The Runaway Read online

  Kissing his cheek, Cathy watched him disappear with Titchy and sighed with relief that the inevitable had been put off for a few days by the actions of the Bermondsey Boys.

  Eamonn was easily the tallest of his cronies and they looked to him for guidance. Even the older boys looked to him, because Eamonn had the edge. Unlike his pals, who just liked to act it, Eamonn was really hard. He didn’t just fight, he set out to maim. His name was synonymous with real fear in the East End. It wasn’t just his size, impressive though that was. He had a coldness about him that the others picked up on.

  At fifteen, he had beaten unconscious a North Londoner called Teddy Spinelli, a loan shark of Italian descent. Once, Teddy had been respected - feared even. Since the hammering he had received at Eamonn’s hands, he had not been seen or heard of anywhere in the Smoke. Even the older villains gave Eamonn his due, impressed with this young boy, this fighter. Seeing themselves in him when young.

  This was duly noted and gave him a mystique which Eamonn used shamelessly for his own ends.

  There was one drawback to all this, however: every firm with dreams of the big time wanted to be the one to hammer Eamonn Docherty, therefore acquiring his reputation by default. Eamonn knew this and it was why he was so adamant about getting this South London firm put away once and for all. All in the name of poor Harry, of course.

  If he pulled this one off, his entry into the real London gangs was assured. He was just sixteen years old.

  He began passing out the weapons they had stashed away for such occasions. Putting his bicycle chain around his neck and his cosh down the back of his trousers, he pulled from his jacket a small handgun, ostentatiously checking it for ammunition.

  The other boys all stared at him in awe.

  ‘Where the fuck did you get that?’

  Eamonn grinned. ‘It was me old man’s. Let’s just say I borrowed it.’

  Titchy’s eyes were round and staring. ‘Surely you’re not going to use it?’ His voice was high, scared-sounding, and Eamonn loved it.

  Looking around him at the fourteen-strong gang he had been leading for the past few years, he shook his head.

  ‘Anyone who can’t handle it had better fuck off now, I ain’t playing kids’ games tonight. Harry Clark is lying in the Old London battered to fuck. Tonight we avenge him, and we go down in London history.’

  He smiled at them all, a chilling sight.

  ‘South London get their comeuppance, and we become the number ones. Within a week we’ll all be on a wage with the big boys. Who needs the docks, eh, when we can pull in big money for doing what we like best? Kicking people’s heads in.’

  Titchy laughed nervously. ‘You’re a fucking nutter!’

  Eamonn Junior grinned. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from you!’

  Everyone laughed, but the sound was tinged with hysteria. Tonight wasn’t just a rumble. Tonight they were going to be blooded - whether they liked it or not.

  Eamonn had always had the edge, and each and every one of them knew it. There was no turning back now.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Hello, Cathy love. I see your woman going out done up to the nines. In on your own again the night?’

  Mrs Fowler’s voice was kind, and Cathy stood in the lobby to the flats and smiled at the old woman.

  ‘Yes, I’m on me own tonight, Mrs Fowler. And believe me, with my mother that’s a Godsend at times!’

  ‘She’s a bleeding case, her,’ the old lady said comfortably. ‘Still, as I always say, each to their own, girl. If you fancy a cuppa later, give me a knock, all right?’

  Cathy nodded and took the stairs two at a time, her kitten-heeled shoes clattering all the way up to the second floor. Some people were nice, really nice.

  Pulling the key through the letter box on its piece of string, she opened the front door. The worn paint and scarred surface were unchanged from the day they’d first walked in here.

  Cathy stepped into the seedy flat. Slipping out of her coat, she looked around her in dismay. Madge had once more completely trashed the tiny kitchen and living room in her hurry to get out to work.

  The worn horsehair sofa was covered with sequinned dresses and discarded stockings, most with ladders or badly repaired holes. The floor was littered with shoes and handbags, strewn everywhere, left for her to tidy up.

  Walking into the kitchen, she groaned. Make-up in various stages of decay covered all the surfaces. Spit-covered mascara brushes were scattered over the table next to dirty dishes. Exotic blushers were everywhere and gaudy cream eyeshadows were left, minus their lids, by the overflowing ashtray.

  Putting on the kettle, Cathy began clearing away. As she carried things into her mother’s bedroom she wrinkled her nose at the stale smell. She threw open the window and looked down into the street, at children playing and women gossiping, and took in a good deep lungful of London air. Leaving the window wide open, she picked up her mother’s large make-up bag and went back into the kitchen. She gathered up the make-up and unzipped the bag. Inside were several packs of French letters. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Then, taking one of the packets, she slipped it into her own clutchbag.

  If she was going to lose her cherry, at least she’d do it with proper precautions.

  She made herself a cup of tea then began cleaning the lounge, putting all her mother’s dresses on hangers and arraying her shoes in neat lines around Madge’s bedroom walls. The handbags she stacked in the wardrobe, checking them first for change as she always did. Finally she pulled her mother’s bedclothes over the bed and, using the carpet sweeper, cleaned the floor.

  Afterwards she made herself a coffee, lit a cigarette and listened to the Beatles on the radio, wondering if she’d ever have the chance to be part of the wild sixties - though, she admitted to herself ruefully, her mother had practised if not exactly free love, then certainly promiscuous love for years. In a funny way she envied her mother. Everything was cut and dried with Madge. You either did something, or you didn’t. There was no middle ground.

  Cathy sighed. She rinsed out her cup and then began sorting through the washing basket. As she worked she dreamed of washing clothes in a nice kitchen, like the one on the Tide advert, and cooking elaborate meals for her husband Eamonn. In her dream her mother and Eamonn Senior were miraculously dead and buried, leaving their two children to live the good life with no painful reminders of the past.

  Thinking of Eamonn she imagined him taking her sexually and the thought made her breath come in quick jolting gasps. He was right, she admitted. She was ripe for it. What she wasn’t ripe for was a child, a flat like this one and the hard life of the women around her: old before their time and knocking out children like Ford assembly lines.

  Smiling, she decided that she, Cathy Connor, would have her cake and eat it too.

  As she scrubbed, she sang along happily with the Crystals.

  ‘What on earth is that sitting at the end of my bar!’

  Jessie Houston’s voice was scandalised and Madge’s face hardened as the words intended for her rang out over the small bar.

  ‘Are you off your fucking head, Ron? I’ve seen better-looking things in bombed-out houses!’

  He wiped a hand across his sweating face and tried to placate his sister-in-law. ‘Leave it out, Jess.’

  Jessie, eight stone of pure malevolence, looked into his face and shrieked: ‘Leave her out, more like! Outside with the bleeding rubbish. I know some of our girls are a bit long in the tooth, but at least they’re not dock dollies. And she’s a dock dolly from head to foot. I smelt the fucker before her beak came round the door.’ She looked along the bar to Madge and said in a quieter voice: ‘No disrespect, love, but I can’t have you here, sorry. The other girls will be here soon and they’ll go spare.’

  Madge swallowed down her humiliation and stared challengingly at Ron.

  ‘She stays and that’s my final word,’ he put in.

  Jessie thumped the bar. Turning on Ron, she s
creamed, ‘Then you run this place yourself! I ain’t being made a laughing stock. Even if we employed her, who’d have her? Look at her, Ron, for Christ’s sakes.’

  Ron, used to letting the fierce little woman in front of him have her own way, said through gritted teeth, ‘She stays, Jessie - all right? I own half this club and you’d better remember that.’

  Jessie’s face was white with fury. Since the death of her husband, she had come into the whoring business, and both she and Ron had been relieved to find that she had a natural aptitude for it. With no children and no real scruples, Jessie had found her vocation in life. The only bugbear was the fact that she had ruled her husband, and now she ruled Ron and the little empire they had created.

  Even the bigger boys were wary of Jessie. Just looking at her you could see she was capable of literally anything. She could evict a fifteen-stone man with the minimum of fuss, pour the drinks and head count the girls without thinking. Ron’s brother Danny had once been the brains of the business. Jessie had effortlessly taken over where he had left off.

  This was the first time Ron had tried to assert himself, and in all honesty it wasn’t so much Madge herself as the fact that he was trying to take a decision on his own that bothered Jessie. She had to be in charge. It was just her way.

  ‘Come on, Jess, do the honours, love.’ Ron’s voice was cajoling now, tinged with desperation.

  Jessie took a deep breath. Pulling herself up to her full five foot two, she said, ‘On your own head be it, Ron. It’s half yours as you point out, but if you done a bit of collar here now and then I’d be more inclined to take your point of view like . . .’

  She droned on and he smiled at Madge, raising his eyebrows in triumph.

  Madge looked from him to Jessie and stored the insults away for future reference. Jessie should have known better than to pull down a dock dolly because dock girls never forgot nothing.

  Jessie went into the back room where the gambling would take place and Ron poured Madge a stiff drink of rum.

  ‘She’s all right, Madge. Don’t take any notice of her. She’s always the same, don’t mean anything by it. Once the other girls arrive, you’ll see I’m right. The main job here is getting the punters to bet. It’s more a gambling club than a clippie really. Remember always to keep your paper with you when you score a lump. Because Jessie will head count you all and she don’t miss a trick, but if you don’t know your score, she won’t tell you. Understand me?’

  Madge nodded. ‘I thought you said it was your club?’

  Ron stared down into her face and sighed heavily. ‘It is. Half mine anyway. Look, Madge, if you don’t like the set up, fuck off, love. There’s plenty more where you came from.’

  Madge licked her bright orange lips and attempted a smile. ‘Don’t be like that, Ron. I thought me and you was mates.’

  He relented and smiled thinly at her. ‘We are, providing you do as I say.’

  Before she had a chance to answer the door burst open and two of the other hostesses arrived. Looking at them, Madge saw that they weren’t really very different from her.

  Her dreams of the big time were shattered in seconds. Instead of ripping off sailors, she’d be ripping off local men. Who, unlike the sailors, could easily track her down. Knocking back her drink, she looked at the hubbub around her and sighed.

  Well, it was a step up in its own way, and if nothing else she had Ron. Because a man in her bed was worth two in her hand, any day of the week.

  It was just after eleven when the boys made their way along Upper Thames Street. They looked like trouble, which was exactly the impression they wished to create. Some were walking, others were on Vespas, the engines humming in the darkness. All were alert and ready for the trouble they were to cause.

  ‘Show us your gun again, Eamonn. Go on.’ Doughal Feenan was fascinated by the weapon and Eamonn handed it to him, laughing at the boy’s incredulity.

  Doughal, all red hair and freckles, looked at his friend and said seriously: ‘You wouldn’t really shoot someone dead, would you?’

  Eamonn could hear fear tinged with awe in the boy’s voice and shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Watch me. Those bastards need to be taught a lesson and a bullet up their arses should achieve that much at least!’

  He laughed and the others laughed with him, all thinking this was just a frightener for the South London boys. At the end of the day, with the eldest there just sixteen, they weren’t like the big timers, though all of them wanted to be seen that way. By their peer group at least.

  Eamonn took the gun and put it back in his jacket pocket. He loved the attention it created. Loved the feeling of being in charge of them all, being the main man. Eamonn Docherty craved the limelight. Craved the feeling of being someone important, and the gun guaranteed him that.

  No one would dare disrespect him with a gun aimed at their heads. No one.

  Looking at his gang he felt a moment’s intense happiness. He loved to lead people, loved to be the one telling them all what they were to do, where they were to go. They all looked up to him as if he were something special. He had made up his mind that one day soon everyone would know him, would understand he was a dangerous man, a force to be reckoned with.

  The gun, and his natural leadership abilities, would guarantee him that. After tonight his name would be known everywhere in London while simultaneously his East End cronies would retreat behind a wall of silence and he would, in effect, get away with murder.

  He had been living for this night for too long. All he wanted now was to get it and his dirty work over with. Then he could start his career, his real life.

  The Krays would give him a job; they liked a face with bottle and he had plenty of it. No more listening to his father’s old crap, no more living in a two up, two down with an Irish drunk and a houseproud bitch. No more scraping along, doing a little bit here and a little bit there.

  If everything went to plan, he’d finally hit the big one. Payola. He would be a real villain now, and that meant the fast track to money, cars and prestige.

  Tonight was to be his watershed, his blooding. He couldn’t wait to get started.

  He didn’t have to wait long. The South London firm was waiting for them at the top of the Embankment.

  James Carter was a Bermondsey boy through and through. Of Irish descent, he had a lot in common with Eamonn Docherty though neither of them would admit that.

  He watched the other gang’s arrival with cold green eyes. Taking out his steel comb, he pulled it through his hair, fastidiously pushing his quiff into place and replacing the comb in his pocket. His full-lipped mouth was set in a cruel smile and inside his jacket was a cut-throat razor. Eamonn Docherty was to get the biggest shock of his life tonight and James Carter was going to be the man to give it to him.

  Behind him his gang stood stock still. Every face was hard. Every hand was shaking. Not with fear, but with excitement.

  As the East Enders drew close, they stopped and the two gangs stared each other out. Then, as if all of one mind, they pulled out their weapons.

  A car driving past speeded up, rattling towards Westminster. Gang fights were common, but it was unusual to see one on a common thoroughfare.

  The Embankment was quiet at eleven-thirty at night; most revellers had gone on to other places or were already home. The only sound now was of the Thames lapping gently against the green-slimed wall.

  Eamonn touched the bicycle chain around his neck, his cosh down the back of his trousers. They waited patiently for everyone to arm themselves. This was the unwritten rule. When the streetlamp glinted on the gun pulled from Eamonn’s pocket there was a collective exhalation of shock from the South Londoners.

  James Carter’s voice was deep, resonant with an Irish inflection. ‘Fuck off, Docherty. No one uses guns.’ Even though his voice was heavy with menace, everyone sensed the underlying fear there.

  They were all experiencing it too.

  Eamonn smiled lazily, his voice matter-of-fact and ter
rifyingly normal. ‘You should have thought of that when you beat up poor Harry. Eight to one, I heard. So I thought I’d even the odds up like - for him.’

  The flash that came from the gun was a surprise to all there. The East London boys closed their eyes in fright and the South Londoners opened theirs to see if the bullet was aimed at them.

  James Carter seemed to fall to the pavement in slow motion. Half his face flew into the air, bits of skin and eyeball spraying his friends and causing them to step back involuntarily.

  Eamonn’s low laughter was clearly heard by them all. A stunned silence reigned, the sense of shock almost tangible.

  Looking at the boy on the ground, Eamonn felt as if the bullet had hit him. There was a tight feeling in his chest, he was fighting for breath. Shock at what he’d done ballooned up inside him.

  One of the South London boys knelt by his friend. Seeing the single staring eye and the position of the boy’s body, he looked at Eamonn. With tears in his voice, he said hysterically: ‘You’re fucking mad, Docherty! He’s an Irish like you. You don’t shoot people, don’t kill people . . .’ His voice trailed off as they heard the sound of police cars in the distance.

  Everyone began running away, fear lending wings to their feet.

  Titchy pulled on Eamonn’s jacket. ‘Come on, Eamonn, the Old Bill will be here any second. Come on, man, for fuck’s sake.’

  Eamonn heard the anguish in the other boy’s voice. After one last look at James Carter, he turned away and began running. His heart was hammering in his chest and his blood ran cold.

  He’d done it.

  Jesus help me, he thought. I’ve actually done it. I’ve killed someone.

  Madge was in her element. A drunken gambler had won a game and given her ten pounds. After telling her she was his lucky mascot, he had then offered her another ten to ‘do the business’ for him. So in less than an hour she had earned herself twenty pounds and had actually enjoyed herself.