Schemer

by Kimberley Chambers

  Marge roared with laughter. ‘Oh, you are awful, Mar. When’s the old bastard’s funeral?’

  ‘Next Monday. Will you come to it with me, mate? I’d have buried him in Spain if I’d have had my way. Waste of bloody money flying him back home, if you ask me. I dunno if you know, but Jake had two daughters. He hadn’t seen ’em for years, he fell out with ’em when he split up with their mum, but because me and him weren’t married, they were his next of kin and they demanded the body get buried in England. I wonder how much he’s worth? He hated his ex-wife and never forgave his daughters for disowning him, so I doubt he’s left them fuck all. I know he made a new will in 1991, so I reckon I’ve copped the lot, don’t you?’

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, Mar, he must have been worth a fortune. I reckon you’ll be made for life, girl.’

  Slurping her drink, Marlene grinned. ‘Well, after sucking his sweaty little cock for years, I reckon I’ve more than earned me inheritance, don’t you?’

  Howling with laughter, Marge agreed.

  ‘That was a long five minutes,’ Wayne said sarcastically, when Stephanie finally reappeared. Tyler’s tantrums had driven him to distraction recently – so much so, he had even suggested taking the child for blood tests or a brain scan, but Stephanie had rejected the idea. She was one of these mothers who refused to believe that her son had anything wrong with him.

  ‘Sorry, Tyler wouldn’t settle. He didn’t sleep well last night and I think he’s been playing up today because he’s tired,’ Stephanie replied, apologetically.

  Not wanting to listen to the usual list of excuses his wife always made for their son’s abnormal behaviour, a hung-over Wayne came straight to the point. ‘So, what’s so urgent we need to talk about, that I can’t go to work?’

  Steph felt too stressed to put together a proper sentence, so she just blurted the crux of it out. ‘Barry Franklin’s back home.’

  ‘Yeah, I know he is. In fact, I’m gonna pop over to Dagenham and see him later on today,’ Wayne replied, casually.

  Stephanie looked at her husband-to-be in amazement. ‘How do you know that he’s home? You never said nothing to me! And when did you arrange to meet up with him?’

  ‘I knew Bazza was back in England because Martin Gowing rang me up yesterday and told me. You know that Jake the Snake geezer that Bazza’s mother fucked off to Spain with?’

  Stephanie nodded.

  ‘Well, Jake got murdered by a hit man a few weeks back and Bazza and his mum have flown home ’cause of the funeral and stuff. Martin has kept in touch with Bazza ever since he moved out to Spain, so he’s always kept me informed with how he’s doing out there.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Martin Gowing when he’s at home? And why the fuck didn’t you tell me all this before?’ Stephanie yelled. She had always hated secrets, especially ones like this.

  ‘Martin is mine and Bazza’s old pal from Bethnal Green. He kept in touch with Bazza when he moved out to Spain. I didn’t tell you that Bazza was back as I wanted to go and see him first. Once I’d seen him, providing he was OK about me and you, I was gonna tell you everything.’

  ‘So, when did you arrange to meet up with him?’ Steph yelled.

  ‘I haven’t arranged anything. I’m just gonna turn up at his sister’s gaff and offer him a handshake. He might turn round and chin me, Steph, after what happened, but I very much doubt it. Martin told me that Bazza’s recently got engaged to a stunning young bird over in Spain, so I doubt he’s that arsed about me and you being together now. Don’t forget, I saved Bazza’s life and stopped him from drowning when we were kids, so I’m sure he’ll be man enough to let bygones be bygones. Life’s too short to hold grudges, eh babe?’

  ‘I really don’t think you should go round there, Wayne. Why don’t you just let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Dragging up the past is never a good thing,’ Stephanie said, nervously. The thought of Wayne and Barry being pals again for some reason filled her with pure and utter dread.

  ‘I have to go and see him, Steph. When I nicked you off him I was just a boy, but I’m a man now and – whatever way you wanna look at it – I do owe Bazza an apology. This is why I never told you he was home. I knew you’d try and stop me from going to see him, but I have to smooth things over. Me and Bazza go back years and I’m sure once we have a man-to-man chat we can be pals once again. How did you know he was home, by the way? Did your mother tell ya?’

  ‘Yeah, my mum saw him pull up in a cab last night. You just do what you gotta do then, Wayne, but if it all goes Pete Tong, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Desperate not to upset Steph before the wedding, Wayne urged her to stand up and give him a hug. ‘Nothing’s gonna go wrong, babe, I promise you that much.’

  Stephanie was no psychic, but her innermost self told her that no good would come out of Wayne and Barry meeting up again. Clinging to her fiancé, Steph laid her worried head on his shoulder. ‘I hope you’re right, Wayne, for all our sakes, I really do.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Pam and Cathy were in their element as they discussed the comings and goings across the road. Stephanie had rung up earlier and had told her mum to keep an eye out for Wayne. ‘If Barry lays one finger on him, Mum, just ring the police immediately,’ she’d insisted.

  ‘Ere’s the old slapper now. Quick Pam, she’s just pulled up in a cab,’ Cathy screamed, as Pam walked up the stairs to use the toilet.

  Pam flew down the stairs like a bat out of hell.

  ‘She’s laughing and joking with the bleedin’ cab driver. She hardly looks like the grieving widow, does she?’ Cathy said.

  Nodding in agreement, Pam put her nose to the window as she saw Marlene go inside the house, then reappear. ‘What’s she got in her arms?’

  Cathy squinted. ‘Clothes, by the look of it. Dresses, I think, and she’s got two big carrier bags.’

  Pam hovered until the waiting taxi pulled away with Marlene inside it, then made a dash from the room. ‘I’m busting. Keep watch for me, Cath, and I’ll be back in a tick.’

  Wayne Jackman’s brain was working overtime as he drove towards Dagenham. His pal had just rung him to inform him that Barry Franklin was in the Church Elm pub, alone, and was awaiting his arrival. ‘What did you say to him, Mart? Did he sound calm or not?’

  ‘I just said that you were gonna shoot round and see him at his sister’s, and he said to tell you to meet him in the Elms. He sounded all right; he certainly didn’t have a cob on,’ Martin explained.

  Stopping at a red traffic light, Wayne checked out his hair in the interior mirror. He’d got showered and changed at the gym, and even though he was only venturing to some shit-hole boozer in Dagenham, he had opted to wear his best clobber. Barry had always had style himself and Wayne certainly wasn’t going to mug himself off by turning up like a tramp. As the lights turned to green, Wayne continued his journey. He didn’t think he was nervous about meeting up with Barry again, so he put his palpitations down to excitement, although couldn’t help feeling that Barry’s choice of venue had been chosen just to make him feel awkward. Why else would Barry want to meet him in the Church Elm pub if it wasn’t to bring home to him his wrongdoings of the past?

  Barry Franklin was sitting in the Church Elm pub at a table near the window. He had quite enjoyed sipping a couple of bottles of beer, while watching the traffic and shoppers go by. The Heathway had changed in the ten years since he had left Dagenham. There was a much bigger ethnic community and the shops now all looked tatty and extremely old fashioned. As Wayne Jackman bowled across the road, Barry spotted him immediately. With his suntan and designer clothes, he stood out like a sore thumb in Dagenham Heathway. Since moving to Spain, Barry had kept tracks on Wayne’s life. Wayne thought that Martin Gowing was his pal, but he wasn’t really. Gowing hated Wayne with a passion for stealing Steph off him, and he had only pretended to be friendly with Wayne as a favour to Barry. ‘I wanna know everything that cunt Jacko does, ’cause one day, when the time’s right, I’m gonna get me
own back,’ Barry had explained to Gowing many moons ago.

  Barry smirked as Wayne approached him with an outstretched right hand. He could sense that Wayne was dubious over the welcome he would receive. Ever the gentleman, Barry stood up to greet his old friend.

  ‘It’s been a fucking long time, ain’t it, Bazza?’ Wayne said, with more than a hint of anxiety in his voice.

  Staring at Wayne’s slighty quivering right hand, Barry smirked, then shook it. ‘It’s been far too long.’

  Stephanie was a bag of nerves when she set off to pick Dannielle up from an after-school birthday party. Waiting for the phone to ring when something important was at stake was the worst feeling in the world, and she had spent half the day staring at the plastic object.

  ‘Swee, Ma, swee,’ Tyler said, poking his mother in the arm.

  Steph was more than used to her son’s unconventional language and managed to understand his every want or need quite clearly. ‘We’ll stop for some sweeties in a bit, darling. But first we must pick Dannielle up from her party, else we’ll be late, OK?’

  Tyler grinned in approval. Even at his tender age, he knew that if his mum made a promise, she would deliver. His father was a different kettle of fish entirely.

  ‘Pass Mummy her phone,’ Stephanie asked, pointing to the object that was ringing on top of her handbag in the footwell. Tyler always sat in the front of the car with her, because he would kick off if she forced him to sit in the back.

  As her son bent down and handed her a hairbrush, Stephanie wanted to scream with frustration, but chose not to. ‘No, the phone Tyler, the phone,’ she said, as calmly as she possibly could.

  When Tyler looked at her blankly, Stephanie bumped the car onto the kerb and picked up the phone herself. She punched in her mother’s number. ‘Did you just ring me, Mum?’

  ‘Yes. I rang to tell you that me and Cath have been glued to the window for the past three hours and there’s been no sign of Wayne. The old slapper came home, then went out again, but that’s about all I’ve got to report.’

  ‘What about Barry? Have you seen him go in or out at all?’ Stephanie asked.

  ‘Nope. Not seen hide nor hair of him. Chantelle’s there though. She’s just ordered a pizza and paid the man at the door.’

  Thanking her mother for keeping look-out, Stephanie ended the call and punched in Wayne’s number. She had rung him six times in the past couple of hours but he hadn’t answered any of her calls. ‘Bollocks,’ she mumbled, as the phone rang and rang once again. She felt desperately inadequate. Say Barry had done something awful to Wayne? If he had it would be all her fault. She was the one who had forced both men to become part of a sordid love triangle in the first place.

  ‘La you, Mummy,’ Tyler uttered softly, as the tears rolled down Stephanie’s cheeks.

  Stephanie held her son close to her chest. ‘I love you too, boy. Let’s just both pray that Daddy will be OK, eh?’

  Tyler had no idea what his mother meant by the word pray, but seeing that she seemed so upset, he decided nodding was the best thing to do.

  Stephanie ruffled his hair. Tyler was such a handsome boy. With his blond hair and piercing blue eyes, he would have made a fabulous child model had he been better behaved.

  ‘Da be OK,’ Tyler said, trying to repeat his mother’s words.

  Stephanie smiled. Her son might not know what he was saying, but he was right. Of course his father would be OK. Wayne was no man’s fool and Steph was sure that any mud Barry Franklin chose to throw at him, her big, strapping fiancé was more than capable of slinging back twice as hard.

  Wayne Jackman stared at the paralytic man and woman who were getting louder and louder on the next table. There was so much he wanted to say to Barry and it was only the surroundings that were stopping him from doing so. ‘Are you in a rush to get back to your sister’s, Bazza? You gotta be anywhere later on?’

  ‘Nope. I ain’t gotta be nowhere.’

  ‘Look, tell me to fuck off if you want, but I know a cushti little Indian restaurant over in Chadwell Heath. The geezer who owns it used to train down my gym and I get treated like a king whenever I eat there. Why don’t we go there? We can order a nice curry and a few bottles of bubbly. It’s got to be better than sitting in this dosshouse, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, fuck it, why not?’ Barry replied. Anything was better than going back to the refuge tip his sister called home. Barry downed the rest of his lager in one, urged Wayne to do the same, and then led him to where his car was parked.

  ‘Nice set of wheels, Jacko,’ Barry said, as they approached Wayne’s flash new BMW.

  Wayne nodded. He couldn’t believe how nice Barry was being towards him. He hadn’t really known what to expect, but Barry was acting as though the Steph love triangle had never happened, and Wayne couldn’t help thinking that his old pal’s acceptance of the way he had once betrayed him was slightly too good to be true. Wayne started the engine and drove over Heathway Hill in silence. Barry hadn’t mentioned Stephanie yet, neither had he, but he knew the subject would have to be discussed sooner or later and decided to broach it in the restaurant, rather than in the car. ‘So, tell me about Jake the Snake. I know you told me bits in the pub, but I couldn’t concentrate on what you were saying because of that lairy pair of pissheads next to us.’

  ‘To put it in a nutshell, Jake upset some extremely heavy people. He was involved in a bit of this and that and, apparently, had his hands in the till. I’ve no idea who actually bumped him off, but I keep hearing the rumours why. I think one or two of the lads he was involved with thought he was a snitch an’ all, hence the bullet through his head, I suppose.’

  ‘What was he dealing in? Drugs? Were you involved an’ all?’ Wayne pried.

  ‘Yeah, I think so, and no I weren’t! Not my scene, that shit,’ Barry replied, honestly. As a lad, Barry had envisaged ending up in that type of world, but in the end he hadn’t needed to. He’d saved his earnings from the bar and had an eye for a run-down property. Since buying and selling his first for a tidy profit, he had never looked back, and even though some of his dealings were shady, especially when it came to the taxman, Barry always described himself as a self-made property entrepreneur.

  ‘So, is your mum proper upset over his death? What about you? Were you close to him?’

  ‘You know what my muvver’s like, Jacko. I think she was more upset about her dress being ruined by bloodstains, than poor old Jake getting shot. I shall miss him though. I wouldn’t say we were exceptionally close, but he was OK. My old girl’s dated worst geezers in her time, put it that way.’

  ‘How’s your old man, Bal? He must be due out again soon?’ Wayne asked, changing the subject.

  Barry’s father, Smasher, had been in and out of prisons all his life. His most recent stretch was for GBH and he was due for release in April. ‘Got about ten weeks left to serve, he has. I’m going to visit him next week and I can’t wait. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen him in over two years. What about your old man? He’s out now, ain’t he?’ Barry asked Wayne.

  ‘Yeah. He got out last year, but we had a big barny and he fucked off abroad somewhere. I tried to find him ’cause I wanted him at the wedding, but …’ Realizing that he had just mentioned his forthcoming nuptials, Wayne stopped in mid-sentence.

  ‘It’s OK. I know you and Steph are getting married,’ Barry said, trying to defuse the awkward moment.

  Wayne knew that now he had brought the topic up, it was only right that he apologized. ‘I’m really sorry about what happened, all them years back, Bazza. I didn’t mean to fall for Steph, but when you left and we carried on spending time together, it just happened if you know what I mean? You must have thought I was such a cunt at the time and I can’t say I blame you.’

  Barry stared out of the window at the passing traffic. He could never forgive Wayne for what he had done to him, what real man would? But he would never give his old pal the satisfaction of knowing how he felt.

  ‘This is the resta
urant. Are you OK, Bazza?’ Wayne asked, nervously.

  Managing to compose himself, Barry turned to Wayne and grinned. ‘Of course I am, mate. Listen, what happened with me, you and Steph was donkey’s years ago and I’d nigh on forgotten all about it until you just mentioned it.’

  Wayne breathed a huge sigh of relief. When Barry had gone quiet on him, Wayne had glanced his way and was positive he had seen a vicious expression on his old friend’s face. ‘Thanks for not hating me, Bazza. It means a lot.’

  Barry stared deep into his pal’s eyes. ‘How could I hate the geezer who saved my life, eh?’

  Over in Chigwell, Stephanie was completely beside herself. She wasn’t that much of a drinker since she’d become a mother, but was now so worried about Wayne’s whereabouts that she had managed to sink a whole bottle of wine by herself. Dannielle and Tyler were both fast asleep, and after trying Wayne’s phone for what seemed like the hundredth time, Stephanie rang her mum again. ‘What am I gonna do? His phone is still switched off. Do you think I should call the police?’

  ‘You know what Wayne’s like, love. I know he don’t go out that much, but when he does, he’s a sod for coming home at a decent hour. Me and Cath have still been keeping tabs across the road and there’s been no sign of Barry either. You can bet your bottom dollar that they’re pissed and having a whale of a time somewhere, so if I was you I’d stop worrying.’

  ‘But say Barry’s done something bad to him? For all I know, Wayne could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere with a bullet through his brain.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Steph. You sound like bloody Angela! Of course Barry hasn’t done anything bad to Wayne. Why don’t you get yourself to bed, love? I can tell you’ve had a good drink because you’re slurring.’