Miss Brownlow parked the car, avoiding stray glass and rubble as best she could, then she and Viv headed into the block, assessing the older residences of the housing estate as they walked. With growing admiration for Miss Brownlow’s diplomacy, her tact, her firm yet gentle manner, Viv was unable to manifest her holy tolerance and emotional self-restraint.
‘I just hope I can bottle my temper,’ Viv confessed. Her memory of two innocent children abandoned at an Ellman Superstore blocked any sympathy she might have felt for a mother bringing up a family in this area. ‘Mothers who dump their kids are slags, in my book.’ As her anticipation of the approaching confrontation tightened in her stomach, she realized that she expected the worst: a tart with a fag in her mouth. ‘And,’ she added in a lower voice, ‘they usually all look the same – sluts.’
When eventually they reached the door, Viv was shocked, but not at all in the way she had expected. Miss Brownlow formally introduced her to the lost children’s mother, although Viv neither heard nor remembered her name. All she noticed was how decent she looked, in a neat, clean dress; the lips of her smile slightly trembling, her teary eyes both welcoming and imploring.
The young mother ushered them into the main room of her home, which sparkled like a new pin. Viv knew at a glance that such a state of affairs couldn’t have been accomplished overnight. This degree of scrubbing one couldn’t buy servant’s labour to perform, let alone afford what it would cost these days. Over in the corner, the two children were off playing quietly by themselves, content to wave at Viv without interrupting their repeated attempts to construct a house of cards. They, too, were dressed in crisp, clean clothes.
When Viv glanced over at Miss Brownlow to share what she was seeing, the proper Miss Brownlow for once couldn’t resist a smile at Viv’s expense. Viv felt suitably contrite. Yet still she was unprepared to face the children’s mother, whose eyes begged her attention, her voice trembling on the edge of tears.
She spoke directly to Viv’s heart. ‘I could’ve … lost them …’ She shook her head to banish the thought. ‘I’m just so thankful you were there … and found them …’ She was trying to hold herself together long enough to find the right words.
‘When I think of … what might’ve happened …’
She couldn’t continue. The tears welled in her eyes, her body began to shake and she started to fall apart in front of them.
In spite of herself, with an awkward lurch Viv moved to embrace her. To hold her, support her, hug her, and share the agony of how precious were the fragile lives of her children.
Anjali Shah entered the warehouse of Prem Ghai’s Asian wholesale spice business and asked the first worker she met where she could find him.
‘Excuse me. I’m looking for Mr Ghai.’
Before the worker could speak, someone else stepped in front of Anjali: the fugitive on the other side of the fence, the bully who tried to intimidate her in her own home – Dev himself.
‘That’s all right, Veejay. I will attend to the lady.’
Dev led Anjali to a quiet corner of the warehouse, but he couldn’t control the volume of his anger. ‘How dare you come here. To my uncle’s place of business!’
The loud echo of his voice made him realize that letting his temper get out of control might precipitate his losing face among the employees of his uncle, so he converted his fury to mockery at her silence.
‘My uncle will think I am having affairs with middle-aged ladies,’ he sneered.
‘You’re such a fool,’ she scoffed at him. ‘But that is not my problem. That is yours. I am only interested in the box you stole. It is of no use to you. Where is it?’
Her intensity caught him offguard, and he withdrew a step. ‘Somewhere. I don’t know.’ His eyebrow raised, possibly indicating the dawn of a new thought. ‘It’s nothing but junk. What’s the big deal?’
Anjali tried to control her own temper. ‘The big deal is that you’re going to give it back.’
Dev started to smile, but she cut him short.
‘Oh, yes. You will return it. And just maybe, I can get them to drop charges.’ She detected a glimmer of interest on his part. ‘That way I can help Raj Patel. He’s had a fright. It might stick in his mind.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Dev berated her. ‘You come here handing out orders like a man. I don’t need to listen to this.’
‘Would you rather your uncle did?’
His temper flared, and he moved his body closer to hers. ‘My uncle is a man of position in this community. You are nothing,’ he growled. ‘Trash! No one will listen to trash.’
Suddenly he seized Anjali by the throat and tightened his grip. Just as quickly she turned the tables on him. It was actually a simple, basic move she had practised hundreds of times in the self-defence classes she had taken after promising herself never again to be at the mercy of an assailant, as she had been that night now seemingly long ago. Yet the haunting memory of being overpowered had acted as a vaccination, so that she developed in her slim body the antidote to combat an attack of brute force.
In this instance the brute was immediately brought to his knees, his hand caught in the vice of her grip. It was elementary, though totally effective in both outwitting and immobilizing him.
‘Your uncle need not know,’ Anjali told him in an even voice, making no effort to torture him with greater pain. ‘All I am asking you is to stop – and reconsider …’
The sound of a horn was blaring outside, summoning Loach and Noreen to the office window. Outside, they could see the driver in the Porsche, apparently getting impatient, pressing long and hard on the horn. Another blast heralded the lovely, long-legged Michelle rushing from the office and the garage into the waiting car. Her door had barely closed before the racing-car spun round and squealed out of the yard.
For once, Bob and Noreen Loach were laughing in harmony as they watched from the window. He mimicked Michelle’s mindless voice: ‘“Can you tell Dicky I can’t make it tonight?”’
That broke them up laughing again. ‘Or any other night, I fancy,’ he mused. ‘Poor Dicky.’
Again they laughed together. As they did, they slowly faced one another, and gradually fell silent. He caught hold of her hand.
‘You know, it’s good to laugh at the same things, Noreen.’ He wished he had the gift of eloquence, or even flattery, but he couldn’t seem to sustain that mood.
‘Flippin’ ’eck! Just think of Dicky’s face when we wind him up over this one.’
For the first time in ages they looked at each other without animosity. ‘Like a cup of coffee?’ she offered. That hadn’t happened in a long time either.
‘Great.’
She picked up two mugs, went to the coffee machine, filled each mug with black coffee, then added milk.
‘Two lumps, luv,’ he gently reminded her.
‘I do know, Bob,’ she lectured, though still sweet.
Shaking his head, thinking back, Loach had to laugh one more time. ‘Michelle as a courier? Oh dear, oh dear! Thank God we’ve got you as back-up.’
Noreen, having set the coffees down on his desk and holding the carton of sugar cubes at the ready, stood up straight. Her reply was sharp (although he may not have detected the change in her intonation to C sharp until it was too late).
‘You’ve got me as what?’
‘Doing the courier job on the Stratford run.’ Seeing the lump of sugar in her hand, he tried to draw