No Mercy (9 page)

‘You do that, babe,’ Lena scoffed. ‘I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to help, especially when they find out what you do for a living. Do you really want to go there? Do you really think they give a toss about dirty little toms like you?’

‘Then I’ll tell the press. I’ll go to the papers and blow your whole bloody business out of the water!’

Lena stood up straight and gave a thin, caustic laugh. ‘No, you won’t, not if you know what’s good for you. Don’t even think about taking me on, love, because you won’t win and you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting that you ever tried. So just do the sensible thing, huh? Get out of my flat and find some stone to crawl under. You’ll feel more at home there.’

Louise glared up at her. ‘You’ll pay for this. I’ll make sure you bloody do!’

‘I want you out by midnight. And I expect to find this place exactly as it was when you moved in. Anything missing, anything damaged and I’ll make you pay for it. Do we understand each other?’

Louise opened her mouth, thought better of it and quickly closed it again.

‘Good,’ Lena said. ‘And if I hear any rumours, even a whisper that you’ve been talking, I’ll come looking for you. And I’ll find you, hon. There won’t be any place, not a place on earth that you can hide. I’ll find you and I’ll slice that pretty little face into shreds.’

Lena didn’t wait for a response. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the flat. As she walked down the stairs, she gave a nod of satisfaction. Job done. If Louise Cole had any sense, she’d do the smart thing and keep shtum. It was a shame, though, that it had come to this. The girl had been a good earner, but she’d gone to the bad and no amount of money was worth the bother of a tom who couldn’t be trusted.

Lena never asked her girls why they chose to sell their bodies. Sometimes, she knew, it was purely for money, but more often there were deeper psychological motives, problems with parents, bonding, bitterness and rejection. But none of that was her problem. She didn’t want to hear their pathetic, whiny sob stories. In truth, she didn’t give a damn about any of them. The only person she really cared about was Lena Gissing – and that was the way it was going to stay.

The first thing Lena did when she got out on the street was to light another cigarette. As she sucked in the smoke, she glanced towards the house, aware that Maureen would be watching from behind the blinds. In fact, she had probably been watching her for the last ten minutes, eyes pinned to the footage streaming from the camera on the landing in the hope of seeing some action. But Lena hadn’t given her the satisfaction; she preferred to do business behind closed doors and without any witnesses.

She took her phone out of the red Louis Vuitton handbag, scrolled down the menu and pressed the name she wanted. It was answered after a couple of rings.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me,’ Lena said. ‘Are you there yet?’

‘Yes, I just got here.’

‘Good. I’ll be five minutes. Order me a Bloody Mary.’

Lena needed a drink after her altercation with Louise Cole, something to take the edge off and help her to relax. Leaving the car parked where it was, she set off up Flood Street in the opposite direction from Chelsea Embankment. She walked with her head held high and her shoulders back, aware that posture was everything and that no one who slouched was ever taken seriously.

As Lena made her way towards her next appointment, her thoughts returned to Maureen Dodds and she wondered if the woman was getting just a bit too familiar. She’d need to be careful about that. It wasn’t good to blur the boundaries; with familiarity came contempt, and with contempt came the temptation to take the piss.

Lena had employed housekeepers in the past who’d come to a private arrangement with the girls, overlooking their moonlighting activities in exchange for a cut. But no, she decided, she didn’t need to worry. Maureen was sound. Maureen was grateful. And, perhaps most importantly, Maureen had no desire to return to some pit of a flat on the Mansfield estate.

At the top of Flood Street, she turned on to the King’s Road, and shortly after, she was stepping through the door of the Jam Tree. It was only then, as she spotted Stephen Yeats sitting in the corner, that Cato automatically sprang into her head again. Her body stiffened as she made the short journey over to the table.

Yeats rose to his feet and extended a hand. ‘Lena. Lovely to see you again.’

Lena braced herself. His palm was always clammy, his clasp a little more lingering than was strictly necessary. But she forced herself to shake his hand and to smile while she was doing it. ‘How are you?’

‘Good, very good.’

With the formalities over, Lena sat down and picked up her drink. ‘Cheers,’ she said, raising her glass before taking a few welcome gulps. The Bloody Mary went down smoothly, the kick of vodka taking the edge off her distaste for Yeats. There was something quite repulsive about the man, although that didn’t stop her from hiring him. He was a private detective who got results and that was all that mattered. ‘So what’s the news?’

‘Where would you like me to start?’

Lena did some more bracing. She took another sip of her drink. There was only one question on her lips and it was best to get it over with as quickly as possible. ‘Jay Cato,’ she said. ‘Is he out of jail?’

Yeats gazed across the table at her. As if aware of the heavy thumping of her heart – and relishing the momentary power he had over her – he didn’t immediately answer.

‘Well?’ asked Lena, unable to contain her impatience or her irritation. ‘Is he or isn’t he?’

Yeats paused for a further few seconds before eventually replying, ‘No, not yet.’

The relief flowed through Lena.
Thank God. Thank bloody God.
Now, at least, she could stop worrying about seeing him every time she turned a corner. Knowing he was still banged up, still enclosed by four solid brick walls, made her spirits soar.

‘But it might not be that long.’

‘How long?’

Yeats pursed his lips. ‘Hard to say exactly. Six months? Three? He’s at Thornley Heath in Kent. He’s going through the parole process, and from what I’ve heard, they’re going to recommend his release.’

Lena didn’t ask where he got his information. She knew he had contacts in the Prison Service, in legal departments and just about everywhere else. There probably wasn’t a willing palm that he hadn’t greased at one time or another. ‘But not sooner? You’re sure of that?’

‘As sure as I can be. The wheels of the system grind slowly. It should be at least three months.’

Lena could cope with that. It gave her time to figure out a plan of action, to sort out what to do next. Cato might think he had the upper hand, but there was only so much control you had from a prison cell. ‘And the girl,’ she asked, ‘what about her?’

‘Maddie Layne.’ Yeats opened his briefcase, took out a slim blue file and passed it over to her. ‘It’s all here. She’s local, like you thought. Morton Grove, number thirty-four. She lives there with a kid, Zac.’

Lena flipped open the file. Inside were several sheets of paper with details of Maddie Layne’s work and home life, as well as a set of photographs. She stared hard at the pictures of the girl. Maddie was in her late twenties with long, dark brown hair and an attractive face. Not beautiful, Lena thought, but pretty enough. She didn’t recognise her and was as sure as she could be that she’d never set eyes on her before.

‘She works at the garden centre, Marigolds,’ Yeats said. ‘No criminal record, not even a parking ticket. She’s squeaky clean on that front.’

‘Has she been back to the cemetery?’

He shook his head. ‘Not since I’ve been watching her.’

Lena looked thoughtful. ‘So she’s probably of no importance. Cato could have just employed her to tend the grave.’

‘Maybe.’

Lena’s gaze shot up from the photos. ‘Maybe?’

‘I think it could be more complicated than that.’

Lena stared at him. He was a short, balding man with a face that was utterly forgettable. Only his brown hooded eyes gave cause for alarm; there was something sly and cold about them. ‘Meaning?’

‘That she might not be as innocent as she appears on the surface.’

Lena leaned across the table. ‘Explain.’

‘Do you remember Bo Vale?’

Lena frowned. ‘What, that little toerag from the Mansfield?’

‘That’s the one. Well, it seems our friend here,’ he continued, nodding towards the photographs, ‘has a connection to him. She’s the sister of Greta Layne, and Greta was —’

‘I know who Greta was,’ Lena said sharply. ‘I haven’t lost my bloody memory.’ She glared at him for a few seconds as she absorbed the information. Shit, this wasn’t good news.

‘So she’s closer to Cato than we thought.’

‘There’s no proof as yet, but —’

‘But nothing. He’s using her to get to me. He has to be. And the vengeful little cow is more than happy to oblige.’ Lena sat back again, wishing she could have a fag. She needed some nicotine to help her think it through. ‘Greta Layne,’ she murmured. It was a long time since she’d heard that name. Five, six years? They’d never found her body, but Bo’s bloated corpse had been pulled out of the Thames. She’d hoped that was the end of it, but now it was all starting up again.

‘You want me to carry on watching her?’

Lena’s mind was elsewhere. ‘Huh?’

‘Do you want me to keep her under surveillance?’

Lena considered it for a moment, but then shook her head. ‘No, not for now. I’ll let you know.’ If Maddie Layne was in contact with Cato, it was probably by phone. There was no point in her paying for Yeats to follow the girl to the garden centre every day. His fees were extortionate and she didn’t like to waste money.

‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘The kid that she’s living with isn’t hers. I checked out the birth certificate. He’s her sister’s boy. The father’s Bo Vale.’

Lena raised her brows. ‘Interesting.’ She finished her drink and put the glass down on the table. It wouldn’t have been difficult, she thought, for Cato to track down Ms Layne or to persuade her to help him out. Perhaps she had been to visit him at Thornley Heath. What had he told her? That they had a common enemy, perhaps. That Bo Vale had been doing business with Lena Gissing at the time of his death or that Greta had owed her money. Oh yes, Cato would have laid it on thick. And he would have been convincing too. He could always tell a good story.

‘You want to nip it in the bud,’ Yeats said. ‘She could be trouble.’

Lena swept up the file and rose to her feet. ‘She won’t be, not after I’ve had a quiet word.’

‘Be careful. You start threatening her and she could go to the cops.’

‘Who said anything about threats?’

Yeats gave her a thin smile. ‘All I’m saying is —’

‘Yes, I know what you’re saying. But the girl’s not a problem. She’ll soon back off once she knows the truth.’

‘Your truth or Cato’s?’

Lena gave him a long, hard stare. ‘I’ll see you around,’ she said. ‘Put the bill in the post.’

Maddie frowned at the bed and the heap of clothes that was growing larger by the minute. Jeans, trousers, dresses, tops were rapidly piling up on the duvet. She still couldn’t decide what to wear. What was the matter with her? It wasn’t as if this was a date or anything. A Friday-night drink with a mate, that’s all it was. Nothing to get hot and bothered about. But still she couldn’t decide. She didn’t want to look too casual – as if she didn’t care – but on the other hand, she didn’t want to look as if she hadn’t made much of an effort either.

‘Just choose,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Stop behaving like a teenager.’

She pulled on a pair of cream linen trousers and a white shirt, and stood back to view the effect in the mirror. Well, the outfit was summery if nothing else. Her eyes raked the bed again, but she resisted the impulse to try on something else. After slipping her feet into a pair of heels, she headed for the bathroom to do her make-up.

Now, of course, she faced the same dilemma. Just how much slap should she be putting on? Enough to hide the shadows under her eyes – she’d had another long day – but not so much as to make her look desperate. She smeared some BB cream across her skin and blended it in before setting to work on her eyes.

Five minutes later, with shadow, liner and mascara applied, she was starting to feel more confident. Those odd little butterflies were still dancing in her stomach, but at least she looked presentable. That was the great thing about make-up, she thought: it was like a mask you could hide behind. All your doubts and insecurities, all the cracks in your confidence were neatly concealed by a layer of paint.

As she carefully applied her lipstick, she wondered about the evening ahead. Rick Mallory was the first man she’d been interested in for years. There had been the occasional date, but nothing she’d wanted to take further. Having Zac in her life made everything more complicated. She couldn’t just think of herself any more; if she was going to get involved, she had to consider the effect it would have on him.

But she was getting ahead of herself. She didn’t even know if Rick fancied her or not. She suspected he did – she always seemed to be bumping into him at the cemetery – but that didn’t mean that he was after anything serious. Plenty of men flirted just for the fun of it. The best thing was not to expect too much and that way she couldn’t be disappointed.

It was six years now since her last serious relationship. Tom Bailey rarely entered her thoughts these days, and when he did, it was only with a tiny stab of regret as opposed to the aching, devastating pain she had felt when they’d first split up. He had been twelve years older than her, clever, handsome and witty, as well as a brilliant archaeologist. He’d been her mentor and her lover, and she’d firmly believed that it was going to last for ever.

‘For ever,’ she murmured, amazed now that she had ever been that naïve.

After Greta had died, Tom had been kind and supportive, a shoulder to cry on. But as the situation had changed with Zac, it had soon become clear that he had no intention of settling down and playing happy families. The relationship had staggered on for a few more months until Tom had agreed to run a dig in the north of Scotland, a year-long contract that had taken him about as far from London as he could get.

That, of course, had been the crunch point. There’d been lots of empty promises about travelling back to see her – she could hardly drag Zac up to Scotland – but over the following weeks his phone calls had gradually fizzled out until she was left with only silence. It had been down to a mutual friend to eventually break the news that Tom was seeing someone else.

She knew now that she’d had a lucky escape. Anyone who was so gutless that he couldn’t tell her it was over didn’t deserve to be loved. He didn’t even deserve to be remembered. Not that she’d seen it like that at the time. His desertion had knocked her for six and it had taken a long time for her to recover.

Maddie ran a comb through her hair. Why was she even thinking about him? It was done, finished. It was – and she smiled at the pun – ancient history. Besides, she had more important things to worry about. Solomon’s news was still spinning round in the back of her head. When he’d come to pick up Zac this morning, he had taken her aside in the kitchen, lowered his voice and told her what he’d managed to find out. The name Lucy Rivers hadn’t rung a bell with anyone, but he’d managed to dig up some information on Cato.

‘Jay Cato,’ Solomon had said. ‘That’s J-A-Y. He’s inside, babe. Living it up at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.’

‘What? He’s in prison? What for?’

‘Well, he’s doing a fifteen-stretch, so I guess it’s not for nicking a bottle of cider from the Co-op.’

Maddie’s heart had leaped into her mouth. ‘So you’re saying that he… that he…?’ She glanced towards Zac, who was getting his things together in the living room. ‘Just tell me what he did.’

Solomon’s gaze followed hers and he kept his voice quiet. ‘I ain’t got the details, but yeah, I guess someone’s not breathing any more.’

‘Jesus,’ Maddie said. She recalled Delia Shields in the cemetery, the look on her face, the accusation in her voice.
That bastard Cato!
For a few dreadful seconds she wondered if she’d been putting flowers on the grave of Cato’s victim. The very thought of it made her blood run cold. ‘But you don’t know who? You don’t know who he killed? Was it a man or a woman?’

Solomon shook his head. ‘Sorry, babe. Like I said, I ain’t got the finer details right now, but it can’t be too hard to find out.’

And then Maddie realised that the victim couldn’t possibly have been Lucy Rivers. What was she thinking? Lucy had been dead for over thirty years. But her relief was short-lived. When all was said and done, she was still taking money from a murderer every month. ‘Maybe I should stop doing it, stop working for him.’

Solomon leaned back against the counter, put his hands in his pockets and stared at her. ‘A man’s got a right to put a few flowers on a grave even if he is banged up. Until you know for sure what he’s done and why he did it, maybe you shouldn’t be too quick to judge.’

‘Who said anything about judging?’ Maddie felt suddenly defensive, as if
she
was the one being judged. ‘I just… I just want to know who I’m working for.’

And that was where their conversation had come to a halt. Zac had appeared at the door, impatient to be off.

‘Are you ready, Uncle Sol? Are you ready?’

‘What’s the rush, kid? Those dinosaurs ain’t going nowhere.’

But Zac had hurried over and tugged at Solomon’s sleeve. His eyes were bright, his face flushed with excitement. ‘Come on, Uncle Sol. We don’t want to be at the back of the queue.’

‘Hey, no one mentioned nothing ’bout a queue. There weren’t no queue last time we went.’

‘Last time wasn’t the school holidays,’ Maddie said.

Solomon’s upper lip curled a little. He was the sort of guy who kept queues in line, not the sort who stood in them. Pushing himself off the counter, he straightened up to his full height. ‘Okay, okay, let’s get this show on the road.’ He turned to Maddie and said, ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, then. I’ll bring him back in the morning. And that other thing we were talking about – don’t worry about it, huh?’

Except, ten hours later, Maddie was still worrying. She took one last look in the mirror and then went through to the living room to wait for Shauna. As she sat on the sofa, she eyed her phone, wondering if she should try to contact Cato. She wasn’t even sure now if the number she had, retained from when he’d first called her, was actually his.

It was not impossible that Jay Cato had a mobile. She’d heard about them being smuggled into prisons. And if this was the case, it was probably only turned on occasionally. Or maybe it wasn’t his phone at all. But then where were the weekly photographs that she sent of the grave going? They must be delivered somewhere.

She picked up the phone and almost immediately put it down again. What would she say even if she did get through?
Hi. I was just wondering what your interest in Lucy Rivers was.
No, that was ridiculous. At best he would tell her to mind her own business, and at worst he might decide to fire her. Perhaps it was better to let things lie for now.

As soon as she had made the decision, Maddie’s conscience began to niggle. Was she doing nothing because it was the right thing to do or because she didn’t want to lose the monthly income? A bad feeling was starting to creep over her. Those extra pounds came in mighty useful, but if she was working for a murderer, then there could, eventually, be an even bigger price to pay.