DONNA AND THE FATMAN (Crime Thriller Fiction) (19 page)

He’d parked his car down the Lambeth Road, and was saying hello to Albert, passing the time of day in Albert’s Cash-and-Carry. Bonding, so to speak. He always went there, of a Friday. Nice and regular, never fail. Every week, come rain or shine, like a healthy bowel movement. Bit of certainty in an uncertain world. You wanted Billy on a Friday, you had to shoot across the water, you had to trickle down to Lambeth, for there the lad would be.

So he’s in the office behind the shop, nursing a mug of milky tea and eyeing the plate of assorted biscuits. A small heap of banknotes lay on the desk, a little pile of tens and twenties waiting for collection. Old man Albert was sitting opposite, holding his cup while his daughter poured.

‘Enough!’ he hissed. ‘I said
enough
!’

She banged the teapot down. Lulu, her name was, the skinhead reflected. A touch assertive, unlike her dad. Lulu by name, and lulu by nature. Chestnut hair, which she combed a lot. Fourteen years old and a total pubescent. Hormones, he shuddered. Excessive secretions. When he stole a glance to check if she’d grown, he found her gazing back at him. Got a cheek, he thought. Got a fucking nerve.

‘All right, then, Lulu?’

‘Fine, thanks, Billy.’

The tea was burning him through the mug.

‘School nice, is it?’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Did Social Trends, today. About gangs and stuff, and why people join.’

‘What did teacher say?’

A bell came ringing through the wall as the shop-door opened.

‘He said it’s because of alienation.’

‘Good word, that . . . ’

‘Peer-group pressure, and the need to bond.’

‘You swallow the textbook?’

‘Is it right, though, Billy?’

He spread his legs, leaned back in the chair.

‘What d’you reckon, sweetheart?’

She thought about it for a moment.

‘I think you just like hitting people.’

He grinned at her.

‘You on the till, are you?’

‘Might be,’ she said.

‘Cause you better get back, then.’

‘You think so, do you?’

‘Better not keep the punters waiting.’

She tossed her hair.

‘I never keep them waiting, Billy. Wouldn’t do that, see. Not to a punter.’

And she gave him the benefit of her schoolgirl smile, edged slowly out and pulled the door shut behind her. Billy stared across the desk.

‘You want to watch her, Albert.’

‘Don’t I know it.’

Billy sometimes wondered what would happen if the old man died, and the girl took over. He’d never collected from a tart before, and he wondered what he’d have to do if she started proving troublesome. He had his standards, and he wasn’t one for hitting women, unless they really asked for it. Whatever they might say, he did his best to let them be. But if they begged for it, if their names were Donna bitch and they went down on their knees and begged, he was always ready to do his duty, he’d do his best to be obliging.

A sudden recollection of an unploughed field in Hertfordshire. The field, the mist, the grinning boys. The slap of skinhead palm on tender girly cheek. The reddening face, the swelling mouth. He found the vision immensely pleasing and reached for some strawberry sponge. Fragility, he told himself. Can’t beat it.

‘Turned out nice,’ Albert murmured. ‘Bit of winter sun, eh? Can’t be bad, Bill, can it.’

‘Billy.’

‘Can’t be bad, Billy, can it.’

‘No.’

The shopkeeper’s eyes were running again. Every winter they started to water, and every summer the tear-ducts dried up. Flood and drought, the skinhead realized. Like in the Bible. He sipped his tea. The steam was flowing up his face, and his feet were sweating inside his boots. It worried him, when that occurred. He’d read this article on jungle-warfare, how squaddies got infected feet. Wet-foot, as the paper called it. They got a kind of fungus between their toes, and he hated things like that. You ended up lying flat on your back, stuffed with drugs and completely helpless. And all those nurses, prodding with their nursey hands. He put the mug down and eyed the money.

‘Doesn’t look like much there, Albert. Recession’s over, or haven’t you heard?’

‘I got overheads, haven’t I.’

Billy sighed.

‘We’ve all got those.’

Albert spooned some sugar into his cup.

‘There’s some boys,’ he muttered, ‘little bastards.’

‘What boys, Albert?’

The man stirred his tea, lowered his voice.

‘Hooligan types, if you know what I mean.’

The skinhead nodded. He knew what he meant.

‘I mean they walk right in and help themselves.’

‘It’s a cash-and-carry. You got a sign outside.’

‘But they’re all carry, aren’t they. Not a lot of cash, see?’

‘How much they taking?’

‘Varies.’

‘Roughly . . . ’

Albert narrowed his eyes.

‘About four hundred.’

‘A month?’

‘A week.’ Albert shook his head. ‘Four whole ton a fucking week
.
I got a problem, here, Billy. You know what I’m saying?’

‘I hear you, Albert, but what can I do? It’s the area, see. It’s a rough old place. You ought to set up somewhere nice, somewhere where you won’t get hassle.’

Albert shrugged.

‘Like where?’

‘Like . . . ’

Billy dredged his brain for images of niceness and gentility. The names of suburbs loomed inside his head, while market towns enticed him with their wholesomeness. Finally he muttered:

‘Cheltenham.’

‘But I’m here, son, aren’t I. My business is here, and my problem is here, and I’m meant to be getting protection, see.’

The skinhead lifted a warning finger.

‘You complaining?’

‘I’m not complaining. Just losing money.’

Billy shrugged.

‘Money isn’t everything.’

Albert stared, mid-swallow.

‘You made a joke, there, Billy.’

‘Did I?’

‘You’re a skinhead, son, and you made a joke.’

Billy nodded, gratified.

‘Guess I did.’

Albert plucked a biscuit from the plate and crammed it into his mouth. Wholemeal crumbs cascaded down his shirt.

‘I need a
presence
, see. Something to scare the bleeders off.’

Billy pondered.

‘Get a dog.’

The old boy sighed. He’d try again.

‘So tell me this, okay? I got one simple question, and I’d like you to answer it.’

‘Be a pleasure, Albert.’

He settled back expectantly.

‘Why do I pay you?’

‘Sorry?’

‘I mean I pay protection, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And I’ve got a problem, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And you don’t want to sort it. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘So why am I paying you?’

Billy furrowed his brow, for it was an interesting point. He mulled it over in his skinhead brain. Albert leaned forward.

‘I mean who, exactly, are you protecting me
from
?’

The bashful, Billy face as he remembered.

‘From me and Merv and Henry, Albert.’

Of course, he thought. Stands to reason.

‘From us, old mate.’

And he picked up his mug and slowly smiled, all soft, pink cheeks and cupid lips.

* * *

CHAPTER 25

‘You know something?’

She was staring out of the window.

‘We missed the ending.’

‘What ending?’

‘The movie,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what happened.’

‘Right,’ he grunted.

He took out a fresh pack of cigs and slowly unpeeled the cellophane.

‘Shame, that.’

Two hours after Mervyn, and they’re parked and waiting down Lambeth Road. The chill was leaking through the glass, her breath condensing in the air. Mid-afternoon, and a dankly shining London day, bright with noise and leaden with fumes. Packed double-deckers spewing out diesel, fluorescent labourers digging up the road. A gang of lumpy schoolgirls lurking on the corner, eating cheese-and-onion crisps and aching for a ruck. A raucous, blaring kind of day that makes you feel alive. The stench of it, the pure and perfect reek. The sort of day that makes your finger start to quiver and your head begin to burst, that makes you want to turn to someone close to you and let him glimpse your soul.

‘How d’you want to die, Joey?’

He considered for a moment.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘That’s where we differ.’

‘I know.’

‘Because I’ve been planning my own departure like other girls plan their weddings. Down to the last detail, see, because I don’t want to mess up on my big day. Even thinking about it gives me pleasure, and I like a bit of pleasure, Joe. Just now and then. I’m not averse to being pleasured, on occasion.’

He lit a cigarette and took a thoughtful drag.

‘Do you think that’s normal?’

‘I never said I was normal, Joe. Never made outrageous claims like that.’

When she died, she thought, she’d like to die in London. Let them sentence her and string her up. Let them hang her by her thin and fragile neck, she wouldn’t mind. She knows you’ve got to keep them happy, give the punters what they want. Let the low-life come and gawp, let them watch her slowly turning in the air, gently swaying in the breeze. Let them pick up snotty toddlers so they’d have a better view. See, they’d say, nodding at the unlamented, pointing at the dear departed. See what happens, when you’re bad.

She pictured the glorious scene, the public extinction of her perfumed self. Trafalgar Square on a Saturday night. The velvet sky, the lions keeping guard, the double row of coppers holding back the pressing crowd, penning in the urgent throng. The whiff of frying burger to keep the hunger-pangs at bay. The TV arc-lights blazing down. The human slime of tabloid hacks. The silent executioner. Her last and final words, the parting thoughts she’d offer to humanity. The hood, the rope, the sudden loss of wood beneath her feet.

A millisecond’s dangling pain and terror.

And then the bliss of nothingness. Then rest in peace, then fuck them all, then Donna bitch in paradise.

‘Here we go.’ Joe stuck the fag between his lips and turned the key. The engine shuddered into life.

She peered through the tinted windscreen, and there was a sudden tightness in her chest, a moment of contraction, a passing recollection of an empty field in Hertfordshire, of mud in her face and earth in her mouth and hearing the cunt word, over and over. She watched him coming striding out. He had a jaunty kind of look, a look of skinhead satisfaction, all jeans and polished ankle-boots. Sunlight bouncing off his head, and that smile on his face, that Billy grin.

‘Who’s the other guy?’

‘What guy?’

‘The one in the cardi.’

‘That’s Albert.’

‘What’s Albert like then?’

Joe pushed the gearstick into first and released the handbrake. He held the clutch at biting-point.

‘He’s a bit like me.’

They watched as Billy said goodbye. He patted Albert’s greying head and punched him lightly on the chin. Nothing nasty, nice and friendly. Then he turned around and climbed into his car. (Souped-up BMW. A very Billy kind of car.) The driver’s window sliding down, and an elbow resting on the sill. Pause to scratch the razored scalp, and he was pulling sharply out, forcing a path into the line of vehicles.

She clipped on the seatbelt. Took his time, she thought, but she’s not complaining. All things come to she who waits, and the boy was on his way.

Joe eased his foot off the clutch and edged out into the traffic.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah I’m okay. Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

Not long now, she thought. She settled back against the headrest. Not too long, she told herself. They were heading up to Waterloo. Going slowly, crawling more than coasting. She watched the endless sprawl of shops unfolding through the window. She had a tension in her gut, the sort of feeling she always got when she crossed the river. A vaguely anxious feeling, for she’s what they call a northern girl. South London, she was thinking, you can keep it.

They’d switched the car the day before. Dumped the Capri near Maida Vale, and picked up an Opel Manta. Two-and-a-half litres and walnut trim, and seats that cupped you where you liked it best. Metallic black, and so hot it would scald you, so freshly stolen you’d ache with envy.

Felt good though, driving out of Lambeth in someone’s well-kept motor. Let no one say it doesn’t feel good. You get a sort of tingle down your spine, because you’re driving something decent, you’re feeling like you matter. And Joe had done it, because he cared. She just pointed to the one she wanted, and in he went.

She likes that type of man. She likes the type who’ll be standing by her side in Maida Vale, and she’ll point at what she wants and say: ‘That one’ll do,’ and he’ll cross the road and be inside in thirteen seconds, he’ll slip inside and wire it while she’s waiting. Then — bang! — you’re up and running, engine throbbing. In, and grin, and off you go.

They kept about five cars back. They didn’t want to get too close, if they could possibly avoid it. They didn’t want to shove themselves on top of him. They maintained their distance, and kept their eyes on the small blue cloud that was pumping from his twin-exhaust. Have to tell him, she concluded. Got to have a word in Billy’s shell-like. Have to let him know he’s fouling-up the atmosphere.

Waterloo Bridge, then Covent Garden, and cruising past the British Museum. Carry on up to Euston Road, and they’re almost on her morning route, which train of thought afforded her a glow of quiet contentment. (The pale grey suit, the Chelsea boots . . . ) It suddenly seemed an age ago, the Mervyn thing. He’d been, and gone, and was no more, and not a whiff remained. The gentle, Donna smile as she remembers. Such a lad, she thought. Such a naughty boy.

When she realized they were passing Malet Street, she sat a little straighter in her seat, for she’s always had a great respect for learning, being fairly erudite herself. She’s always got a book or two beside her bed. She’s always starting books. Doesn’t often finish them, but she always likes to start. The rain was spitting down, though nothing too dramatic. A few half-hearted drops that bounced on to the bonnet and spattered in the road. But even so, the passers-by were looking grim. Academics trudging home, foreign students plotting coups, all the mulch and detritus of a windswept Russell Square.