‘Do you want some coffee?’ I asked in an attempt to defuse the atmosphere.
He nodded, fingering a notch on the edge of the dining table.
I put the kettle on and opened the window to let some fresh air in. The anger and the fear were clamped around my limbs like a straitjacket.
‘Do you know if Emma had a boyfriend?’ I opened cupboards, searching for sugar.
‘She broke up with Danny.’
‘So she wasn’t seeing anyone new?’
‘No…’ He shook his head, picking at a splinter. ‘She would have mentioned it.’
‘What was her friend’s name?’
‘It was Jenny who she was meeting, Jenny Hillier.’
‘Do you mind if I speak to her, just to ask her a couple of questions?’
He shrugged, his finger bleeding. ‘Sure, I can give you her number.’
I nodded and strained the coffee.
‘Black,’ Pat said. ‘Just black.’
‘Shall I take one upstairs?’
‘Whatever. She won’t speak to you.’ He didn’t seem to care.
I hovered with two coffees in my hands.
‘I’ll find him,’ I said. ‘I don’t want more than twenty grand, I’ll find him.’
‘Don’t kill him.’ Pat looked up from his coffee with blank eyes. ‘You won’t kill him until I see him. I want to make him hurt, I want to make him fucking bleed.’
‘I know.’ I glanced upwards again and indicated with the coffee. ‘I’m just going to…’
He waved a hand, apparently losing interest in my actions.
I left the kitchen and went upstairs; pictures glared at me from every wall. All the doors were shut apart from one, which was ajar. There was no light inside. I nudged it open with my shoulder and she looked up sharply from where she was sitting on the floor beside the bed, knees brought close to her chest.
‘Sorry… It’s er, me. I was just bringing some coffee.’
She didn’t acknowledge me but looked away again. Her clothes were unchanged but she looked thinner under them. Still the grey cocktail dress and cardigan, still dressed for the missed social occasion.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ I came inside and put the coffee down on the dressing table. ‘Something to eat?’
The side of her face was shiny with tears and the blue eyes were shot with red.
I couldn’t put my arms around her this time, not like before, so I sat down beside her instead, mirroring her pose. A few minutes went by before I realized how cold it was. I reached up past her and held the cup of coffee in front of her face.
‘You should warm up,’ I said.
Eventually, when I refused to move, she took it without looking at me and rested it on her knees. When she brushed her hair behind her ear I noticed a new bruise on her wrist next to the old scars.
I stood up, went back downstairs and saw that my bag had disappeared from where I had left it by the door. I stared at the doormat as if it might appear, rerunning through the memory of letting it drop from my hand.
I whirled around, thinking of the photos, and saw Pat sitting at the kitchen table. As I came closer I saw them, spread out in a collage of blood and open wounds. Pat was leaning over, looking far too closely, eyes right up against the glossy prints, against the bin liners and blood and naked skin that he had once called his daughter.
My bag was by the foot of his chair.
I saw his fist tighten around the glass as he heard my footsteps.
‘Hey!’ My hand went for the photos.
He grabbed the front of my shirt and the glass hit the floor.
‘Fucking what!’ he snarled.
I slammed his arm into the granite worktop and twisted it up behind him. The alcohol gave me the advantage over his superior height.
‘Don’t touch me again.’
‘Fuck off,’ he spat through gritted teeth.
My heart was pounding. ‘Don’t you dare fucking touch me again.’
‘I won’t! Get off!’ Pat wrenched his arm away, swaying. He put a hand to his mouth and vomited a dark grey mixture of vodka and bile into the sink.
I gathered the photos and picked up my bag.
Pat leant against the counter, his lips resting against his fist and his eyes on the window. He was shaking.
‘I’m… sorry,’ I said.
It took him a while to speak.
‘No one’s fault but mine,’ he replied.
I was parked on a kerb in the Audi, blowing cigarette smoke out of the window in the direction of Edie’s house. It was a stylized, calculated assault of modernity, very much like the woman herself. It was all glass and right angles; so modern it was almost ironic.
At least it used to be her house. I doubted whether she still lived there. I didn’t know what time Sidney usually got home, but I had no better way to spend the afternoon. He might have been out, taking his son somewhere, maybe visiting family…
Best to have nothing to lose.
That was how I had always done things. Apart from the firearms and the roof over my head and other transient objects there was nothing to become attached to. Friends and relatives and children were for people who could hold a conversation for more than ten minutes without wanting to beat the other person into the floor, who could handle small talk and network and do all of the things people were required to do in social situations.
When I had finished my third cigarette I switched my phone back on to keep myself amused. I sank down in my seat, put my feet up on the dashboard and scrolled through text messages.
The writing on my hand was still visible.
‘Who is K?’
Thinking back to the photos now, and the blood, I was almost certain Emma had been moved.
The phone started vibrating and I answered it because I was too bored to ignore it any more.
‘Hey, it’s me.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I shut my eyes at the sound of my sister’s harsh cockney twang. ‘What do you want, Harriet?’
‘Er, I need a favour…’
‘How did I guess?’
‘I’m not doing too good. I had this fight and I got fired and… I just need a little bit of cash. Just a little bit; I’ll pay you back, I promise. It’s just until I find another job.’
It was almost funny, the regularity and predictability of these requests.
‘Why were you fired?’ I asked.
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘It never is.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘So what happened to the last five hundred I gave you?’
She hesitated. What was most insulting was that she didn’t even bother to sound convincing. Like other addicts I had come across she didn’t speak for herself any more; everything she said was a stock phrase used on everybody in order to get what she wanted. When one didn’t work she moved on to another.
‘Um… well, I had to pay off a few debts, and—’
‘Don’t give me that shit, it went to your fucking dealer.’
There was a silence.
‘I only need a couple of hundred, just to pay off this debt and pay my rent and then I’m done, I promise. Oh come on, it’s not as if you need it!’
She had managed to go from self-pity to excuses and then on to anger in less than a minute. I had the option, as I did every time, to tell her to piss off and make her own way, but even as I entertained the thought I knew it would never happen. I hated her sometimes, most of the time these days, but not nearly as much as I hated myself for giving her the money.
‘Yeah, you’re always a couple of hundred quid away from being done, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘It would be nice to hear a promise from you one day that I think you might actually keep.’
‘Oh please, I really need to pay this guy off and I don’t have anywhere else to—’
‘OK, Harriet, OK.’ I just wanted the call to be over. ‘How much do you want, two hundred?’
‘Er, could you make it three?’
I shook my head, fist tightening aro
und the wheel. ‘Fine, three hundred. You can come and pick it up yourself, I’m not gonna waste any petrol money on you.’
‘Thanks, Nic, I promise—’
‘Whatever.’
I ended the call. Our parents gave her money too; it wasn’t just me, but that didn’t make me feel much better. Sometimes I caught myself wishing that our childhoods had been harder, more traumatic from an early age. I wished that Dad had been stricter or Mum had drunk too much, that either of them had done anything to unburden us of the responsibility for how our lives had turned out. It wasn’t their fault, none of this was, but that was the problem.
Tony was the only one who refused to pay. I knew she had stopped asking him years ago, way before he went to Afghanistan. She had stopped seeing him because he was of no use to her, and around the same time I had also started avoiding him. I suspected the real reason was that he reminded us too much of our own failures, but I didn’t like to dwell on it.
Sidney’s car pulled into the driveway across the road.
It was half past four.
I memorized the number plate and watched Edie’s son, Scott, walking up the drive holding a gym bag. He looked in his early teens and held himself like his mother. Sidney was tall, Scandinavian, square-jawed. From the one time I had met him in Edie’s club a few years ago I remembered that he was quite softly spoken for someone with his build.
I checked my watch again, just to be sure. Time was almost an obsession to me; it had to be, in my line of work. Nothing was more crucial than timing.
Two more minutes had passed.
It didn’t look like an easy house to break into, I thought. Someone would have to let me in, or I’d have to find another method of coercion…
Available now
About this Book
What is the price of revenge?
The day her parents and sister were murdered, Seven did not cry. Instead, she tried to forget. She vowed that one day she would be free from the sight of their blood.
But Seven could not forget. And now that she is part of London’s criminal underworld, she knows men who can maim; men who can kill. But they all have a price.
Will Seven betray her friends to avenge her family?
Reviews
“Taut, spare and gripping with unmistakeable undertones of Chandler, Ellroy and Rankin”
Red
“Hanna Jameson writes like an angel on speed… gripping, shocking and relentless”
Q Magazine
About this Series
LONDON UNDERGROUND
The London Underground series is set in the bleak ganglands of southeast London. An upmarket club, The Underground, forms the centre of this amoral, violent, and moneyed world: this is where drug smugglers and corrupt officials discuss business over cocktails and cocaine; where hit men devise honey traps with the gorgeous girls who work the poles...
1. Something You Are
Emma Dyer left her parents’ house yesterday morning. She was going to meet a friend. She never arrived. Her family assumes she has run off with a boyfriend. Until the police find her body: beaten, raped, shot, and dumped in an alley.
In South London, if you want someone to disappear, you call Nic Caruana. And Emma’s father doesn’t just want his daughter’s killers to disappear; he wants vengeance. He wants suffering. And he’s willing to pay for it. But first, Nic has to follow Emma Dyer through the final hours of her life…
Something You Are is available here.
2. Girl Seven
What is the price of revenge?
The day her parents and sister were murdered, Seven did not cry. Instead, she tried to forget. She vowed that one day she would be free from the sight of their blood.
But Seven could not forget. And now that she is part of London’s criminal underworld, she knows men who can maim; men who can kill. But they all have a price.
Will Seven betray her friends to avenge her family?
About the Author
HANNA JAMESON published her first novel, Something You Are, when she was just twenty-one. It was nominated for a CWA Dagger. She has lived in Australia, travelled Europe, Japan and the USA with bands such as the Manic Street Preachers and Kasabian, and worked for three years in the NHS. She is currently studying American History & Literature at the University of Sussex.
You can contact Hanna Jameson via twitter: @Hanna_Jameson
A Letter from the Publisher
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HeadofZeusBooks
The story starts here.
First published in the UK in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Hanna Jameson, 2014
The moral right of Hanna Jameson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781781851449
ISBN (TPB) 9781781851432
ISBN (E) 9781781851463
Head of Zeus Ltd
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Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
Display Options Notice
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Preview
About this Book
Reviews
About this Series
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Table of Contents
Welcome Page
Display Options Notice
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Preview
About this Book
Reviews
About this Series
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Contents
Girl Seven Page 28
