Frankie (2 page)
Authors: Kevin Lewis
âWho the fuck are you?' Strut gestured at his men to let Mary go. They threw her down and stood flanking him on either side.
The woman didn't answer.
He strode towards the woman, raising his knife hand as he did so in preparation to swipe it across her cheek; she covered her face in defence and the knife cut deeply across her palm. She gasped sharply as the pain shrieked through her body, then looked at her hand to see the blood seeping down to her wrist. Strut stood in front of her, breathing heavily. After a few seconds he put his knife in his other hand and whipped her across the face with his fist, knocking her to the ground.
Then he turned his attention back to Mary. She was frozen with horror at the scene that had unfolded before her. Strut stormed up to her and began kicking her hard in the stomach. She curled into a little ball, screaming with every kick. All of a sudden he stopped as the beam of a car's headlights swept over them all. He turned as the man who had been waiting patiently in a quiet street leading off the park drove away â scared, no doubt, that the commotion might attract the police, and unwilling in any case to pay for damaged goods. Strut swore under his breath: he'd lost his punter.
âKeep an eye out for Old Bill,' he muttered to his sidekicks. âThere's going to be a tear-up.'
âWhat d'you mean?' one of them asked, a bit nervously. They knew what he was capable of doing to the young girl.
âI mean, I'm going to see to these two bitches.' His voice was impatient, and the men took their cue, striding purposefully away to take up their lookout positions. Strut sniffed hard, his face determined and his upper lip displaying the ghost of a sneer. He moved his knife back into his right hand.
The woman was lying in pain, knowing that she and Mary couldn't get out of this without serious damage to
themselves. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of the old man she had given the bottle of Thunderbird to earlier, standing at the front of the crowd. Their eyes met as he bent down and rolled the nearly empty bottle towards her. She clasped it firmly in her hand then struggled to her feet as Strut leaned over the terrified Mary. One of his guys called out, but it was too late: she smashed the bottle over Strut's head with all the energy she could muster, leaving the jagged glass neck in her hand. Strut fell to his knees in a daze, a horrifying mixture of alcohol and blood rushing down his face. The crowd had started up again, but it sounded as though their fickle allegiance had changed sides: Strut's men looked nervous as the crowd started to turn against them, and they edged away.
Dizzy, but spurred on by blind rage, Strut managed to jump to his feet. His face was like a wild animal's, even more terrifying for the streaks of red that dripped down from his forehead. The woman took a nervous step backwards. She had not expected him to stand up.
And now Strut was bearing down on her like a man possessed.
It happened in a split second. She didn't even give it any thought â she just knew she had to defend herself. As Strut lurched at her and raised his knife arm to attack, she struck out blindly with the stump of the bottle. It sliced through the skin of his neck like a knife through jelly, before becoming wedged in the tough knot of his Adam's apple. Strut froze, more out of shock than pain, but as the blood started to flow profusely he fell once more to his knees. The bottle was stuck deep in his neck â the woman had let go once she had realized what she had done.
Strut made a pitiful gurgling sound as the upper part of his body slumped heavily to the ground, his life oozing rapidly from him. The bottle neck quivered in time with his faltering heartbeat.
The woman stood above him, looking down aghast at what she had done. A few metres away, Mary was being comforted by two older women. They put their arms round her and made reassuring sounds, but she hardly seemed to know they were there. Her crying had stopped, replaced by short, sharp breaths as she hyperventilated with shock. Her eyes were darting everywhere, but always seemed to return to the body lying in front of her. She looked as if she was trying to say something, but the words would not come.
âJesus, Frankie,' she managed finally, her voice a panicked, high-pitched whisper. âWhat have you done?'
The same night, a mile or two away
Rosemary Gibson strode down the corridor clutching an armful of heavy files. âLook confident,' Carter had told her, âand nobody will suspect what you're doing. Trust me â these things only go wrong when people show how nervous they are.'
Easy for him to say, she thought as she turned the corner. Her heart was racing, and it was all she could do to stop herself from looking over her shoulder every few seconds to see if anyone was following her. There was no particular reason why she shouldn't be here â that's what made her perfect for the job â and she had her story all worked out in case she was asked what she was doing. God knows how she would react if she was actually questioned, though. Rosemary was the last person you'd expect to be doing this, but Carter thought that was her best asset.
âYou've worked there for so long,' he'd told her. âYou're part of the furniture.' He was right. She had worked at Lenham, Borwick and Hargreaves, a merchant bank in Belgravia, longer than almost anyone.
âBut I never normally stay as late as that.'
âThen put in a few late nights for a couple of weeks beforehand. There'll be plenty of other people working, won't there?'
âWell, yes, I suppose so. They have to be in contact with offices around the world, you see â¦'
âSo there you are.'
âIt's just â¦'
âWhat?'
âIt's just that I'm not very good at this sort of thing.'
Carter had sighed with impatience. âWe've already gone through this. If you don't want to do it, just say.'
âNo,' Rosemary had replied just a little too sharply. âNo. I'll do it. It'll be OK.'
She had started something and was determined not to pull out of it now.
Finally she arrived at the door she had been heading for. A shiny brass plaque bore the name âMorgan Tunney'. The door would be locked, of course, but that wasn't a problem. For the past few evenings she had been asking the night-time receptionist for a key so that she could leave confidential financial documents on Tunney's desk. She was a senior member of the accounts team, so it was reasonable enough that she should do this, and the documents she had been delivering contained information that Tunney definitely wanted to see. As far as the receptionist was concerned, tonight was no different to any other.
She quickly unlocked the door, stepped inside, then locked it behind her, too scared to switch the light on for fear of it drawing attention to what she was doing.
It took only a few seconds for Rosemary's eyes to adjust to the lights of London illuminating the room enough for her to see her way around. Morgan Tunney's office was richly furnished, as befitted his status as chairman. The couches were made of leather, and the huge
oak table was home only to a laptop computer, a lamp, a virgin blotting pad, a picture of his grandchildren in a silver frame, and a gold pen. Like almost everything else in the office, the pen was there just for show; whenever he signed anything, he used the fat Cartier that he always kept inside his jacket pocket. There were several oil paintings on the wall, behind one of which was a safe with a numeric touch pad. But Rosemary knew for a fact that it was empty: Morgan Tunney was not the sort of man to leave precious or sensitive material lying around.
The office had one of the finest views in London. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out from the fifteenth floor over the grand buildings of Belgravia, and anyone standing there might well feel like the lord of all they surveyed. Under other circumstances, Rosemary would be captivated by the scene â it was a far cry from the view she enjoyed from her own desk, or from the little terraced house in an unfashionable part of north London that was her home. But tonight she hardly glanced out of the window. All her attention was focused on the laptop in front of her.
She put the files down on the desk. Standing in front of the computer, she removed a small silver locket hanging inside her blouse from a delicate chain round her neck. She lifted her necklace over her head, wincing slightly as the chain caught in the hair that was gathered severely into a bun. She held the locket up to her eyes and squinted at it over the top of her half-moon glasses. The letters âRG' were engraved in immaculate copperplate, and on the side was a small clasp. She pushed it with her thumb and held it in for three seconds, just as she had practised so many times at home. The interface
of a small USB storage device clicked out of the top.
Rosemary took a deep breath and mentally went through the instructions Carter had given her. âPlug the locket into the computer
before
you turn it on, otherwise the patch won't work.' She picked up the locket and gently tried a couple of the ports at the back of the laptop before she found one that would accept it. She closed her eyes, took another deep breath, opened the computer and switched it on.
Immediately the office was bathed in the familiar blue light, and she quickly tilted the screen downwards slightly in an attempt to dull its glare. As she did so, she noticed the white light from the corridor leaking in underneath the office door, and the telltale shadow of a pair of feet standing in front of it.
She held her breath. The whirring of the computer's hard drive as it cranked itself up seemed impossibly loud; surely whoever was outside would be able to hear it.
Then, to her horror, the laptop beeped.
Even if she had wanted to, Rosemary would not have been able to move a muscle. Her eyes were glued to the bottom of that door, and the shadow that stubbornly refused to move. Suddenly, though, it disappeared, and she heard the sound of footsteps walking away. She breathed out, gently but shakily.
Lifting the screen back up slightly she saw the log-on window for the company's intranet. Carter's device was clearly working, because every fifteen seconds or so a new asterisk appeared in the password box. It took a couple of minutes for the ten asterisks to appear, indicating that the password had â with any luck â been broken.
She pressed the enter key. The log-on screen flickered
away; a few seconds later her boss's desktop was displayed. She was in.
With the speed of somebody who spends her working life at a computer, she navigated to the folder she wanted. She quickly scanned her way down the files she was used to working with all day long, until she found an unfamiliar one. That was what she was after. This document did not appear on her system. To the best of her knowledge it did not appear on
anyone's
system apart from Tunney's. That was why she needed it. She copied the file onto the USB device.
It was a big file, and took a couple of minutes to download. Rosemary counted the seconds as she watched the animated yellow folder fly repeatedly across the screen. Her palms were clammy and her blouse moist with nervous sweat â it seemed to take for ever, and all she wanted to do was get out of there. The instant the operation was completed, she shut down the computer, waiting, as she had been instructed, for the screen to go black before she removed the locket. She pushed the USB device back inside the locket with a click, and replaced the necklace over her head, before picking up her folders and taking a moment to compose herself. She moved to the door and stood there for a few tense seconds, carefully listening for footsteps outside.
When she was sure there were none, she slipped out and locked the door again. She marched quickly back down the corridor, eager to put as much distance between her and Tunney's office as possible.
Rosemary couldn't quite believe what she had just done. How had she got herself into such a dangerous position? What if she was discovered? She couldn't deny
a vague feeling of excitement now that she'd done what she came to do, but she knew it wasn't over yet. All sorts of confused thoughts were firing through her head when she turned the corner and almost walked into a tall, uniformed security guard. In her surprise she dropped the folders, and papers spilled everywhere. âOh!' she cried, as she knelt down in a fluster to start picking them up. âOh dear!'
The security guard bent down to help her. âYou're working late, Mrs, er â¦' He glanced at the identity badge clipped to Rosemary's jacket. âMrs Gibson.'
â
Miss
Gibson,' Rosemary replied automatically. âYes, it is rather late, isn't it ⦠delivering paperwork ⦠lots to do â¦' The words were not coming out as she had practised them. She scrabbled around, stuffed the final pieces of paper inside one of the folders and the two of them stood up.
For the first time Rosemary looked at the security guard's slicked-back hair and immaculately groomed goatee beard. It wasn't the person she had expected to see. âWhere's Ray?' she asked, doing her best to take control of the situation.
âHaven't you heard?' the guard replied in his thick East End accent. âSick leave. Could be permanent.'
âI didn't know he was ill.' Rosemary was shocked. Ray always had a bit of banter with her as she left the office of an evening. Surely he'd have told her if something was wrong.
âNor did he. Come on very sudden. Makes you think, doesn't it?'
âYes,' she replied. âYes, it does.' Rosemary stood in silence for as long as she thought was respectful. âRight.
Goodnight, then. Time for me to go home.' She side-stepped the guard who was still standing in front of her.
âG'night,
Miss
Gibson,' he replied without a smile.
Rosemary continued down the corridor to the lift. Once she had pressed the button, she looked nervously over her shoulder.
The security guard was still there, looking straight at her. Their eyes met for a few uncomfortable seconds. Then he turned and walked round the corner, out of sight.
Frankie wasn't afraid to do what it took to look after herself, but it had never gone this far. There was no point checking to see if Bob Strut was dead â nobody bled as much as that and lived; the main thing now was to get the hell away. Her hand was bleeding badly from the cut of Strut's knife; but more importantly the police could be on the scene any minute. They wouldn't care less that the world was a better place with Strut six feet under â if they could charge her for the killing and get one more vagrant off the street, it would be a result for them.
Behind her was chaos. Strut's cronies had fled the moment they realized what was happening, and most of the remaining down-and-outs were in a state of confusion: nobody wanted to be anywhere near the dead body, to be associated with it in any way, and yet they had no place to go. They held urgent conversations with frightened looks on their faces. In a far corner of the park, a few of the younger ones were more boisterous â happy Strut was gone, but too high to understand the seriousness of what was happening. Mary was still being comforted by the two older women as Frankie hurried up to her and
crouched down. She didn't have time to console her, but she knew from the one conversation she'd had with the teenager since she arrived here that a softly-softly approach was called for. She gently put her arm around the young girl. âMary,' she whispered hoarsely.
The girl just carried on sobbing.
âMary,' she said more firmly, âyou
have
to listen to me.'
Mary turned her reddened eyes towards her.
âWhen the police arrive, you've got to let them take you away.'
Mary shook her head in disbelief. âThey'll think it was me â' she started to say.
âNo, they won't,' Frankie interrupted her. âEveryone's seen what happened. Trust me, Mary. This guy has friends. When they find out what happened here, they'll be back. The safest place you can be is a police cell, and when they let you out, you must never come back here. If you can't go home, move to a different part of the country. And whatever you do, don't tell the police anything about me. Do you understand?'
Mary just looked at her blankly, and Frankie couldn't tell if she had taken in a word she had said. But she couldn't stick around. She gave the girl a weak smile, then she turned and left, knowing that she would never see Mary again.
As she made her way down the street along the side of the park, she walked as calmly as she could, not wanting to attract attention to herself. But she felt her pace quickening almost involuntarily as her body screamed at her to get away from that place. Soon she was running. As she hurried, her mind was working overtime. What the hell had come over her? Scumbags like Strut weren't worth
the time of day, and now she had risked everything on his account. It wasn't even as if he had his eye on her â she was too streetwise to allow guys like him anywhere near her. But she'd seen too much of herself in little Mary to allow anybody to take advantage of her. It was a reflex action, a coil deep inside her that had finally snapped. Frankie couldn't change the past, but maybe if she could stop it happening again â¦
âIt was him or me,' she muttered, trying to convince herself as she ran. She needed to get to the other side of the river, as far away from the scene as she could, so she headed towards Vauxhall Bridge. Her breath steamed in the cold air, and her hand throbbed with pain â she kept her fist clenched to stem the bleeding. But as soon as she stood on the bridge, she saw the heart-stopping sight of blue police lights coming from the north side. She had been on the streets long enough to know to avoid those flashing lights, and tonight she had more reason than usual.
She turned and headed away from the bridge and into the streets of south London. She knew them like the back of her hand. God knows she'd walked them often enough.
There was no knowing what Mary â or any of the others â would say about her to the police. They wouldn't go out of their way to shop her, but their first loyalty was always going to be to themselves. Suddenly Frankie realized that in her eagerness to leave the scene she had forgotten that her prints would be firmly on the bottle that killed Strut. She had been arrested enough times for her fingerprints and mugshot to be on file, but she knew she couldn't go back to collect the bottle. She needed to disguise herself, and get out of town as quickly as possible.