She slipped the bread knife into her belt and put a smaller one in her handbag.
Tiffany moved closer to her. ‘No one’s been taken. It’s a—’
Jen pulled the knife back out of her belt so quickly her younger sister didn’t see it until it was waving like a sword in her face. ‘So where are they? Where are my girls? Answer me that.’
‘Let’s give Mum a ring.’
‘On what? Two tin cans with a bit of string?’ It was true, their mum didn’t own a mobile. In fact their mum thought a landline was a bit racy.
Tiffany was terrified. She’d never seen Jen like this before. ‘She’s probably taken them up Vicky Park or something, or down The Roman, you know. Please, Jen, put that knife—’
Slap. Tiffany reeled from the impact of her sister’s open palm against her cheek. Pain and shock stung her face.
‘Victoria Park or Roman Road Market with all that’s going on? You stupid, silly bitch.’
A raging Jen left the kitchen and headed to the toilet. Moments later, Tiffany heard the chain being pulled and Jen emerged with a glint in her eye, heading for the front door.
‘Oi, where are you going?’ Tiffany followed her sister, her palm rubbing her reddening cheek.
‘To get my children. I know where they are.’
Tiffany’s stomach churned as she realised what Jen was planning on doing. ‘You can’t go up there if that’s what you’re thinking. Those people are killers; you’ll come out in a box. The girls aren’t gone. Look, if you’re worried, talk to the cops.’
‘Talk to the Bill?’ Her sister didn’t stop her manic pace as she headed downstairs. ‘Why? What are they going to do? Those people you’ve just called killers have probably got the police on their payroll.’
The two women emerged from the damp, dark, piss-stained stairwell into the cool daylight. Jen pulled her car keys from her bag and got into her motor with grim determination. Unable to think of what else to do, Tiffany quickly slipped into the front seat beside her. ‘Please, think about what you’re doing.’
‘Get out.’
‘No chance.’
‘Please yourself.’
Jen turned on the ignition and the car lurched backwards before shunting forwards again, heading off towards the Mile End Road. When they reached the junction, she didn’t hesitate but put her hand on the horn and pulled out in front of the oncoming traffic. Cars braked and swerved to avoid her before sounding their own horns in response to her honking. Jen ignored them, attempting to nose in front of any vehicle in her way, flashing her lights and shouting abuse as required.
Tiffany realised that her sister meant it. She laid her head against the rest. She had an hour, maybe more, maybe less, to come up with a plan. Otherwise . . . She looked at her sister’s grim face and the tight icy grip she had on the wheel.
There was no doubt about it. Someone was going to get killed.
Sixty-Four
‘Well, aren’t you going to say something then? I mean, I ain’t expecting a reward or nothing but a thank you very much would go down a treat.’ Nuts let out a nervous laugh.
John looked at him in total disbelief. The fuckwit seemed to have no idea of the danger he was in. Dee barrelled past her husband, snatched the keys from Nuts’ hands without looking at him and walked over to her car. John had one eye on her as she inspected the bodywork and peered inside and the other on Nuts. He put his arm around the young man’s shoulder and led him some distance away to talk to him.
‘What the fuck are you playing at? Eh? Seriously?’
Nuts widened his eyes as if he were hurt. ‘Well, I heard your missus’ car was nicked and there was a lot of slanderous verbal going round that I might have had something to do with it. And, err, you must have heard those cock ’n’ bull stories too. Obviously it was nothing to do with me – I mean, as if. Anyway, although I’ve been out of the car business for a while now, I thought I’d show willing and track it down for you. I kept me ear to the ground, spoke to some of my contacts and traced it; caught the bloke who thieved it and gave him a kicking; and now here I am with the motor. Cushty eh?’
John looked over at Dee who was subjecting her recovered vehicle to a forensic examination. He also noticed Nicky at an upstairs window staring down at the scene. He turned back to Nuts. ‘So who was this bloke?’
‘What bloke?’
This bloke really is a knob head. ‘The tea leaf who stole the wife’s motor.’
John could hear Nuts’ voice had become slightly hesitant and the younger man’s shoulder was stiffening under his grip. ‘Just a bloke, you know. From South London, I believe.’
John pursed his lips. He looked over his shoulder at Dee and then up at Nicky. He looked at the gravel under his feet, sighed deliberately and whispered, ‘So what’s this fella’s name then?’
‘Does it matter? I mean, Dee’s got her car back, which is the important thing.’
‘Dee?’ John said harshly. ‘You don’t have the right to let my wife’s name touch your lips.’
Nuts frantically nodded. ‘’Course, Mister Black. No disrespect intended.’
John clasped his one-time employee even closer. ‘I need that name.’ At the same time, John noticed his wife disappear inside the house, but he was drawn back to the dipstick when he started answering him.
‘Well, I mean, I don’t know his real name. He uses the handle ‘‘the cat’’ though. Out of Croydon I think . . . or maybe Tooting, I’m not sure.’
John Black was a proper criminal. He only believed in using violence for business reasons rather than personal ones. He believed feuds, vendettas and revenge belonged in the playground, not in the world of professional guys like him. It was true that he’d promised Dee that he would sort out the tosser who’d helped himself to her prized possession. But now that she had it back and he could look forward to a quiet life again, or at least as quiet a life as it was possible to get with a woman like his wife, he could see no reason for any further unpleasantness. And he couldn’t possibly regard a small timer like Nuts as worthy of the effort anyway.
It was time to wrap this up, all nice and neat like. ‘Listen, my old friend, I’m going to do you a massive favour. By now I should be breaking every bone in your body before handing your remains over to a reliable associate, to dispose of them in a responsible way. But I’m in a good mood.’
John saw his wife reappear, clutching something in her hand, and resume her examination of her car. ‘You see that gate in the fence over there?’ he asked Nuts quietly. ‘I want you to run very fast to it, climb over and then follow the footpath a couple of miles until you reach a small village where’s there’s a bus stop. Get a bus back to London, collect your gear and then piss off somewhere far away. For good. Because if I ever see you anywhere, or if I hear you’re still in town, my mood will turn very dark indeed—’
‘John!!! Come here right now.’
John turned to see Dee standing by her car and realised she was holding a torch in one hand. She wore that hard look on her face that told him loud and clear she was bursting to do significant damage to somebody. He guided a shaking Nuts back to where she’d opened the car doors for him, so that he could look inside.
Dee leaned in and pulled up the armrest to display the slim compartment inside. ‘I had Marilyn customised so that she would fit my sunglasses.’
John felt Nuts try to tag away from him, but he held him tight. Dee slammed the door and shone the torch along its distinctive painted white trim. ‘You notice anything, Nuts?’ she challenged the now terrified man. He shook his head. ‘What most people don’t know is that, me being a right flash cow, I had tiny diamantes encrusted into the trim. Now it should glitter with this light.’
There was no glitter. Dee pulled a nail file from her pocket and scraped at the classic black paintwork. She shone the torch again. Under the scraped paint was a navy blue. ‘It’s a re-spray.’ She looked up at Nuts. ‘This ain’t my car.’
Sixty-Five
&nb
sp; ‘Stick a duster in his gob. I don’t want him weeping and wailing while my mum and me are having a chat on the chaise longue upstairs. That’ll put us right off our coffee and cake.’
The basement of John and Dee’s house had been turned into a safe room in case any of their enemies decided to stage a house invasion, or the cops did a raid. It was empty, apart from CCTV screens, phones and some weapons for self-defence. The only furniture was a couple of chairs, and on one of these Nuts had been bound with a length of rope and a pair of Dee’s stockings. Dee was torn between fixing her face for her mother’s visit or venting her fury on the car thief. The fury was winning.
‘The fucking front of it. He nicks my Marilyn and then brings a fake around by way of apology and imagines I’ll fall for it. Then I suppose we were all going to have a good laugh and go for a drive. What a fucking tosser.’ She let fly at her victim with a kick to his leg. Nuts groaned behind the gag. Dee screamed, ‘You wanker. You’re dead, you’re . . .’ She could think of no words that would do justice to her anger so she gave him another kick to make her point.
John straightened the suit and tie he was wearing for the visit of Dee’s mother and took her by the arm to lead her away. ‘Alright, calm down. We’ll sort him out later. Your mum will be here anytime now. Go and play happy families with her. Only remember, when you give her the grand tour, don’t bring her down here.’
Dee pulled her shoulders back. ‘You’re right. Plus, I’m better than this. I’m not a violent person.’ But she gave Nuts an additional kick anyway.
John took her to the steps that led back up to the house. He looked back at Nuts and tried not to show any sympathy but he felt some anyway. The small timer’s wrists and face were already going red and he was desperately professing his innocence, although with his mouth stuffed, it came out as the sound of someone slowly being suffocated. Too bad for him he wasn’t an animal or a child – in that case, Dee would be getting him a bun or a saucer of milk, whatever it was he’d done. John was confident that Nuts would tell them where the stolen car had gone, now he was under lock and key. He had no choice. Whether that meant they’d be able to get the car back or not, and what was to happen to Nuts afterwards, were other matters. But John knew he had a little time now to make up his mind.
When they reached the top of the steps, they were startled to find their son waiting there. Nicky seemed agitated. ‘Who’s that bloke?’
John looked at Dee and then back at his boy. ‘What bloke? There’s no bloke.’
‘The geezer who brought mum’s car back. The one you roughed up on the drive. The one you’ve just dragged down to the safe room.’
John put his arm on Dee’s shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you what, my dear, why don’t you go and powder your nose and plump the cushions for your mum’s arrival while I deal with this.’
John took Nicky into the dining room and closed the door. ‘There is no bloke, OK? You haven’t seen any geezer round here because he doesn’t exist. This house isn’t public school and we don’t play cricket in this place. Instead, think of your home as a miniature East End. And in the East End, you don’t see things that you don’t need to see or hear things that you don’t need to hear. And above all, you certainly don’t say things you don’t need to say. So, as far as you’re concerned, there is no bloke. Are you getting me here, son?’
John could see the boy got him but it didn’t seem to be helping. Instead, Nicky looked really spooked, which he didn’t understand. ‘You think he nicked Mum’s car, don’t you?’
‘Perhaps I would if he existed but he doesn’t exist, so it’s not an issue.’
‘He didn’t nick it; you’re so wrong.’
John’s patience ran out. ‘If you’ve got a problem with your hearing perhaps a cuff on the ears might help clear the tubes?’
Nicky said no more. He left the room with his head down. John was disappointed but he’d always suspected that if they sent the kid to public school, he might turn out straight. Nicky should know better than to flap his gums when his mum and dad were taking care of business.
Dee was madly rushing around the house. She’d changed into a hot pink number with so much bling attached it would have made 50 Cent looked underdressed. She seemed to have forgotten the man who didn’t exist. ‘Nicky! Get in the front room. Why aren’t you in your school uniform? And have you got the prizes and certificates you’ve won out, to show my mum?’
‘I ain’t won no prizes or certificates,’ he answered back in a sulky voice.
Dee’s head was spinning, nerves eating her up. The bloody doorbell was going to go any minute. ‘Right waste of money your education’s been; you’re a right show up. Never mind, tell her about your prizes and certificates anyway, she won’t know the difference. Oh, and talk fucking posh.’
A car pulled up outside the house. Dee hurried to the window crying, ‘She’s here, she’s here.’
She disappeared into the hall and touched up her Halle Berry cut in the mirror before heading to the door.
John walked into the family room and, after clocking a deeply depressed-looking Nicky on the sofa, he went to the window himself. Outside, a woman, who he suspected wasn’t much older than himself, was paying a cabbie. John studied the scene with a weary look, as he could see this was going to be a long evening with Dee on tenterhooks, taking care of her mum while he came up with a plan to deal with the scumbag they had trussed up like a chicken downstairs. Then he noticed something outside. He pulled back the curtain and had a closer look before whispering, ‘Who the hell are they then?’
The cab carrying Dee’s mum had passed Jen and Tiffany who were parked in a lay-by on the way to Dee’s house. Not that either of them had noticed. Jen’s gaze was fixed on the chimneys to the property, where she was convinced her children were held captive. It seemed to Tiffany that her sister had finally calmed down and was ready to listen to reason.
‘Let’s go home and call the Plod, eh?’ she said, keeping her voice very calm. ‘Even if Dee’s got the kids, they won’t be in the house. But she hasn’t got the kids, I promise you. It’s not her style, I know her. Kidnapping adults? Yes, I get that. But kids? No chance . . . Mum’s probably home by now and wondering where we are.’ She squeezed her sister’s arm. ‘Come on eh? Let’s go home.’
Jen didn’t look at her sister but just carried on staring.
Tiffany had spent the entire journey trying to come up with a plan but the only thing she could think of was to wait for Jen to cool it and then use common sense on her. It wasn’t working.
Jen drew a deep breath and began rummaging around in her handbag. ‘Right, I’m going in. Are you coming? If not, you can wait here and pick us up after the job.’
Tiffany drew a deep breath in turn, before saying. ‘They’re not in there, Jen. Even if they have taken the kids, they won’t be there. Those two aren’t stupid. They’re proper criminals; they’d be keeping them miles away. Please listen to me. I know how upset you are but what you’re doing is fucking bonkers, babe.’
Jen didn’t even look at her; that’s how far she was lost in her own world of revenge. ‘So you’re not coming then. Suit yourself. It’s probably better you’re not involved anyway.’
Tiffany madly shook her head. ‘You’ll go to prison! What use are you going to be to the kids if you’re banged up? Have a think about that.’ Jen opened the car door to get out but Tiffany grabbed her arm and dragged her back. Her voice turned rough and angry. ‘What do you think is waiting in there for you? Some soppy old goat from a sweet shop? This is John Black we’re talking about. He’s armed and dangerous. He’s killed people. And you think you’re going in there with a busted hammer and a bread knife to take him on? Have you gone nuts?’
The two women began to struggle. There were scuffs, bumps and thumps in the confined space and it seemed that Jen was trying to whack her sister with her handbag. Tiffany clenched her fists, determined to knock Jen out as a last resort and drive her home unconscious. But she unclenched her fi
st and gasped with horror when she saw that she was staring down the barrel of a battered and stained Browning pistol, which was being held against her face.
Sixty-Six
Tiffany reared back in stunned horror. ‘Oh my God, Jen, where the fuck did you get that from?’ This wasn’t the soft-hearted sister she knew. Jen appeared cold, determined – a woman who’d suddenly realised that you had to harden your heart sometimes to deal with the world.
Jen clasped both hands around the butt of the gun. ‘It was in our old man’s toolbox, wrapped in oil skin.’
Tiffany shook her head in utter disbelief. ‘You picked that shooter up in front of that cop? Now I know you’ve lost it . . .’
‘I didn’t know it was a gun until I went into mum’s toilet and had a look. Anyway, what do they care?’
‘I think the courts do. Five years, isn’t it? And I think you get more if you actually kill people with them.’
Jen pushed the driver’s door open with her foot and began to back out of the car while keeping the pistol trained on her sister. To Tiffany, she appeared both unnaturally calm and wild at the same time, with the deadly weapon in her hand and her hair hanging over her face. Tiffany didn’t know much about firearms but the gun looked so knackered she wasn’t sure it would shoot anyway. And that was supposing Jen knew how to fire it, which Tiffany very much doubted. She watched her sister slink away. A few yards down the road, her sister stopped and began to inspect and fiddle with the gun, holding it up to get a better view of it.
Tiffany put her head in her hands, rubbed her face with them and reached for the car door. Her sister had been right, back at their mum’s flat. This was all her fault. Framing Nuts for the car theft had been mega stupid. But barging into John and Dee’s place with a shooter was about the craziest idea anyone could think of, and the last thing she’d intended. Then again, this was all her fault and she had to go with her. She couldn’t let her sister go in there alone; Jen was too good a person and too good a mother. Plus, the guilt was starting to eat away at Tiffany. She should confess to Jen – tell her the full story of what was going on. If anything happened to the girls because of her . . .
Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama Page 36
