Toxic

by Jacqui Rose

  The evening sun on the horizon crept behind the greying clouds and the sky darkened. A certain melancholy hung in the air as Alfie and Frankie sat in silence, watching the pastel colours of the picture-postcard beach huts flash by.

  Driftwood lay on the sand and shingle beach, which spanned for miles, and peeling white-painted ramshackle houseboats sat marooned and abandoned on the mud and peat salt marshes. Small creeks and boardwalks criss-crossed the wetlands, as fresh Mersea oysters piled up in crates outside the small seafood shops, and isolated weatherboard holiday cottages were all closed up.

  At speed they turned left, driving down a narrow road heading towards the east of the island, passing rolling grasslands with birds and wildlife on every corner. Seals bobbed their heads up. A group of waders settled on the marshes, merging into the greyness of the evening light.

  Seeing the sign for Cudmore Grove Country Park, Alfie stepped on the accelerator, heading towards the drop-off point.

  He glanced at Frankie, who sat smoking a cigar. ‘So, you ready?

  Frankie raised his eyebrows as they neared the forest which sloped down to the vast, expansive shoreline of East Mersea beach where sand dunes hid amongst the trees next to the crumbling sandstone cliffs. ‘Yeah. You?

  ‘You mean, am I ready to be bait, a sitting duck?’

  As Alfie stopped the car, trying to ignore his own nerves, he turned to look at Frankie.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Alf. Perry was sweet about postponing, and we’ve still got the rocks, so it ain’t all bad. All we need to do is show our face, let Johnny and his men see us on the beach where we planned to be. That’s it, and then we’re out of here before it all kicks off. Johnny ain’t got the light brigade behind him you know. What could go wrong?’

  Alfie gave a half-smile. ‘I just hope we can pull it off for Bree’s sake.’

  ‘It’s not the cleverest of ideas, I know, but …’

  Alfie finished his sentence. ‘… but what else can we do, right? Because if we don’t show up, she’s fucked. The good thing is, Johnny and his men will park their cars on top, we’ll park down on the beach. I know a track which takes us down there, only locals really know about it, so we’ll be sweet as. And from where Johnny will be, they won’t be able to see the car hidden. We’ll leave the motor running to make it quicker to get off.’

  ‘How far from the beach will you park?’

  ‘It’s less than a minute away. We’ll show our faces on the beach, and when they see us, the path they’ll have to come down will be on the left of us and totally exposed. Once they’re almost on the beach, we’ll scarper back to the car and from there we can drive along the track which avoids having to come back up on the top. So, they won’t even see which way we’ll have gone, and by the time they work it out, we’ll be laters. We’re already a step ahead. Easy.’

  Frankie gave Alfie a wry smile. ‘Oh yeah, real easy.’

  69

  Thankful that no lights were on, Bree crept into the mobile home. It was warm and even from the hallway she could hear the sound of Ryan’s cuckoo clock ticking rhythmically away. She could feel herself trembling as she craned her neck round the lounge door, hoping and praying that Ma was still asleep.

  She stared at Ma, who still lay with her mouth open and Bree immediately felt relief, the tension in her shoulders disappearing. The only thing she needed to worry about was the car window Alfie had smashed but she was certain she could come up with an excuse for that.

  Tiptoeing along the hall, Bree went to check on Ryan. Opening his bedroom door as quietly as she could.

  A smile passed her lips as she walked to his bed, whispering to him warmly.

  ‘Ryan, Ryan, wake up, it’s me … Ryan.’

  Reaching down to pull back the covers, Bree suddenly froze, her body going rigid with terror. Under the duvet were pillows shaped to look like a person.

  ‘Hello Bree, been on your travels, have you? I was wondering when you’d get back.’

  Shaking, Bree spun around to look at Ma, whose face was a picture of hatred.

  ‘I … I … I was looking for Ryan.’

  ‘What, in Johnny’s car for all these hours?’

  ‘Where is he? Where’s Ryan?’

  ‘Oh, Ryan’s fine, well, at the moment he is. Though I’m not sure you’ll be fine, not when Johnny finds out. I’m looking forward to seeing just what he’s got to say … Just what he’s going to do to Little Miss Muffet.’

  And with that, Ma Dwyer slammed and locked the door, leaving Bree alone in the room.

  Vaughn Sadler, not for the first time that evening, cursed Alfie’s name. He’d been planning to go back to the bed and breakfast and have a nice long bath. And he’d been halfway there, looking forward to doing nothing but relax. He’d sat on a bus, something which he hadn’t done for many years, but somewhere between South Green and Wivenhoe it all went wrong because he’d started to think. Thinking about Alfie. About Frankie. About Soho. About everything they’d gone through together. The arguments they’d had, but also the good times, lots of good times, and he’d known right then he couldn’t just go home and do nothing.

  As Vaughn pulled himself away from his thoughts, he shivered, the pouring rain soaking through his shirt as he sat on the small wooden engine boat he’d stolen from the waterside marina. And whilst the boat chugged through the water in the twilight of the evening, making the short journey from Brightlingsea to East Mersea beach, Vaughn made a promise to himself. He was going to make sure Alfie Jennings owed him big time.

  Having parked the car amongst the trees, Frankie and Vaughn stood on the windswept beach with the rain striking down, each holding a machine gun discreetly at their side.

  Alfie looked around, it was pitch black and the only sound was lapping water. He knew staying calm was the key to being on the ball, but the longer he waited around for Johnny to show, the harder it was to maintain composure. His mind was racing with everything that could go wrong, as well as what it would mean if they didn’t pull this off.

  ‘You alright, Frank?’

  Frankie nodded, looking as tense as he felt. He scanned the beach, holding his gun up to his chest, his eyes darting left and right. Alfie, on high alert, walked closer to the shoreline. Watching. Waiting.

  ‘Oh shit! Alf, quick! You know what we were saying about Johnny not having the light brigade behind him, wanna rethink that?’

  Alfie spun around to where Frankie was looking. On the top of the cliff, a dozen blacked-out 4x4s appeared. The headlights switched on, lighting up the beach and causing Alfie and Frankie to squint.

  ‘Oh fuck, run!’

  Sprinting backwards with his gun held high, Alfie began to fire as he charged towards the edge of the beach, the wind whipping his face as bullets, unremitting, rained down.

  On the edge of the deserted beach, Frankie, who’d gone in the other direction, began to run towards the concrete pillbox which was largely buried in sand. Skidding behind it, he knelt down, keeping low, hearing the fire of machine guns through the gusting easterly wind. Further up the beach, Alfie threw himself against a large tree which hung down off the edge of the cliff. He pushed himself into the rocks but there in front were some of Johnny’s men. They hadn’t seen him yet, but it was only a matter of time before they did.

  Drawing a ragged breath, Alfie ran as fast as he could along the bottom of the cliff, his eyes darting round for Frankie as the onslaught of bullets followed him. Seeing a large boulder, he dived behind it, breathing hard as his chest tightened.

  Peering around, Alfie fired up at the cliffs.

  ‘Alfie! Over here! Alf! I’m over here.’

  Alfie swivelled round and with the lights of the cars shining down, he could see Frankie to the left of him, but he could also see to the right of him, Johnny and his men charging towards them.

  Frankie continued to yell, his voice urgent. ‘Alf! Come on! Quick! My gun’s jammed from the water! I need a gun.’

  It was only a short distance between him
and Frankie, he wasn’t sure if he was going to make it without being seen, but he had no choice. Frankie would be a dead man without a gun.

  Then, with a swift look around, Alfie ran, throwing his body onto the cold sand, trying to get under the beams of car lights as the bullets sprayed around them. He crawled along on his stomach, the water lapping over his face as he headed to where Frankie was.

  Pulling himself up into a sitting position behind the pillbox, Alfie pressed himself against it. He threw a small handgun to Frankie, shouting over the sound of the gunfire which cracked and popped, splintering and cutting through the air.

  ‘Here, take this. It ain’t great, but it’s better than nothing. We need to make our way back up to the car and sharpish, before it’s too late. You ready?’

  Frankie nodded but as they were about to get up he spotted one of Johnny’s men creeping up the sand in their direction. He pulled a large knife from his sock. Grasping the tip of his knife he threw it hard, flipping it hard into the air; it landed deep in the man’s leg.

  ‘Frank, come on, follow me! Let’s go!’ Alfie called.

  Alfie charged along, aiming his gun either side of him. He ran through the edge of the water, also trying to keep out of the beam of the car headlights. He headed for the bottom of the cliffs, hiding between the sand dunes and behind the sea rocks. Getting to the forest path, Alfie glanced around and whispered to Frank. ‘I think we need to go …’

  Before he could say another word, Alfie saw two of Johnny’s men racing down the path towards the beach huts. He backtracked quickly, rushing the other way. ‘Frank, scrap that, let’s go. Let’s just head for the car.’

  As he ran, Alfie fired, shooting and taking down one of the men who screamed in agony, his knee blown apart.

  Charging towards the car with flashes of gunfire still raining down from the cliffs, Alfie and Frankie ran through the dark shadows of the trees.

  ‘Alfie, behind you! Behind you! There’s someone there.’

  Alfie twisted round, aiming his gun as he did so.

  ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t fucking shoot!’

  ‘Vaughn?’

  Vaughn stepped out from behind the trees and spoke quickly. ‘Don’t ask questions, just come on.’

  Alfie shook his head, surveying the cliffs for Johnny’s men. ‘We need to go back to the car to get the diamonds. It’s this way. Come on!’

  The three men sped through the trees and bracken along the track and, getting to the Range Rover, Vaughn and Frankie kept guard whilst Alfie quickly scrambled into the car. He looked under the front seats, then in the back. Dread beginning to overwhelm him.

  Vaughn spotted some lights heading towards them and shouted out. ‘Alfie, hurry up, they’re coming! They’re coming!’

  Alfie’s voice was panicked. ‘They ain’t here! The diamonds ain’t here!’

  ‘What! They’ve got to be, look again!’

  Frankie held his gun tight and shouted over his shoulder. ‘Listen mate, we have to go!’

  ‘No way. No way. They were here! I got to find them. We need them!’

  Running up to Alfie, Frankie pulled on Alfie’s arm. ‘We won’t need anything except a body bag if you don’t hurry up. Please, Alf, come on.’

  Despair peppered Alfie words. ‘I can’t, this was our chance. We can’t just leave them. Give me a couple more minutes.’

  Vaughn yelled at him, seeing Johnny’s men running through the woods, getting ever closer. ‘Alfie, it don’t matter, what matters is you, there’ll be other chances, but not if we don’t go now. We’ll never get out if we go by car. We’ll have to go by boat.’

  Frankie stared in amazement. ‘What?’

  ‘Just come on.’

  And as the men ran down to the shore, heading towards where Vaughn had left the boat, Eddie Styler slunk out of the shadows, pushing the bag of diamonds into his pocket, running towards where Jason Robinson had parked his car.

  70

  As Eddie ran, he began to think. And the more he thought, the more the situation frustrated him. They were his diamonds, his. Not Johnny’s, not Jason’s, not Sandra’s and certainly not Alfie’s. His. All his.

  He’d been the one who’d been mugged off by Reggie Reynolds. He’d been the one who’d ducked and dived, trying to get the money together, and he’d been the one who’d arranged the transport from Amsterdam to bring them back in the bellies of those horses. The only thing he hadn’t been, was the one who had fucked it all up.

  But now, through no fault of his own, he was having to run away from Johnny to give Jason a share of his diamonds, because otherwise the math just didn’t add up. How was he expected not only to give Jason a stake but Johnny too, along with all the people he owed? He’d be left with nothing, and he was sick and tired of having jack shit.

  He’d thought about doing it the other way around – give a share to Johnny and not to Jason as payback for the lorry job which had gone wrong – but he didn’t trust Johnny not to rip him off and take the whole lot. And besides, it still left him owing Jason a whole lot of money which he wasn’t prepared to give.

  And the problem was, Jason Robinson certainly wasn’t a man to write off any debt, and he certainly wasn’t a man to be mugged off either. But he knew if he didn’t have the money to get far enough away from Jason and start a new life, he’d have to spend every waking hour looking over his shoulder, which was definitely something he didn’t want to do.

  But then again, everyone had their nemesis, didn’t they? Even Jason Robinson. And every problem had a solution.

  As an idea began to form, Eddie smiled, slowing down to a walk and coming to a stop by the large pine trees which gave him cover from the weather. He pulled the bag of diamonds from his pocket then, quickly kneeling, he dug a small hole in the soft wet earth, putting in the precious stones and covering them up.

  Checking around, making sure that no one was coming, Eddie picked up a craggy, sharp rock and taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, before bringing it down hard on his face.

  He screamed, dropping the stone and spun around, hopping on the spot as pain ripped through him and blood poured from the deep, fleshy gash on the side of his head.

  Breathing hard, he held his face, waiting for the agony to pass, and once it did, Eddie took another deep breath, picking up the stone again, slamming it once more into his face.

  The rock caught the corners of his eyes and the centre of his nose and he heard a crunch of cartilage. Hot waves of pain shot through his body and Eddie dropped to the ground; groaning, he rolled around in the muddy earth, trying to catch his breath as he tasted the blood that ran into his mouth and down into the back of his throat.

  Taking him well over ten minutes to recover, enough time to get up from the ground. With one of his eyes swollen shut, Eddie squinted at his watch before breaking into a jog following the dirt track round.

  At the top of the hill, Eddie saw Jason’s car. Bracing himself, gathering up his thoughts, he began to stagger, waving his arms in the air.

  ‘Help! Help! Jason! Jason! Help me! Help!’

  Getting to the car, Eddie threw himself against it as the doors of the 4x4 flung open. Jason Robinson stared at Eddie’s swollen, bloody face. ‘Jesus, what’s going on? You look like a fucking monster. Like the walking dead. You could give a man a fright out here in the middle of nowhere. Jesus, Ed.’

  ‘I’ve been jumped on! Ambushed!’

  Jason’s face darkened. ‘What?’

  ‘I was coming up to you as we arranged and from out of nowhere some geezers jumped on me. I didn’t recognise any of them apart from one person. I recognised one bloke.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It was Johnny. Johnny Dwyer. He was there.’

  Through his good eye, Eddie watched Jason’s face turn from anger into a burning rage and he had to fight the desire to smile.

  ‘What the fuck was Johnny Dwyer doing here?’

  Eddie, as he so often did, thought how very stupid Jason was, and knowing
he knew nothing about his dealings with Johnny, shrugged, his voice feigning bewilderment. ‘I dunno, Jase. You’re guess is as good as mine. Took me proper by surprise. I ain’t told anybody about this drop-off. The only person that knew was you, and the contact that I told you about, the one that was abroad. It was all going so well.’

  ‘Well at least you still got the diamonds, right? That’s what matters.’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘No, Jase. That’s the point, I ain’t. I ain’t got them.’

  Jason’s face drained of colour, his perma-tanned skin turning pale. ‘What? Tell me you are joking.’

  ‘No, I wish I was. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I ain’t got them because I was jumped on down in the woods.’

  Jason barked out an order at his men. ‘Frisk him, check that he ain’t got them, cos I can’t believe this is really happening.’

  Eddie Styler stretched out his arms, letting Jason’s men search his body, and watched as Jason paced around as he pointed accusingly.

  ‘How could this happen? How the fuck could this happen? Tell me you’re not for real.’

  ‘Look at me Jason, look what they done to me. I’m hardly pulling a fast one, am I? Believe me mate, I want to do them some damage.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Ed. Johnny Dwyer’s had it coming for a long time. He is going to pay, and he is going to be buried.’

  A hint of a smile touched Eddie’s lips. ‘Look Jason, I reckon if you’re quick, you’ll catch them. I heard them say they were heading for Big Billy Baldwin’s yard over near Basildon. Anymore than that, I don’t know.’

  Jason spoke hurriedly. ‘How many would you say there were? Did he have a lot of his crew with him? I might have to wait until morning when I can gather up some more of me own men because there’s only four of us.’

  Picturing the dozen or so cars full of Johnny and Billy’s posse, Eddie shook his head. ‘Nah, there was only him and three other blokes. Maybe two. If me drop-off contact hadn’t left a few minutes before, and Johnny hadn’t taken me by surprise, well, I reckon I would’ve had a chance to take them out. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, you’ll be fine if you head up to Baldwin’s yard now. No need to wait till morning. Tomorrow might be a different scenario, they might have gathered a lot more of his crew. But of course, it’s down to you.’