Blood Sisters

by Julie Shaw

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ Paddy said. ‘What with your global curry shop ambitions, I thought you’d be pleased. You could open twenty fucking branches – everywhere from Leeds to fucking Bridlington.’

  ‘I am pleased,’ Gurdy said, anxious, wondering what the fuck Paddy knew about his plans. ‘It’s just a shock, that’s all. You know …’

  Paddy hoicked up the sleeve of his leather jacket to check his watch. Then put his finger to his nose again. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I do know. Comprende? I fucking do know.’

  Then he turned around and walked away, right out of the pub, the offer of a drink forgotten. Gurdy would have called after him – Comprende? Who do you think you are – Don Corleone? – except none of their exchange felt remotely funny. Or explicable. What the fuck was really going on with Paddy? Who did know?

  He finished his beer and turned his attention back to DJ Steve.

  He didn’t want to know; he just wanted to be left alone.

  Chapter 23

  Gurdy knew something wasn’t right the very second Paddy put his foot to the floor. Why the hell had he agreed to get in his car? Why the hell hadn’t he just said he’d follow him to wherever they were going on his own?

  It had been a strange Tuesday morning all told. It had started normally enough – he’d gone to work in the garage, just as Paddy had asked him to the previous evening – but no Paddy himself – he’d simply not showed – even though there was a car they were supposed to be working on and he knew there were things Gurdy couldn’t deal with on his own. He wasn’t a fucking mechanic after all, was he?

  And still no sign of Paddy, as the morning wore on, even though he’d said he’d be there around nine, after dropping Vicky off at work. So Gurdy had cracked on – daydreaming about DJ Steve, formulating his grand plans in Leeds – the latter ever more urgent now that brown had been brought into the equation. That was one line he was never going to cross. No way was he getting involved in dealing heroin.

  But there was only so much he could do to the car. Paddy knew that. So when, by half eleven, Paddy still hadn’t showed, Gurdy began to get anxious.

  Either he’d had to do something unexpected for Mo and couldn’t call, or – worse – the fucking cops had pulled him in again. Which wouldn’t have surprised Gurdy, even though he fervently wished it otherwise – Paddy had been dealing coke so fucking blatantly on Sunday and Monday that it was almost like he was asking to be arrested again. Like they’d have to do it as a public bloody service.

  Then the call from him, finally, just after twelve. ‘Meet me at the lock-up at one.’ No ‘Hello’, no ‘How are you?’ No explanation for his absence. Just the order barked at him. To which Gurdy’d obviously said okay. Then locked the garage, got in his Mini and drove there.

  He grabbed the door handle, for stability. And now this. Paddy weird. Paddy antsy. Paddy scowling. And straight out of one car and into another. Into Paddy’s Capri, at his insistence, which smelt of some sickly air freshener. One of several swinging from the rear-view mirror. Fruity.

  Gurdy felt trapped now. Sweaty. And the smell made him nauseous. And, as the Capri began screaming down the road in what looked like the wrong direction, very frightened as well.

  In truth he had always been frightened of Paddy. It had never been one of those relationships where he felt he could be himself. They were thin on the ground anyway – Vic and Luce, his brother Vikram. But he’d always accepted that – after all, he was an odd-ball, everyone knew that. And he’d never had what it took to build a circle of friends. And, besides, he’d always thought that was the way it worked with business. Yes, he was nervous of Paddy and his volatile behaviour, but the same went for Paddy, with Mo. He’d not witnessed it often but the couple of times he’d seen Paddy around the scary Rasta, he saw his own anxiety and fear mirrored in Paddy’s eyes. That was obviously how it worked. That was why it was called a pecking order – with the lowliest in the chain, him, getting pecked the most.

  Now, though, he was a million per cent more frightened of Paddy. This new version – knocked into shape during those nine months in prison – was one he no longer felt he knew. He’d been difficult to deal with from the minute he’d been released, as if he had to roll around town like some sort of gangster to prove a point that he was harder than everyone else. No longer just the local baker’s wayward son, but a drug-fuelled not-to-be-messed-with ex-convict.

  Convict. A hard word. Gurdy really hated ‘hard’. Hated the whole notion of what men thought they had to be. Hated all those horrible masculine trappings – even more since he’d accepted the person he was. He was counting the days now till he could get out and reinvent himself too.

  Away from here. Away from this. He thought of Steve. Just a shag, but a watershed moment. Get away so he could finally become himself.

  He really had absolutely no idea where they were going. Obviously not to anywhere he’d been to before. So where? They seemed to be headed out of town. On some dodgy secret job for Mo perhaps? Hadn’t Paddy already mentioned the word ‘mission’? He hoped not. Lucy’s concerns kept coming back to him and he feared for his liberty. Couldn’t get the tone of her voice out of his head – her implication that some sort of ‘net’ was closing in.

  They screamed towards another junction, and Paddy glanced left and right, looking for crossing traffic, and, as he did so, Gurdy noticed just how manic he really looked. His eyes seemed glazed and unfocussed, like he was looking but not seeing, and Gurdy wondered how much – and what – he might have taken. Always the bloody drugs, these days. Paddy seemed always high on something, and no longer just in the nights, but in the days. Tenfold, since he’d come out of prison. When Gurdy felt braver, he’d say something. Someone had to say something. Didn’t he realise what he was doing to himself?

  He brushed clammy hands along the legs of his jeans. ‘Pads, mate, what’s going on? Where are we off to?’

  Paddy swung the car onto the main road, a grin plastered on his face now, and, instead of answering, simply clicked on the radio. It blared a dance song, mid-track – ‘I’m gonna run away from you’ – which was so entirely at odds with the mood in the car that, had he not been so dry-mouthed with fear, Gurdy might have laughed.

  And the fear was only growing as they got further out of town. Paddy Allen was a lunatic of the highest fucking order, and this little trip they were taking was all wrong. All so wrong.

  And as the car sped past bits of town that Gurdy knew to be dodgy, he felt his insides begin to churn. Why wasn’t Paddy speaking? Why wasn’t he telling him where they were going? ‘Paddy!’ he said again, adding a little volume to his voice now that it was having to compete with the radio. ‘Stop messing around, man. Where are we off to, and why are you driving so fucking fast? There’ll be coppers all over up here.’

  Paddy glanced at him, that same crazed look in his eyes. ‘No coppers where we’re going, my little Paki mate,’ he said. ‘In fact I doubt we’ll be disturbed by anyone at all.’

  Gurdy’s insides churned some more. What the fuck did that mean? ‘Please stop, Paddy,’ he tried. ‘I really need a piss, and I feel sick.’

  ‘You fucking pussy,’ Paddy taunted, laughing so much that he was actually rocking in the driver seat, making the car buck and lurch. ‘You think I’m fucking stupid, eh? Eh?’

  Then, out of nowhere, he landed a punch on Gurdy’s ear.

  A hard one. ‘Fuck, that hurt!’ Gurdy gasped, astonished.

  Paddy glared. ‘It was supposed to! You think I’m as fucking stupid as that fucking Jimmy? Eh? Or his ugly fucking bird, eh?’

  Gurdy’s terror now ramped up to a whole new level. ‘Bloody hell, Pad – what the fuck are you on about, mate?’

  ‘I’m fucking on to you, “mate”,’ he hissed. ‘Got it? I fucking know what you’ve been up to. I know everything.’

  Gurdy couldn’t help it. He suddenly lost control of his bladder and could only look down in horror as a hot urine stain began to bloom across the crotch of hi
s jeans. Fuck, and the smell. It made his eyes smart.

  Though Paddy didn’t seem to notice. He was banging his fists on the steering wheel as he drove – down some country lane, hedgerows zipping by in a green blur. Fuck! What the hell was all this about?

  ‘I swear, Pad, I don’t know what you’re on about,’ he pleaded. ‘I’d never do or say anything against you. You know that. I’m loyal, man. I swear on my mother’s life.’

  Another stinging punch connected with the side of his head. He saw stars – tiny diamonds that danced around in front of him, and all he could think was how hard it must be to drive a car and punch him all at the same time. Perhaps they’d crash now, as well, and he welcomed it.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you Paki cunt! It’s all down to you! You and that fucking Daley have been plotting against me all along. Shagging my bird, too? Eh? Eh? It’s all making fucking sense now. That it? You forget, “mate”, that I’m NOT A FUCKING IDIOT! I’ve seen stuff. I’ve got fucking eyes in my head!’

  Cringing now, braced for the next punch, and pressing his body against the car door, Gurdy was spared the necessity of trying to respond to Paddy’s nonsense. And spared another punch, too, as Paddy needed both hands on the wheel to turn the car into a broken concrete forecourt beyond which stood a big old metal building, largely screened from the road by high fences and trees.

  He thought he knew where he might be now. At one of Mo’s fabled hideaways. But there was no time to ponder the whys and the wherefores of the situation as Paddy leapt from the driver’s seat, scooted round the bonnet and yanked open the passenger door to drag Gurdy out by his hair.

  And then came the next humiliation. It was pointless trying to fight it. The body did what it did – you couldn’t control it. And he’d now lost control over his sphincter as well. And it was pointless trying to struggle, to try and get away, because Paddy, who was a good five inches taller than he was, could beat him to a pulp with one hand behind his back. So there was nothing for it but to allow himself to be dragged along, stumbling and sobbing, into a filthy, deserted building in the middle of nowhere.

  Only now, Paddy saw how his body had betrayed him. Smelled the smell. Saw the shit running from the bottom of his jeans. ‘You fucking, dirty, smelly cunt.’ He booted Gurdy in the back of the knees. They obediently buckled.

  ‘Just wait,’ Paddy raged. ‘Just you wait till I tell everyone what a shitty-arsed cunt you are, you fucking pussy!’

  Gurdy realised he was in the hands of what was commonly referred to as a raving maniac.

  Perhaps he always had been.

  Vicky was annoyed. It was almost half six already and it was only a bloody Tuesday, for Christ’s sake. One of the few nights in the week when she could be sure of getting home on time. She hated being beholden to her mother at the best of times, and this would make her worse.

  She was mostly annoyed with Leanne, though. It was all very well her having her bloody aunty in for a cheeky end-of-the-day perm, knowing the boss was away, but to expect Vicky to have to stay late to help her bloody wasn’t.

  ‘I can’t be doing this all the time, Lee,’ she snapped out of earshot of the hapless aunty. ‘My little Chantelle hates being left all day with my mam as it is. And I can almost hear the steam hissing from her ears from here. I’m going to have to set off.’

  Leanne seemed to find that funny. But not in a good way. ‘For Christ’s sake, Vic, keep your hair on. She’s only a baby!’ Vicky wasn’t sure if she meant Chantelle or her mum. Either would apply, after all. ‘Look, I said I’d slip you some extra tip money, and I will, because I’m grateful. But you know, you really don’t need to worry about your little one like this – she won’t even know who she’s with at her age.’

  Vicky was about to ask Leanne when it was she’d taken her diploma in being a mother, but Lee looked past her and tipped her head. ‘Looks like you’ve got a lift home anyway. Paddy’s here for you.’

  Paddy? Why would Paddy be outside? She wasn’t supposed to be seeing him till later. If she saw him at all that was. He’d been all peculiar this morning when he’d dropped her. She hoped there wasn’t something bad going on with Mo. Though as everything to do with Mo had the word ‘bad’ stamped across it, she knew that might well be a vain hope.

  ‘I wonder what’s up with him?’ Vicky mused as she peered out of the front window. He looked seriously agitated, stepping from foot to foot on the pavement, and taking deep, continual drags on a cigarette. ‘God, I hope he hasn’t already been to call for me and my mum’s wound him up.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Leanne. ‘By the look of him, you’d best get off, I reckon. Here,’ she said, handing Vicky her jacket off the coat stand. ‘I’ll finish up and lock-up. Go on, get going. He looks really narky, doesn’t he? And you just come straight back in if he looks like kicking off!’

  Vicky pulled her jacket on, grabbed her bag and hurried out onto the pavement, slightly alarmed by her friend’s anxious words. What did Leanne think might happen? Did Paddy look dangerous to her or something?

  Evidently. And if she was still looking out of the window, she’d have even more cause to think so, Vicky thought, as Paddy grabbed her roughly by the arm and almost shoved her into the passenger seat of the Capri. There was a Morrisons carrier bag flat on the seat, which she made to move before sitting down. ‘Leave it,’ he commanded. She didn’t argue.

  ‘Fucking hell, Paddy!’ she said instead, as he climbed in beside her. ‘Calm down! What the fuck’s wrong with you anyway?’

  Paddy gripped the steering wheel, as if it might be planning to fly off and roll away – she wouldn’t have blamed it – and stared straight ahead as he gunned the engine, his jaw twitching. He was high on something. The sod. High on what, though? He seemed so edgy. ‘Paddy, have you been shoving that shit up your nose again?’ she asked, twisting in her seat, angry. ‘Only I asked you to stop all that now you’re a dad, and you said—’

  ‘Fucking shut your stupid mouth!’ Paddy snapped as he pulled away from the kerb, apparently not giving a toss about the oncoming traffic. He narrowly missed scraping a van, the driver of which tooted his horn angrily, to which Paddy leaned almost half his torso out the window, in order to shout a furious ‘Fuck off!’ at him.

  Stunned now, Vicky gripped her seat belt and cringed. ‘Paddy, you’re scaring me,’ she said in a smaller voice, anxious not to inflame him further. ‘Will you please just stop it and tell me what the hell’s going on? Is it Mam, something she’s said?’ She waited for him to answer, but he didn’t. ‘Or something else? Something to do with Mo? Babes, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me. Come on, calm yourself down. Tell me what’s wound you up.’

  Out on a quieter road, he finally seemed to register her question. Though she noticed his knuckles were still white against the wheel.

  ‘Did you know?’ Paddy suddenly asked, turning his head to glare at her. ‘Did you know I’d got locked up on Saturday morning? Locked up and then released?’

  Vicky was really confused now. ‘Locked up? Locked up for what?’ She shook her head. ‘On Saturday?’

  Again the silence.

  ‘On Saturday?’ she said again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He was looking at her so intently that she feared they were going to crash. ‘For fuck’s sake, Paddy, keep your eyes on the road!’ She also realised that they weren’t heading to her house, they were heading away from it. Ditto his. Where were they going then? And Saturday? Locked up? And he’d said nothing!

  She felt suddenly irritable as well as anxious. What kind of game was he playing? ‘Oh, Paddy, for God’s sake, what is going on? What did you do?’

  Paddy snorted. ‘You bloody did know, didn’t you? You already bloody knew!’

  ‘Knew what? For God’s sake, what are you on about?’

  He grinned suddenly. Manically. ‘You’re fucking in on it too, aren’t you? My own bird in cahoots with those slimy bastards! How the fuck do you know that I did anything? Eh? Eh? Gurdy phone you up an
d give you the gen, did he?’

  ‘Because you must have done something!’ she retorted. What was all this nonsense about Gurdy? ‘Or did they just arrest you because they didn’t like your brand of jeans?’

  He made a noise in his throat. One of what she thought was frustration, but which reminded her she’d do better to shut up when he was in this state. This state – on the bloody drugs – that he was so often in these days. Only worse. Where the hell was he taking her?

  Some distance by the look of it, and she sat tight, clutching her seat belt, while he weaved in and out of the traffic at the end of Manningham Lane and they continued on to God knew where out in the sticks. She felt like crying, but some obstinate part of her refused to. She wasn’t going to act like the stupid girl he obviously thought she was. Oh, but Gurdy – what was all that nonsense about him? She started putting things together, remembering past conversations, remembering his paranoia about who’d said what to whom when he was inside. It made her feel even more fearful. ‘What do you mean about Gurdy?’ she finally ventured after five silent, high-speed minutes. ‘I’ve not spoken to Gurdy since back last week. What’s he done? Is it him that’s got you mad? Is that it? He’s your friend, Pad,’ she pointed out. ‘He wouldn’t hurt you.’

  Paddy laughed then. A cold, manic laugh that sent shivers down Vicky’s spine. ‘Hurt me?’ Paddy scoffed. He sounded so, so strange. ‘That Paki cunt couldn’t hurt himself!’

  He stopped laughing. Then slowed down a little before continuing. ‘Can I trust you, Vic?’ he said suddenly, his voice now low and conspiratorial. ‘I mean, can I really? I need to know, babes. This is important.’

  ‘Course you can trust me,’ Vicky said, venturing a hand to his thigh and squeezing. He glanced down at it. Nodded. Found a smile for her. ‘You are my world, Paddy, you know that,’ she said, sensing an urgent need to talk him down a bit. ‘What is it, babe? Whatever it is, tell me.’