IT WAS ALMOST a fortnight since Tilly had had the exchange with Violet about Angie and now, a chance meeting with Pauline Thompson – the biggest gossip on the whole estate – had only served to confirm Tilly’s worst fears about the girl’s welfare.
‘Stan,’ she gasped, standing over her husband as he sat in his armchair in the front room, puffing on his pipe and reading the Daily Mirror, digesting the enormous bacon-and-onion suet roll he had had for his tea. ‘You’ll never guess what Pauline Thompson just told me.’
Stan Murray didn’t respond. It was Friday night, he’d had a long, hard week at work, and listening to some old nonsense passed on to his wife by Pauline Thompson, who could talk a glass eye to sleep, wasn’t very high on his list of priorities. So he just cocked a deaf one, and let her carry on.
‘Stan. Are you listening to me?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘I was outside sweeping the front path – you wouldn’t believe the rubbish that gets blown under that gate from the street of an evening. But I know who the kids are, the ones who drop all them sweet wrappers. They’re out there, hanging around by the lamppost. I’ve a good mind to go and see their mothers.’
Stan, more interested in an article on the evil threat of drug-pushers moving in on the housing estates than in the provenance of discarded Jamboree Bags, kept on reading. But, knowing his wife’s persistence when it came to putting the world to rights, he kept up the pretence of having a conversation with her.
‘Really?’ he offered non-committally.
‘Anyway, according to Pauline Thompson, Violet Knight is having an affair.’ As she said the last two words, she banged her broom down twice for added drama. ‘Affair’ wasn’t part of Tilly’s usual vocabulary and her using such a word, along with the broom banging, had the effect of getting Stan’s full attention.
He let the paper drop to his lap and took the pipe from his mouth. ‘An affair, Tilly? Are you sure?’
‘Positive. And with Sam Clarke, if you don’t mind. Whatever would that poor wife of his have to say if she found out? There’s her working all hours and there’s that hussy, Violet Knight, flashing around the presents he’s buying her and bragging about all the fancy places they go to. No better than a Cable Street trollop, if you want my opinion. No wonder her Angie’s running loose. Our Jackie said she’s never in of a night. Never. And you won’t believe this, she’s handed in her notice. And her with that good job and all. A disgrace. That’s what it is.’
The conversation, or rather his wife’s monologue, had lost its sparkle for Stan. Affairs were one thing, any man would be interested in the idea of Violet Knight … well, of Violet Knight, full stop. She was a fine-looking woman. But what some kid was getting up to at work? Stan could easily get by without knowing the details of that, thank you very much.
‘You know, Stan, I feel like going up to Poplar and having a word with Sarah Pearson. That girl’s nan would be shocked if she knew what was going on.’
Stan picked up his paper and began searching for his place in the article.
‘Don’t get involved, Tilly,’ he said, knocking out his pipe in the ashtray. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘But poor little Angie. She’s like one of our own.’
‘You’re too good, love,’ Stan said, closing his part in the proceedings. Then added ambiguously, ‘That’s your trouble.’
At the other end of the terrace, there was rather more than a bit of sweeping, gossiping and reading going on. Angie was watching television in the front room, singing along with the Byrds’ ‘Mr Tambourine Man’; Vi was in the kitchen, fresh from the bath, with just a towel wrapped round her, checking her hair in the small mirror over the sink and looking forward to a Friday night on the town; and Craig was standing behind her, running his hands up and down her hips.
‘Don’t jog me, Craig,’ Vi said, batting at him playfully, ‘or I’ll never get these flick-ups right.’
‘Don’t bother with your hair, Vi,’ he murmured in his soft, Scottish drawl, nuzzling into her damp neck, and breathing in the scent of talc and hair lacquer. ‘We don’t have to go out.’
‘Oh yes we do.’ Vi twisted round in his arm and pecked him on the lips. ‘I want a very large gin and tonic, followed by a slap-up meal and a bottle of wine. Then we’ll come back here and I’ll show you how grateful I am for such a smashing night out.’
Resigned to paying for his pleasures, Craig slumped down on to the kitchen chair. ‘You win. As usual.’
Vi used one hand to trace his lovely, sculpted mouth and the other to tuck in her towel more securely. ‘Of course I win. Now I’ll just go up and get dressed. I’ll be five minutes.’
Craig looked sceptical.
‘OK, ten. Fifteen at the most.’
Craig rolled his eyes and slapped her on the backside. ‘I know you, Vi. I’ll see you in about half an hour. When you’ve tried on every frock in your wardrobe.’
As she ran giggling up the stairs, Vi called out to Angie, ‘Make some coffee, Angie. The kettle’s almost boiled.’
Rather than going through the rigmarole of having yet another row – her not going in to work every day was becoming almost an obsession with her mum – Angie did as she was told.
Still singing at the top of her voice, Angie stopped dead in the kitchen doorway. ‘Oh, you’re here.’ She gave Craig nothing more than a passing glance as she went over to the cooker where the kettle was whistling loudly. She turned off the gas and took a moment to compose herself. She couldn’t stand the cocky so-and-so. He was so full of himself. And the way her mum swooned over his every word. It turned Angie’s stomach. Why she was going out with him again was beyond Angie.
No it wasn’t.
He was good-looking, at least five years younger than her mum, and he earned good money. What more could she want?
Angie gritted her teeth. He was acting just like he used to: as if he owned the place – feet stretched out under the table, flicking through her mum’s copy of Weekend and waiting for her to make him coffee.
And she was sure he was ogling her. Even with her back to him. It made her flesh creep.
Angie was right, he was.
Craig hadn’t seen Vi’s daughter for months, and he was, to say the least, very pleasantly surprised. She looked sensational. He tossed the magazine on to the kitchen table and looked her slowly up and down.
‘Very tasty, darling. Very tasty indeed. I have to say, it is a very striking improvement. Been to the beauty parlour, have you?’
When she ignored him, he tried another tack. ‘Smoke?’
Angie would have loved to have said yes to a cigarette, she was gasping for one, but she wouldn’t dare risk smoking in front of her mum, it would just give her another excuse to have a go at her. ‘No. I don’t.’
She bit on her lip and spooned Nescafé, crossly, into two mugs, one for her mum and, grudgingly, one for him. ‘I can’t remember, do you take sugar?’
Craig stood up and moved so close to her, she could feel his breath on the back of her hair.
‘No. No sugar. But I like my girls sweet, Angie. Just like you.’
She could hardly believe the cheek of him. The creep was actually touching her leg.
Angie spun round to confront him. ‘What the hell do you think you’re—’
Before she could finish, Craig’s mouth was covering hers and his hand was grabbing at her breast.
Angie struggled and kicked out at him, but it was useless, he was too strong for her; he had her pinned against him and was forcing his tongue between her lips.
He might have been strong, but his timing was lousy. He had just torn two of the buttons off Angie’s top, in a fumbled attempt to get inside her bra, when Vi came back into the kitchen.
‘Angela! Stop that! Stop it now!’ Vi grabbed Angie’s arm and wrenched her out of Craig’s grip.
‘Me?’ Angie staggered back, stunned, against the table. Not only had her mum’s boyfriend just attacked her, she was being blamed for it. She rubbed the back of her hand roughly across her mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of him. ‘You should ask that … that thing what he thinks he’s doing. Not me.’
Vi poked Craig in the chest. ‘Well?’
‘Don’t get excited, Vi.’
‘Don’t get excited?’ Vi’s hands trembled as she snatched up her cigarettes from the window ledge. ‘I come in the kitchen—’
‘Just look at her. Throwing herself at me, she was. Begging for it. Dirty little slut.’
‘Mum,’ Angie pleaded. ‘He ripped my shirt open.’
‘For Christ sake!’ Vi, having just noticed that her daughter’s nipples were showing through her exposed, lacy bra, was becoming almost hysterical. ‘Cover yourself up.’
Angie, with tears spilling down her cheeks, pulled the torn blouse around her.
Craig curled his lip. ‘If my daughter—’
‘Your daughter?’ screamed Angie. ‘How old’s she then? Can’t be more than, what, five or six? Because, let’s face it, Craig, you’re not much older than me.’
‘Angela,’ Vi’s voice was now low and menacing, ‘if you think you can carry on like this under my roof.’
‘Like what?’ This was so ridiculous it was almost funny. It was like watching a farce on the telly, when everything gets confused and people pop in and out of the wrong doors and girls’ dresses just fall off and men run around in their underpants. ‘Mum …’
Vi dragged on her cigarette. ‘Get out.’
‘Me?’
‘Get out of my sight.’
Angie suddenly felt very calm. ‘You’ve said that too many times.’
‘Well, I mean it this time.’
‘All right then. I will.’
Vi blinked rapidly. ‘It’s not as easy as that, young lady.’
‘Let go of my arm, Mum.’ Angie pulled away and ran out of the room.
Vi caught her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Angie, I’m warning you.’
Craig joined them in the hall. ‘I don’t need all this bloody drama.’
Angie started up the stairs. ‘What? Get enough of that in Scotland, do you, Craig? From your wife and kids?’
‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ he said, puffing out his cheeks and shaking his head. ‘I’ll see you sometime, Vi.’ He undid the front door, turned, smiled up at Angie and winked. ‘And I hope to see you again too, sweetheart.’
Vi’s eyes were blazing. She had spent nearly two hours getting ready to go out and now she was being elbowed. ‘Don’t think you can come running back here any time you like!’ she shrieked.
Craig stepped outside and closed the door quietly behind him.
‘Good riddance,’ shouted Angie, running up the stairs.
‘How could you do that to me?’ Vi wailed. ‘Chucking yourself at him. It’s disgusting. You’re meant to be my daughter.’
Angie stopped on the landing. ‘And you’re meant to be my mother.’
‘I just don’t understand you any more.’
‘No, you don’t, do you, Mum?’ She held on to the banister, leaned forward and stared down into her mother’s face. ‘You know this was nothing to do with me. It was your snake of a rotten boyfriend. He could have raped me. But you couldn’t care less. So long as you get what you want. And you have, yet again. I’m leaving. Satisfied?’
Vi slapped Angie, hard, across her tear-stained face. ‘You spiteful cow. I’ll be glad to see the back of you. And don’t think you can go running along the street to Tilly Murray. Cos I’ll tell the old bag exactly what you’re like.’
‘What I’m like?’
‘Yeah. A bloody Lolita. That’s what you are. Nothing more than a grubby little whore.’
Angie said nothing more. She turned round, went into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and pulled out all the glossy carrier bags from her shopping trips with David. She stuffed as many of her things into them as she could carry and left the house to the sound of Vi screaming that she never wanted to set eyes on her, ever again.
When she heard David’s voice, Angie took a deep breath and pressed the sixpenny bit down into the slot; she could barely move for all the bags packed around her in the phone box. ‘It’s me, Angel.’
‘Everything OK?’ He sounded busy, distracted.
‘Fine. I know it’s late, but—’
‘Angel, I’m a bit tied up at the minute.’
‘Sorry, I know we’re not meeting till tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you those two weeks are up. The two weeks the doctor said I would have to wait, if I …’
‘So they are.’ David motioned for Bobby to close the door to the outer office so that he could hear her better. ‘Now, what are we going to do about that then?’
Angie could hear the smile in his voice. She only hoped he would be as happy when he heard what she had to say next. ‘You know the other week, when you told me you had more than one flat?’
She thought she heard a slight pause before he said ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I’ve sort of fallen out with my mum. And I need to ask a favour.’
‘Go on.’
‘Would it be a real cheek if I asked to stay in one of them? Just for a day or two. Until I sort something out. I wouldn’t need much space, and I’m really tidy.’
‘Angel, don’t say anything else.’
She closed her eyes. She had gone too far. Asked too much. Why had she chucked in her job? At least she would have had some money. Where could she go now? Her mum wouldn’t think twice about telling Tilly Murray all sorts of lies. And that would mean getting Jackie caught up in the whole rotten mess. And if she went to stay with her nan, how would she explain being out with David till all hours and not going in to work any more? Angie almost laughed. Shame she didn’t have Marilyn’s number on her.
‘Angel? You there?’
‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘I said, have you got a pen?’
‘I think so. Somewhere.’
‘Well, find it. I’m going to give you an address. It’s the top floor of a nice little house. You jump in a cab and you can move in tonight. I’ll meet you there in about an hour.’
While Angie was writing down the address, Vi was banging on the door of Sam’s shop. It was all shut up and the main lights were off, but she could see him through the glass door, in the pale light of the desk lamp that stood by the till. She banged harder. She was buggered if she was going to spend another evening by herself.
After much sliding of bolts and turning of locks, the door was eventually opened.
‘Violet, what a lovely surprise.’ Sam was almost drooling at the sight of his unexpected visitor, as if he was a big, pink, hungry baby and she was his next feed. ‘I was thinking about you, while I was cashing up.’
‘Were you, Sam?’ Vi lifted her chin and looked into his watery, almost colourless eyes.
He nodded eagerly. ‘I was. Come in. Please.’ His mouth was so dry he could barely spit out the words.
‘Thanks,’ she said sweetly, following him through to the back of the shop.
He wasn’t Craig, but any port in a storm.
It took Sam a lot less time to get her out of her clothes than it had taken Vi to get into them. Within moments they were writhing around on the sofa he had installed in the stock-room – her naked, him with his trousers round his ankles – and it took Sam even less time to reach a gasping, breathless climax.
Sam’s always speedy achievement of sexual gratification – his own, not hers – was not a problem for Vi, it was a relief. She preferred to have as little contact with his flabby, sweaty body as possible.
Now Craig on the other hand, with his firm, taut belly, and his big, muscled thighs, she could have had him pumping away at her for hours, have had him touching her and …
She could kill that ungrateful little cow. Making a pass at him like that. Her own daughter.
‘Violet.’ Sam was panting into her ear. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘What’s that then?’ she asked, looking up at him through the curtain of greasy grey hair that had fallen over his pudgy face.
‘I’ve decided to tell Cissie. About us.’
With surprising force, Vi pushed him off her, shoving him to one side like an unwanted portion of overboiled cabbage, and then levered herself up on to her elbows. ‘Don’t be hasty, Sam.’ Christ, if he left his old woman, he’d want to be hanging around her morning, noon and night.
‘Don’t you want to be with me?’ He looked like a kid whose lolly had melted.
‘Of course I do, darling.’ With a bit of difficulty, Vi rolled him back on top of her, knowing that the feel of her flesh against his would soften his brain as surely as it would harden his penis. ‘I just don’t want you losing everything in the divorce courts. Not when you’ve worked so hard for it all.’
Sam smiled happily. ‘You’re so good, Violet. Always worrying about me. Most women would only be after what they could get.’
‘I know, Sam,’ she said, running a fingernail over his fluff-covered buttock. ‘Some women are just selfish.’
‘Craig.’ With one eye on the light shining from under the lavatory door, Vi whispered urgently into the phone that was mounted on the stock-room wall. Sam had only just gone into the loo, and she knew from experience that he would be in there a good few minutes. ‘I had to call you. I can’t get you out of my mind. I promise, nothing like what happened tonight will ever happen again. Honestly, Craig. It was all so stupid. She was just showing off. I don’t know what’s got into that girl lately. Please, let’s be friends again.’
Craig took a long moment as he considered what to do, and eventually came to the conclusion that he was at a loose end for the night, Vi was always willing, and, what the hell …
‘I’ll be round in about an hour,’ he said.
Gratified as she was to be back in Craig’s good books, this wasn’t what she had expected. She’d thought he would punish her. Make her wait at least a couple of days.
‘An hour?’ she said brightly, then jumped at the sound of Sam pulling the chain. She’d better get a move on.
‘Tell you what, Vi. As I’m already in bed, come over to the hotel. I’ll tell reception to expect you.’
She was already half-dressed when Sam appeared in the doorway of the loo, wearing a pair of voluminous white Y-fronts and a look of profound disappointment.
‘Not going already are you, Violet?’
Vi put on an appropriately pained expression. ‘I’ve got to, Sam. I was enjoying myself so much I lost all track of time.’
He wobbled towards her, his amorous intentions clearly showing in his underpants. ‘Can’t you stay for a little bit longer?’
‘I’d love to. You know that. But I promised I’d go and stay with my mum. She’s not been well and the neighbour who usually looks in on her has had to go away for the night. I can’t leave her by herself. Not when she’s been poorly.’
Sam smiled a benevolent, understanding yet disappointed sort of a smile, and kissed her chastely on the forehead. Then he led her through to the shop.
‘Here,’ he said, taking two five-pound notes from the still not cashed-up till. ‘Take this for a cab, and get a few flowers for your mum in the morning.’
Vi looked suitably surprised and grateful. ‘You are such a generous man,’ she said, tucking away the money in her bag.
It was almost half past nine, and Sonia was driving at speed through the back streets of Chelsea, trying to avoid the worst of the Friday evening traffic. She was going to meet Mikey in a pub in the King’s Road and she couldn’t wait to be with him. She hadn’t seen him for four whole days – David had been working him ridiculously hard – and all she could think about was being in his arms, making love with him and then discussing their future together, the family they would have and the life they would share for ever.
Sonia had just negotiated the left-hand turn into Flood Street – where she could only hope she would find a parking place – when she screeched to a sudden, tyre-burning halt.
There, across the road, outside a pretty, flower-bedecked house, was someone who looked exactly like David.
She frowned, screwing up her eyes for a better focus.
It was him. There was his Jag, parked behind a taxi, and there he was, unloading parcels from the back seat of a cab and chatting to a girl. A young, pretty girl.
Now he was carrying the parcels into the house. David, who never did anything that he could pay someone else to do for him, was carrying some kid’s shopping.
And he was bloody smiling.
Smiling like a lovestruck teenager.
And – she didn’t believe this – there was Bobby Sykes, coming out of the house and walking down the path, carrying a parrot in a cage.
A bloody parrot?
And he was sodding smiling as well.
Sonia, forgetting her carefully achieved reinvention of herself into a charming, sophisticated wife, slapped the steering-wheel angrily and hissed nastily under her breath, ‘What the fuck is going on here, David Fuller?’
It took her only a few minutes more to work it out. The bastard was setting up some cheap little tramp in a cute little house off the King’s Road, a place that she herself would have loved as a pied-a-terre. Some rotten bitch who looked barely old enough to have left school and, worst of all, looked almost young enough to be her daughter.
Sonia reversed into the kerb and did a careful U-turn. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, didn’t want him to see her, didn’t want him to know what she knew. Not yet. Not until she worked out what she was going to do next.
As she turned back on to the King’s Road, Sonia took a last look at the sickening sight of the love birds in her rear-view mirror. ‘Two can play at that game, David Fuller.’
‘If I get off right now, Angel, I can sort things out and be back in an hour. Two hours, top whack.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘OK?’
‘OK. And, David. Thank you.’
He pulled a mock stern face. ‘What for?’
‘Everything. I can’t believe you’ve done all this for me. You’ve been so kind and generous. And I am so lucky.’
He chucked her under the chin and winked. What a little doll. And a virgin! ‘You make yourself at home. All right?’
‘Thanks.’
‘And don’t keep thanking me.’ He walked along the parquet-floored hall towards the door. ‘You can show me your appreciation later.’
Angie smiled, but, as David closed the door behind him, her stomach was tying itself into knots. To distract herself from thinking about what was going to happen later – that something she had been longing for so badly, but which still absolutely terrified her – Angie wandered around the flat, trying to take it all in.
It was small, compared to David’s other places she had seen, but it was incredible, fantastic, just like the fashionable pads featured in magazine articles about trendy, busy young women living in London.
There was a main, L-shaped room divided into sitting and dining areas, a neat little kitchen, fitted out with all the latest equipment, a smallish single bedroom, and, best of all, a big, bright, airy double bedroom with French doors that opened out on to a tiled terrace, with a table and chairs and pots and tubs spilling over with all sorts of plants and greenery.
Angie roamed through the rooms, imagining herself to be a character in some groovy film like Darling, or The Knack, or A Hard Day’s Night, or something – with David co-starring as Michael Caine, of course – then, more prosaically, wondering how this had all happened to her. How such good fortune had smiled on mousy little Angie Knight from Dagenham. How she had met this wonderful, exciting, powerful, generous, handsome man; had gone on the Pill; had got groped by that revolting Craig and thrown out by her mum – that had definitely been what her nan would call a blessing in disguise; and had then moved into a flat in Chelsea.
A flat.
In Chelsea.
Jackie was going to go green with envy, completely bottle green. No, she wasn’t, she was actually going to pass out cold when she saw it. Flat as a mat.
If she saw it.
Angie started tidying all her bags and parcels into the wardrobe – she wanted it to look nice for when David came back, but wouldn’t take the liberty of hanging anything up – and thought about Jackie. Angie really missed the closeness of their old friendship. Since she had become Angel, things just weren’t the same any more; it was as if they were from different worlds.
Angie looked at her watch to see how much longer she had to wait for David. The watch her nan had given her.
She missed her too.
Angie wandered into the white-carpeted living-room and looked at the telephone on the smoked-glass coffee table.
David had told her to make herself at home. If she was quick, surely he wouldn’t mind, and she could always offer to pay for the call.
She settled herself gingerly into the basket chair that was suspended on a chain from the ceiling, lit a cigarette and picked up the phone. It took her a moment to get used to the press-button dialling, but then she was through.
‘Honestly, Nan, I’m fine. Marilyn’s mum said I can stay as long as I like. I’m in Marilyn’s brother’s room. He doesn’t need it because he’s away at college. It’s funny, he’s at exactly the same place as Jackie’s brother, Martin. And East Ham’s really convenient for work. Much nearer than Becontree. The fares’ll be so much cheaper.’
Sarah wanted to say, Don’t strong it too much, Angie, I’m no fool. Instead she just asked her granddaughter, ‘Are you sure you’re all right, babe? You would tell me if you were in trouble?’
Angie put on her brightest, happiest voice, and set about changing the subject. ‘I’m fine. Really. I promise. Here, how’s Doris’s friend Lily? Pleased she can stay in her house?’
‘I wanted to ask you about that, Angie.’
Annoyed with herself for choosing such an unwise diversion as Lily Patterson and Burton Street – she didn’t want to get drawn into discussing David, however indirectly – Angie butted in. ‘Mum was ever so angry, Nan.’
Sarah Pearson let the subject of Burton Street drop. For the time being, at least. ‘Does she know where you’re staying?’
‘No. I’m going to write to her. Let her know I’m all right.’ Angie hesitated. ‘I worry about her, you know, Nan.’
Sarah sighed. Poor little love, it should be Violet, the mother, worrying about her daughter, not the other way round. ‘I know you do, lovely. Just like I worry about you.’
‘There’s no need, Nan.’ Angie looked around the room at the impressive pictures, expensive furnishings and exotic plants and closed her eyes tightly. She hated lying to her. ‘I told you, I’m fine here at Marilyn’s. Just fine.’
‘Come and stay with me.’
Not only would her nan never approve of David, say she found her Pill packet …
‘I’m fine, Nan. You know Mum. It’ll all have blown over in a day or two and I’ll be back home.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’ And I’m sure I want to be with David as much as I want to be away from my spiteful, selfish mother and her disgusting boyfriends.
‘Are you sure about this, Sonia?’ Mikey definitely wasn’t sure. After spending the past four days amongst the missing – he’d been busy schtupping the little blonde waitress from the Coffee Bongo, who he had generously decided to give a second chance – Mikey had expected Sonia to rip off his clothes the moment she saw him, not insist they go to bloody Plaistow to watch the boxing.
It wasn’t as if he had even wanted to see her tonight. The novelty of fucking Fuller’s wife, regardless of her very appealing adventurous streak, had worn thin. He preferred younger birds. Then, when she had mentioned the boxing, he had given her a knock back at first, not fancying being with her in full view of any face in London who fancied a bit of sport that night. But Sonia, much to his surprise, had started making threats about talking to her old man about the keys and the club. They were veiled threats, admittedly, but still threats. Then she had gone all soft and lovely again and had talked some girlie bollocks about how much she loved him.
Anyway, he was here now and he might as well enjoy himself, have a few drinks and earn a few quid – he’d already heard who was going to win the first bout from a bloke he knew, Dodgy Pete.
‘I’m putting a ton on the Irish kid in the first,’ he told Sonia, as they filed through an anonymous-looking, black-painted door. ‘Same for you?’
Sonia nodded, took the money from her gold mesh evening bag and handed it to him. ‘I’ll be sitting over there.’ She gestured with a lift of her chin, and smiled seductively at him. ‘I’ll make sure I save you a seat.’
The seating, set round a central boxing ring, made the room look like a miniature version of a professional sports arena, which it was – except for the large, well-stocked bar that ran all along one wall – but outsiders would never have guessed. The building was a brick-built, single-storey affair on a parcel of waste ground at the back of a pub near Balaam Street. It had been built to look like a storage facility, a small warehouse, but had never served any other purpose than staging unlicensed boxing bouts, and was known to those privy to such matters as one of the premier illegal venues in East London.
The crowd tonight were typical: men of all ages from youthful to quite elderly, mostly smartly dressed and prosperous-looking, with the occasional individual, attached to one or other of the fighters, in more casual clothes. The women, on the other hand, were generally much younger and, regardless of age, were dressed to the nines in outfits that would have graced a cocktail party – had they been the types to attend such functions. As for accessories, fur stoles seemed to be the favourite choice amongst the women, while the men sported large cigars; showy gold and diamond jewellery was favoured by both sexes.
As Sonia made her way to one of the simple, straight-backed chairs closest to the ring, she took note of all the familiar faces, making sure she was on full view. She’d show David what indiscretion was all about and, with a bit of luck, she would force Mikey’s hand to go away with her sooner rather than later.
As she sat down, she was a bit disappointed to see that David himself wasn’t there – that really would have got things going – but, if she was honest, she was also relieved. Mikey wouldn’t have had the bottle to stay if David was around. She shouldn’t have really expected him to be there anyway, not when he had his fancy piece to play with. But she was gratified to see that there were plenty of other people around who knew her, including Peter Burman and his entourage, and Jeff from the Canvas Club with his dozy, loyal little wife, Jean.
As he made his way over to Sonia with their drinks, Mikey wasn’t sharing Sonia’s pleasure at seeing so many blokes who were friends of Fuller’s, and was feeling increasingly uncomfortable about being on show. Then he saw Jeff and his stomach flipped over. It was all very well Sonia saying that everyone would just think he was minding her while they were waiting for her old man to turn up, but that bastard Jeff had it in for him, and could cause him all sorts of trouble.
Mikey edged his way along the row, and a slow smile spread across his lips. What was he worrying about? If Jeff grassed him up, he would tell Fuller that the lying bastard was just covering up for his own little private enterprise – all the pills he was knocking off from the club and selling on the side, and the five per cent he was pocketing every night.
At the sound of the key in the lock, and David calling out that it was OK, it was him, Angie jumped up from the sofa where she had been curled up listening to the radio. She didn’t want him to think she was taking advantage.
She heard him throw his keys on to the table in the hall, then his footsteps moving towards her.
He was smiling broadly as he came into the room, and was holding a magnum of champagne and a bunch of flowers. He was enjoying himself. He hadn’t bought flowers for a bird in years. It was like starting courting again.
‘Hello, Angel.’
‘Hope it’s all right, I used the phone. To call my nan.’
‘No need to ask. You help yourself to whatever you want.’ He put the bottle on the table, went over to the long, low teak sideboard, took out two glasses and set about pouring them drinks.
‘Thanks. You’re ever so kind.’ Angie jumped as he popped the cork. ‘And this place is smashing.’
‘Shame you didn’t like the parrot.’
‘But I did. I loved it. Didn’t Bobby tell you? I was worried I wouldn’t be able to look after it properly, that was all. I’m going to be out most of the time during the day. Looking for a new job.’
‘Bobby’s a man of very few words, darling.’ He handed her a brimming, foaming glass, picked up the bottle, and led her through to the bedroom. ‘And I told you: you don’t have to work.’
Angie took a small sip, smiled nervously, then knocked back the rest of it. ‘I’ll have to get something that does night shifts,’ she said, gasping as the bubbles prickled their way down her throat. ‘I’ll need double time if I’m going to find the rent for this place. Even if it is only for a few days.’
David put down his own glass on the bedside table and then took Angie’s empty one from her. ‘Don’t you worry about rent, about work, about anything, Angel.’ He pulled her towards him, all the while looking into her eyes. ‘You’re my girl now and I’m going to look after you. You can stay here as long as you like. Right?’
Angie swallowed hard. This was going to be it. ‘Can I have another drink?’
David refilled her glass.
‘Bobby will look after the parrot, won’t he?’ she asked, backing towards the bed. She took two big gulps of wine, and coughed.
David nodded. He took the empty glass off her again, then scooped her up in his arms. ‘His Maureen’s nuts about animals.’ He placed her gently on the purple satin covers, smoothing her hair on to the pillows. ‘They’ve got two dogs already.’
Angie closed her eyes and David began the lesson.
The young Irish fighter stood panting over his pummelled and bloodied opponent, who was trying, and failing, to rise to his knees; the crowd was on its feet roaring for him to finish off the job.
With supreme effort, the already defeated boxer managed to stand up and then stagger sideways; calmly, the Irishman stepped forward, jerked his head sharply, and butted his dazed opponent squarely between the eyes, then, before he had a chance to crumple to the ground, the Irishman loosed a massive haymaker which sent the now-unconscious man crashing against the ropes, his blood and sweat spraying the whooping, yelling crowd.
Sonia clapped excitedly. ‘We won! We won!’ Then without warning, she threw her arms round Mikey’s neck and kissed him full on the lips, raising her leg so that her thigh rubbed against his.
Mikey, all too aware of being on full view, unpeeled her hands from his neck. ‘All right, Son, it’s only a few hundred quid you’ve won.’
‘We won.’ She pressed hard against him and kissed him again.
A small, wiry man in a brown suit and matching suede pork-pie hat who was sitting next to them, grinned broadly. ‘The sight of blood gets you tarts going, don’t it, girl?’ he shouted over the roar of the crowd, giving his slightly tipsy, female companion’s waist a hard squeeze. Then he added, at full volume, and with a raucous, smoker’s laugh, ‘And us blokes and all. Go on, moosh, do her a favour. Take her out to the car park and give her one. Look at her. She’s gagging for it.’
‘Sex in the car park!’ cried Sonia in a loud, even posher voice than usual. ‘What a fab idea!’
Much of the crowd were now as interested in the Sonia and Mikey show as they were in the victorious Irishman, and offered their own ribald suggestions about what exactly Sonia ‘could do with’ and how Mikey might oblige her, and, if not, who would volunteer to do it for him.
Then, much to the amusement of everyone around them, Sonia clambered along the row, her already short skirt up around her thighs, leading Mikey by the hand towards the exit.
He didn’t bother to resist. It was too late for that now, anyway, what the hell? With the extra dough he’d made from selling the pills, he had enough money to piss off any time he liked. And that bloke was right, watching the fight had got him going. He might as well give Sonia one last treat before he left.
At the sound of the street door opening, Maureen almost dropped the kettle.
‘Bob?’ she called out. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, Maur.’
She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried through to the hall. ‘Everything all right? What are you doing home so early? And what the hell’s that?’
Bobby beamed at his wife and held up the parrot’s cage. ‘I got you a surprise.’
‘Surprise? I’ll say it’s a surprise. Whatever will the dogs make of it?’
Bobby, still grinning, carried the cage through to the kitchen and put it on the draining board. ‘They just travelled with it in the car all the way from Chelsea, and they didn’t seem to mind it. Sniffed at it a few times and that, but nothing really. Pretty thing, innit, Maur? Lovely blue feathers.’
‘Bobby, it’s a parrot, and this is a prefab, not the flaming zoo.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
Maureen eyed the bird suspiciously. ‘Where did you get it?’
This was the bit he had been practising. ‘Dave bought it and—’
‘I might have known. Another of madam’s castoffs.’
‘No, it wasn’t Sonia’s. Dave got it for that kid he’s seeing.’
‘Very nice. We have to have her rejects and all now, do we?’
‘No. She liked it. But she can’t look after it cos she’s got to go out and find a job. Up the City or something.’
Maureen still staring at the bird, folded her arms tightly across her chest. ‘A bird of his looking for a job? That’ll be a first.’
‘She’s all right, Maur. You’d like her.’
‘D’you reckon?’ She shook her head. ‘You’ve got to learn to say no to him, Bob.’
Bobby was still trying to think of something to say that would make the peace, when the phone rang in the sitting-room.
‘Go on, go and answer it and I’ll stay here with this thing to make sure it doesn’t start pecking the wallpaper.’
‘Bob, it’s me, Jeff. I don’t know how to put this, but I’m down at the boxing in Plaistow. I’m in Jim’s office. He’s let me use the phone.’
‘Very nice to hear it, Jeff. He’s a generous man. But what’re you telling me for?’
‘Sonia’s here.’
‘Sonia? She hates boxing.’
‘It’s not the boxing she was interested in. It was Tilson. She practically had his dick in her mouth.’
‘Not at it in the car again?’
‘No, Bob, in front of everyone. Including Burman. It was a right show-up. She was all over him. You should have heard the cheye-eyeking. I was going to call Greek Street and tell Dave, but I bottled out. I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Dave’s not there anyway.’ Bobby rubbed his hand over his shaven head. ‘Leave it with me, Jeff. I’ll sort it out.’
When he went back into the kitchen, Maureen was feeding an appreciative Denise, as the bird was now apparently called, with chocolate digestives, but Bobby didn’t even notice her change of heart.
‘Whatever’s wrong, Bob? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Make us a cuppa tea, Maur. Sonia’s just done something very silly, and I’ve got to think of a way of telling Dave.’
Angie pulled the sheet up to her chin and took the glass of champagne – her fourth – from David who was sitting up in bed next to her.
‘Happy, Angel?’
‘More than I thought I ever could be.’ And she was. David was an experienced, skilled lover who had made her feel that she was the most important, wonderful, beautiful girl in the world.
‘Here’s to a very successful first lesson,’ he said, toasting her.
‘Was I all right?’ Angie asked softly, her cheeks and throat blushing scarlet from a combination of modesty, love-making and alcohol.
David’s broad smile of satisfaction spread even further. ‘Angel, you are a genuine one-off.’ He put his arm round her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘A real breath of fresh air. And you were fantastic.’ As he kissed her, and she responded – still shy but less nervous – he felt himself stirring again.
‘Give me that glass,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘And we’ll start lesson number two.’
David was about to pull her on top of him when the phone rang on the bedside table. He was immediately alert. Only Bobby knew he was there, and only Bobby had the number. Something must be wrong.
‘Hang on, Angel,’ he said snatching up the receiver. ‘Yeah’llo?’
Angie watched as David listened. The look on his face, and the way the colour drained from his skin as though his blood had been siphoned away, frightened her. She had been so elated just a moment ago and now something awful had happened.
David clenched his jaw and a vein in his neck began to throb.
Angie had no idea what the person on the other end had said, but it must have been the most terrible news. He had put the phone down without another word.
‘Can I do anything?’
He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of the bed, making her spill the dregs of her drink that she had been sipping absent-mindedly. Then he grabbed his trousers from the floor and started getting dressed.
‘I’ve got a problem. I’ve got to go.’
‘When will you be back?’
He pulled on his socks. ‘Don’t know.’
Angie didn’t know what else to say.
Still buttoning his shirt, he hurried out into the hall. As Angie heard him pick up his bunch of keys from the hall table, then open the front door, she sprang out of bed, and stumbled tipsily after him. ‘David?’
The door slammed shut. Something must be really wrong. She had to see if she could help him.
She flung on her yellow oilskin coat, grabbed a pair of shoes and her bag and rushed out of the flat. Just as she stepped on to the pavement, David pulled away in the Jag without even noticing she was there.
‘David …’ Her shoulders drooped with disappointment. Then, as if on cue, just to make matters worse, a distant rumble of thunder announced the start of a heavy, drenching, summer downpour.
Angie, balancing drunkenly first on one leg, then the other, pulled her shoes on to her bare feet, then opened her bag to look for her keys.
Her mounting panic, as she realized that all she had in her bag was a couple of tissues, half a packet of cigarettes, and a few pounds’ worth of silver, meant that she didn’t give a first, let alone a second, thought, to the rather battered, dull-grey Morris Minor that pulled away at the same time as David. Neither did she register just how fast David had accelerated away, nor the look on the Morris driver’s face as he cursed furiously at the disappearing Jaguar when he stalled his motor at the lights.
Angie wrenched her coat round her more tightly and shivered. How bad did a problem have to be to have made David run out like that?
And what was she going to do now?
She had no choice. She’d have to go to Jackie’s.
‘Hello, Squirt.’ Martin looked at the damp, slightly dishevelled girl standing on his doorstep and smiled – she looked terrific, if a bit pissed. ‘Everything all right? It’s nearly eleven o’clock.’
Over his shoulder, at the top of the stairs, Angie spotted Tilly’s bare legs and carpet-slippered feet. ‘Is that you, Jackie?’ she called.
Angie signalled urgently for Martin not to say she was there.
‘It’s no one, Mum. I just thought I heard someone messing around with my scooter that’s all. Go back to bed. I’ll wait up to let Jackie in.’
Tilly Murray didn’t approve of youngsters having keys, it encouraged them to take liberties. ‘All right, love. Night, night. Don’t study too hard.’
Angie mouthed her thanks and followed Martin into the front room.
She sat on the sofa, carefully pulling her coat down as she did so. ‘Didn’t expect to see you in of a Friday night, Martin.’
‘My girlfriend’s gone to see her parents in the country. I couldn’t make it. Term’s over but I’ve still got college work to finish.’
Despite her predicament and the befuddling effect of the booze, Angie managed a smile. ‘Jackie told me you didn’t like it down there.’
‘Understatement,’ he said flatly. ‘So, what’s your story?’
Angie gave him a censored version of events, that left him with the correct impression that she had left home and had moved into a flat, but which made no mention of the champagne, David, or his unceremonious exit almost immediately after she had made love for the very first time.
‘Chelsea, eh? You must be earning plenty.’
She shrugged non-committally. She was feeling a bit sick.
Martin thought about the two more years he had at university before he would even begin earning proper wages. ‘How did you get locked out?’
‘Went down to the milk machine on the corner,’ she lied. ‘So I could make some coffee. Must have left my keys on the table.’
‘I’m not thinking. Fancy a cup now?’
‘Martin,’ she put her head in her hands. ‘I could murder one.’
He stood up. ‘Want me to take your coat?’
Angie looked up at him through her tear-dampened lashes. ‘Better not, Mart. Me coat and shoes are all I’m wearing.’
The thought of Angie travelling on the tube all the way from Chelsea, surrounded by other passengers, with nothing on but a short oilskin coat, made Martin gulp. No wonder she hadn’t wanted his mum to know she was there.
He was still staring at Angie, and was seriously considering whether she would respond as favourably as, according to Jackie, she had apparently done in the bus shelter at Clacton, when there was a knock at the door.
‘Must be Jackie,’ he said, dry-mouthed.
‘You’d better let her in.’
He nodded dumbly.
While Martin went in to the kitchen to pull himself together and to make the coffee, Jackie and Angie sat in the front room, whispering so that they didn’t disturb Tilly who, now her daughter was safely home, had allowed herself to go to sleep and was snoring loudly above them.
‘So, this Andrew you’ve been out with.’ Angie’s head felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton wool, and she was having a bit of trouble concentrating. ‘He’s the bloke you met at the Lotus on your birthday?’
‘Yes and he’s very nice, but never mind him. I’m worried about you, Angie.’
Angie, who had been rather more explicit with Jackie than she had with Martin, shrugged. ‘Not heard of free love?’ She hoped she looked and sounded more casual than she felt about the situation. With everything that had happened, she’d not been able to stop worrying about whether it was true what they said: that once you let a bloke have his way with you, he lost interest and cleared off, dumping you like used goods.
‘Angie—’
‘It’s all right, I’m on the Pill.’
‘The Pill?’
‘So? I said I’m on the Pill, not that I’m an axe murderer.’ She took her cigarettes from her bag and held them up. ‘Mind if I have one?’
Jackie shook her head. ‘Since when have you been smoking?’
‘A while.’
‘Put them away and don’t be so stupid. Mum’d be down here faster than a fire engine if she smells smoke. And you’ve been drinking.’
Angie snorted. ‘Like you never have.’
‘Angie, I’m serious. Travelling all that way by yourself in that state. Anything could have happened to you.’
‘Don’t look at me like that, Jack. I’m too knackered for a row. Let’s just go to bed, eh?’ Angie smiled self-pityingly, undid her coat, and flashed her naked body at her friend. ‘Lend us a nightie?’
Jameson sat in his Morris Minor watching Sonia, David Fuller’s wife, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of her scarlet Mini Cooper, kissing Mikey Tilson as if she were a kid in the back row of the pictures, in the full glare of the street lights.
The detective constable was always amazed when a man let himself be driven by his prick rather than his brains – not that Tilson gave any evidence of being in possession of much in the way of grey matter – but to be so blatant about carrying on with David Fuller’s wife. That took a particularly spectacular brand of stupidity.
After five minutes or so of passion, Sonia got out of the car, and Tilson clambered over into the driver’s seat. She stood and waved and blew kisses as he drove away, then crossed the road and let herself into the mansion block where she lived with her husband. The mansion block where all the lights in her flat had been burning for the past couple of hours, and where the back-lit silhouette of a large man, who looked very like David Fuller, could be seen standing by one of the windows.
From what Jameson knew about Fuller, his wife was either as stupid as Mikey Tilson, or she had a very advanced case of death wish.
As Sonia opened the flat door, David was waiting for her in the hall.
‘What do you think you’re up to?’
‘Me? How about you and your little scrubber?’
David grabbed her by the wrist. ‘I asked you a question.’
She looked contemptuously at him. ‘Grow up, David. You don’t own me. I do what I want.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes I do. And, I’m afraid, that includes falling in love.’
‘You what?’
‘Mikey and I are going away together. I’m going to have his baby.’
David let go of her wrist and raised his hand above his head.
‘Go on, big shot, hit me. Show me what a pathetic creature you really are. No wonder you have to go with little girls. That’s all you’re fit for.’
David shoved her out of the way and stormed out of the door. ‘I’ll show you, you bitch.’