Sweetie (6 page)

table. The women sipped their drinks and entered into whispered conversations.

Memories of that day stayed with the community over the weeks that followed. Bit by bit, more was revealed about the terrible way that Chantal had died. A shocked and distrustful neighbourhood waited for further developments. The police had launched a house-to-house enquiry, but nothing had been found to move their investigation along. Even a front-page splash in the local rag had jogged no one’s memory about the day or time in question. All the police had were the lollipops found on Adam’s and Chantal’s bodies, the fact that both had had their eyelashes cut off and a matching blood group. They were also fairly certain that the attacker knew the area well enough to realise he would remain undis -

turbed during the attacks. No one had seen anything, no one had heard anything, and the murder of Chantal Robinson remained unsolved. But news had travelled fast about Adam’s abduction and assault, and even if the police weren’t confirming anything, locals believed that they had been committed by the same man.

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Chapter Four

The mums loitered for longer than usual outside the gates of Columbia Row Primary School a few days later. The children had been ushered into the play -

ground, made to line up and wait for the bell, all the while watched closely by mums and teachers alike.

The tension in the air was sharp, Adam and Chantal still the only topics of discussion. With a lot of head-shaking, grimaces and tutting, the mums discussed Chantal’s funeral and the attack on Adam, news of which had now spread not just across the East End but throughout London as the newspapers got on to the story. Even a couple of the nationals were covering it in small pieces, and everyone seemed to know what was going on. Comments ranged from

‘Did you see the flowers, weren’t they beautiful?’ to

‘Apparently he’ll have to wear a catheter for the rest of his life.’

The highly volatile mixture of fact and rumour had Adam close to death and on life support, when in fact he was at home with Grace, albeit subdued by a powerful combination of sedatives and painkillers to dull the constant discomfort. Those mothers who hadn’t heard the details of the attack from neigh bours 43

and friends had been alerted by the police as they conducted their door-to-door enquiries, asking if they had seen anything suspicious in the Haggerston Park area on Monday. Despite all their efforts, though, PC

Watson had little to report back. It wasn’t that people were being unhelpful; it was simply that no one had seen anything. DCI Woodhouse would definitely expect more, but as the weary constable peeled off his hot boots that night, he felt he had put in a lot of hard work to no avail.

This combination of police and press interest had naturally alerted the local bush telegraph, and stories and rumours were already rife. Women leaned against the railings outside the school, reading fresh significance into every movement in the neighbour -

hood over the last weeks, rocking pushchairs to soothe impatient younger siblings fed up with hanging around, hot and bothered in the stifling heat.

Even a bag of cheesy Wotsits and a Ribena wouldn’t quieten them down. The women, all in tight bell-bottomed trousers and small halterneck tops, puffed on their No. 6, jittery from their morning slimming pill which just made them talk and talk and talk.

By 9.15 it was already blazing hot and tempers too became inflamed. The stimulants of too much coffee, a Tenuate Dospan and one too many fags rapidly con verted gossip to gospel truth. One person’s prejudice had a way of becoming another’s indisputable fact, and what had started out as faint 44

suspicions about Steven Archer were rapidly transformed into con

firmed sightings and definite

proof of guilt. A kangaroo court of sorts, this finger-pointing was nonetheless harmless compared to the council of war currently being held in Lizzie’s Foster’s flat on the tenth floor of a tatty council block half a mile away.

Like Nanny Parks, Paul’s mother was a survivor of the school of hard knocks, and nobody’s fool. She lived in a two-bedroomed flat in Dunbar House, built in the early 1950s, already crumbling and given to swaying in high winds. It was one of three high-rise blocks built at the southern end of Ravenscroft Road to house locals made homeless during the Blitz.

Although the lifts were frequently out of order, stank of piss, and were littered with used johnnies and scrawled over with a thick layer of graffiti, there was little choice but to use them if you lived above the fourth floor. The stairwells were even more dis

-

gusting, and at times dangerous. Washing hung from the littered balconies, but the careworn exterior of the flats was in stark contrast to the pristine cleanliness behind Lizzie’s front door.

The lounge contained an old but immaculate Draylon-covered three-piece suite in faded gold arranged around a 26-inch Ferguson TV, a present from Paul the previous Christmas. Framed photo -

graphs of three mixed-race girls sat on the polished sideboard, along with a Spanish doll in a rich red and 45

gold flamenco dress together with another ornament depicting a shepherd and his lamb. On the wall, and just slightly off centre, hung a spiky brass sunray clock that ticked away the seconds loudly. Next to it was a bamboo-framed picture of a bronzed South Pacific beauty, smiling back demurely at all who gazed on her. The swirly-patterned carpet was thread bare in places but swept by hand every morning with a dustpan and brush.

Now a widow, Lizzie kept herself busy with relentless cleaning and regular sessions at the Bingo hall on Hackney Road. Since her husband’s death two years earlier, she had enjoyed a welcome renaissance in her relationship with her son. Her husband Ted – a man of fierce prejudices and an insatiable appetite for drink – had made family life impossible. The days since his death had been bliss.

No more empty bottles to take back to the off-licence or green Rizla fag papers scattered around her clean front room. No more loud racist abuse, booming out when he came home pissed and feeling aggressive.

No, Lizzie lived life on her own terms now.

When Ted was alive, he’d kicked up something alarming after Paul and Michelle had got together.

How could
his son
love a black woman? It was just disgusting; Ted didn’t know how he was supposed to hold his head up amongst the blokes he worked with at the paint factory. None of them lot liked the niggers. They had all had family killed in the war, 46

and saw immigrant labour as another threatened invasion. Spades, they called them. Just fucking apes, weren’t they, swarming all over his country and taking all the jobs? They had bad habits, they smelled, and were thick and lazy to boot – but they always seemed to have the latest gear, fast cars, and a white woman on their arms! Many a young girl who crossed the line and went with a black man was bashed up by her dad or brother! If Paul was stupid enough to take up with one of them that was his look out, but as far as the outraged Ted was con -

cerned he no longer had a son. He had to keep face with his mates. How could he be expected to support his son’s taste for a bit of dark meat?

Of course, Lizzie had had to stand by her husband.

It was what you did, wasn’t it? She would try from time to time to talk about Paul and persuade Ted to keep up with the times, but her husband was an old-fashioned, ignorant man, and his word was and always had been law in their little world. In the two years since his passing from a massive stroke, things had changed very much for the better. For the first time in her life, death had brought rebirth to Lizzie who redoubled her efforts to be a good mother and grandmother, and was now leading the charge to find out who had done this to Chantal.

The girl might not have been her grand-daughter by blood, but Paul had loved her as if she’d been his own and that was good enough for Lizzie. Just seeing 47

them together had made her happy. She’d loved to see them giggle and laugh, and her heart had finally been stolen when Chantal had made her a special card, reading ‘Nanny, I Love You’, on her birthday.

No matter what, she’d loved that kid and was going to miss her, and now she had the job of trying to help her boy come to terms with that baby’s death. Some sick evil bastard had taken that kid’s future, and Lizzie was determined to get to the truth and find the person responsible. Years of living with an abusive drunk had made her bullet-proof. She had no fear whatsoever, of anyone or anything, nor time for hand-wringing over moral dilemmas: in her opinion the guilty deserved to be punished.

Lizzie was holding a coffee morning to talk about the recent events. Nanny Parks was there, looking tense and angry and ready for anyone who dared to contradict her. She needed to offload, and a morning with the girls was just what the doctor had ordered.

Sue Williams, perhaps the most enthusiastic vengeance-seeker of all, was in fact a faithful lieutenant of Lizzie’s, and always had been. The two of them went back a long way. Although Sue appeared to be the leader, it was Lizzie who often pulled the strings.

Gillian was round at Grace’s that morning, doing the shopping and cleaning, but said she would pop in later. She had felt the need to do something.

48

Chantal’s funeral was still on her mind, as it was on everybody’s, but her first duty was to her sister and her family now.

The three women sat grim-faced and businesslike around the Formica-covered table, drinking strong tea from bone china cups and saucers. ‘Kiss and Say Goodbye’ by The Manhattans was playing appro -

priately on the kitchen radio. The washing-up bowl was upturned in the sink and the draining board had been rigorously Ajax-ed. The grey standard council-issue linoleum was similarly well-scrubbed and a strong smell of bleach permeated the room.

Everything had its place in Lizzie’s kitchen. The paper-towel holder held a new roll, the tea, coffee and sugar canisters were neatly lined up, and the two-slice toaster gleamed in yellow and stainless steel. A gentle breeze lifted the pristine white net curtains above the kitchen sink and dispersed the clouds of smoke which hovered above the heavy glass ashtray in the middle of the table.

Sue Williams broke the silence.

‘My Wayne was in the park after school and he says Steven was definitely there, hanging around the swings all afternoon.’ Sue referred to her eleven-year-old son while she jiggled her youngest, three-year-old TJ, on her lap.

Born with cerebral palsy, TJ was the apple of her eye and was adored by friends and family alike.

Always smiling, he was the easiest of her four 49

children and, despite his problems, always happy just to sit and play contentedly with bricks or anything else he found lying around. Sue never had any problems finding people to watch or hold TJ. The child seemed to have a rare quality about him that made up for his disability.

‘And it’s no coincidence that this all started when
he
came back from that spastic school he goes to.’

Any irony in Sue’s observation was lost on her; having a child of her own with special needs in no way made her sympathetic to Steven Archer. TJ was still the baby everybody loved. She never once con -

sidered the problems he could face when he reached Steven’s age. She was so sure that she’d identified the guilty party that she prompted the other women and exaggerated all the things Wayne had told her. ‘My Wayne said he was sure he saw Steven fumbling with his willy. Bloody pervert! Probably getting off on seeing the young kids playing.’

Her words enraged the other women round the table.

Nanny Parks stubbed out her cigarette angrily.

‘I’ve always said he was a weirdo.’ She picked up her spoon and stirred two sugars into her tea. ‘Don’t you remember how he used to lose his temper and chuck stuff about? He always threw wobblies in the classroom. No wonder they wanted to send him away from other kids! I don’t know how Eileen has coped with him all these years.’

50

Eileen Archer, Steven’s mother, had already seen the second of her children leave home pregnant and bound for a shotgun wedding when she herself became pregnant with Steven at forty-four. She knew she was old and the baby could be at risk, but for her as a religious woman there was no alternative but to continue with the pregnancy. At the time there’d been lots of jokes and cruel remarks about the egg from the speckled hen. All sorts of old wives’ tales flew about, and for nine months, Eileen was the talk of the neighbourhood. Everyone said ‘I told you so’ when Steven was born a spastic. Eileen struggled on as best she could. Even after her husband, unable to cope, had left them and moved down to the south coast, she stuck by her boy. He was hers, and he was called

‘special’ because he was. He wasn’t the only child in the area to have cerebral palsy, as it was rightly diagnosed, and so Eileen stayed strong for her boy and trusted that Steven would one day grow into a fine lad.

Lizzie was fidgeting nervously. ‘It’s funny, you know, I haven’t seen her around since this all started up. I reckon she knows he did it and is too frightened to come out and face us. She’s protecting that sick bugger!’ Lizzie peeled the cellophane off a fresh pack of Player’s, screwed it up and placed it in the bin. ‘But maybe we should go round and see her . . .’

They’d been friends a long time, and Lizzie still felt she owed Eileen that much, no matter what her son had done.

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Sue pulled a face at her. Taking the red toy brick out of TJ’s mouth, she weighed her words before she spoke. ‘No, leave it, Lizzie. There’s no point in talking to her, it’s him that needs sorting. Do you want a drink, sweetheart?’ she asked her son in the next breath.

‘In there, Sue, bottle of lemon barley.’ Lizzie pointed to a cupboard next to the sink. She felt sure Sue had sussed her, could read the doubts lurking in her mind, so couldn’t afford to appear hesitant. ‘Yeah, you’re right, Eileen’s weak as piss water.’

‘Cheers, Lizzie,’ said Sue. ‘Poor Michelle, though, did you see the state of her at the funeral? I don’t know how she stayed upright. I think she was trance-like, sort of not really with us.’