The Make

Gracie went and took a shower, slipped on her slouchy indoor-wear, and made herself a warming cup of tea. She kept glancing through the open doorway at the hair on the kitchen table. She didn’t think she could keep down any food, so she didn’t bother trying. Instead she turned on the evening news, listening but hardly hearing any of it, the note constantly replaying in her mind. Call the filth on this and you’re all dead. She phoned Sandy’s mobile again at seven, then at eight. It went straight to voicemail. She left a message, said please call.

At nine, Sandy did.

‘Hi. Sandy?’ asked Gracie, quickly muting the TV with the remote.

‘Yeah. Hi. How are you?’ The girl sounded exhausted.

‘Fine. How’s George?’

‘I’ve been at the hospital all evening with him. He’s about the same. Still in intensive care.’ She sounded tearful again. ‘It’s horrible in there.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Gracie, although truthfully she couldn’t. ‘Did Mum go in with you?’

‘She’s going tomorrow. We’re taking turns, makes it a bit easier.’

‘Can you give me her number again? I mislaid it after you left it yesterday.’

‘Sure.’ Sandy repeated the number. ‘Pity you’re not closer, you could come and see him.’

‘Yeah I could.’ Gracie glanced through to the kitchen, looked at the dark red hair there – one of her brothers’ hair. It belonged either to handsome, gentle, idle Harry, or loud, chunky Jack-the-lad George. Probably it was Harry’s. She wasn’t going to tell this poor, wretched-sounding girl about the hair. She wondered if she should tell the police about it, show them the note, but it had stipulated no cops . . . and Harry was missing. And they’d said they were watching her.

‘Listen, I’m coming down to London,’ she said, the words coming out almost of their own volition.

‘Really? When?’

Gracie thought about that. She looked again at the hair. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

Chapter 12

21 December

Gracie called in on Brynn next day at his sister’s place and told him to take over, that she was going down South for a bit.

‘How long’s a bit?’ asked Brynn, still coughing and spluttering after yesterday’s fire.

‘I don’t know. You can keep in touch with me on the mobile, and I’ll be back soonest, okay?’

‘Not much is going to be happening for a while,’ said Brynn, wheezing then letting out a hacking cough. ‘If the insurance people come back with anything, I’ll let you know.’

‘You look after him,’ said Gracie to Angie.

‘Will do,’ said Angie.

She dropped an awkward kiss on to Brynn’s leathery cheek, registering his surprise at this small show of affection. Gracie Doyle, she thought, unable to help herself. The girl with a calculator where her heart should be. Wasn’t that what Brynn, what the whole world, thought? That she was cold? And maybe he was right; maybe she was. But perhaps right now, when everything was hitting the fan, that was a good thing to be.

She’d already thrown a few bits and pieces into a suitcase and a bag this morning, put them in the back of the car. Now, with Brynn primed, she drove off into the cold, leaden-skied morning down the M6. She picked up the M1 east of Birmingham, stopping briefly in the services to refuel. Four hours later, she was in London.

It was starting to snow. Maybe it would be a white Christmas after all. She snagged a parking space a long way from her mother’s door in the familiar Hackney street, bought a parking ticket, and went and knocked at the door of the plain Victorian house she’d grown up in. There was a small, red-berried wreath hanging on it. Mum had kept the house after the divorce, and Dad hadn’t objected. Gracie guessed he’d just been glad to be free, to start anew.

‘Who is it?’ asked a shaky female voice from the other side of the door, after she’d knocked on the damned thing for what felt like an age.

‘It’s Gracie,’ she called out.

‘Gracie?’ echoed the voice. ‘What the hell . . .?’

There was a noise of chains being unfastened, bolts being thrown back.

‘What, you had a crime explosion round here?’ asked Gracie as her mother swung the door open. ‘What’s with the—’

Gracie stopped speaking. Her mum was standing there. Her mother had always been a youthful dresser. She was pushing sixty now, but still she wore skinny jeans and a fashionable turquoise top. Her hair was cut close to her head and skilfully dyed a flattering ashy blonde, but her face looked pale and puffy. Her bloodshot brown eyes were darting and nervous. Her lips trembled. She looked like she’d had the stuffing kicked out of her.

‘Oh fuck,’ said Suze wearily. ‘Not you.’

‘Nice to see you too, Mummy dear,’ said Gracie, and pushed inside the hall with her case and bag.

‘I suppose Sandy phoned you.’

‘She did, that’s right. And the police called too. Said you’d notified them. Why didn’t you call me?’

Suze shrugged, as if it wasn’t worth dignifying Gracie’s comment with a reply. ‘I’m just surprised you actually bothered to turn up.’

Gracie turned a gimlet eye on her mother. ‘Yeah, well, I actually did,’ she said, refusing to rise to the challenge of a fight so soon. She was tired from the trip. She didn’t want arguments, she wanted tea, biscuits and answers – in that order. She went on through to the kitchen. So familiar, but all different – the units were new beech-effect, the worktops a shiny black granite.

Suze was busy refastening the defences at the front door. By the time she joined Gracie in the kitchen, Gracie had taken out the jiffy bag and decanted the hair inside it out on to the worktop.

‘Someone sent me this,’ she said, as her mother stopped dead in the doorway and let out a small cry.

‘Oh shit,’ Suze moaned, putting her hands to her mouth.

‘George is in hospital,’ said Gracie. ‘So Sandy told me.’

Her mother nodded. ‘Yeah. He is.’

‘Did someone cut his hair? Does this look like George’s hair to you?’

Her mother was shaking her head. She went over to the worktop and lightly touched the hair, her hand shaking violently. ‘No. I mean yes. They cut his hair, they had to, but George never wears his hair this long anyway. And look.’ Suze pulled a jiffy bag out of a drawer and tipped out the contents. More hair. And it was the same.

‘Was there a note with this?’ asked Gracie, feeling sick.

‘Yeah. Here.’

Gracie took the note Suze handed her. It said ‘Doyle scum. No cops.’

Gracie stiffened. ‘You haven’t. Have you? Told the police?’

Suze shook her head. ‘I was too frightened to.’

‘I guess this is Harry’s then,’ said Gracie.

‘He wears it long, like that,’ said Suze.

Gracie stared dumbly at the hair. George had been a mouthy little pain in the arse through most of his childhood, but Harry had never been any trouble. Gracie didn’t like to think of someone hacking Harry’s hair off like this. She didn’t like it at all. It spoke of a spiteful need to inflict visible damage.

Her mother was still fingering the hair. Gracie set her bag down on the floor, looking around her. The same old place. She hadn’t been happy here. Mum and Dad ranting and raving at each other, Harry and George sitting on the stairs in a state of terror and tears, her trying to reassure them . . .

Bad, old memories that she didn’t want to look at all over again. She didn’t even want to be here. But she was.

‘They still living here, with you?’ she asked.

Her mother looked up. ‘What?’

‘George and Harry? They live here?’

‘Nah, they moved out when Claude moved in. About a year ago.’

‘Who’s Claude?’ asked Gracie.

‘I am,’ said a masculine voice.

A man had just appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was tall with a beer gut, a receding hairline and blue eyes magnified by hugely thick rimless glasses. He looked in his fifties, and he had a smarmy smile on his face that put Gracie’s hackles up straight away.

‘This . . .’ Her mother looked at her with less than friendly eyes. ‘. . . This is my daughter Gracie, Claude.’

‘The famous missing daughter!’ Claude came forward, holding out a hand in greeting. ‘Well, I never.’

‘Hi,’ said Gracie, pulling back when he tried to kiss her cheek.

Claude noted it straight away. He turned a smile on her mother. ‘She’s a bit frosty, Suze,’ he said jokily.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said her mother sourly. Gracie saw her mother’s eyes snap to his hand, which was still holding hers. His grip felt soft and damp and Gracie pulled her hand away.

‘Bad business about your brother being in hospital,’ he said, twisting his face into an appropriate expression of sympathy.

Gracie could see why George and Harry had moved out. She’d taken against Claude on sight and she was willing to bet he’d driven them away.

‘Yeah, it’s bad all right.’ Gracie turned her attention to her mother. ‘What’s the latest on that? Is George any better?’

Suze shook her head. ‘Just the same.’

‘And what’s this?’ Claude was crossing the kitchen and was now prodding at the hair. ‘What on earth . . .? Is this another lot of hair?’

‘Yeah. Some was posted to me, too,’ said Gracie, not really wanting to discuss any of this with him. ‘It’s got to be Harry’s.’

‘Well, it’s got to be some sort of joke, don’t you think?’ asked Claude.

‘A joke?’ shot back Suze. ‘Well it ain’t very funny, is it?’

‘Yeah, but you know what these youngsters are like. One of their mates larking about, and maybe him and Harry thought it’d be a laugh.’

Gracie looked coldly at Claude. The man was an idiot. And clearly he didn’t know Harry at all. She could only dredge her memory, but what she did remember told her that Harry would never go in for a sick, demented prank like this.

Gracie wondered for a moment about showing her mother the note she’d got, but decided against it. Her mother could wail and shout for England, and Suze throwing a fit all over the bloody kitchen wasn’t going to get Harry out of bother.

Gracie reviewed the facts. Harry was in trouble, George was taking nil by mouth, her casino had damned near burned down and would have burned down if not for Brynn’s quick thinking. She was only surprised that something hadn’t yet happened to Suze or her live-in lover Claude.

‘You got a room I can stay in for the night?’ she asked wearily. She scooped the hair she’d been sent back into the bag and stuffed it into her holdall. ‘My old room will do.’

Her mother opened her mouth to speak – probably to say a flat no, but Claude, the oily bastard, chipped in.

‘Of course she has.’ He was beaming with bonhomie. Gracie bent to pick up her coat and she didn’t miss how the creep’s eyes lingered on her arse.

Gracie wondered what on earth her mother saw in him, but then Suze’s judgement had never been entirely sound. Her mother was the perennial good-time girl, preferring to dance on tables all hours of the night, play bingo and get bladdered rather than take proper care of her house and kids. Suze thrived on flattery, and seemed unable to distinguish between fake and genuine. Gracie had always thought her dad did the right thing in leaving her; she still did.

‘I’ll take my things on up,’ she said, grabbing her bag just as Claude reached down to get it. ‘Thanks,’ she said with a tight smile at him. ‘And Mum – can you dig out their addresses?’

‘Address,’ said Suze, looking at her daughter with a cold eye. ‘They got a flat together, it ain’t much.’

But better than staying here with you and this arsehole, thought Gracie.

‘Jot it down for me, will you?’

‘Jesus, what did your last slave die of?’ asked Suze with a sniff.

‘Insolence,’ flung back Gracie, dismayed to find that when dealing with her mother she still felt like a snippy teenager. ‘You going to see George tonight at the hospital?’

‘No.’ Her mother’s eyes filled with easy tears. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow. My poor boy.’

‘I’ll tag along then. If you don’t mind?’

‘Mind? Why should I mind? I’m only surprised that you care enough to bother.’

Gracie gave her mother a long hard stare. But what was the use? They’d never got on; they never would. She turned her back and pounded off up the stairs to her room. Her mother hadn’t hugged her, and she hadn’t hugged Suze, either.

Two hours later, she was awakened by grunts and bangs from the room next door to her own.

Oh, terrific.

As if she didn’t have enough to contend with, now she had to listen to creep features and her own damned mother doing the nasty through the thin partition wall. A perfect end to a perfect day. How the hell could Suze do that, in these circumstances? She thought of George, lying in a hospital bed. And Harry. Where the hell was Harry? She thought of the note with the hair. No police. Then she thought of gentle, easy-going Harry out there somewhere, in trouble, alone, and it pulled at her heart. Finally she turned over and pulled the pillows over her head. It was hours before she could get to sleep.

George and Harry

NOVEMBER

Chapter 13

Some time after Laura Dixon had shagged him shitless in the Gents at her divorce party, Harry was crossing Covent Garden when he spotted his former client, the cougar – Jackie Sullivan – browsing among the blooms outside a florist. He stopped walking and stared. He was getting to be an old hand at the escorting business now; he had plenty of dosh; he was happy.

It was cold today. Freezing. His breath plumed like smoke with every exhalation. The cougar was wrapped up in a white fake-fur hat and matching gloves. She wore black boots and was carrying a Kelly bag. Her coat looked expensive, patterned in a large black-and-white dog’s-tooth design. Harry thought she looked adorable; he started to smile, and approached her as she halted to stare in the window at a display of red hothouse roses.

‘Hey,’ he said, touching her shoulder.

She turned. Her face was the same; small, sharply formed, anxious of expression. Her pale denim-blue eyes stared at him with something like panic.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ said Harry, beaming.

‘Um . . . hello,’ she said uncertainly, ‘How are you?’

Another woman came up beside her. This one was large, hard-faced, dark-haired and wearing a Burberry trench. Harry had thought the cougar was alone.

‘Jack darling, I don’t like the red,’ she said in a hectoring tone of voice. ‘I much prefer the cream – so much softer, don’t you think?’ The brunette’s eyes, full of curiosity, were now resting on Harry. There was a predatory half-smile on her crimson-painted mouth. ‘And who’s this?’

The cougar’s cheeks flushed the same hectic red that Harry had found so charming on the night they’d spent together.

‘Oh, this is . . .’ she hesitated.

‘Harry,’ he supplied for her, shaking the woman’s hand.

‘He’s a friend of my daughter’s,’ said Jackie quickly. Harry glanced at her. The blue eyes looked back at him without expression. ‘They were at uni together.’

Harry felt a stab of hurt at that. Like he was a dirty secret. Then he remembered her pushing him out through the door into the dawn, and realized that was precisely how she saw him – as something shameful and disgusting, to be concealed.

He shouldn’t have touched her shoulder. Shouldn’t have smiled at her. Shouldn’t have breezed over here like she’d be pleased to see him. It was patently obvious that she wasn’t.

Of course she wasn’t. Why would she be?

‘This is Camilla,’ said Jackie formally. ‘A client of mine.’

He understood that Jackie was marking out her territory, drawing boundaries. Jackie was an interior designer. She was posh. She spoke like thet. Like one of the nobs. She was way above him in the social scale of things; he was nothing but a good-looking chancer, living on benefits and selling his nubile young bod for undeclared amounts of money. He felt he’d made a major error, made a complete bloody fool of himself. He should have been more careful, more discreet.

‘Well, it was nice seeing you again, Mrs Sullivan,’ he said.

‘You too, Harry,’ she said, very polite.

Harry looked into her eyes again. Saw nothing there, no small spark of the connection that had been there on the night he’d stayed. He nodded once, then turned and walked away.

‘Emma’s a very lucky girl,’ said Camilla, her eyes following Harry as he walked off. ‘What, darling?’ asked Jackie vaguely, looking with intense concentration at the cream-coloured blooms that Camilla favoured.

‘What an exquisite young man.’ Camilla was still watching Harry, admiring the luscious fall of his shoulder-length auburn hair, his wide shoulders beneath the black leather bomber jacket, the tight fit of the stonewashed jeans on his long, long legs. Finally he was lost in the crowds. Camilla gave Jackie a louche look. ‘Imagine waking up to something as wonderful as that in the morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Jackie with a cool smile. ‘Imagine. A mixture of the gerbera and the roses, do you think? Yes?’

Chapter 14

‘Lefty in?’ Stew asked Gordon, who was policing the door of Deano Drax’s fetish club in Soho. Stew had nipped over from the strip joint over the road. They were both doormen, and they had become pals, so they often stood out in the alley beside the industrial-sized wheelie bins and had a smoke and a chat.

The immaculately attired Gordon ushered in a few more punters, stopping a couple, giving them a quick frisk. Perversions were all very well, but weapons were a no-no inside Shakers. Satisfied, he motioned the punters through into the dark, pulsing body of the club.

Gordon gestured for another of the bouncers to take over the door. He moved to one side, taking Stew Baker with him. Stew was a solid man, in build and in character, one of the best, a good mate to Gordon – and to the hapless Lefty, too.

‘You mean you ain’t heard about Lefty?’ asked Gordon over the roar of the club’s huge sound system.

‘Heard what?’

Gordon shook his head. ‘Man, you missed out on a treat.’ He explained about Lefty’s miscalculation with Deano’s latest young squeeze. ‘He is deep in the manure, I’m telling you. Deano is very taken with that boy and he’s spitting blood over this. You know Deano – he just loves to terrorize anybody smaller than he is. And, let’s face it, nearly everybody is smaller than Deano – including these boys he likes, and Lefty.’

Stew said nothing. He felt pity for Lefty’s predicament, but then if you mixed with shit one thing was certain – sooner or later, it was going to stick to your skin. He had no time for nonces, and Deano Drax was a bad one. He looked back into the club’s dark, gaping maw. Sometimes he thought it was like the mouth of hell in there. He’d looked inside it once, and there were dingy back rooms for orgies; dungeons too. He was glad he worked over the road in a nice straightforward strip club and not here. A few tits and bums never hurt anyone. He didn’t mind that, or the lap-dancing places – hell, live and let live. But people crawling around on dog chains, being pissed on or beaten and tied up for entertainment? Nah, he drew the line right there. He thought that Shakers told you everything you wanted to know about its owner’s mind-set.

‘Go through to the bar, see Chippy, he’ll sort you out with a drink,’ offered Gordon. Things were getting busy on the door and Gordon had to get back to work. People were queuing up now, weirdos wearing skin-tight plastic and fetish boots with heels so amazingly high they could barely stagger along. Which was the whole point, of course. If you couldn’t walk, you could be caught. You were easy meat.

‘Nah, that’s okay,’ said Stew hastily. ‘Got to get back. Catch ya later, Gord.’

Stew left the club and was halfway over the road when he saw Deano Drax’s big motor with its black-tinted windows pull into the alley at the side of the fetish club. He kept walking, tried not to stare but, despite himself, he couldn’t resist a look. Deano, massive and bear-like, was getting out of the back of the car. Huge bald head; neat goatee beard. Stew’s face wrinkled with disgust. That fat smarmy-faced nonce made you feel sick just to see him, swaggering about the place like he owned the whole damned world. In the shadows of the alley it was hard to make out much, but Stew was sure there were others with him, two smaller figures. Maybe kids, maybe not.

Stew shuddered and averted his eyes. He thought of Lefty, who was out looking right now for Deano’s grand amour. He didn’t think Lefty was a bad bloke at heart. Actually, he’d been fine until he started on the hash and the E and – worse – on the butane, and after that . . . well, now his brains were screwed, his lungs were black lace and he was Deano’s own personal lapdog, bought and paid for. Deano said jump, Lefty said how high? That being the case, Stew hoped, no he prayed, that the golden-haired boy he’d seen hanging round Drax a month or so ago, sometimes staggering a little like a crippled foal, sometimes staring around with drugged and bewildered eyes, Stew prayed that the boy was long gone, back home where he’d be safe, or that someone kind and good was helping him right now.

Kid needs a guardian angel, he thought. I just hope to fuck he’s got one.

Chapter 15

George sat in his local café, across the table from Alfie, the morning after their run-in with Lefty Umbabwe. George had a big smile pasted across his face. He couldn’t help it. The kid had devoured a plate of Full English in record time, knocked back two teas and two rounds of toast, and clearly wasn’t about to throw in the towel yet.

‘More toast?’ offered George.

Alfie nodded. He still hadn’t spoken much, apart from to give his name. That bothered George. He looked even younger in daylight, and that bothered George too. To think of a kid like this wandering about on the streets. And what had been going on between Alfie and that bastard waving the knife around?

George lifted a finger to Bert the café owner. ‘Can we get some more toast over here, when you’re ready. And two more teas?’ He had no trouble making himself heard over the hubbub of noise in here. George had a voice like a foghorn – and a laugh like a bronze gong.

While Bert got busy with the toaster, George thought back and tried to recall what the man in the long black leather coat had been yelling at Alfie before George had decided he was crazy enough to intervene. Something about ‘the man’. That was what the man wanted . . .? It was driving George nuts. He’d drunk hardly a thing that night, but still he couldn’t remember fuck-all. Mostly because he’d been scared right out of his brains.

‘Alfie?’ he said.

There were other patrons in the café; it was a good place, one George and Harry often frequented. It was busy, bustling with life. Outside it was cold, but in here it was hot, everyone talking and laughing and eating, the windows steamed up, the coffee machine hissing and frothing; it felt cosy.

Alfie looked up at George’s face.

‘How old are you, Alfie?’

This was a point that really bothered George. The boy looked very young. He must be a minor. He shouldn’t be out on his own like this. Shit, anyone could have picked him up, and what George really ought to do was take him to the nearest cop shop, see about getting him home. He had said as much to Alfie earlier this morning, and had been alarmed to find Alfie halfway down the stairs half an hour later. George had caught up with him. ‘No police!’ Alfie had shouted. ‘No police!’ Five minutes more, and the kid would have been out on the streets again, prey for any loitering monster. It made George’s blood run to ice, the thought of that.

So – no police. Not yet, anyway. That was cool with George. He didn’t want involvement with the filth if he could avoid it, anyway; he’d done dodgy deals around town a few times, fly-pitching and ripping off a few tourists, minor stuff, but it was best to keep a low profile. Alfie was just staring back at George with those big baby-blues that seemed to hold so many secrets. He said nothing.