CHAPTER 7
Claude Winston was in a foul mood when he awoke, just after six that evening. The side of his face hurt like hell, and when he glanced down at the pillow, it was smeared with dried blood. “Bitch!” he cursed, tentatively reaching a large hand up to explore the inflamed skin around the scratches.
Wrapping a bathrobe around his great bulk, he stumbled into the toilet, bladder full. He caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror, and his hatred flared, “She’ll pay for this,” he promised as he relieved himself.
Winston had returned to Quaker Street just before six this morning, looking for Tracey. His plan was to lure her into the car by pretending to have a client for her to service nearby. He knew the crazy mixed up bitch was stupid enough to believe him, and it would have been easy to take her somewhere quiet and give her a severe beating.
He had checked all her usual haunts, but she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Even her bosom buddy, Fat Sandra, had denied knowing where Tracey was. Then again, she wouldn’t tell him Jack shit if her life depended on it.
Winston knew exactly what Tracey was up to; the little slag was lying low to avoid being punished. Well, she could hide all she wanted. Sooner or later, he would find her, and when he did, she would pay dearly for her disrespectful behaviour.
Claude dressed hurriedly as he was running late. A consignment of cocaine was ready for collection from the safe house on the Isle of Dogs. A mule had brought the stuff in a couple of days ago, but he’d had to wait for her to shit it all out. Now it was ready to be moved to the washhouse in Limehouse, where his ‘chemist’ would cut it up. Then he could start to distribute the finished product through his small network of runners.
He didn’t sell the merchandise himself anymore, preferring to make use of the tough young bucks that roamed the estate on which he still lived. They were well paid for their time, and the risks that they ran were small compared to the rewards they reaped. A lot of Winston’s runners were under the misapprehension that being in his posse gave them enhanced status on the street, and he was happy to encourage this myth.
As he climbed into the BMW, he caught sight of his scarred face in the rear-view mirror.
“Damn!” As soon as he’d taken care of business on the Isle of Dogs, he would hunt that bitch down.
◆◆◆
Just after eight that evening Dillon took six murder squad detectives back to Commercial Street, where they met up with half a dozen uniform officers that the division had provided. Working together, they began the thankless job of canvassing for witnesses.
During the next few hours, the officers spoke to numerous girls. The reaction they received was consistent; the hookers were all shocked and upset by what had happened, but none of them were willing to speak to the police, although one girl did offer a discount to the detectives for group bookings. “How times have changed,” remarked DS Charlie White, a diminutive Scotsman whose nose had been broken so badly in his youth that it was now almost forty-five degrees out of alignment with the rest of his face. His naturally bowed legs were wickedly accentuated by the drainpipe trousers of his suit and the winkle pickers on his feet. “When I joined the Job, we used to get offered freebies, now all we get is a poxy discount. There’s just no respect anymore.”
Tyler joined them just before eleven o’clock to find his team showing signs of annoyance and frustration.
“This is pointless,” Dillon exclaimed after summarising their lack of progress. “We’ll never get anywhere at this rate.” It was obvious that the girls feared and distrusted the authorities as much as they did the murderer.
It was a sad state of affairs.
“Someone must know something!” Kelly Flowers, who was feeling somewhat drained after an afternoon comforting the grieving family, complained. “What’s wrong with them?”
Jack’s face softened. “These people live a complicated and dangerous lifestyle, Kelly,” he explained. “Traditionally, we’ve always been their enemy, and because they’re scared of us, they won’t open up, in case it drops them or their friends in the shit. We’ve got to gain their confidence somehow.” He had been giving this a lot of thought on the journey back in but was no closer to finding an answer.
Having spent a few hours of quality time with his family, Jack’s spirits were much higher than they had been earlier in the day. The surprise dinner party had been a roaring success, and it had been simply wonderful to see the surviving generations of his family united under one roof again, for what felt like the first time in ages.
How strange, he had thought, that even the closest families could drift apart without realising it was happening. It was understandable, of course. Life in the twilight of the twentieth century was complicated and hectic, and if you lived your life in the fast lane something had to give. Quite often, Jack felt totally drained by the end of the week, and it took him the entire weekend to recover, just so that he could start the whole process all over again on Monday morning.
Back in the seventies, when Jack was a kid growing up in the East End, it had been different. His parents had drummed it into him that family was all-important. His grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all lived within walking distance. His relatives were always popping in unannounced, and he spent as much time in their houses as they did in his. More importantly, there was a real emotional bond; the adults relied upon each other to
