?’

‘It is.’

‘Would have thought you might, after what happened.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The other day,’ she said.

‘What was that, then?’

‘What they did,’ she said. ‘That thing they did.’

‘Oh.’

The Donna bitch. He stared at the dashboard. Silence leaked into the car.

‘We going in?’ he murmured, finally.

The shop was an all-nighter, the kind of place that’s crammed with booze, that’s stuffed with wired-up, sleepless types, and always has a guard-dog by the counter. Blue-white glare reflected off the glass and bounced between the walls, and the floor was smeared with muck and water trailed in from the street. She wandered slowly round the aisles. She liked to take her time.

‘What you getting?’

‘Little bit of this,’ she said. ‘Little bit of that.’

‘Some cigs and chocolate, right?’

‘Don’t rush me, Joe.’

‘Cause I don’t like waiting, see? There’s one thing I can’t bear it’s hanging round while someone’s shopping.’

‘You starting, Joe?’

‘I’m only saying.’

‘Go say it in the car, you’re feeling bored.’

‘I just don’t like waiting.’

‘So fucking go, then.’

‘Shall I?’

‘Yeah.’

Joe shrugged. When she got like that, started mouthing off, he’d always rather leave. He went out into the street, felt the dampness seep into his bones. The fog was getting denser, climbing up the walls and congealing round the lampposts. He got back in the car and sat behind the wheel. The windows were beginning to ice up. He turned on the demister.

Be over soon, he thought. He took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Slope up Hampstead way, he thought, and they’d finish it, quite soon. He struck a match and held the yellow flame against the tip. Sucked the goodness deep inside his lungs and blew it out in a long, grey plume.

‘Can’t bear waiting,’ he muttered quietly. ‘Fucking loathe it, don’t I.’

A rustle from behind. A whiff of milk and middle-age.

‘Funny you should say that, son . . . ’

The four-inch blade against his neck.

‘ . . . cause so do I.’

* * *

CHAPTER 31

It took them forty minutes or so to get from Edgware Road to Tufnell Park. Joe stayed down in second gear, because of the fog, and because of the knife. He was sitting rigid in the seat, trying not to move too much. If he shifted his weight when making a turn, the blade would gently cut his skin. There’s be a consciousness of pain, a sudden intimation of mortality. He focused on the road, watching tail-lights glow and disappear. There was a void inside his head, an empty, vacant feeling, a sense of things unravelling.

‘You think she saw us?’

Henry, leaning forward. The fragrant tang of rotting gut.

‘Cause it occurs to me she might have come out just as we were leaving, come running out the shop all loaded down with sweets and tampons, seen us shooting down the road.’

The soft, seductive Fatman hiss.

‘That’s what I’ve been thinking, see, and it’s a tantalizing thought.’

He moved the hand that held the knife, pressed it slightly closer.

‘You listening, son? Cause I’m talking, aren’t I. Doing what’s called making conversation.’

Joe was staring straight ahead. His thoughts were slowly clearing, brain kicking into gear. He couldn’t see much road, just swirls of mist, a yard or so of broken lines. If he hadn’t known the way, if he hadn’t known the curves and bends of every street from Edgware Road to Tufnell Park, he might have panicked slightly. He might have lost his nerve and veered across the asphalt, shut his eyes and smashed against some overloaded skip. But he was Joey-boy the expert driver, and he knew what he was doing. Might have been a Fatman in the rear and a blade against his throat, but the gun was weighing on his hip and he knew what he was doing.

They went from Baker Street to Camden, then up to Kentish Town and across to Tufnell Park. They looped around the football ground and doubled back towards the centre.

‘Case we’re being followed. Case girly’s in a minicab, consumed with girly rage.’

The Fatman chuckled softly. You could see he thought he was a wag. You could tell he liked himself, immensely.

‘Now take a left,’ he said. ‘Straight on a bit. Another left. Good lad,’ he breathed. ‘You’re a bright boy, Joe, like I’ve always said. Not quite as thick as you pretend. Go straight, go straight. Now slow a bit. Now
right
, son, that’s it. Down the ramp.’