by Clive Barry
He was cold and totally exhausted from both pain and lack of sleep, but through inflamed broken lips and with tears running off his cheeks he tried to speak.
‘I tells Mr Hamiti last night, before hims beat me up too much, I tell hims, I no haves you money, Charlie he have’s it. Charlie, he live in Westernsides, I go many, many time to see hims, but hims lady say hims gone. What I can do?’
Demaci slowly walked around the recumbent body of Oggy, trying hard not to step in the excrement covering the floor.
‘Well Oggy, I’m going to tell you what you should have done. You should have first answered my calls and let me know what the situation was, then I may have been in a position to have assisted you, now unfortunately I can’t. Secondly this was all your responsibility, why this Charlie had anything to do with my business is beyond my understanding. I don’t know him, I’ve never met him, he doesn’t even work for me and yet, you say you’ve freely given him a considerable amount of my money and possessions, why would you do that?’
Oggy was shivering uncontrollably now, a mixture of cold, fear and shock, but he spent the next painful ten minutes trying to explain to Mr Donika Demaci the whole situation of how Charlie had ended up with the satchel of money and cocaine and how he’d visited and maintained surveillance on the house to no avail. He further explained about the comings and goings of Charlie’s wife and her brothers. At the end Oggy was so exhausted he could only mumble incoherently to himself.
‘I think we may be finished here Bashkim. Oggy seems to have served his purpose and is of no possible further use to either of us anymore. Do you happen to know this Charlie and where we might find him? If so, maybe you can speed young Oggy on to the remainder of his journey and after, please ensure word gets about that I’m not to be trifled with. You are fully aware of how I feel about respect and there seems to have been a complete lack of it lately. I shall wait for you in the car, please don’t keep me waiting too long.’
Donika Demaci walked outside into the now brilliant sunlight and once inside the passenger side of the Range Rover, removed his aviator Ray Ban sunglasses from the glove compartment and put them on. He then switched on the radio and continued to listen to Classic FM whilst awaiting the return of Bashkim Hamiti.
Inside the lock up, Hamiti had gleaned as much information about Charlie as he could and knew there was no more to be had from Oggy.
He stepped behind the exhausted slumped body and told him to relax it was all over, he would now be looked after.
As Oggy relaxed, Hamiti placed a comforting arm around his shoulder and with a quick twist and jerk of Oggy’s head, he broke his neck, cleanly, swiftly and very professionally.
The thin six inch, razor sharp flick knife that had been produced from Hamiti’s back pocket, slid slowly across opening Oggy’s throat from ear to ear, this was a symbol, a warning to others. Night, night, young Oghuz Ahmet Galata from Mersin, Turkey, sweet dreams.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘What about these our Mam? We love these,’
Little Charlie was up and down the Tesco aisles as though competing in the finals of the Supermarket Sweep, with Georgia’s little legs running closely behind, trying her hardest to keep up.
‘No Charlie, I know your tryin to help us pet, but we don’t need all that, its only to tide us over the weekend and a few extra treats while we watch the telly.’
Sally was trying her hardest to curb the children’s enthusiasm, but it seemed as though it may have been a lost cause. She also had to be very careful that she didn’t give the impression of someone who had money. She was supposed to be going into Social on Monday, pleading poverty as a mother whose husband had walked out on her and two young children, without providing a penny for them before he left, the bastard.
Sally went to the checkout and started to place her shopping on the conveyor feed. As the checkout woman scanned the items, Sally realised how much it was going to cost and stopped her.
‘I think maybe I gone a bit daft and put too much in the trolley. Can yeh tell us how much I’ve spent up to now, cos I may hafta put summit back.’
The checkout lady looked at her with a sympathetic knowing smile and nodded.
‘Aye pet, at the moment it comes to fifteen pounds twenty five pence, is that okay or do yeh wanna change summit?’
Sally pursed her lips and blew.
‘Okay, let’s get rid of this, this and this, I only got a twenty on us and its gotta last us the weekend, what’s that look like now?’
The checkout lady re-cashed the shopping and gave a final price of seventeen pounds and thirty pence which included the remainder of what had been left in the trolley.
Sally smiled, paid and left with three bags of groceries. We can live like kings on this she thought, must remember to be careful in future though.
The three of them walked home laughing and joking as they went and as they turned up the path to the front door they were totally oblivious of the white transit van parked at the end of the road, with two very large ‘gentlemen’ sat in the front seats, carefully monitoring and recording theirs and everyone else’s movements on their Garmin dash cam.
Sally unpacked the shopping while the kids ran upstairs and put their pyjamas on for a night on the settee in front of the telly, watching cartoons and then later Britain’s Got Talent until bedtime.
Sally made them all a little buffet and put it on a tray on the coffee table in the living room. Then whilst the kids were absorbed in watching Shrek for the umpteenth time on DVD, she went and gave her mam a quick phone call.
They both nattered for a good half hour with dad giving his considered opinion every now and then, after which they said their night, nights and hung up. Sally went upstairs stripped off and changed into her pyjamas and now clean bathrobe which she’d soaked in bleach, washed and scrubbed to remove all the remaining blood stains and was now looking as good as new. She then went down to join the kids for the rest of the evenings telly.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘So, did he say anything?’
Demaci asked Hamiti as he was stepping back into the driver seat of the Range Rover for the ride back into the city,
‘Yes, Mr Demaci, he gave me an address for this Charlie, but there seems to be confusion as to whether this individual is actually living there or has gone off somewhere.’
Donika Demaci was gazing out of the nearside passenger window at the old dilapidated ruins that had once been such magnificent buildings. Lived in by prosperous businessmen and their well to do families. Kept segregated from the slums of the workers who had toiled to make them rich in the first place. There seemed somehow to be a poetic justice that these once fine buildings would became the slums of the late twentieth century before they were demolished.
‘Okay, after the boys get rid of the remains of Oggy, send them around to keep an eye on the house and see if this Charlie person returns. Do we know what he looks like? Have we got a description at all?’
Hamiti started the engine and gave the big car a few rev’s.
‘Yes sir, I don’t think it will be too difficult to recognise him,’
‘Good, good, take me back to my apartment, I have work I can be getting on with. Keep your phone handy and call me if there are any developments, I shouldn’t need you for the rest of the day, but make sure the boys keep you updated.’
Hamiti nodded acknowledgement and pulled away.
The drive back was without incident and neither of them spoke. Hamiti dropped his boss outside the front doors to the tower block, then drove off in the Range Rover to his own flat, farther outside of town.
Later in the afternoon Hamiti received a call from the two men watching Sally’s house explaining that her and the kids had arrived back with their shopping and were in the house, but up until now there was no sign of the husband Charlie.
‘Okay’ said Hamiti, ‘give it a couple of hours until everyone is settled for the evening then go in discreetly and look around. We need to somehow
confirm that this Charlie person has not actually been hiding in the house all the time and before you leave, give the woman a word of advice. Tell her to get a message to her husband, we want our property back.’
After the skies had become dark, one of the large bulks of man mountain stepped out from the van and walked up and across to number 35 Frazer Avenue. He could hear the television on in the living room, so he tried the front door handle, it was unlocked and he quietly stepped inside shutting the door silently behind him. Sally was in the kitchen, he could hear her talking on her mobile. In the living room he could hear the kids laughing at Shrek the movie, so he warily climbed the stairs in the darkness to have a look around.
For a man of his bulk and size, it would have seemed impossible for him to move so quietly, but everyone else was preoccupied with whatever it was they were doing and no one gave a second thought to the oversized prowler walking around the house in the dark.
He checked the main bedroom first, making sure not to disturb anything, he looked under the bed, in the cupboard, nothing. The bathroom was small, too small for him to enter comfortably, so he just poked his head around the door, the last room was the kid’s bedroom. Just as he entered, he heard Sally climb the stairs and enter her own bedroom next door, pulling the cord for the light switch by the side of the doorframe as she walked in. He waited a short while, then stepped out of the children’s room to go quietly back down the stairs.
Sally’s bedroom door was half open and as he walked past he could see her getting changed. She had her back to him and was totally naked, reaching for her pyjamas off the top of the bed. He watched silently for a few seconds, before walking back down the stairs to quickly look in the kitchen.
It was cluttered with the usual untidiness of a young family, but nothing of any interest to him, so he entered the living room.
Little Charlie and Georgia looked up at the huge bull of a man, who apart from the skin colour, could quite easily have passed as the green ogre himself.
‘No be afraid, I no hurt you,’ he whispered in a deep rumble to the now terrified children, ‘where you papa? where Charlie? he is here?’
Just then Sally came bounding through the door, a second later she was swinging at him, she didn’t even come up to the shoulder of his twenty five stone frame. The punches she was throwing were glancing off him and having absolutely no effect, he then held her firmly by the wrists, so he could pass on the message from his boss before he left.
Sally had heard a man’s voice, but thought it must be the television. When she walked in through the living room door and nearly collided with the voice, it was with total shock and horror.
‘Who’re you? what you doin in my ‘ouse? gerrout now!’
Sally flung herself with arms flaying at the massive figure in front of her, but to no avail. Her wrists were grabbed solidly by two vice like hands.
‘I no come hurt you okay lady, only speaks at you. Charlie he live here, you say him return things not belong him now and then no trouble, he no return, then big trouble. You tell him muss be quickly though.’
At that the massive humanoid turned and walked out of the door as silently as he had entered. Sally ran after him and double bolted the front door, she then turned back into the living room hugging both frightened kids to her on the settee.
Once Sally’s heart had slowed to an almost steady rhythm again, she explained to the bairns that everything was okay and there was nothing for them to worry about. Then she phoned Paul.
This being Saturday night, Paul and Mike had walked up to the Ship and Anchor for a few bevvie’s and a bit of banter with the local lads. They’d already consumed several pints each so were well on their way to being very relaxed when Paul’s phone rang.
‘Hya princess, whatcha after at this ‘our?’ Paul slurred down the phone.
‘Are yeh drunk?’ Sally questioned.
‘Not yet our Sal, but well on me fuckin’ way, why whussup?’
Sally explained about the big man that had let himself in through the front door. The man who had terrified her and the kids and she asked Paul what she should do about it.
‘Well, if yeh really wan’ me ‘onest fuckin’ opinion, nowt,’ Paul slurred, ‘jus’ fuckin’ leave it for now and go on up to bed. I can’t see anyone doin fuck all tonight, they’re afta Chas an’ he aint even there now is he? Tha’s who they fuckin’ lookin’ for. I’ll be round in the mornin and we’ll talk proper then, you go off to bed an’ don’t you fuckin’ worry sweetheart.’ Paul then hung up.
Sally looked at her phone as though Pauls face was there looking back at her and mimicked her older brother.
‘Just go up to bed he said, just go up to bed and don’t worry he said, what’s the point, how the fuck am I gonna sleep?’
‘Away kids, give your mam a hand with this.’
There was only one thing for it, Sally needed to barricade herself into her own home and so she locked the front and back doors, removing the keys. She then had the kids help her carry the heavy wooden coffee table from the living room into the front passage and wedge it on its end under the front door handle. Now if anybody tried to enter, it might not stop them, but at least it would make one God awful noise when it was pushed over.
Sally then went into the kitchen and looked at what could be done to prevent the back door from being opened and with a lot of tugging and pulling, her and the kids managed to disconnect the plumbing at the back and push the heavy automatic washing machine in front of it.
All the downstairs windows had blinds on them. Vertical in the living room and venetian in the kitchen, which Sally thought probably wouldn’t stop anyone, but just might put them off trying to enter if they had to make too much noise getting in.
She didn’t think the big man that she’d found in her house would be able to fit through a window anyway, not even if his life depended on it. He didn’t need to, he could actually just walk through the bloody wall she thought with a shudder. But Oggy, now he would be able to climb through a window, he was young and looked nimble and agile enough.
‘I guess Oggy must have got sick of looking for Charlie and sent his big mate around instead,’ Sally thought, ‘Jesus, I hope Charlie didn’t take anything from that big lad or we’re well knackered.’
She had no sooner completed her fortifications, when there was a loud banging at the front door. Sally froze, the kids ran to her with arms wrapped around her legs for protection. ‘I don’t even have a bloody weapon,’ she thought. The knocking came a second time and with it a voice from the other side of the front door.
‘Away our Sal love, lerrus in, I need a pee.’
Sally recognised the voice of her biggest brother and hurriedly removed the coffee table and after finding the front door key, unlocked and opened the door.
Paul ran quickly past her, legging it straight up the stairs. Mike followed, staggering slowly through the front door and standing in the small passage with a big stupid smile on his face.
‘I went out in the front garden,’ he grinned.
Paul completed his ablutions and came down the stairs, fastening his flies as he descended.
‘Jesus man, I thought yeh wasn’t gonna lerrus in there Sal, I was bustin’.’ Paul said.
‘What are you two doin here, I thought yeh weren’t comin’ round ‘til t’morrow,’ said Sally.
‘Aye, but I got to thinkin’ while I was suppin. If it wasn’t Oggy that came round, then it had to be one of them big bastard Albanian lads, sent by the boss man and if that’s the case, then you shouldn’t be here by yourself.’
Mike just stood swaying, nodding in agreement with everything his big brother said.
‘So, our Mike and me, well we figured we may as well crash ‘ere the night, cos you probably wouldn’t a slept anyway, didn’t we Mike?’
Mike was feeling no pain and his swaying was starting to make Sally feel seasick.
‘Away in the kitchen, I’ll put the kettle on.’ Sally finally said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEN
Bashkim Hamiti woke early, showered and drank his coffee before phoning the two men who should be sat in the white transit watching 35 Frazer Avenue. It was six o clock and the telephone rang five times before it was answered.
‘I hope you were not sleeping, because that would mean you were not doing your job and if you are unable to do your job, then I have no further use of you.’
Hamiti was speaking in the men’s own local dialect of Gheg. They’d all lived close to the same area as each other in the northern part of their Albanian homeland.
‘No sir everything is okay. Some men came late last night and nobody else. The men did not fit the description of this person we are looking for.’
‘Okay,’ said Hamiti, ‘I’ll get someone to relieve you. Please stay there until they arrive, and I think I may take a drive over myself in a little while to have a talk.’
Hamiti hung up and was about to leave when his phone rang, it was Mr Demaci.
‘Good morning Bashkim, is there any news about this Charlie person yet?’
‘No not yet sir, I have spoken with our people outside the house and they have advised me that he is not in the house and never turned up during the night. They did say however that two other men arrived. I’d intended to go over there later in the day to have a word if that’s okay with you.’
There was a few seconds silence on the other end of the phone then Demaci replied,
‘Yes, that might be a good idea. Find out from the woman where her husband is and put a little gentle persuasion her way. Call me later if you have something for me.’
