‘You ever thought about having any little ones?’ Dee asked. ‘With you being a you-know-what?’
Tiffany guzzled some bolly before saying, ‘Being you know what don’t mean I haven’t got the necessary equipment if I wanted a kid or two.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Tiffany noticed that John kept looking up from his newspaper, his eyes and body alert.
‘So, you going to have some?’ Dee persisted.
Tiffany mulled the question over. ‘If I’m truthful, I ain’t really thought about it. I kind of like life on my own.’
‘I only knew my mum when I got to be an adult.’ Seeing the look of surprise on Tiffany’s face, she added, ‘It’s too long a story, but I’ve always wanted to . . .’ Dee stopped as she watched her husband suddenly get up. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘I dunno . . .’ He walked up to the heavy drapes that covered the picture window with its commanding view over their drive and front garden to the countryside beyond. Dee knew that look he wore; as a successful criminal he had a sixth sense for danger. He pressed a button to open the curtains and then peered out. It was pitch black outside. The lights, which usually burned by the gates to the property, were switched off. John pursed his lips before going to pick up his jacket from which he took a flick knife. He put it into his back pocket.
Dee stood up, alarmed. ‘What’s up?’
‘There’s someone out there.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just know.’
But as he went to the door, their garden flooded with light from a set of headlamps and a car engine roared into life as its accelerator was pressed right down, making it sound like a light plane readying for take-off. John rushed for the front door while Dee ran to the window. A shocked Tiffany followed, and for a few horrified moments she thought she was going to have to physically restrain Dee from crashing through the glass into the garden outside. For there, in full view – thanks to the lights John had switched on – her prize possession, the car she valued more than anything else in the world, was being manoeuvred past John’s Range Rover and Tiffany’s far more modest hatchback. The thief wore a balaclava, keeping his face hidden despite the glare of the lights.
Dee shrieked like a character in a horror film and made for the door. Tiffany watched as John ran across the drive, jumped on the bonnet of Dee’s car as it swept by and was thrown off by the driver swerving. He ran to his own vehicle and set off in pursuit, his wife running after him on foot. Then there was silence and the noise of the two engines and their lights faded into the distance.
Tiffany stood alone, stunned and horrified by what had happened. It seemed like an age before she heard the front door slam shut. Dee appeared again in the front room. Tiffany flinched at the burning hatred in her eyes.
‘Someone’s going to die for this.’
Forty-Six
John drove like he was in pole position at a Grand Prix, confident he was going to catch the tea leaf. He knew he had no chance on an open road; he’d easily be outrun. But on the narrow country lanes that surrounded his property, Dee’s car wouldn’t be able to pick up speed and the complicated road pattern meant the driver would be unsure where he was going and would be caught out by hidden junctions and other hazards. Only if the car thief found his way down the A13 would John be royally fucked.
There was no doubt the guy was a proper pro. He held to the road and covered any gaps that would allow John to get by and overtake where the road widened. When John tailgated him, putting his lights on full beam and sounding his horn for minutes at a time to spook the other driver, the guy kept his nerve. He avoided the obvious mistake of slamming the brakes on so John would crash into him and damage his engine, allowing the fugitive to escape; the car he’d stolen was too valuable to be sacrificed like that. It had clearly been stolen to order, in the same way John had once arranged for high-end motors to be TWOC-ed. No normal thief would take it; it would be too difficult to sell on the UK market and you needed contacts to sell it abroad, the sort of contacts he’d once had. While John sighed at the grim irony, the thief slammed on his brakes and took a violent turn to the left and then vanished into the night.
John’s Range Rover squealed as he put his foot to the pedal and hurriedly reversed back up the lane to where he’d last seen his quarry. He noticed an open gate in a fence and went through it. The field behind was black with no sign of his quarry. Lights full on, he drove in a circle. So well disguised was Dee’s car, huddled up against a tree and bushes, that he nearly missed it. John carried on turning to mislead the thief and then returned to the gap in the fence. He drove back through it and headed off up the lane at high speed, lights aglow, horn blaring in deceptive frustration. A half-mile down the road, he stopped and did a three point. Then he turned off the lights and engine and rolled gently forwards on the incline back towards the gate in the fence.
He brought the Range Rover to a halt covering the gate and then got out. In the black shade, he crept along the hedgerows until he was close enough to see the outline of Dee’s car where it was still parked.
John smiled and whispered, ‘Gotcha, you bastard.’
With the entrance covered, he pulled the flick knife out of his pocket and opened it and began his approach. It was possible that the guy had fled across the fields but John thought that was unlikely. Dee’s car was too valuable an item for a pro to give up lightly. But as he closed in, he turned when he realised that another car was coming up the lane at high speed. He watched in horror as it accelerated and then swerved wildly, its brakes screeching before it hit his Range Rover and shunted it down the road with a roar, the bodywork of both vehicles buckling and caving in.
Silence followed, except for the hissing of an engine. John knew he should run and help the other driver but he was now doubly determined to give the thief who’d cost him two vehicles a hiding. But the decision was made for him. The lights on Dee’s car came full on, blinding John. The ignition was turned and with insulting slowness, the car drove around him and nosed its way towards the gate. It stopped briefly for the driver to inspect the accident a few dozen yards away, before turning and heading away at a leisurely speed in the direction from which he had come.
Dee paced the family room like a lioness who hadn’t had her lunch, her Motorola flip-lid mobile jammed to her face as she waited for her call to connect. Tiffany stood just inside the door, really shaken by tonight’s turn of events. Banshee rubbed herself against Tiffany’s leg and purred softly as if she understood her distress. Tiffany had a good idea who Dee was calling and didn’t think she should do it.
‘Mizz Dee, I don’t think you should call the cops. I don’t think John would want the Filth sticking their beaks into your business.’
Dee blinked, flashing her bold eyelash extensions at Tiffany like they were two yobs in a pub squaring up, and she was about to launch straight at her. ‘We ain’t done nothing wrong and it’s their job to sort this out.’ The call connected and she shouted with fury and rage down the phone. ‘You’re bloody right I want to report a crime. Some scrote has nicked my motor. I want every cop car in Essex looking for the scumbag and get your helicopters on the case as well. You need to set up road blocks and get in reinforcements . . . Yeah, you heard me, I want you to track the bastard down and when you get him, beat the fucker up; string him up. That’s what I’m paying my taxes for . . . You what?’ Dee stopped pacing. ‘Are you having a laugh? You’ll write a report and tell your cars to keep an eye out for it?’ Her voice rose to full level that should’ve had the walls of the house shaking. ‘You’re all a bunch of fucking wankers. Don’t know why I bothered to call you in the first place.’ She terminated the call and hurled the phone across the room. Dee clenched and unclenched her hands as her breathing got harsher and louder.
‘Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!’
The cat rushed behind Tiffany’s legs as if knowing what was coming. And when it did, Tiffany understood why people called Dee ‘Demon’ and ‘Devil�
�� behind her back. She started tearing the room apart. Tiffany had thrown some mega wobbles in her time but she’d never kicked off like this. Dee’s assault on the room left it looking like Buckingham Palace had moved to the North Peckham Estate. No way was Tiffany going to get in her face to try to stop her. She’d probably try to hack my head off with her bare hands, she thought. No, the best thing to do was let super storm Dee blow itself out.
Dee tore the stuffing from the sofa cushion; yanked pictures off walls; smashed the telly screen with the curtain rod. Not the fish tank . . . Tiffany could hardly bring herself to watch as Dee aimed the curtain pole at it . . . Thank God, Tiffany thought, relieved as Dee threw her makeshift weapon to the ground. Dee’s attention had been caught by something. Tiffany followed her gaze and saw that it rested on a heart-shaped photo of a beaming Nicky back in his primary school days, wearing his uniform. Dee picked it up and wrapped her arms around it as she held it to her chest.
‘John doesn’t get it, you know,’ Dee said quietly, the raging puff gone from her, keeping her back to Tiffany. ‘Thinks that Marilyn’s just a car, a hunk of shiny metal that I roll around in.’ Something about her voice compelled Tiffany to move across the room and stand behind her. ‘So many people told me I was going to be a nothing – do sweet FA with my life. I was going to prove every last one of them wrong. And do you know how I did it, babes? I started to stick my dreams on the wall. Got ’em out of magazines. The gaff I was going to live in; the clobber I was going to wear and . . .’ Her voice caught with emotion. ‘And the first time I ever saw a picture of a Pirano FS, my heart started racing like I’d just snorted some charlie. I just knew that if people saw me riding around in it I was going to get maximum respect.’ Finally, she turned to Tiffany. The younger woman thought Dee would be all bloodshot eyes from crying, but her eyes were blazing. If Tiffany had been a Catholic, she’d have crossed herself and prayed for the soul of the scum who had made the terrible mistake of stealing Dee’s car.
‘No one,’ Dee waved her finger, ‘no one does this to me. That tea leaf is going to regret the day he ever stole one of my dreams.’
As soon as Dee heard her husband return she belted outside. Tiffany followed close behind.
‘Have you found Marilyn?’
‘No.’ John was crouched, examining the drive where Dee’s car had been parked.
‘No? You’ve been gone two hours. What have you been playing at?’ Then she noticed that his Range Rover was missing. ‘And where’s your motor?’
John stood up and told her pointedly, ‘It was hit by one of our neighbours. One of the neighbours you rang up and told to get on the road and look for your car. And the poor sod was too scared to say no.’
Dee pulled herself tall and got in his face. ‘Where is it?’
John stared back. ‘I don’t know – he got away. But I do know this. The thief didn’t break any windows to steal it, which means he’s a pro and must have the contacts to sell it on. They’re only half a dozen blokes in London with the front to nick that car and I know every one of them. I’ll find it.’ John’s face hardened and he spoke with a chill in his voice that Tiffany had never heard him use before. ‘Someone has had the brass balls to come into my house when my missus and boy are there? Everyone in the know knows you don’t do that. I’m going to track him down.’
The sound of Dee’s voice carried across the empty countryside. ‘You better had, because if you don’t, it won’t just be my car you’re looking for, it’ll be a fucking good divorce lawyer.’
Forty-Seven
The next day Babs bashed her fist with such force on the front door of her new neighbours’, she could have woken the dead at the local cemetery. ‘Bloody open up or I’ll bleeding kick the door in,’ she shouted, even though she knew that would be pretty hard to do with the fluffy, rose slippers she wore, the ones she’d got from The Roman, from the bloke with a side-line in cannabis. The problem with The Devil now – like it needed any more problems – was that the council had decided to start housing what they called some of their more ‘challenging’ families on it. Challenging? More like head banging.
Babs’ pounding had attracted the usual suspects – the nosey parkers on the landing and the twitchy curtain brigade, who liked to watch from within their four walls.
The door flew open and Babs was confronted by a woman who she knew as the mum of the house, except as far as she was concerned this idiot didn’t know the first thing about parenting. Babs pointed her finger. ‘Look, love, one of your boys was trying to break into my place when I got back from shopping. I saw the little bleeder from downstairs and he did a runner—’
‘Shut the fuck up.’ The woman’s finger danced at Babs with every word she spoke.
‘You what?’ Babs reared her chest forward. Who the effing hell did this wannabe mummy bear think she was?
‘You heard,’ the other woman leaned right into Babs’ space, practically foaming at the mouth. ‘Piss off, off my doorstep. And don’t you ever, EVER,’ she yelled the last word, ‘say shit about one of my boys again.’
Only when she got close to Babs did she realise that the mad moo’s pupils were way bigger than God designed them to be. Her new neighbour was off her nut on drugs. Babs stumbled back. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years on The Devil, it was, stay well away from the druggies. They were so far gone they wouldn’t even remember murdering you; they’d be sentenced by some judge who’d make sure they got rehab inside; and then, Bob’s your uncle, they’d be back on the out in five, while you were still six feet under.
The crazy neighbour snarled, looked her up and down, gobbed a disgusting greenie at Babs’ feet and then slammed the door.
‘You wanna call the social on her,’ someone yelled.
And then what? thought Babs instead of answering. The kids would end up in care and, as far as Babs heard it, there were rarely any happy-ever-afters for children in those care homes. Still, she couldn’t be having no toddler toerags trying to rob her gaff. The next time it happened, she’d have to get some of the guys she knew to go around and have a quiet word or find out if the woman had any decent family to let them know what was going on.
‘Mum, you alright?’
Babs’ face lit up when she saw her two daughters coming along the landing.
‘Yeah.’ She kissed both her girls on the cheek. ‘The new neighbour is off her head on God knows what. I saw one of her kids trying to abseil through my bathroom window like he’s bleeding Spiderman.’
‘You want me to have a word?’ Tiffany asked already moving towards next door, but her mum caught her arm. ‘Leave it alone. Those type of people always have trouble following them, so she and her witch brood will be on the move soon enough.’
After they got inside and Tiffany had dumped her gear in her room they all sat down for a brew in the sitting room. Babs had put a finger of gin in hers – alright a couple of fingers – not too much mind, just enough to keep her brain alert.
‘I’ve got to get rid of Nuts,’ Jen suddenly burst out. ‘I can’t do it anymore. The bastard has got to go.’ Then the whole sorry mess poured out for Tiffany’s benefit – the dinner money, the violence, the non-job. Babs’ heart ached for her eldest. Who would’ve thought that nice Nuts would’ve turned into a geezer who used his fists as hammers once his front door was shut and stole his kids’ dinner money.
Tiffany shoved herself to her feet. ’He’s putting his hands on you?’ She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. ‘No fucking way. I’ll teach him a lesson . . .’
Jen grabbed her arm and dragged her back. ‘That isn’t going to help. Sit down.’
As Tiffany retook her seat, she muttered, ‘I tell you what, if a man laid a hand on me I’d fucking cut off his nuts and then come back later to do the same to his knob.’
‘Come on, Tiff,’ Babs said, ‘you’re meant to be making your sister feel better. It isn’t Jen’s fault her fella turned into Mike Tyson. Plus, let’s get real, I doubt you�
�ve seen any man’s family jewels with all that female company you keep touching up.’
Tiffany gave her mum a dirty grin with a teasing twinkle in her eyes. ‘You want to come over to the dark side, Mum, you might enjoy it.’
Babs took a deep slug of her drink, like she had to wash her mouth out, just at the thought.
Jen let out a heavy sigh as she rubbed her palm against her forehead. ‘Who would’ve thought it was going to be me who would make such a wreck of her life.’ She caught her sister’s eye. ‘Ten years back, everyone said that I was going places and you were going to the dogs.’
Babs gripped one of her hands fiercely. She still couldn’t believe that it was Jen who’d made a colossal cock-up of her life and not Tiffany. Tiff had been a train crash waiting to happen, but look at her now. Steady job, legit money in her pocket and a love life – although Babs would have wished it slightly different – that made her happy.
‘That’s the problem with life,’ she told her daughter softly, ‘you’re on one path one day and the next you’re on another, without understanding how you got there. The important thing is figuring out how to get back to where you want to be.’
‘I just want him gone, Mum,’ Jen said. ‘All he ever brings to my door is a load of heartache. He slammed me into the wall the other day while the girls were in their bedroom and all I kept thinking was, what if they walk in? They’d be scared out of their bloody wits.’ Jen shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks. ‘I felt like total shit, total shit.’
‘Fucker,’ Tiffany let out between gritted teeth.
Babs grabbed Jen’s other hand and squeezed. ‘Maybe what we should do love is sit him down, explain the situation and maybe he’ll get it and leave.’ Even to Babs’ ears, that sounded feeble. Men from Nuts’ background didn’t just up and leave after a bit of soul searching.
‘Are you off your rocker, Mum?’ Tiffany declared. ‘The guy’s strutting around The Devil like he’s the dog’s bollocks of Mile End, and you think he’s just going to piss off, all peaceful like, thank you very much.’
Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama Page 27
