That was until Pearl discovered, by chance, the gold hidden in a settee in one of Babs’ houses. On Babs’ say-so Pearl had spirited the gold away with no one any the wiser. Pearl had risked life and limb to get it away from Babs’ family. Sure she wanted her cut but that was only to be expected. As Babs saw it she owed Pearl, big time.
Babs had wanted to tell her girls what she’d done, but couldn’t bring herself to because she couldn’t take the chance it might send her family into meltdown again. But what was she going to do with the gold? Pearl had literarily been sitting on it for the last three months and Babs couldn’t blame her for getting shirty.
‘I’ll pop around today–‘
‘Not today,’ Pearl shoved in quickly, ‘it’s the fourth of the month.’
‘And what’s that got to do with the price of fish?’
‘It’s the number four Babsie,’ the other woman answered as if instructing a child. ‘It’s unlucky. In China the number four is a bit too close to the word for death—‘
‘Well, the fruit isn’t in China, is it?’ Babs rolled her eyes. Give me strength. Pearl and her fairground magic act. Mind you, it was that very same act which had got Pearl to sniff out the gold in the first place when she was cleansing Babs’ houses of Stan’s evil spirit.
‘Anyway, I’m off on a little outing today,’ Pearl added. Whatever her day trip out was she didn’t sound very happy about it.
‘Alright. I’ll come over tomorrow…that’s unless there’s something dodgy about the number five as well.’
Pearl didn’t like the joke. ‘Even if there is, we have to get this sorted out. Be seeing you tomorrow my girl.’
After she cut the call Babs held her mobile to her chest her brain ticking furiously away. What the heck were they going to do about that gold?
2
Mizz Long Legs gave the man in the driver’s seat the tonguing of a lifetime. When she left Babs and Natty she’d made her way to the white van parked up near the old cemetery round the back of The Devil’s Estate.
Kieran Scott wasn’t in the mood but got into the kiss anyway. Then he gently pushed his girlfriend of a couple of months away. She could be a right octopus. Clinging and winding herself round him way too much for his liking. Kieran was a geezer who needed space to breath.
‘How was Babs?’
Lisa Connor flicked her lush, long hair off her shoulder as she answered, ‘The old bird was playing the doting granny to the hilt.’
Kieran almost reached across and wrapped his hand round her beautiful, slim neck. ‘Don’t. Call. Her. That.’
‘Ouch!’ Lisa sulkily pursed those luscious lips. That mouth could suck the life from a fella and not just on the mouth. ‘No need to get techy treacle. I’m just reporting back.’ She crossed those unforgettable legs and shifted closer to him. ‘Who is this Babs to you anyways?’
Kieran didn’t answer. He pulled out a pack of ciggies and lit up as he considered the question. Truth was he didn’t know who Babs was to him anymore. Last year she’d told him she never wanted to see his mug again and slammed the door in his face. He still couldn’t get his head around it. Babs was his second mum. No, she was the only mum he’d ever known. His blood mother didn’t deserve the title and God help anyone who tried to tell him otherwise. He still had the scars and nightmares from her knocking him about as a boy, leaving him to roam all hours around The Devil’s Estate. He’d been neglected and unloved until Babs had taken him in hand. She’d taken a smelly, neglected, troubled boy with a plaster covering his lazy eye into her heart and loved him unconditionally.
It hurt worse than his old mum whacking him one that Babs didn’t want to know him anymore. And the real thump in the guts was her telling him that he reminded her of her evil, ex-husband, Stan Miller. That had hurt. Really hurt. Still hurt. Kieran conceded he’d gone too far using her girls to help to try to find the gold, but, for fucks sake, that gold was his. He’d been the one to blag and bag it and he didn’t give a toss what Babs or her girls claimed; he knew that John Black had been trying to rip him off. But all his lines weren’t going to talk her round. Trouble was he couldn’t stay away either.
‘And the lad?’ He sounded so casual. Inside he was wound up tighter than a finger on a trigger.
Lisa’s palm clasped his knee as she leaned into him, her face spreading into a huge grin. ‘Aww, what a lovely little man. Natty’s gonna grow up to be a total heartbreaker.’
Kieran couldn’t keep down the emotion that grew in his chest. He didn’t want to feel it, but that was his boy for God’s sake. Not only had he lost Babs, he’d lost all rights to his son. His son. Not that two-faced, rip-off merchant John Black’s lad. Kieran had had a one-nighter with Dee, John’s wife, and Natty had been the result. John had once been his guiding hand in the underworld, but bad blood had torn them apart.
Kieran had agreed with Dee to back off. To keep the lie going that John was the real father. Yeah, but what if Dee turned out to be a carbon copy of his real mum? What if she gave his boy the back of her hand and told him he was a loser? It would cripple Kieran if that happened to a kid of his.
‘What does he look like?’ Seeing the confusion on her face he roughly added, ‘you know, his features. What colour eyes? Hair? That kinda stuff.’
Lisa lightly laughed. ‘The interest you’re showing that kid anyone would think he was your son.’
‘My boy? Don’t talk bollocks,’ he sputtered.
The laughter died on Lisa’s lips when she saw the blush on his face. ‘Bloody hell Kieran, that lad’s your son, ain’t he?’
‘Nah, you’re on the wrong track there doll.’
She rubbed her palm soothingly down his thigh. ‘So what if you’ve had a kid with another bird. These things happen, don’t they?’
He said nothing, so she inched ever so closer to him. ‘You should’ve seen him Kieran. All that lovely, glossy hair and gorgeous skin.’ Now she delivered her ace. ‘He’s got a couple of teeth as well.’
Those milk teeth represented all the time he was missing out watching his son grow up. All parents said it - they grow up so fast. And Kieran wasn’t there to witness any of it.
‘He’s mine alright,’ Kieran finally admitted with pride puffing out his chest. ‘I agreed with his mum to stay out of the picture. In fact, everyone thinks the kid’s her dead husband’s.’
Lisa leaned closer to him so that he could feel her breath brush against his cheek. ‘I know that you’re a man of his word, but really Kieran — that’s your son. Your flesh and blood. He’s got the right to see his dad.’
He blasted back, ‘Yeah, I know, I don’t need telling!’
She ran her palm down his arm. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Natty’s mum is a wrong un, but what if she hooks up with another fella, eh? And he turns out to be a not right, know what I mean?’
His face grew red with rage. ‘If anyone lays a finger on my kid, they’re dead. I don’t care who they are—‘
She cut him off. ‘Don’t get the hump babe. I don’t like to see you all twisted outta shape.’
Kieran shook his head. Hot pain filled his gaze. ‘But I gave my promise and a man’s not a man if he breaks his word.’
‘I know, I know,’ she soothed. ‘But then again, is a man a man if he doesn’t look out for his own kid?’
3
‘Get me security and do it fast!’ Adam, the receptionist on the ground floor, was in a right ol’ panic as he spoke urgently into the phone keeping an eagle eye glued on the barney taking place on the street outside.
He’d been working on the reception at this fuck-off plate glass tower near Liverpool Street for six months and not once had there been a bit of bother. His job involved dishing out ID badges to the booted and suited brigade and directing them to the right company on the right floor. Truthfully though, he spent most of his time surfing the net. Some of the staff knowingly whistled the Baywatch tune as they walked by. Cheeky piss-takers.
‘Yeah – what’s up
?’ The guy from the security team sounded like he couldn’t be arsed. They weren’t used to having to shift themselves.
Properly worried now, Adam shot to his feet scarcely able to believe what he was witnessing outside.
‘Get down here, pronto. A van’s mounted the pavement and about ten, angry wrinklies have got out and they look like they’re here for a ruck. They’re carrying hockey sticks and cricket bats. Now they’re gawping through the windows and banging on the door.’
Adam looked more closely. ‘The ringleaders look like a bowed-legged old bloke in the leeriest blue suit I’ve ever seen and a mad, old, black woman wrapped in a gay rainbow flag…no, it’s a kaftan. She’s got bangles on and a green and black headscarf.’
The security man stifled a yawn. ‘What do they want?’
Was this chump having a laugh? Adam spat, ‘How the fuck would I know? But I tell you this – I don’t think they’re here to close a deal.’
‘We’re on our way down.’
Adam quickly put down the phone and hesitantly resumed his seat waiting for the back up to arrive. The man in the suit and the old girl in the kaftan seemed to be having words, which she put a stop to by jabbing a finger in his face. The others jostled around her as she took charge and pressed the intercom.
This was trouble, no doubt about it, but the first rule Adam had learned about the job was be polite to visitors. All visitors.
‘Good morning. How may I help you?’
‘Good morning.’ She answered in a voice that was a dead ringer for his girlfriend’s Caribbean mum putting him on the spot for not putting a ring on her finger. ‘We’re residents of Happy Hill Care Home and we want to speak to Mister Jerome Saint-Aubin about a serious matter please.’
Before Adam could even open his mouth the geezer in the suit elbowed the woman out of the way. ‘I told you to let me handle this Pearl. I know how to deal with these people.’ He gave the intercom his full attention. ‘Oi! You still there mate?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
The old boy shouted the odds. ‘We wanna have it out with that crook Saint-Aubin and we ain’t budging an inch until we see that ponce face-to-face. Now get these doors moving sonny.’
Adam’s lips tightened into a grim line. He should’ve guessed this was about Jerome Saint-Aubin. He was the financier that had gone from Romford dustman’s son to city slicker with the Midas touch. That was until he’d been declared bankrupt last month and scarpered into thin air. There’d been a steady stream of people since then who ‘wanted a word’ with him but nothing like this. Adam thought the guy was the scum of the earth personally and bang out of order, but he still had his job to do.
‘May I ask your name sir?’
‘Frederick Marshall. Fred the Red to me mates.’ The next words came behind gritted, NHS false teeth. ‘Now open the door or we’ll kick it in.’
Adam desperately checked for any sign of security. What was taking those lazy twats so long? ‘Unfortunately, Mr Saint-Aubin isn’t on the premises today.’
Rumour was he’d done a bunk to Spain with a wheelbarrow load of tenners he’d made out of timeshares, pensions and investment schemes.
‘Would you like to leave a message?’
‘Yeah, we’ll leave him a message alright.’ Fred the Red snarled as he turned to the tallest person in the group, a bald-headed man with an eye patch and a triple chin that hung the same way as his belly. ‘Alright Gazza, let’s have this door down.’
Gazza disappeared from view and then, to Adam’s shock, leaving him slack-jawed, came back with a chair and hurled it full force at the glass.
Crash! A large crack appeared in the glass. Passers-by watched in horror. Gazza picked up the chair again and smashed it into the glass like it was an Olympic sport, leaving another crack as it buckled. The army of angry greys stormed forward like an avenging army battering the door with sticks and bats. Adam leapt for the blower and dialled the cops as shattered glass scattered and spun across the reception floor tiles.
The operator came on. ‘What service do you require sir? Police, fire or ambulance?’
‘All three of them by the looks of it.’
Adam’s call was cut short as the old folks filled the reception and Fred the Red snatched the phone out of his hand and slammed it down.
Up close Adam saw that Fred had a gold side tooth as he menacingly growled, ‘Where is the little Herbert? Quit stalling, we know he’s in here.’
‘I told you, Mr Saint Aubin’s not in today.’
Fred bristled, leaned over the desk and, with surprisingly strong hands, took Adam by the lapels and dragged him close. ‘Are you deaf, my friend? I said where is he?’
Adam was scared out of his trousers. He breathed a sigh of utter relief when security finally put in an appearance…What the effing heck? His jaw dropped when they turned tail as soon as they clocked the seething mass of OAPs who looked well up for venting their fury on human punch bags.
Instead it was Pearl who bailed him out of trouble. Adam could now see that the scarf on her head was the design of the Jamaican flag.
‘Leave off Fred, let him go. ’ Fred grizzled at her command, refusing to do as told, so she warned him, ‘When they fling your skin in Pentonville I won’t be coming to get you, I’ll leave you there to rot.’
Thoroughly fed up with him she kissed her teeth and prised his fingers from Adam’s clothing and pushed him backwards. Then she astonished one and all by climbing on the desk. For an older lady Adam had to admit she knew how to move.
‘Right. Will everyone calm down please.’ Her chunky silver bangles jingled to the beat of her voice. ‘We’re not taking anything out on this unfortunate young boy. It’s not his fault. We want justice not vengeance.’
Fred the Red heckled, ‘He’ll get justice up his Khyber if he don’t find Saint Aubin.’
He was shut up by Pearl’s forceful glare.
Adam was transfixed by what she did next. She closed her index fingers onto her thumbs and raised them. ‘Peace. We want peace.’ She turned in a full circle. ‘There can be no justice without peace and harmony.’
Everyone heard Fred scoff, ‘Oh blimey, she’s off again,’ but it didn’t put her off her stride. In fact the crowd fell into a calm sea of silence.
Satisfied that her appeal to the spirit of harmony had done the trick, Pearl climbed down and turned to the trembling receptionist. ‘What’s your name darlin’?’
‘Adam.’
‘OK Adam, we all live in a care home in Stratford. Your Mr Saint Aubin was kind enough to visit the residents and arrange for a number of us to invest in a high earning investment scheme. We know he works here coz it’s on his business card.’ Pearl’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘All of us, including me, sank much of our life savings into it. Now we’re having difficulties tracing the money and we’re very upset. All we want is to have a word with him so we can find out what’s happened.’
Now that they were quiet and no longer waving weapons, Adam saw the fear and desperation etched in their faces along with the lines that showed their ages. His Nan and Granddad were about the age of these people. How would he feel if some tealeaf in a suit, clutching a briefcase and a gold-plated smile had screwed them over? Fucking knock his block into next year if he got his hands on him.
He leaned over the desk with open sympathy. ‘Look Pearl, I’ll be honest with you, your guy’s done a runner. The bird has flown, to Spain apparently. If you want proof, go up to the fifth floor. He was working as a freelancer with a company run by Mister Olson. When the shit hit the fan, Olson wiped his hands of him but gave him a desk and chair to work from, hoping he might be able to set things right. Obviously that isn’t what happened.’ He pointed. ‘The stairs are over there. But be quick, the law will be here shortly.’
Adam couldn’t get the image of this happening to his own grandparents out of his head so he decided, ‘Actually, tell you what, to make it simple, I’ll take you.’
Pearl turned to the f
orlorn group. ‘Me and Fred will go up. Go back to the van, especially you Vi, your hips must be murder.’
On the fifth floor Adam introduced them to this Olson character. He didn’t seem the least surprised or alarmed to see them. Not a good sign. Even Fred’s bluster seemed to vanish.
‘Saint Aubin?’ Olson protested, his body stiffening. ‘He’s nothing to do with us.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Fred seethed bitterly, ‘but I’m sure he was when he was making you a few bob.’
Olson carried on unruffled; didn’t even have the cheek to look embarrassed. ‘He did have a desk for a while but he left sometime ago. You don’t believe me? See for yourself.’
He took them over to an empty desk in the corner of the office. A few cables where a computer had once been and a silent phone with no line attached were the only evidence that someone had once worked there. Fred pulled open some of the drawers. Nothing inside except a few cards and some takeaway menus.
Fred slowly closed the drawer and whispered, ‘Fuck him’.
In the streets below, police sirens could be heard.
When Pearl looked upset at the sound, Adam reassured, ‘don’t worry about it. The owners won’t press charges. They won’t want their connection with Saint Aubin becoming public.’
A dejected Fred forlornly said to Pearl, ‘what are we going to tell our people? They’ve been skinned alive.’
Pearl seemed uncertain. ‘We’ll tell them we’ll get their money back.’
Fred laughed, not a lick of humour in it but plenty of anguish. ‘How? Take the van to Spain to track the bellend down?’
A glimmer of hope suddenly shone in Pearl’s sharp eyes.
‘Didn’t Vi say she knew someone who might be able to help us?’
4
Blood Secrets_A gripping crime thriller with killer twists Page 2
