‘Oh, pipe down, Miss Goody Two-Shoes.’ Jennifer’s complaint was tinged with amusement. Hearing about their brother’s bad behaviour seemed to have brightened her mood.
‘Did Mum mention me at all when you last saw her?’ she asked hopefully.
‘She never does, you know that.’ Kathy knew her brusque reply had hurt her sister but Jennifer seemed unwilling to change her seedy life in an attempt to win back her parents’ trust.
‘Don’t want no tea, do you, Kath? ’Spect you’ve got to be off.’
‘Trying to get rid of me already?’ Kathy raised her eyebrows. Jennifer didn’t look in a fit state to be receiving punters and that was the usual reason she’d tell her to go. Even dockers might expect a brass to make some effort with her appearance. Jennifer’s fair hair was matted and the old dress and cardigan she had on didn’t look as though they’d seen an iron in a long while. Kathy reckoned her sister hadn’t washed, or combed her hair, since she’d climbed out of bed. In fact, she looked as though she could do with a hot bath and Kathy told her so.
‘Better get meself tidied up.’ Jennifer tried to separate the tangles in her hair with her fingers. ‘Bill’s coming over this afternoon.’
‘Well, in that case, I am going.’ Kathy hated Bill Black and had done so since he had corrupted her sister when she was just fifteen and set her on the road to ruin.
‘Got any money before you go?’ Jennifer wheedled as Kathy picked up her coat. ‘I could do with getting a bit of grub in …’
‘If I thought you’d buy food with it, I’d lend you a couple of shillings.’ Kathy gave her twin a challenging stare. ‘But you’ll spend it on fags or booze or drugs, won’t you?’
‘I won’t, I swear. I’ll buy meself some chips and a loaf of bread.’ Jennifer blinked her diseased eyelids, giving her sister a winning smile.
Kathy had been treated to such solemn vows in the past. ‘Ask Bill to get you some shopping when he turns up.’ It twisted her guts to be hard-hearted but she’d lost count of the times her sister had pleaded for money because she was hungry, then spent it on one of her addictions.
‘He won’t give me nuthin’,’ Jenny spat. ‘He’s probably expecting me to give him something. But I’ve not had no work. Who’s gonna want me looking like this?’ She scratched at the crusts clumping together her eyelashes.
‘Leave it alone! You’ll make it worse.’ Kathy yanked at her sister’s elbow, dragging away her hand.
Kathy’s bubbling exasperation was threatening to explode. Her sister had been on the game for years, yet Kathy could never quite relinquish the hope that Jennifer would make a fresh start. ‘Why don’t you clean the place up, and yourself too while you’re at it?’ Kathy thundered. ‘Look for a proper job and stop wallowing in self-pity!’
‘Oh, fuck off!’ Jennifer flung herself down on the sofa. ‘Bleedin’ sick of you and your holier-than-thou crap. Go on, piss off. I know you want to. You only ever come here to crow and look down yer nose at me. If you really wanted to help, you’d give me a few bob so I don’t starve. You can see I can’t work looking like this.’
‘If you didn’t associate with scum, you wouldn’t look like that, would you?’ Kathy bellowed. ‘Where d’you think you get the germs from?’
‘Oi, oi. What’s going on? You gels having a bit of a barney then?’
Kathy spun on her heel to see a flashily dressed stocky man letting himself in with the key that hung through Jenny’s letter box on a bit of string. She picked up her coat and immediately shrugged into it.
‘Don’t go on my account, darlin’,’ Bill Black said with a foxy smile. His eyes lowered to look her over beneath the brim of a fedora shading his swarthy features.
Bill was well aware Kathy Finch despised him. Whereas he thought she was very comely, especially in her nurse’s uniform. He’d fantasised many times about ripping that off her. But he realised it must be her afternoon off as she was dressed in civvies. Jennifer had told him that her sister often came round, nagging at her to reform her ways. Bill didn’t want Jennifer doing that; she might be a pain in the arse with her constant whining, but she had her uses. That was why he’d stopped by …
‘I’ll see you in a week or two,’ Kathy told Jennifer. She stared coldly at Bill, until he shifted away from the doorway. She’d been at Jennifer’s before when he’d turned up and brushed against her to cop a feel. He wasn’t doing that again!
‘You come to see me or her?’ Jennifer barked, surging up out of the armchair in a fit of pique on noticing Bill giving her sister the eye.
Bill removed his hat and sauntered over to smooth Jenny’s dark blond hair. It felt greasy beneath his palm. ‘Don’t be a stranger now …’ he called out, riling Kathy, who banged the door shut.
Bill glanced at Jennifer with distaste. At the best of times she looked a mess but next to her pretty sister it was even more obvious. ‘Fuck’s sake, Jen, what you done to yerself?’ He stared at her mucky lashes, nose wrinkled.
‘Got fassy eye, ain’t I,’ Jennifer snapped. ‘Probably caught it off that last punter you brought me in. He stank to high heaven.’
‘Get the bath in, shall I?’ Bill suggested. He had a hole in his finances and could do with some money. A deal on some stolen goods he’d fenced had gone sour on him and he’d lost twenty quid.
‘Got a few bob to lend me?’ Jennifer asked sullenly.
‘You must be joking, gel.’ Bill snorted in disbelief. ‘I was going to ask you for a sub.’ He gave her rump a playful slap. ‘Once you’re done up to the nines, we’ll go out and see if we can find you a punter who’s two parts pissed and won’t notice you look a bleedin’ sight under the war paint. Then we’ll roll him.’
Jennifer huffed dispiritedly, but she’d sooner risk fleecing a customer than have to service him, the way she felt. She’d taken laudanum on top of the whisky she’d drunk earlier and reckoned she might throw up.
‘What’s happened to you?’
‘Had a trip, that’s all …’
Nick came further into the shop and looked about. It was obvious that the display shelves had been broken and he was pretty sure his mother hadn’t done it falling over. Neither had she put a dent in the counter where the till drawer was, or chucked flowers about the place and overturned buckets of water. ‘All this damage happened when you had that accident, did it?’
He strode back to his mother and tipped up her chin to get a better look at her bruised face. She was an attractive woman in her mid-forties, who kept herself trim and well groomed. ‘Who’s been in here?’ he demanded.
‘Not as many customers as I’d like, son, I can tell you that.’ Lottie Raven’s forced humour faded away. ‘Oh, all right, might as well tell you. A bloke came in causing trouble. I told him to take a running jump and he didn’t like it and had a paddy.’
‘What’s he taken? Did you recognise him?’ Nick barked out, feeling murderous. His mother’s complexion had reddened in embarrassment.
Lottie shook her head, averting her eyes. Her son might be a cool character but, since he’d been a little lad, she’d known when his temper was up. The brute who’d turned nasty on her was one of Wes Silver’s sidekicks. She didn’t want Nick getting into a fight with the likes of him.
Nick had never outwardly blamed Wes for stealing his wife but Lottie had always thought it best the two men kept a distance from each other. She’d