Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Trish was nearly snow white. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Dee took a deep breath. ‘But you do now. And I’ll hope you have the decency to tell my husband that you won’t be seeing him anymore and that you won’t mention my visit. I’ve still got my self respect.’

  Trish didn’t answer but Dee noticed with alarm that some of the colour had returned to her cheeks. Trish folded her arms and firmness returned to her voice. ‘Hold on a minute, that kid’s white, you’re black. And where’s your wedding ring?’

  Dee considered explaining that she was mixed race and that, with her and John’s gene pool mixed together, Tarquin might well have looked white. But instead she decided that was enough of Let’s Pretend. She lowered Tarquin/Kyle to the ground and explained in a whisper and with a smile that they were now playing a new game. This one involved him closing his eyes, putting his fingers in his ears and singing ‘The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round’ to himself. When he did so, Dee was triumphant; she always knew she was great with kids.

  She rose back to her full height, grabbed Trish by the lapels of her dressing gown and forced her back into the flat and up against the wall. She whipped the towel from the other woman’s body and lashed it against the wall next to her. Trish cringed with a squeal.

  ‘Right, bird brain, you listen to me.’ Dee smacked the towel against the wall again. ‘It doesn’t matter to you whether I’m his wife or not, or whether little Tarquin is his kid or not. You’re to give him a bell tonight and tell him it’s over. Do you get me?’ She lashed the towel with such menace and force next to Trish’s face that tears sprang into the other woman’s eyes. ‘Because if you don’t, I’ll be popping round here again without the kid and that’ll clear the decks for some assault and battery – you know what I mean? – as it will if you mention my little visit to him. I’m pretty nifty with a blade and you don’t want to end up looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.’’

  Dee stretched the towel against Trish’s throat and pressed down. The colour was certainly returning to her cheeks now, but it was a sickening shade of purple.

  Trish just managed to choke out ‘Yes’ before Dee triumphantly let her go.

  Dee left, skipping along the balcony with Kyle and cheerfully humming Ace of Base’s ‘All That She Wants’.

  Fifteen

  Jen felt crushed as she exited Mile End Station, her hands limply holding her portfolio. And stupid; she should’ve seen slimy Liam coming a mile off. But that’s what happened when you let your dreams take over. Then she remembered that Nuts said he was coming over to take her out this evening. It was almost eight and if he’d turned up he’d be long gone by now. It wasn’t that she believed he would actually turn up at 7.30 as he’d promised, but she couldn’t be sure. The bloke had more front than the beach on Miami Vice.

  When she reached The Devil the first thing she saw were two girls slogging it out while a group of lads looked on, laughing. One of the boys was collecting money from one of the others, probably betting on the outcome of the fight. And no doubt the girls were going at it over ownership of one of the boys. Pathetic! The whole spectacle made Jen’s lip curl in disgust. She would never go toe-to-toe over some geezer; if he was putting his John Thomas in some other woman, she’d tell the bastard to keep walking. She didn’t ever want to be so desperate for a slice of good life she resorted to fighting for it in public.

  ‘A girl like you.’ She couldn’t get Liam’s nasty remark out of her head. Maybe this was what a girl like her really deserved – to live and finally die on The Devil’s Estate.

  Dejected, she scanned the car park for Nuts’ flashy motor, but when she saw no sign of it she made her way up the stairs, home. As she walked up, she couldn’t help wishing that he had come. Because, by now the Merc would be on bricks, all its remaining windows would have been put through and half the paintwork would have been keyed off. Unless, of course, it was a blackened wreck (the victim of the second part of third party, fire and theft). Now that would have cheered her up.

  But when she got to her front door, she heard the sound of her mother cackling loudly inside. It was obviously not Tiffany causing her to laugh and her mum seldom had visitors. Babs was cautious about who she let into her home: too many light fingers and nosey parkers living on The Devil. Jen backtracked along the landing and checked the car park again. Still no Mercedes there, but she did notice a fuck-off metallic, silver BMW that she hadn’t seen before. Sitting on a wall nearby were two local kids who she suspected had been slipped some ‘guard it with your life’ cash. She walked back to her front door and opened the letterbox. Amid Babs’ laughter was the sound of a highly amused Nuts sharing a story with her.

  Jen always tried hard to keep the effing and blinding to a minimum. Swearing to high heaven was so common and didn’t project the kind of sophisticated image she was comfortable with. But she was badly stressed all over again. ‘I don’t fucking believe this.’ Although she cursed she did buff her hair quickly with her fingers thinking about old blue eyes waiting inside.

  She drew a breath, opened the front door, placed her portfolio against the wall and walked into their front room. Nuts was spread out across a sofa with a grin and a cuppa in his hand. He wore a smart, tanned leather jacket, stone-washed jeans and a white T-shirt that had a huge black and gold dragon on it. Who did he think he was? Bruce Lee? When he realised who’d just walked in, he hastily sat up straight, got rid of the smile and put the tea down like a naughty school kid.

  Babs was all sunshine and smiles. ‘Hello, hun.’ She turned to Nuts and continued with pride, ‘Jen was getting some extra lessons from her tutor. She’s going to be in the fashion—’

  ‘Can I have a word with you a moment? In private?’ Jen’s eyes snapped at her mother.

  The two women went into the kitchen where Jen closed the door. She jabbed a finger at her mother in disbelief as she demanded, ‘Mum – what the fuck? I mean seriously – what the fuck?’

  Babs held up a restraining hand. ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking, but the poor boy’s just come round to apologise about the flowers. He knows he’s done wrong, that you don’t want to see him and he accepts that, but he just wants to say sorry.’

  Jen reared back, outraged. ‘Sorry? He thieves wreaths, Mum – wreaths.’

  ‘I know and that was very wrong, but if you hear him out he’ll explain why.’ Babs put on that mum tone that she usually only used with her youngest and scolded, ‘You know it’s considered good manners when someone apologises to accept it with good grace.’ Then she acknowledged, ‘He’s a bit of a rough diamond; he admits that.’

  Jen looked at her mother still seething and then threw the kitchen door open and strode over to where Nuts was sitting with a hangdog expression. She sat next to him and collected herself. ‘Alright, what do you want?’

  He gazed at her sheepishly through those memorable blue eyes of his. ‘I just wanted to apologise.’

  ‘OK. Well, I accept your apology – now do one and don’t come back.’

  He pleaded, moving slightly forward in his seat, ‘Let me take you down the boozer for half an hour. I’ll tell you what happened and then bring you home. Then you’ll never see me again. I promise.’

  Jen studied his face. He did indeed seem very sorry. But she wasn’t fooled. ‘You promise? You promise if I do that you won’t bother me again or come round here trying to soft-soap my mum?’

  ‘Absolutely, I know I’ve blown it.’

  Jen bit her lip. ‘You’ve got thirty minutes.’

  ‘Enjoying your burger, little man?’

  ‘Yes. We don’t get these at home. I don’t know why.’

  Dee giggled with joy. Even though she knew her friend Marsha would be frantic with worry about where he was, she was enjoying little Kyle’s company so much she took him to an upmarket diner she knew. She also wanted to reward him for performing so well at John’s now ex-girlfriend’s.

  She trilled, ‘You’re a little star, Kyle! You’re going to win a
n Oscar when you become an actor one day and Auntie Dee’s going to help you.’

  But Kyle didn’t want to be an actor; he wanted to be a bus driver. And that, Dee lamented to herself, was the problem with mums like Marsha; they didn’t encourage ambition in their kids. Didn’t tell them how they could reach for the stars even from a council block in East London. The poor little sod was doomed before he started.

  ‘When I have my little boy, he’s going to be exactly like you,’ she whispered, tapping him sweetly on the tip of his nose. Except he wasn’t going to be no fucking London Transport bus driver.

  Kyle peered up at her. ‘Are you having a baby, Auntie Dee?’

  Dee smiled at him gently. ‘Not yet. I’ve got to marry my fiancé first. He’s a big, strong man with lots and lots of money and we’re going to have lots of little Kyles to fill up our big house with.’ Dee had always acted on the principle that if you behaved as if something was going to happen, it would.

  ‘Did your mum have a big house?’

  Dee became wistful. ‘My mum? No, my mum was a loser, Kyle.’ She only just managed to avoid saying – like yours. ‘I’m afraid it all went pear-shaped for my mum. She couldn’t find the right bloke. She hooked up with my dad, who I suspect was a prime piece of rubbish.’ Kyle was too busy with his burger to listen to what Auntie Dee was going on about. There weren’t many people she could or would tell the story to. Little kids, like Kyle, were about the only people she felt she could share secrets with.

  ‘So my mum got herself a new fancy man who she married. Only the trouble was, he was even worse than my dad.’ She’d managed to get her mum to tell her at least that part of her history. Her voice became harsh. ‘I was kicked to the kerb and farmed out to relatives and the like.’ Now her voice resounded with glee. ‘But then he dumped her anyway.’

  Kyle looked up from his burger again, ketchup smeared at the side of his cute, little boy lips. ‘You didn’t live with your mum?’

  Dee wiped the red sauce away delicately, with a napkin. ‘No and it’s just as well. I might have ended up like her. I see her every now and again, just to remind myself how not to do things. That’s the important thing in life, Kyle. Get yourself the right parents. Get the wrong ones and you’re screwed.’

  By the time Dee got Kyle back to his mum, Marsha was in a right state. Dee got a choice selection of verbal for keeping the kid out late and she swallowed it because she didn’t want Kyle to hear her effing off at his mum. She had rules about cursing in front of children – most of the time.

  But Dee had another reason to try and keep Marsha sweet. She needed the phone number of a man her friend had been smooching with for a while, before dumping him because he was a booze merchant, spent half his life in Ladbrokes and nicked money from her. He was a former telecoms engineer who’d been sacked for misconduct, and Marsha was so shocked that anyone would want this guy’s number that she gave it to Dee with a warning not to have anything to do with him.

  Of course Dee wasn’t expecting to trust Jimmy Kite any further than she could throw him, but she did require his services. She’d already disposed of her fiancé’s girlfriend; that had been the easy part. Now she needed to become a trusted partner in John’s business affairs, so that he couldn’t do without her. (A firm basis for any marriage.) And for that, she urgently needed Jimmy’s help.

  For the final phase of the ‘Put John in a Box Called Dee’ process she would have to rely on herself.

  Jen was in a hurry to get this over with. As she hurried down the balcony to the stairwell with Nuts in tow, she peered over the edge of the wall. ‘Oh great. Now I’ve got her to deal with as well.’

  Nuts looked down too. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My sister Tiffany. The girl who put the bitch in witch.’

  ‘Your sister?’ He gazed at her amazed, like he couldn’t believe that gorgeous Jen came from the same womb as trackie girl downstairs.

  ‘You’ve met her. She was the mouthy girl outside the club, and the one you called a looby-loo when you brought me home.’

  Nuts didn’t seem interested. ‘Oh, right.’

  They carried on towards the end of the balcony until Jen stopped when she saw her sister emerge from the stairwell.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Knob off,’ Tiffany hurled back, not looking at Nuts or missing a step as she brushed past her sister.

  ‘Sometimes . . .’ Jen hissed as she stared daggers into her sister’s back.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Nuts finished for her, ‘you can’t save the whole world.’ He chucked his dog end over the landing wall as Jen decided that he was right. Tiffany was on a one-way track to trouble and she’d done her best to steer her in the direction of the straight and narrow.

  Pushing her annoying sibling from her mind she followed Nuts down the stairs, resuming their journey to his car. When they got there, Nuts nodded to the boys who were keeping guard on his flash motor.

  ‘That’s alright, Nuts. Pleasure doing business with you,’ one of the lads said with a grin. Obviously money had changed hands earlier. Jen made a note to remind Nuts to pay after the job got done on The Devil or he’d be ripped off left, right and centre. Then she almost slapped her forehead. What was she saying? There wouldn’t be a next time.

  As they buckled up, Jen said, ‘On first name terms with the local scrotes I see. And where’s the Merc then? In the shop being repaired?’ She couldn’t help herself from sounding proper sarky.

  Nuts nodded. He seemed weary. ‘You still think I nicked it don’t you?’

  Jen was upfront with him. ‘Yeah, I do actually.’

  At this he turned the ignition on the BMW, looked at her and gave her a grim smile. ‘You’re right. I did pinch it.’

  Sixteen

  Tiffany didn’t stop at home for long. She decided to head back out again, despite her mother’s half-hearted attempt to stop her.

  ‘You’re not going down the cemetery Tiff,’ Babs ranted. ‘The Bill will be there. How many more times do you think you can have a run in with them before they fit you up for something serious?’

  ‘I ain’t going to the cemetery, I’m going to see my mate.’ Not that it’s any of your beeswax, she thought defiantly.

  ‘Which mate?’ Babs’ features turned stormy. ‘Better not be that Stacey Ingram, my girl, or I’ll have your hide.’ But the front door had already slammed behind Tiff, leaving her mum raving to thin air.

  Tiffany scampered down the stairs, stopping briefly to take a drag on the spliff that was being smoked by the two boys who’d kept an eye on Nuts’ car. Then she walked the half-mile to a maisonette in a block in another sprawling part of the estate, where Stacey lived with her mum. As she got closer she heard the thump of music from a house party on the top floor and saw the silhouettes of people dancing to Shaggy’s ‘Oh Carolina’.

  She decided against ringing the bell. She knew what response she’d get if fire-breathing Mel Ingram answered the door. So she walked down the road collecting small pebbles and stones, then, one by one, she threw them up against Stacey’s bedroom window. It took several hits before her friend’s face appeared. She looked down, saw who it was and snapped the curtains shut with horror. Tiffany resumed throwing stones – larger ones this time that sounded as if they might crack or break the glass. Unable to stand it anymore, Stacey came back, threw the window open and hissed, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To hang out,’ Tiffany responded happily, swaying along to the music coming from the party upstairs. She loved dancing.

  ‘No chance.’

  But Tiffany was in no mood to be sent away with a flea in her ear. ‘I’ll just ring the doorbell and ask your mum—’

  ‘No, no. I’ll come, I’ll come,’ Stacey cried.

  A few moments later, her friend appeared at the front door, closed it gently behind her so it made no sound then grabbed Tiffany by the sleeve and dragged her down to the dark end of the street. ‘Are you out of your mind coming round here?’

>   ‘Your mum still not happy then?’

  ‘Never mind my mum. My dad’s been round; she called him up.’

  Even Tiffany was slightly alarmed. Strange as it seemed, she had never seen Mickey Ingram. Sure she’d heard he had a fist-thumping reputation, but he didn’t live on the estate and when he was around Tiffany made sure she kept well out of the picture. ‘I thought your dad was long gone. I thought your mum hated his guts.’

  Stacey shrugged like she just didn’t understand the world anymore. ‘She does. That’s how bad things are Tiff; my mum got my dad round to read me the riot act about hanging out with you.’

  ‘Me?’ Tiffany stabbed a finger in her chest.

  ‘Yeah you – or any other dirt bag Miller, as he put it. Please, Tiffany do me a favour,’ she pleaded with her friend. ‘Leave me alone, at least for now.’ Then she suddenly remembered. ‘And what were you playing at with the kissing thing at lunchtime? What was that about? You do realise I had to snog Simon Watts in public this afternoon, that dick, just so people don’t think I’ve gone lesbo shaped. I know you like a wind-up, Tiff, but you always have to take things too far. If that got back to my mum and dad, I’d be down the cemetery alright. But for good this time.’

  Tiffany looked at her friend and felt sorry for her. She’d moved on but Stacey hadn’t. Perhaps that was because Tiffany was more like her sister than she liked to think. Jen wanted to be better than other people and Tiffany wanted to be worse, but it amounted to the same thing really. The world was up for grabs – if you dared reach for it.

  ‘I’m only having a laugh.’ Tiffany tried to bring the happy back to their chat. ‘Your problem is, you worry too much about what other people think. Stuff ’em.’

  ‘And your problem is you don’t think enough. I have to live round here; I have to live with my mum, and now I’m pulling visits from my dad.’ Stacey flicked her gaze fretfully towards her front door. ‘Look, I’ve got to go before Mum notices I’ve gone. I’ll see you around . . .’