But he didn’t answer her, just tore the suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. He looked like shit. His face was stone white, his T-shirt stuck to his chest with sweat like he’d been running and his hair was sticking up in tufts at the front. He opened the case and flung open the doors of the wardrobe and started grabbing his clothes with such speed some of the wire hangers crashed to the floor.
‘Nuts, what the effing hell’s going on?’ Jen flung her feet over the side of the bed and pushed down her imitation Jasper Conran, turquoise satin night-shirt. A dog was furiously barking outside and there was the faint sound of music coming from one of the other blocks. Typical Devil’s Estate, it never sleeps.
As he dashed over to the chest of drawers, Nuts said, ‘Has anyone been asking for me?’
Jen frowned as she stood up. ‘Why would they?’
He sent her a quelling look. ‘Just answer the question. Has anyone been looking for me?’
Jen’s mouth settled into a grim line. ‘You need to tell me what’s going on?’
She got a grunt in reply, which royally ticked her off. He left the room and she followed him to the bathroom. He shoved his shaving gear into the suitcase.
‘Where are you going?’
He finally answered her. ‘I’m just going away for a few days. You know, I’ve got a bit of work on for that new job I told you about.’
Jen had to hold herself back from saying the job was as make believe as her winning the lottery. She folded her arms. ‘What have you done now?’
‘Leave off, Jen.’ He brushed roughly by her and headed into the sitting room.
She marched after him. ‘I told you that if you dragged trouble to my door again you’re out. So you better start talking.’ Close up she could smell a perfume she didn’t like on him. ‘You been with some scrubber?’
Jen was distracted by a whimper coming from the girls’ room. Quickly she entered their room to find Courtney with her arms wrapped around Little Bea who looked like she was trying really hard not to cry. God, she hated this life. It brought too many memories of what life had been like with her dad, when she was little.
‘Mum, what’s happening?’ Courtney asked, staring at her mother with her dad’s eyes.
‘Nothing.’ She rustled up a smile for them. ‘Just get back into bed and shut your eyes, yeah.’
She closed the door and nearly slammed into Nuts. ‘I want the truth and I want it now.’
‘All you say to anyone who’s asking is that we’ve split up and you don’t know where I’ve gone.’ Then he headed for the door.
‘And why would I say that?’
He threw the door open and looked back at her. ‘I don’t need a mouthful, alright. Just remember to say what I told you.’
A car screeched somewhere outside, another dog joined the early morning barking chorus; Nuts slammed the door, leaving Jen standing alone in her night-shirt.
‘Mum, you alright?’
Jen turned to find Courtney standing in the doorway of her bedroom. The poor love was trembling. Jen went over to her, got on her knees and hugged her. ‘Nothing to worry about, my little angel.’
‘Is Dad going away again? Will he be gone for six months again, like before?’
Jen pulled back so that she could see her daughter’s beautiful, small face. ‘Your dad’s got some special work on, which means he’s going to be gone awhile. But I bet you, when he comes back he’ll have a prezzie with him for you.’
That brightened up Courtney’s face. There was a loud knock at the door.
‘Bedtime, my girl.’ Jen gave her daughter a quick peck on the cheek and closed the door behind her.
‘Probably forgotten his friggin’ keys,’ Jen muttered to herself as she approached the door.
‘Nuts . . .’ she said as she flung the door wide, but the words dried in her mouth when she saw two big bruisers and a smaller man with a bald head standing between them.
The smaller man smiled. ‘Is your husband in?’
Something about him just made Jen feel funny inside. Her hand held tight to the doorframe. She shook her head.
‘My name’s John Black and I want a word with him. Urgently.’
Fifty
The car was covered in so much straw, Tiffany had to use the wipers to clear the stalks off the windscreen. When she’d done so, she gently manoeuvred the vehicle down a dirt track and out onto a country lane. Ten years earlier, this job she was doing would have been all in a day’s work for a teenage joy rider who got her kicks from taking extreme risks. Ten years on though, she was a very worried young woman. There were so many things that could go wrong with the act she was about to commit. She drove quickly, out onto the lane at the bottom of the road, and moved off before she had the time to throw the car into reverse and give up on the whole idea.
She looked at her watch. Almost three in the morning. The roads would be deserted which was good, but for any traffic that was around, she’d stand out like a sore thumb, which was bad. If that traffic included a solitary police car with nothing to do but pull cars over, she was sunk. On the passenger seat was an A–Z of Essex on which she’d traced a route with a marker pen. On top of the book was a torch. The path she’d chosen included just about every quiet side road in the county and doubled the length of her journey. But she was sure it was worth it.
About ten minutes after she’d set off, she had a bad omen. As she glided down the road at a steady twenty, she saw a fox crossing in her headlights. The animal stopped halfway and stared at her. She drew to a halt and it craned its neck examining her car. A few moments later, wagging its head, as if in disbelief and amazement at her nerve, it disappeared into a hedgerow. It seemed, even the local wildlife knew what Tiffany was up to and they didn’t approve.
At every junction in these Essex Badlands, she slowed the car, examined her map and kept her fingers crossed she was going the right way. At every signpost, she stopped for reassurance that she was moving in the right direction. But slowly and surely she became confident that she would reach her destination.
Tiffany picked up speed and began to enjoy her ride. The car was sumptuous, with a seat that seemed to shape itself around her and caress her body. The pedals and steering responded to every light touch and seemed to know what she wanted to do before they were told. But as she lay back and whispered, ‘Ah, this is the way to travel,’ she felt her guts tighten as a warm red glow appeared on her dashboard. In disbelief, she picked up her torch, hoping against forlorn hope that it was telling her the temperature in Monaco or somewhere a car like this would be driven. But there was no doubt. On a deserted country road in the middle of nowhere, she was running out of petrol.
‘Oh fuck . . .’
She brought the car to a halt in front of the gate to a farm and checked her map. She had no idea how much further she could get without filling up and no idea where she could get petrol. She picked up her A–Z. The A13 was about ten miles further to the south. That was a main road and there was bound to be a twenty-four hour station there. But on a main road, there would be other cars and possibly the Bill. Worst of all, the car might grind to a halt, leaving her isolated and exposed in the last place she would want to be stranded.
‘Oh hell.’
Tiffany put the car back into gear, drove off and began to look for the next side road heading south. As she went, she tried to keep her foot as light as possible on the accelerator and from time to time the red glow would dim and vanish before reappearing. The glow became steady and then deepened. The roads became wider and two-laned; houses appeared and street lamps began to shine. She found a slip road down to the A13 and she joined it, anxiously scanning her rear-view mirror for any sign that she was being followed.
At first the car seemed more relaxed now that it was going at a decent speed but Tiffany’s eye-line kept drifting from the road ahead to the red glow on the dashboard. It looked to her as if it was turning the colour of blood.
‘Come on, baby, come on . . .’ and
then, ‘Don’t they have petrol stations on this soddin’ road . . . ?’ The car seemed to be caught by surprise when the first signs that the abrupt end of its journey was about to happen. It coughed and spluttered before resuming its steady pace. The engine juddered slightly. Tiffany was running on fumes. A sign went by. ‘24 Hour . . . Ahead . . . One Mile . . .’
She began to plead with the car. ‘Please, baby, give me another mile, I’ll love you forever . . .’
The car responded and did its best, like an exhausted long distance runner trying to crawl over the line. Tiffany begged the car, ‘Please, please . . .’ The lights of the petrol station appeared and she turned onto the slip road. But the engine was spent; it cut out and went with the pumps in view, gliding to a halt. Tiffany paused slightly because while she wasn’t turning the ignition there was still hope. She turned the ignition and was met with silence. ‘Please, please . . .’ The car was a luxury one and soft-hearted. With one final effort, it spluttered back into life and gave Tiffany the final fifty yards she needed before dying for good as she pulled up by a pump.
The station was deserted, apart from a solitary man in the kiosk and two police officers resting on the bonnet of a patrol car in a parking bay, drinking coffee and eating sandwiches. It seemed to Tiffany that the vehicle she was driving was now very large, very obvious and very, very suspicious. The two boys would have been advised to keep an eye open for it and the car was the type that was likely to stick in their memory. She pulled fifty quid out of her purse and went to fill up.
As the petrol gushed into the thirsty tank, Tiffany could hear the voices of the two cops chatting.
‘That’s right – John Black of all people . . . His missus’ motor . . . Don’t know what make it is . . .’
‘Black? Fuck me, if I’d done that, I’d be on a plane to South America by now.’
Tiffany shook the last drops from the pump and went to pay. As the guy on the kiosk took her money, he admired her car. ‘Nice motor.’
She said nothing, just took her receipt with the key gripped so tightly in her hand it was digging into her fingers. She carefully avoided looking at the police as she headed to the car, but she noticed that they’d stopped chatting. When she got back into the driver’s seat, she stole a glance. One of the cops was standing with his arms folded, staring at her with a beady eye. She started the engine but it wouldn’t fire. She knew it would take some time for the fuel to feed through. She gave a brief look at the police. Now the other cop was standing next to his colleague, sipping coffee and staring in the same direction. She turned the ignition. It failed. She looked again. One of the cops was speaking into his radio. These were turning into long moments. She didn’t need to turn a third time; she could see the police were approaching her out of the corner of her eye.
‘Come on, treacle, you’ve been so good . . .’
The engine started. Wheels spinning, Tiffany sped out of the station onto the road. In the rear-view mirror, she could see the cops running back to their car. Out on the main road, any speed she asked of the engine, it supplied without any apparent effort. She went up to a hundred, a hundred and ten and then a hundred and twenty, flying down the empty road. For a brief time she could see the revolving blue lights in her mirror but then they vanished, never to reappear. Speed cameras merrily flashed to record her progress but she figured by the time any tickets were delivered, her problem would be resolved, one way or another.
It took her only fifteen minutes before she was in a scruffy suburb of Southend. She found her way to a small garage that was owned by someone she knew as absolutely discreet. She opened the gates and drove into a lockup at the rear of the premises. Before she turned the key on the door and headed down to the station to catch the first train back to London, she ran her hand over the bodywork which was as smooth as velvet. Daylight was starting to appear in the sky.
She smiled broadly.
She totally understood why Dee loved this car.
Fifty-One
John used his large hand to push Jen’s door back. ‘You don’t mind if I come in, love, do you? The boys will wait outside. They’re good like that. I’m sure there’s going to be no unpleasantness anyway.’
Jen stumbled back. There was no violence in what he did but his every action was soaked in menace.
‘He’s not here,’ Jen called out lamely as he pushed past her into the sitting room. She hurried after him.
It was an age before John spoke. ‘No, I guessed not . . . But you know where he is, don’t you?’
Jen didn’t reply, her fingers madly fluttering at her side. He was inspecting the ceiling. He breezed around her sitting room as if taking a relaxed walk along the beach, picking up ornaments then carefully placing them back down. He peered behind the sofa, as if that might supply a clue as to where Nuts was.
Terrified, Jen took a deep breath and finally replied. ‘No, I don’t. We split up ages ago. He moved out. He’s living with some tart up north.’
John put a vase down – the one her mum had given her as a house warming present – and turned to her. ‘Dearie me, I hope you’re not teaching your children to lie when they’re in a tight spot, especially when a little honesty would pay everyone dividends.’ He moved over to the window and opened it, looking down onto one of the long dark courtyards of The Devil’s Estate. The wind rustled the ragged net curtains and, in the distance, music pumped from one of the blocks on the other side of the estate. From below, the sound of a youth being taunted by other boys could be heard and in the middle distance, from another open window, a woman was screaming. ‘Don’t hit me, you cunt, don’t you fucking hit me . . .’
As if the sounds from the estate had served his purpose, John pulled the window shut. He turned back to Jen. ‘How did a nice-looking girl like you end up with a prick like Nuts on a place like this? I don’t get it.’
Jen said nothing, not least because it was a question she’d often asked herself. Slowly, John moved from the living room into the kitchen where he opened and closed a few drawers before he went into her and Nuts’ bedroom. Jen followed, breathing deeply as she went. Her visitor had opened the wardrobe and was examining the men’s shirts that were hanging there. There was a gap between them where Nuts had grabbed some when he’d fled.
‘Nice shirts. Mind you, your Nuts always had an eye for a style. I remember that from when he worked for me. I called him Knobby for knob head back then.’ Jen’s eyes widened; finding out her fella had once worked for this criminal was news to her.
His voice veered over into sarcasm and he showed a shirt sleeve to her. ‘I’m assuming he left these here when he ran off with the skirt from up north? Is that right? Or have you moved in another geezer with a taste for Hugo Boss shirts in the meantime?’
Jen was too scared to open her mouth. Then she caught two pairs of eyes staring at them through a crack in the door. Oh hell, the girls. She hurried over and found her daughters white faced, with Courtney holding her sister tight to her side. Jen faked a smile and said as gently as she could, ‘Come on, girls, you’re supposed to be in bed.’
They ignored her, their gaze fixed on the stranger. Jen’s heart jumped when she felt John beside her.
He gave them a friendly wave and a grin. ‘Sorry to disturb you, little ladies. I’m a very good friend of your dad’s so I’ve popped round to see how he’s doing but he seems to be out. Sorry, I know I’m a bit late . . .’
Horror ran through Jen. She didn’t want him anywhere near her kids. She wanted to yell and scream at him to get away from them, but she didn’t. That would only make the situation worse; much worse. So she thrust an arm around each of her children and lifted them up just like she had when they were younger.
‘Mum . . . ?’ Courtney started, looking over her shoulder at the strange man in her home as her mother motored towards their room.
‘Be quiet,’ Jen said severely. She hated the tone she was using, but she couldn’t allow – wouldn’t allow – her girls to be anywhere near t
hat man.
As soon as they were in the bedroom she got them into their bed and pulled the duvet up around their necks and kissed them both on the forehead. ‘Now go back to sleep.’
Courtney’s voice was harsh. ‘Where’s my dad? Has that man really come to help look for him?’
Jen grasped at the straw she’d been thrown by her daughter. ‘That’s right, he’s come to help find your dad – now go to sleep.’ Her tone softened. ‘Please, baby, just do it. Please.’
Closing the door firmly behind her, Jen found John sitting in Nuts’ armchair. Her fear had gone, now she was angry. She hissed, ‘You’re a big man, aren’t you? Scaring little girls in the middle of the night.’
John looked hurt, but she knew different. ‘That’s a nice thing to say, ain’t it? I’m not here to scare anyone: not you, not even Nuts and certainly not your kids. Look love, I don’t know what cock ’n’ bull story your husband told you before he skipped town, but let me put you in the picture. Nuts has stolen something from me and I want it back. I don’t know if he knew it belonged to me or not, and it doesn’t really matter. So, the next time he gives you a little tinkle on the blower, tell him I popped round and if I get my property back in one piece, we can call it a day and have a good laugh about it.’
His voice and face turned hard. ‘Tell him if he doesn’t, then obviously I’ll be left with no option but to tear London apart looking for him and, if that doesn’t work, then I might have to consider scaring a few people. You know what I mean? But it shouldn’t have to come to that, should it? I mean seriously – should it?’
Jen’s anger had drained away and she now realised the full enormity of what had happened. ‘Look, I don’t know where he is; I don’t know anything about any property and, if I had my way, I’d never see Nuts again. Now, please, leave me and my children alone. I thought you people had rules about that?’
John nodded and grimaced. ‘Well, we do of course. But I’m afraid this situation is rather unusual . . .’ He stood up. ‘If he calls, tell him he’s not in trouble, I just want the car back. If I don’t get it back, then he’ll be in trouble . . . as will other people.’ He looked in the direction of the girls’ bedroom. Jen tensed again.
Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama Page 29
