Stay Dead (15 page)

‘Nice to see you up,’ said Celia, sitting down at the table and daintily tapping the ash off her cigarette into a glass ashtray with a Capstan logo on the side of it. Dolly
watched her, fascinated. With her sharp suits, fully made-up face, scarlet fingernails and ivory fag holder, Celia certainly had style.

The front doorbell rang, and Tabs the redhead went to answer it. When Dolly heard a man’s voice out there, she thought of her dad. Maybe he was looking for her. She felt sick with fear.
The kitchen door opened and she jumped as if she’d been shot. Aware of Celia watching her, she picked up her teacup with a shaking hand, and drank.

Tabs poked her head around the door. ‘Customer for Aretha,’ she said, and the beautiful black woman uncurled her six-foot length from her chair with a grin.

‘Some of us, we just so in demand,’ she purred, and headed out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Cindy.

Tabs sat back down.

Customer? thought Dolly. She heard people going up the stairs, heard a door open and close overhead. No one else seemed to be taking any notice. The chatter resumed. She picked up a biscuit
and bit into it and let the warmth and the camaraderie in the kitchen wash over her. It was comforting, somehow. Not like home. Presently Darren stretched and said he’d better make tracks,
and Cindy and Tabs said they were off to the shops. Celia said she was expecting Billy, so would Ellie see Dolly back up to her room?

There was another knock on the front door when Ellie and Dolly were out in the hall heading for the stairs. Ellie let in a vacant-looking man in a deerstalker hat, clutching a
briefcase.

‘Hiya, Billy,’ she said, and he walked past her without a word.

‘You think you’ll be staying on?’ asked Ellie as they went up the stairs and stopped outside Dolly’s bedroom door.

‘Nah,’ said Dolly. She could hear a strange sound coming from the room next door to hers. Like someone being beaten or whipped, she thought. Only it couldn’t be. Could it?
Surely Celia wouldn’t allow anything cruel to go on, not in her house? Maybe she’d been wrong about Celia, though. Maybe the streets would be safer after all.

‘That . . . noise,’ she said to Ellie.

‘Yeah? What about it?’

‘Do you think we ought to help . . . ?’

‘Help Aretha?’ Ellie laughed out loud. ‘Oh no, I don’t think so. Aretha can handle herself, no bother. It’s the client that’s in trouble, not
her.’

‘What?’ Dolly stared in bewilderment. Aretha was beating someone up? But why?

Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Jesus, you’re a little innocent, ain’t you? Look, Aretha’s a dominatrix. Do you know what that means?’

Dolly shook her head.

‘It means she beats the crap out of the customers because that’s what they want her to do. They love it.’

‘Customers?’

‘Yeah, customers.’ Ellie lightly tweaked Dolly’s nose. ‘This is a knocking shop.’

When Dolly still looked blank, Ellie raised her eyebrows and puffed out a sigh. ‘A fuck-shop. Full of whores. Got it now?’

Dolly’s first instinct was to run. Ellie’s words shocked her, but she understood them. She understood plenty now. Ellie meant that people were doing the
man-and-woman thing right here, under this roof. Money was changing hands for services provided. And how long would it be before she got dragged into it, made to do it with some bastard she
didn’t want?

She seriously thought about it, just upping and getting gone. But over the weeks that followed, Celia made no demands. She continued to be kind to her, and seemed perfectly willing to go on
providing bed and board. And the place was happy. Despite all the comings and goings, despite what really went on here, the place was orderly, neat, run on a strictly businesslike footing.

No one hurt her. Celia took her up West, bought little bits and pieces for her, fussed over her in a way that Mum had never done. She’d missed that, and had never realized it until now.
But Celia had a hard side to her too; she could be firm with the girls and tough with the punters. One day Dolly walked into the kitchen when Celia was sitting at the table having tea and biscuits
with that bloke ‘Billy’, who looked like a dimwit in his deerstalker, his briefcase on his lap like a shield against the world.

Now she saw Celia’s tougher side. Celia’s face hardened when she saw Dolly standing there. She stubbed out her cigarette in the Capstan ashtray and hissed out a stream of smoke,
while giving Dolly a look.

‘Give us a fucking mo, will you, Doll?’ she snapped. ‘Clear off for a second, OK? And stick the bloody wood in the hole.’

Surprised, Dolly backed out of the kitchen and closed the door. She went through to the empty front room. Her mother had a front room a bit like this, the best furnished room in the house but
mostly unused.

Dolly sat on a plush sofa and thought of Mum. That fucking front room at home had
never
been used, to be honest. For years Mum hadn’t behaved as a true mother should. Mum had
just sat in the kitchen and stared at the floor, and let Dolly be picked on by her dad. Her heart twisted with sadness as she thought of little Sand, and Nige and Dick, and quiet, obedient Sarah,
and wondered what was happening with them these days.

Suddenly, the door opened and Celia stood there.

‘There you are! He’s gone now, you can come in the kitchen, all right?’

Celia led the way into the kitchen and Dolly followed. Celia started putting used cups in the sink and getting out fresh ones. She put the kettle on to boil. Then she turned and smiled at
Dolly.

‘That was Billy,’ she said. ‘Sorry, did I snap at you? Only he’s very important, Billy.’

Dolly was bewildered by this statement. The long-faced git looked like an idiot, how could he be important?

While the kettle boiled, Celia leaned back against the worktop, folded her arms and looked at Dolly. ‘We pay up to the Delaneys, Dolly. Do you understand what that means?’

Dolly shook her head.

‘It means they take a slice off the top of what I bring into the house with my girls and Darren,’ said Celia. ‘And in return, they keep me and my lot safe.’

‘Billy works for them, does he?’ asked Dolly.

‘Billy? Nah.’ Celia spooned tea into the pot and poured the water on. ‘Billy works for the Carter boys, but Billy’s been coming round here ever since he was little and
Billy don’t break his habits. Of course, there’s bad blood between the Carters and the Delaneys, and it’s getting worse all the time, but Tory Delaney says it’s OK, so
everyone makes an exception for Billy. He’s a bit simple, poor duck. There but for the grace of God go all of us, that’s what I say.’

Celia came and sat down at the table.

‘So what you going to do now you’re all better?’ she asked.

Ah. So now she was going to be put back out on to the streets. Dolly wasn’t that surprised, not really. Celia had been good, keeping her here for so long. She couldn’t expect it
to last forever.

Dolly opened her mouth to speak, but Celia said: ‘Of course you can stay here if you want. You’re very welcome, I’m sure. And you needn’t worry. I run a respectable
household. I won’t allow anyone under sixteen to get fucked in it.’

Dolly didn’t know what to say. She was floored – not for the first time – by Celia’s weird mix of no-bullshit earthiness and pristine elegance.

‘You can help out around the place, if you’d like to. Clean up, you know. Earn a bit of pin money that way, how about that?’

Dolly swallowed hard. She was touched. No one in her own family had ever been so kind to her as Celia was.

‘I’d like to stay, and help out,’ she said.

Celia tucked a fag into the ivory holder. She lit it, then gave Dolly a squinting grin through the smoke. ‘Bloody good show,’ she said. ‘Let’s drink to
it.’

London, June 1994

Annie was down the cop shop first thing Thursday morning, pushing her way through the sorry remnants of the night before: the drinkers, the prossies, the dazed druggies. When
she got to the counter, she asked for Hunter.

‘He’s not in,’ said the sergeant behind the desk, swatting away a drunken man’s hand from his pen and pad. Wafts of unwashed flesh, vomit and hard liquor were coming off
the man in great crashing waves.

‘Will he be in soon then?’ Annie was trying to hold her breath and talk at the same time.

The sergeant shrugged. A woman passed by Annie. She was plain as a pikestaff, with scraped-back honey-brown hair, no make-up, a mouth as thin and hard as a steel clamp. She wore a cheap-looking
navy suit made for comfort, not elegance. The sergeant lifted the flap in the counter for the woman and she was just about to go through it when Annie stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘DS Duggan?’ she said. It was Hunter’s sidekick, Annie knew it. She remembered her from when it had all blown up with Rufus Delaney.

‘Something I can help you with?’ asked DS Duggan, drawing to one side, well away from the stinking drunk. The desk sergeant sighed and dropped the flap.

‘I’m looking for DCI Hunter.’

‘He’s out.’

‘I know. But you’ll do,’ said Annie.

‘In what way?’

‘In the way that you can tell me how it’s going with the investigation into the death of my friend.’

Sandra Duggan’s thin lips drew into a straight line. ‘You’re talking about a police investigation, Mrs Carter. We don’t discuss such things with members of the general
public, I’m afraid. If we have questions to ask you, we’ll be in touch.’

‘No.’ Annie was shaking her head. ‘You see,
I
have questions for
you
. I want to know if you’ve got anyone for this yet. Any suspects. Anything.’

Duggan stared steadily at Annie. ‘I think we just covered that,’ she said, and went to turn away, toward the desk.

‘Whoa.’ Annie caught her arm again.

‘Take your hand off me,’ said Duggan.

Annie did. Her hand lingered on the fabric. First impressions had been right. Those threads
were
cheap and nasty.

‘Look. Any information would be welcome,’ said Annie, lowering her voice so that none of the other people in the front office could hear her. ‘It would be received
confidentially, of course. No questions asked and nothing ever said about it. And there would be payment.’

The thin mouth opened in a soundless O of surprise. Then a small laugh escaped Duggan as she stared at Annie.

‘Are you trying to bribe an officer of the law?’ she asked.

Annie stared back, hard-eyed. ‘Perish the thought,’ she said.

‘Only if you
are
, I have to say that’s a very serious matter.’

Annie nodded slowly. ‘Understood,’ she said. Well, it had been worth a try.

‘If there’s nothing else . . . ?’

‘No. Nothing at all.’

Annie walked out of the cop shop and into a dazzling sunny morning. For the moment, she was at a loss. Jackie – hopefully – was on the case, doing what she wanted. Hunter was off
doing something, she didn’t know what. Maybe things were moving, but it didn’t feel like it. She wished he’d get his finger out of his arse and do something positive about finding
Dolly’s killer, before she went shrieking mad with frustration.

And it was then, right then, that she saw a familiar and very welcome sight. A face she knew. A
friend
.

A bulky man was getting out of a sleek black Jag and crossing the road to go into a newsagent’s a few doors down. The bald gleaming head, bronzed from some foreign
holiday, the twinkling set of gold crucifixes, one in each huge cauliflower ear, the immaculate suit pulling tight over eighteen stones’ worth of solid muscle. Annie was a woman spotting a
life raft in a stormy sea.

‘Tony! Tone!’ she yelled out, smiling suddenly because she had never seen a prettier sight than this big ugly bastard.

It was Tony – first Max’s driver, then hers, then Dolly’s. He’d been her greatest supporter through many a battle. He turned his head and she waved madly. People were
looking, staring, and Tony stared too. He paused mid-stride and then she saw the change come over him. His face hardened. And then – to her shock – he turned back, away from her, and
kept walking.

‘What the
fuck
. . . ?’ she said angrily. She wasn’t about to let this go.

Annie ran after him and followed him into the newsagent’s. Inside the tiny shop a tired-looking man in a flat cap was dispensing the day’s news to his punters. When Annie caught up
with Tony, she grabbed his arm.

‘Tone? Didn’t you see me?’

But she knew he had. Of
course
he had. He had seen her, and chosen not to. It gave her the creeps. All right, she hadn’t expected flags and banners from Gary, but Chris? Ellie?
Steve? And now even Tone, who had been the one to phone her, the one who had told her all this was going down?

They know, they all know, and Max, where’s Max right now, who’s he with, what’s he doing, and oh God, does he know too
. . .
?

She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself, but she had a real case of the jitters. The way he was
looking
at her – Tone, her old mate, who’d stood in her corner on more
than one tricky occasion, who’d always backed her to the hilt.

‘Mrs C,’ he said, with a cool nod of the head. At the same time, he was rootling in his pocket for change, looking at the headlines about Labour winning sixty-two seats in the
election and still looking for a party leader after John Smith’s untimely death. In the running for leader was Margaret Beckett, John Prescott and someone called Tony Blair. Tony kept his
focus on the news, showing her no interest.

‘Tone, what’s going on?’