The Factory Girl (47 page)

He was about to go into the kitchen when the bell downstairs rang. Instantly all his nerves gave a jump. She was back and just as he was getting himself together.

Well, best to get it over and done with. Then he would go and see if Sam Treater was back home, and having squared things with him would go on to Di's place. Then he could take up his new life.

A man stood at the door and for a moment Tony felt his heart leap into his mouth. Someone from Sam Treater? He'd got wind of Geraldine going to the police. Bad news travels fast. He should have insisted on hanging around until Sam returned home, explained it from his own angle. Instead someone had got there before him. Sam had inside contacts all over the place, including some even in the police force. He wouldn't be where he was if he hadn't.

‘Yes?' he asked nervously.

The man was tall, good-looking, a workman by his clothes. Outside stood a ramshackle green van, this man's most likely. He didn't look like a hit man or any sort of villain, and he was open-faced although with a somewhat angry look. ‘Can I help you?'

‘Anthony Hanford?' came the question and again Tony quaked inwardly despite the brave face he was presenting.

‘And who might you be?'

‘My name's Presley. I want a word with you.' So it was something sinister. Sam had got word. ‘You might remember we've met before.'

The caller continued, ‘I've just come from your wife. She came ter find me this mornin'. She was in a proper state. I was a friend of hers a long time ago before she married you. Before that she was going out with me, but that's neiver 'ere nor there. What I'm 'ere for is that she 'ad a nasty experience this morning, and it's all due ter you. I don't suppose you realise that, so I'm 'ere to explain. I'd like ter come in if that's all right with you. We don't want ter go on yapping on your doorstep of this posh area, do we?'

Despite what the man said, it wasn't wise letting a virtual stranger in. He might be here under the pretext of having a message from Geraldine. He had no wish to be beaten up in the privacy of his own home and this man looked quite muscular – not exactly a bruiser, but he could have a knife hidden somewhere in those overalls. Even so, a certain trust was beginning to make itself felt, the openness of the gaze most likely. Making up his mind, Tony stepped back, allowing the man entry but making sure to follow him up the stairs rather than leading the way.

‘First door on your left,' he directed, and once in the lounge, the door left conveniently ajar, he asked, ‘Want a drink?'

‘No thanks. I need to get this off me chest as quick as possible and be off.'

Tony kept his face towards his caller. ‘So what is it you have to say that you couldn't say downstairs?'

‘Right.' Presley's face had hardened, sending out warning signals. ‘First of all, I know about 'er going to the police. She's told me all about you, yer see, what yer do on the side.'

Tony felt his face go cold and stiff, made to speak, to defend himself, but Presley hadn't finished.

‘Yer needn't be scared. I ain't goin' ter do anythink about it. I ain't that keen in getting' involved in your mucky pastimes. She did tell me yer did a bit of work for a gang of crooks, although she didn't mention names if that's what's worrying yer. But I don't want ter know about that either. What concerns me is—'

‘What concerns you?' echoed Tony, seeing a glimmer of something he hadn't known about. ‘Why the hell should anything about her concern you?'

‘Because I'm a friend of 'ers. Been a friend of 'ers for years.'

‘I bet you have!' But his sneer was ignored.

‘I'm 'ere about two things, if yer care ter listen. First is about what you've bin getting up to behind 'er back. She loved you. I once 'oped she'd love me, but she settled for you and as far as I'm concerned she made a bad choice. I'd never of done to 'er what you've done, picking up with some other woman, leaving 'er in ignorance about what you was up to all this time. Yes, she told me.'

‘I bet she did.' Tony was feeling brave now. This man was no threat from Sam Treater and his friends after all. ‘And I bet you and she took full advantage of it. I can guess the kind of sympathy you gave her.'

For a moment the connotation seemed to stun Presley. He gulped, but then his lips tightened. ‘You never gave a second thought to 'ow she'd feel, her 'usband 'aving it off with some other woman. That's you well-off blokes all over, no thought fer anyone but yerselves.'

It was a silly argument. Tony was beginning to feel the superior one of them, felt he could now talk down to this man.

‘So what do you intend to do about it? It seems what you've been telling me is a case of sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. No doubt she got from you what she refused me. Can you wonder I looked to someone else, being the only time she and I made love was when she hoped it would get her a baby? That's all she's ever thought about for years. Making love for her is just a means to an end. There's more to it than just begetting a kid, and kids cramp one's style, so maybe she thinks you can do better for her. Pity your money won't match what she's used to.'

He stopped more from lack of breath after his tirade than loss of any more to say. He could have said screeds, except that Presley was glaring at him and looked about to lash out at him. But then Presley stepped back. His previously squared shoulders appeared to relax and droop, and just as Tony was about to push his luck even further, he was cut dead by a firm, commanding tone.

‘What you do is no concern of mine, but when it comes ter your crooked mates arriving 'ere to terrorise the livin' daylights out of her, threatening ter knock 'er about, shoving 'er around the room like she was a rag doll, humiliating 'er by laying 'er across their laps and smacking her bottom till it was red an' then warning 'er of worse ter come if she ever talked to the police again, that's when it starts to concern me.'

This was the reason for the untidy room, but Tony was too taken aback by what his caller was saying to dwell on tidiness. He glared at the man. ‘Liar!'

‘Your wife's words,' came the reply. ‘And judging by the state of her I believed her.'

‘They wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would they do a thing like that?'

‘They obviously know about her going to the police.'

‘How?'

Presley shrugged, but it wasn't a shrug of someone who couldn't care less – coupled with a pair of raised eyebrows, to Tony it was more a question aimed directly at himself. Automatically he answered to that. ‘Someone got wind of it and informed on her to them.'

He was beginning to feel frightened. It crept over him like fog creeping up from a river. It even felt cold. If they'd done to Geraldine what she said they had, then what would they do to him? He had to go and explain things to them. He should have made more certain of doing that in the first place instead of complacently driving away to Diana for solace when he'd found Sam not in. He should have hung around until Sam Treater had come home. He had thought no one would know what Geraldine had done and therefore it might not matter. But he'd thought wrong.

He glared at Presley. ‘I want you to leave. I have to go out. You can tell her if she wants a divorce, I won't fight it and I won't see her left without, she can have whatever she wants.'

‘She wants you.'

Tony couldn't help the guffaw that tore itself out of him in a great hail of breath, though more from nerves than amusement.

‘No she don't,' he snarled, calming. ‘She wants the money, the easy life it brings. Why d'you think she's turned a blind eye to my work all these years, eh? Because it kept her in luxury and she's greedy for that and little else despite what she's been up to with you. And she condemns me. How long's it been going on then?'

He was talking only to calm jangling nerves, the fear of Sam Treater's crowd, what they'd do when he went to face them and tell them to keep their hands off his wife, try to convince them that her going to the police wasn't his doing, that he was innocent and wanted to make restitution for what she'd done, that she hadn't got as far as naming names, so they were safe. He had to appease them. What if they refused to use him in this big job coming up in a few days' time? All that promised money. All the plans he had for it. He and Di needed that money. It'd be their future, for God's sake.

Ignoring Presley's protest that nothing had been going on, he'd hardly paused for breath even while his mind flowed in that other, too awful to contemplate direction.

‘I'm not jealous of her – I don't care what she does. She can make love to the local dustman for all I care, so long as she agrees to a divorce. I've got someone who can really give me what I want without always moaning. All I want is to be free. You can tell her I won't see her going without.'

‘Yer just said that,' Presley reminded, his tone sharp. Had he? He couldn't remember what he'd said.

Had he mentioned any names? ‘Well, whatever. Now you'll have to leave. I have to go out.' He'd said that too, ages ago, it seemed.

He was ushering the man to the door, arms stretched out from his sides in a gesture of beseeching more than commanding and for a moment it looked as though Presley intended to stand his ground, gazing at him with an expression of contempt. Then the expression relaxed, the shoulders gave a small shrug of defeat. Elation hit Tony like a fresh wind as the man finally turned to go.

Following him down the stairs to make sure of his leaving, Tony added as he opened the door. ‘Tell her I don't hold any grudge—'

‘What?' Presley turned abruptly to him.

‘I mean,' Tony fumbled, ‘I hope there won't be any animosity in this, no nastiness with the divorce.'

‘Oo says there's going ter be a divorce?' came the retort. ‘She says she'll never divorce you, that yer can sing for it, yer can rot before she lets you off the hook. Them's 'er words, not mine. You and me both, we're in queer streets there. You won't be able ter marry yer fancy piece and I won't be able to marry Gerry. As fer grudges, I think she's the one with a grudge, don't you?' He paused while Tony stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Oh, and there's one more thing …'

Before Tony could even think to leap aside, the fist came towards him with the speed of a striking cobra, catching him square on the mouth, sending him careering backwards to finish up on his back on the stairs. Through a mist of lights he saw the door close quietly behind his assailant, leaving him alone in a low glimmer from the frosted-glass window above it.

Sam Treater was at home. With him, having been summoned at short notice after Tony had unloaded himself of Geraldine's burden of guilt, were those who called themselves friends, though to Tony's rueful eyes they appeared far from friends, every face turned on him, grim and unwavering. He squirmed even as he presented them with an ingratiating smile.

‘I should have told you sooner, but you weren't in, Sam. I know I should have waited for you but I had no idea when you'd be home.'

‘So you breezed off to your girlfriend's and stayed there enjoying yourself instead, that it?'

‘I couldn't go home after what she did. But I got it out of her,' he lied, ‘that she only mentioned me, no one else.'

‘And you didn't think that would matter, that the cops are too fucking dumb to put two and two together and come up with the rest of us.'

It was Tony's hope to brazen it out, though already he could see the money he'd get from this job slipping rapidly away from him. He had to win their confidence. That money meant everything to him, more than he'd ever seen or would again in his lifetime.

‘How did you come to know she went to them?' he asked.

The reply came back like a whiplash. ‘Don't you think we've got our sources of information? D'you think we're that dumb?'

‘No. I just thought—'

‘You do too much thinking for your own good, Tony, you know that? I've always said you did.'

‘Then why did you trust me yesterday, telling me all about what was going on. You've never done that before. And I was here at the time she was talking to the police. That proves it wasn't me, Sam.'

None of the others had said a word, but their stances spoke volumes. He tried not to show how much he was quaking. Please, he prayed, don't let them cut me out of the deal now, not at this late stage. What was he going to tell Di? Would she drop him like a hot cake seeing no high living ahead of her any more, but he having to continue working as a small-time jeweller for the rest of his life. Jobs like these came only once in a lifetime. Sam had said to him in the most amicable terms while they waited for the others to arrive that this job was worth nearly two million, handled the right way. It had taken his breath away, but he'd been jubilant at being forgiven so easily. That was until the others had arrived. Now he wasn't feeling at all jubilant.

‘You can still trust me, Sam. I've finished with Geraldine. She's left. She won't be back. She can't do anything to us.'

‘Us?' He ignored the question.

‘I've too much at stake to do you lot down. So much depends on this.'

‘You can say that again, old man. But she knows us all. Who's to say she won't go to the cops again with more names when the fancy takes?'

‘She won't. She was frightened off by them, and by you and Billy.'

Being invited into Treater's house, he'd begun by half warning him to lay off Geraldine. Treater had even apologised, said it had happened in the heat of the moment, they got carried away, and wouldn't happen again.

What he said must have worked, for Sam relaxed back in his chair, at the same time as the other four – Billy, Ernie, Fruity Hicks and Jimmy with his snake-like glare – appeared to stand back without really moving. It was encouraging and Tony allowed himself a smile to encompass them all.