Marnie Riches - The Cover Up - A gripping crime thriller for 2018

Sheila noted a shiftiness to the men’s eyes – perhaps imagined, given how grainy the images were. But the tense way that they held their bodies gave them away as dealers, not dancers. And who the hell wore quilted bomber jackets on a sweaty dance floor?

‘They’re not any of my temps,’ she said, digging at the back of her molars with her tongue, feeling some kale left behind from the badly blended smoothie that Conky had made her. A for effort. C for execution. ‘Give them to me. I’ll see what Conks thinks. He knows everyone. If it’s a rival crew, he’ll be on it like flies on dog shit.’

Click-clacking her way across the dance floor, clutching her fur gilet close around her slender body against the cold air of the vast unheated super-club, Sheila pondered how she might offload the responsibility of the dirtier side to the business elsewhere. Heading into the triple-height vestibule, she contemplated the meeting she had yet to attend that day at the head office of a commercial airline. Ably assisted by Gloria, she would deliver a pitch to the airline’s board members for the contract to clean European-bound aircraft at several airports in the north. She imagined speaking authoritatively, dressed just on the business side of provocatively. She would use a breathy, sexy, irresistible voice. She was sure that flashing a little titty, in addition to their competitive rates and immaculate reputation, would land the lucrative deal.

In fact, Sheila was so caught up in her fantasies of success and the residual enthusiasm over her speed-dating venture that she only barely registered the white van parked outside M1 House. Nor did she realise that the man in the overalls with the stupid baseball cap was following her onto the street. And when her phone rang out with the full-bodied Pop Queen warble of Adele, Sheila was so baffled by the Brummie accent of the unfamiliar caller at the other end, she failed to notice that the man in the overalls, who did in fact own the white van, was standing right behind her.

‘Is he looking?’ Gloria asked Winnie, who, as usual, was sitting to her right at the end of the pew. No response. She elbowed the old woman gently. Whispering loud enough so that a couple of the elderly men in front turned around and grimaced at her disapprovingly. ‘Is he looking?’

‘No, dear.’ Winnie shook her head, tickling Gloria’s ears with a flurry of petrol-coloured feathers. Waving a lace fan slowly up and down in the stuffy place.

It was a wonder she could see anything from under that hat. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m old, dear. Not blind. Hush! Pastor’s speaking.’

Irritated that her studied cool and feigned disinterest wasn’t working, Gloria faced forward again. Trying desperately to catch the pastor’s eye once more by pushing out her chest and batting her eyelashes.

No response.

The fine man standing in the pulpit, preaching to the swollen ranks of the congregation with vim, vigour and pleasantly developed triceps when he raised his hands to praise Jesus, had not cast so much as a glance her way since the start of the Sunday morning service. And there was Kitty Fried Chicken, still sitting at the front in the spousal hot-seat, wearing a beret, looking like some cross between Jabba the Hut and a black Che Guevara in BHS’ best. Still clinging on to that fine man of God like the oniony stink of sweat clinging to that ghastly polyester ensemble she was wearing.

Smoothing down her own pure silk Hobbs dress, Gloria wondered what had gone wrong in her grand plan. The pastor, by rights, should have been hers now. She’d been giving it her best shot for years, praying to the good Lord that fate would finally bring her the true love with this wonderful man that she so needed and deserved. But despite her best efforts, his marriage to a woman who smelled of four-day-old chicken was no closer to disintegration, and Gloria was no closer to the union of holy souls with the pastor that she desired.

‘Praise Jesus!’ the congregation intoned. ‘Praise him. Oh yes!’

Amid much fervour and hubbub, singing started up. ‘Father Can You Hear Me?’ Naturally, Kitty Fried Chicken was out of her seat, clutching a microphone, her chins wobbling and a sweat breaking out on her forehead as she worked her way up from a delicate soulful whisper to a growling fever pitch. Belting the hymn out, with the choir answering her every worshipful stanza in glorious harmony; the band playing along with enough skilful dynamism to usher a host of angels into the church. The hall was thrumming with love for the Lord Jesus Christ, but Gloria felt only cold and loneliness and bitterness inside, for she saw the truth.

At that moment, the adoration visibly poured out of the pastor, directed not at Gloria but at his dumpy, fugly wife who sang better than any soprano in the Royal Opera House, and who had more soul than any two-bit R&B singer on the television. Gloria realised the game was up.

‘I’m wasting my time,’ she told Winnie.

Winnie popped a mint on the end of her tongue and fanned herself nonchalantly. ‘You give it a good go,’ she said, squeezing Gloria’s arm, like the mother she wished she’d had. ‘But it is time to move on, love.’

‘But she stinks of stale chicken, Win.’ Gloria could feel tears prick the backs of her eyes. ‘I smell of Christian Dior.’

‘Some men just don’t have a very good sense of smell, darling.’ There was sympathy in the milky-ringed irises of Winnie’s brown eyes. ‘He might have blocked sinuses.’

‘But she’s boring!’

Winnie offered her a mint. Speaking the quiet wisdom of the elderly, just audible above the jubilant singing, she said: ‘The only difference between her and you, Gloria, is that she got there first. And he obviously needs his eyes testing, because Kitty has got a face like tripe and beans gone wrong. Or maybe she’s got a diamond-encrusted tutu hidden in those big knickers of hers. Who knows? You can do better, love. Honestly. Pastor’s not all that. He had bad breath last Sunday.’

With the service over, Gloria’s heart thumped insistently inside her ribcage. Time to get face-to-face with the pastor and see for certain, now that the filter of hope had been removed from her sight, if there was any longing for Gloria Bell in his eyes. Just one last double-check. Maybe she could even whisper in his ear that she loved him, just in case he was too stupid to have sussed it after all these years. She knew men were often slow on the uptake like that. But the realisation that her dream was dying settled in her stomach like an accumulation of heavy metal, rendering her optimism nothing more than a giant, unwanted malignancy.

Gloria filed out into the cold vestibule with the other worshippers, buffeted along by her ever-thankful trafficked workers, looking like jewel-coloured parrots in their Nigerian wraps and skirts.

‘Hello, Aunty Gloria! Blessings to you!’

‘Coming for cake, Aunty G?’

‘Loving your dress, Mrs Gloria!’

Kind words from her cleaners. At least somebody loved her, even if their love had been bought by offering them slave labour and free cramped living conditions as an alternative to prostitution in Benin City or destitution in the DRC.

‘Greetings and blessings, ladies!’ Gloria could hear that her voice was tremulous. It didn’t do to appear weak in front of her employees. She opted not to say anything more.

But her legs almost buckled with adrenalin as she caught sight of the pastor’s handsome face in amongst the crowd. Clyde, who owned the soul food takeout, was shaking his hand by the large, arched doorway. Was Pastor alone? No. Clyde stepped aside to reveal the short, squat Kitty Fried Chicken by the pastor’s side. Fleetingly, Gloria wondered if there was a passage in the Bible that would excuse ramming a ricin patty into Kitty’s fat face at the next church mingle.