Life of Crime

by Kimberley Chambers

  ‘I thought about what you said yesterday and you’re right. I have let myself go recently and I’m going to do something about it.’

  Jason smiled. ‘Good.’

  Charlotte Rivers had struck gold. Sue Cable was the ultimate gossip and the ideal person to glean information from. Charlotte already knew what Melissa looked like as she’d sneaked a look in Jason’s wallet while he was taking a bath recently. There had been a photo of Mel and the kids inside, and she’d also made a note of the address on his driving licence.

  ‘Where have you moved to round here? I have a flat near the Crown and Crooked Billet,’ Sue informed her.

  ‘I actually live in Wanstead, but my friend trains here and she recommended this gym to me.’

  ‘Who’s your friend? I’m down here most days so I’m bound to know her.’

  ‘Melissa.’

  ‘Melissa Carrington?’

  Charlotte’s heart beat wildly. ‘No. Rampling.’

  ‘Oh, I see. She doesn’t come down here any more, does she?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t seen Melissa in ages. But the last time I bumped into her, I mentioned I was moving to Wanstead and she recommended this gym.’

  ‘Nobody’s seen her. Not since she lost Bobby. I see her husband driving about in his big Mercedes from time to time. Rumour has it, he’s a villain. The girls down here reckon that, anyway. Nobody seems to know what he does for a living and Melissa was always vague. Do you know what he does?’

  ‘Yes. Jason deals in cars. Who is Bobby? Their dog?’

  ‘No. Their baby.’

  Coffee shot out of Charlotte’s mouth and landed on Sue’s Pineapple sweatshirt. ‘Baby! What baby?’

  ‘They had a baby and he was stillborn. They called him Bobby. A few of the girls from here went to his funeral, but I didn’t get asked. I’m not really one of their gang.’

  Feeling as though she was about to have a heart attack, Charlotte’s face turned a deathly white. She put the cup down, her hands trembling.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Sue asked.

  ‘No. Not really. When did all this happen? When was Bobby born?’

  ‘Erm, let me think. It was last year in the summer. I’m sure it was August, but it might have been July.’

  Feeling sick as a dog, Charlotte snatched her keys off the table. ‘I gotta go.’

  ‘When will you be down here again?’ Sue shouted out.

  Charlotte did not reply.

  Switching on his other phone, the one Melissa thought he solely used for work, Jason was thoroughly disappointed when he read Charlotte’s text.

  Can’t do tonight. My nan’s not well. Going up hospital.

  Speak soon,

  Cx

  ‘Bollocks,’ Jason mumbled, switching the phone off and chucking it across the bed. He’d not seen Charlotte for almost a week now, was missing her terribly. He was also concerned she’d had enough of the situation, as she’d been acting odd lately. She still worked at Stringfellows and his biggest fear was that she’d meet another bloke there and dump him. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. She’d waited long enough for him to leave Mel, but there never seemed to be a right time to do so.

  ‘Where you going? I’m cooking shepherd’s pie, your favourite,’ Melissa informed Jason as he walked into the kitchen with his jacket on. She could sense he was slipping away from her recently and would hate to push him into another woman’s arms.

  ‘Popping up the golf club for a couple of hours. I’ll have my dinner when I get back. Do you want me to bring anything home? I’ll stop and pick up some wine.’

  Determined to show she was making an effort, Melissa smiled falsely. ‘I don’t want any wine. I rang the doctor’s earlier and booked an emergency appointment for tomorrow morning. I’m going to ask for anti-depressants, Jase, and have some counselling. It’s time to sort myself out once and for all.’ Jason’s blunt words had been the wake-up call Melissa had needed yesterday when he’d forced her to look at the state of herself in the mirror.

  Jason walked towards his wife and kissed her on the cheek, the way he would his nan. He would always have feelings for her, but not like he had for Darlene, or Charlotte. They were his only true loves. ‘Good girl. I won’t be long.’

  Melissa waited until Jason’s car pulled away, then darted up the stairs. The kids would be home from school in an hour or so and she needed to spend some time with Bobby. She would hate her son to think she’d forgotten all about him.

  To say Charlotte Rivers was fuming was an understatement. She’d never been more livid in her life. ‘I must have mug stamped on my head, me. How could I have been so fucking stupid? I hate him, Jilly. No way is he getting away with this. Let’s go round his house, now! Poor Melissa needs to know what a lying, cheating, no-good arsehole she married.’

  Jason had once bought her a stunning ornament that spelled out the word ‘LOVE’. It occupied pride of place on the floor in Charlotte’s lounge. She picked it up, managed to hurl it a few feet. It smashed in half. ‘Bastard,’ she shrieked, before bursting into tears.

  Jilly leapt up and held her sobbing friend in her arms. She had tried to warn Charlotte that Jason was playing her, but love is blind, as the old saying goes. ‘He’s not worth smashing your lovely home up for, Char. Tell you what, I’ll make you a black coffee, sober you up a bit. Come on, let’s go in the kitchen,’ Jilly said softly.

  ‘I don’t want a coffee. I want to talk to his wife. And I cannot wait to see his smarmy face when he realizes it’s me at the front door. How could he do this to me? Well, more fool me for taking him back, twice. I am such an idiot. I thought it odd when he ended it last year and was determined never to take him back again. It’s as though he has some hold over me – and I’m not exactly thick or ugly, am I?’

  ‘No, Char. You are brainy and beautiful. You deserve so much better. But let’s not be rash about confronting him. Have a think overnight about what you want to do. If you still want to pay his wife a visit tomorrow, I’ll come with you, drive you there. You don’t want to turn up drunk. You’ll look like a fool.’

  ‘How could I make myself look any more of a fool than I already have? And I am a fool. He told me he never slept with Melissa, and I actually believed him. I don’t just hate him; I hate my bloody self for being so stupid.’

  Jilly stroked her friend’s hair. ‘You’re not stupid, my love. You just made the mistake of falling in love with a man who happens to be a very good liar.’

  ‘All right, mate?’ Jason said, slapping Simon Champion on the back. In addition to being his accountant, Simon had become a very good friend.

  ‘The wanderer returns. Where you been?’ Simon grinned.

  Craig had ordered him to show his face in places he usually would and act normal. ‘Been busy,’ he said, leading Simon away from the men he was drinking with.

  ‘What’s up?’ Simon asked.

  ‘The usual. Mel’s still not good.’ Jason had first introduced Simon to Melissa when she was pregnant and they’d got on well. That was why he’d never told Si about Charlotte. His friend was old school in a lot of ways and Jason doubted he would approve of his cheating.

  ‘You seen Craig?’ Simon enquired.

  ‘No, mate. Not recently,’ Jason lied.

  ‘Rumour has it, he’s been arrested.’

  Jason felt his stomach lurch. As far as Simon knew, he and Craig were just pals. He knew nothing about any work they’d done together. ‘Shit! Really? What the hell for?’

  Simon raised his eyebrows. He knew Jason must know more about what Craig got up to than anybody. That’s why he’d issued a gentle warning the last time they’d taken a trip to Jersey together. ‘Rumour has it Craig’s involved in some heavy shit now, Jase. Just watch your back, eh,’ he’d told his pal.

  ‘Ringing motors?’ Jason bluffed. Craig still owned his car lot in Basildon.

  Admiring Jason’s loyalty, Simon shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, but if the gossip is true, my money would be on d
rugs. The Old Bill turned up at his house this morning by all accounts, raided the gaff.’

  Feeling his bowels loosening, Jason excused himself to go to the toilet. This was too much of a coincidence. No way had Craig been arrested for drugs; he was too far up the chain to be caught. He must’ve been hauled in for shooting Johnny.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Danny Jackson asked, shaking his penis at the urinal.

  Jason didn’t reply as he slammed the door of a cubicle. He was shitting himself, literally.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dean Swan was Craig Thurston’s new right-hand man and when he knocked on Jason’s door minutes after Melissa left for her doctor’s appointment, Jason felt his gut churn.

  ‘Got a message from the boss. He wants to see you ASAP. He said to meet him at the Camelot – in the car park opposite.’

  Relieved that Craig was no longer in police custody, but worried that Deano might have been followed, Jason glanced up and down the street. He’d known of Deano for years. He was a Rainham lad and even though he was Craig’s new sidekick, Jason guessed Craig would not have spilled the beans to him. Deano was no main player.

  ‘Don’t worry. The boss told me to make sure I wasn’t being followed and not to knock while your wife was at home. I’ve been parked at the end of the road for the past hour. He never said what it was about. Just said he needed to talk to you.’

  Heart pumping rapidly, Jason glanced at his watch. ‘OK. Tell him I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  Deano grinned. ‘Will do.’

  ‘How does this outfit look? Not OTT, is it?’ Charlotte asked Jilly.

  ‘You look fine. Casual, but glam. You always look lovely, whatever you wear.’

  Charlotte studied herself in the mirror. Black short leather jacket, white T-shirt, faded jeans and high-heeled black knee-length boots. Choosing an outfit to meet your lover’s wife for the first time wasn’t easy.

  ‘What time do you want to leave?’

  ‘Soon. I’m hoping to catch Mel home alone. Shay and Donte should be at school if we leave soon, and I doubt that bastard hangs around indoors in the daytime. He might even have other women on the go, for all I know.’

  ‘I very much doubt that, Char,’ Jilly said honestly.

  ‘If he’s there, he’ll try and shut me up and talk his way out of it. Can’t do that if he isn’t there, can he? Melissa needs to know the truth. I bet she doesn’t have a clue what he’s really like. All those weekends he told her he was away playing golf, when really he was with me.’

  ‘Please remember it’s not his wife’s fault. He’s the liar, not her. Don’t be too harsh with her, will you? She has lost a baby.’

  ‘You know I’m not a nasty person. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to break the news to her, but I’ll break it as gently as I can. With a bit of luck she’ll agree we’ve both been duped. It all makes sense now, you know. May, last year, he dumped me for no reason. Then he came back with his tail between his legs end of September, begging for another chance. Those months I didn’t see him coincided with the latter part of Melissa’s pregnancy and when they lost the baby. I bet if Bobby had lived I would never have seen him again. He’d have been too busy playing happy families to give me a second thought, the selfish no-good pig. Come on, let’s go.’

  Satisfied that nobody had followed him, Jason swung into the car park opposite the Camelot pub. It was on the verge of Hainault Forest and mainly used by dog walkers.

  Craig was parked up in a car Jason did not recognize, a small Golf GTI. He usually drove a big BMW and Jason guessed he’d swapped vehicles to throw off anybody trying to follow him.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Jason asked, dreading the answer.

  ‘No, I ain’t. Walk,’ Craig barked, strutting into the undergrowth.

  Jason felt his nerves jangling as they walked deep into the forest in silence. ‘Where we going?’ he asked.

  Craig glanced around to be sure the coast was clear, then grabbed Jason by the neck and slammed his body hard into a thick tree trunk.

  Jason’s eyes bulged with fear. He had never been scared of Craig in the past, even though he knew many who were. But deep in the forest, with Craig’s gold tooth glinting through a crack of sunlight shining in between the trees, Jason was scared all right.

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ Craig bellowed, punching Jason hard in the stomach. ‘Do you know what you’ve just put me through? You stupid fucking coward.’

  Deciding to play dumb, Jason clutched his stomach and crouched on his haunches to get his breath back. ‘Jesus, mate. That bloody hurt. Whatever’s happened?’

  ‘Hurt! You’re lucky I ain’t brought a gun with me and blown your thick brains out. I’m fuming. Fucking livid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve just spent twenty-four hours down the cop shop on suspicion of shooting Johnny fucking Brooks. The cunt’s still alive, thanks to you ballsing things up.’

  ‘I knew he was alive. Shirley rung the house. Why did they arrest you? No way could he have recognized you in those leathers and crash helmet.’

  ‘Well, he obviously fucking did, because someone’s put my name forward. I never told a soul about what we planned to do, did you?’

  ‘No. Course not.’

  ‘I’m six foot three, Jase. Muscular, thickset. He must’ve recognized me when the bike toppled over, or heard my voice when I shouted at you. A favour, you asked for, a fucking favour, and this is the shit you land me in. Good job I got rid of the shooter. Natchaya was terrified when they burst in and raided the joint. She’s five months pregnant, for Christ’s sake.’

  Jason felt dreadful. ‘I’m so sorry, Craig. I truly am. So what happened down at the station? Did they mention me?’

  ‘No. They mentioned Deano. As luck would have it, he was at a christening all day on Sunday, so that could be proved.’

  ‘Deano said he didn’t know why you wanted to see me when he knocked. Did they arrest him as well then?’

  ‘Deano knows jack-shit. They just went round his house and said they were investigating an incident that happened on Sunday and could he confirm his whereabouts that afternoon. He could, so I suppose they checked out his story.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Darlene was my alibi. Good job she’s clued up – unlike you, ya tosser. Thank Christ I had the brains to leave me car outside her gaff an’ all. My old next-door neighbour backed up the story, saying I’d been there all afternoon.’

  ‘So they just let you go?’

  ‘After twenty-four long fucking hours, yes, Jason. The last thing I need with what I’m involved in is the Old Bill sniffing around. I still can’t believe what you did. It baffles me.’

  Feeling like a complete and utter dickhead, Jason stared at his shoes. ‘I know. I honestly can’t apologize enough, mate. Anything I can do to make it up to you, just say the word.’

  ‘Actually, there is something …’

  ‘Jason’s car’s not there. That has to be Melissa’s, surely?’ Charlotte said to Jilly. She could feel the adrenaline kicking in now.

  The car in question was a white Mercedes.

  ‘He never even told me he moved here you know. As far as I was aware, he still lived at Chigwell Row. I only found out when I looked on his driving licence. I hate him, Jilly. He is a complete fraud.’

  ‘Shall we get this over with?’ Jilly asked.

  Charlotte touched her lipstick up. ‘Just give me five minutes. I want to think about what I’m going to say first.’

  It had been a big step for Melissa to go to the doctor and admit she wasn’t coping with life. She’d broken down in the surgery when Dr Parrish was kind to her, but now she was home she felt better for going.

  Prozac, she’d been prescribed. She’d been told it might take a while for her medication to work and that counselling would also benefit her immensely.

  Melissa stared at Eleanor Collins-Hythe’s business card. She hadn’t really kept in touch with the woman after she’d
gone out for lunch with her that time. But she’d bumped into her a couple of times since moving to Repton Park, which had resulted in them having a coffee together once.

  When Bobby had died, Eleanor had obviously heard through the grapevine and had called Melissa, then attended her son’s funeral. At the time, Melissa had told Tracey that Eleanor only turned up to be bloody nosy, but in fairness, she doubted that now.

  Melissa sighed. She didn’t fancy seeing a male counsellor. They wouldn’t understand what she had been through. Even Jason didn’t. Neither did she really want to pour her guts out to a complete stranger.

  About to ring Eleanor to arrange an emergency appointment, Melissa was disturbed by the doorbell. Two women were standing outside. One attractive, the other absolutely stunning. ‘Hello. Can I help you?’

  It was the stunning one who replied. ‘Hello, Melissa. I think we need to talk. My name is Charlotte and I am your husband’s mistress. Or ex-mistress, I should say.’

  Melissa’s complexion turned a chalky white colour. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Charlotte replied sadly. ‘It seems Jason has been stringing us both along for some time now.’

  Melissa was dumbfounded. She couldn’t speak, neither could she move. ‘How long?’ she managed to mutter.

  ‘How long have I been seeing Jason?’

  Melissa nodded.

  ‘It’s a long story. I first dated Jason before you met him, but he dumped me when he met you.’

  ‘Recently?’ Melissa croaked.

  ‘It’s been off and on for years. He told me he was only with you because of the kids. He swore he didn’t love you and told me you never slept together. I only found out about Bobby yesterday. I’m so sorry, Melissa, I truly am. If I had thought you were still a couple, I would never have entertained him.’

  ‘It might be easier if we speak inside,’ Jilly suggested.

  ‘No. I don’t want you in my home,’ Melissa hissed. She turned to Charlotte again. ‘When? When did you see him?’