by Martina Cole
She didn’t move. She waited until she heard the door clang shut, and then she opened her eyes, glad to be by herself again. She couldn’t help feeling like she had won something. It was a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. She spat the blood out of her mouth. She could feel the throb of her eye as it started to close, and the stinging from the cut on her lip. She tried to pull herself up into a sitting position, but she couldn’t manage it. She welcomed the pain from her face; the fresh hurt took her mind off her other ills. She lay there, unable to move her body any more, praying to God for sleep to take her. While she was asleep she couldn’t feel pain, she wasn’t reminded of the state she was in, or the fact she was going to die chained to a bed. She couldn’t think about how she had neglected her little son, or how she had wasted her young life, and all because she had seen the dark side of her parents’ lives. Jake had been a constant reminder of her mistakes – she had always seen him as a symbol of her stupidity. Now, after this, she would give anything to turn back the clock, and do everything right – do what her father had urged her to do from the very beginning: stand up and face her responsibilities. She had fought him every step of the way and now it seemed so fucking futile. She had lain here and thought it over in depth, and accepted that she had not hurt anyone except herself.
She looked up at the ceiling. Her tears were rolling down her face – she could feel them dripping into her ears, and she didn’t even wipe them away.
Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty-Three
‘Right then, people.’ Arthur Hellmann was oblivious to most of what had been going on around him; that was his biggest failing as a human being, and his biggest asset as a computer whiz. ‘From what I can work out, the person you’re looking for is located within a one-quarter mile radius. He is in Essex, within two miles of Romford. The phone itself is registered to someone called Malcolm Briers, whose address, believe it or not, is within two miles of Romford. The address is White Farm on the Rainham Road. It was a clever fucking scam, I tell you. If I didn’t have access to every fucking mobile number on the planet, we would never have located the fucker. He was well hidden. And if he had not left his phone on, I would never have found the bastard.’
Michael was listening to the man with absolute amazement. After all this time, this fucking weirdo had actually managed to track the bastard down, when even the police couldn’t manage to do it. Michael was almost beside himself with euphoria – at last he had a fucking lead.
Arthur looked at the men around him warily. ‘Look, it doesn’t mean he’s there. It just means that is where it’s all registered. But the phone was used within that area recently.’
Michael hugged the man to him. ‘You fucking diamond! Whatever happens, mate, you get your wedge. At least you have given us a place to start. I could fucking kiss you!’
Declan was laughing now. He felt the same euphoria as Michael; this was a real fucking result.
Timothy Branch watched the two men as they bowled out of the room together. He felt he had failed; and of course he had – miserably. Turning to Arthur Hellmann, who was one weird-looking fucker, he said arrogantly, ‘What you just did is illegal, you do know that?’
Hellmann laughed in his face. He couldn’t give a toss what this man thought of him or his methods. If he worked within the law he would never have found out anything! No one would. Their hands were tied, Freedom of Information Acts, etc., etc. It was laughable. This was why he earned the big bucks – this man had to know that better than anybody.
Poking a finger into Branch’s face, he said sarcastically, ‘So fucking arrest me then! I dare you.’ Hellmann hoped that he was fifty grand up on this deal – that was the asking price for locating Michael Flynn’s daughter. He had followed the phone, followed the trail, he just hoped that he had done enough.
Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty-Four
Michael was buzzing as they drove out of East London – finally he was actually doing something constructive. It had been a long time coming; this mad fucker was so elusive, he was beginning to think he would never find him. It was the first time in his life that he had been unable to meet a problem head on. He had been at the top of his game for so long, it was unbelievable to think that anyone could have got the better of him. It galled him, it unnerved him, if he was honest.
‘I am going to kill this cunt with my bare hands, Declan. How dare he bring this to my door? Whatever might have happened in the past, his fucking beef was with me, not my family. I’m the one who fucked up.’ He laughed sarcastically. ‘Or, more to the point, Patrick was the one who fucked up. He knew what he was asking me to do. But what I can’t get my head round is that, of all the people I have taken out for whatever fucking reason, the only time it’s come back to bite me on the arse, is the one time I never intended to hurt a fucking soul. I would never have done that for anyone. Taking out women and children? That’s a fucking no-brainer. I would never have agreed to that.’
Declan sighed. He could understand Michael’s feelings. He kept his voice neutral as he said calmly, ‘It’s all relative. That’s in the past, Michael. All you can do now is sort out this shit as best you can.’
They were sitting in traffic at the Lodge Avenue roundabout in Barking. It was so frustrating. Michael was grasping the steering wheel with both hands, he was sweating all over, his fury and impatience intense now. He had no other choice – he had to sit there patiently until the traffic moved. There was nothing else he could do.
Declan could feel the man’s tension – it was understandable, but it was also threatening to get out of control. He lit them both cigarettes, and he passed one to Michael. Then they were on the move. Michael manoeuvred his Mercedes through the traffic skilfully and, as they edged towards Dagenham, he said with obvious relief, ‘Another five minutes in that traffic and I would have run fucking riot through Barking.’
Declan laughed with him; he felt the same way. It was dark now, and the sky was heavily laden with rain clouds. It was close, stormy, and it added to the feeling of urgency. As it started to spit, Michael put on the windscreen wipers. He was already relaxing as they passed the Ford Motor Works along the A13, and slipped into Rainham. After all this time, he finally had a fucking goal to head for.
‘Every time I think of that picture of my Jessie I feel like screaming. And my mum’s dead, Declan – I know it’s true, but I just can’t take it in. She was struck down in her own home, on her own fucking doorstep. How the fuck can this have happened to me? It’s like a fucking living nightmare.’ He wanted to cry again. The absolute power of his emotions amazed him. ‘My old mum, for all her attitude, was always fucking good to me, Declan. She worked every hour God sent when I was a kid, and I never wanted for anything. She would have given me the food out of her mouth, I know that. I’ve always known that.’
Michael drove past Rainham Clocktower, and out towards the country lanes. They were nearly there now, and he could feel the adrenaline starting to kick in.
‘My mum always said that Josephine was a selfish cunt, and she was right. I wouldn’t listen to her. When Josephine first started hoarding food, all those years ago, my mum said I needed to nip it in the bud. But I didn’t listen to her – I treated her like she was the fucking enemy. I just pretended that it wasn’t happening. But she was proved right. If I had put my foot down from the off, I know that all this shit with Josephine would never have got this far. I stood by as my wife gradually retired from real life. All that money I have shelled out on psychiatrists for her, and they say the same thing – it takes time. She is mentally ill! Well, fuck me, Declan, I don’t know about them, but I had already fucking worked that one out for myself. Hardly rocket science, is it? If it wasn’t for Dana, Jake would never leave the house. That great, big, expensive fucking house, situated in its own grounds, with its thirty-grand kitchen, and its two full-time gardeners, and my wife lives in two rooms and, it seems, can’t bring herself to make a phone call that might save her
only daughter’s life. All that money I have weighed out to get her help, and she is still unable to open a letter or dial a fucking telephone. How fucking messed up is that? This new bloke she’s got on her case now – a right fucking arrogant cunt he is and all – is giving me lists of books I should be reading to acquaint myself with my wife’s condition. Well, I pointed out to him, in the nicest possible way, that I was paying him good money to do all of that for me, and there was an old saying: why have a fucking dog and bark your fucking self. I was very angry at the time, and I think he noticed that. Suffice to say, Declan, he soon got with the fucking project.’
He slowed the car down. They were on the Rainham road, and he parked in a layby. ‘We’re here. The farm entrance is down the end of this lane.’
Michael got out of the car. It was raining hard now. Opening up the boot, he took out a large handgun, and passed it to Declan. He took out a Glock 22 for himself. It was his weapon of choice – lightweight, and easy to use; it was also easy to dispose of. It could be stripped down to nothing.
‘I am so looking forward to meeting Mr Steven Golding, and blowing his fucking head right off.’
He shut the car boot carefully. He turned towards his old friend, and said gravely, ‘I will never forget how good you’ve been to me, Declan, through all of this. I really have appreciated how you’ve stood by me through everything. I know that you have talked me down on more than one occasion, and stopped me from screwing this up completely. I appreciate just how good a friend you are, Declan.’
Declan was moved by Michael’s words; he knew how hard it was for him to even say them. ‘Look, Michael, you know that I will always have your back.’
Michael grinned sadly. ‘Do you know the worst thing about this for me? The one thing that I’ve learnt from this shit is that it all means nothing. Everything that we’ve worked for, everything that we’ve achieved, all the fucking stunts we’ve pulled to get what we wanted from life, all that planning, and forward thinking, all those fucking years we put into it and it turned out that it was for sweet F A, sweet fuck-all. We chased the fucking dollar day and night, living the so-called dream! The leaders of everyone around us, responsible for every fucking earn, as well as the people who we allow to gather up said earn for us. And it was a fucking waste of time. We have squandered so much of our lives accumulating money, power, things and, in reality, neither of us has a single thing of use to show for any of it. How fucking sad is that?’
Declan shrugged theatrically, and he said with a laugh, ‘Well, when you put it like that, Michael . . .’
Michael was amazed to hear himself laughing, but he was. If anyone had said that he could have found any amusement in this situation he would have thought them mad. But Declan Costello had made him laugh, and that was something good. It felt so good to laugh, to really laugh, to find some humour at last.
They looked at each other for a few moments and then they walked side by side towards White Farm.
Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty-Five
White Farm was a smallholding, and it had been a rental property for over two years. There were no animals there any more, but the barns and the outbuildings were still in a very good state of repair. The old couple who had lived there since before the War had died within a few days of each other. Their only son, a grammar-school boy they had both doted on, had emigrated to Canada in the early sixties. His education had eventually alienated him from the people who had happily bankrolled him through university, and who had eventually paid his fare out to Toronto. They had never seen him again – or met his wife, or his children, or their great-grandchildren – but they had been very proud of him, and they had cherished the Christmas cards and photos he had sent to them sporadically. When they died he had arranged his parents’ burials, and he had then arranged for the farm he had grown up on to be rented out until property prices started to rise in the UK once again. It had all been done over the phone, and, like all absentee landlords, he had no idea of who might be occupying his old homestead. The rental agents had even less interest and, for someone like Steven Golding, that was a situation he could exploit without fear of anyone ever bothering to chase him up, or even having to meet with anyone face to face. As long as the rent was paid promptly and, in his case, three months in advance, no one could give the proverbial flying fuck.
He had found all the old couple’s belongings stored in the attic; their whole lives were packed into a few boxes. A life of occasional letters and greetings cards, the haphazard affection of a son who had left them both behind as soon as he could. He had hated the son who had walked away from parents who had loved him dearly.
Steven Golding sat at the kitchen table, a big scrubbed-pine monstrosity, that was very old and very scarred. It had seen a lot of use over its lifetime, that was evident. There were people who would pay a lot of money for it, he knew that. People who had to buy other people’s lives, other people’s possessions, because they didn’t have anything of such value in their own families. It was a sad fact, but it was true.
The rain had stopped, but the wind was gathering momentum. It was early October, and autumn was already settling in. Steven Golding stood up quickly, and glanced around him, pleased that the kitchen looked so clean and tidy. He looked at his watch – it was after eight, and he made his way down into the cellar, locking the heavy door behind him carefully. No one was ever getting past that door, it was like Fort Knox. The smell assailed his nostrils, and he smiled at the discomfort he knew it must be causing Jessie Flynn. He stepped carefully down the stairs, and walked to where she was still lying on her bed.
She looked terrible. Her legs were swollen and they looked so painful. Her face was porcelain white, the skin tight on her skull, and her eyes had sunk back into their sockets. She was dying, and she knew that as well as he did. Her breathing was laboured – every breath she took was a long and drawn out wheeze, loud in the quiet of the basement.
‘Jessie, Jessie, wake up, lovely.’ He was shaking her roughly and, as she opened her eyes, he bent over her. ‘I need to talk to you, Jessie. You’re dying, but I think you’ve worked that out for yourself, haven’t you? Your dad should have been here by now. I really thought he would have found you a lot quicker than this.’
She didn’t say anything; she was still trying to focus on him, trying to pull herself into the real world.
Steven Golding could see that Jessie Flynn was too far gone for him to have any kind of meaningful conversation with her; she had deteriorated rapidly in the last twelve hours. Her condition shocked him – he had thought she was a much stronger person, and thought she would have fought much harder than she had done. In the beginning she had been so cocky, so arrogant, threatening him with her dad. She had been convinced that he would help her. She had assumed this was about money – money was all people like the Flynns understood. When she had finally realised that it wasn’t about him getting a ransom, that she was never going to be rescued, never going to leave this basement, she seemed to have succumbed to the inevitable. It was not what he had expected – he was not pleased about this turn of events.
He walked over to the tap by the stairs, and filled a bucket with cold water. Walking back over to her, he threw the contents into her face, drenching her. But, other than trying to catch her breath, which was a natural reaction, the shock of the cold water did nothing to revive her. He could see her trying to focus on him, on her surroundings, and he felt a sudden, fleeting moment of sorrow for her. He had quite liked her, and that wasn’t something he had been prepared for – had certainly never expected.
He looked down at her; she was clearly unable to understand what was happening around her. It occurred to him that the infection from her ankles had probably entered her bloodstream, and she was likely suffering from blood poisoning. Even with the stench of faeces in the room, he could still detect the underlying odour of her rotting flesh. It was a sour smell, a heavy, cloying stench that seemed to rise up from her skin, and enve
lop the very air around her body. It was sharp in the nostrils, made your eyes water, and it smelt like imminent death.
He grabbed her hand, and held it gently between his palms. She was in a sorry state all right. But what could he do? This was what he had intended to happen. He had been left with nobody, all because Patrick Costello had held a grudge against his father. Costello had a perfect alibi for that night, and Steven had finally worked out that Michael Flynn, Costello’s up-and-coming young wannabe, had done the dirty deed in his name. He had poured the petrol through the letterbox, and he had wiped out a whole family to better himself. All that so he could become Patrick Costello’s blue-eyed boy. Well, as the Bible said, be sure your sins will find you out.
Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty-Six
Michael and Declan had made their way around the property, carefully and quietly creeping towards the back of the house. It wasn’t a large property – a pre-war, two-storey, red-brick house, with no aesthetic value. It was still in possession of its old-style Crittall windows – there was nothing of any beauty to give the house its own identity. It was very well built, but it needed a lot of work on it if anyone was going to live there for any length of time. It had been neglected, and that showed.
Michael looked through the kitchen window; other than this room, the house was in utter darkness. There were no outside lights either, and that was something both Michael and Declan were glad about. It made their life much easier. The kitchen was fairly large, and it looked like something from the Discovery Channel. It had faded yellow linoleum and hand-made wooden cupboards, the cooker was an old gas model, with an eye-level grill pan, and only three burners. The oven didn’t look large enough to cook anything bigger than a family-sized chicken. Other than a modern electric kettle, the place could have been a museum.
