The Graft (8 page)

Instead she consoled herself with the thought that even though she might have a few lines on a long lunch or a night out with the girls, hers was just
recreational
drug use. It wasn’t as if she was addicted. It was just the Essex way of keeping the night going. Whereas that woman was a
real
addict, she
injected
herself. Which was a different ball game altogether.

Mainlining meant you were hooked, everyone knew that. Her line of thought reminded Tammy she was due for her Botox injections that afternoon and Christ himself knew, she could do with them. All the worry of the last few weeks had really begun to show on her face and that bothered Tammy.

It had been her idea to put a TV in the bathroom. Even though she rarely watched it, lately it had been a Godsend.

Until today, of course.

She pushed the Hatcher woman from her mind once more. At the end of the day she was just a mother protecting her own. Tammy would have done the same herself. Not that her boys would have been caught up in crap like that, of course, but it was the same principle.

She gulped down the glass of wine and poured herself another.

It was over.

That was the main thing, she had to remember that.

Nick could go back to his daily grind now and no one would think badly of him and, if she was really honest with herself, she would be glad to get him out from under her feet.

The strange thing was everyone was on their side yet the way Nick was carrying on you’d think everyone was against him. Still, it must be strange to know you were the reason someone had died even if it was a little thief who only got what he deserved.

Sonny Hatcher should never have been in their home in the first place. Tammy reminded her husband of that at every available opportunity. No matter how hard she tried, she could summon up no sympathy for the boy. He should have stayed home that night instead of turning their world upside down.

Detective Inspector Peter Rudde was drinking a large brandy in the company of his DC, Frank Ibbotson. The junior officer raised his glass and then downed his drink in one gulp.

‘So that’s it, sir, it’s all over?’

Rudde nodded.

‘Best outcome. Leary wasn’t doing anything I wouldn’t have done. Did you see that boy’s form? Jesus, he’d been up for everything at some point.’

He pushed his glass at Ibbotson for a refill and the younger man duly made his way to the bar. The news came up on the wide-screen TV and the outcome of the Leary case was broadcast yet again. Once more a cheer went up in the crowded bar and Rudde guessed that the same thing was happening in pubs all over the country.

You couldn’t pick up a paper but it was the main story. Was an Englishman’s home really his castle? It seemed it was this time and he for one was glad of that fact. Sonny Hatcher was a violent little bastard. Rudde knew just how violent he could be. The papers didn’t know the half of it because most of Sonny Boy’s skulduggery had been when he was a minor. He had stabbed a neighbour and walked away from that one because of his home life. But how long could you blame everything on where or how a young thug lived? Plenty of people lived in terrible conditions and they were all right. Rudde himself had come from one of the roughest council estates in East London and look at him now, he was a law enforcer.

He didn’t thieve or lie or attack people.

Well, he conceded, he lied sometimes. But then, didn’t everyone if they were honest? Ibbotson came back with the brandy and Rudde was gratified to see it was a double. The boy was learning at last.

‘Good lad.’

He sipped this one, savouring the taste.

‘It should all die down now and we can get back to normal. We wasted too much time on that case.’

Ibbotson nodded.

He sipped his pint daintily and this, for some reason, annoyed the life out of Rudde.

 
There was a lock-in at the Fox and Ferret even though it was only three in the afternoon. Nick had bought the pub a few years earlier, it was another of his little investments. Today the raucous sound of his friends cheering inside was depressing him.

One of his workmen, Danny Power, the local wag and joke merchant, shouted out: ‘Here, Nick, I heard the Catholic Church has said that kid has got to be buried thirty foot down . . . because deep down niggers are nice people!’

The laughter was long and loud until Nick’s fist connected with Danny’s chin then the place went deathly quiet in seconds.

‘Get out.’

Nick Leary’s eyes were wild with grief and anger.

Danny pulled himself from the floor in shock.

‘Here, Nick, I was only joking . . .’

Nick grabbed him by his shirt and started to drag him to the door. He was aware of all his friends watching, wondering what was wrong with him, but he didn’t care. That was too much, it was going too far.

‘Open the fucking door, Jimmy, or I’ll smash this cunt through it.’

He was more than capable of it and they all knew that. Nick could have a row. He needed to be able to protect himself in his businesses and was a legend in some quarters.

Jimmy Barr who ran the pub quickly unlocked the door and they all watched as Nick threw his long-time friend out into the car park.

‘You’re sacked. I don’t ever want to see you around here again, right?’ Nick was shaking with temper and upset.

Jimmy Barr quickly brought him inside and relocked the door. He knew Danny was better off away from Nick for the time being.

‘Calm down now, Nick, he was drunk, that’s all.’

He poked his face against his friend’s.

‘I don’t give a fuck! That boy is dead and gone. And you lot think it’s fucking funny? Well, I don’t. I don’t care what colour he was or what religion. He was a boy, a seventeen-year-old boy.’

’A seventeen-year-old boy with a gun, Nick.’

This from Anthony Sissons, one of his oldest mates. They went back to infant school together and that gave him the clout to speak his mind.

Nick stared at him for long seconds before he smiled.

’All right, Ant, but I never liked those kind of jokes at the best of times. You know that.’

The talking started up again then but the atmosphere had soured and they all knew it.

One of the men at the bar, a new workman of Nick’s, said to the man beside him: ‘What was all that about? It was only a joke.’

Joey Miles replied gently, ‘Nick’s sister Hester is married to a West Indian bloke called Dixon. Nick’s really close to her.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

Joey laughed because he could hear the surprise in the other man’s voice.

‘Most people don’t, and if you want to stay in your job, you’ll keep it to yourself. Now I’m too drunk, me mouth’s running away with me. Time I went home.’

He pulled himself off the barstool with difficulty, slapped Nick on the back and left.

 
Verbena was inconsolable. Her eldest daughter Hettie had come all the way from Birmingham to hold her hand. Verbena didn’t want her there; she didn’t want anyone. She wanted to grieve on her own. Hettie was aware of how her mother felt.

‘Mummy, for God’s sake, eat something at least, eh?’

All her daughters called her ‘Mummy’, but coming from Hettie it was more like a nickname. There was no feeling in it. Since the onset of her agoraphobia her eldest daughter had lost all respect for her mother and it hurt. She was trying to feed her chicken but Verbena had no appetite for it.

‘When are you going home, Hettie?’

It was a loaded question and they both knew it.

Her daughter sighed.

‘Don’t start, Mummy. You know how I felt about Sonny. He stole from me, he stole from us all. Unlike you I don’t have the spirit of Christian forgiveness.’

Verbena sighed again. Her daughter was very like her in looks. She was big, Caribbean big, with the ample hips and breasts inherited from a long line of Jamaican women. But she didn’t have the kindness that usually went with them. Her whole life was a fight or an argument of some sort. Yet she had loved this child more than the others until Sonny had arrived. Maybe Hettie knew that. Had sensed it? Verbena couldn’t think about it now.

‘I just meant the kids are probably missing you, that’s all. I know how you felt about Sonny. You don’t need to come to his funeral. Anyway, we don’t know when they will release the body.’

Verbena was talking so normally, it was eerie to listen to herself. But she only wanted people at the funeral who’d cared about Sonny, and this daughter of hers hadn’t. Though who could blame her? Sonny had robbed her, stolen a ring from her one Christmas when she had visited her mother, and he’d sold it. The worst of it all was it was her husband’s mother’s ring, worth nothing in money terms but priceless in other ways.

But it had been for his mother, it had always been for his mother. He was dead because of his mother but Verbena would never say that out loud. Poor Jude had enough to contend with as it was.

She pushed away the food and stared out of the window again, watching the children as they hung around the estate while she waited for more news. Any news was welcome at this moment. She had already heard the worst anyone could hear. Nothing else could ever hurt her in quite the same way.

 
Tyrell was in a drinking club in Brixton Heights, the Railton Road to the uninitiated. He knew he should not have gone out but he could not sit there at his mother’s and listen to his son being dismissed like so much garbage by everyone but her. He wasn’t ready for that yet even though he knew he should be. Poor Sonny had got what he deserved after all, if anyone really deserved to die for trying to nick a video or a DVD recorder. It was the gun that still troubled Tyrell most. Where would his son have got a gun? No one seemed to know but he was going to make it his mission in life to find that out.

He had been doing security around London for years; now he had his own company. He had no shortage of cronies and employees to sit with him while he got drunk. He wasn’t a rum drinker by nature but it was a good drink to get drunk on. Anyone who tried it once would understand that.

Tyrell laughed at his own thoughts, and smiled at his friend, Paxton Regis.

‘Do you know, when he read the autopsy the Coroner said that the geezer had used excessive force on my boy. Excessive . . . that sounds a lot when you say it out loud, don’t it?’

He coughed loudly before he continued, ‘He carried on hitting Sonny even after he was unconscious.’

Tyrell gulped at his drink.

‘Fear, see. He was frightened. Guns do that to people, don’t they? They scare me, I can tell you. Once we had an incident on a door in Ilford. We ejected some little bullyboys and they came back with a gun. Little fuckers! I was so angry when I saw it, so angry. So I know what that bloke saw, you know?’

Paxton nodded sadly.

‘I could understand his fear because I have felt it too, you know. But even though I understand how he reacted, I can’t forgive him for taking my Sonny. If he had known my boy, he would have seen what he was really like because he wasn’t a bad kid.’

Tyrell was really drunk now and Paxton was wondering when it would be time to take him home.

‘Now we have to bury him, bury that child, and it’s all wrong. All fucking wrong.’

He was rambling and Paxton nodded at the barman for another rum. Hopefully his friend would drink himself unconscious. Tyrell was in the wrong job, the wrong life. He was just too nice, that was his trouble.

He gulped at his drink once more. Tyrell wasn’t really a drinker so it hadn’t taken much for him to get drunk. But the club was quiet today, quieter than usual, as if everyone was grieving with him even though every man there quietly admitted they would have done the same as Nick Leary. You protected your own, especially your kids and your woman.

Sonny had crossed the line.

But no one said that out loud, of course. Tyrell was far too well respected and liked for that.

 
’All right, Jude?’

She heard the voice and tried to focus her eyes but it was hard.

Sally Hatcher smiled at her even as she tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell around her. She had promised Tyrell she would pop in and see how Jude was doing. By the looks of it, not very well.

Tyrell had said that he had to go to work. She knew he didn’t want to deal with the business today but anything was better than watching this woman destroy herself, apparently. Or watching his mother’s heart break all over again.

‘Get your coat on and I’ll take you to Verbena’s house, she wants you with her.’

‘Go away.’

Sally sighed. Her short hair sat perfectly on her finely shaped head, and her slim athletic body brimmed over with health and well-being, making Jude look even older and more haggard than she actually was.

‘Come on, Jude, Verbena needs you.’

‘No one
needs
me, Sally. Never did, never will. Now do me a favour and fuck off.’

There was no insult intended in the words, swearing was as normal to Jude as breathing. She was already building herself a joint, only this one would hold heroin. She smoked it sometimes. Once Sally left she would mainline and get properly floating.