The boy stayed where he was on the bed. His head was thumping, and he knew it must be due to some kind of drugs. He had the heavy lethargy only they left you with. He took a guess at Mogadon but could have been wrong.
Terry turned to him briefly and said, ‘There’s glue in the cupboard if that’s your poison. Otherwise I have a few sweeties you might want. You’re the entertainment for a few of my friends tonight, and if you do a good job and don’t panic, there’s a two-hundred quid bonus for you, right? But if you start a load of upset then you get nothing but a good hiding, understand me?’
Johnny sipped at the cold milk shake, its sweetness soothing to his dry throat. He saw the camera equipment around the room, and the large-screen TV, and his heart sank. On a table by the bed were handcuffs and other sexual paraphernalia.
Finishing his milk shake, he felt the bile rise inside him and feared he was going to vomit. It was partly the milk on his empty stomach but mainly fear. He knew he was in for a nightmare experience. He had heard about these parties and knew that boys who had attended them had sometimes never been seen again.
Then he smiled grimly to himself. He was HIV. Well, maybe he’d pay back a few debts later this evening - though one of the older boys had said that many of the men who hired them and their like were HIV themselves. Johnny lay back on the bed, his head whirling.
What did it matter anyway? Who gave a toss about him? He’d take what drugs were on offer and try to get the night over with.
‘How many men are coming?’
The boy’s voice was low and Terry didn’t look at him as he said nonchalantly, ‘About eight, maybe more.’ Johnny felt his heart racing once again and closed his eyes in distress. He heard Campbell laugh. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a girl being delivered here later. Between you, you should be all right. She’s fifteen but a virgin by all accounts. She’ll take most of the flak, I should imagine. Relax and enjoy it. Think of the money and what you can do with it.’
The boy nodded. His face was a sickly green colour and his mouth was slack. ‘What sweeties have you got?’
‘That’s the spirit, son,’ he said approvingly. ‘Think of this as a little business venture and you’ll be as right as ninepence. It’s only ever trouble if you make it trouble, do you get my drift?’
The boy knew he was being threatened and kept silent. All he had to do was get tonight over with.
Myra Campbell was small, only four foot nine, and slim, with tiny childlike breasts and a handspan waist. Her bleached blonde hair was cut very short, and her eyes were still made up in the panda style she had adopted in the late-sixties. For her age she was an attractive woman.
But her childlike demeanour hid a devious personality that was at times frightening in its singlemindedness.
She lived for her son Trevale, her eldest child. No one could ever say anything bad about him; no one could ever convince her he was evil. To Myra he was her life. She adored him, and he adored her. That was how it had always been.
When she placed a cup of coffee in front of Cathy, the two women eyed each other up. They instantly disliked one another. Cathy saw through the dainty little woman like a pane of glass, and that alone would make Myra her enemy. She had spent her whole life deluding people and the few who saw through her she hated with an intensity that was frightening. In fact, Myra Campbell made Cathy’s skin crawl.
The feeling was mutual. Myra hated Cathy’s holier-than-thou expression, but most of all she hated her for the way she looked.
Richard Gates watched the exchange in fascination. Myra went to the kitchen to fetch her own drink, and Cathy met his eyes and made a face.
The house was beautiful though over-clean. You could sense that this room was rarely used; only on high days and holidays. The carpet was expensive; everything in the room was expensive. From the Edwardian loveseat to the antique vases on the mantel it was a lovely, tasteful place. One to be savoured and enjoyed. A room to read in, to relax in.
But it felt drained of life, of enjoyment, of hope. The atmosphere was stifling and Cathy could not wait to leave.
Myra came back into the room and sat on the edge of her chair. She eyed her two visitors warily. ‘So what’s all this in aid of then? My boy, I suppose.’ She pursed her lips, and both Cathy and Richard knew she was not expecting an answer. ‘I don’t know why you lot keep picking on him. He does some bloody good things for people but you don’t shout abo—’
Richard interrupted her. ‘Up for the Nobel peace prize, is he? Him and Mother Teresa, for taking in all the waifs and strays from the Cross and giving them a living? Is that what you’re referring to?’
Myra snorted, and her voice was low and bitter as she said, ‘Fuck you, Richard Gates, and all your sort. My baby is a good boy, a kind boy, and nothing you make up will ever convince me otherwise.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve changed your tune! Years ago he was just a high-spirited lad and everyone was making him do things he didn’t want to do. You’ve developed plenty of trap since then and all!’
Myra stood up, thin body bristling with indignation as she paced the room, drawing deeply on a cigarette. ‘He’s my baby and I ain’t going to let anyone bad mouth him to me. Do you dig what I’m saying, Mr Gates?’
Cathy put her coffee cup on a low table and said, ‘No one’s accusing your son of anything yet. We just need to talk to him, that’s all, ask him a few questions. Is he at his sister’s? What’s his address?’
Myra stared at the younger woman before her and smiled, a cold smile that didn’t touch her heavily made-up eyes. ‘Do I look that fucking stupid, love? I ain’t got no address for my boy, and if I did have I wouldn’t give it to you under torture. As for my daughter, I have nothing to do with her at all. She’s a whore.’
She spat out the words like bullets and Richard jeered: ‘Is that because she’s doing what you’ve always wanted to do, eh? Fucking your son?’ He was deliberately goading her.
Myra’s face paled. Talking between her teeth, she said heavily, ‘Get out of my home. Get out now, both of you. I invited you in, and now I want you to leave.’
Cathy stood up. The two women were both small-boned, both delicate, both very angry.
‘Your son is responsible for the ruin of many young lives, Mrs Campbell, doesn’t that bother you at all?’
Richard watched them, his face impassive.
‘He ain’t never ruined no one, lady, you got it all wrong as usual. Like everyone always gets it wrong where my boy’s concerned. It’s all hearsay and talkology. His solicitor will explain that to you, as he’s explained it to the police many times. No one has ever said a bad word against my boy except the filth, and let’s face it, they ain’t exactly whiter than white these days, are they?’
Cathy was getting even angrier. ‘Your son is scum, and after meeting you I can understand why. Look at you, in your ivory tower, knowing your adored little baby is taking children from the streets and using them, ruining their chance in life and disposing of them afterwards like rubbish. All this stuff in here,’ she swept an arm around the room, ‘was paid for by other people’s degradation and shame. He caters for the lowest of the low and he’s in good company because he was taught everything he knows by you, wasn’t he?’
Myra raised her hand to slap Cathy’s face. Cathy’s hand with its long pale pink nails grabbed at the woman’s wrist and, twisting it, she put Myra on her knees. As she heard the woman cry out in pain, Cathy laughed.
‘Don’t even think about striking me, lady, because I’d rip your hair out by the roots and ram it down your throat! Remember that, won’t you? I won’t rest until your boy’s banged up or off the streets permanently. You tell him that from me, Cathy Pasquale.’
Richard was staring at her as if she had just grown horns and a beard in front of his eyes.
Cathy shoved Myra away from her and walked from the room. Richard followed her. Neither of them spoke until they were sitting in his Cosworth outside Myra’s three-storey house. Cathy was still shaking with fury, her face white and mouth set in a grim line.
Richard lit a cigarette and passed it to her. Taking it, she swallowed back tears.
‘I could have come across someone like him, couldn’t I, when I was a girl? Instead I met you and Desrae and Joey. I’ve just realised all over again how lucky I was.’
She faced him, eyes filled with pain and confusion. ‘What makes these people like they are, Richard? I hear all this shit about abusers being abused themselves, but I’ve never wanted to abuse anyone, ever. And I was abused all my life, throughout my childhood. My real life began when I killed Ron. I still remember that night, remember what I did to him, and yet, if I hadn’t I would never have had the good life I enjoy now. The material things I have now, I should say. Maybe that’s my punishment eh? Instead of prison I got money, wealth even, but I was never, ever able to get peace of mind.’
Richard put a strong arm around her and pulled her to him, holding her tightly. As she breathed in the scent of him she felt safe and secure once more. She always had done with him, right from the night he had sat beside her in the police cell and wrapped her in an old blanket.
Richard hugged her to him as if his life depended on it. He kissed her gently, smelling the peach shampoo and hint of musky perfume she always wore. He wished she’d cry, because he knew that if anyone needed to cry it was the woman in his arms.
Instead she pulled away from him and, smiling sadly, said: ‘Campbell’s sister, I think, don’t you?’
‘Oh, so we’re seeing Terry’s sister first, are we, and not young Peter’s?’
Cathy nodded. ‘I think somehow she’ll have more to tell us than his mummy.’
Richard started the car up and sighed heavily. ‘I wouldn’t bank on it, love, but we can but try.’
Shaquila Campbell was stunning.
Tall and slim, she carried herself like an African princess. She was small-breasted with a tiny waist and long, long legs that were shapely and slim. In her high heels she was nearly six foot tall. There was nothing of her mother in her, and Cathy surmised that her father must have been a handsome man.
Shaquila’s eyes were black as coal and almond-shaped, her nose a small bud in the centre of her face, her wide mouth sensuous and sexy. Her high cheekbones accentuated her African features. Her teeth were a pristine white and she looked as if she was always on the verge of smiling.
Not now, though. She stood on the doorstep of an attractive house off Kensington High Street, a small boy in her arms, back ramrod straight. Both Cathy and Richard were impressed by the calm and proud picture she made.
‘Shaquila Campbell?’ Richard’s voice was his usual soft drawl.
The woman nodded. Resting the child higher on her hip, she looked them both over before asking, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m a police officer. I need to ask you a few questions about your brother, Trevale.’
The girl’s calm deserted her and she tried unsuccessfully to shut the door in their faces. Richard pushed against it and gently forced it back open.
‘I really think you should let us in. If I come back with a warrant it isn’t going to make things any easier for you, is it? At the moment I just want a few words, that’s all.’
Shaquila bit on her bottom lip. ‘There ain’t anything I can tell you about my brother.’
Her voice was now pure Jamaican - quite different from the way she had spoken previously.
Cathy stepped towards her, saying, ‘Please let us in, it’s important we talk to you.’ The little boy smiled at her, then shyly hid his face in his mother’s breast. Cathy smiled back at him and her heart went out to the tall girl in front of her. She could practically smell her fear.
‘Come inside, but I’m sure I ain’t got nothing to tell you.’
They followed the woman into a large high-ceilinged room and sat down at her invitation on a white leather sofa. The room was bare: no pictures on the wall, no ornaments, nothing. Just a plain brown carpet and white leather suite. A chrome and glass coffee table dominated the room, and a large wide-screen TV was stuck in one corner.
The only touch of frivolity came from curtains. Of rich gold brocade, they stretched across the large picture window and added colour and warmth to the pale magnolia walls.
As they settled themselves the girl placed the small boy on the floor where he promptly lay down and began to suck his thumb. The sound was loud in the room.
‘He’s beautiful.’
Cathy’s voice was sincere and Shaquila smiled her thanks before asking Richard: ‘What do you want? What is my brother supposed to have done now?’ Her voice was resigned, as if people coming and questioning her about her brother was an everyday occurrence.
Richard spoke first. ‘Do you have any idea of Terry’s whereabouts at this time?’
Shaquila shrugged. ‘No, why should I?’ Her tone told them she was not going to be an easy nut to crack.
‘I understand you and he are very close?’
The words were spoken with Richard’s usual quietness, but the underlying message was clear and Shaquila’s eyes were hooded as she replied, ‘Of course we’re close. He’s my brother.’
‘He’s also the father of your children and if I know anything about it there’s a law in this country about that. It’s called incest.’
Shaquila smiled icily. ‘Actually, it’s perfectly legal. We’re both over the age of consent and can do what the hell we like in the privacy of our own home. I know that for a fact. Now, if you and this lady here have finished your questioning, I’d like my flat back, please. I know nothing about Terry: where he is, where he lives or who he’s with. So you’re just wasting your time.’ The West Indian inflection was gone now. She sounded like Trevor Macdonald with a poker up his jumper.
Cathy was embarrassed, but Shaquila and Richard were not. He smiled grimly at her.
‘You do know what he’s involved in, don’t you? You know about him taking kids off the streets and using them for his porno films and his parties - his private parties where young boys and girls are raped repeatedly by brutes of men? Your lad’s a handsome boy. I understand he has a sister. What about in years to come? Do you think Terry’ll balk at his daughter when he never thought twice about pumping up his own sister? Think about what I’m saying, Shaquila, because while you and your mother protect him, he has a licence to do exactly what he wants.’