Chapter 15
Itook a deep steadying breath as I entered the establishment where Lottie had chosen for us to meet. It was called The Honourable Lawyer, and that title wasn’t the only questionable thing about the place.
The smell of damp and despair assailed my nostrils as soon as my leather court shoes hit the sticky floral carpet. The décor was a dismal brown colour, most probably from decades of tobacco smoke clinging for grim life to the ugly flock wallpaper. It clearly hadn’t had a freshen-up for many a long year. The jar of yellowing pickled eggs behind the bar looked older than I was, but no doubt better preserved.
It was one of those low rent, spit and sawdust places where you had to wipe your feet on the way out; the sort of establishment my mother would refer to, in a hushed whisper, as “rather uncouth”.
It had never moved on with the times, stuck firmly in the 1970s; and from a quick look at the collection of characters propping up the bar slurping pints of dark liquid, that’s when most of them had been in their prime.
It was located just around the corner from work, so had been convenient enough to get to, but that was its only saving grace. In all honesty, I would happily have walked much further in my high heels if it meant bypassing this joint and finding somewhere slightly more sophisticated to have a tipple.
Lottie had always had a soft spot for the place. She had really some questionable taste at times. She felt it had “character”, and I suppose she was right on that point: it had character going on in spades. In fact, many of the characters looked as if they had just wandered off the set of Shameless.
I pulled the collar of my faux fur coat up around my neck, as if I had been hit by a sudden blast of cold wind, even though the temperature in The Honourable Lawyer was far from chilly. In fact, after leaving the frosty street behind and entering the pub, the warm and muggy atmosphere hit me full-on like a blast from an oven.
I just felt a little out of my comfort zone in my vintage spotted coat and four-inch heels; a bit of a fish out of water in a place where the regular clientele all seemed to favour a more relaxed way of dressing: mostly stained T-shirts and tracksuits. Although they seemed to be big advocates of sportswear, I would hazard a guess that none of them had participated in any sports since before the pub had last seen a lick of emulsion.
OK, so my attire might be a little avant-garde for the place, but so be it. I shook off my feelings of discomfort. My mother had always instilled in me the ability to fit in whatever the surroundings, or at the least to try your hardest to give the impression that you did.
I loved my coat and felt a million dollars in it. It was 1950s-inspired, cream-coloured faux fur with large black spots, which I had been delighted to discover in a lovely little vintage shop in Ilkley several years before.
A gruff voice rang out across the bar.
“Oi, Cruella, show us your puppies, love.”
My head shot around to locate the owner of the flat vowels. A middle-aged chap at the bar in a zip-up navy velour tracksuit straining over his beer belly and a distinct lack of teeth was winking at me in what I feared was his idea of flirtation. I shuddered inwardly and pretended I hadn’t heard him as I studied the row of optics carefully, before ordering myself a large gin and tonic from the bored-looking barman.
Alas, my velour-suited dreamboat didn’t seem to take the hint.
“I’m only having a laugh; you look proper champion in your fancy fur coat. Let me get you that drink, pet, I’m in the chair.”
I turned to give him a saccharine sweet smile.
“Well, if you’re in the chair, let’s hope it’s electric.”
I paid for my gin myself, and with his drinking buddies’ laughter still ringing in my ears, I turned sharply on my heel and strode off to find somewhere to sit, as far away from Mr Tragic Tracksuit as was possible. I really prayed that Lottie would hurry the fuck up.
I settled myself at a small round wooden table with a couple of torn beermats under the legs to steady it against the uneven floor and surveyed my surroundings. Apart from my delectable new boyfriend at the bar and his gaggle of mates, only one other table was occupied. A group of surly-looking teenagers were huddled together with bottles of lager clutched in their grubby hands and open bags of crisps being passed around. For the most part they were an unsavoury-looking bunch. Three young men with perpetually angry faces were deep in conversation. One of them looked vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place where from.
Next to them sat a bored-looking girl, probably only about nineteen, but already with an air of life having worn her down. Her pasty face was pale under her make-up and mauve-coloured lipstick, and she was picking at a scab on an arm as skinny as a pipe cleaner. She ran a hand through her lank shoulder-length mousy blonde hair with its sapphire blue streaks, the roots darker than the demons I felt she might well be repressing. She stared vacantly into space.
In another lifetime she might have been an incredibly pretty girl. I wondered what had happened to bring her to this grubby bar at 5:47 p.m. on a chilly January afternoon: maybe rebelling against her strict upbringing, or perhaps just a sliding-door effect where if she had just made another choice at another time, she could now be sipping colourful cocktails in one of the up-scale bars in the gentrified part of Leeds city centre.
My heart went out to her. I knew only too well how hard it could be to be a teenager in this day and age. My career had shown me that on many occasions.
Times were not as carefree and innocent as when I had been a girl. We had felt so hard done by back then, but in reality it was the youth of today that really had the short end of the shitty stick: a life lived on social media, never able to escape from the magnetic pull of it, never ever feeling quite good enough.
I inwardly shuddered again in my thick coat. I was so thankful my life had been filled with Sweet Dreams fiction novels, Grange Hill and listening to the Top Ten on a Sunday night, recording my favourite tracks of the time on radio cassettes. Not like today’s youth, recording their every intimate moment in little bitesize, or rather shitesize, snippets on TikTok, just long enough to keep the attention span of a generation reared on instant gratification.
Despite myself, I felt inclined to say an inward prayer for this girl. There was just something vulnerable about her that touched me, and I really hoped she would be OK.
I glanced back at her companions, who were now in a heated disagreement about something or other. The shorter one with a shock of curly ginger hair jumped up from his bar stool, giving me a bit of a start.
“OK Doddy, chill, man. I’ll get the fucking beers in, even though it’s your round. I know you ain’t got no money.”
He sucked on his teeth noisily and swaggered over to the bar, his fists firmly thrust in the pockets of his scruffy ripped jeans, probably designed to look that bad.
Doddy? Then it came to me in a flash. The reason I had felt a prickle of recognition when observing the youths was that this ratty-looking individual with a razor-cut hairstyle and an even sharper tongue, seated to the left of the girl, was none other than Alfie Dodds. He had been in the same year at school as my son Thomas. Alfie had been trouble back then too, getting expelled in his last year for dealing weed to the Year 8s.
I knew Seb had already encountered him professionally on a few occasions at the firm. I had seen him myself once, lurking sulkily in reception as he waited for his appointment. He was a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Low-level drug dealing, shoplifting and generally disturbing the peace were his favoured ways to pass the time.
I took a large swig of my drink. It hit the spot nicely: just what the doctor ordered. Well, not literally, but then again my GP always had a whiff of single malt about him, so who could tell?
I unzipped my purse to put away the change from my drink. As I dropped it in, I lost grip of the purse for a second and a couple of coins scattered noisily across the table, along with three folded twenty-pound notes.
Although I used my bank cards mostly, I still liked to have cash on me too in case of emergencies. I was old school that way. More like my mother than I cared to admit. She was always pontificating about the “wretched” banks and how anyone with the sense they were born with would have a little something stashed away under their mattress or behind the sofa cushions.
Alfie Dodds had been slouching past my table on the way to the Gents’ toilet, but the sound of the coins hitting the table had caught his attention. His ears pricked up like a tatty terrier”s, and upon spotting the folded notes his eyes became dark and beady like chips of flint.
He slowly looked me up and down, taking in my silk blouse and expensive necklace. He turned towards me, placing both hands on the table, and shot me a sneering smile obviously intended to rattle me.
“’Ere, darling, give us one of those notes; you look like you can well afford it.”
Darling? The cheek of the young whippersnapper. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him. He was actually trying to scrounge money off me with menaces.
I eyeballed him, my voice as cold as the ice melting in my drink.
“I don’t think so, young man.”
He leaned in further, until his face was mere inches away from me. I could smell the pungent odour of cheese and onion crisps on his breath. He laughed in what I’ve no doubt he felt was a threatening manner, his body language deliberately aggressive.
“I don’t think you could stop me if you tried. I could take anything I wanted from you, just like that.”
His eyes roved over my body, and he clicked his fingers to demonstrate his point.
The young blonde girl piped up, her voice wavering.
“Stop it, Alfie, you’re not funny. Just leave the lady alone.”
“Shut up, Bella, it’s got nowt to do with you.”
Bella. The girl’s name was Bella. It suited her, she really was quite beautiful. Like a faded rose in the manure that was this public house. There were tears in the corner of her eyes as she pleaded with him not to make any trouble.
I was going to have to teach young Alfred Dodds a lesson. An idea was slowly forming in my head. Best buckle up, you impudent little shite. Lila Glover is about to go into full Rottweiler mode.
I met his feral gaze and maintained eye contact, never wavering for a second. It was like a shoot-up in the saloon bar in an old Western film, akin to the ones I would watch with my dad on Sunday afternoons when I was a kid. Only it was our eyes, not Colt .45s that were our weapon of choice. I curled my lip back to match the snarl he had previously given me.
“Really, Mr Dodds, you should think very carefully before you choose your next words.”
The shock on his face nearly made me snort with laughter. Not so cocksure now. No, he looked absolutely terrified now, like he might drop a load in his low-slung pants. Clearly, he was thinking how the hell did this posh bird know his name? The anxiety and paranoia from the weed he had smoked earlier beginning to take hold.
I ramped it up a bit, getting more invested in my role. It was probably not very nice of me, but then again, he certainly wasn’t nice either.
He spent his days dealing drugs and intimidating strangers. Hardly the best career path for a young man to take. It might prove to be financially lucrative, but it was morally bankrupt, that was for sure.
My words were slow and dripping with ill-concealed threat:
“You want to be careful, Mr Dodds. The last person who threatened me, well…”
I paused for full on dramatic effect.
“Let’s just say it didn’t turn out too well for them.”
I clicked the side of my phone and within a couple of seconds found the photo I wanted. I laid my handset face up on the table. It displayed the image showcasing Jayne’s impressive make-up skills: the picture with the special effects make-up, the one that looked so horrifically realistic. Lottie had forwarded all the images to me after our dinner.
The blood drained from Archie’s face. Clearly Jayne was as good as I thought, and he believed the image to be genuine: of some poor sucker who had been beaten black and blue for some personal misdemeanour. His eyes flicked from the picture up to my face and then back again. I could almost hear his drug-addled brain ticking slowly over, trying to figure out who the hell I was.
His eyes darted back to the phone screen.
“Do…do you work for Bulldog?”
I kept silent, my arms folded across my chest and my face serene. I simply tapped the side of my nose. He could read into that gesture whatever he liked.
“Look, missus, I was just having a little joke. I really don’t want no trouble. Please tell Bulldog the stuff that went missing I didn’t take it for myself; I still have it and I’ll get it back to him as soon as I can. He didn’t need to send you here after me.”
I could only imagine who “Bulldog” was, but my mind conjured up a pretty repellent character. Whoever he was, I was glad I didn’t actually know him or in fact work for him.
Dodds turned towards his companions.
“Come on, leave the beer, we’re off. We can get a drink at the Red Lion.”
He shook his head quickly, obviously thinking better of this.
“Or somewhere else.”
He clearly realised it was a bad idea to let me know where they were headed in case I relayed that information straight back to Mr Bulldog or one of his associates.
And with that they left. Bella gave me a small shy smile as she passed by my table, and I returned it with what I hoped was a friendly, not intimidating, wink.
And then they were gone, Archie leading the way as he dashed out as fast as his baggy jeans and biker boots would allow. They almost collided with a soggy Lottie, who was just making her way through the stiff outer door into the bar, shaking the rain from her multicoloured umbrella.
“Whoa, slow down there, you almost knocked me over!”
She spotted me sitting at the table and gave a brief wave.
“What’s going on there? I don’t know what their problem is, but that skinny one at the front was running like a skinned whippet.”
I tried not to laugh as I shrugged my shoulders.
“I haven’t got the foggiest.”