Playing Around (38 page)

‘Doesn’t she like the girl?’

‘She loves her. She’s posh and rich and comes from a good family, whatever that might mean. In fact, she’s all her dreams come true.’

Angie noticed that he hadn’t said she was all
his
dreams come true. ‘So what’s the problem?’

‘She’s pregnant. And Mum reckons it’s the most disgusting show up of all time and I’ve brought shame on us all, and she’s never going to speak to me again. Her and Dad scrimped and scraped to give me a chance in life, and this is how I repay them – act like I’m straight out of the gutter. Oh, and I mustn’t forget this bit, it’ll kill Dad stone dead when he gets home from work and finds out.’

What should she say? She didn’t even care that much. Just like no one seemed to care about her.

‘It’s Jill. You remember. You met her at that party.’

‘I remember.’ Why hadn’t the toffee-nosed idiot gone on the Pill?

Martin looked at Angie’s tired, tear-stained face, reached out and stroked her cheek. She looked great, even with red eyes and smudged make-up. Why had he got out of his depth with Jill when Angie was just along the road all the time? ‘You all right, Squirt?’

‘Fine.’

He stood up and pulled her to him. ‘I’ve always been fond of you. You know you can tell me anything.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, backing away. ‘I’ve just got all worked up.’

‘I want to help.’ He stepped towards her, closing the gap between them again.

Angie managed a thin smile. This was all she needed. On top of everything else, Martin making a pass at her. ‘I’ve had a bit of boyfriend trouble, that’s all. And I just got everything out of perspective.’

He had her backed against the sink. ‘If only things had been different.’

‘Angie.’ It was Jackie. She didn’t sound, or look, very pleased. ‘Martin, why didn’t you tell me she was here?’

He moved away from Angie and sat down sulkily at the kitchen table.

‘You’re obviously not going to answer me,’ she sniped at her brother, then turned to Angie. ‘Has he upset you as well?’

‘No. Look, I’ve got to go, Jack. Nan’s expecting me.’ Angie hurried out to the hall. ‘Give my love to your mum,’ they heard her call before she shut the street door behind her.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Jackie poked him in the arm. ‘Upsetting Mum. And now you’ve had Angie in tears. You are such a pig.’

‘Me? I never did anything? She was upset when she got here.’

‘Yeah, course she was.’

‘Why don’t you keep your mouth shut, Jackie?’

‘And why didn’t you keep your trousers on?’ Jackie flounced out of the kitchen into the hall. ‘Just you wait till Dad gets home.’

Angie wasn’t sure how she dragged herself back to the tube station and then made the journey to Mile End before getting the bus over to Poplar to her nan’s. But somehow she’d made it.

She turned the corner, and saw the familiar walls around the estate, but something was different today. Blocking the entrance to the courtyard, where vehicles turned in for the car park, there was a crowd of chanting, jeering women, many of them with toddlers, prams and pushchairs. Standing to one side were half a dozen police constables, looking distinctly uncomfortable at the prospect of having to attend a demonstration made up of women and their kids.

Stop the killing now!
read one of the many placards.
Murderers!
read another.

For a moment, Angie froze. Was it anything to do with David? Did they know she was his girlfriend? Girlfriend? That was a joke. Didn’t she mean his
bit on the side
? God, she’d been so stupid.

Finding one last surge of energy, she fought her way through the demonstrators and made her way up the stairs to her nan’s flat.

‘Thank goodness you’re here, darling.’ Sarah folded her arm round her granddaughter’s shoulders, shut the door tight and hurried her through to the sitting-room. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

Angie felt ill. ‘Nan, what’s going on down there?’

‘It’s awful. They’ve started selling this LSD stuff in the buildings. And round the school. A young boy, thirteen he was, died up on the corner by the Eastern last night. Jumped off the top of a building.’

Angie was ashamed of the relief she felt at it having nothing to do with what had happened in Greek Street, that it was nothing to do with her or David.

‘That’s sad,’ she managed to say.

‘Angie, is there something you want to tell me?’ Sarah thought about that little turd Jameson and how he had been shouting the odds about Angie’s boyfriend being
in
trouble – pity he didn’t use his time tracking down the drug-pushers.

Angie shook her head. She couldn’t involve her nan.

‘I popped round your mum’s earlier. To see if I could find you.’ Sarah spoke as if her turning up on Vi’s doorstep was the most natural thing in the world. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about you. You know what I’m like. You’ve been such a stranger lately.’

Angie said nothing.

‘I’ll make us a cuppa tea.’

Angie followed her through to the kitchen, wanting the comfort of her presence.

‘Nan,’ she said quietly. ‘Why is Mum like she is?’

Sarah put the teapot on the scrubbed wooden draining board. She had her back to Angie as she spoke. ‘I blame myself, if you really want to know.’

Angie moved closer to her nan. ‘Why?’

‘Let’s take our tea through and sit down, shall we love?’

‘Your mother was a strong-willed, difficult girl, Angie. And I never checked her.’ Sarah slowly stirred sugar into her cup. ‘I spoiled her, because I was trying to make up for things.’

‘What things?’

‘Her not having a dad for a start.’

‘But that wasn’t your fault. Grandad Pearson was killed down the docks.’

‘There’s an old saying, love: the tragedy of a happy marriage is that it can never have a happy ending.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘One of you has to go first, and leave the other one. Grieving. Broken-hearted.’

‘That’s so sad.’

‘But not for me.’

Angie frowned. ‘I thought you idolized Granddad.’

‘Sweetheart, that’s what most people thought. It’s what I let them think. But I was just a good actress, exactly like your mother. There was no Granddad Pearson. I was a stupid young kid who let her head be turned by a good-looking Swedish sailor. He could hardly speak any English. And he was dark, funnily enough. Not what you’d expect of a Swede at all. Lovely rich chestnut hair, he had. Just like yours.’

‘Don’t upset yourself, Nan.’

‘I felt so bad, I wasn’t as strict with her as I should have been.’

‘How did you get by?’

‘It wasn’t easy in those days, bringing up a kiddie by yourself. There wasn’t much help. But I managed. I found ways.’ She paused, remembering. ‘And Doris was ever so good to me. She guessed almost right away I’d never been married. But she never looked down on me.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

Sarah fiddled with her teaspoon, straightening it in her saucer. ‘It wasn’t too bad. Not really.’

They drank their tea in silence for a while, then Sarah shook her head and said, ‘But then when your mum went and did the same thing …’

Angie almost dropped her cup. ‘Are you saying Mum was never married either?’

‘I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that, darling, but no, she wasn’t. There was no Billy Knight who got run over on the Mile End Road, but there was this bloke she met in some night-club up West. A Canadian, she said he was.’

‘And his name was Knight?’

‘No. She’d seen this film about knights in shining armour.’ She smiled fondly. ‘You know what a dreamer she is.’

‘So Knight’s not my real name?’

‘Don’t worry, babe, it’s all legal, all on your birth certificate and everything.’

‘And I’m half-Canadian.’

‘I suppose you are.’

‘Do you know who he was? Is?’

‘Sorry, Ange, I don’t. But I do know he never realized she was carrying. By the time she found out, he’d already gone back home. He never did a runner on her. Nothing like that. Not like my Swedish bloke. He was thinking about settling in the East End when he met me, he liked it here. Then, when I told him I was in the family way, he was off on the trot like a carriage horse.’

‘Did your mum help you?’ Angie had never thought of her nan as having a mother before now.

‘No, she chucked me out. But you get over it. You have to. You cope. And you try and make a decent life for yourself and your baby.’ Sarah paused again, thinking about how she had gone on the game just to buy food, and how Doris had taken them in to her little terraced house, where they had lived until it had been bombed out during the war.

How differently her own daughter had ‘coped’ …

Violet had tried to get rid of the baby she was carrying, and when that plan had failed, she had insisted she would give it up for adoption on the day it was born. It was only because Sarah had promised to help her out, had promised to do everything for her – give her money, care for the child, whatever she wanted – that Violet had relented and had agreed to keep the baby.

Sarah had always vowed that her granddaughter would never know she was unwanted by her own mother.

‘I spoiled your mother rotten, when she had you.
Mollycoddled
her. She never lifted a finger from the day you were born. That’s why it’s all my fault. She thought she could get away with everything. Treat everyone like a servant. Including you when you were old enough. We had a terrible falling out over that. I didn’t mind how she treated me, but you were my little princess. I wasn’t having it.’

‘Is that why you never see her?’

‘Partly, but it was when she started talking about …’

‘About what, Nan?’

Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head at the memories that came flooding, unbidden, into her mind; memories of Violet flying into a temper because she reckoned having a child around the place was putting off her men friends, and swearing she would send Angie away to a home. Sarah had pleaded with her, but Violet, as usual, knew she held the trump card, and only stopped talking about children’s homes when Sarah had promised to keep her nose out of her daughter’s business and to send her regular weekly payments. Sarah could only thank God that Doris had been around to help her. But Angie would never hear any of this, not from Sarah’s lips. Nobody deserved that.

‘Nothing, babe. We just disagreed, that’s all. I shouldn’t say anything against my own daughter, but she’s plain selfish, and that’s the simple truth of it. She had me to help her, and could have done whatever she wanted. Gone to night school. Got herself a decent job. Anything. But she was a lazy mare, always was and, I suppose, always will be. I should have been stronger, should have insisted. But guilt’s a terrible thing. You think you can go out and have a laugh when you’re young and that there’s no consequences for what you do. That you can just mess around and it’ll all be all right. Then you look back on your life and you realize.’

‘Me not having a dad never had her spoiling me. She never let me do what I wanted. She even made me leave school.’

‘She only wanted to make sure you could look after yourself. That she never had to worry about you depending on some bloke.’

Angie knew that was rubbish, just as well as Sarah did, but she had other, more pressing, things on her mind.

‘Nan,’ she began slowly. ‘You know you asked me if I had something to tell you?’

‘Yes, love.’

‘I’ve been involved with someone. I thought he loved me. Then I started to find out things about him. And now I’ve found out he’s …’

‘Married.’

She nodded miserably. ‘How do you know?’

‘Darling, I had a visit from someone who knows him.’

Angie’s heart started pounding, but before she could run through all the horrible possibilities of who might have traced her to her nan’s flat, the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll get it, pet. You pour us another drop of tea.’

‘Evening, Mrs Pearson.’ It was Detective Constable Jameson.

‘You again. What do you want? See if I’m selling drugs to schoolchildren?’

‘No, Mrs Pearson, I’ve come to question Miss Angela Knight.’

Sarah paused just long enough for it to register with Jameson. ‘She’s not here.’

‘That’s funny. Her mother said she was,’ he lied. ‘It’s serious, Mrs Pearson. Very serious.’

‘It’s all right, Nan.’ Angie was standing in the hall behind her grandmother.

‘No, Ange, it’s not. Policemen don’t come to talk to young girls by themselves.’

‘They do if they want to be discreet, Mrs Pearson. It’s to do with David Fuller.’ He looked at Angie. ‘And a murder investigation.’

Sarah was in shock. Murder? David Fuller? Hadn’t Jameson said that was Angie’s bloke’s name?

‘You’d better let him in, Nan.’

‘Bobby, will you tell me what this is all about?’ Maureen shoved aside the suitcases that Bobby had just lifted down from the top of the wardrobe and sat beside them on the bed. ‘I’m not packing a thing until you do.’

‘Sorry, Maur, but Mr Burman—’

‘Who?’

‘Bloke who works with Dave. He’s sorted out a job for me. In property maintenance.’

‘Bobby, what are you talking about? You can’t knock a flaming nail in.’

‘It’s not exactly that sort of maintenance, Maur. And there’s something else.’

‘Surprise me.’

‘We’ve got to go right away.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Tonight.’ He rubbed his hand over his bald head. ‘And it’s in Cyprus.’

‘Why would we want to go to flipping Cyprus? I don’t even know where it is.’

‘Maur, we’ve got no choice.’

Sarah Pearson could hardly take it in. When Jameson had come round before, he hadn’t even hinted at a fraction of what he was saying now. This David Fuller was a proper gangster. Involved in terrible things. Not some twenty-year-old who’d made a few mistakes. And
she’d
been sitting here chatting away to Angie about her and her mum, and all the time the bloke was out there on the run. Say he’d come looking for her?

‘Angela,’ Jameson said, leaning forward and trapping his long, pale fingers between his knees. ‘I want to get David Fuller. I want to get him for the murder of two people. That’s the two people I know about, never mind all the others, and all the victims of his drug-pushing.’