The Runaway Read online

  ‘Why the interest in this kid? So what if she did it? Why should I give a flying fuck?’

  Gates shook his head.

  ‘Imagine it was your girl, Susan, and she was liable to be banged up. What would you, her mother, do, eh? I’ll tell you what you’d do - you’d move heaven and earth to save her. Well, rightly or wrongly, I want Madge Connor to do the same. If I have to, I’ll play the heavy. So let’s get on with what I came here for. Talk to me, woman.’

  Susan dropped her guard and sat back in her seat once more. ‘I remember the kid. I saw her when I went to the flat. To be honest, I thought she’d end up the same way as the mother. I even thought I might take her on meself. Good-looking little thing, all big eyes and blonde hair. If I didn’t know you better, I’d be inclined to think that’s why you’re so concerned.’

  Gates looked annoyed and Susan hastened to reassure him. ‘I just mean, if it was anyone else . . . Christ, man, there’s plenty of them about. You should know that better than anyone.’

  She stared into her empty glass, debating with herself how much it was safe to tell. After an age she said quietly, ‘I used her to do a put up. You know, when you take one whore and use another for the actual bagging? Madge, dressed up and scrubbed, delivered a parcel for me. She was the decoy, though she didn’t know that at the time. She delivered the parcel to the house of a High Court judge. It was the start of a blackmail scam against him. Madge delivered a few stills. I used a younger whore to deliver the actual film to his chambers. You know how it works. His wife wants to know what an old brass is doing leaving him letters, and his arsehole goes when he realises that at the same time a film of him shagging a young filly has arrived at his place of work. I use the two in case the filth are following anyone. If one don’t shut the fuckers up, then two will. You know the scenario, Gates. I used Madge once.’

  He listened carefully then said: ‘So who was the judge?’

  Susan P shook her head. ‘I can’t tell even you that. Not unless I have your word you’ll get my Molly out of Holloway?’

  Gates rolled his eyes and nodded. ‘Always a rider with you, ain’t there?’

  ‘Molly’s a good worker, but a bastard with a drink in her,’ Susan explained. ‘She’s been done for affray. Her case comes up on Tuesday.’

  ‘It’s as good as done,’ Gates told her. ‘Now what’s the fucker’s name?’

  Susan, happier now, said jokingly: ‘You won’t believe me.’

  ‘Try me?’

  ‘It’s the Lord Chief Justice himself. Has a penchant for young girls in school uniforms - hardly original but there you go. Enough for the News of the World to have a fit of the vapours if the pictures ever hit their desks.’

  Gates shook his head and laughed gently. ‘The dirty old fucker!’

  Susan P grinned. ‘My sentiments entirely. Now, would you like another drink?’

  Gates held out his empty glass but declined. ‘Not for me, girl. I have to see a woman about a dog.’

  Chapter Eight

  Cathy was being examined by the doctor and Richard Gates was watching the procedure impassively. The police doctor felt nervous as usual while in Gates’s company and his hands shook slightly as he rebuttoned Cathy’s nightdress. Wrapping her once more in the rough blanket, he turned to the female PC and said, ‘She’s in extreme shock.’

  Gates swiftly interrupted him. ‘She can’t make a statement then?’

  Dr Angus Miller looked closely into the bigger man’s eyes. ‘Not if you think that’s inadvisable . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  Gates smiled. ‘I do. Thanks, Dr Miller, you have been a diamond geezer.’ The mockery in his voice was evident and the other man tidied his things away in his black bag and hastily departed.

  ‘Something will have to be done soon, sir,’ said the WPC.

  Gates nodded slightly. ‘All right, Doreen. Give the poor little mare a wash and brush up and I’ll sort out her mother.’

  Madge was bewildered and annoyed. It was now ten-fifteen in the morning and she had been given neither tea, coffee nor breakfast since her last encounter with that bastard Gates. She knew he had ordered this, and now, thirsty, hungry and scared, she was wondering what his next step would be. One thing she was sure of: he wouldn’t give in without a fight, and Madge was no longer sure she was a match for him and his iron will.

  Gates covertly watched her pacing her cell and smiled to himself. He was well aware of the psychological advantage he had gained by cutting her off from everything. Even the offer of a simple cup of tea would be seen as contact with the outside world and could help bolster her resolve. If he had had the time he would have left her a couple of days without toilet facilities, food or drink. That was always good for a result. Stripping them naked helped also, especially with the women. But time, unfortunately, was not on his side. Someone had to be charged or he had to let them go. And charge Madge he would.

  When she heard the door being unlocked she didn’t know whether to feel fear or relief. Seeing Gates, she decided on the former.

  ‘Hello, Madge. You’re looking distinctly worried. Now why would that be?’ His voice had a sing-song quality to it that frightened her more than if he’d shouted at her. But Gates rarely shouted. His soft voice was his trademark and he had a saying: You can do more with a soft voice than a big stick.

  Looking at his set face, the tight line in his lips and terrifying coldness in his eyes, Madge started to waver. ‘Look, Mr Gates . . .’

  He interrupted her. ‘You’re beginning to get right on my nerves, Madge. In all my years I’ve never had to do so much running around for an old brass. I feel like you’re taking the piss out of me, see.’ He held up his hands expressively. ‘I feel like you’re having a laugh at my expense.’

  Madge was shaking her head and mumbling, ‘No, no, Mr Gates.’

  Pushing her roughly down on the narrow bed, he said, ‘I found out about your scam with Susan P. Now she’s all upset. Wants to know who grassed her up, don’t she? Out on the street you wouldn’t last five minutes if I told her that you’d opened your big mouth about her blackmailing the Lord Chief Justice. I mean, that’s a lucrative business she has there. Imagine if it was stopped or she was arrested. Susan P is not a woman to fall out with. She has a phenomenal temper. She also likes kids. But then, you know that.’

  Madge looked horrified. Stifling a smile, Gates carried on with the psychological pressure.

  ‘Asked after your little girl she did, when I spoke to her. Wanted to know if the girl would be taken care of while you were banged up like. Offered to see the kid all right. What a touch, eh, Madge? Susan P championing your little Cathy. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? I mean, think about it. Both me and Susan P looking out for her. She’ll have more protection than the fucking Queen and that Greek ponce she married!’

  Madge, knowing she was defeated, stared up at the big man before her and accepted the inevitable. If he’d told Susan P she had opened her mouth, she was already as good as dead. Susan P was famously fair - and famously violent when the fancy took her.

  Just like Richard Gates.

  Both had their own way of looking at and doing things, and such was their strength of mind, they achieved whatever it was they decided on.

  A wave of hatred washed over Madge as she thought of her daughter. Cathy had youth, good looks and friends. A winning combination by anyone’s standards.

  A big fat tear squeezed itself from the corner of her eye and she wiped it away with one tobacco-stained finger.

  ‘Want a cup of tea, Madge, and a bit of nosebag?’

  Gates’s voice was softer, friendlier. He had what he wanted, there was no need to keep the pressure on.

  She nodded sadly and he smiled at her, a real smile that changed his whole demeanour. ‘Cheer up, girl. Worse things happen in nick - or so I’m told anyway!’

  He had done what he’d set out to do. As usual, once he had achieved his aim, he was bored and wanted to get on with the next item on
his agenda. Outside the cell he said to his DC, ‘Get her a cooked brekker and a statement form. Once she’s signed, charge her. Then get Social Services in for the kid. I’m going home for a shit, a shave and a shampoo.’

  With that he left the building. DC Fuller watched his boss’s retreating back with a shocked expression on his face. It had seemed as though the big brass was never going to hold her hand up, but a bit of the Gates treatment and suddenly it was I Confess. Yes, another interesting night at Bethnal Green police station.

  You could shove Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars!

  Cathy was washed and dressed. Sitting in the interview room she stared around her in bewilderment. The dingy walls and scarred table were testament to the many hours people had spent confined in here. Dark stains on walls and floor also showed that many had been taken there against their will, to be prompted into statements by physical force. Even at her young age, Cathy knew that. Stories of police brutality were common where she lived, and were related with a strange sort of pride. It was as if the day you got your first police hammering you had finally made it as a criminal. It was a red letter day for the younger men, like their first fumbling attempt at sex or their first ever burglary.

  Looking at those stains now, Cathy shivered as she imagined the punishment meted out in this room. Instinctively, she knew the nice man, Gates, would be one of the chief offenders. He wouldn’t treat everybody the way he did her. Closing her eyes, she imagined where she would be going next. All she knew was that her mother had been charged and she herself was to be taken by a social worker, to be put into care eventually. The very words were frightening.

  Care. Knowing what she did already from friends at school, the word ‘care’ was used by the Social Services in its loosest sense. The door opened. Wide-eyed she looked at the tall woman before her, wearing a green cloche hat and orange lipstick.

  ‘Is this the child?’

  The policewoman nodded silently. She felt for the kid. This hatchet-faced bitch looked about as friendly as the Wicked Witch of the West. She was all angles, from her high cheekbones to her bony wrists and ankles. As she sat herself down, the policewoman thought that the woman had knees like a bag of hammers.

  ‘Name, child?’

  Cathy looked at the woman mutely.

  The young WPC’s heart went out to the girl and she said gently, ‘She’s still in shock.’

  The woman turned cold eyes on her and said scathingly, ‘When I want your opinion, I will ask for it.’

  Cathy stared straight ahead. Sighing, the woman said curtly, ‘It’s no good being surly, young lady. My advice to you is to cooperate with me. I can make life as easy or as hard as I decide. It would serve you well to remember that.’ Glancing at the WPC she said, ‘Bring some tea.’

  The WPC left the room reluctantly.

  Mrs Mary Barton, social worker, studied the girl before her. The cupid’s bow mouth and naturally arched eyebrows irritated her. Really, the child looked more like an adult. The breasts already jutting through the thin material of the borrowed dress annoyed her. In fact, everything about the child set her on edge. Working-class girls were born women. They developed much earlier, they looked at men much earlier, and as she herself could attest, produced children much earlier.

  This one here with her brassy blonde hair and big blue eyes needed taking in hand, and Mary Barton knew just the person to do it. But not now. She had thought of fostering the girl with the Henderson family in Totteridge.

  Cathy pushed her hair from her eyes and settled it over one shoulder. It was a graceful, completely unconscious gesture and it made Mrs Barton’s false teeth grind.

  Definitely a whore in the making here. Well, a few months at the Benton School for Girls would sort this little hussy out! No need to waste any time on tea and sympathy.

  ‘Come along, child, we have a long journey ahead of us.’

  ‘Can I see me mum before we go?’

  Mrs Barton shook her head vehemently. ‘No, you cannot. This is a police station, not a holiday camp. Your mother is on a murder charge and will be on her way to Holloway by now. Good riddance to bad rubbish, say I. You’ll see her eventually. If you’re good.’

  The words were a threat and Cathy knew that, even though her mind was in turmoil. Watching Mrs Barton fussily gather together her papers and files, she tried again. ‘Can’t I even say goodbye?’

  Mrs Barton acted as if she had not heard the outrageous demand, but her body language said it all. Bowing her head, Cathy swallowed down the tears.

  The nice WPC had told her earlier that Madge had taken the blame for the stabbing, and that Cathy was to keep quiet and not say a word about it to anyone. She had hugged Cathy then, smelling nicely of lavender and toothpaste. Cathy had felt like hugging her back, but hadn’t dared.

  All she knew was that her mother had finally come through for her and the knowledge was like balm. She had thought her mother didn’t care but she did.

  Cathy’s eyes filled with tears again and she hastily wiped them away. A little voice was prompting her to tell the truth. But she couldn’t. The nice WPC had said that the big man with the balding head and quiet voice would be very cross with Cathy if she opened her mouth. That her mother owed her this and it was the right thing for her to do.

  Still, even though she’d wanted her mother to do it, now that she had Cathy was frightened for her. She loved her mum very much, and understood her.

  Following Mrs Barton out to her small car, she looked back one final time at the police station. Then, straightening her back, she got into the car. Wherever they took her, Eamonn would come and get her. Everything would be all right then.

  She hung on to that thought as they set out on the journey to Kent and finally, exhausted and afraid, sought refuge in sleep.

  On remand, Madge was allowed a visit from Eamonn Docherty Senior and smiled wanly to see him.

  ‘It took this to get you to visit me without a fight, eh?’ Her voice was hard, but her face was drawn and tired.

  ‘Social Services have taken Cathy. I tried to see you earlier, came as soon as I could.’

  Madge nodded, placated.

  ‘You took it for her then? That was a very fine thing to do,’ he said.

  She lit a cigarette and snorted derisively. ‘Under duress, Eamonn. Don’t go thinking I’ve any noble sentiments because I ain’t. If I had that little mare here now, I’d break her fucking neck! She stabbed him, and at nearly fourteen she should have carried the can, mate. She’d have been in and out in no time. As it is, I’m away for the duration, ain’t I? As for that bastard Gates, I’ll see me day with him. With the pair of them.’

  Eamonn Senior shook his head in distress. ‘Madge, I really thought you’d finally become a worthwhile person. After all, if you hadn’t brought that filth into your home, none of this would have happened. You caused it all. Everything. That girl was a rock to you but you could never see it. You gave her a bit of affection, as and when the fancy took you. As she grew up, you let her take on more and more of the responsibility that should have been yours. You used and abused her.

  ‘Well, let me tell you something, lady. I’m glad Gates put a stop to your gallop. I’m glad you’re going to do a long time, Madge, because that’s all you’re fit for. Any decent mother would have looked out for the girl, but not you. Oh, no. You’d have had her on the streets with you. That was your man’s intention, whatever you chose to believe. Well, I’ll leave you to stew in your own juice. By Christ, I hope it burns a hole through your heart, I do that. I don’t know why I even came here.’

  ‘Why did you, Eamonn?’ Madge’s voice was low now, a pleading note in it to which he responded despite his temper.

  ‘I came, Madge, because we were together for years and the girl was like me own child. I came hoping I’d find a different Madge Connor. A contrite woman, who had finally done something worthwhile with her shite of a life. That’s why I came.’ He looked into her watery eyes and hoped against hope he would find so
me sign of humanity there.

  ‘Well, you had a wasted journey then, didn’t you?’ Laughing contemptuously, Madge got up and dismissed him by turning her back on him and calling for the PO to take her back to her cell.

  Watching her, he was amazed at the hardness that had come over her in the space of twenty-four hours. She was afraid of prison. Well, who wasn’t? But surely she must realise it was better that she be incarcerated than that young girl?

  Shaking his head at the vagaries of women, Eamonn Senior walked out of Holloway and made his way to the nearest public house where he drank himself unconscious.

  Cathy woke up as they reached Deal seafront. The lights and the sea were so different from anything she had ever seen before that she stared at them in fascination before she remembered where she was going and why.

  Holidaymakers walked along the rainy prom carrying paper-wrapped fish and chips. Small children tagged along behind them. Kiss-me-quick hats and huge sticks of pink rock were evident everywhere, and the women looked wonderful with their brightly coloured clothes and backcombed hairstyles.

  Cathy saw a man pick up his tiny daughter and hold her above his head. She could see his wife looking on, face alight with happiness. Cathy envied them their sheer exuberance, the contentment and the stability of their lives.

  As they left the seafront they began to drive up a long winding road. Every now and then there were lovely houses to be seen, with neatly kept gardens and expensive cars in the drives. The houses were lit up like beacons and looked warm and inviting.

  It was as they turned into a small lane that Cathy felt the first stirrings of apprehension.