Faceless (44 page)

It was coming from the bin cupboard. She was scared now, but she walked over and opened the door slowly, frightened of what she might see.

Her screams brought all the people out of the flats.

Marie was in a restaurant with Mikey. They were having a late lunch, and she was telling him all about Jason and his adoptive mother.

Mikey was listening with half an ear. He had a lot on his mind, but the sound of her voice was soothing. He loved listening to her whatever she was saying. It had occurred to him that he was in love. Or at least as near to it as he had ever been. When he had first met his wife he had been in lust. It was how he always was with women. He never could resist a good pair of tits or a nice tight arse. Or, come to think of it, a pair of long legs or a naked thigh.

It was just the way he was, and he had money and a good reputation so all these things were available to him as and when he wanted them. Now he had Marie, and liked her for more than her looks which, he admitted, were nevertheless good for her age. Considering what had happened to her, he thought she looked phenomenal. But what he really liked about Marie Carter was her quietness. She had a quiet voice and a quiet nature. He could relax when he was with her, secure in the knowledge that she wanted nothing from him except his company.

All the shit that had happened to her, and she never felt sorry for herself. He admired her for that. So many people blamed others for

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what had befallen them. He had even knocked the coke on the head because he didn’t need to be on it when he was with her.

His phone rang. He saw it was Alan’s number. They were waiting for another shipment so he took the call even though he was with Marie. He was not expecting to hear the words Alan said to him. Mikey replaced the phone on the table and immediately called for

the bill.

Marie watched him warily. There was obviously serious trouble of

some kind and as they walked from the restaurant she hoped that everything was OK.

Malcolm Derby was with his baby daughter Alisha. She was a very pretty little girl with his dark eyes and her mother’s crinkly hair. He adored her and she adored him. He was a good father to all his children, acknowledged his responsibilities, paid for them all to go to private schools and gave them the best of everything.

Alisha loved to chew on his dreads and he smiled at her as she did her teething on her father’s hair.

Her mother took the little girl and put a coat on her. She was going shopping and Malcolm pushed a wad of money into her hand, as she knew he would. He was a good provider and she loved him dearly. She turned a blind eye to his business and an even blinder eye to his other women, especially his wife. It worked for her and it worked for him.

He kissed his little daughter on the cheek and she crowed with excitement. Malcolm buckled her into her buggy and waved her off from the spacious lounge.

‘Listen out for Georgie upstairs.’

He nodded and turned on the monitor so he could listen out for his two-year-old son. He settled back into his chair and picked up a twist. As he lit the grass he inhaled deeply. Three of his henchmen were in the room with him and he ignored them as usual.

‘She is gonna break a few hearts that one, Malcolm.’

The man’s voice was kindly and Malcolm smiled at the compliment.

‘She me baby, Alisha. She’s in my heart. That Georgie is a boy too. He is a big man. He will be a good boy, I think. He is clever, you know. Loves his picture books.’

He often talked this way about his children and his men admired him for it. They all loved their children, too, but Malcolm had a special bond with all his kids and made sure they were all well taken care of.

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Malcolm looked at his best boy, a young man with well-developed muscles and a quick mind. His name was Stanley, and he had gradually risen in Malcolm’s business from collector to personal minder. Stanley thought the world of Malcolm, admired and respected him. He was also grateful because Malcolm had paid off the GPS and got him off a robbery charge. He knew he would lay down his life for the man before him - and that was going to be proved sooner than any of them realised.

This room was large and well-decorated with white walls and expensive furniture. Malcolm loved it as he loved his whole house. It was the epitome of all he had worked for. He had arrived from Jamaica with nothing, and now he was coining it in. He was proud of what he had achieved. He was a hard man but, it was generally agreed, as bad as he could be, he was also fair. He never used mindless violence, there was always a good reason for his outbursts.

At least that was the general consensus and he agreed with it. He knew he dealt in fear and in his line of work that was mandatory. It was par for the course. If someone upset you then they had to be taught a public lesson so no one else made that same mistake. It was how you kept on top, how you sorted out your business. It also kept any usurpers at bay, made people wary of taking you on, and with his many illegal businesses that was also mandatory.

He had to use the fear factor, and he made sure people saw him enjoying what he did. They were always more frightened of someone they thought would get a kick out of hurting them. Although, if he was honest, he did enjoy it; he especially enjoyed the status it won him.

But at home, in this house, he was a different man from the one on the street. He was calmer. He was happier. He could be normal. Forget what he did outside the walls of his home and enjoy his ill-gotten gains.

The house had two entrances. The front was on to the street and the back on to a very large garden with swings and a slide. He was toying with the idea of putting in a swimming pool for the kids. There was plenty of room if he decided he wanted to. But he was also thinking of moving the families out to Hampstead. That thought made him smile because Hampstead was named after hemp, and hemp had been his first big money spinner. It was where they’d originally processed hemp for ropes. He didn’t sell hemp itself, he admitted that, he sold the leaves and the buds, but it still seemed ironic that he should move there. At least it did to him 298

anyway, the boy from a shantytown near Kingston moving to an affluent suburb of London. But now he was a rave king he had a lot of legal money to play with. The filth could not touch him and they

knew it.

As he put on a Bob Marley CD he could hear Georgie chatting away in his sleep. Malcolm got up and walked towards the kitchen to get some cranberry juice for when the little boy woke properly. He always wanted a nice cold drink when he woke and Malcolm made sure he had one to hand.

He said to Stanley, ‘Go up and get the boy for me.’

Stanley immediately leapt from his chair and made his way out to the hallway. As Malcolm opened the kitchen door he stepped back in surprise.

‘All right. Male?’

Patrick brought the machete down on the man’s big dreadlocked head. He split the skull with the first stroke, then attacked again in a frenzy. Malcolm was half-dead on the floor, his life’s blood slipping away, as his two other men stepped out to see what the commotion was.

Patrick’s two sidekicks attacked them and the noise was loud and brutal. Upstairs Stanley was holding the boy in his arms. He could hear the commotion and bundled the child into the wardrobe as quick as he could and put a chair against the door. Then he ran to Malcolm’s bedroom and grabbed a gun from the hiding place in the window recess.

They caught him at the door. The machete hit him full in the face and the gun went off but injured no one.

The whole house was a blood bath. Patrick was naked. He had stripped off in the garden as had his two accomplices. They could hear Georgie crying and the mortally wounded Malcolm could hear him calling for his daddy.

‘Your daddy is dead, boy!’

Patrick was laughing as they walked back down the stairs. In the large secluded garden he and his men hosed each other down and then got dressed again. Malcolm was still alive and watched them leave.

Patrick waved to him merrily. He liked the fact that Malcolm could not survive those injuries, no one could, and half admired him for hanging on as long as he had. But he also enjoyed Malcolm knowing who had beaten him, who had taken what he owned. It appealed to Patrick.

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Malcolm was worried for his son, all alone upstairs, wondering if they had killed him as well. It was a terrifying and lonely death. He had crawled to the bottom of the stairs before he died. His last thought was to get to his child.

Mikey had driven Marie to the Old London without a word. She had sat beside him, knowing that whatever the call had been about it concerned her. Which meant it was about one of her children. Consequently she was too scared to ask him and he was obviously too scared to tell her.

When they’d finally parked he turned to her and said, ‘Tiffany was found this morning. She’s bad, Marie. The hostel phoned your work. She’s asking for you.’

He saw Marie’s face go even paler than usual.

Ten minutes later they were in the ICU and she was looking down at her daughter’s battered face. Tiffany was beaten so badly she was barely recognisable. At the sound of her mother’s voice she tried to open her eyes.

‘Mum?’

Her voice was stronger than either of them had thought possible.

‘I’m here, Tiff. Just relax. Try and rest, love.’

Tiffany shook her head weakly.

‘No. Listen, Mum, I’m bad. You have to promise me that if anything happens, you will take my baby. Take my Anastasia, please?’

Marie took her hand gently and Tiffany squeezed it tight.

‘I’m sorry. Mum. I should have listened to you. Pat gave me to his mates. Mum. Last night. They taped it - he has the tape. He was laughing, Mum. He’s mad. Said he was going to take my baby, too, and that he was going to get you and Jason.’

She was crying and as Mikey looked down at that broken body he felt rage stir inside him.

‘Is she talking about Patrick Connor?’

Marie could hear the disbelief in his voice. She nodded.

‘He’s done this to her before. I told you he put her on drugs and took every bit of her self-respect. Like he did me.’

‘Fucking hell!’ Mikey was in absolute shock. ‘I’ll fucking kill him meself.’

Tiffany opened her eyes again.

‘I am sorry. Mum, for all the trouble I’ve caused.’

Marie kissed her daughter’s forehead gently.

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‘Don’t worry, sweetie, Mummy will sort it out, OK? I promise you, everything will be OK.’

She was shaking with anger and knew that if she had Patrick in front of her now she would tear him apart with her bare hands. If she had been there over the years this would never have happened. This was her fault and no one else’s. She had let down both her kids, but whereas Jason has fallen on his feet in many respects, this poor little girl had not. She had been left to the care of councils and foster homes, finally abandoned to fend for herself when she wasn’t equipped to take care of a kitten, let alone herself and a child.

She had been easy prey for Patrick Connor and Marie knew only too well he would have got a buzz out of Tiffany’s being her daughter and his son’s sister.

Well, he had better watch his back because he had to deal with her now. Fuck Mikey and all the rest of them. She wanted him herself and she would enjoy taking that bastard down.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Mary Watson stared into her son’s face. ‘I am telling you now, boy, you get rid of that Lucy and you get rid of her soon. How I have stood the shame and degradation of the neighbours knowing she’s living here, I don’t know!’

Mickey Watson was caught between a rock and a hard place. As much as he loved Lucy, his mother was such a strong personality he was terrified of upsetting her. Since he was a boy she had dictated his every act: what he wore, what he did, who he played with and where he worked. It was hard to break the habit of a lifetime.

Also he was afraid that Lucy was like his mother. She was very domineering at times, even though she wasn’t brave enough to front up Mary Watson. Since her dad had shot one of the Blacks Mickey’s mother had been almost demented from the gossip that had been going around. People were glad to see her get some of what she doled out so often. She was now the subject of the gossip by her association with Lucy and that was not what she wanted at all. Mary was the gossip queen of East London and had prided herself on the fact that she was whiter than white, which gave her the right to slaughter everyone else as and when it pleased her. To be on the receiving end of the wagging tongues was hard for her and on one level Mickey understood how much it was upsetting her. For all her faults, and they were legion, she was as straight as a die, he had to give her that much at least.

He glanced at the black bin bags in the hallway. She had packed all Lucy’s stuff and was now telling him she wanted his fiancee out. But where was Lucy supposed to go? She spent most of her time up the hospital with her mum, though she was back at work part-time now. He was bewildered by it all, if truth be told, and wasn’t really sure what the fuck he wanted from either his mother or his fiancee.

If he was honest with himself, Lucy was getting on his nerves.

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She was like his mum in many respects, bossy and short-tempered. Even in bed she was in charge and there was definitely nothing out of the ordinary there. The same routine each and every time, it was boring him.

He watched as his mother opened her mouth again. But he was long past listening to her. He knew the gist of what she was saying, that was more than enough for him. She was like a cracked record, going on and on and on about the same bastard thing, morning, noon and night.

He pictured himself taking back his arm and clumping her one right across the face. It made him smile and she shouted at him nastily, ‘Like fucking Dilly Daydream you are! With your stupid smile and your stupid gormless bloody face. Why don’t you act like a man? Why am I plagued with men who are fucking useless? Like your bleeding father you are, a gutless ponce …’