Broken (10 page)

Willy understood that he would not be asked to alibi his mate, because he wasn’t exactly an upstanding member of the community himself. Whereas Kate was beyond reproach. But how she would react to being used like this was debatable. Especially after the shock of the clubs. Patrick Kelly was digging himself in deeper and deeper.

Willy wondered if the man was having a mid-life crisis. He had read about them in
Woman’s Own
the last time he was at the doctor’s. They sounded serious. Worse than a woman’s change, by all accounts. Or so the article had said.

Whatever was wrong with Pat, Willy wished he would sort it out so they could all get back to normal. When
he
was more on the ball than his boss, times were definitely dangerous.

Even Willy Gabney knew that much.

 

Kate looked at the photograph of the dead child’s shoe and felt an urge to cry. There were no local children missing of the same age and size. But how on earth could a small child be dead and no one have reported them missing? What on earth could lie behind all this?

The mother had to be missing her child, or was she dead too? That seemed the most likely explanation. But if so, where the hell was her body? And how had the child and the woman not been reported missing?

That was easier to explain, Kate conceded with a sigh. So many people remained anonymous nowadays. A true sign of the times. You only had to read the papers - people dead for weeks before the neighbours noticed a rancid smell. But they were usually old people who had always kept themselves to themselves. How could you do that with a toddler?

Small children were hard work. They needed food, nappies and trips to the park on a regular basis. But that was for normal people and Kate knew that they were soon going to be the minority. Or at least that’s how it seemed to her. Some of the characters she dealt with would blow the average person’s mind. Scummy types, people who saw their own children as nothing. Who used and abused them without a second’s thought.

Look at Caroline and Regina.

Both mothers, both unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Though in fairness to Caroline she at least seemed to do what she did for her kids’ sake. Regina seemed to see hers merely as things that just happened to be there, something she had done. She had produced three good-looking and completely uncared-for kids and no one, including Social Services, seemed to think this was in any way abnormal, or that the way such families lived was totally and utterly wrong. That kids were entitled to be treated well, fed well and loved well. That they had the right to be educated from birth to become regular people.

Kate frequently visited homes where the sons and daughters were already parents, yet still at school. Dirty, filthy people who reproduced at an alarming rate then dumped their kids on the streets to get them out of their hair. Three and four year olds playing out all day and into the night. No one checking on them, no one worried they might be taken away.

She wiped a hand across her face and sighed. This was just her anger, manifesting itself against other people instead of against Patrick. It was he who was making her feel like this. Making her feel that all her efforts were futile. She had to pull herself together. But she was hurting so much, it was a physical pain.

Who did the tiny trainer belong to? What was his sad little story, and would she ever be able to piece it together so that at least, for once in his short life, someone cared enough to find out what had happened to him?

 

Lucas Browning was not the usual sort of pimp. In fact he was as unlike a pimp as anyone could imagine. For a start he was grotesquely fat, so big he had trouble walking and breathing and spent most of his time in his flat in Hoxton ensconced in a large armchair. He slept there, he ate there, he even had sex there - not an easy feat by anyone’s standards.

But he scared the girls easily.

He obtained them from an ad in the local papers, recruiting for escort services and promising big gains financially. They came running. Then he talked them through what he expected from them, and gave them a large drink of whatever took their fancy. This he laced with Valium or sometimes Norval, depending on how he felt.

Two friends would then give them the business while Lucas watched, and while he videoed it. Most of the girls were from nice homes, at school or college, looking for a bit of escort work to tide them over.

He dragged them deep into a pit of despair and then used them. Threatened them with exposure, with violence, and worst of all - with a repeat performance. Once they saw the video, he had them and he knew it. He also had their address, their phone number; he even knew what school they went to and what their siblings’ names were. He came over like a big fat puppy at first, and they warmed to him. He was such a nice man. They confided in him. Told him their little wants and dreams. And Lucas let them believe their dreams were within their grasp.

At first, that is.

After a year or two he let the clubs or the pimps have them. They were too jaded now for his clientèle who liked them young and fresh. Liked them when they were still nervous, still new to it.

All in all Lucas had a good little earner without even getting out of his chair. This appealed to his lazy nature. And once they had done the delights for him, with his disgusting body, they would do it for
anyone
. It was all about breaking down taboos, breaking down spirits, and Lucas was an undisputed master of that.

Such was the mind of Lucas Browning.

Now he had a little problem and was wondering how to solve it without getting into too much trouble.

A plump young girl with thick red hair and fat thighs was sitting opposite him, smiling. But he wasn’t seeing her, he was seeing Micky Duggan. A dead Micky Duggan.

‘Has Kelly been into the club, do you know?’

Clarissa Shelly shook her head. ‘Not that I know of, but they ain’t going to tell me, are they?’ She lit a cigarette and he saw that her fingers were stained with nicotine. ‘Can I go now, please?’

‘No, you can’t fucking go yet.’

She sat back in her chair and smoked nervously, taking little puffs and inhaling loudly.

‘When was the last time you schlepped Duggan?’

‘A week ago, ten days. I don’t remember.’

He could see her mind wandering, knew she was terrified and toyed with the idea of making her do something disgusting just for the hell of it. She still looked fresh enough to appeal to him, but Lucas was a worried man. He would have an easier time trying to raise the
Titanic
at this moment.

‘Try and get round Broughton, see what you can get out of him.’

She nodded.

‘Keep me posted.’

She was grateful that the meeting was over. She had been let into the flat by one of Browning’s henchmen and they always made her nervous.

As she stood up Lucas grinned at her.

‘You’re a good girl, Clarissa. I’ve heard nice things about you.’

She smiled in relief. ‘Thank you, Mr Browning.’

He smiled again, this time showing his black broken teeth. ‘You’re welcome.’

He watched her make her escape as fast as possible and grinned again. She had taken to the life and didn’t even realise it yet. But she would, and when she did it would destroy her. Whores were born, not made. He had proved that over and over again.

 

Ratchette looked at Kate and nodded to her to brief him.

‘We have witnesses that put both mothers at the scenes,’ she said. ‘They have both had ID parades and were both picked out. We have to charge them. Regina Carlton is unfit to be questioned any more. She was taken to Rampton after her suicide attempt. The second mother is still proclaiming her innocence and is still missing one child. On top of all this, we’ve been searching for two days and can come up with nothing. We also have the body, minus head and arms, of a child who seems to have been born and raised with no one knowing anything about him. We have tried all over the country and cannot find a DNA match for him. If it wasn’t so sad it would be laughable.’

Ratchette felt a spark of pity for her. She was a good policewoman, was Kate Burrows, none better. If anyone could piece all this together it was she.

‘What extras do you need?’ he asked.

‘Only manpower really. The national press are going to start screaming for a result soon, you know they are. We need to get on top of this and now.’

He nodded agreement.

‘They want me to bring in someone else, Kate, but you must have expected this. Kelly’s position is delicate at the moment. If the press were to get wind of it . . .’ He left the statement hanging in the air for maximum effect.

Kate sighed heavily. She
had
been expecting this, only not quite so quickly.

‘Fuck Patrick Kelly.’

‘I’ll leave that to you, Kate.’

‘Well, sir, you and I both have something in common then, eh? Because Pat will use anyone and anything to get himself out of this mess and if he has to fuck one of us to do it he will.’

She was pleased to see the man before her go pale.

‘You knew him long before I did. I mean, you are a close personal friend of his, aren’t you?’ A hint of malice lay beneath the apparently artless question. Kate was enjoying herself. The last thing she had expected to do today, under the circumstances.

Her eyes travelled towards the window and she felt her heart sink as she saw the carrion that passed for the media converging once more outside the police station. She knew that Ratchette was also aware of them. This time she avoided eye contact with her boss.

 

Marianne Bigby was pretty in a vacuous way. From her dyed hair, carefully permed and styled, to the nose and boob jobs, she was every inch the woman a bad man might consider as a life partner.

As she let Patrick Kelly into her home she was talking. Marianne never stopped talking; it was her biggest failing. Because when she talked she moaned. She also talked fast. Fast and Furious was her nickname.

‘It took you long enough to get your arse round here, Kelly. I want me bleeding compensation, I do, and it had better be good, too. No pennies and halfpennies, thank you very much. And I’ll tell you something else: that ponce left me in debt up to me eyebrows. I knew he was going to get himself murdered, the stupid fucker! I told him over and over, “You’ll get murdered, you will, if you ain’t careful . . .” ’

Patrick and Willy were on auto-pilot. Patrick knew her well enough not to listen until she started crying, a trick Micky Duggan had taught him. Eventually the tears started and he took the opportunity to talk to her.

‘Come on, Mal, I wouldn’t see you without a couple of quid, girl. You know that.’

She sniffed loudly. ‘If he was here now, Pat, I’d kill the ponce myself. Imagine him getting topped like that. I mean, the embarrassment for me! Not like he went down to Old Bill or got himself shot. Oh no, he had to get bashed up, him. Useless ponce he was . . . But that was him all over, no
thought
for anyone else. I mean, where’s the prestige in that, eh? But I warned him about Broughton. I fucking warned him when the ponce came round here, all testosterone and baseball bats. I saw him off that time. On me own as usual because that cunt Micky was strumping something in the club.’ She pointed one long red nail in Patrick’s face.

‘I blame you for it all. Letting him run that club - him, who couldn’t run a bloody race without fourteen guide dogs and a police escort! Thanks to you he was dragged into gambling dens and the like. You know what a fucker he was for the horses and that. Like a kid in a candy store he was with all that dough. Money coming out of his arse and betting like there was no tomorrow. Him who couldn’t win a fucking argument.’

‘Not with you anyway, girl. He couldn’t get a fucking word in!’ Willy’s voice seemed to shut her up for a second.

She went over to him and, wagging her head with each word, she said shrilly, ‘I am the grieving bleeding widow, thank you very much.’

By now, Patrick had had enough. ‘Sit down and shut up for two minutes, Mal. You are getting comp so put a fucking sock in it.’

‘The kids are in private school. I have the house, this flat, me car . . .’

‘It will all be taken care of,’ he said wearily. ‘Now why did Broughton come round here with baseball bats?’

Marianne shook her head as if she didn’t understand what he was asking her. ‘Don’t you know?’

Patrick took a deep breath and said as evenly as he could, ‘No, Mal, I don’t know. That’s why I am asking you.’

For the first time she fell quiet. Finally she said, ‘He was after Micky over the money you took from the club.’

Patrick screwed up his eyes. ‘What are you on about? It’s my money - it’s my club.’

She stared into his face, the lines of strain round her eyes etched into her fake tan.

‘Not the takings, Pat. The five hundred grand the Russian bloke left there.’

Patrick felt as if he had been pole-axed.

‘Five hundred grand, left in
my
club by a fucking Russian? Are you on drugs, Mal, or are you off your fucking skull? What Russian?’

‘Mr Stravaneely or something. He has a right weird name, I don’t know what it is. He does the mortgages and that for the big Russian drug dealers.’

Patrick felt his heart sink into his bowels.

‘I thought you were in on it with him? That’s the impression I got. They’re using the club for transfers of money and as a front.’ She was babbling now in fear. ‘You must have known, Pat.’

‘Fuck me, Pat. You’re a dead man,’ Willy commented. As if he didn’t know.

‘Is anyone else involved?’ he pressed Marianne.

She shrugged. ‘I only know about Broughton. But you know what he’s like - probably has half of Silvertown in it with him. Couldn’t piss on his own, him.’ She could see the fear on Kelly’s face and it was frightening her. If
he
was scared then there really was something to be scared of.