Faceless (30 page)

‘Funnily enough your brother Marshall was there. He nearly shat himself when he saw me. In case I told your mum, I suppose. He was waiting for you to come round, you’d passed out on the floor. Caroline was jacking up and that always made me feel sick so I shot off. That place was a shit hole. The smell! It was awful.’

They were both quiet again, remembering Marshall and how he’d died.

‘I never knew he was there. Do you think he saw it all and

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that’s why he killed himself?’ Marie asked.

Janie shrugged again.

‘Could be. I never told anyone I saw him there. Everyone had enough on their plate. Anyway I wasn’t getting involved with Old Bill so I kept shtoom. The way you do.’

Marie lit a cigarette with shaking hands.

‘Poor Marshall, he so wanted to be one of the in crowd. If my mother had known she would have launched him into outer space.’

‘Her little soldier, she called him. It would have destroyed her,’ Janie agreed.

‘She was destroyed anyway, only I did it to her and not him. When he killed himself she stopped living, apparently.’

Janie poured them both more tea.

‘Depends what you call living, don’t it? Cold woman, your mother. No one likes her though she has the sympathy vote at the moment, of course. Have you seen her?’

Marie shook her head.

‘No. She hates me.’

‘You’re in good company then. She don’t like anyone much, does she?’

Marie found herself smiling.

‘I’m glad I saw you, Marie. Would you do me a favour?’ Janie asked.

She nodded.

‘Of course, anything.’ She was desperate to make amends and it showed on her face.

‘Live the rest of your life, live it for them two. Make something good come of it all, mate. It’s happened, as the kids say these days, deal with it.’

Marie didn’t answer her, too choked with emotion. She had come here to try and find comfort from her dead friends. Instead she had found it in the shape of Janie Douglas, a woman she had laughed at and ridiculed for being straight all those years ago.

Life was strange sometimes. Very strange.

Tiffany was freebasing and it felt good.

She had spent five hundred pounds in one go and had sought and achieved complete oblivion. She lay on the cold floor of a squat in Willesden and scanned the room for her friend Rosie.

But she was long gone. She had taken some of the money with her, Tiffany remembered that much, but what it had been for she

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couldn’t for the life of her remember. She closed her eyes and let the good feelings roll.

Lionel Green was watching her as she lay on the filth-strewn floor.

‘Who the fuck is she?’

Another man shook his head.

‘Rosie brought her, she’s loaded.’

Lionel raised his eyebrows. ‘Loaded? How loaded?’

‘She had a couple of grand when she came in. Rosie’s took some of it and gone to score some skag, but that one’s on the rock. Out other box too by the looks of things.’

Lionel studied her. She could be pretty if she tried, but she looked like a street-living girl, dirty and unkempt. But unlike those girls her clothes were good quality and her nails still relatively clean. He noticed things like that, being a street liver himself. He prided himself on his acumen. It had kept him alive for ten years on the street. He had been eleven when he had run away from home. He had never gone back to the little terraced house in Essex and he never would.

He didn’t miss Tilbury, but he missed his mother. He missed his brothers but didn’t miss his stepfather with his great big boots and fast fists. He had a new life of sorts now and a new family.

He slid across the floor to Tiffany and she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

‘My baby. I have to get my baby.’

‘She’s on more than rock, has Rosie jacked her up?’

The other boy shook his head, unconcerned.

‘Might have, who knows? Do you want a quick blast?’

He offered Lionel the crack pipe.

‘Nah, never been my bag. I like a drink.’

‘Shame, ‘cos she has loads of it and I intend to stick with her till it’s all gone.’

‘Has she got a baby?’

The other boy was getting annoyed.

‘I don’t fucking know. What are you. Old Bill? I couldn’t give a fuck if she’s got ten kids or gave birth to a litter of pups. All the time she’s got a rock she can stay here, and that’s it.’

Lionel was quiet. His years on the street had taught him that was best around druggies who were too unreliable to be rational. When he was sure he was unobserved he searched Tiffany till he found the last of her money and slipped it into his jacket pocket. The others 201

would only have done it anyway once they came round enough. He watched over her until she came back into the world and then, smiling, helped her sit up. It was evening now and she had lost nearly all the day.

‘You OK?’

He gave her a can of lager and she drank from it deeply.

‘Come upstairs and chill out, it’s warmer.’

She followed him up the rickety staircase, fighting off the effect of the drugs. On a dirty mattress they sat and talked. Lionel knew the score and started off asking her easy questions: name, age, how she knew Rosie. Then he sat back and listened to her tale of woe.

‘Why don’t you go back to your flat?’

Tiffany shook her head.

‘I can get done for neglect, see. They can nick me.’

She started to cry.

‘I don’t know what happened. I’ve never had that before on the crack, you know. Never passed out for all that time. Now my little girl is in care and I ain’t sure what to do. I ain’t been to work for ages either so I don’t even know if I still have a job. It’s all a fucking mess.’

Lionel had heard similar stories all his life but he was moved by this little blonde girl and her sad tale.

‘What about the baby’s father? Can’t you go to him for help?’

Tiffany had not mentioned Patrick because his reputation always preceded him and the boy might have heard of him. But she was desperate for company, frightened of being on her own.

‘He’s no good.’

‘Haven’t you anyone at all to go and get help from?’

She remembered Jason and his family. They would help her.

The brother, he was adopted by this couple but I was allowed to keep in touch. We were close like, you know. They would help me but I’m so ashamed.’

She was also frightened they would want her to stop taking drugs and she liked the feeling drugs gave her. Liked being able to forget her life and everything that had happened to her. Wanted the feeling of well-being the crack gave her.

She couldn’t cope with all her problems without the drug and had convinced herself that she had to keep on with this life until she was capable of coping with the old one. It sounded good to her, and even though at heart she knew all she was doing was giving herself permission to dump her child she was deluded enough to think that it would not be for long.

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She just wanted drugs and the feeling they gave her. She was an addict and she knew it, but she didn’t care.

She opened her jacket and looked for the money she had stolen from Patrick. As she started to panic Lionel gave her the notes he had taken.

‘I had to take it or they’d have rolled you by now and disappeared. If you’re going to squat with addicts you have to learn to live like them, mate. They’d nick your shoes to get the money for a fix, remember that.’

She stared into his face. He was good-looking in a rough and ready way: shaved head, skinhead-type clothes and a good solid body. He had a nice smile.

‘Thank you.’

‘Go back to your flat, Tiffany, or to your brother’s. You’ll have to when this lot goes anyway, so go sooner rather than later. I’ll come with you, if you want. Sort it out about your baby before it’s too late.’

She was wavering, he could see that, and it pleased him. Then Rosie, with her fat legs and loud voice, burst into the room and he knew she was lost to him.

‘Look what Doctor Rosie has got!’

She held up a small plastic bag of heroin.

‘Put a smile on all our faces, this will.’

As she prepared the drug Lionel went out and got a McDonald’s for himself and Tiffany. He also got her a large shake. He would put a bit of food into her belly and wait his turn. He liked her and the fact she had her own flat and was capable of leading a normal life at times made her even more appealing.

Rosie would need to get back to her boyfriend at some point so he would do what he was good at: wait. Then, when the time was right, he would try again.

If nothing else he might get a bit other dough, make his life a bit easier. She might even have a tap of it. Someone who could guarantee a few quid at a time. Two grand was serious money and should be treated with respect.

If she got that much once, who was to say she couldn’t get it again? You had to look at things from all angles and try and get whatever you could from life.

He had learned that many, many years before.

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Chapter Fifteen

Patrick was looking all over for Tiffany. She had left the wardrobe door open and consequently he now knew she had taken money. It wasn’t the money itself that bothered him, but that it would give her access to other people which was just what he had been trying to avoid.

He had spent so much time and energy isolating her so that he could do what he always did with his women, make them totally dependent on him. The kid was gone and that should have been the finish of her. Now she would get out of her brains without him controlling what she took. She had a couple of grand, enough to get herself and the whole world high. Supposing she overdosed as well? All that time and effort for nothing.

He was angry. He had already lost a girl to an overdose today, and another one had had the gall to up and leave to get married. She had gone off with a fucking punter and left him with the rent on her flat and all her bills. He had the room rented again but it was the principle of the thing. She had bested him and that he would never forgive.

He didn’t understand what was happening in the world any more. It was as if, for some reason, everyone was out to annoy him. Well, when he got his hands on Tiffany he was going to break open her fucking face for her. He was going soft in his old age, that’s what was wrong with him, and the girls were taking advantage.

Now Tiffany, in whom he had a personal interest, was taking the piss. She was robbing him and he was going to take it out on her hide when he got his hands on her. And he would find her, he was determined on that.

Within twenty minutes he was at Maxie James’s house. Maxie was in bed with his wife. Patrick gave her a ton and told her to get herself something to eat and drink and come back in a few hours. One look at his face and she did as he requested. Patrick was known 205

as a mean fuck by everyone and she often wondered why Maxie kept up an association with him.

Maxie, who was also pissed off, was quite aware that now was not the time to say anything about it. Patrick had the manic look that meant he was after aggravation big time. In this mood he would argue with his own fingernails.

‘What’s the prob?’

Patrick was definitely not in the mood for his friend’s street talk at this particular moment in time.

‘What is it with you and the way you talk?’ he bellowed. ‘Why can’t you talk fucking normal? “What’s the prob?” What kind of fucking expression is that?’

Maxie stared at him and swallowed deeply. He was getting fed up with Patrick, a lot of people were. Who the hell did he think he was?

‘Listen, Patrick, I don’t know who the fuck has rattled your cage but you come here and get me out of my bed, where I was fucking the arse off me wife, and then give me a hard time. So I have to ask, what is your fucking problem?’

Patrick debated whether to kick his friend’s head in or leave it for the moment because he had more pressing things on his mind. Maxie was a mate, probably the only real mate he had. He was more than aware of the fact that people were avoiding him these days. He was getting too big for everyone; no one knew how to handle him any more.

So he smiled - the smile that had got him whatever he wanted when he was a kid. It made him look innocent and trustworthy, and he turned it off and on when he needed to make people feel secure.

‘Tiffany has gone and I have to find her.’

Maxie ran his fingers through his dreadlocks.

‘What the fuck is the big deal with her, Pat? She’s just a slag, why all this interest?’

He frowned.

‘She is the mother of my child, remember.’

Maxie blew air out of his mouth noisily to denigrate Patrick’s words.

‘Lots of women have your kids and you still put them on the game. I thought you’d get the kid taken care of as usual and then have her in the palm of your hand.’

Patrick started laughing.

‘Skin up, Maxie, I need to chill out. She’s only fucking robbed me, ain’t she? The bitch is stronger than I thought and she’s rebelling. That’s all it can be.’

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His voice was almost jocular.

Maxie started to roll a joint.

‘Let her go, Pat, she ain’t a bad kid. You have enough girls, why do you want Tiffany so much?’

Patrick thought about what his friend had said. He thought seriously and hard.

‘To be honest, Maxie, I don’t know. I enjoy making women into what I want them to be. When I first met Tiff and realised who she was, I got a buzz, you know. I had fucked the mother and now I could have the daughter. It’s a fantasy, ain’t it? Lots of men get off on it. So I went for it and enjoyed it. She is my son’s sister as well, don’t forget. It just appealed to me. And she is a good-looking girl. Not a patch on her mother, though. Marie was a hard horse to tame, I can tell you.’

He took the joint and puffed on it deeply. It was good grass as he’d known it would be.

‘I thought Tiffany would be a doddle but she is stronger than I thought. So much stronger that in a way I admire her spunk. But I have to break her now, I have to break her once and for all.’