Max Wolfe 02.5 - Fresh Blood by Tony Parsons Read Free Book Online Page B

she said. ‘Curtis died in the night.’

9
Goodbye to All This
    It wasn’t really a wake.
    When the news came through about Curtis, a few officers at the end of their shifts made their way to the pie room at the Windmill in Mill Street, the closest pub to West End Central, just around the corner from 27 Savile Row, and by early evening the place was full of our people.
    It was not a wake, but word reached the other stations where Curtis had worked when he was in uniform – Lewisham after he got out of Hendon, Tottenham before he transferred to West End Central – and faces from those earlier days began making their way to the pie room at the Windmill.
    When I arrived Edie Wren was on the street outside the pub, her face white with shock. She threw her arms around me and then broke quickly away, embarrassed at herself, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands.
    ‘I should have visited him more often,’ she said. ‘I knew him for years longer than you but I was never there.’
    ‘I don’t know that he wanted you to see him like that,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t easy for him. What happened?’
    ‘He just slipped away in the night. He wasn’t alone. His brother was there. Marvin?’
    I nodded. ‘Father Marvin,’ I said. We both looked up at the pub. The Windmill is a famous pub – always winning prizes for its pies – but it was unusually crowded for this time of day.
    ‘We should join them,’ Edie said. ‘Whitestone is already in there.’ Pat Whitestone was the leader of our MIT and had known Curtis for longer than any of us.
    ‘I’ll see you in there later,’ I said. ‘There’s someone I need to tell.’
    It was a short walk to Chinatown.
    I knew something was wrong before I was halfway up the stairs to Sampaguita. With Ali still in the hospital with his jaw wired up, Ginger had locked the flimsy front door and now it hung off its hinges where somebody had kicked it open.
    Oscar Burns, I thought. Big Muff.
    Ginger Gonzalez was on the floor at the back of that small white room, huddled in a corner, trying to cover herself with what remained of the bright summer dress that they had torn off her back. Her hands were scrabbling on the floor, searching for something. Her glasses. I crouched by her side and gave them to her. One of the lenses was cracked. She put them on anyway. Her bare arms were scratched and there was blood on the six words that were tattooed from her elbows to her hands.
    Never for money. Always for love.
    I took off my leather jacket and put it around her shoulders.
    ‘Max,’ she said.
    ‘It’s okay now.’
    ‘They laughed and said that I had to choose one of them,’ she said, and I saw that her mouth was swollen where they had hurt her. ‘And when I wouldn’t choose … then they both …’
    I kissed her on the top of her head, pulling the leather jacket more tightly around her shoulders so that she was covered.
    I gave her a hug and she winced but I could not tell if it was from the pain from where they had used her or just the shock of being touched.
    ‘I’m calling a friend,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Edie and she is going to stay with you and make sure you’re all right.’
    My phone was in my hand, hitting the speed dial for Edie Wren as I headed for the door.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Ginger said.
    ‘I’m going to end all this,’ I said.
    It was getting dark by the time I pulled up outside the Saucy Leper.
    In the warm spring evening, the first hint of summer in the air, crowds had spilled out into the East End street, loud with laughter, happy with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Because of its history, the Saucy Leper attracted its fair share of tourists, looking for a glimpse of old London gangland. But I could not see any tourists tonight – only young men, hard and thick, and women with heels higher than their IQs.
    Perhaps they were all tourists.
    Above the pub the lights were coming on in the Shadwell Amateur Boxing Club, the