Marnie Riches - The Girl Who Had No Fear

But Elvis was speaking into his mobile phone. Almost shouting to make himself heard above the rain that bounced off the ground and pitted the canal water like darning needles being flung from heaven. Nodding. He peered over at the Chief Inspector. Covered the mouthpiece. ‘Forensics are three minutes away,’ he said. ‘Marianne’s with them.’

Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Good. I don’t believe in coincidence. Something’s going on in my city. I don’t like it one little bit and I’ve got a nasty feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg.’

‘I’ve already told you at least five times, I don’t know where she is.’ Gordon Bloom’s perfectly enunciated speech sounded thick and sluggish with boredom. He rolled his functioning eye whilst the prosthetic remained unmoving in its socket. Straightening the sleeves on his crisp shirt, as though he were holding court from behind his desk in the City instead of from the other side of a scuffed table inside one of Belmarsh Prison’s interview rooms. ‘I’ve never met the woman in my life. I know nothing about your mother or an eyeball or your father or any of the slanderous nonsense I was convicted for.’

Studiously ignoring the photograph of Letitia that George had pushed in front of him – all sequins and cleavage, with a black marabou feather boa wrapped around her fat neck at Aunty Sharon’s fortieth – he examined his diamond-studded cufflinks instead. These were the adornments of criminal royalty, appropriately worn by a minor royal. The fact that they hadn’t been stolen by one of the other inmates told George exactly how ‘The Duke’ was regarded on the inside.

‘Anyway, I thought you were interviewing me as an academic study subject,’ he said. ‘Not grilling me yet again about your fucking mother, you tedious bitch.’ He prodded at the image disdainfully. ‘Why on earth would I have the first idea of the whereabouts of some low-life old has-been from the ghetto? I’m an innocent man!’

Sitting back in his chair, he flashed George with a disingenuous smile. She could see where the dental cement that plugged the hole in his incisor, once occupied by a diamond stud, had yellowed with neglect and too many cups of low-grade black tea.

‘They don’t let the hygienist in, I see,’ she said, leaning forward in her chair; pointing to his tooth; wanting him to see that she remained unruffled by his insult.

Bloom closed his mouth abruptly. Folded his arms. ‘I’m not saying another word to you. Uppity cunts like you, little Miss McKenzie, think a scroll of paper containing a qualification from a good university puts you on a par with the likes of me.’ He leaned forwards, scowling. The cosmetic enhancements and adjustments to his face, which had allowed him to remain unrecognisable for so long, covering up some of the damage George had inflicted on him with her well-placed punch from a makeshift knuckle-duster, were now beginning to show signs of deterioration. His prosthetic eye was sinister and staring. ‘Well, it doesn’t. And you aren’t.’ He turned his attention defiantly to her ample bosom, though her simple black polo neck was anything but revealing. ‘Your kind are only fit for one thing.’

Suppressing the urge to reach over and hit the arrogant, entitled prick yet again, George wrote the notes, ‘Poor self-esteem. Possible sexual dysfunction.’ on her pad, legible enough for her interviewee to read. She savoured the rancorous grimace on his face as he read it upside down.

Gordon Bloom turned around to the prison officer who stood sentry in the corner of the interview room. A mountain of a man, wearing a utility belt full of riot control knick-knacks that could stop even The Duke in his tracks.

‘Get her out of here!’ he yelled.

The prison officer looked quizzically at George, as though she had spoken and not his charge. ‘You finished already, Dr McKenzie?’ His voice was friendly. Polite.

‘No, Stan. I’ve still got a few questions, if you don’t mind,’ George said. She sat tall in her seat. Took out her new tortoiseshell glasses. Watched Bloom’s irritation out of the corner of her eye as she carefully, methodically, slowly polished the lenses with their special cloth and some lens cleaner. Perched them on the end of her nose. Folded the cloth neatly into perfect squares and placed it inside her case, which she snapped shut, making Bloom flinch. ‘Relax, bae. I is being well gentle with you, innit?’ Watched as her Southeast London street-speak visibly rankled with the toff. She shook out her curls dramatically with work-worn hands that were devoid of any adornment.

‘This is ridiculous.’ Bloom slapped the table top like a defiant toddler. ‘I don’t want to be here. My solicitor says I shouldn’t speak to you. We’re going to appeal, you know? And I’m going to get this absurd verdict overturned and reclaim my impeccable reputation as a pillar of the City of London’s business community.’

George could see from the glint in his good eye that he believed his own hype. She fanned her hand dismissively in front of her face. ‘Spare me the bravado, Lord Bloom. You wanted to be in my next book. You fancied the infamy. I could smell it on you – that desperation to fill the public with horrified awe. It’s everything you ever wanted, isn’t it? It’s all men like you ever want.’ She peered at him over the top of her glasses like an indulgent, knowing schoolmarm. Winked.

Bloom stood abruptly. Thumped his fists onto the table, making his cufflinks clink. ‘If that’s true, how come I kept my identity secret for decades, you presumptuous, ignorant whore? I’m not the attention-seeker you think I am, Miss McKenzie.’

‘Sit down, Lord Bloom,’ Stan the prison officer said, assuming the wide-legged stance of a man who was alert and ready for confrontation.

Feeling this was a wasted visit, revealing absolutely nothing new of any note, George capped her pen. The only thing she had managed to achieve during the last two sessions had been to antagonise the man who was almost certainly behind the disappearance of her mother and those infernal fucking emails. Beneath the table, she balled her fists. George, the woman, wanted to deck the mealy-mouthed upper-crust bastard. George, the professional, had learned to bite her tongue. How she needed a smoke.

‘Come on. Play the game. It’s Doctor McKenzie,’ she said. ‘And I think being in prison after being Mr Billionaire Hotshot at the top of the transnational trafficking heap has changed you. You’ve got to get the kicks where you can find them, now. What the hell do you have left apart from kudos among the inmates, who just want you to suck their cocks? The odd bit of media interest. Or me.’ She closed her eyes emphatically. Arranged her full lips into a perfect pout.

When she looked up, her study subject’s back was turned. Heading towards the door now with the prison officer at his side. She could see his upper body shaking in temper. Still the gentleman on the surface in his Jermyn Street City-wear, but the bloodthirsty criminal lurked just beneath the surface, she knew. Glancing over his shoulder, he shook his head damningly.

‘I hope your old sow of a mother is dead,’ he said. ‘I hope she’s mouldering at the bottom of a canal in Amsterdam, like I’m slowly decomposing in this dump when I should be a free man or, at least, enjoying an easy ride in an open prison in the Netherlands. All thanks to that bastard, Van den Bergen. Tell him to eat shit and die when you next see him, won’t you, dear?’

‘See you next week, Gordy, baby!’ George retorted merrily in reply. ‘Fuck you, wanker,’ she said under her breath, once she was alone.