Mad Cows (2 page)

The store detective shanghaied her back into Harrods. The office into which he eventually steered her was already inhabited by a po-faced pen-pusher and a black lady of advanced years whose smile, upon Maddy's entry, revealed a glittering diamond embedded in her left front tooth.

‘
Lord
have
mercy
,' she hooted. ‘It's not enough to pick up a poor old lady whose doin' no harm to nobody. Now youse pickin' on a helpless woman and pickne. Shame! Shame on you.' She was large, bottom heavy and of awe-inspiring rotundity. If she were a map of Britain then her handbag was Ireland, full, so the store detective alleged, of other people's possessions. The old lady extended her salmon-pink palm in a high-five. ‘Mamma Joy,' she crooned.

The store detective, meanwhile, was rifling through Maddy's belongings. She had forgotten all about the prunes until he produced them with an officious flourish.

‘Oh, Christ. Look, I meant to pay for them . . .'

Jack bleated. Once again Maddy unfastened the left cat-flap in her bra. He latched on fretfully. ‘I need one of those . . . what do you call them? Alert Bracelets, which reads “Brain-Dead Breastfeeder. Handle with Care”.'

Maddy was many things; subtle as a falling piano, as culturally refined as, say, a turd in a cocktail – but she was also as warm and natural and
genuine
as a bather's bum turned sunwards on Bondi Beach. Surely they could see that? She was just about to do the Naïve Aussie Tourist Thing, when the doorman's distinct aftershave invaded the office. But it was the chip on his shoulder the size of a caravan park which gave him away.

‘Is this the woman?' asked the store detective.

‘Yes, Guv.' He was holding, between fastidious forefinger and thumb, the pale, pulpy poppadum of breast pad.

‘Oh, gimme a break. I
would
have paid except Ack Attack here pushed me out on to the goddamn street.'

‘I neva touched 'er.'

‘Yeah, right. And Elton John has his own hair.' Maddy had got more sarcastic since the birth; since she'd given up on blokes. If love was a drug, Madeline Wolfe had been the all-night chemist. But not any more. As far as men were concerned, she'd closed up shop. She liked her new, tough persona. Like her cropped haircut, it suited her somehow.

‘Do you want to ring the baby's father?' the Harrods official, touched by Jack's dreamy gurgle, pushed a phone across the plexiglass desk.

Maddy laughed so strenuously that she choked. It had been a month since she'd seen Alex. The last words he'd ever said to her in the maternity ward
were
, ‘Let's keep in touch.' She opened her mouth to answer the Harrods Inquisitor, but her lips distorted and her strong chin trembled with the effort not to sook. It wasn't that she still loved Alex. It was just, well, when you've been addicted, there were bound to be withdrawal symptoms. Although she was definitely getting better. Lately,
whole seconds
had elapsed where she hadn't thought of him.

‘Don't think waterworks'll get you out of it,' the doorman snarled. ‘Only the guilty ever blub.'

‘Don't be rid-ic—' Maddy fought to gain control of her vowels ‘– ulous. It's the baby, that's all. I cry at the Andrex puppy ad. I cry in the movies . . . and
that's
just in the
trailers
.'

‘Obviously,' Mamma Joy announced, superciliously, ‘de poor gal's postnatal.'

‘I'm not de – de – ' Maddy sobbed ‘– pressed.' She tried to look contemptuous – pretty hard with mascara blobs skid-marking your chops and milk yoghurting your clobber.

‘Gal, you is sadder than a solar-powered vibrator on a rainy day.'

Jack began to wriggle and whinge. Maddy held him at arm's length, frightened by her own ineptitude. She loved him more than life itself – but if only he'd come with operating instructions.

‘Them would laugh you outa da courtroom, boys,' the old lady chortled at the wavering official and the professionally nondescript detective. ‘Hnn. Not to
mention
de newspapers . . .' Scotland quaked and collapsed into Wales during her seismic seizure of laughter.

‘Stop fartin' about and call the fuckin' Plod,' the doorman urged. This guy had a personality guaranteed to give a shrink wet-dreams.

‘Go on. Do. De Babylon gunna
love
dis call. Especially now when they're tryin' to lower dere black crime figures.'

As the store detective and the Harrods official conferred, Mamma Joy's big bright mouth leaned towards Maddy, diamond strobing. ‘When it's rainin' shit,' she whispered hoarsely, ‘get a brolly.' Scooping Jack into her bulky arms, she excavated a space on the desk top and changed his nappy. She then laid him across her knees and rubbed his back in a soothing, circular motion. Maddy, marvelling at the large woman's ease, touched her son's delicate, immaculate head with awe. Like the beginning of any love affair, Maddy was nervous and idealistic. She loved irrationally, without the inoculation of familiarity and experience. A month into motherhood and Jack still felt like some precious accessory . . . in this case, to the
crime
.

‘S'pect you get to Buckingham Palace for dis, boys!' In the place of pearl chokers, rolls of rich fat encircled Mamma Joy's neck. They joggled now as she chuckled. ‘A poor new mudder and a menopausal woman . . . hee,
HEE
, hee, hee . . .' The baby's milky burps
punctuated
her remarks as she handed Jack back to his mother, who held him like a breakable object.

Defeated, momentarily, by the disarming mixture of sobbing and sarcasm, the Harrods official wrote ‘No further action' on Mamma Joy's form.

‘Menopausal! Must be the longest menopause in medical history,' he yowled. ‘You must be in the fuckin'
Menopause Guinness Book of Fuckin' Records
.'

Mamma Joy added a two-fingered salute to her operatic range of gesture.

‘You are banned, however, from the store,' the Harrods official added, in a final face-saving flurry. ‘Both of you.'

That might have been the end of it, if the store detective who was repacking Maddy's possessions had not come across the money pouch. It was nestled – a brown, furry marsupial – in the seat of the baby papoose. As he extracted it from its warm little burrow, Mamma Joy pushed to her feet.

‘Lord have mercy! It's a fit-up.' Her huge body was not just vibrating with rage, it was avalanching flesh. The men drew back. The ferocity of her movements dislodged a sack secured beneath her skirt. Before she could scrabble it back into position, the cotton bag slipped to the floor, spilling its cargo of contraband across the carpet. Mamma Joy exploded into a furious, take-no-prisoners patois.

The doorman gloated. She tweaked his underwear
and
realigned his epaulettes. ‘I think it's time, gentlemen, to get in the Old Bill.'

The baby's contented little pink face snuffled and truffled at its mother's breast, unaware that life had just handed them a one-way ticket: Destination – deep doo-doo.

For Maddy, it was a case of ‘fasten your sanitary belt . . . we're in for a bumpy ride'.

2

Mr Wobbly Hides His Helmet

‘SO, OFFICER . . .' THE
clapped-out desk sergeant looked up from his notes and addressed the young constable who had brought Maddy in for questioning. ‘What led you to the belief that the defendant might be an illegal alien?'

‘She doesn't pronunciate her words properly.'

Maddy snorted with laughter. Jack smiled, probably with wind, but Maddy liked to think he saw the joke.

‘Do you realize,' the sergeant monotoned, ‘that the discovery of stolen merchandise found on your person is the causation of your appearance here at the police station?'

‘I always dress this way.' Maddy resolutely refused to take this situation seriously.

‘Do you realize that failure to input into the present
interface
may give impetus to a detention scenario? What do you think about that?'

‘I think you should arrest that sentence and have it sent down for life.'

The sergeant rubbed a toilworn brow. ‘Let's start again, shall we? Name?'

Maddy stared into her cold Styrofoam cup of coffee. The Chelsea police station had the tiled ambience of a urinal.

‘Occupation?'

‘Mother.'

‘Working mother?'

Now there was a redundant phrase. ‘No. As in Theresa . . . Look, can I go home now?'

‘Home address?'

Right now, Siberia was looking like a more attractive residential abode.

‘Sorry, I can't say.'

It wasn't that she particularly wanted to mountaineer up this poor man's nostrils, but Maddy couldn't possibly reveal the location of Gillian's flat. Gillian Cassells had been in more banks than Ned Kelly and, like him, proven faster on the draw than the deposit. Her Versace tastes somewhat hindered by the Lloyd's debacle – a strange phenomenon, Maddy thought, to go broke saving money – it was credit-card fraud for which she was actually wanted, but Maddy felt confident her best friend had notched up a few other misdemeanours
en route
.

Maddy's mute performance soon entitled her to an interview room. She sat at the desk, concentrating on a cigarette butt embedded in a half-eaten kebab on the carpet at her feet. Each knock on the door heralded the appearance of bigger and bigger policemen. It reminded her of those Russian dolls you stack inside each other. The biggest of all sat opposite her, a dirigible of cigarette smoke hovering over his head. Clad in a dark suit of the sort you wear when somebody's died, with sweat patches in the armpits of his shirt, and a polyester tie, he didn't have to open his mouth for Maddy to see him for what he was; a wolf, in wolf's clothing.

He levelled at her an icy, opaque gaze. ‘Do you know who I am?'

Maddy wiped away the little bit of spit which had projectiled into her eye. ‘Um . . . President of the Saliva Bank?'

‘Regional Crime Squad. Detective Sergeant Slynne. In charge of Operation Big Dipper. Investigating foreign gangs, these days usually Algerian or Nigerian, but historically Aussie. Work seasonally. Tourists. Hard to catch. Post the proceeds home. Same day. Kaput. No evidence.' During his mechanical explanation, the dirigible drifted out of orbit to be immediately replaced by another. ‘If deported, you simply scamper off home for a holiday at the taxpayer's expense, then return using false docs. Do you have a passport?' His manner was Teutonic. ‘Is the
name
in the wallet an alias?' All that was missing were the jackboots. ‘What's the name of your gang leader? How many dips are you doing a day? Four? Six? What are you making from wallets? Two thousand, three thousand pounds per shift?'

Maddy looked at the slowly turning wheels of the tape deck. There seemed to be enough recording equipment in the room for a Beatles reunion album. She couldn't quite believe this was happening to her. Maddy had always seen herself as lucky. Apart from men problems (now
there
was a tautology) the lowest blows life had ever dealt her were soggy croutons in the salad; lack of toilet paper in a public loo; the arrival of her period on a night of passion. This was a woman who walked under ladders.

‘Its very Faginesque of you to use a baby.' Jack, tightly swaddled, was sleeping soundly in Maddy's arms. ‘Is it yours or some poor Albanian brat you pay to bus in from the East End for the day?'

The allegation shattered Maddy's composure. ‘Of course he's mine!''

The Spittle Projectionist's yellow, dingo eyes looked right through her. ‘Single mother, eh? Thought “ovulation” was a warm milk drink before beddy-byes, did you?'

The other policemen in the room Del-toned his smug chuckle with a chorus of ha-ha's. Maddy eyed Officer Slynne narrowly. He was the type of guy that if your plane crashed in the Andes and you had plenty
of
rations and a rescue helicopter had been spotted, you'd
still
eat him.

The Russian Doll policemen stacked themselves to the side to permit their superior access around the desk. With no warning he pounced, wresting Jack from Maddy's grasp. The baby woke with a start, took one look at Officer Slynne and exploded into a paroxysm of rage.

Maddy tugged the baby back; her arms fleshy parentheses around his precious body. His sobs immediately subsided. ‘Excellent judge of character, children, don't you think?' she remarked sweetly.

One of the Russian dolls tittered. Slynne's face, gorged red with fury, silenced him instantly. ‘Interview suspended at the time of 5.35 p.m.' Punching ‘off' buttons on the tell-tale tape, he harpooned her with a hateful stare.

‘Get Social Services to take that bloody brat!' he commanded. ‘What kind of mother are you? Found out too late for an abortion, is that it? Too out of it no doubt . . . On the game, I bet. Your pimp keeps you sexually active, does he?'

‘No,' Maddy replied with droll hostility, ‘I just lie there.'

Detective Sergeant Slynne crushed his coffee cup. Styrofoam splinters dandruffed to the floor. Maddy had a vague idea that things were not going well.

‘I don't suppose you're remotely entertaining the idea of bail. You won't give us a name. You have no address. You were found with some hookey gear
and
we haven't checked your immigration status.'

If he
spat
on her once more, she'd confess to the Birmingham bombings.

‘Look,' Maddy sighed, acquiescing, ‘I was in Harrods. All I remember is someone shouting and a crush of people. The thief must have shoved the money pouch into the baby papoose. My only crime was to forget to pay for a packet of bloody prunes. I'm really tired. If this is some kind of joke, like, what's the punchline?'

‘The “punchline” is that you're about to be put on remand at Holloway Prison. If you'd just cut the bollocks, come across and give us some names, we could do a deal.'