Authors: Linda Regan
She tossed her coffee in the bin, unable to swallow another mouthful. Her nerves felt like filed teeth. There were five more scenes to smile her way through before the meeting at Olivia’s with the other girls.
As she headed for her dressing room to change for the next scene she took deep breaths to calm her nerves. Shaheen wasn’t a problem, and nor was the money. They just had to get it to him and make sure he gave those videos back, then it would all be in the past.
Susan would do it. They could all rely on her. Katie took out her mobile phone and began to dial.
The sign outside the shop door flashed red in a steady rhythm. It read SEX AND THE TITTIES.
Susan kept the door wide open, to let any passing trade know they were welcome to come in and browse around the sex aids. She reckoned it helped to sell a few extra bits each week; she worked on commission and needed to boost the takings in any way she could.
It was a cold morning in Soho. Susan had the heating on, and Barry White blared out of the radio. She was standing just inside the open doorway dusting the mannequin dolls that displayed crotchless knickers in a variety of colours and designs.
Her long, over-bleached hair used to hang to her waist, but had recently been cut short and permed, giving her a poodle-like appearance. She wore a red imitation leather jacket with the collar turned up, and fluffy grey earmuffs to keep the wind out of her ears with matching gloves to protect her fingers against the cold. Under the jacket she had two jumpers on, neither of which reached the imitation snakeskin belt around her hipster jeans; the snake and rose tattoo decorating the base of her spine was in full view. She held a cigarette in one hand and dusted with the other, happily singing along out of key with Barry White’s deep bass tones, totally oblivious to the expressions of the passers-by as they stared at her bare skin, tattoo and the edge of her purple tiger-print thong.
The phone started ringing. She threw the stub of her cigarette down and ground it with the toe of her shabby red stiletto before walking back to the counter. “Sex and the Titties,” she said in her best upmarket accent.
She relaxed back into her native cockney when she heard Katie’s familiar voice. “You sound worried, darlin’. Shaheen ain’t rang, has she?”
She listened as Katie explained. Brian could have the money, but she wanted Susan to be the one to take it to him. Susan was flattered. She adored Katie; fame hadn’t changed her a bit, and no matter how busy she was, Katie was as generous with her time now as when she was working as a waitress and touting for small breaks.
“’Course, darlin’, that ain’t a problem. ’E’s back living with ’is mum. I’ll give ’im a bell and drop it round there. I won’t ask for a receipt, under the circumstances.” She roared with laughter, and was relieved to hear Katie giggle. “It’ll be over soon,” she reassured her.
“You don’t think Shaheen will really go to the police?” Katie asked.
“I don’t think bloody Shaheen is even gonna turn up,” Susan said quickly. “I’ve left messages and messages on ’er mobile, and she ain’t so much as rang back.”
There was no answer from Katie.
“Look, she doesn’t want to know, she told me so ’erself. If she didn’t turn up two weeks ago to meet me, she won’t come today. It’s not as if we need her permission.”
She pulled a cigarette free of the packet on the counter and struggled to light it with a green throwaway lighter. The flame wavered and died in the icy breeze blowing through the open door; Susan stretched the phone cord as far as it would go and toed the door shut.
Over the phone she heard the tannoy in Katie’s dressing room.
“It’s gonna be OK, mate,” she assured her again. “You go off and shine like the star you are, and I’ll see you at Livvy’s later.” As an afterthought she added, “How about a present for Bernadette?”
“Good idea.”
“Theresa said a toy would be good. What d’you think about a Roger Rabbit vibrator? She is eighteen after all...” Katie’s famous giggle sounded down the phone. “That’s better. You sound like your old self again.” She tapped ash into the cheap saucer by the till. “It’ll all be over in no time and life’ll be back to normal, you’ll see. Brian’s not a bad bloke. I’ll give ’im the money, get the videos back, and that’ll be an end to it.”
“I just hope you’re right.” Katie sounded despondent.
“He ain’t a grass,” Susan pointed out. “’E proved that by doing nineteen years and saying nothing. ’E he wouldn’t give them videos to the press.” She stubbed her cigarette out. “Yes, I agree, prison does change people. But if he was gonna stitch us up why wait till he’d served ’is time?”
Katie said nothing.
“I’m just glad you and Liv have got the money,” Susan went on. “I sure as fuck couldn’t get a hundred K together. Listen, mate, I can hear you being called again. I’ll see you later.” She paused. “And don’t worry about Shaheen. She’s not going to make any trouble.”
Theresa McGann was dressed in a worn grey tracksuit and shabby trainers that owed nobody a thing. She walked from the kitchen through to the tiny lounge and turned the television on.
Bernadette gurgled happily as the colours and movement appeared on the screen. Theresa heaved her daughter up from the floor, manoeuvred her into the chair and tied a bib around her thick neck.
“Lunchtime,” she said cheerfully, pulled a stool in close to the chair.
“Ung-hi,” Bernadette echoed.
She ate noisily, spraying half-chewed cauliflower cheese all over Theresa and the threadbare carpet. “Was that good?” Theresa asked.
Bernadette gurgled her approval. Cauli cheese was one of her favourites.
“Just you wait. Things are going to get even better. Your daddy’s coming home and we’re getting out of here.” She gave her daughter a kiss on the top of her head and used the bib to wipe her cheeks and chin.
Eighteen years of caring for a handicapped child and a violent alcoholic mother had taken its toll. Theresa’s hands were covered in red rings of psoriasis that crept up her arms like a map of the world. Her nails were short and bitten, the skin around them raw.
She took the bowl back to the kitchen and poured milky tea for her daughter and black coffee for her mother. What would it be like, she wondered, to have a dishwasher? Could they find one to fit this tiny kitchen? Maybe when this business was sorted out and Brian came home they would move out of the high rise council flat. There wasn’t really room for four of them, and it was time he got to know his daughter.
She picked up the coffee to take it through to her mother, and caught sight of her reflection in the glass panel on the kitchen door. She wore no make-up and her face was a network of lines.
Things were going to change.
Her mother’s voice booming from the bedroom brought her back to reality. “Theresa! Has my giro has arrived?”
Theresa closed her eyes and didn’t answer.
“Bring it in here if it’s come. I can sign it, and ye can cash for us both and pick up me shopping.”
Theresa still didn’t reply. She put the coffee down on the table and went to the front door. A few envelopes lay on the mat. Thank goodness, the giros were there. But so was the gas bill: a red one.
“Theresa, a woman could be dying in here of a thirst. Have you made the coffee?”
The flat was cold; the heating was set to come on for a couple of hours in the morning and the same in the evening. Yet she still dreaded the gas bill. And she hated having to ask Olivia to pay it. Well, not for much longer.
“THERESA, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, ARE YOU DEAF?” Her mother’s voice boomed so loudly the entire flat seemed to vibrate. “Will ye tell me, do we have our giros yet? Or is it to be another dry day for your poor pain-ridden mother?”
Theresa’s voice stuck in her throat.
“THERESA! Theresa, if I have to get out to ye now, I’ll give ye such a fucking slap, you’ll not know if it’s Christmas or Easter.”
Theresa swallowed hard. “It’s OK, Mother, the giros are here. One minute now and I’ll be there.”
She walked back into the lounge and picked up the phone. She thought for a moment, then punched some numbers into the keypad. After another second she changed her mind and put the phone back on its cradle.
PC Judy Farmer stooped over the work surface in the small kitchen she shared with Kim Davis. Her large hands held a flat knife, smoothing butter back and forth across thick slices of bread. “Kim,” she called, “do you want hummus in both your sandwiches?”
There was no answer. Judy put the knife down and walked out of the neat kitchen into the dining area, then up the narrow stairway to the bedroom.
Kim was there, packing a large holdall with her dance gear. She was thinner than nineteen years ago, tall and willowy, and her dark brown hair was cut short in a boyish crop.
She opened drawers and threw tights and leg warmers into the bag, took a couple of leotards and a pink nylon dance bodice from another drawer, and bundled them in all in.
Judy watched her for a few seconds. “Kim, this is the first issue we’ve disagreed over in eight years. And much as I admire your loyalty to those girls...”
But Kim wasn’t listening. She tugged angrily at the zip, which refused to close.
Judy folded her arms across her chest. “Do you want some help?”
Kim carried on pulling at the zip, almost in tears. “No, it’s fine.”
“Is it? Then it’s the only thing in this house that is.” Judy turned away and walked back down the stairs.
As she expected, Kim followed her. “I should never have told you,” she said, fighting back the tears. “I’ve broken a nineteen-year-old promise, and I’ve put you in a split loyalty situation because of your job.”
“Stop it, Kim. You know I can’t handle it when you cry.” Judy sat on the sofa and dropped her head into her hands. She really thought Kim had turned the corner. When they first met eight years ago, she had been a mess: not long out of her second attempt at rehab, up on a charge of possession which she strenuously denied. Judy had believed her. For one thing the drug in question was cocaine, which Kim had never used; but more importantly, Judy trusted her instincts and there was something in her eyes.
They fell completely and unexpectedly in love, and against all the warnings of her fellow police officers Judy took Kim home to live with her. Kim was still in withdrawal; Judy helped her through it, and supported her when she backslid a couple of years later and went into rehab again.
That time Kim succeeded. She had been clean of drugs for six years now. Her strength and confidence had slowly returned under Judy’s tender care, and together they had set up a dance school in a rented room in a local community centre. As that prospered so did Kim. The mood swings and self-harming had stopped. She started to take proper care of herself again, ate properly and put herself through an exercise regime every day. She said she had never been happier, and Judy had what she always wanted: to love and cherish someone who loved her in return.
But then Kim dropped this bombshell. It wasn’t that Judy blamed her at all; in fact in helped her to understand where the drug abuse and self-harming came from. It wasn’t Kim’s fault, it wasn’t the fault of any of the girls – but it was threatening their relationship, and Judy wouldn’t stand by and let that happen. That was why she was angry.
“Yes, of course you should have told me,” she said a little too sharply, looking into Kim’s unhappy brown eyes. The dark circles under them looked almost like bruises. “We agreed we’d tell each other everything.” She put out a hand, and after a moment Kim took it and sat down beside her. Judy took her in her arms and rubbed the back of her head like a mother would a frightened child.
“I broke my promise to the other girls,” Kim said flatly.
“I know.” Judy kissed the top of her head. “But what happened at that club has affected you very deeply. I’m on your side, and I’ll look after you. That’s my promise.”
“It could affect your job.”
“It won’t.”
“But if Shaheen...”
Judy put her finger over Kim’s mouth. “She won’t. It’s not going to happen. Trust me.”
“OK.” Kim stood up and hefted the gaping bag on to her shoulder. “I have to go. I’m late.”
Judy followed her to the door, zipping the bag closed as she walked. “Best not to invite crime,” she said with a small smile.
Kim smiled back, and Judy stroked her cheek lightly. “After today we start again. Problems over, everything behind you. And no more secrets. OK?”
“OK.”
“I love you and I’ll look after you.”
“I just don’t want you to put your career on the line because of me.” Kim’s eyes searched Judy’s face. “I’ve already been enough trouble.”
“You haven’t, and my career’s fine.”
“Suppose he comes back for more money? Olivia and Katie aren’t bottomless pits.”
“Just make sure you get the videos back,” Judy said. “I’ll sort anything else.”
The team was gathered, all solemn-faced, some perching on the desks next to computers or stacked files, others making use of the stools and chairs.
Banham walked in and cast his eyes around the room. He was pleased to see Colin Crowther, the young, ambitious cockney DC; he always requested him for his team. Crowther was in his late twenties, and only about five feet five, with a mass of curly dark hair. Either the young DC couldn’t find clothes small enough to fit his diminutive frame or he had no idea what size to buy. Alison Grainger had once told Banham she had seen Crowther purchasing clothes in a children’s shop. This morning the brown velvet sleeves of his jacket were turned over so many times he looked as if he was wearing rolls of carpet around his wrists. He had matched the jacket with a red shirt and a tie that looked like some leftover school uniform, in diagonal stripes of blue, green and red.
Banham really liked this tiny lad, who had a hit rate with women that even Johnny Depp would find hard to beat. The boy was hardworking and shrewd, and put in far more hours than his shifts demanded. He was the current favourite for promotion next time a sergeant’s post was available; though he wasn’t the most experienced detective on the team, he was by far the most streetwise. The son of a known villain, he had a lot of useful contacts and wasn’t afraid to use them. And Banham knew he could trust him with his life.
Next to Crowther sat DC Isabelle Walsh. She resembled a young Vivien Leigh, and attracted men like Crowther attracted women, at least until she opened her mouth. She was outspoken and vulgar, and had a knack of rubbing people up the wrong way.
She too was after promotion – but rumour had it that Isabelle Walsh had made it into CID on her back. She had been a beat copper until someone high up in CID took a shine to her. Two months later she was promoted into CID murder division. Banham didn’t care; to him it proved she would stop at nothing to further her career, and that meant she would get results. And apart from Alison Grainger, solving murders was all that interested him.
He stared at the photo of the murdered woman on the whiteboard. Her face was yellowed and bloated, her eyes covered in congealed, maggot-infested blood. The head hung at an angle, leaving the wide knife wound in her neck in clear view. A pair of rotting satin knickers had been forced into her open mouth, leaving a thin ribbon dangling from her lips like a child’s strand of liquorice.
Banham picked up the marker pen and wrote under the photo: UNNAMED FEMALE. AROUND MIDDLE-AGE. PROBABLY EASTERN EUROPEAN OR ASIAN.
The team sat silent, looking at him expectantly.
“Who is she?” he asked. “Someone’s mother? Someone’s wife?” He swallowed as his throat thickened with emotion. His own ghosts were never far from his mind. “Was she dead when she was put there? If so, where was she killed? Who is looking for her? Someone must be.”
He moved aside to give them all a clear view of the picture. Everyone stared in silence for a few seconds.
Banham looked round the room. “What do we have on the car?” he asked a middle-aged ginger-haired detective who was leaning against the wall with his notebook balanced on his bent knee.
Ginger Pete looked up. “Reported stolen twelve days ago in central London,” he said. “Uniform are checking CCTV around the area. We already know there was no congestion charge paid or due; that probably means it was stolen at night.”
“That’s something, I suppose. What about Missing Persons?”
“Being checked, guv.” This was Crowther. “She could have come in on a train. Nothing on HOLMES so far.”
Banham turned back to the board. He wrote WEAPON? by the side of the picture, then ITEM OF UNDERWEAR IN MOUTH?
He interlocked his fingers and rubbed his mouth thoughtfully, staring at the distorted features in the photograph. Did she feel the knife carving into her neck, he wondered. Did she have a husband? And would he feel the same as Banham, for the rest of his life? An image of his own wife, bludgeoned and dying, reaching out to help her baby daughter, jumped into his mind, and he wrenched his focus back to the woman in the picture.
Alison Grainger knew him well. Suddenly she was beside him, facing the room full of waiting detectives as he pulled himself together.
“Interesting that the car was reported missing in the middle of London,” she said. “How did it end up all the way out here? Why did she get in the car? She wasn’t a tom, not wearing chain store thermal knickers and a warm vest. I think she knew her killer.”
Alison looked across at Isabelle Walsh, challenging her with her eyes. The mention of knickers was a cue for one of her tasteless remarks, but Isabelle obviously got the message; she said nothing.
“OK, let’s start with the underwear,” Banham said, turning to face the room. “The red g-thing is down with Penny in forensics. The leather ribbon makes it quite distinctive.” He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I’m not an expert on women’s underwear, but Alison thinks that sort of fabric and design goes back twenty years, maybe the nineteen seventies or eighties. Modern g-strings only have a thin piece at the back.” He couldn’t look Alison in the eye. “Isn’t that what you said?” he asked the top of her head.
“That’s because more women wear trousers now,” Alison agreed.
“Some women don’t wear any knickers,” Isabelle announced, uncrossing her legs in her tight-fitting jeans. Crowther gave Isabelle a speculative look. She responded with a broad smile.
“You’re obviously an expert, Isabelle,” Banham said. “See if you can track down its origin, manufacturer, year, how many were made, all of that.”
“Guv.”
“I’m willing to help with that,” Crowther said loudly.
“Good.” Isabelle’s heavily painted mouth curved into a mocking smile. “You can model the knickers for us when they come back from forensics.”
“Maybe our killer has had them for twenty years,” Crowther said. “Or maybe they were the victim’s. She could have been a tom twenty years ago.”
“And maybe someone has been waiting all this time,” Banham added. “The question is, why?”
“Perhaps he’s been in prison?” Alison suggested.
Banham nodded. “Good thinking. Crowther, I think Isabelle can manage on her own. Check if anyone’s been released lately for a crime that could tie up.” He looked round the room. “Do we have anything else? Anything at all?”
No one said anything.
“OK. So if Crowther’s right and someone has kept those knickers for twenty years, she wasn’t a random victim; she was targeted. So once we find out who she is, we need to delve into her background. Where was she twenty years ago, and what was she doing?”
“She’d have been in her teens,” Alison said.
Banham nodded. “So where did she go to school? Did she go to college, perhaps? And were the knickers hers?”
“They might come from somewhere in Asia,” Crowther said. “She did, originally at least.”
“Guv?” One of the other detectives raised a hand. “What about the weapon?”
“Uniform are still going door to door where she was found,” Alison said.
“Better expand it,” Banham said. “Someone must have heard something. Put up an appeal board. Maybe a passing driver noticed something. Keep digging until you get something.”
PC Judy Gardener was on duty at the front desk in the station. She hurried in, carrying the beef and tomato sandwich she had made herself for lunch. Her usually large appetite had diminished; she was too worried about Kim to feel like eating. She brought the sandwich with her anyway; it was still lunchtime, and with an eight-hour shift ahead, she might well feel like it in an hour or two. She threw the Tupperware container under the counter and took over the paperwork from her colleague.
An hour later she was filling in forms for two young shoplifters when a middle-aged woman walked in.
“It’s about my dog,” she told Judy.
With a sigh the constable put down her pen and invited the woman to tell her what the problem was. It appeared she walked her dog on the same route every day; a couple of days ago the mutt had gone sniffing around under a bush in a long driveway and when the woman went to investigate she’d found a handbag.
“I was going to bring it in yesterday, but it was my day at the hospital and they kept me waiting even longer than usual. I’ll tell you what, though – the owner of that handbag is very lucky it was me who found it. Her wallet and credit cards are still in there, and there’s money in the purse, and a return ticket from St Pancras to Leicester, and house keys.”
Judy took the bag from the woman and opened it. The name on the credit card was Shaheen Hakhti-Watkins.
It took her a few seconds to compose herself. The woman was staring at her; she replaced the wallet in the bag and closed it, thanked her for being a good citizen and noted down her details. “Someone will be in touch,” she told her, and suppressed a smile as the woman straightened her shoulders proudly and marched towards the door.
Judy opened the bag again, and stood very still, staring back at Shaheen Hakhti smiling at her from the photograph in her hand.
An aroma of freshly brewed coffee mixed with stale cigarette smoke wafted through the ground floor of Olivia Stone’s enormous house. The five women were all in the sitting room, seated on the elegant chairs placed around the room, except Kim, who was in her favourite position curled up on the thick Turkish rug on the floor. The two onyx ashtrays on the stylish glass table overflowed with dog-ends. An empty wine bottle and a half-full bottle of gin stood beside them, surrounded by dirty glasses and clean coffee cups.
Katie Faye had just made fresh coffee. She poured a cup for Olivia, who had begun to slur her words. Katie wanted her to stay sober until they had finally sorted things out. Besides, if Kevin and Ianthe came home and told their dad that Olivia had been drunk, Ken would fly into one of his rages, and maybe even ban Olivia’s friends from the house. And whatever Olivia said – or mostly didn’t say – Katie knew she was terrified of his violent temper.
Susan sat up straight in a pale leather armchair, scribbling with a chewed biro in a tattered notebook. She took a sip of her third large gin and tonic; unlike Olivia she was still completely sober. “All agreed then, cockles?” she said, dotting the pen on the paper and looking round at the other four. Her almost white, badly-permed hair bobbed as she spoke.
Katie nodded.
“I’ll bell Brian when I get home,” Susan said. “If ’e can’t meet me till tomorrow, I’ll lock the money in me till overnight. I’ll be sure to get all the tapes off ’im and check they’re the right ones before I hand over the money.”
The girls murmured their agreement as Katie handed her the envelope. Susan pushed it into the pocket of her jeans. “Done and dusted then. End of a chapter. Thanks to Katie and Olivia, we can all move on.”
Olivia had wanted to tell the girls about Kenneth’s sudden attack of stinginess, but Katie had persuaded her to keep it between the two of them. She glanced at Olivia, but the other woman was staring at the carpet.
“And no thanks to Shaheen Hakhti-Watkins,” Kim said, waving her glass in the air.
Katie grimaced. “She isn’t one of us now. She doesn’t exist any more.”
“Shaheen who?” Theresa raised her glass, smiling sadly before putting it down and picking up one of her thin roll-up cigarettes and lighting it with a throwaway lighter.
“She could at least have let us know she wasn’t coming,” Kim said, wiggling her ankles nervously.
“She could have done loads of things, darlin’,” Susan replied dryly. “But she’s done fuck all in nineteen years.”
“But now it’s all over,” Katie said.
“We just need to get those videos back,” Olivia said, hardly slurring at all, “then it will be.”
“I still don’t understand why he did this.” Kim slipped off a shoe and wriggled her bare toes. “He knew we had every intention of helping him when he came out.”
“Don’t look at me,” Theresa said defensively. “He hasn’t been near since he got out of prison. I’m pretty annoyed with him, I can tell you.”
“We’re paying up,” Katie said, with a warning look in Olivia’s direction. “Let that be an end to it.”
“I suppose prison changes people,” Kim said thoughtfully. “And I suppose there’s Bernadette to look out for too.”
“I just wish we could turn the clock back,” Katie said, attempting to steer the conversation away from Brian’s motives.
“Don’t we all?” Susan agreed.
“We were young and stupid, and it was an accident,” Kim reasoned. “But we’ll always have to live with what we did.”
“What Shaheen did,” Katie corrected.
“What Shaheen didn’t did,” Olivia said loudly.
“If she did go to the police,” Susan said slowly, “I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions.”
“You’d have to get in line behind Ju-” Kim stopped with a gasp as she realised what she had almost said.
Too late. Katie looked at Olivia, then at Susan and Theresa and back at Kim. “You haven’t told Judy about this? Please don’t tell me you’ve told Judy that we killed Ahmed Abdullah?”
Kim turned away and closed her eyes.
“Kim?” Susan clenched her fists. “Kim, she’s a cop. They have a code of practice...”
“I haven’t, right?” Kim looked at the carpet.
“We have a pact going back nineteen years, to keep Ahmed’s death between ourselves.” Susan’s voice rose several tones. “Please don’t tell me you’ve broken your word.”
Kim fiddled nervously with the fringe of the rug. “No... I was only saying...”
The front door opened and slammed shut.
“Either Ken’s meeting finished early or it’s the kids,” Olivia said in a strained whisper.
Katie jumped up and grabbed the gin bottle from the table. “Say we’re having a meeting about a charity bazaar,” she said to the others, shutting the bottle in the drinks cabinet just as the door opened and Ianthe burst in.
“What’s for tea, Mum?” Ianthe asked rudely. “I’m starving.”
Olivia ignored her.
“Nothing,” Kevin answered from behind his sister. “Mum’s too pissed to get us any tea. So what’s new?”
If they knew the half of it, Katie thought. She picked up her handbag and took out her purse.