Gangster Girl Read online

  CONTENTS

  Gangster Girl

  Imprint Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PART - now

  Chapter One

  PART - two weeks earlier

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  PART - now

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Gangster Girl

  Dreda Say Mitchell

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Dreda Say Mitchell 2010

  The right of Dreda Say Mitchell to be identified as the Author of the Work

  has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the

  prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any

  form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without

  a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real

  persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978 1 848 94208 0

  Book ISBN 978 0 340 99319 4

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  This one’s for Auntie Lydia

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A massive thanks to Kate Howard, Justine Taylor and the team at Hodder, Stephanie Glencross, my agent Jane Gregory and her team.

  To my geezerettes.

  And as always to the fabulous Tony.

  now

  Chapter One

  Daisy stared at the dead body.

  At the growing pool of blood.

  At the compact pistol in her hand.

  ‘Whatever you do, never run’, she heard his earlier warning beating once again inside her head.

  But she ran. Shot out of the room. Down the corridor. Took the stairs two at a time. Hit ground level. The sweat trickled down her face from the heat. From the fear. Her breathing cut up the air. She looked straight ahead. More blood on the floor. Red, wavy lines this time. She kept up her pace. Dodged the blood. Reached the glass front doors. That’s when she stopped. Gulped in a steady stream of uneven air. One . . . two . . . three. Shoved the gun into her pocket. Rolled the balaclava off her face until it lay under the low hanging hood she wore. She hesitated at the door as his words came back to her:

  ‘Whatever you do, never run.’

  She took deep breaths. Pushed her head down and the door at the same time. Stepped outside into one of London’s busiest business districts. The light from the June sun struck her eyes, blinding her. She rapidly blinked trying to flick the glare from her eyes. Trying to find out if she could make it without being seen. Her vision cleared. And what she saw horrified her. The area in front of her was filled with crowds of people, workers enjoying a drink and chat in the still bright evening light.

  ‘Whatever you do, never run.’

  A deafening, high-pitched, wailing noise screamed blue murder from the building behind her.

  She ran.

  Her heartbeat kicked into overdrive. She didn’t look left. Didn’t look right. Didn’t look at the City workers who she knew were now gazing up at the building rocked by the alarm. Didn’t look at the people who were staring after her running figure. Didn’t look at the people who were now pulling out their mobiles to call the cops.

  Sprinted around a corner. Kept motoring forward until a hand snatched her arm swinging her against a hard wall. The air slammed out of her body in a savage whoosh sound.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Relief washed over Daisy as she stared at the familiar face. She opened her mouth to respond but the other person got there before her. ‘Get your arse into gear, we need to get to the car.’

  Heads down, they bolted towards the waiting car. They kept going until they saw it in the distance. Saw the figure who waited for them in the driver’s seat. As they got closer the gun nose-dived out of her pocket. Clattered onto the ground. Daisy skidded to a halt. Whirled around.

  ‘Leave it!’ the other person yelled as they kept running forward.

  But Daisy knew she couldn’t do that. She grabbed it. Rammed it back into her pocket. Twisted towards the car at the same time the other person reached the passenger side. She sprinted towards the car. The driver blocked the other person from her view. A police siren wailed between the city blocks somewhere in the distance. She ran harder. And harder. She was almost there.

  Then there was a loud rolling rumble of thunder.

  That’s all she heard. A terrifying boom tore through the air. The car she’d been running towards, exploded outwards and into a fireball. Daisy felt the shock go through her body as if she’d touched a live wire. She somersaulted through the air like a circus acrobat. She landed on her back, winded, as parts of car and street lamps came down around her until she was covered in debris and glass. She could feel something seeping down her face. Blood. Through her hazy vision she saw the shattered and twisted remains of the car as red and orange flames belched with smoke high into the air.

  Her vision became fainter and fainter. Her mind started to slip. She heard The Mamas And Papas singing ‘Dedicated To The One I Love’ as her mind slipped further back. Back to two weeks ago. Back to the day her life had changed forever. Back to a day that had started with a death . . . .

  two weeks earlier

  Chapter Two

  He’s dead.

  Twenty-six-year-old Daisy Sullivan’s mind reeled as she read the note the security guard had handed her. Daisy was tall, slim, with porcelai
n white skin, a beauty spot just above the right side of her pouting Angelina Jolie-style lips and hair that fell to her shoulders like a newly pressed black curtain. But it was her eyes that stopped both men and women in their tracks. Bright and blue. Eyes that mostly twinkled with laughter. Eyes she’d inherited from her long-dead gangster father, Frankie Sullivan. Of course. not many people knew who her dad had been and they never would if she was going to make it as a lawyer. Not that she was ashamed of her dad because she wasn’t. She was ashamed of the terrible things he’d done, but he’d been the best dad in the world to her. But at the same time she’d worked her knickers off to get this far as a lawyer and she couldn’t afford for anything to get in her way. And if that meant keeping quiet about who her dad had been, then so be it. Besides, who was going to find out? Sullivan was a relatively common surname.

  The note shook in her hand as shock settled with disbelief. No way. This couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be . . .

  ‘Miss Sullivan.’

  Daisy raised her head. For a few seconds she was disorientated. Didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know who was calling her name so impatiently.

  ‘Miss Sullivan?’ The voice came again, with more urgency this time.

  She turned her head towards the voice. She was sitting at a table, sitting side-by-side with a young lad with shy looks and big hands. In front of her was a stack of papers. Shit. She bolted out of her seat. She remembered where she was. Youth Court on a Monday morning. Courtroom number four at Thames Magistrate Court and Judge Morgan was about to read the verdict on fifteen-year-old Lee Moore, who she was defending on an ABH charge. The note still in her hand she addressed the judge, who looked back at her as if he wanted to send her down to do a lengthy stretch.

  ‘Pardon, your Honour.’ Her voice was husky and smoky and somewhere between upmarket London with a dollop of her cockney heritage rolling in it. She nodded her head respectfully.

  ‘Not keeping you from your life I hope, Miss Sullivan?’ Judge Morgan’s voice dripped with sarcasm, his thin head moving loosely between his shoulders making him look like a dead ringer for an irate, ageing Thunderbird.

  Without responding Daisy turned to her client. Nodded briskly. Biting his lip he got to his feet. They looked at the judge who was ready to dispense justice.

  ‘Lee Moore, this court has found you not guilty of the offence . . .’

  Daisy turned to the defendant and smiled. Another case won. At the firm they called her ‘Got Off Daisy’ because she had a knack of getting defendants acquitted. The other lawyers were desperate to know what her secret was. Simple: hard work and a great mentor. Her face sagged as she thought about the note. Her mentor was gone. Charlie was dead.

  ‘Thanks, Miss Sullivan.’ Lee Moore stretched out his hand

  She clasped it. ‘Behave – you might not be so lucky next time,’ she whispered.

  He blushed at that. She knew he was as guilty as hell. But the truth never came into it. Her job was to defend her clients, not establish the truth. That was one of the first things that Charlie taught her about being a lawyer. Charlie. Her heart lurched.

  She needed to get out of here. Find out what had happened to Charlie. As soon as her defendant was gone, she quickly gathered her papers and pushed them into her briefcase. She snapped it shut. Picked up the lonely note on the table. Her mouth went dry as she reread it.

  ‘Miss Sullivan?’

  She looked up to find a stocky man on the other side of the desk. He was slightly shorter than her but had the build of a human mountain, tough and hard to take down.

  ‘I’m Lee’s friend, Mr Doyle.’ His voice was cockney to the core, but low and light. She looked at him some more. She knew a villain when she saw one; it was in her blood. Hadn’t she been brought up by one of the toughest Faces London had ever known? Frankie Sullivan might’ve been dead and buried going on eleven years now, but his name still sent chills through certain parts of the capital.

  ‘I help run the boxing club that Lee goes to,’ the man continued. ‘Just wanted to say thanks.’ He didn’t offer her his hand. ‘Lee knows that if he steps out of line again I’m going to give him a cuff.’ She smiled at that. He didn’t. ‘Cos you’ve helped my boy out, anytime you want anything just let me know. Not that a woman from your stripe would need any help, of course.’

  She smiled, but as soon as he’d gone she forgot about him and grabbed her case. Entered the corridor, which was more or less empty except for a few people sitting silently on benches outside courtrooms. Her gaze darted around trying to find another lawyer, her best friend Evangeline Spencer-Smith, or ‘Angel’, as she was known. She found her. Angel was pinned up against a wall by the tongue-lashing she was receiving from a pockmarked faced man in his early twenties. Next to them stood a group of three men, who seemed to be modelling themselves on bit-part players from a naff gangster flick.

  The man growled at Angel, ‘If I end up doing a stretch in Brixton I’m gonna make sure that you get sorted out, you get me?’

  Oh, Daisy got it. No one treated her friend like that. No one. She moved over using the walk that her dad had taught her to use when she meant business: shoulders back, long strides and with a slight scowl about the lips. As her old man had always pointed out, if you can fake menace, you can get away with anything. ‘Gents . . .’ The way she said the word carried all the sarcasm she felt. ‘What’s the problem?’

  The man harassing Angel whirled around. His bloodshot eyes gave her the once-over like she was trash and then he sneered. His mates snickered. ‘Do you want some?’

  Go fuck yourself, she wanted to snarl at him. He wouldn’t be giving her a load of verbal if he knew who her dad had been. But instead she said, ‘“Want some?” No, not me, but I think security might. They’re ex-cops with friends in the force. So you know what that means? You’re going to find yourself banged up on a bad wing.’ Her eyes didn’t waver from his.

  He stood his ground for a full thirty seconds. Then backed off. ‘Remember what I said, lawyer lady.’ He pointed menacingly at Angel, then took his posse and left.

  ‘You alright?’ Daisy took a step closer.

  Angel collapsed against the wall. She was petite, with a fake all-year tan and platinum hair that bobbed around a gorgeous face that most men stared twice at, and a wicked nature that Daisy said would one day get her into a wagonload of trouble.

  ‘Yes. That was Johnny – Johnny Digby – one “those” Digbys . . .’ Daisy knew who she meant. The Digbys were one of East London’s low-budget underworld crews. ‘He’s the youngest member of the gang. Just showing off to his associates.’

  ‘The tart. But then I suppose without those sort of tarts we’d be unemployed,’ Daisy muttered.

  ‘I know.’ Angel responded as if she’d just finished eating the most delicious cream cake in the world. Her eyes danced with delight. ‘If only he were a few years older . . .’

  Daisy shook her head. Angel might have the poshest voice in town and come from a family who had more money to burn than accountants to keep track of it but she loved her men rough and with no class at all. Although they were complete opposites – Angel the ultimate fun-loving party girl and Daisy, who some called the hardest-working lawyer in the law firm of Curtis and Hopkirk – they had bonded together like two long-lost sisters on their first day as lawyers two years ago.

  Daisy shoved the note at Angel. ‘Ohmygod,’ her friend let out after reading it. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’m heading back to the office to find out. Randal wants to see me.’ Daisy couldn’t wait to head back to her car, a molten red, Trident sports car, she was barely keeping it together as it was. As least in the sanctuary of her car she’d be able to let out the grief she felt at Charlie’s death. She turned on her heel and strode down the corridor. Angel followed, her stilettos click-clacking against the concrete floor. Daisy passed two men in suits, the taller of the two wearing Gucci shades and with a tattoo of a piano on his neck. As she neared the e
xit she heard a cry behind her. She twisted around to find Angel on her knees, desperately clutching her open briefcase with papers strewn on the floor around her. The man with the shades and tattoo was on his hunches beside Angel with his arms loosely around her.

  ‘So sorry,’ Angel apologised to the man. He gave her a crooked, cheeky smile.

  Daisy made a move towards her friend, but stopped when she saw the look in Angel’s eyes. Lust. Nothing Angel liked better than being in the arms of some fella. Daisy rolled her eyes. Angel and her men.

  ‘I’ll see you back at the office,’ Daisy called quickly. She flipped around. She didn’t have time to waste, but needed to get back to the office pronto to find out what had happened to Charlie. Mind you, she thought sadly, did it matter? The outcome was going to be the same. Her mentor, Charlie Hopkirk, would still be dead.

  The driver of the black van with tinted windows looked at the sobbing woman in the red sports car beside him at the red lights and tutted. Bloody birds, always blubbing about something. The sound of the weeping women holed up in the back of his van intensified. Fuck, it was no concern of his. His job was to drive them and dump them off at some place in Whitechapel and take the fat, brown envelope bulging with cash, no questions asked. Mind you he didn’t envy them who they were about to meet. He switched the radio on to drown out their noise as the lights turned to green.

  Curtis and Hopkirk Associates was slap-bang in the middle of London’s bustling Holborn and was one of Britain’s top law companies. Usually the second floor was a hive of activity as the lawyers and their assistants got cracking with winning their next case. But not this afternoon. It was bleak, with a hush that was unnatural. Daisy knew that every eye in the room watched her as she walked into the room. Everyone knew how close she and Charlie had become during her two years here.

  ‘Daisy.’ She let out a huge sigh of relief on hearing her name, only realising then that she hadn’t been breathing properly. Her eyes softened because even without turning around she knew who it was.