‘Bit clumsy for Yates.’
‘Well, you’d know that, I wouldn’t, but they tipped the contents of their ashtray in the road.’
‘Did they indeed?’
‘Yes, they did indeed. And it’s nice and dry up here. I saw the weather, you have rain in London.’
‘Yes, we do, intermittent showers, as they say.’
‘Well, dry as a bone here, no threat of rain either. So I’ll go out later, much later, walk around — I won’t miss a bright yellow BMW — pick up the fag ends; two lovely DNA profiles for you.’
‘Thanks. Take care though.’
‘Don’t worry; it’ll be much later though. I’ll phone you in the morning when I have them safe.’
‘We’ll send a motorcycle courier to collect them. Appreciate this.’
‘Your old man angry with you, girl?’
‘My old. . you mean my dad?’ Penny Yewdall sounded alarmed. ‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yes.’ The woman had a hard, unforgiving face, Yewdall thought; a menacing tone of voice and cold, penetrating eyes. She reminded Yewdall of Mrs Tyndall — the formidable Mrs Tyndall — head of maths at her school. She had first seen then how true it is that fear is a great learning tool, as when one can recall with great precision the details of an incident in which one nearly lost one’s life. Exposed to Mrs Tyndall as she had been, it was, she realized, little wonder that she, and the rest of the form, had made such rapid headway with quadratic equations. But then, and now, she felt sorry for Mrs Tyndall’s family. And here was Mrs Tyndall again. Formidable, overbearing, but this time her name was Gail Bowling. Hard as nails, with a lump of granite where all other mortals have a heart. ‘Yes, we’ve met him, we like to know who we have working for us.’
Yewdall allowed a look of fear to cross her eyes.
‘But you checked out alright — you wouldn’t be standing here if you didn’t.’
‘That’s right,’ Curtis Yates added, sitting in the armchair by the log fire, pulling leisurely on a large cigar. ‘So we can’t make you work the street, but if you want a roof, you need to earn it.’
Yewdall nodded. ‘I need a roof.’
‘We all do.’ Gail Bowling, dressed in a severe black dress and black shoes, handed Yewdall a package. ‘Take this.’
Yewdall stepped forward and accepted the package. It was about the size of a paperback book, felt solid, and she thought it quite heavy in proportion to its size. She stepped back, allowing herself to seem nervous.
‘Deliver it,’ Bowling ordered her, curtly.
Yewdall glanced at the package. ‘There’s no address on it.’
‘Here.’ Gail Bowling handed Yewdall a slip of paper on which was a typed address.
‘I don’t know where this is. I’m new in London.’
‘You’ve got a lovely long train journey ahead of you.’
‘Oh.’
‘Rusher will drive you into Richmond — you needn’t change.’
‘These are the only clothes I have anyway.’
‘Trains, darling. . you need not change trains.’
‘Oh. . I see. . sorry.’
‘Just stay on the same tube. From Richmond to East Ham, follow the journey on the roof of the carriage, just above the windows.’
‘Yes. I’ve seen them — all the stations all in a line.’
‘Get off at East Ham, then walk to the address. Ask a copper if you get lost.’ She smirked.
‘OK,’ Yewdall mumbled and avoided eye contact with the woman.
‘Do you have money for the tube?’
‘No. . Miss.’
‘I like Miss but you can call me Gail — that doesn’t mean we’re friends. You start getting lippy, you start taking liberties. . well. . let’s just say I can be a bad bitch when I need to be and I don’t ever get my hands dirty. If someone needs a slap I get Mongoose or Rusher to do the honours. . follow?’
‘Yes. . Miss. . er, Gail, yes, I follow.’
Gail Bowling turned to Curtis Yates and said, ‘Give her an Adam.’ Curtis Yates obediently stood and took a twenty pound note from his wallet and handed it to Yewdall.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and thought that she had been presented with a useful insight into the Yates firm. He is not the boss, despite all that is said and claimed — The King of Kilburn, indeed. Some king taking orders like that.
‘That’ll get you to East Ham and then back to Kilburn.’
‘I go home?’
‘Straight home, like a good girl.’
‘Yes, Gail.’
‘Just take it to that address. Ring the doorbell, hand it to whoever opens the door and then turn on your pretty heels and get your tail back to Kilburn.’
The journey from Curtis Yates’s home in Virginia Water to the underground station in Richmond was passed in silence. Yewdall kept her eyes straight ahead as the windscreen wipers swept slowly back and forth. ‘Rusher’ Boyd halted outside the tube station and waited for Yewdall to leave the car.
‘East Ham?’ Yewdall said. Rusher nodded once without looking at her. Yewdall closed the door and walked into the booking office and asked for a ticket to East Ham.
‘Right across town, dearie.’ The woman behind the glass screen spoke in a chirpy manner as she printed the ticket and scooped up the twenty pound note Yewdall had tended. ‘Don’t get many wanting to go that far.’ The pink ticket slid across the surface of the counter and was followed rapidly by the change she was due. ‘Not that far, no we don’t.’
Yewdall scooped up the change and did not reply.
The man left the small terraced house on Rutland Street and glanced up at the evening sky, and thought how fortunate that the weather had remained dry, as had been forecast. He let his overcoat hang open and walked to the corner of Waterloo Road, where he turned right and bought a pint carton of milk from the twenty-four hour Asian shop, before returning to Rutland Street. He did not walk up the street, but went past it and took the next parallel road, turned right at the top and turned right again into Rutland Street, thus having walked round the block. Satisfied he was not being followed, and seeing no sign of the yellow BMW, he crossed to where the car had been parked, and in the light of the softly glowing street lamps he carefully picked up six cigarette butts and dropped them into the plastic carrier bag he had been given to carry the carton of milk. He crossed the road again and entered the house. He took the milk from the plastic bag and placed it in the fridge, and then carefully folded the bag containing the six cigarette butts and placed them in a large padded envelope to await their collection. He telephoned the number in London to report the acquisition of the cigarette butts, and then settled down to watch the ten o’clock news before retiring for the night.
Job done.
Penny Yewdall left the underground train at East Ham and walked to the booking hall and to the ticket counter therein. Able to see only the blue shirt and tie of the ticket vendor she asked him the directions to Chaucer Road, East Ham.
‘Chaucer,’ the man spoke with a warm East London accent, ‘that’s among the poets, sweetheart. . all the poets, Shelley, Byron. Turn right as you leave the station, up the old High Street. . Chaucer is between Wordsworth and Tennyson.’
Penny Yewdall, having thanked the torso, left the underground station and turned right as directed and into a cold, windy, rainy night. She crossed Plashet Grove and carried on up High Street North, and turned left beyond a low-rise block of inter-war flats and into Chaucer Road, which revealed itself to be a tree-lined late-Victorian terraced development. She went to number twenty-two, conveniently close to High Street North. She walked from the pavement the few feet to the front door, and seeing only a black metal knocker rather than a doorbell, she took hold of it and rapped twice. The door was opened quickly and aggressively by a large West Indian male of, she guessed, about thirty-five years. He eyed her with hostility.
‘I have to deliver this package,’ she said, holding her ground.
‘From? Who from, girl?’ The man’s attitude was hostile, aggressive, forceful.
