Faceless (17 page)

‘Thank you. I knew I could rely on you.’

He walked through to the dining room with its picture of the Last Supper and the large wooden crucifix above the doorway. Shutting the door, he sat at the table with his friend Maxie James.

‘This place is giving me the creeps. Pat.’

He laughed.

‘Don’t let it get to you, it’s the safest place in the smoke. I use it when I want to talk freely. She’s a soul sister, man, you know that. Remember Easton, the husband! They good people. He died and now she lives for me and the church. So chill out and eat, she makes the best chicken and rice in the country.’

Maxie had no choice but to do as he was told. He needed this meet with Patrick to sort a few things out. At least he was safe here and admitted to himself that he didn’t always feel safe lately when he was with Patrick Connor. No one did any more, it was like he had become a different person overnight. He had always been a lad, a bad boy. Now, though, he was a bonafide lunatic and that was worrying in itself. Especially if you were a partner in a deal with him.

Busby brought in plates of food and cold drinks, bread and collard beans. Soon Maxie was eating with gusto and Patrick saw him visibly relax. He smiled, his most engaging smile.

‘See, this is a treat, man, as well as a business meeting.’

Maxie grinned back. Pushing his locks over his shoulder he shovelled in more food.

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‘So what’s this new deal then?’

Patrick sipped at his Diet Coke then, grimacing, took out a small bottle of white rum and topped up both glasses.

‘I want to expand, that’s all. I’ve seen opportunities for big deals all over. I have two new suppliers on hold, one in Holland and one in Brussels. We can piss the market and rake in the dough. Easy.’

Maxie stopped chewing.

‘We big already. We get bigger then we become too noticeable, you know that. The filth’s all over us as it is. How you gonna work this in with everything else, man? Be reasonable, Patrick. We got enough.’

He was expecting this.

‘I don’t think you understand me, Maxie. I ain’t asking you, man, I telling you. It’s already set up, all you got to do is recruit, innit?’

Maxie was miffed and it showed.

‘What you fucking telling me for after you made arrangements, Patrick? This.is always happening lately. What you want me in for if you gonna run it all yourself? Fucking …’

He slammed his fork on to the plate and it made a loud scraping noise. Maxie was clearly upset.

‘I am sick of this, Patrick. We been partners all these years and now you treat me like a fucking boy. Like I am your boy. People are noticing as well, man. Even Yvonne say she notice it.’

Patrick sighed.

‘Fuck Yvonne. She is a loud-mouthed, white-haired cunt, and if you listen to her no wonder you in a state with yourself. I told you before, your ambition white bird then get the ones that toe the fucking line. She don’t want to get in my face, you tell her that, or I’ll blast her off the face of the earth.’

‘You are dissing me, Pat, and you know it. You got no respect for me or mine. Yvonne is my wife and I love her. She looks out for me and my kids and that is a result as far as I am concerned. I take the flak. If I get banged up she will be waiting for me no matter how long I get. You can’t say that about anyone, let alone your women. Of course she want me out of this now. We got the money, we got the lifestyle, we can get along without bringing in all sorts of new faces and eventually the filth. We have had a good long run, let’s not push it, eh?’

Patrick stared at his friend long and hard. They had been mates since schooldays and though they largely kept out of each other’s private life these days Maxie was still the oldest friend he had. But

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he was also becoming a liability. Businesses had to expand to survive, Patrick knew that. He had legitimate businesses as well as his illegal ones. His women, his drugs, his clubs. He bought and sold guns, oversaw most of what went on in his manor, and was feared and respected all over the smoke.

He firmly believed if he got enough money he would be immune from the law. A couple of barristers he had used in the past were now judges, and he knew that if he did get a capture he could buy a short sentence. But it was all about extremes, and extreme amounts of money made you untouchable. That and extreme fear. He knew how to instil fear, it came naturally to him.

‘Are you in or out, Maxie? I need to know.’

Maxie shrugged. His huge head with its thick dreadlocks made him look like an African Asian.

‘I suppose I’m in, whether I want it or not.’

He sounded as if he had been forced into the decision, as he had been. But neither of them mentioned the fact.

‘Eat up and we can grab a quick drink before I drop you home, OK?’

Their business was finished and Maxie knew his friend wouldn’t discuss it any more, no matter what.

That was Pat all over.

He ate.

Amanda Stirling opened the door and her look of surprise told Marie all she needed to know.

‘I discharged meself, I hated it in there. It was like being back in nick.’

‘Oh, my God, come in and sit down.’

Amanda ushered her through to her office and waited till she was seated before she spoke. ‘What’s happened? This is more than the mugging, isn’t it? You look positively haunted.’

Marie looked at the kindly woman before her and felt an overwhelming tiredness. The gin and tonic had knocked her for six and she really wasn’t sure she was up to a long talk about her life at this moment in time.

‘Look, Miss Stirling, I took a beating and I am sore and tired. I just want to sleep. Sleep and sleep and sleep.’

Amanda knew in her heart that something was going on. After all the years she had worked with lifers she could read them like books. They came out to nothing, most of them. Came out into a world

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that was so changed even buying a newspaper was traumatic. This woman before her had lost everything - her children, her family everything. Amanda should really inform the police because she was convinced Marie was involved with someone or something detrimental. But she wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. She actually liked her. Didn’t want to see her dragged back to prison. Wanted to see her get on with what was left of her life.

‘If you want to talk, I’m always here, you know.’

Marie smiled.

‘I know that, Amanda, thank you. But I’m just sore and tired, that’s all.’

Marie didn’t know how the hell she was sounding so reasonable. All she wanted to do was go to her child and try and undo some of the damage she had inflicted on Tiffany all those years ago with her lifestyle and her drugs.

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘You’re worn out. Let me walk you up to your room.’

Ten minutes later she was tucked up in bed in the dark. She was a friend of the dark. You could think, hide and scheme in the dark.

But tonight she couldn’t settle. Her daughter was out there with Patrick Connor, who had been the cause of every bad thing that had ever befallen Marie. Jason’s little face came into her mind. His beautiful eyes and soft curly hair. His hot little body as he slept in her arms. After his birth she had started to get herself together. It had forced her to take a look at her life. She had told Patrick she was giving up the drugs and going to rehab.

He had laughed at her.

She could see him now, in his rude boy suit. Being the big man.

‘You ain’t going nowhere, Marie. You just shaking your tail for me, baby.’

His perfect teeth and flawless skin, shining with good health, were an affront to her. She herself was pasty-faced and ill from heroin abuse. It was Jason’s having to be weaned off it after his birth that had frightened her so much. That she had made her unborn child an addict had really brought home to her what her life had become.

Patrick was doing his American pimp talk again, he knew how it wound her up.

‘Stop that talk! You know you’ve never been out of East London in your life. You’ve never even been to Jamaica on holiday so stop the stupid talk. You think you’re fucking Desmond Decker - 007, eat your heart out. You look a prat and sound like one.’

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She remembered that beating from him. Every blow, every kick. She had insulted him and what he wanted to be. The strange thing was she had felt so sorry for him. She had always felt sorry for him. His desperate need to be someone had made him vulnerable and he knew she sensed that. He saw kindness as weakness. Now her little daughter, who had grown into a lovely young woman and a mother herself, was hooked on him as Marie had been. Maybe it was in the genes. Maybe it was socialisation as she had been taught.

Whatever it was, it was her fault, she knew that much.

She had never gone to rehab, she had been back on the street within three weeks of her son’s birth. When she thought about it now, she wondered who that person had been. How had that happened to her, Marie Carter, the prettiest girl in her school? The most desired friend, and of course the hardest nut in the whole area. What had she been looking for all those years? What was her daughter looking for in Patrick Connor?

Every time she thought of that child, that little child Anastasia, who was her uncle’s sister, she felt sick inside. That she was her flesh and blood made her feel sick. That her daughter could have had a child with the man who was her brother’s father was beyond belief. But then, Marie knew just how persuasive Patrick Connor could be. He probably saw it as funny, a big joke.

Yes, that would have appealed to him. He’d had the mother, now he had the daughter. He would have got off on that and she knew his sexual preferences. Knew what he was all about, what he was capable of. The thought of him doing that to her child, the girl who had once called him Daddy, aroused a rage in her so acute she felt she could kill him with her bare hands.

Well, that’s what she would do if she had to.

She would kill him.

It was the least she could do for her daughter. Christ Himself knew she had done little enough up to now.

The thought took hold. As Marie went over everything in her mind, she decided that if there was nothing else for it then that was what she would do. A decision reached, she felt better. Finally she slept.

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Chapter Nine

Tiffany awoke in the dimness of a strange bedroom. She was hurting, really hurting, and when she tried to bring her hands up to her face she realised that she couldn’t move. They were tied behind her back.

She had no knowledge of where she was, or how she had got there. Her head felt as if it was full of cotton wool and her mouth was so dry her tongue was sticking to the roof of it. Terror made a scream spiral through her body, but no sound came out of her mouth. She was assailed with smells, faeces and blood being the strongest. As tears slid down her face she heard the door open and footsteps coming across the room towards her.

Tiffany squeezed her eyes tight shut.

‘Here, let me help you, mate,’ a gentle voice said.

She felt her hands being released and the pain in her shoulders was so acute she did cry out then.

The girl put a hand over her mouth.

‘Shhh! Don’t wake him up.’

Tiffany felt her arms being massaged and was aware that the strong fingers knew exactly what they were doing. The girl helped her to sit up properly.

‘I’ve run you a bath, OK? It’s got Dettol in it so it might sting at first.’

Tiffany allowed the girl to help her to the bathroom. She still felt groggy, and still had no knowledge of what had happened to her or how she had arrived at this place. All she could remember was drinking a glass of wine, and having a pipe with Patrick.

‘Who are you?’

Tiffany’s voice felt as if it had not been used for years, it was croaky and it hurt her to speak.

The girl smiled in a friendly manner.

‘I’m Sarah. And you?’

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‘Tiffany - Tiffany Carter. What am I doing here? Have I had an accident?’

She sounded childlike, she was still so disorientated. Sarah didn’t reply but started to wash the blood and faeces off Tiffany’s body. The hot water made her feel more alive. As she woke properly, she saw the wounds all over her. The Dettol did sting, it was making her body feel that it was on fire, especially between her legs and in her anus. She started to cry, little sobs of pain.

‘What happened to me, Sarah? What the fuck happened to me?’

Sarah saw the shallow knife wounds, and knew that Leroy had gone over the top again. She also worried that Patrick Connor was not going to be happy about the state of his girl. He had a kid with this one, she knew, but then he had kids all over the place.

Sarah had flicked through last night’s video and what she had seen had made her feel squeamish so fuck knew what this girl would be like when she started to remember - and she would remember. That was the thing with Rohypnol. You got your memory back in bits and pieces over weeks, sometimes months. Sarah hoped the girl didn’t reme’mber what had happened to her.

Leroy had never done it to her, only to the girls he bought, and normally when he had them here he didn’t use the drug on them. She assumed he had used it on this girl because of Patrick.

It was the Patrick Connor connection that was bothering Sarah. He sometimes passed girls on to Leroy, she knew, they bought and sold between them. But she had heard about this one, this Tiffany. Her mother had just come out from a double lifer, and Tiffany was also supposed to be Patrick’s daughter. Now if that bit of gossip was true then she had a child by her own father. Sarah shook her head. That was one barrier even Leroy wouldn’t cross.

The knife wounds all over Tiffany were scabbed over, but some had started to bleed again because of the washing. She had evacuated all over herself and the bed so the stench was overpowering. Sarah would dump the sheets, not bother to try and .wash them. As she was cleaning Tiffany’s hair Leroy walked into the bathroom and urinated into the toilet. He ignored them both.