by Emmy Ellis
Aniyah would miss her.
She drifted back downstairs, her stomach pinching from the fear of seeing Mum, of having her shouting at her and being cruel. She’d probably have one last rant, pleading with Aniyah to tell the Social everything was fine, then switching in that mad way of hers to calling her a grass and a betrayer.
She ferreted in the cupboard under the stairs for Dad’s coat. While she’d get to smell him every day now, it was a part of her past she didn’t want to leave behind, her comfort blanket. She spied the fake fur jacket and left it on the hook. She didn’t want to smell Mum. Stale alcohol and cigarettes.
Coat draped over her bags at the bottom of the stairs, she padded along the hallway. Paused at the living room door, her chest hurting, belly squirming. Was that her heart thumping? It beat fast and hard, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. Door pushed open, she stepped inside. Mum was asleep on the sofa, no clothes on, hadn’t even gone to bed last night, and she must have eaten something because dried red sauce was on one dangling wrist. The wrist had a poorly on it, like Mum had hurt herself.
“Mum?” She moved closer. “Mummy?”
Red sauce was on the floor, and it was weird, as Mum always had brown on her chips. “Can’t beat a bit of HP,” she’d said.
“Mummy?”
Aniyah moved to stand beside the sofa and tapped Mum’s bare shoulder. It was cold, like the knickerbocker glory glass at The Flag, and she snatched her hand away. Mum must have put lipstick on wrong, because around her mouth, it was blue. Or had she had a raspberry slushie?
Aniyah shouted at her to wake up, her fists clenched, her tummy going weird and tight. Mum didn’t open her eyes and answer. Aniyah stepped backwards, away, knowing something was wrong but not what. She banged into the coffee table, the corner digging into her leg, and an empty vodka bottle fell to the floor along with a plastic bottle for pills.
One white tablet sat beside the red sauce on the dirty carpet.
She stared at the sauce that had dripped over Mum’s palm, down her fingers to the tips. Where was the bottle then, the one that had a label with a big scarlet tomato on it? Confused, she ran, crying, into the hallway. Struggled to open the front door, on tiptoes to reach the high lock. She flung herself out into the raggedy front garden, down the path, then ran along the pavement to Willa’s gate. She pushed it, but it wouldn’t move, as stubborn as Mum when she got herself into a spin about something, and she had to reach over and unclip the latch. It grated free with a grinding screech. Up the path, Willa’s red door ahead, as red as the sauce, Aniyah clambered onto the brick step and banged with her fists.
Willa opened up, a smile on her pretty face, which changed to an open mouth. “What’s the matter, love?”
“Mum won’t wake up.” Aniyah sobbed, her cheeks wet, snot dripping, but she didn’t care, she didn’t care. She just wanted Mum to clean the sauce off and be okay.
“What? Fucking hell. She has to have the last word, doesn’t she, making her point, leaving you to get yourself ready for your dad. Spiteful cow. I’m glad I told him what was going on. Go inside mine. My lad’s in the kitchen, he’ll look after you. Ask him for some toast. I’ll bet you haven’t had any sodding breakfast. Now there’s a damn surprise.”
Willa ran to Aniyah’s, and Aniyah walked into the house. The clean house that smelt of breakfast and polish, where everything was put away instead of being left out. She wandered into the bright, sunshine-yellow kitchen at the back with its cheery blind at the window, pictures of teapots all over it, safe now, feeling better because Willa would wake Mum up and everything would be all right.
Willa’s son sat at the table, scoffing cereal, his arm around the bowl as if he was worried it’d get up and walk away. Willa called him Kev, but all his mates called him Robins. Aniyah didn’t like him, he frightened her with his beetled eyebrows and harsh mouth. He belonged to a gang and said he’d rule London one day, was always telling the kids in the street that. She didn’t know how he could do that because the Queen ruled everywhere. She wouldn’t just give him London.
“All right, Aniyah?” he said between mouthfuls. A dribble of milk shot down his chin, and he swiped it away. His white T-shirt had sharp creases on the sleeves where Willa had used the iron.
Aniyah shuffled from foot to foot. “Your mum said to make me toast, please.”
Dad said manners cost nothing, so she’d used them, even though Kevin didn’t with her.
She sat at the table opposite the teenager, her legs going to jelly. He scared her, as surly as he was, and she never knew what to say around him. She wouldn’t have to see him again anyway, not now she was going to live with Dad.
Dad. He’d be here soon to pick her up.
Kevin got up and slotted some bread in the shiny silver toaster, his reflection skewed in it. “What are you doing here anyway, shitbag?”
Her stomach cramped, and she stared at his clean, light-blue jeans. “My mum won’t wake up.”
“So what’s new? If she didn’t drink, she’d be able to bloody wake up.”
“She’s got red sauce on her arm and the carpet, and a poorly on her, here.” She tapped her wrist. “And she’s had a raspberry slushie.”
“What?”
“She’s got blue around her lips.”
“Stay there. The marg is in the fridge.” He took a butter knife from a drawer and slapped it on the worktop. “Sort the toast when it’s done.”
Kevin rushed out, and Aniyah stood, going over to the toaster. She looked at herself in it, and her face was just as skew-whiff as Kevin’s body had been. On tiptoes, she stared inside at the wiggly orange lines. Heat came up and warmed her face, drying the tears.
The toast popped, the crusts hitting her nose, and she jumped. At the table, she put marg on both slices, found a plate on the drying rack, and took it and the toast to the table. Spread some jam from an open pot of strawberry. She was used to making herself things to eat.
She sat and munched on it, swinging her legs, and it reminded her of the special night in The Flag. The clock ticked. It had a wooden cuckoo it in that sprang out sometimes. Willa had told her it had belonged to her dad. Not Aniyah’s dad, Willa’s. It had always frightened her.
Toast gone, she sat still. Voices came in from outside. She scraped the chair back and walked to the front door. An ambulance was outside her house, its blue lights flashing. Neighbours had come to see what was going on, Peter and Olivia standing beside their mum.
“She’s topped herself,” someone said.
“Scutty cow.”
“Yeah, filthy piece of shit.”
Aniyah moved as if in a dream, slowly, the air tight around her. She left Willa’s garden and drifted along the pavement, everyone parting to let her through, staring down at her. Peter thumped her on the shoulder, and Olivia laughed. A policeman was at Aniyah’s front door with Kevin, on the step. She seemed to float up the path, her carriers and the black bag inside peeking out from behind the copper’s leg.
“That’s her daughter,” Kevin said.
“Thanks, son.”
Where was Willa?
“Oh fuck, Darrian’s only gone and turned up,” a woman muttered.
Aniyah spun round. Dad’s car parked in front of the ambulance. He got out, his face all strange, a frown, his mouth slack. Aniyah ran to him, and he swept her up in his arms, holding her tight. She wrapped her legs around his waist and clung on, crying so many hot tears.
“What’s happened?” he asked her.
“Someone said she topped herself. What does that mean?”
“Oh shit. Oh my fucking God…”
Aniyah didn’t remember much after that.
Chapter Thirteen
Charles should feel guilty about leading Robins to Aniyah, but he didn’t. The lies he’d told her were for his own benefit.
Like he had a choice in the matter and wanted a slit throat—who did? Johnny Black had told him what to say, and he’d followed Charles earlier, to The Angel. U
sing the firm’s PI to find her had been a genius idea, and the man hadn’t minded a bit of cash in hand—and he’d keep the search under his hat.
If Aniyah hadn’t vanished the way she had, Charles might have helped her out of this mess, but she’d ghosted almost everyone, finishing their affair abruptly. He didn’t buy it that her dad and his wife, Shona, didn’t know where Aniyah was. The bullshit had been written all over their faces, so the PI had informed him, but he hadn’t pressed them for information. He’d said she was due some money from the firm, and as she’d changed her bank account, they couldn’t pay it and had been trying to find her for years. That seemed to allay any fears the couple had.
Still, with her current flat rented in her real name, her bills the same, it hadn’t been difficult to track her down. And working as a massage therapist, going by the name of Lavender, well, that was a load of rubbish. Her clothing had shown Charles which path she’d gone down.
She’d turned into her mother, just a classier version.
Aniyah had shared her childhood with him, the trauma of one Jackie Sutton overdosing on pills and booze, slitting her wrist for good measure. How finding her had devastated Aniyah once she’d been told ‘topping herself’ meant her mother was dead. She’d blamed herself for it, how she’d told the social worker what life was like at home, and if she hadn’t, her mum would still be alive. Of course, that was nothing to do with it, Jackie sounded a right bitch, only out for herself, and if she couldn’t even keep the house clean or treat Aniyah the way a child deserved, she shouldn’t have had custody.
Quite the burden to carry, though, and near the end of their relationship, Aniyah was sometimes withdrawn because of it. Or so he’d assumed. After speaking to Johnny, it seemed she’d been seeing Robins behind Charles’ back, so helping Mr Black out was a pleasure.
But none of that mattered anymore. Charles was only interested in his survival, carrying on his life, Robins and Black free. He’d met a new woman—oddly enough, she looked like Aniyah—and he planned to marry her. She didn’t know that yet, it was early days, but still, wedding bells rang in his head.
He picked up the phone. Dialled. Waited for Black to pick up.
“Are we square?” Charles asked.
“Yeah. I followed her home—she got a taxi from a flat above the pub.”
“Right.”
“We might need you to lure her out; I’ll have to speak to the boss first to confirm it. We’ll be watching her over the next couple of days to assess her pattern, that’s our usual way. The boss might feel differently and want her picked up sooner.”
Charles could hardly refuse to ‘lure’ Aniyah. He swept all thoughts of the danger she was in out of his head—she’d cheated on him and didn’t deserve his loyalty. “Okay, let me know when.”
The line went dead.
He warmed a croissant in the microwave. While the seconds ticked down, he pondered on how things would have been so different if she’d come to him about Robins from the start. They could have gone to the police, made a case against the man, got him banged up, and she’d still have her job at the firm, and Charles would have her—she’d have been grateful to him, vowing to stay by his side forever.
But she hadn’t let him in on her sordid secret. Black had told him all about it. She’d gone dirty, shagging Robins, advising him and his men on how to get out of clauses in the law. Told them how to be better criminals. Went against the oath.
Served herself right that she was back on their radar. If you kept secrets, that was what happened. The bad men came to get you.
The microwave pinged, and he took the plate out, bit the end of the croissant. Would that happen to him? After all, he had a secret: the fact he was helping them to entrap Aniyah.
Would he always be under their thumb, too? Did he already know too much?
Chapter Fourteen
Kevin smiled, pleased last night had gone well. Johnny had brought him up to date this morning. His right-hand man had followed that Charles bloke to The Angel, where Aniyah worked now. As a prosser. That news hadn’t gone down well, but Kevin should have expected she’d follow in her mother’s filthy footsteps at some point.
Johnny had tailed the taxi to Aniyah’s flat, waited until she’d gone inside and up the communal stairs, then got out to inspect the names beside the numerous post slots in the foyer. Sutton, she’d used the name Sutton, such a stupid thing to do if she planned on hiding forever.
Mind you, Kevin had to admit she’d hidden well enough up to now. It wasn’t until he’d had the idea of approaching Charles, three years after her disappearing act, that he’d found her. No amount of digging during that time had unearthed the little cow, not even the woman he’d planted in Shona’s life in order to get information from her. Seemed Shona was sticking to whatever story Aniyah had given her—that she needed some space while she got her life back together after a breakup.
Aniyah had vanished.
Until now.
“So what’s next?” Johnny sipped from his Costa cup and put his feet on the desk.
“We watch her for a bit, see what she does, where she goes, whether she’s got a boyfriend. If she’s working in the parlour at The Angel, she’ll be under the protection of The Brothers and that Debbie woman, so we need to catch her well away from that place. I don’t want those twins on my back. They’re mean bastards and people I need on my side.”
Johnny used his palm to scratch his nose, rotating it so the bone clicked. “I’ve told Charles he might be needed. We can get him to go back, ask her if she’d like to go out for dinner.”
“For old time’s sake?” Kevin’s blood boiled at the thought of that. Aniyah had been seeing the posh twat while she’d been Kevin’s solicitor. He’d tried to erase images of her and Charles together while he’d had sex with her.
It hadn’t worked. All he saw was the Eton boy’s hands all over her—all over Kevin’s trophy.
He acknowledged his obsession with her had started when they were kids. Back then, it was his need to protect her from Jackie, not that he ever did much. Shit, some of the stories his mum had come back with after visiting that house… Except he’d never shown Aniyah how much he liked her in the right way. If he spoke to her, it was surly, him calling her ‘shitbag’ more often than not, a nickname, now he thought about it, that was cruel. She might have taken it the wrong way, like half-and-half.
He’d killed Peter and Olivia for that, three years after getting in with Jerry. They wouldn’t be uttering racial slurs again. The pair of them had been standing at a bus stop, and he’d driven at them, into the shelter, his bumper pinning their legs to the pole seat. He’d stared at them through the windscreen, their faces showing shock and pain and recognition, then he’d reversed, watched them fall to the ground and soldier-crawl along the path. Engine revved, he’d run over the pair of them, back and forth until they were dead.
He’d gone to the funeral, Mum had asked him to—“They’re your friends from childhood, Kev, it’s the least you can do…”—and smiled to himself, knowing what state the bodies were in inside those coffins. Broken. Their faces grotesque.
He snapped out of his memories. “Get Henley to watch her, he’s the best one at blending with the public. I want to know what she gets up to these days. I can use it to hurt her emotionally once she’s back where she belongs. We’ll discuss Charles taking her out on the night we snatch her another time. I’m going into the attic.”
Johnny laughed. “I’m surprised Martin’s still alive.”
“Me, too. No matter how much I flog him, the bastard won’t give up. Seems he’ll be one of the few who make it back onto the streets. That reminds me. Buy some Savlon. He’ll need it for the patterns.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lavender woke to the sound of banging. She shot up in bed, her heart pounding. Had Kevin come to get her? If it wasn’t him, should she do what she’d promised herself not to and go round to see Willa, tell her exactly what her son was like and ask for her
help?
No. Dad would get killed.
Mouth dry, she crept out of bed and grabbed her phone, ready to ring Debbie, then moved out of the room and into the hallway. She didn’t have any glass in the front door, but a peephole was enough to see who was outside on the balcony. She didn’t talk to her neighbours either side, so no banging on walls like Mum used to for Willa’s help.
She peered through the peephole, never so glad to see George Wilkes out there, his wide figure so comforting, tears stung. She pressed her back to the wall in relief and sagged, one hand to her chest, her phone down by her side in the other.
A deep breath, and she opened the door. The twins stood side by side, smiling.
“Debbie let us know you need help.” Greg glanced to the right. Probably checking if anyone along the balcony had seen him.
“Y-yes.” She stepped back hurriedly to let them in. “I-I can’t do this on my own anymore, not now they’ve found me. Did she tell you who it was?”
“Yeah.” George brushed past, his arm nudging hers. “Got any coffee? Gagging for a cuppa.”
“Yes, I need one myself.”
She shut the door. In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and stuck it on. The Brothers sat at her white-painted dining table, legs stretched out, so relaxed and calm. Didn’t anything faze them?
“Come on then, we want to know the lot.” George folded his arms over his belly and looked for all the world as though he had nothing pressing on his mind.
She wished she didn’t.
She sighed, hating having to do this, to talk about it all, but in order for them to understand why Robins and Black had to be dead, she’d have to do it. You couldn’t expect someone to kill another just on your say so, could you.
