Ruthless Girl: An absolutely gripping, gritty crime thriller

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Ruthless Girl: An absolutely gripping, gritty crime thriller Page 14

by Emma Tallon


  ‘You mean abroad?’

  ‘Yeah, somewhere exotic,’ she replied with a glint of excitement in her eyes.

  ‘On your non-existent passport?’ he promptly responded with a chuckle. She scowled. ‘You could always just get one, you know. The application forms don’t bite.’

  Tanya’s lack of passport, for someone with such desperation to get away, was a time hallowed joke within their circle. No one could understand why she hadn’t sorted one out over the years.

  ‘OK, fine,’ she said with a defiant look. ‘I’ll get one. And I’ll fill it out and then when that arrives, we should go somewhere straight away. A crazy, last-minute adventure. If you’re up to that,’ she challenged.

  ‘Oh, I’m up to it,’ Sammy replied. ‘I’ll take you on the biggest adventure you’ve ever had.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Tanya grinned and snuggled in closer. ‘Where to then, Romeo?’

  ‘Rome, Mexico, Thailand,’ he reeled off. ‘Hell, I’ll take you to the dark side of the moon, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. If you just get your damn passport,’ he replied, sitting up and reaching over to get his boxers.

  Tanya watched him for a minute, lying lazily back on the pillows. ‘I think we might need more than passports to go to the moon,’ she said eventually.

  ‘How about dinner for now, then? Somewhere nice,’ Sammy offered, running his fingers lightly up her arm. ‘Anywhere you want. With zero sneaking.’

  Tanya smiled. ‘That sounds nice.’ She leaned in and kissed him slowly and softly.

  ‘OK, I’ll book something.’ Sammy moved back and eased himself up off the bed. ‘Wait here, I’ll grab us a drink.’ He padded off and disappeared into the hallway of his flat. Tanya snuggled deeper into the bed and waited, feeling nicely at peace with the world. ‘Oh, by the way,’ Sammy called through, ‘what was all that about, yesterday morning? Was everything OK? You said there was a fire.’

  The peace Tanya felt suddenly shattered and was replaced with wary tension. ‘Oh, that was nothing,’ she lied. ‘Josephine left her curlers on and there was a small fire. All sorted.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Good stuff.’

  Staring at the empty doorway, Tanya bit her lip as the shine of their situation began to cloud slightly. Things might be easier with Sammy than with anyone else in the world, but that still didn’t mean she could be completely open. There would always be things in this life that they had to keep to their chest, even within the inner circle. She could not let her guard slip with Sammy now, or be fooled by the false sense of security that being with him made her feel. Not now. Not ever.

  Thirty-One

  Jim looked up at the large comfortable family home and the neat front garden with its carefully tended flowers and foliage, his expression full of resentment. He checked the address one last time to make sure it was correct, though he already knew it would be.

  ‘You jammy bitch, Mollie Tyler,’ he muttered.

  This house was a far cry from the one he had last known her to live in. Back when he’d last seen her, many years before, she’d been in a tiny house in the rows of the East End, renting off a landlord who didn’t give a crap whether his houses were fit for people to live in so long as he got his few bob off them every week. She’d been a thorn in his side back then, a jumped-up bitch who paraded round like she was somehow better than him. Except she wasn’t. She was no better than the shit on his shoe, in his opinion. But now here she was, living it up like Lady Muck in what was practically a mansion, all bought and paid for by her loving son.

  His lip curled up in bitterness. She didn’t deserve it. Not after what they had done to him. Not after all the years of his life they’d taken away from him because of her. He was the one who should be living it up now, not her. And that was exactly why he was here. To get his dues. And he would get them one way or another. Because if there was one thing he knew about Mollie it was that she’d do anything to hide the truth from people. Especially from Freddie. And this time she didn’t have her precious husband, Richard, around to protect her.

  Walking up the front path, Jim made a beeline for the front door and knocked on it loudly. The door swung open to reveal Mollie drying her hands on a tea towel, a half smile on her face as she began to greet whoever had come to see her. As her gaze settled on Jim, though, her expression froze and then turned into one of horror.

  ‘Recognise me, do ya, Moll? Yeah, I thought you might,’ Jim said, looking down on her with a sneer. ‘We need to have a little talk, you and me.’

  ‘I-I… Paul’s home,’ she said, her voice wobbling slightly. ‘This isn’t a good time.’

  ‘No he ain’t, Moll,’ Jim replied, shaking his head. ‘He’s down the ring checking out some of the new fighters with Seamus. And Freddie’s busy too. It’s just you and me.’ Moving forward, Jim pushed the door open wider and stepped inside, forcing Mollie out of the way. ‘So, let’s just get on with it, shall we?’

  Mollie glanced outside quickly, checking that nobody had seen Jim enter, then shut the front door, closing her eyes for a second as she tried to overcome the surprise of him being here. Hearing his name had been shocking enough, but seeing him in the flesh like this, in her own home, was like a brick to the face.

  She turned and looked him up and down. Of course she had recognised him. He hadn’t changed so much. He was a lot older, that was a given. His hair was thinner and greying now and he had a lazy pouch across his belly where he had once been lean and fit in his younger years. He was softer and more filled out all round, but his face was still the same. And the piercing eyes that stared back at her still filled her with the same anger and hatred they had all those years before.

  When all this had sunk in and she got a hold on her bearings, Mollie placed her hands on her hips and her eyes flashed dangerously. ‘You need to get the hell out of my house, away from my boy and never come near either of us again. Do you hear me? I ain’t interested in anything you have to say, and if you think you were burned bad back then, you haven’t got a clue how bad you’ll have it if you start barking down this road again now,’ she said fiercely. ‘Get out. Go on.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Jim said, his voice strangely calm, belying the bubbling anger written on his face. He took a slow turn around the hallway, pointedly looking around. ‘Done well for yourself over the years, ain’t ya? Suppose it’s alright when you’ve got a gangster son looking after you, buying you big houses and filling ’em with expensive things.’ He walked over to a painted vase that stood pride of place on the hallway sideboard. He picked it up, weighing it in his hand. ‘This expensive, was it?’ He looked back at her, then slowly dropped it onto the hardwood floor, watching her face as it smashed into pieces.

  Mollie stared back at him. ‘I’m warning you, Jim—’ she started.

  ‘No, I don’t think you are actually,’ he replied, cutting her off. ‘Because Freddie has no clue who I really am, does he?’ He tilted his head to one side and watched Mollie press her lips together, not willing to answer. ‘No. He don’t. And I’m betting you don’t ever want him finding out who I am and what went down all those years ago. So, here’s how it’s going to go.’ Jim looked around, as if calculating how much everything around him cost. ‘You’re going to get half a mill for me. Cash. And you’ve got a week to get it.’

  ‘What?’ Mollie exclaimed at the ridiculous request. Her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline and she barked out a humourless laugh. ‘You are joking?’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ Jim answered. ‘Five hundred thousand. I don’t give a shit what you have to do to get it. Raid your piggy bank, steal from Freddie’s hidden cash stash, sell your house for all I care. But you will get it for me. Because you owe me.’ He stepped forward and stuck a finger in Mollie’s face accusingly. She stepped back and tried to swat his hand away but he kept it there. ‘You and Richard both owe me.’

  ‘You’re owed nothing,’ Mollie spat, pushing him away from her with
force.

  Jim rocked back but kept his balance and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘We both know that ain’t true. So here’s the deal. You get me that money and I’ll leave you alone. I’ll get out of London and set myself up somewhere with a nice house of my own and start again. I’ve had enough time to calm down now, that I’ll accept that little amount as payment for the life you took from me. Well, that and a regular monthly payment to follow, too. But we’ll get to that later. You get me that and I’ll keep the truth to myself and we can all go on living our separate lives. But if you don’t,’ Jim continued with a slight pause, ‘I’ll tell your precious Freddie everything. And you can deal with the fall-out.’

  Jim watched as Mollie’s angry expression paled to one of dread and he stepped back. His job here was done. It was going exactly as he had thought it would. Taking a deep breath, he opened the front door and paused to look back at her one more time before stepping through it.

  ‘One week, Moll. I’ll be back here exactly one week today and I expect that money. Or I promise you, I won’t hold back on the details. I’ll ruin that oh-so-special relationship you have with your boy for the rest of your days.’

  As the front door closed behind him, Mollie reached out to grip the banister and fell heavily onto the stairs. In all the years since she had last seen him, she had never thought that this could ever happen. She thought she was safe, that they were all in the clear. But that was the thing about living nightmares. One way or another they always came back to haunt you.

  Thirty-Two

  Anna sat curled up on the sofa, the wine in her hand and the book in her lap forgotten as she stared off into the distance. The room was dark, the lights all off except the reading lamp. Usually she liked it like this, dark and quiet whilst Ethan slept and she was left alone with her thoughts. Her life was always busy and chaotic, so she savoured the calm moments. But tonight the silence was not relaxing her. Tonight her mind would not be switched off as all her worries ran round and round in circles, chasing each other through her head.

  What game was Sophia playing? What exactly did she know? She knew something, that much was certain. She had shown her hand the moment she revealed to Freddie that she knew where Aleksei was. If she knew that, Anna was certain that she must know of their involvement. The fire-bomb at The Sinners’ Lounge only cemented this theory too, but why hide it? And why form a work alliance with Freddie of all people? It just didn’t make sense. Did she somehow know that they had all lied to the brothers about it? How could she know that? And if she did, was stringing them all along as they struggled to work it out in the dark part of her plan?

  Anna twisted the stem of the wine glass around in her fingers absent-mindedly and pulled her dark hair forward over one shoulder as she thought it all through for the hundredth time. Had the fire-bomb been about Aleksei’s murder, or was it a dig at Josephine? After all, it was clear now that Sophia knew all about their affair. Aleksei had been merely a day away from ousting his beautiful Russian doll of a wife and moving Josephine into their home. Whether or not she’d loved him, the snub would be enough to send any woman crazy. Sophia had married him, borne two of his children, fled her own country and set up a new life in a foreign land when his actions had given them no choice but to flee – and then he wanted her to leave so he could move his mistress into her home? Anna snorted indignantly as she thought about it. As much as she neither liked nor trusted Sophia, she couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for her on this point.

  As her mind rested once more on Josephine, Anna sighed and rubbed her forehead. No matter where Anna looked, Josephine was always there on the fringes lurking, watching, waiting to be forgiven. But she couldn’t find it in her heart to be forgiving. All she felt when she thought of Josephine was resentment and rage. If she didn’t care about the woman she probably would have been over it by now, but the fact that it had been a friend, someone she had taken into the family under her wing, still stung deeply. She knew deep down that Josephine had meant no real harm, but she had gone behind their backs. She had lied and snuck around with their enemy and it had almost cost them everything. It was disloyal, and although when it had come down to the line she had chosen them, this was what Anna just couldn’t get her head around. Any type of disloyalty was betrayal. And in a family like theirs, there was just no room for it.

  Once more her thoughts circled back round to her own guilt. Hadn’t she shown disloyalty, too, by covering up Aleksei’s death? She had killed the man in cold blood and buried him under several tonnes of rubble. And yet she had said nothing. She had sat back and watched as Freddie had sent his men out every day, scouring London for news of the man. He’d searched high and low, beaten down doors, tortured some of Aleksei’s followers in the hope that they might give up his location, and the whole time she had just sat there in silence. She had sat on her throne of lies, watching the man she loved go almost out of his mind in his search for the Russian mobster. If Freddie found out now that she had lied to him – that she had covered up his death and the reasons for it, that she had protected a woman who had betrayed the firm – he would never forgive her. He would never trust her again.

  She had done it to protect Josephine. If Freddie had found out what she’d done, he would never have allowed her to stay. He wouldn’t have been so lenient. At the very least he would have slung her out and told her never to set foot in London again and at worst – well, that didn’t bear thinking about. And she hadn’t wanted that for Josephine. She’d made a mistake – a colossal one – but a mistake nonetheless. She wasn’t a traitor at heart. But it was because of her that Anna now had to lie and show disloyalty herself.

  The familiar feeling of resentment washed over her and she sighed in frustration. Was she ever going to find a way to move on from any of this? Not whilst Sophia’s hand was still unplayed, that was for sure.

  The front door opened in the hallway forcing Anna to rouse herself from her torturous thoughts. There was a jangle as Freddie dumped his keys in the key bowl before he walked through to the lounge, shrugging off his jacket. He smiled tiredly and dropped down on the sofa beside her.

  ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ he asked, pointing at the book in her lap.

  ‘Oh…’ Anna picked it up. ‘It’s called No Escape, by an author called Casey Kelleher.’ Apt, she suddenly thought. A half smile crossed her lips. There had been no escape from her thoughts tonight either. ‘It’s really good.’ She put it down on the side table and twisted to face Freddie, leaning her arm over the back of the sofa. ‘How was your evening?’

  ‘It was OK,’ Freddie said, unconvincingly.

  ‘Hm. Maybe you should tell that to your face,’ Anna said jokingly. She reached forward and ran her hand through the side of his hair in an affectionate gesture.

  ‘It’s just my mum. She’s acting really off at the moment. There’s something about Jim Martin that’s got her all worked up but she won’t talk about it.’

  Anna pulled a face. ‘Maybe you’re just imagining it?’

  ‘No, I’m definitely not.’

  ‘Maybe try talking to her again,’ Anna suggested. ‘Just the two of you, one on one. You’re a convincing man, Freddie Tyler, when the whim takes you. You’ll coax it out of her. And if not,’ she added, ‘you could always try Vince. You said he did a stretch for Big Dom, right? I know it’s a long shot, getting information out of him these days, but you never know.’ She shrugged. ‘Might be worth a try.’

  Freddie pulled a grim expression. Vince’s dementia had cruelly taken so many memories from him, but he did have some good days when the light shone through the fog in his brain. It was a possibility, but he didn’t fancy his chances. ‘Yeah, well, I’ll go round in the morning, see if I can get her to open up. There ain’t many things I’ve ever seen rattle my mum. And the fact she’s hiding it is worrying.’ He frowned. ‘I need to get to the bottom of it. Because secrets cause problems in this family. And the last thing we need is another problem right now.’


  Anna felt her stomach turn over as her own secrets screamed at her from inside her head. She looked away and took a long sip from her wine glass.

  ‘Anyway,’ Freddie said, standing up. ‘I’m going to go jump in the shower. Come join me if you like.’ He flashed her a roguish grin and walked out unbuttoning his shirt as he went.

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Anna called after him, her smile fading as Freddie’s words echoed through her mind.

  Secrets cause problems in this family. And the last thing we need is another problem.

  She dropped her gaze and it rested once more on the book by her side. The words danced in front of her eyes taunting her, warning her.

  No Escape.

  Thirty-Three

  Mollie stared unseeing out of the window of Thea’s bedroom, as all the cars on their way to work passed by on the street below. She hadn’t slept a wink after Jim’s surprise visit to blackmail her the day before. After he had gone, she’d sat there on the stairs for a long time, all the long-forgotten memories of the past surging to the forefront of her mind. Her memories of the young woman she had once been and the world she had inhabited – a far cry from the comfortable one she resided in now – mixed with memories of her beloved late husband Richard and of all the drama that had unfolded.

  Over and over it had all turned in her mind. Had the situation been dealt with in the best way? She would never be able to say for sure. There had been no perfect way. There had been no perfect people. But they had done what they needed to do to protect their family. Except now Richard was gone; he had been dead many years and she would have to face this consequence of their actions on her own. This realisation filled her with dread and made her feel more alone than she had felt for years.

 

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