‘No! He was lovely, funny, sweet. He just couldn’t say no to girls. He loved it over here, said he was going to be rich, some hopes. There wasn’t a nasty bone in his body. Not like Walter. He could be very mean.’
‘Do you remember Walter’s surname?’
‘Yes, it came to me on the way over here. Isaacs, I think that was it,Walter Isaacs.’
‘Good. Did you see much of them after you broke up with Joseph?’
‘I stopped going to Studio One for a while after he dumped me, but it was hard not to catch sight of them, or hear from someone who’d seen him there with his latest flame.’
‘What about April of the next year, 1981, the time of the Brixton riots, do you remember that?’
‘Not in connection with Joseph.Was he involved in that?’
‘We think he was murdered that night, April the eleventh. He was seen at a pub in Angell Town, and said he was going to Brixton. He seemed to be running away from someone. Do you have any idea who that might have been?’
‘Not specifically. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d upset people. He would do things without thinking. Like I remember him telling me how he’d made the moves on this girl right after he arrived, and she was the girlfriend of one of the Spangler boys across the tracks. He was lucky to talk his way out of a knifing.’
‘Apart from girls, what else was he into?’
Mrs Parker lowered her eyes, then nodded.‘Yes, they were into drugs. I don’t just mean ganja.When I was with him in Walter’s place I woke up one morning and the room was stinking of that horrible bitter smell of crack, the two of them smoking their first pipes before breakfast. It was Walter, I’m sure, got him into it. He was older and he’d been over here longer.’
‘And they dealt as well?’
‘Yes, I’m sure they did. Joseph brought some cocaine with him when he came over, and Walter had some girls he called his “yard ants”, smuggling for him.’
‘Did they work with anyone else?’
‘There was a third guy they were friendly with, but he didn’t look like this picture here. Didn’t have a beard for a start.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Older than the other two, tougher, more serious. Made Joseph look like a little boy.’
‘How tall?’
‘Not quite as tall as Joseph; maybe six foot? Fit looking. He wore a black Kangol flat cap and plenty of gold cargo, oh and he had a gold tooth, too.’ She tapped one of her front teeth. ‘The three of them would greet each other that way, you know, like the ghetto kids, touching closed fists and saying “Hit me, star!” or some such.’
‘Did he have a name?’
Mrs Parker pondered.‘Robert? Bobby? Robbie? Yes,that’s it, Robbie.’
‘Surname?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘Did Joseph tell you anything else about himself that might help us? Any plans he had, or people he knew?’
The woman shrugged vaguely, and Kathy had the feeling that her store of memories-apart, perhaps, from some fondly remembered intimacies-was pretty much exhausted.
‘You mentioned the pawnbrokers that were here. I believe they were owned by a local family called Roach. Do you remember them at all?’
She hesitated as if some faint memory stirred, but then shook her head.‘Sorry, no.’
‘Well, you’ve been very helpful, Mrs Parker. There is one more thing. I’d really appreciate it if you’d sit down with our computer artist to make a picture of this Robbie.Would you do that?’
‘Ooh, that sounds like fun, though I don’t know if I can do it after all this time.’
Kathy got on the phone.When she’d made the arrangements she asked Mrs Parker one last question.‘Did they have guns,those boys?’
The woman nodded sadly. ‘Oh yes. Look, when I think back it’s no wonder my parents were mad with worry about me. The things you do, eh, when you’re young and foolish? Joseph’s gun looked shiny and new. He was always stroking and cleaning it, like it was his pet. He even called it a name, Brown Bread. Is that stupid or what?’
The next three women to see Kathy were all in their fifties and had some memory of Joseph. Two had worked in the market and could remember his good-natured cheek, and one had been a barmaid in the Ship and recalled Joseph drinking amicably with the Roach boys. The fourth visitor, also a woman, was older and had a far grimmer memory. Joseph had befriended her son, who used to walk through the market on his way home from school, and had given him his first taste of crack. Within six months of Joseph’s death the boy, too, was dead, thrown from the window of his home on the tenth floor of a council block by Yardies from whom he’d tried to steal drugs.
None of the women were able to add anything concrete to Kathy’s search, and none remembered ‘Robbie’, although one thought that a girl called Rhonda may have gone out with someone of that name.
The last person on the list was the only man and, according to Kerrie, the only white person, and he didn’t show up. Kerrie said he’d left a phone message that he couldn’t leave work at a building site about a mile away, where he was site manager, but that Kathy was welcome to call there for a quick chat. She thanked Kerrie and the other women and drove to the place, an extension to the rear of a supermarket. She parked nearby and made her way down a narrow back street, squeezing past two concrete trucks waiting outside the wire gates, where the site hut was pointed out to her. Inside she found the manager,Wayne Ferguson.
‘Sorry I couldn’t get over,’ he said. ‘We decided to take a chance with the weather this morning and go ahead with the main concrete pour, and I had to be here. So, Michael said I might be able to help you.’ His attention shifted to the window, through which they could see men hosing concrete like porridge over a bed of steel mesh.
‘You knew Joseph, did you?’
‘Who?’
‘Joseph Kidd, in 1981.’
Ferguson looked blank and Kathy pushed the pictures in front of him, making him turn away from the window.
‘All the usual suspects, eh? No, don’t recall them.’
‘Well, I-’
‘I was on the bar at the Cat and Fiddle on the night of the riots. Part-time job.’
‘Ah. But you don’t remember seeing this one?’
‘No. It was packed out that night. The only ones I remembered-I told Michael-were the two Roach lads, the oldest one and one of the others.I knew them ’cause I’d seen all three of them come onto the site I was working on in my day job. I was an apprentice then. They were looking for somebody, and there was a bit of a barney with the boss, almost a fight. He told me afterwards who they were and to steer clear of them.When I saw those two come into the pub I thought there might be trouble.’
‘And was there?’
‘Not as far as I know. I lost sight of them after that. Don’t know what happened to them. Not a lot of use, is it? Sorry. I told Michael, but he said you might be interested anyway.’
‘Yes, I am. Thanks.’
‘Great feller, Michael.’
‘How do you know him?’
‘He used to be a union man, UCATT. That’s how he started to get noticed. He helped us sort out a few problems. His heart’s in the right place. There should be more like him in parliament.’
Kathy thanked him and made her way back to her car,wondering how she was going to get the muck off her shoes. As she sat sideways in the driver’s seat, wiping her feet with tissues, she caught sight of a blue car sliding out of view at the end of the street.
For the rest of that week, Kathy and three other detectives worked across the Borough of Lambeth, following up leads to people who might have been in the right place in 1981. Most were cooperative and interested, happy to nudge their memories back in their own ways. ‘Ricky Villa’s magic goal against Manchester City, remember that?’
