by Sian Rosé
But then, Zach knew Lloyd.
“Joe…” Zach shouted again as he pulled aside some low, dangling leaves hanging from branches and lowered himself underneath the greenery. When he got back to his feet, the sight that awaited him in the clearing guarded by trees smacked him straight in the face with a wave of annoyance.
“For fuck’s sake!” snapped Zach, rubbing his temple as he continued moving forwards. “Lloyd, what the fuck?”
Lloyd’s fat, stubby head snapped upwards, his piggy eyes bulging from his face. His thin lips wobbled momentarily, then opened up into a gape of shock. His trousers were down, exposing his fat, stretch-mark stained thighs, and hairy arse. Sambuca lay face down on the grass, her face streaked with black tear stains, her bloodshot eyes staring pleadingly at Zach. Her awful skirt had been hiked up, revealing a holey pair of knickers.
“What the fuck?!” Zach repeated, louder this time, moving forwards quickly, his brow furrowing in dismay. “What the fuck, Lloyd?!”
The teenager scrambled to pull up his trousers, his cheeks flushed red, and his head bowed with shame. Fearfully, Sambuca stared around, then clumsily crawled to her knees. Whimpering, she staggered to her feet, fresh tears leaking from her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Zach,” Lloyd moaned, “I know I fucked up.”
“You’re damn right you fucked up!” retorted Zach, eyes glittering furiously. “Dad is going to flip his shit…” he stopped and glanced at Sambuca, who was static, her knees wobbling as she chewed the skin around her thumb. She breathed loudly, evidently relieved to be saved.
“She might look like a tramp,” said Zach, “but her father will probably skin you alive if he finds out you tried this shit.”
“N-n-n-no….” sobbed Sambuca, swallowing and snivelling. A grotesque trail of snot slid down from her nose, congealing on her upper lip. “I w-w-won’t say a w-w-w-word…”
Zach sighed sadly, then looked up at Sambuca apologetically.
“Sambuca… Sam, may I call you that? It’s just that the name Sambuca really is the second most embarrassing thing about you, first being the fact you look like a fucking crack whore.”
Sambuca’s face fell, then twisted as the realisation dawned on her. Zach savoured the way the hope vanished from her eyes. It was a delicious feeling. The brief few seconds when a person realised that they were completely and utterly fucked.
“Sam, I’m sorry. I apologise for the fact my brother can’t keep his dick in his pants,” said Zach solemnly. “We weren’t going to kill you or your mate,” he paused to take another sigh and rubbed his forehead.
“But thanks to this guy’s epic fuck-up!” he shot Lloyd an accusing stare, “well…” he gave her a sad smile, “we haven’t got a choice.”
The girl squeaked, then suddenly took off running, her skinny legs nimble as they worked quickly to get away. The two brothers exchanged looks. In just a few wide steps, Zach was at the girl’s heels, dragging her backwards by her hair just as she approached the edge of the clearing. Loud, rasping screams projected from the back of her throat, the sound of it bouncing all around the small forest space as she thrashed wildly.
Ignoring her squeals and convulsions, Zach wrapped an arm around her neck and pulled her closer to him in a tight headlock. One-handed, he pinned her to him, and with the other, delved into his coat pocket and withdrew his phone, which he then tossed over to Lloyd.
“Text Flo,” Zach instructed, his nostrils involuntarily wrinkling at the stench of Sambuca’s cheap perfume. “Get her to bring Destiny up here.”
*
Stella could feel her own eyelids start to droop as she finally heard the low rumble of Neil’s breath descend into sleep. She straightened up, her thighs tensing either side of his spotty back where she had straddled him like a mechanical bull. She had to bite down on the inside of her mouth to stifle a chuckle because she knew just how ludicrous she must look, perched there on this grimy couch upon his sweaty love handles.
The girl leaned forwards slightly, tucking her long blonde curtain of hair behind her ear as she paused to listen.
“Neil?” she whispered, softly pressing her forefinger into one of his shoulder blades.
He was still.
With a satisfied smile, Stella slowly got up. Her mother had taught her many, many things over the years, but she was by far the most grateful for everything she’d learned about the human body. Pressure points. The way bones worked; simple yet effective ways that the world’s most intelligent, powerful machine could be manipulated.
Knocked or snuffed out, just like that.
Just like poor Neil.
“Right,” she muttered to herself, glancing searchingly around the murky interior of the room. “Right…” she left the narrow space of the living room and went down a tiny hallway. Her nose wrinkled as she walked, nostrils disturbed by the musty stench of unwashed socks and stale smoke that congealed in the air. The lighting seemed to grow dimmer the further she walked, so she blinked and strained them as she came to the end of the tiny passage to a thin, slightly-ajar door.
Gently, she reached out a hand and lightly pushed it forward. It didn’t make a sound as it moved to reveal a small room mainly taken up with a messy, unmade double bed. Dirty curtains were still drawn across a small window, casting just a faint smudge of light on the creased sheets.
Grimacing, Stella forced herself into the room and squatted down beside the mattress. She prised it up off of the wooden frame, her wrist aching at its surprising heaviness, and cast a watchful glance over the cheap, decrepit slats beneath it. No money there. Silently groaning, she put the mattress back down and placed her hands on her knees, chewing her lip as she looked around at the stiff, silent gloom.
Neil didn’t seem particularly intelligent- she’d been certain he’d be stupid enough to leave cash somewhere as obvious as under his bed.
Clearly, she’d underestimated him.
As quietly as possible, she began to ransack the room, searching through cupboards, checking shelves, rummaging through a shallow wardrobe. Stella was confident, but with every passing minute, she could feel her heart start to beat just a little faster and just a little harder inside her chest.
Once she’d turned the bedroom upside down, she slipped out and ventured into the smaller bedroom beside it, which was taken up by two single beds against each wall. She completed the same process, checking beneath the beds, the cupboards, and drawers. Still to no avail.
A tiny buzz vibrated inside her jeans pocket against the side of her thigh.
She froze.
The sound was deafening against the quiet of the caravan.
When she was certain that Neil had not roused from his temporary coma, she crept back into the hall and into the bathroom. It was much lighter in this room, thanks to the uncovered, frosted glass of the window high up above the toilet. The sudden brightness caught her eye, and she felt her pupils trail downwards to the lavatory herself.
Seat up. Shit skid at the side of the bowl. A dribble of yellow piss staining the edge.
Glancing behind her, she hesitantly approached the toilet and gingerly reached out to lift up the clammy plastic lid up off of the water tank.
Jackpot.
Her heart surged with the thrill of discovering the foreign black safe that perched unsuspectingly at the bottom of the small space, its outline clouded by the water. Greedily, she delved a hand into the icy cold pool and withdrew the locked box before replacing the lid. Hurriedly, she rubbed it dry on her jeans.
It was only small. Of course, it could contain anything.
But to Stella, it didn’t really matter either way. Stealing gave her an immense high, and even if the damp, concealed safe only contained a bit of weed and fifty quid, it was better than nothing.
Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she stuffed the safe inside her jacket and turned.
Her heart skipped a beat, and her mouth fell open as she came face to face with Neil, who was glaring at her menacingly, yellowing
teeth snarling as if he were a killer bear awoken from hibernation.
“I…” she mustered, but before she could continue, the rough young man hit her hard across the side of the head so that everything immediately turned to pitch black.
For once, Stella’s charm had failed her.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Summer, 1999
It was, Ronnie kept saying, a simple job.
In, and out.
Quick, painless, and easy.
Minimal risks.
Except, of course, underneath the optimistic façade, there was no sugar-coating the reality of the situation.
Ronnie was about to burgle a house, whilst Minnie technically became the accessory to his crime, her entire body rigid and stiff as she sat tight in the dark passenger seat of the car. Beside her, she could almost hear the sound of her boyfriend’s thudding heart as he stared intently through the windshield at the terraced brick house a little further up the road. The dull bricks of the building were illuminated by the moon’s long glow, revealing a cheap, glass-panelled front door that practically oozed the aura of the typical British council estate.
“Right,” Ronnie said, although the normally seductive, deep melt of his voice came out in a squeak of uncertainty. It made Minnie’s stomach lurch with unease.
“Right,” she repeated in a whisper.
“Let’s get it over with,” he nodded grimly, slowly placing his hand on the door of the car, his thick fingers flexing reluctantly.
She chewed on her lip, the taste of dried blood rusting on the tip of her tongue. “How long?”
Ronnie paused and sighed. “Wait twenty minutes, okay? “
Wordlessly, she nodded as he got up and slipped out of the vehicle, leaving her alone in the shadows and blinking aimlessly out at the painfully quiet and desolate street.
A cold chill spilled into the car from somewhere and seemed to rattle her bones as she watched Ronnie’s tall figure hurry across the road and disappear further down the street. Because the place was sandwiched between two other buildings, like a row of traffic-jam teeth, he had to walk all the way around in a circle and scale the fence of the back garden.
Minnie shivered and instinctively clenched her fists. She felt that her palms were cold and clammy; her skin leaking with sweat; the fear twisting her guts tighter and tighter in the pit of her stomach.
What Ronnie was doing was wrong.
Really wrong.
It would make the two of them officially criminals.
Of course, she knew that they already were. She’d stolen thousands of pounds whilst Ronnie was attempting identity fraud, and the two of them were actively running from the police and thereby perverting the so-called course of justice.
“Fuck…” she mumbled to herself, slamming her fist hard onto the edge of her seat. Her pulse popped inside her eardrums, the blood pounding so loudly that she felt her brain go fuzzy.
Maybe they already were criminals, but the crimes they’d committed up until that point were necessary. She was pregnant with Ronnie’s baby, and they were both just kids with no money. If she wanted a decent family for their unborn child, she needed the money, and Ronnie needed the fake IDs. It was as simple as that.
But this… robbery. Breaking and entering into a total stranger’s home, then stealing… a pre-meditated act… an involuntary moan came from her lips. Her eyes were wet with fright.
What if it all went wrong?
Ronnie had a knife stuck up his sleeve and another in the pocket of his jeans.
What if the burglary escalated? What if this night was to plunge them from petty teenage deviants to full-blown killers?
Despite the excruciating bundle of nerves dancing about in her chest like jolts of electricity, she leant her head back against the cold pane of glass; her forehead pressed on the car window. Somehow, the incessant drumming of her heart that thundered rhythmically in her ears sent her spiralling downwards into unconsciousness.
It was the crunch of a nearby car locking that jolted the teenager awake a few hours later. Her eyes snapped open, and her brain blurred as she became aware of the hot fug of her breath, indicating that her lips had been closed for quite some time. She glanced down at her wrist, where the moonlight lit up the face of her watch.
It was almost 11. Almost two entire hours since Ronnie had left.
“Fuck,” she whispered beneath her breath, cheeks immediately reddening as she heard herself swear. The word didn’t feel right in her mouth, rolling across her tongue like the rusted drag of a blade or the bad taste of poison. She breathed out and peered through the glass of the window. Some way down the road, a shadowy figure moved quickly, then turned right into the front garden of a house.
With clammy hands, Minnie swallowed and slowly pulled the handle of the car door, allowing a rush of cold air into the car, which stung her skin and made her let out a gasp of shock. She forced herself to step out of the passenger seat and carefully closed the door behind her. On wobbling knees, she stood beside the car and stared meaningfully across the road at the house that she knew Ronnie had broken into.
Had he been arrested?
She reasoned not, considering the owner of the house’s relationship with the guy who was selling them fake IDs. But then, what would that mean for Ronnie?
Something worse?
The back of her clothes stuck to her back which had broken out into a nervous sweat. She shivered with nerves as she stood there, and her brain buzzed and whirred as she considered her next move. A small flicker of hope ran through her as she remembered the wads of cash that Ronnie had hidden beneath some blankets in the boot of the car.
What was it her father had always said to her?
Money is a language that everyone can speak. Or something along those lines.
Licking her lips, she forced her feet forwards and scampered across the street, her hand instinctively cupping the tiny, barely-there bulge in her abdomen. As always, the tiny bundle of cells stowed away safely in her womb engulfed every corner of her thoughts. What she was about to do was bold and terrifying. But what was the alternative? She could go back home, where her parents would force her to get an abortion. Or, she could call the police, which would almost certainly result in Ronnie being arrested and locked away. Alternatively, she could stay huddled in the car and hope for the best, but what if something awful was happening to Ronnie right at that second? None of these options would do.
She needed to keep her family together.
She needed to walk up to the house, peer in through a window and see if she could assess the situation. If Ronnie had run into trouble, she’d need to negotiate him out of it.
Chapter Thirty
2019
With one last final, mutual sigh of satisfaction, Minnie and Ronnie collapsed back onto the bedsheets, their naked bodies covered in a thin sheen of passion-induced sweat.
“Stolen RV sex is better than I’d ever anticipated,” gasped Ronnie, pulling his wife closer to him and nuzzling his nose into her musty-scented hair. She looked up at him, her eyes shining brightly as she returned his contented smile. Their fingers intertwined above her head, their palms squeezed together.
They’d had sex on the top deck of the RV, in the lavish bed that was comfier than anything the two had slept on in months. And there was no rush to follow- no urgency to get up and go- to get back on the run before they were rudely interrupted by law enforcement of meddlesome civilians.
They were home.
Minnie’s phone buzzed on the side table, the vibration deep enough to make the bed frame vibrate.
“What the fuck is that?” Ronnie asked, his voice tinged with minor irritation. “Kept going off.”
She laughed and sighed, then lazily rolled over to reach out for it. “It’ll be one of the kids,” she said, extending her fingers. “You can’t be moody with them for texting; it’s not like there’s a lot for them to do around here.”
Ronnie nodded, “I suppose. Maybe we can drive
to that theme park we saw on the way down? I quite fancy a go on a rollercoaster, might as well while we’re taking a bit of downtime.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” groaned Minnie, hitting the button on the phone so that the screen illuminated and the first couple of lines of a text message from Flo appeared. “Did we, or did we not tell them we were laying low?”
His face falling into a concerned frown, Ronnie turned his head. “What’s happened?”
Tutting and rubbing her temple, Minnie showed him the screen of the phone.
Flo:
How can we hide two bodies quickly? Xxx
Chapter Thirty-one
Summer, 1999
The house, or at least the front of it, appeared to be dead inside.
As she peered nervously in through the glass, Minnie could make out no sign of life or soul through the windows. A cold chill crept over her, breaking her skin out into a ripple of hard goose flesh. She shuddered and tightly hugged herself to stop her arms from shaking, then moved her head closer to the glass. When she strained her eyes, she could make out the intricate pattern of net curtains and nothing more beyond the off-white lace. Her arms quivered again, and she sank her front teeth into the tip of her tongue.
What next?
She backed away, dry earth creeping into her sandals as she stepped backwards onto an unkempt front lawn that lay ahead of the terraced house. The place was hardly the flashy mansion of some high-profile gangster. Glancing up at the wholly unglamorous building, she squinted to see if she could detect any movement from the upper windows. But they, just like their lower counterparts, were empty. Dark and void of life.
Before her brain had the chance to talk her out of it, she dragged herself towards the front door, with its dreary paint chipped and peeling over its surface. Hovering like a knock-kneed kid outside the fearsome head teacher’s office, she moved from foot to foot, chewing nervously on her already torn lips. With a deep, sharp intake of breath, she moved forward. Bringing her knuckle to the door, she tapped out a rhythmic knock. Her fist felt like a numb wad of jelly on a stick, and the noise it created against the door was feeble and unsatisfactory.
