Taking Liberties (Liberty Chapman) Read online

  Liberty tore her eyes away from the red lace underwear.

  ‘What can I do you for?’ the woman asked, but was interrupted by someone else entering the room.

  ‘Christ on a bike, Bucky,’ Raj shrieked. ‘My eyes are falling out here.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘Give us a sec, will you?’

  Liberty heard Raj back out of the room, muttering, and shut the door behind him. ‘I should wait outside too,’ she said.

  The woman checked her watch. ‘Down to you, but if you need a word it’s now or never. There’s only one stipe here today, Acosta, in court one, and frankly, I’d rather keep Elton John waiting.’

  Liberty gulped. She did need a word. ‘My client’s Rance. Stephen Rance.’

  ‘Oh, him.’ The woman ran fingers through her poker-straight hair. ‘Forced a working girl to give him a blow-job, then battered her. Why these bastards don’t just pay is beyond me.’

  ‘The witness has retracted her statement,’ Liberty said.

  ‘What witness?’

  ‘The girl in question. Daisy Clarke.’

  The woman raised a pair of well-shaped eyebrows. ‘The victim?’

  Discomfort swept through Liberty, so she simply nodded.

  The woman frowned and began to rifle through the files on her desk. Finding nothing she turned, revealing her arse cheeks, one bearing a tattoo of Bugs Bunny. Liberty averted her eyes as the woman bent to look through the pile of papers on the floor. ‘Here we go.’ She licked her finger and began flicking through the file. ‘But there’s nothing in here about any retraction.’

  Liberty’s heart sank. ‘I can assure you it’s true. Miss Clarke told me in person yesterday.’

  ‘You’ve spoken with the victim?’

  ‘There is no possession in a witness.’ Liberty raised her chin. ‘And I did absolutely nothing except listen.’

  The woman nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it. It’s just a bit unusual to bother on legal aid.’ She looked Liberty up and down. ‘Then again, you’re not here on legal aid, are you?’

  ‘I think my firm’s fee arrangement is not a matter for discussion this morning,’ said Liberty.

  The woman gave a generous gurgle of laughter. ‘Keep your hair on, I’m not mithered one way or the other.’ She slammed the file shut. ‘But there’s still no retraction in here.’

  Liberty clenched her teeth to try to stop the muscles of her jaw twitching. She’d hoped everything would be sorted. Case closed. The client would be over the moon and she would return to London, where his father would be waiting with gratitude and instructions for her to act for him on the merger.

  The door opened again but this time an Asian man in his early twenties entered. ‘Boss.’ He unfurled a pair of black trousers like a carpet. ‘These do you?’

  If either was embarrassed by the situation, they didn’t show it. Liberty tried to imagine any of her assistants catching her half dressed. They would die on the spot, or run from the building screaming at the very least.

  The woman took the trousers, held them to her face and sniffed. ‘They were better than the other pair, Bucky,’ said the young man.

  She shrugged, reached into her bag and retrieved a bottle of perfume. The air filled with the smell of chocolate and patchouli as she squirted Angel over the crotch. Then she pulled on the trousers and patted her arse with a smile.

  ‘Ten o’clock, boss,’ said the young man.

  ‘Shit.’ She grabbed her files and turned to Liberty. ‘Gotta shift, sorry.’ She marched from the room, sashaying her surprisingly pert buttocks, the assistant scampering after her.

  Raj poked his head around the door. ‘You met Bucky, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Liberty replied.

  ‘Force of nature that one.’

  Daisy Clarke knew what people thought of her. Junkie, whore, skank. Daisy the Dog they called her behind her back. Well, mostly behind her back. She threw off the sheet and sat up in bed. A droplet of sweat ran from her throat, down her chest, pooling between her ribs. It wasn’t the cold sweat that came when she was clucking, but the sweat you got from being too hot. Weird. She never felt hot, these days.

  She got out of bed and peeped around the curtain. Everything looked yellow and still. Her mouth felt dry so she padded out to the kitchen, searched for a cup that wasn’t filled with old fag butts, gave up and put her lips to the tap. She closed her eyes as she sucked down the water.

  It hadn’t always been like this. A lot of girls who worked the clubs and the surrounding streets couldn’t remember a time when their lives weren’t a pile of shite. They told stories about stepdads shagging them since they were seven or growing up in care homes. But not Daisy. She’d lived in a normal house on a normal street. Her dad worked on the bins and Mum did two days on the till in Asda. Daisy’s nan used to come over for tea once a week. She’d bring a box of Milk Tray for afters and they’d all watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. They’d shout out the answers, getting hardly any of them right.

  Then one day Daisy’s little brother had got ill and everything had fallen apart.

  She finished drinking and splashed her face with cold water. Her cheeks burned even as she pressed her wet palms into them. She felt like she was coming down with flu or something. Then again it might be connected to the mother-load of rock she and Frankie had gone through last night.

  Frankie Greenwood always spelled trouble. Nothing like his cunt of a brother, Jay, who had been on her case as soon as she’d stepped into the Cherry. Frankie just wanted a good time. Daisy liked him. He liked Daisy. And they both liked as much gear as they could lay their hands on. Last night he was bang on it, telling her about a job he was going to do with some lads from down south. The main bloke was somebody he’d met in Marbella. Brixton Dave he was called, or something else just as stupid. Apparently he was big in London and they were all going to make a mountain of cash.

  Frankie had made her laugh going on about what he would buy her when he got his share. A skip full of bollocks, of course. A starter for ten: why would some big-time gangster want to hook up with Frankie fucking Greenwood?

  She reached into an ashtray for a fag she’d left half smoked yesterday, lit it and took a deep drag. Where was her bag? Please let her have brought it back with her. She remembered leaving the Cherry with Frankie, then visiting a crack house up Kinsey Way. It had been full and loud. Lots of people, a sound system in the corner. Then there’d been a fight, glass smashed, blood spilled, and somebody said they should all calm down, have a bit of brown. So they had.

  She looked in all the usual places. Kitchen worktops, behind the sofa, under her bed. She didn’t have much stuff, so there weren’t many options. ‘Shit.’ Daisy kicked a heap of dirty clothes on the floor. ‘Shit.’ Her life was in that bag: phone, with all her dealers’ numbers, money, including last night’s tips, a knife and mace spray she kept on her for protection. How had she let herself get so fucked up that she’d lost her bag? She sank to her knees, eyes stinging with tears. There wouldn’t even be enough cash in her flat for the bus fare to the Cherry later.

  Her misery was interrupted by a thump on the door. Who the hell would that be at this time of the morning? Not that she even knew the proper time without her phone. She hardly ever told anyone she lived here. Unlike a lot of users and working girls, she didn’t run an open house. No parties. No punters back to hers. No people crashing on her sofa until they ‘got themselves sorted’. To be honest, it made her unpopular with some of them, but that was a price worth paying to keep herself from falling completely off the edge of the cliff.

  There was another volley of bangs on the door. Whoever it was, they wanted to see her big-time.

  She poked her head around the bedroom door and saw a figure through the frosted glass. A man. Tall. Dark hair. Frankie? The man had Frankie’s build and he did know where she lived. Oh, please, let it be Frankie so she could blag a few quid off him to get to work later. Maybe even a rock if he had one on him.

  She slunk
down the hallway, put on the chain and opened the door. Her heart leaped when she saw her bag being held out at arm’s length. But it instantly sank when she saw who was holding it.

  It wasn’t Frankie.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Daisy.’ Jay spread his arms wide to take in the worn sofa, carpetless floors and bare walls of Daisy’s lounge. ‘Minimalist.’

  She gave her boss a thin smile. He thought he was a real funny man, but the only person who ever laughed at his jokes was Mel.

  The bag was still in his hand, the strap wrapped around his wrist, a splash of red plastic against the black of his clothes. Black long-sleeved T-shirt that showed every muscle, black jeans tight across his thighs.

  ‘You need to be more careful with your stuff.’ Jay nodded at the bag.

  ‘Where’d you find it?’ Daisy asked.

  Jay adjusted the sunglasses that he was wearing on top of his head, pushing them back slightly. ‘Frankie had it.’

  Daisy swallowed.

  ‘He said he gave you a lift home from the club and you left it in the taxi. Lucky he spotted it, eh?’ Jay leaned towards her and stared into her eyes. He didn’t blink. Like some kind of fucking vampire. ‘But I think we’d all be happier if you stayed away from my little brother.’

  So that was it. Jay had come round to warn Daisy off Frankie. Ridiculous if you gave it a second’s thought. Frankie was older than she was. But Crystal and Jay acted like he was some kid in need of protection. They didn’t know the half of it.

  ‘Do you understand me, Daisy?’ asked Jay.

  She nodded. No matter how much she wanted to tell Jay to go and fuck himself, she wanted to keep her job at the Cherry. Plus he had a reputation for losing the plot once in a while and she didn’t want to be on the receiving end. Plenty of the girls at the Cherry had fallen foul of it. The only one who could ever handle Jay had been Kyla. And she still had to watch her mouth.

  She looked longingly at her bag. She was pretty desperate for a rock and the only way to get one was to open that bag. Now Jay had said his piece, why couldn’t he just do one?

  Out of nowhere, Jay smiled. His teeth were white and shiny, like the bastard sprayed them with diamond dust each morning. ‘But Frankie’s not the reason I’m here,’ he said.

  Shit. If he hadn’t come to warn Daisy off his brother, then what the hell was he doing here?

  ‘I asked you to do something for me, Daisy,’ Jay said.

  ‘What?’

  Jay moved even closer to Daisy, so that when he spoke his voice was a whisper in her ear. ‘I asked you to withdraw the statement you made to the police about that punter.’

  Daisy sprang back, relief flooding through her. ‘I did, Jay. I saw that brief in your office and told her all about it.’

  Jay took a step towards the window and threw open the curtains in one snap. The room filled with harsh light and Daisy had to shield her eyes. ‘So why is the case still in court?’ he asked.

  ‘You know how it is, Jay, the police don’t exactly make it easy. I left a ton of messages for the woman in charge, and when she wouldn’t call me back, I talked to another copper I know, in Vice. We go way back.’ Standing with his back against the window, light streaming around him, Jay looked more like a shadow than a man.

  ‘And what did this copper in Vice say?’ he asked.

  ‘He said he’d sort it out for me,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t.’

  Sol had let her down. He’d promised to help. Well, not exactly promised, but he’d said he would do what he could. ‘I’ll call him,’ Daisy said, her voice squeaky.

  Jay raised an eyebrow and waited.

  ‘My phone’s in there.’ Daisy gestured to her bag.

  Slowly, Jay unwound the handle from his wrist, weighed the bag in his hand, then threw it at her. Daisy’s hands shook as she opened the clasp and rummaged for her mobile. It had only fifteen per cent charge left, but that would be enough. She went into Contacts and dialled Sol’s number.

  Please let him pick up.

  ‘Sol Connolly.’

  Thank Christ. ‘Sol, it’s me, Daisy,’ she said.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up, Sol. You said you’d sort that thing out for me and you haven’t.’

  Sol coughed into his phone. ‘If I recall correctly, Daisy, you were supposed to get me some information. You help me and I help you.’

  Daisy risked a look at Jay, who was cleaning his sunglasses, breathing on the lenses, then wiping them with the hem of his T-shirt. ‘Meet me in Scottish Tony’s in ten,’ she said, and hung up.

  Chapter 6

  August 1985

  Frankie’s sat on my lap sucking his thumb. He’s giving me a dead leg but I haven’t got the heart to move him.

  ‘I can’t stand hospitals,’ says Dad, marching up and down the corridor, like he’s in the frigging army. ‘There’s something about them that does my head in.’

  Does he honestly think there are folk who like hospitals? I mean, apart from doctors and nurses and that. Does he think people come here for the laugh? We’ve been waiting here for over an hour, jumping up every time somebody in a long white coat walks towards us. Mam’s ‘in theatre’, which means she’s having an operation. It’s funny how they call it that. As if she’s watching a show or something.

  ‘I need a fag,’ says Dad. ‘I can’t believe they don’t let you smoke in here, what with all the stress. If they stopped people smoking in the nick, there’d be ructions.’ He pulls out a packet of ten. ‘Come and get me if there’s any news. In the meantime say nothing to no one, understand?’

  I nod and he walks off. When he’s out of sight I feel the kids relax around me.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ Jay asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘Is Mam going to die?’ asks Crystal.

  These are the first words to come out of her mouth since back at the flat when she said she knew why the social worker was coming to visit. I wonder what happened to the social worker. Did she turn up and find the door locked? Did she just assume we were avoiding a visit? I bet she’s writing her report now. ‘Paula Greenwood remains uncooperative.’

  ‘Well, is she?’ Crystal repeats. ‘Is Mam going to die?’

  ‘No.’ It’s just a tiny word, so why is it choking me? ‘No, she’s not going to die.’

  Tears well in Crystal’s eyes and she lets them fall onto her tiny pink cheeks.

  ‘Come on, now,’ I say. ‘I’m here, and I’m not going to let anything bad happen now, am I?’

  She looks at me so solemn, as if she’s a hundred years old. I try a smile but she doesn’t smile back.

  At last the ward door opens and a nurse comes out. She’s got a blue smock thing on with a little watch attached to her pocket. She stands in front of us, her mouth tight. ‘Are you Elizabeth Greenwood?’ she asks.

  I nod. The blood runs thick and hot in my brain, and I can’t hear what she says next. It’s like when you’re under water and the noises around you are all foggy and wrong.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ The nurse’s voice is sharper now. ‘Did you hear what I just said?’ I don’t move and she looks puzzled. ‘She’s asked to see you,’ the nurse says.

  ‘Who?’ I say.

  The nurse laughs. ‘Your mum, of course.’

  So she’s not dead, then. When I told Crystal Mam wouldn’t die, I didn’t have any idea if it was true. All that blood everywhere and Mam’s face all still and blue.

  ‘I’ll stay here with the little ones for two minutes while you pop in,’ says the nurse. ‘She’s groggy so straight in and out, okay?’ When I don’t get up, she puts her hands under Frankie’s armpits and lifts him off my lap. He doesn’t wriggle or cry, just puts his head on her chest. I push myself to my feet although I can’t even feel them and wobble to Mam’s room.

  She’s on the bed, all sorts of tubes attached to her arms, her hair pushed off her face so I can see her roo
ts need doing. ‘Mam,’ I say.

  She opens her eyes and tries to smile.

  I walk over and sit on the chair next to her bed. Her nails are crusted with dried blood where she clutched herself. ‘I thought you were a goner this time, Mam,’ I say.

  She blinks. ‘I bet you were planning a party.’

  ‘I’ve already baked the cake,’ I say.

  She laughs and puts her hand out to mine. Her fingers are cold. ‘Listen, love, the police will start sniffing around soon.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I hope they put him away for good this time.’

  Mam shakes her head and squeezes my wrist. ‘No, Lib, we can’t talk to the police.’

  I’m shocked and pull my hand away. She can’t stand by him now. Not after what he’s done. He’ll never change. He might not have killed her this time, but one day he will. Or me. Or one of the kids. Surely she’s not so bleeding soft she can’t see it.

  ‘I’m not messing about here, Lib.’ Mam’s voice goes hard. ‘Once the law gets involved social services will have everything they need to put you lot in care. They’re already gunning for me. They’ll say I can’t protect myself or you from your dad.’

  I don’t answer. It’s pretty obvious that she can’t.

  ‘We say nothing. Convince them that this was an accident.’ Mam narrows her eyes. ‘Then as soon as things have calmed down we’ll get your dad to sling his hook.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Never you mind, love,’ she says.

  I shake my head. ‘He’s not scared of you, Mam. He’s not scared of anything you can do to him.’

  ‘Maybe not, but there are folk out there who do scare the shit out of him.’

  Liberty sat at the back of court one and tried not to panic. The trouble was, panic was churning her guts, making her regret the scrambled eggs on toast she’d wolfed down for breakfast. ‘What should I do now?’ she hissed at Raj, who was seated next to her, coolly leafing through the five cases he would be juggling that morning. ‘The prosecutor reckons she knows nothing about my witness retracting her statement. Can that be true?’