‘Gail. . a woman called Gail Bowling.’
The man’s face softened into a brief smile. ‘Where did she give it to you?’
‘At her home in Virginia Water.’
‘Anyone else there?’
‘A man called Curtis, Curtis Yates.’
‘OK. Who drove you from her house to the tube station?’
‘A geezer called Rusher — don’t know any other name for him.’
‘Rusher.’ The man smiled broadly. ‘Alright, girl, you can give me the parcel.’ He extended a meaty paw, took it from her and shut the door without a further word.
‘You’re welcome,’ Yewdall said to the closed door. She turned and retraced her steps to the East Ham underground station and bought a ticket to Kilburn. The errand she had run was clearly a test, but the address was one that could be fed to her handler when it was safe for her to do so — she had to assume she was being watched. She passed a vacant telephone kiosk — it would, she thought, be utter folly, crass stupidity, to enter it and phone her handler. What gofer does that? As she walked she began to glimpse the appeal of undercover work. Penny Yewdall had never seen herself as being an adrenalin junkie, but, but. . life seemed suddenly so much more real, more immediate somehow — the I-know-something-that-you-do-not mentality provided her with an unexpected sense of power and a sense of control, so different from the strange detached attitude of mind she had found herself developing when she had been sitting on the steps at Piccadilly underground station begging for spare change. Throughout the rocking, rattling journey home, she had the strange and unsettling sense of being watched. She was definitely a gofer on a trial run, so no phone calls, no postcards sent to the photographic studio in Finchley. But the address, 22 Chaucer Road, East Ham, she committed to memory; that, and the fact that it was Gail Bowling who seemed to wear the trousers in the firm, not Curtis Yates.
‘You got my prints by false pretences.’ Gail Bowling glared at Vicary. Her indignation was manifest.
‘No. . no I didn’t, I just asked you to look at an E-FIT.’
‘So as to get my fingerprints.’
Harry Vicary shrugged. ‘We can’t use them to prosecute you.’
‘Good, because I am going straight. I did a few stupid things when I was younger but those days are over. I’ve turned the corner. . put all that behind me.’
‘So, working for Curtis Yates is putting all that behind you is it?’
‘Yes, it is.’ She sniffed. ‘I work for a removal company.’
‘A removal company which is owned by one of the biggest and slipperiest crooks in the metropolitan area. . and you are working for him, so perhaps you can see our interest?’
‘Frankly, I can’t.’
‘Well, whether or not you can, we’ve only brought you in for a little chat. . just you. . off the record; in case you want to talk to us.’
‘About what? The weather. . damn miserable this rain but it’s still mild for the time of year don’t you think?’
‘About turning Queen’s evidence against Curtis Yates.’
‘What!’ Gail Bowling gasped. ‘And you really think that I am in a position to do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you think I would do that.’
‘We talked to Clive Sherwin yesterday.’
Gail Bowling scowled but remained silent.
‘We made him the same offer.’
‘What did he say?’
‘So you do know him?’
‘I might.’
‘Well, to say he was uncooperative would be putting it mildly. He told us what we could do with our offer.’
Gail Bowling smiled.
‘But the offer was made and it stands, and we make the same offer to you — turn Queen’s evidence. . and we’ll be making it to others in your little outfit. . Put Curtis Yates away, go into witness protection, start a new life in a new town somewhere north of the River Trent.’
‘North of the Trent!’ Gail Bowling sat back in her chair, seemingly amazed at the suggestion. ‘I am. . I have never lived anywhere but London. For me the world stops at High Barnet.’
‘Well. . elsewhere — Cornwall, Devon, if you like the beautiful south so much.’
‘You know what London is like, a collection of little villages — if I moved from Whitechapel to Notting Hill, I’d be just as far from my mates as if I did go north of the Trent.’
‘Not as safe though.’
‘Anyway. . thanks for the offer. But not interested.’
‘Well, think about it, a lot of people want to bring Curtis Yates down. . ourselves. . the Drug Squad. . Internal Revenue and if he falls-’
‘If!’
‘When he falls, a lot of folk will fall with him. The first two or three to squeal will be doing themselves a huge favour — something for you to think about.’
Gail Bowling stood. ‘Just see me to the door.’
Penny Yewdall slept late, then rose nervously, living the part as she had been advised. She left the room wrapped in her coat over her underwear, and padded barefoot along the hallway and into the kitchen. She found Josie Pinder sitting at the table in a short yellow towelling robe, smoking a thin roll-up cigarette and sipping a mug of milkless tea. Her right eye was black and was bruising to the orbit.
‘Nice shiner you got there, darlin’.’ Yewdall sat in a vacant chair at the table. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Who punched you?’
‘No one punched me. It was a slap, and I don’t mean a push, I mean a slap — flat hand, side of my head, blood flows into the old eye socket; makes it look like a punch but it was a slap.’
‘That true?’ Yewdall sounded surprised, though she had seen the like many times before, usually upon women slapped by an angered partner, but once upon a man, and which had been inflicted by a powerfully built woman whom he had taken as his wife. ‘So who hit you?’
Josie Pinder drew on the cigarette and inclined her head upwards, indicating the rooms on the first floor. Specifically, Yewdall realized, the room she shared with Sonya Clements.
‘So why stay with her?’
Josie Pinder shrugged. ‘Why does anyone stay with someone who knocks them about? It was my fault. . a sense of loyalty — misplaced, I know — lack of self-respect. . it wears you down so you get to accept it as a way of life.’
‘You seem bright, like smart in the head, worth more than this.’
‘Oh, I am smart, Manchester University would you believe? But I was too working class and I was too close to home. I came from Salford, next door to Manchester. One bus from the Uni to the city centre, but only if it was raining, other times I’d walk it in twenty minutes. One bus to Salford, then I could walk home. If I had gone further away, like to Swansea or Canterbury, then I might have battled against the snobbery working-class students meet at university. . but I met her at a dykes’ club in Manchester — thought I’d met my soul mate, so I jacked in civil engineering and came south with ’er.’
‘Civil engineering?’
‘Yes, that was another thing, as well as the snobbery, as well as being little working-class Nellie from the Dellie among these privately educated types, I was penetrating a male bastion. It’s getting better but engineering is still a male preserve. . largely. . no matter what university. So this is the south — hardly what it’s cracked up to be. A room in a house like this and a black eye for touching her. She can touch me all she likes but I can’t touch her. I’m the female. . she does. . I am done to, I need to remember my place.’
‘I know what you mean. Still think that you should leave.’
‘Where?’ She dragged deeply on the cigarette. ‘Like where?’
