Blood Secrets_A gripping crime thriller with killer twists

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Trapped behind the panicking mass of people fleeing the front entrance, the brothers turned and belted towards the back exit only to find it too blocked by punters desperately trying to fight their way out of the club. They tried to blend in at the rear and that was when they heard the shout of a woman’s voice behind them.

  ‘Drop the gun or I’ll blast you to kingdom come!’

  Pinky turned to find Dee Black crouching, cop-style, with both hands clasped confidently round a revolver. Shit. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his shooter, but, in a panic, it slipped between his trembling fingers onto the floor. Styley shouted, ‘Leave it. She won’t shoot into a crowd of people!’

  But Pinky wasn’t going to be taken out like a pussy in front of a wagonload of people; his rep would never survive. Someone ran in front of him creating his chance. He swiped his pistol off the floor, turned and fired wildly and blindly in Dee’s direction. The sound of more shooting behind them made the people in front part in all directions like the Red Sea and the brothers made their escape towards a fire door.

  Inside the club a horrified Babs staggered from behind the bar on legs shaking so badly she had to hold onto the bar for support. The place looked like a whirlwind had gone through it with terrified people running all over the shop. She felt dazed. Couldn’t believe it. Someone had come into her daughter’s club and sprayed it full of lead. She’d read about this type of carry-on in the papers. Never in a million years did she think she’d be in the midst of it.

  A piercing scream ripped through the air, higher and wilder than any that had come before. Her gaze darted automatically to where the scream had come from. And that’s when Babs’ life started to tilt out of control.

  It was Courtney.

  Babs frowned hard. It couldn’t be Courtney. Her granddaughter was tucked up safe and sound at home. She blinked. It was Courtney alright with her hands covering her mouth, sobbing uncontrollably as she stared at someone on the ground.

  A premonition of overwhelming dread chilled Babs to the bone. Who was Courtney looking at on the floor? Babs’ heart began racing, her chest rising high and hard. No…she shook her head. It couldn’t be. Not…

  Babs belted forward.

  An arm snaked round her waist holding her fast.

  She struggled and kicked. ‘Let me go! Let me go!’

  ‘No. I can’t.’ It was Kieran, his bleak words coming through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t want you to see this.’

  Babs started sobbing. ‘Please! Please!’

  His answer was to tighten his hold.

  And that’s when someone confirmed the nightmare running through her head.

  ‘One of the Miller girls has been shot.’

  Another person added, ‘With all that blood it looks like she’s a goner.’

  Part II

  2007

  ‘They decided to poison my daughter against me.’

  26

  ‘What the heck do you two want?’ Charmaine, the brothel’s madam, bit out at Pinky and Styley.

  Christ almighty! The last thing she needed were these two cretins in her house of pleasure tonight of all nights. She’d only just doshed out a bundle to fix the room they’d smashed to bits the last time they graced the place with their very unwelcome presence.

  She folded her arms in the reception area using her considerable bulk to bar them entry. ‘Pay day ain’t until next week by my reckoning.’

  She’d been in the cathouse business long enough to know that protection money came with the territory. It was usually a quiet, hand over the readies transaction and all parties were happy, but when her last operation was busted and she’d moved across the river Charmaine had soon learned that protection in these parts wasn’t quite the same. Instead of a brown envelope these two goons here wanted to dip their wicks in the girls. On principle she didn’t have a problem with that but every time they came there was trouble.

  Pinky or Perky, she could never tell who was who, swaggered up to her and pinched her disgruntled mouth into a very ugly, lopsided shape. ‘None of your lip, you old trout. You know how it goes. Get ‘em lined up so we can choose a couple of sweethearts to ease our weary souls.’

  The other one hooted with laughter at that. She twisted her face out of the cruel grip and snapped her eyes at them. What had she done to deserve this? Their antics were enough to make her vow that the next business she opened up was going to be a care home for nuns.

  But bollocks to them, they had an arrangement.

  ‘Look fellas you know how it goes – you turn up the first Wednesday of every month in the afternoon and you choose the two you want.’ She slammed her fists on her ample hips and got shirty. ‘Now you might not have realised this but it’s pitch black out there and it’s Saturday night.’

  The other one strolled over to his brother and did something that made her gasp – he pulled out a shooter.

  ‘Listen up, fat bird,’ he spat the words in her face, ‘we can either re-decorate this knocking shop with bullet holes or you can get two cock inspectors to us pronto.’ His finger touched the trigger. ‘This barrel’s still hot, know what I mean?’

  Charmaine got busy and within five minutes Pinky and Styley were in her best room on the first floor with two of her newest acquisitions. Sonia from East Ham, who was doing a bit of extra on the side to supplement her job as an accountant and Rachel who had debts running a mile long. Charmaine didn’t have no truck with trafficked girls. London had women a-plenty willing to make a living on their backs.

  After she was gone it didn’t take the brothers too long to get their kit off and start pumping away. Their adrenaline was already as high as kites after blasting up the club so it didn’t take them long to blow their load.

  Pinky spread some Special K around Sonia’s belly button and inhaled. Wow, he felt like the King of London Town tonight. There was no high like spraying lead to make a man know he had a pair between his legs.

  ‘You think that Dee Black has got the message?’ Styley asked as he played with his lady’s titties.

  Pinky sniffed loudly as the drug hit his bloodstream. He raised his head slightly and eyed his brother, a cocky grin splitting his face. ‘Let’s put it this way – the next time The Salesman shows his boat, she’ll have our cash waiting in ten seconds flat. That’s if the law don’t close her down in the meantime.’

  They started laughing so hard that they never heard the thud of heavy footsteps on the stairs. The only warning they got that something was up was when the door crashed against the wall. The women screamed. Four, huge toughs marched towards the bed.

  ‘What the fuck…?’

  ‘You can’t just…’

  Pinky and Styley’s outraged voices hit the room. Styley dived for his gun, but one of the men backhanded him sending him crashing to the floor, blood spraying from the side of his mouth. The same man pointed at the women in turn and then towards the door. They got the message and fled.

  Unlike his brother Pinky decided to use his brain.

  ‘What’s going on here fellas? If there’s a prob we can sort it out like gentlemen, eh? Why don’t we—‘

  He never finished. Metallic tape was slapped over his mouth.

  Now he started to fight, using every dirty trick he’d learned on the street, but it was no use. His hands were tied behind his back and his legs together like a hog going to slaughter. His brother was receiving the same rough treatment.

  As naked as the day they were born, Pinky and Styley were viciously dragged along the ground by their feet out of the room and along the hard wooden floor of the corridor. No one peeped out of the other rooms. If you didn’t see you couldn’t tell. Both brothers cried out in muffled pain as their heads hit every stair as they were unceremoniously dragged downstairs.

  Charmaine watched the proceedings from a crack in the meet ‘n’ greet room near the reception area with a smug smile. Finally, those two wank jobs were getting a taste of their own bitter medicine. About time too!


  Pinky and Styley were lifted and chucked into the back of a van. Boots held them down as black hoods were placed over their heads. Pinky made a vow:

  If this was fucking Dee Black’s work he was going to make that bitch realise what real pain was. Very slowly.

  Pinky and Styley were terrified now as they hung upside down, stark bollock naked, in the freezing early morning air. They still had no idea where they were or who had the balls to nab them. They’d been driven across East London, then bundled into a lift and taken to a roof. Then something had been tied around their ankles and they’d been hoisted like meat for sale in a butchers’.

  The clip-clip of heavy, confident footsteps beat across the concrete rooftop. An awful quiet descended and suddenly their hoods were removed and the tape ripped off their mouths. Pinky let out a small cry of pain as the tap yanked out some of his midnight shadow.

  From his upside down vantage point Styley saw the murky Thames rippling below and recognised that he was in Wapping. His first ever girlfriend had hailed from here back in the days when it was shifting from a poor man’s East End into El Dorado. Once abandoned warehouses were brimming with light and tons of money. He didn’t get it himself; the place was still a shithole as far as he was concerned.

  One of the heavies placed a chair in front of them. A smartly suited man walked over and carefully sat down. When the brothers clocked who it was they knew they were in big, fucking trouble right up to their frozen toes.

  ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to carry out a shooting on my manor,’ Biggin informed them.

  He didn’t shout, he didn’t scream or yell. No, that wasn’t Biggin’s way. His menace came from the quiet, deadly way he’d always approached life. Why raise your blood pressure when you didn’t need to?

  Pinky opened his mouth before his brother could. If Sty blabbed they were dead meat.

  ‘What shooting?’ He let out innocently.

  The older man drummed his fingers against his thigh. ‘Oh dear, they’re playing dumb. Although to be fair, they are dumb I suppose.’

  Pinky spluttered, ‘We’re not dumb enough to pull a stunt like that. No one is.’ He laughed nervously, his teeth chattering with cold. ‘We’d never take you for a jester. Fact of the matter is we ain’t got a clue what shooting you’re going on about.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Styley chipped in. ‘We’d never do something like that without your say-so first, would we bruv?’

  Pinky shook his head. ‘No fucking way.’

  Biggin let out a heavy sigh, his breath frosting in the air. ‘So you two know nothing about a club getting shot up tonight?’

  They violently shook their heads.

  Biggin left his chair, turned and moved towards the edge to stare down at the river. ‘Let me ask you both a question. What punishment would you doll out to some cunt who was taking the proper Arthur Bliss? Like say someone came into your gym and mashed the place up?’

  Styley, as per usual, let his mouth do the talking instead of his brain. ‘They’d be dead.’

  If Pinky wasn’t tied up he’d have booted his no-brain bruv right off the roof. How many times had he told him to have a good think before opening that trap of his, eh? Ever since they were youths growing up fast and hard in Bethnal Green his brother’s gigantic gob had put them in bother.

  He spoke quickly, hoping to shove his brother’s words into the wind. ‘Nah, we wouldn’t do that, would we Sty? We’d get the facts and then have a quiet word first and—‘

  Biggin swung round and it was too dark for Pinky to see from this distance but he knew the older man’s face was like thunder.

  ‘I never taught you to have a word. You get in there and beat the shit outta them to establish order.’

  Pinky could feel the bones already breaking in his body. ‘I’m telling you straight Biggin we never roughed up that club near the River Lea.’

  ‘Who said it was near the River Lea?’

  Pinky could feel the piss leaking from his cock. Biggin was going to make mince meat of them, so he blasted out the truth. ‘We only did it coz the rich bitch who owns the joint wouldn’t pay the starter on her insurance policy. And if she don’t cough up that means your books aren’t straight.’

  He cringed as Biggin strolled over. He was more embarrassed that he stunk of piss than the beating he was about to receive. ‘Please uncle, we were only doing what was right.’

  Biggin was in fact their Great Uncle. He had taken them under his wing and into his business when they had started to bunk off secondary school and refused to go back. If it weren’t for him they’d probably be doing a long stretch banged up somewhere.

  ‘I should batter you both for stepping out of line.’ Biggin was growling now all pretence at being calm long gone. ‘Now I hear that the Rozzers are sniffing around all coz you two nutters don’t have a brain cell between you.’

  He raised his hand and belted one brother across the face and then the other.

  Frothing at the mouth he snarled, ‘And you wanna know why the Feds turned up? You fucking capped some woman who’s now in the ozzie and the way I hear it she’s critical.’

  Both brothers sucked in their breath at that. Rage pouring out of him Biggin boxed the other side of their stupid heads, leaving them swinging in the wind. He was beside himself with fury as he marched around.

  ‘Now I’m gonna have to pay hush-hush money to some plain-clothed plod I know to make sure our names are kept out of the picture.’

  Styley spoke up. ‘I’m sorry—‘

  His Great Uncle bellowed, ‘I’m sorry ain’t cutting it.’ He took a deep breath as he visibly attempted to calm down. ‘The only reason I’m not doing a proper job on you is because of your mother. My niece don’t deserve another funeral after your stepdad passed last year.’

  The brothers both breathed easy. But Biggin wasn’t finished with them.

  He jabbed a finger. ‘This ain’t finished. Not by a long shot. Tomorrow I’m coming to the gym for an accounting of what went on. And if I don’t like it even my niece won’t be enough to save you.’

  He pointed at one of his men who took out a knife and cut them down. They landed with a hard thud on the solid roof. They might be hurting but it was better than what would’ve happened to them if Biggin had taken a scaffolding pipe filled with concrete to them.

  He turned from them and marched away his men following.

  ‘We ain’t got no clothes,’ Pinky squealed.

  Biggin didn’t even turn as he scoffed, ‘After the strokes you’ve pulled it seems to me that your nuts need a little airing.’

  27

  A wild-eyed Babs grabbed the passing doctor and held on to him for dear life.

  ‘Is my daughter going to be alright? Please,’ she begged, ‘I can’t lose her. It ain’t right a daughter should go afore her mother.’

  The woman gazed at her bewildered. ‘Your daughter? Is she one of my patients…err Mrs…’

  ‘Sorry about that doctor.’ That was Kieran’s voice she registered. Her red rimmed eyes glanced at him. Why was he letting the doctor walk away? Was he outta his fucking tree?

  As if reading her anguished thoughts he said, ‘That’s the wrong doctor Babs—‘

  ‘Are you sure?’ she snapped back her face haunted. ‘Coz—‘

  ‘Mum,’ Dee interrupted, ‘Let’s get you sat down before you collapse.’

  Like a zombie, she allowed her eldest to steer her towards a plastic chair. She stared into space.

  Then Tiff’s face appeared along with Flo’s. ‘Shall we get you a cuppa from the machine downstairs?’

  Which one spoke she didn’t know; Babs couldn’t hear a thing. She was lost in the horror of what had happened. Still couldn’t believe it. Her Jennifer had been lying there in a pool of ever increasing blood. Claret coming out of her everywhere, that’s how it had appeared to Babs. She’d screamed with such chilling ferocity that those nearest had shuffled back. Then she was on her knees, slipping in blood as she cuddle
d Jen close.

  Someone had shouted, ‘Don’t touch her, you could make things worse,’ and had tried to pull her away.

  Not touch her Jen? Were they having a laugh? Babs had fought them tooth and nail; punching, thumping, clawing, but she’d been dragged, sliding on her bottom, away. Oh my God, if her beautiful, precious Jen was going to pass into the next world she wanted her arms to be the last she felt embracing her with love.

  The air ambulance ride had been hectic and horrendous. Babs had held her daughter’s hand all the way while wiping tears back with her other. The staff at the hospital had swung into action as soon as they touched down.

  ‘Let them do their work,’ Dee had whispered to her when she wouldn’t let go of Jen’s frozen, still hand.

  Babs came back to the present as she recalled something else. Abruptly, her head came up. ‘Where’s Courtney?’ she asked listlessly.

  Tiff had her arm round her niece whose face was stark - no blood in it - looking like her world had come to an end. She left the comfort of her aunt’s embrace and walked on unsteady legs towards Babs. ‘Nanna Babs?’

  Babs shot to her feet and growled, ‘What were you doing at the club my girl?’

  Courtney took a startled step back. ‘I was—‘

  ‘Up to your antics, as per usual—‘

  ‘Lay off her mum,’ Tiff barked.

  But Babs took not a blind bit of notice. She’d lost all her bearings after the gunfire. ‘All you had to do was listen to your mum and stay at home and look out for your baby sister.’

  She whacked Courtney around the head.

  ‘Why don’t you ever listen to your mum?’ She landed another blow before Dee rushed at her and grabbed her arm in mid-flight.

  ‘Let me go! Let me go!’ Babs’ voice sounded horrible to her own ears.

  ‘Mum stop it,’ Dee said, her voice hardening.

  Suddenly Babs’ body went limp, all the life drained away as an unbearable grief took hold.