The Business (36 page)

Jordanna sighed heavily. She felt as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

She wished her granny would hurry up and take them home, take them to their real home. She hated being in this place, hated the dirt, and the stench of her mother’s uselessness but, most of all, she hated her mother’s complete indifference where she was concerned.

She wished that she could make everyone understand that she was fed up with being the sensible one, that she was desperate to be treated like the child she was. She wanted someone to notice her as a little girl, she wanted to play with her dolls in peace, go to the park, be taken to the zoo or play schools like other kids of her age. She wanted to stop feeling so angry inside, and so sad. She wanted to tell someone how awful her life was when they lived with Imelda because no one saw that she was only a child. She was never allowed to be a child, she was always expected to be the older sister.

Even though she loved Kenny Boy, she knew already that his birth had ensured her own childhood was lost, gone. She had been forgotten about so that Kenny could experience his childhood without too much trauma.

Jordanna watched her mother warily these days, she was never far from physical punishment, and she beat her daughter in a calm and calculated manner that was all the worse because there was no real anger in it. No real reason for it. She was only doing it because she
could
, and because she
wanted
to.

She knew that her mother only took them out to vex her granny, and because Jed asked her to. Jordanna wished she was back at her granny’s house, and she wished she was grown up enough to be able to have some say in her own life.

 

Basil was fuming, and he knew that he had every right to feel as he did.

Even though Mel was good at her job, he knew how important it was for the girls to be wary of the person who was controlling them all. He hated that she had already slipped back into her usual pattern of behaviour so soon. More to the point, she had also taken it on herself to recruit a lot of new girls.

Unfortunately, she had not bothered to talk to him about any of it, so she was skimming money off of girls he had no real knowledge of. She had not bothered to give him any of their details. Or, more to the point, she had not given him the details of their current client lists either. She had more or less been running a separate business, and the fact she had thought she could get away with it spoke fucking volumes.

Imelda Dooley was a shrewdie all right. He had to give her that much credit. She was a great girl in many respects, she made sure that everything ran smoothly and, even though she was a fucking junkie, she also knew how to function in the real world when it was necessary. She could be out of her tiny mind, but she was never so far gone that she didn’t know what was going on around her. In many ways Basil admired her for that. She was the only person he had ever come across who could junk and still function. In fact, she functioned better on the needle than most people in their game did without it. She was the anomaly, the wild card. She was also having him over big time, and he had sussed that out only recently. It was his own stupidity that was really getting his goat up.

In reality he had never expected anything less from Mel. She was always up for the con, always up for the thieve. It was why she was so good at her job in the first place. But knowing that she had been skimming him royally for months still fucking rankled. She must have been laughing up her fucking sleeve at him, and she would pay for that. She would not walk away from this lot. Not this time, she needed a lesson in priorities, and he was just the man to give it to her.

A quiet tapping at his office door caused him to take a deep breath, and forcing himself to calm down he called out loudly, ‘Come in.’

A young girl with deep-brown eyes and thick brown hair timidly popped her head around the door. He felt a sudden sorrow for her, knew that she was terrified at what she was going to be asked. He knew also that she would probably answer him truthfully. She was too young to have mastered the art of real lying. Brasses had a whole different approach to lying than the rest of the population. They were forced to learn to lie by the very nature of their profession. They pretended and lied from the moment they went to work to the moment they left. They were liars by nature.

This one, though, had been conned along with him. She was also a real little newey. She was also capable of getting them all banged up if she happened to get herself nicked. On closer inspection she looked about twelve. He felt the anger rise up inside him once more.

He beckoned her inside, and offered her a seat. When she was finally settled in the chair opposite him, he leant on the huge oak desk he had purchased on a whim and, smiling kindly, he said, ‘How old are you, love?’

Amy Dart looked at the man who ensured she had a roof over her head and enough money to do pretty much what she wanted to, and she decided then and there to be as honest as needed. That alone told him how green she was.

‘Fourteen.’

Basil digested that information and felt the heat of shame wash over him. She looked younger than that. He knew that he had not spoken to her before now because he had not actually known of her existence. She, though, believed that she worked for
him
. She probably told people that. Bragged about it. Basil was finding it very difficult to keep a lid on his colossal anger.

‘Where did Imelda get you from? Were you introduced by one of the other girls?’

Amy shook her head vigorously. Believing that she was doing all involved a favour with her honesty, she said proudly, ‘I am the one who has brought in most of the other girls; Mel pays me a fee for every one I procure. I was in a children’s home in Surrey, then I ran away to London. I met Mel at King’s Cross station. She approached me, offered me somewhere to stay, and warned me about how dangerous London could be if you didn’t have someone to look out for you. She was really nice. She helped me get on my feet. So I got in touch with some of the other girls I know, and they came here as well. We like it, and Mel is really good. She looks out for us.’

Amy believed that she was doing Imelda a favour by talking her up to the boss, telling him what a great girl she was. In fact, Amy actually harboured the secret hope that Basil would tell Mel how she had sung her praises.

Basil was seeing the girl as the punters must see her, the heavy make-up that she believed made her look older than her years, but which in reality only emphasised her extreme youth. The clothes, cheap and garish, that caressed her slim frame and made the illusion of childhood even more apparent. Made her seem vulnerable. Just what the nonces were looking for. Amy looked like she was dressed up in her mum’s clothes, and Basil knew how alluring that could be to certain people. Basil had no interest in employing girls like Amy Dart though. Girls in their early teens who had been through the care system. He believed that the care homes were the hotbed for prostitution. Most of the girls he employed had been the products of children’s homes, care facilities or fostering. He would not touch them until they were over the legal age of consent though, and looked it.

He had seen the young ones off, and he had made sure none of the girls he employed got under his skin. Only one had ever got his attention and he was determined not to let that happen again.

Basil had found out about Imelda’s little sideline purely by accident. He had trusted her to run things for him, had known she was more than capable, and had immersed himself in his other businesses, happy to be away from her, and quite content with how she would be running things in his absence.

But then a regular client had mentioned to him that the girl he had requested had been a bit too young for his tastes, and so new to the game that she was still a bundle of nerves. The man in question had laughed it off, but Basil knew he was being told not to make the same mistake again. The man in question was very well-to-do; he wanted a woman, and he expected a woman. Also, if his pasttime should ever become common knowledge, he might live down paying for sex, although that would be bad enough in itself. But if it was a little girl he was meeting once a week, that would destroy him completely. And so it should, as far as Basil was concerned. That was a market Basil had never wanted to explore, even though real money was there for the taking. He knew that there were a lot of men willing to pay a lot of poke for the chance to fuck a child. The thought of it going on was enough to make him feel sick with disgust and anger. After the chat with the client he had pondered the situation, as he pondered any decision he had ever made. He had asked around, and he had not been told what he wanted to hear.

Basil had then started his quest for the truth, and the truth had blown his mind. Thanks to Imelda, he now had a reputation as a peddler of children, and as such he had no real protection any more. The police he paid off would not look the other way if this ever became common knowledge. Imelda had dragged him into the sordid world that she loved, and such was her vileness, her baseness, she was willing to trade these little girls in his name. She was willing to hide behind him. Use his good name and his friendship, and earn herself a lot of money and, at the same time, destroy everything he had ever accomplished for himself. If anything had gone wrong, if the girls had been discovered, she would have said he was the boss and, as such, he would have had to take the flak. But he had taken her on and given her the opportunity to better herself. She had been his number two, she had been his stand-in, his namesake. She worked for him, and she had taken advantage of his good nature. Of his good name. Imelda Dooley was fucking scum. She was without any moral code whatsoever. But then, deep inside, he had always known that.

Amy Dart was watching the man before her with the fascination of all children who were worried because they did not know whether they were in trouble or not. She sensed that she was not telling him what he wanted to hear and was sick with fear that he might get rid of her. If he did, where was she to go?

‘The house you share with the other girls, who pays for that?’

Amy grinned, her small, even teeth were coated in the yellow custard of heroin and cigarettes, and Basil wanted to scream in despair at what he had inadvertently stumbled into. The house turned out to be a squat in Brixton, and Basil knew it would not have been long before it was raided by the police and social services. He was a hair’s breadth from a long sentence and permanent shame. He was only pleased he had found out Imelda’s scam before it was too late.

He had trusted her, he had helped her. He had been good to her. She had found a niche with him that had given her a measure of respect. She had then mugged him off without a second’s thought, had seen fit to put his whole operation in jeopardy for her own ends. She had not even thought of how her little sideline might have affected him. She was such a fucking junkie that she had not allowed for what would happen to her if he was closed down, what she would do if that ever occurred. She had jeopardised all their livelihoods, and he would not fucking let that one go. Now she was going to find out just how vindictive he could be. She was going to find out just how dangerous the world she inhabited actually was for the people who were foolish enough to take advantage of their betters. Imelda Dooley was going to be made aware of just how far she had pushed him, and shown just how far he was willing to push her back.

But first he had to make sure that Amy Dart and her little cohort were dismissed from his world, that they understood that the mentioning of his name by any of them would result in serious aggravation. In extreme cases, even death.

Chapter Sixteen

Jordanna was nervous, but then she spent the best part of her life being nervous. Her mother’s sudden interest in her children would make anyone nervous, let alone a small child. Especially a child who had spent the best part of her life on the receiving end of her mother’s whims, her paranoia, or her plain bloodymindedness. Jordanna knew that her mother only turned to her when the rest of the world was beyond her reach. She knew that her mother only needed her when everyone else within her orbit was fed up with her, were sick of her demands, and her mother needed to believe that she had someone who would always care for her, no matter what happened.

Jordanna played the game. She had played the game where her mother was concerned since she had been old enough to understand what hate was, had understood that the majority of people in her world were not capable of anything even remotely resembling love or caring. Although they did understand the power of usefulness, and they made a point of using it, accompanied with either fear or emotional blackmail. Depending on the circumstances.

Imelda’s need to have Jordanna there beside her was also larger, for no other reason than that she needed her to watch over Kenny Boy; she was the only person for whom he would do as he was requested without a fight of some kind. Imelda also knew that Jordanna was the only person in the world who she could rely on to keep her son happy.

So Jordanna was seeing much more of her mother than usual. Since she had met Jed, Imelda had taken to playing at grown-ups, and it was not something she was any good at. In fact it was almost painful to watch her as she pretended an interest in her two children that was so forced it was traumatic for everyone concerned.

Kenny was still quite small, but he already knew that he had his mother’s love, even if it was a haphazard only-when-it-suited-her kind of love. But it was there nevertheless. Jordanna, on the other hand, had to make do with Kenny’s adoration of her, and Jed’s genuine kindness and gentleness. He was always ready with a hug or a kiss and he made her mother acknowledge her existence. So, for the first time in years, spending time in her mother’s presence was almost tolerated.

As Jordanna curled up on her mother’s sofa with her little brother cuddled into her arms, the usual stench of overflowing ashtrays and stale lager surrounding her, she made a point of not looking around her, made sure she didn’t judge her mother or her lifestyle. She just kept her ears open and she ensured that the dirt and filth that denoted her mother’s life didn’t affect either of them too much.