Playing Around (27 page)

‘But—’

‘Look, the difference between the Purple Hearts and the Black Bombers on the streets and what’s going on here is that these are all adults. They all know what they’re doing. Relaxing after a hard week at work. That’s all. No different from you enjoying that glass of bubbly and your cigarette.’

Angie sipped automatically at her drink. David was so calm about it all. So persuasive. She looked around the room, listening to the buzz of conversation and the occasional eruptions of pleased laughter. It all looked so beautiful. Like a film set. The clothes, the jewellery, the people. She thought about the girls with their bikinis stuffed full of cash. More money than she earned in a month sitting behind a boring desk.

It was a different world from the one she knew. Maybe the rules were different for people like these.

‘How about giving the cars another go? Or roulette? I’ve got a table set up in the other room.’

Glad of the distraction from her thoughts, Angie was about to say she’d like to try roulette, if that was OK with him, when Bobby appeared.

‘Sorry to bother you again, Dave.’

David looked displeased. ‘I thought you were going over the Missy Me.’

‘I got held up. By a phone call.’ Bobby leaned close to David and said quietly into his ear. ‘It was Terry. Something needs sorting out.’

‘Give Angel some money and take her through to the roulette, then see me in the back bedroom.’

When Bobby came into the room, David’s muscular frame was perched on a delicate pink-and-gold brocade bedroom chair; he was puffing angrily on a panatella, his broad legs splayed wide. Had anyone not known
David
Fuller’s reputation, they might have been inclined to have laughed.

‘That Terry needs a fucking good hiding. He knew he had to keep an eye on Marshall.’

Bobby agreed, but said nothing.

‘How bad is it?’

‘It was a set-up, Dave. The papers were there.’

He threw up his hands. ‘Well, that’s it. I can’t do anything for him now. I don’t think even Burman could get the silly bastard out of this one.’ David stubbed out his cigar in a porcelain dish on the dressing-table, stood up and adjusted his tie in the mirror. He closed his eyes and shook his head in wonder. ‘Fucking stupid idiot. Still, can’t be helped. Might as well get back to the party, eh, Bob?’

It was the early hours of Sunday morning and Detective Constable Jameson was sitting in the canteen, working his way methodically through Saturday’s
Guardian
crossword, while he ate the cheese-and-salad sandwich he had eventually persuaded the woman behind the counter to make for him. He was drinking tea from his flask, having given up on the foul, dark brown brew that the rest of the station seemed immune to.

As usual he was alone, but a table close to him was occupied by two female constables. Jameson closed his ears to their inane chatter, not wishing to know about their sex lives and the various preferences of their boyfriends, but suddenly his attention was grabbed.

‘At least he doesn’t get up to tricks like the Old Man,’ said the red-haired one.

‘What tricks?’

‘You haven’t heard?’ She grinned knowingly.

‘Sandie …’

Sandie leaned forward for the sake of privacy, but she
still
spoke loudly enough for Jameson to catch her every word. ‘Know that new club over in King’s Cross? The Missy Me.’

‘Can’t say I do. Gambling, is it?’

‘No. It’s for people who like to take their pleasures rather seriously. The type who enjoy a bit of S and M, but with an audience thrown in for an extra thrill. The right hardcore, really extreme lot, I’m talking about.’

‘Are you saying the Old Man …’

Sandie leaned back, folded her arms across her chest and opened her eyes wide. ‘Yep. He got caught in there last night.’ She could barely keep a straight face. ‘
Sadomasochistic practices
, according to Barbara down on the desk.’

‘No …’

‘That’s right. All dressed up in this rubber women’s corset thing and stockings. With long, pink rubber gloves.’ Now she was sniggering helplessly. ‘Doing horrible things with surgical appliances. The whole three-ring circus. With a few extra trick ponies thrown in for good measure.’

‘Never!’

‘I’m telling you. He’s finished.’ Tears of laughter were pouring down her cheeks. ‘The papers’re only going to be able to show them photographs from the waist up.’

She handed Sandie a glass of water. ‘Is this kosher?’

Sandie sipped the water, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and did her best to control herself. ‘Wait till you see the papers in the morning. It was the
Clarion
that set him up. It’s going to make the front page. And’, the sniggers exploded again, ‘you know how quiet Monday is for news.’

Jameson calmly folded his newspaper, wiped out his cup with a paper napkin and screwed it back on his flask. He stood up and tidied his empty plate on to a
plastic
tray, which he returned to the counter, then walked out of the canteen towards the car park.

When he reached his Morris Minor, Jameson slapped the bonnet hard with the flat of his hand.

DCI Marshall was finished. Well and truly finished.

He unlocked the car and got in. ‘Right, Fuller,’ he said in a low, steady voice. ‘Your protection’s gone. I’m ready for you now.’

Jameson hummed tunelessly to himself as he drove towards Greek Street. With a bit of luck, Fuller and his cronies would still be there, going over the day’s business, and, with a bit of patience, Jameson would get a glimpse of them when they left, and would see if they looked worried.

But, much as he would have enjoyed such a sight, Jameson doubted if they would look even slightly concerned.

Those men had a mentality, lived a life, that thrived on risk and notoriety as much as it did on financial gain; you only had to see them swanking about to know that. It drove Jameson mad, how so many ordinary, supposedly decent, men and women had such an appetite for reading all about the villains’ so-called glamorous lives, with their night-clubs, their tarts and their showbiz friends.

The public encouraged it. Encouraged it, that was, until they were touched by it. Until it was their kid found out of his head on acid, or caught selling it on to even younger kids to finance their kicks. Then they weren’t so impressed by the likes of David Fuller.

Jameson was going to have him. Show him that his glamorous life also had its costs, and that being banged up in the Scrubs wasn’t glamorous at all.

‘I didn’t know whether to expect you or not this
morning
, Ange.’ Jackie closed the street door behind her. ‘You’ve not exactly been a regular at work lately, have you?’

‘Don’t start, Jack.’

Jackie managed to keep quiet until they had almost reached the station, then it all just spilled over. ‘Martin’s been away for the whole weekend. At his girlfriend’s. He phoned late last night to say he was going straight in to college today, and wouldn’t be home till tonight. Big posh house in the country, they live in. He says her family are loaded. Her dad drinks too much, her mum seems lonely and he wouldn’t live in the country if you paid him.’ She glanced sideways at Angie, then added, ‘I think he’s sleeping with her.’

‘What?’ Angie sounded preoccupied, as if she hadn’t been listening.

‘Martin. Sleeping with Jill. His girlfriend.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

‘Angie!’

‘Well, don’t be so square.’

‘Pardon me for breathing.’ Jackie linked her arm roughly through Angie’s, punishment for not being interested. Or pretending not to be interested. ‘Mum would kill him if he got her pregnant.’

‘Jackie, I couldn’t care less about your brother’s sex life. Can we talk about something else? Please?’

‘You’ve changed.’

‘What, because I’ve got a boyfriend?’

‘Boyfriend.’ Jackie snorted. ‘Angie, he is a man. Not a boy. A much older man. And I think you should be careful.’

‘Not jealous, are you?’

‘All right. If you must know, I am.’

Angie looked at her. ‘Are you?’

‘Course I am. You go off to some party in bloody
Chelsea
with a bloke in a Jag, and I wind up in a dance hall over the shops in Forest Gate with a gang of girls from school. And it was my birthday.’

‘Sorry, Jack. Did you have a good time?’

Jackie smiled. ‘Yeah. I did actually.’

‘Did you?’

‘I met someone.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Andrew. Really nice. Works in the City. And he’s nearly as mod as Martin.’

Angie narrowed her eyes.

‘All right, I won’t mention him again.’

They pushed their way through the crowd down the station steps.

‘Know what would be nice, Ange? If we could go on a double date some time.’

‘I don’t think so, do you, Jack? David’s not exactly the sort to go dancing at the Lotus.’

‘Pardon me for breathing. But I didn’t mean with David, I meant with one of Andrew’s friends.’

‘Don’t be silly, Jack.’

‘Too good for going out with the likes of me now, are you?’

‘No. You know I don’t mean that. I just like the life David’s shown me. The places he takes me.’

Jackie had it on the tip of her tongue to say – you mean, the things David gets for me, and that Angie was sounding a bit too much like her mum – but she didn’t want to cause a row.

Angie stepped back from the edge of the platform as the train came into sight. ‘By the way, Jack, I’ve decided I’m giving up my job.’

It was almost lunchtime, and Vi was walking back from Sam’s shop, where she had been ‘helping’ him in the
stock-room
. She was reading the headlines of the
Daily Clarion
, laughing out loud.

‘Morning.’ It was Tilly Murray coming towards her. She addressed her neighbour through pursed lips. ‘Something’s tickling your funny bone, Violet.’

Vi held out the paper. ‘It’s this dirty old sod,’ she said, pointing to the front page that was almost entirely taken up with a flash photograph of a startled-looking Detective Chief Inspector Gerald Marshall. ‘Strange what gets some fellers going.’

Tilly tutted and adjusted her headscarf. ‘Disgusting. Ought not be allowed.’

Vi smiled craftily. Baiting her saintly neighbour was one of her little pleasures. ‘Don’t you and your Stan ever fancy something a little bit … you know, kinky, to put the lead in that old pencil of his?’

Tilly’s face went an unflattering, pale mauve. ‘Jackie tells me you’re seeing that Nick again.’

Vi folded the paper and tucked it into her gondola-shaped straw basket. ‘I’m flattered you’ve been discussing my private life, Tilly. Delighted, in fact. And, as you’re so interested, you might as well know the real story. I’ve not seen Nick for a while. He’s been busy.’ The part of the truth she didn’t mention was that she’d left Nick high and dry, just as she had so many times before, to chase what she saw as a temporarily better prospect. Sam. He might have been even less physically attractive than Nick – he had the looks of a spanked arse and the manners of a monkey – but he had a chain of shops and he worked a lot, giving her the chance to indulge herself with the very handsome, if far less dependable prospect, Craig.

Craig was Vi’s latest passion: slightly younger, better-looking by miles than Nick, Scottish, and more than a touch unreliable. He wasn’t entirely new on the scene –
she
had first met him about a year ago – but he was always being called away, always having to go back north of the border. It had annoyed Vi then, not because he was married – she couldn’t care less about that – but because at the time he had been the only one on the firm and she hadn’t liked not having a back-up. But now it suited her perfectly. When Craig wasn’t around, it gave her a bit of time to spoil Sam, to keep him sweet, to ‘help him out’ in the stock-room, and to enjoy first-rate dinners and some lovely little presents, all at pudding-faced Sam’s expense.

The arrangement was all rather neat; it would be neater still if she could guarantee the times that Angie would be out of the house everyday. She didn’t know what had got into the girl. When she wanted her at home to help, she was out, and now, when she wanted her to piss off to work or somewhere, she was always under her feet. It didn’t actually bother Vi, Angie being there, it was that she was looking so … well … sodding good. Too good. It was bloody infuriating.

Tilly folded her arms. ‘Must be lonely on your own.’

Vi raised a heavily pencilled eyebrow. ‘Who said I was on my own?’

Tilly’s lips became even thinner. ‘My Martin’s courting. Lovely girl. Comes from a really good family. Rich and all.’

‘That’s nice.’ The boredom in Vi’s voice was as apparent as the look of tedium on her face.

‘And I reckon your Angie’s seeing someone as well.’

‘News to me.’

Before she could stop herself, Tilly snapped, ‘Don’t you care about that girl, Violet?’

Vi took her cigarettes out of her trenchcoat pocket and took her time lighting one. ‘Not as much as you do, obviously.’ She smiled nastily. ‘Better get on, Tilly, some
of
us can’t spend all day gossiping. Things to do. People to see.’ She inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out slowly. ‘Ta ta for now.’

With that, she tightened the belt of her mac, slung her basket further up her arm and wiggled off on her high heels.

IT WAS ALMOST
a fortnight since Tilly had had the exchange with Violet about Angie and now, a chance meeting with Pauline Thompson – the biggest gossip on the whole estate – had only served to confirm Tilly’s worst fears about the girl’s welfare.

‘Stan,’ she gasped, standing over her husband as he sat in his armchair in the front room, puffing on his pipe and reading the
Daily Mirror
, digesting the enormous bacon-and-onion suet roll he had had for his tea. ‘You’ll never guess what Pauline Thompson just told me.’

Stan Murray didn’t respond. It was Friday night, he’d had a long, hard week at work, and listening to some old nonsense passed on to his wife by Pauline Thompson, who could talk a glass eye to sleep, wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. So he just cocked a deaf one, and let her carry on.