by Martina Cole
Imelda knew she was being given a serious warning, and that if she had any kind of brain she would heed it. And, for a few moments, she allowed Basil to have the upper hand, knew that she was on the wrong side of this argument. She knew that if she wanted to keep her position she had to go along with whatever he said, had to take it all with the minimum of fuss. So she did just that. After all, self-preservation was her middle name.
Imelda realised that Basil was not interested in her any more, that she was now classed as nothing more than an employee. She also knew that her use as a weapon against Bailey had backfired, and that she was now only worth the reputation that she had garnered as a brass and as a murderer. Basil had only been enamoured of her because of her reputation, and the fact that he had a real problem with Bailey, as did she. Bailey was the person who was calling in her debts, she knew that. It had to be him. It was how he was getting his own back on her. Well, let him. She owed him fuck all. In her mind she was blameless, she had nothing on her conscience where he was concerned. She would wait, and think, and then use whoever was weakest to ensure that she was all right, that she was safe from harm. And she would use anyone within her orbit to see that happened.
Smiling at Basil sadly, as if she was broken-hearted at his words, his threats, she saw him smiling back. He was not about to be had-over, and he was especially not going to be had-over by the likes of her. Of that much she was certain.
‘I think you are after my daughter.’
The two men stepped inside her house. They were large, very intimidating and, in fairness, very respectful. So far.
Mary ushered them into the kitchen, she was sensible enough to know that they were not going to be fobbed off with excuses or threats of any kind.
These were men who would be heard, and they would be heard no matter what they had to do to ensure that. She knew she was much better off letting them explain themselves in a calm and friendly manner, they were not the kind of people to be ignored. As she looked at the two men as they stood in her pristine clean kitchen, Mary felt the first real shudder of fear wash over her.
Shutting the kitchen door behind her, she smiled lazily at the two intruders and, taking a deep breath, she said with as much force as she could muster, ‘You don’t scare me, so let’s cut the fucking crap and get down to the basics. What do you want?’
The elder of the two men smiled with a deep sadness, then he pulled out a chair and, motioning for her to sit down, he somehow took over as the head of her household.
She felt his strength, his arrogance and knew that he was there for something very serious, and very dangerous. For the first time in years, she was frightened.
She could hear the children as they chatted together in the next room, and the sound of their voices made her predicament even more terrifying. She was frightened they would use the children to make her tell them whatever it was they needed to know.
The older man seemed to read her mind because he said kindly, ‘They are safe, Mary, we aren’t fucking thugs.’
He watched as Mary Dooley physically relaxed at his words. He saw her body deflate, and her shoulders drop at his kind words. She was an old lady, he was not about to harm her unless he absolutely had to. Even then, he would not do anything to her personally. That was why he had his trained chimp with him. But, either way, he was determined to get what he wanted from her before he left.
He sat down opposite her. He liked the décor, liked the cleanliness of the place. She was old school, like his own mother. The kitchen smelt of use, of fresh vegetables, cooked meats, coffee and fried eggs. It was reminiscent of the home he had grown up in. It had the distinctive aroma of safety, of caring. It made him feel nostalgic for his boyhood, for his youth.
As he sat down opposite Mary, he really hoped that he would not have to force her to talk to him. He liked her, but he was not worried about any comebacks should he feel the need to put undue pressure on her to achieve his objective.
She was a feisty old bird: she had her own little reputation, and he knew all about her struggle to bring up her grandchildren. He liked that about her, respected her for her loyalty; he only wished his first wife had been so inclined. So, in his mind, he was only there as a formality. He had to make her understand that if he left empty-handed, which of course he wouldn’t, someone else would come in his place, and that person would not be as friendly or as generous as he was. Fear was a great leveller, he had found that out at a very early age.
He made a point of not talking to Mary or even acknowledging her for a long while. Instead, he sat opposite her and watched her calmly as she waited for him to tell her what was going on, tell her why he was in her home. But he didn’t say a word. He knew the longer he kept quiet, the sooner she would demand to know what was going on.
Denny Broadbent was leaning against the kitchen sink. His heavy body looked cumbersome in the small space. He had the face of an overblown cherub and the physique of a boxer. He looked like he could hurt someone, and the fact of the matter was that he was more than willing to hurt anybody for a price. He had large eyes, and a cruel mouth. He also had the nonchalance that Mary’s husband had looked for in his workforce. So she was more than aware of the man’s reason for being in her home. She knew he was the one she needed to watch. She knew that he was the paid muscle and, if asked, he would be quite happy to hurt the children if need be to get her to discuss whatever it was they wanted to discuss.
She also knew that her standing was such that these two would not be there unless they were in the employ of someone of serious renown. Someone who had no interest in anyone outside of their particular orbit unless they could be of some use to them.
Lighting another cigarette, Mary blew the smoke out slowly then, shrugging, she asked in a friendly manner, ‘Well, tell me what you want, I ain’t a fucking mind reader.’
Leaning forward in his chair, James Marler said sarcastically, ‘I had actually worked that much out for myself.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘Your daughter has upset a lot of people, and she has done so without any real care for the trouble she has caused.’
Mary shrugged. The man was not telling her anything she didn’t know. Her attitude told them exactly how she felt about them as well as her daughter.
Once more Marler was impressed. Like his old mum, Mary was a game old bird. She would fight with the police until he had managed to escape through the back door. It was a loyalty thing, she had hated what he had done and that he was to be arrested, but she had still felt the need to protect him. It was inbred in the Irish and in the East End women. If they were a mixture of the two they were doubly loyal, and doubly argumentative.
‘My daughter is nothing to do with me and, for the record, I think that is a given for most people in this locality. I bring up her children, I do the best I can, but she is not my responsibility. I don’t need this shit. So say what you’ve got to say, and get yourselves off out of it.’
She was good. She was frightened all right, terrified, in fact, but she was still game enough to fight her end. She had not offered her daughter’s address to them, even though they already had it; she was not to know that. Though he suspected she would assume they were up to spec with all her daughter’s movements. It wasn’t like Imelda was a wilting violet, she made her presence known. Yet this woman was still protecting a child who had been the cause of every ill that had befallen her. Nature had a wonderful way of making women into fools. Mothers, wives, daughters, they all seemed to possess a loyalty that the person in receipt of that said loyalty rarely deserved. This woman was still protecting a daughter who had used her and everyone around her like a Filth used a grass. With a deliberate and calculated dislike, and with no care whatsoever about her well-being. It was common knowledge that Imelda would sell her kids for an easy shoot, so her mother would not be on the top of her list where loyalty was concerned. Imelda was a junkie and, like all junkies, she had no soul. The skag took care of all that; once the drugs took over
the user was lost. But James also knew that the majority of users had never been a hundred per cent anyway. All the dopers he had ever come across had been missing a vital ingredient; they were selfish, insular, horrible people. They were solely interested in themselves and their lifestyle. They were basically loners who only really mixed with other junkies, anyone outside of their manufactured reality was without any interest to them. If only this woman could understand that her daughter as she knew her was long gone, that the girl she hoped and prayed would one day return to her, was dead and buried this long time.
She was a nice lady, really nice. Marler liked her, as he had known that he would. Not that he would allow his feelings to interfere with his judgement, or with his job of work. He would get his henchman to bury his own mother alive if the price was right. Thankfully his mother had never upset anyone enough for them to call him in to put the hard word on her. The irony being, of course, that his reputation would guarantee his mother an easy pass, no matter what she did anyway.
Life was a bastard all right, he knew that better than anyone. He also knew that for this woman, her life would never be the same again.
‘Your daughter has fucked over one too many people, and we are here to ask you if you would be so kind as to mention this fact to her. She is a user, in more ways than one, but then you know that. But she is also a fucking piss-taker. Tell her we want the money she owes. If we don’t get it in the next few days, we will take it out on all her relatives. That includes you, by the way. We are also here to make sure that Louise Parks gets her fair crack of the whip where Jordanna’s concerned. Her great-uncle, Davie Driscoll, has just come home after a rather lengthy stay at one of Her Majesty’s holiday camps. Eighteen years on the block can give a man a seriously bad attitude, as I am sure you can understand. So we have been watching you for a long time, and we know everything about you. Tell your cunt of a daughter that if after all this, we still have to give her a tug, it will not be in a friendly way. Tell her we want the money she owes, but mostly we want her to understand that she needs to show a bit of respect for other people. Namely Louise Parks, who has been fucking outed from her granddaughter’s life, and that is something that needs to be addressed. You explain to Imelda that now Davie Driscoll is back on the pavement, she had better start toeing the fucking line. Louise Parks has a brother whose gratitude for her constant loyalty towards him while banged up knows no bounds. She wrote to him, visited him, and she always made sure he had a few quid in his bin. I am here, Mary, as the good guy, I am trying to make you see just how perilous your position could be should you decide to ignore my advice. Davie wants to be a part of his great-niece’s life, and what Davie wants, Davie gets. He has taken it on himself to see that Louise is given her due where her only grandchild is concerned. He wants his great-niece in his life, and he wants you to make sure that happens in a friendly and decorous manner. He also wants your fucking daughter to pay her dues and, by doing so promptly, she will show the world at large that he has made an impression on her. If he has to do that with violence, he will. Explain that to Imelda in words and syllables she might understand. There’s no room for negotiation here, she has to do as she is told.’
Mary already knew that she was beaten, the fact they were on her doorstep, in her face, had told her that this was a serious matter. She knew it was not going to be something that could be sorted with a few words, or a few quid. She was too well connected to worry about trivia. So the news of her daughter’s latest fuck-up was not entirely unexpected.
Mary had known in the deep recesses of her mind that whatever this was all about it was going to cost her emotionally or financially; she had accepted that much.
It was the knowledge that Davie Driscoll was once more out and about and mixing with normal people that was the real shocker. He had been a friend of her old man’s, and she had grown up with him. They had gone to the same school, she had made her first Holy Communion with him. Davie was a seriously dangerous man, and he had done a seriously hefty lump inside. Like all the people in her world, she knew that money and property would always guarantee the big sentences; rob a bank and you were put away for the best part of fifteen years, rape or murder someone and you would be out within six. It was a fucking scandal.
Poor Davie had been unlucky enough to be caught at a time when the Filth were cracking down on the organised crime that was the staple of the London underworld. That the police involved had been the recipients of a large percentage of the money earned was neither here nor there, they had been under enormous pressure to put away the known criminals, had even leaked their arrests to the newspapers. Their double standards, and their acceptance of the way the world they were supposed to be policing was being run, had suddenly been questioned, their part in allowing it to exist in the first place had suddenly become common knowledge. Without the powers-that-be turning a blind eye to their blatant machinations, the known criminals would never have been capable of getting such a strong hold over the streets in the first place. It was like anything else: they needed each other to survive. Then it had all fallen out of bed in a spectacular fashion.
Like the Krays and the Richardsons before them, Davie Driscoll had suddenly become public enemy number one. The police and their counterparts, who had been lucky enough to benefit from the largesse of their criminal associates, were suddenly able to purchase nice properties, expensive holidays, a private education for their children and, more importantly, the goodwill of the men who paid their real wages. These were men who had no real loyalty to anyone or anything, they had taken the bribes and basked in the reflected glory of their friendships with the criminal involved. They loved the association that these men afforded them and had exploited their positions without a second’s thought. They had taken, and they had used, and they had never understood that they would never have been accepted into the world of Faces, they were classed as scum from the second they took a few quid. From the moment they became bent Filth, they were despised by everyone involved.
These same men, who had sold out their mates, and their colleagues, were now only too happy to arrest the very people who had made their affluent lifestyles possible. The late sixties and early seventies had not been a good time for anyone involved in the criminal fraternity. Consequently, men like Driscoll, who had weighed out heavily to guarantee their freedom, and who had seen it snatched from them by people who were in their eyes far more bent than they could ever be, were now being rehabilitated back into polite society and were possessed of what they saw as genuine axes to grind. And grind the fuckers they would.
Davie Driscoll had been put away as a youngish man, he had been in his prime. He had lost his wife and his kids within two years of being sentenced. She had gone on the trot with a bloke she had met on Romford Market, and he had not heard from her or his children since. He had not held her treachery against her, he had understood her need to have someone at her side. He knew that she had been lonely, had been a young woman, had wanted a life of sorts. He was only sorry that she had been forced to take his kids from him and he wished she had been brave enough to tell him how she felt to his face. He was sorry he had to lose his kids. But he was a realist, and he had decided that he had not wanted them to see him once a month behind bars. He knew his wife had been forced to take them away with her, and he understood her reasoning. He understood the fear that an eighteen-year sentence would have on a young woman still in her twenties, still stupid enough to believe in romance and love. A young woman needed a man in her bed, and in her home. So she had left him, and Davie had accepted her desertion because, in a strange way, he had actually admired her for making a clean break.
He had not been allowed out of prison to bury his parents, had not been allowed out to bury his sister’s child. He had not been allowed to shit, turn on a light switch or make a phone call without someone knowing about it. He was a very angry man, and he was also a very strong man. Both physically and emotionally. So he had come home at last, and he was determine
d to right a few of the wrongs he felt were well overdue for a large percentage of the population. He was without the kindness and the care that had once been a large part of his personality; prison had seen to that. A category prison, to be precise. He was the top of the prison food chain for all the good that had done him. He had been locked up for twenty-three hours a day, and he had seen the savageness that was needed to survive in the harsh world of the lifer.
The Davie Driscoll who had finally been released was a very different man to the one who had been put away all those years ago. He was now the proud possessor of patience, but he was also without mercy. He was only interested in getting what he saw as his due.
‘You can tell Davie from me that I will make sure that everything is sorted out to his satisfaction, and you can also tell him that I would have preferred it if he had come and talked to me in person. I ain’t exactly had it easy over the last few years meself. As for the kids, I have never stopped Louise from seeing them. You can tell Louise to pass that message on to her brother for me. I have to tread carefully where my daughter is concerned, as I am sure you know.’
James Marler grinned once more, he was not a bad man really, and Mary knew that. But if he had been keeping an eye on her for Driscoll, then her daughter was going to be caught up in trouble so perilous that she would be amazed if Imelda survived it. She was not known for her intelligence, or for her foresight. In fact, Davie Driscoll could end up being the making of her. Because, unlike everyone else she associated with, Davie would not let her daughter get away with anything.
