Broken (30 page)

She grinned. ‘We’ll go now then, eh?’

Gunner was frightened. As he looked nervously at Benjamin they could both see the confusion on his face.

‘What, you taking me to the Bill shop then?’

‘Maybe,’ Kate said in a friendly fashion.

Benjamin looked at his watch as if he was in an enormous hurry and wanted to get going as soon as possible. This was not lost on anyone in the room.

Kate thanked God for her choice of heavy. Benjamin Boarder knew every trick in the book. They all watched as his hand went to his gun. It looked like a perfectly instinctive action and that made it all the more frightening to the two men sitting at the table. Boarder would use a gun for a price. Had used a gun for a price. Many times.

‘Patrick is on the mend, did you know that?’ Kate’s voice was hushed now, as if she was letting them in on a big secret.

Joey Partridge was looking around the room as if expecting an escape route to open up before his eyes.

‘You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,’ he tried snarling. He looked from Kate to her henchman. ‘Either of you. We’re involved in something so big, lady, it would take an FBI team ten years to place just one face inside it.’

Benjamin watched impassively as Kate stood up and shook her head sadly.

‘You don’t half talk some crap, Joey. Who are you more scared of? Boris, Patrick or me? Only as I see it you’re caught between a rock and a very hard place. Whatever I decide today, you are both basically fucked. Right or wrong? All I really want is a contact for Boris, that’s all. Then I’ll walk out of this door and forget I ever came here. But if I don’t get what I want, I may have to start causing you hag. Then I’ll have to tell people like McMann and others that if grassing was an Olympic sport, you lot would get the gold. Do you see what I’m trying to say?’

She paused and stared hard at the two men. ‘Now if I can track you down here, I can track you anywhere. Unlike most of your peers, I can look you and all your mates up on a dirty big central computer. So let’s cut the crap and make some sort of deal here, eh. I am a very busy woman.’

Jacky Gunner was not impressed. He wanted out of the country and he was going to leave within the next few days. Now he had a Filth standing here telling him that he was either a captured man or a dead one.

He could feel sweat prickling on his neck and under his arms. He was clear and free but for this woman with her big expressive eyes and her flat tits telling him she had him whichever way he decided to turn. He thought of his wife Sheryl and his kids waiting for him in Tenerife. The bank account that only he had access to, and his girlfriend, Freya, living not a ten-minute walk from his wife’s new villa.

It wasn’t fucking fair. Life never was.

On top of it all he had Boris on his back. Big Bad Boris, who had more bloody contacts than AT&T, British Telecom and all the Internet service providers put together.

Jacky was in over his neck as usual. ‘With Pat on the mend you two are in a rather precarious position because, being Patrick, he’s going to want to know who set him up. He’s funny like that, always wanting to know everything. It’s what I like about him,’ Kate said cosily. ‘Now, once I give him the information he wants, you two can do what you like. Until then, you’re mine. Take them to the car, Ben. This is starting to bore me.’

Joey jumped from his seat, his hands held out in front of him. ‘Here, hold up. Where are you taking us?’

Boarder said quietly, ‘Callum Norville is waiting for you both.’

‘What! Callum is on to this?’

Kate heard the tremor in Jacky’s voice and swallowed down her own fear. She had gone big, she knew that. The cost of all this was going to be sky high.

‘Who else did you think we’d have called on? Patrick was his partner for years - I thought you’d have known that.’

Gunner looked at Kate. ‘I ain’t going nowhere.’

‘You don’t have any choice.’

He looked into her eyes. ‘Oh, yes I do. I’ll give you a contact number for Boris . . .’

‘Leave it out, Jacky! What are you - fucking mad?’ Joey protested.

Gunner waved him to silence.

‘Fuck you, Joey. This was supposed to be a safe house - any minute now I’ll have fucking Avon calling. Now piss off and let me do me own deal. You want to be a hero that’s up to you, but I’m already in Callum’s fucking bad books. I ain’t going to see him for no one.’

Kate suppressed a smile. Patrick had said once that just Callum’s name was more frightening than anything Stephen King or anyone else could think up. From a bare-knuckle fighter to a paid torturer, his progress had been swift. He instilled real terror and would do so for a price. Hence he was the most hated and the most feared man in the smoke. He would nail legs to tables, burn the soles off feet, and laugh while he did it. On his own initiative, he had brought back facial scalping as his trademark. What’s more, the man himself literally feared nothing. It was awesome to behold. Such was the reputation of Callum Norville.

‘Give me the number and then I’ll hand you to Benny here for the next few days. Once I establish contact with the Russian you can carry on as usual.’

Jacky shook his head. ‘No way. I give you the number, lady, then you fuck off.’

Kate lit a cigarette, slowly and deliberately.

‘Not being funny, son, but I think we’ve already established that I am calling the shots here. So just give me the number or I’ll ask Callum very nicely to get it out of you.
Don’t wind me up!
’ she growled suddenly.

The two villains knew that this was a woman on the edge. The man she adored had just been left with gunshot wounds and a tenuous grip on life. She also had the backing of a serious and mentally disturbed face called Callum Norville.

There was no choice; they had to do what she wanted.

‘I’ll keep Norville away, don’t worry.’

But it sounded a bit uncertain, as though she wasn’t sure she could really do that. It had the desired effect. Suddenly Boris took a back seat. He was scary, he was dangerous, but so was Callum Norville and he had the edge because now they were within his grasp.

As Kate saw the two men climbing into the van with Benjamin she sighed. She was in above her head now, had finally stepped over the fine line that separated law and order from badness and villainy.

She was disappointed in herself; had expected to feel much worse about it than she actually did. In fact, she had enjoyed it. But that was probably because she was doing something at last. She knew that Patrick Kelly would have moved heaven and earth to help her out if the boot was on the other foot.

She was just repaying the compliment.

Sarah Coltman got out of her car and stretched. She was tired out. Her whole body ached. She rubbed her large belly, felt the child within it move gently.

She loved living here, though everyone thought she and Max were mad for choosing to do so. There were only two other small cottages down Sunny Lane, but that was what they liked about it. The privacy and the quiet. Both born in Grantley on council estates, they had worked and saved to buy their dream home. Every time she looked at the cottage with its thatched roof and pretty garden Sarah felt a jolt of pure, unadulterated happiness. With the baby on the way, they had it all.

Sarah pushed her thick dark hair from her eyes and looked out over the fields opposite. They would be muck-spreading soon and the smell would be atrocious, but that was part and parcel of going rural. A fly buzzed around her face and she brushed it away gently.

She yawned loudly and then opening the boot she took out her heavy bags of shopping, and lugged them towards her front door. Just then she saw a woman walking along the lane. The sight caught her eye because the woman had a stunningly beautiful child with her. The little girl had long blond hair and blue eyes, like a picture of an angel come to life. But she was crying loudly, her face contorted by tears.

Sarah put down her shopping and walked to her gate. The woman turned abruptly as she saw her and dragged the child along the lane. The little girl was calling out, ‘I want my mummy!’ She was looking over her shoulder at Sarah, her huge blue eyes beseeching.

Opening the gate, Sarah followed them down the lane. It was instinctive.

As the woman picked up the child, Sarah found herself running behind them. The child was hysterical now, screaming.

‘Stop! Excuse me, could you slow down, please? I want to talk to you.’ Sarah’s voice was louder than she had thought. It rang in her own ears as she ran, panting, down the uneven lane. She was praying she wouldn’t lose her footing and fall over.

The girl was kicking and struggling now, holding out her arms to Sarah in supplication and Sarah knew in the deepest recess of her heart that this child was in trouble. It spurred her on. Even with her heavy belly weighing her down she made herself run faster. The sun was in her eyes and she was struggling to see.

The woman in front of her had long brown hair and she was running at a remarkable speed considering she was carrying a sturdily built toddler. Just then the little girl gave her a well-aimed kick and the woman stumbled. Sarah saw her and the child fall heavily to the ground.

She gained on them.

Then the woman was up on her knees and trying to snatch back the little girl. But the toddler was quicker. Fast on her feet, she ran blindly towards Sarah. Then the woman was up again and dragging the screaming child back by its bright red T-shirt. But she had been slowed down and with a final spurt Sarah gained on them.

The woman turned. Taking back her arm, she planted one fist straight into Sarah’s swollen stomach. The blow doubled her up. She felt a heavy popping inside her and fell, stunned and in excruciating pain, on to her knees. With tears in her eyes she watched as the woman picked up the now quiet child and ran off down the quiet country lane.

Within seconds all Sarah could hear was the birds singing and the low drone of a tractor somewhere in the distance. She took deep breaths to try and still the racing of her heart and the heavy pain that was suffusing her heavily laden body.

Hearing a car door slam nearby, she remembered seeing a black saloon car parked in one of the lay-bys as she had returned from shopping.

Rolling on to her side, she tried to pull herself to her knees. The pain was abating slightly and, praying under her breath, she attempted to stand. She started the walk back to her house, her body all the time telling her that she needed a doctor, and needed one soon.

It took her ten minutes to get back to her house. There she phoned an ambulance and the police in that order.

 

Kathy Collins was twenty-five years old, and she was an ancient twenty-five year old. As her four daughters ran around her, crying out for attention and fighting with one another, she sat herself down on the battered sofa and lit a joint. Kathy pulled the smoke deep into her lungs and let it out with a heavy, heartfelt sigh.

‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ Her voice was loud, but not that loud.

Her eldest daughter, Tiffany, started laughing. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ she mimicked. ‘Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up . . .’

The three smaller ones took up the chant and Kathy shook her head in mock reproof. They were four little sods.

‘What do you want to eat?’ Her voice was weary now as she heard the answer she heard every night of their lives.

‘Chips. Chips and beans.’

They were running around again, the four beautiful little girls that she loved or hated depending on what mood she was in. It was 7.35 p.m. and they had just come in for something to eat after a heavy day of playing out and generally being sods.

The front door stood wide open and Suzy Harrington walked straight in.

Kathy looked at her snidely. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can I borrow one of the kids, please? I have a client. Nothing too bad, just looking really.’

Kathy was unsure. She could do with the money, but she always felt guilty afterwards. Especially if it was the little one, Rebecca. She hated Suzy for doing this to her.

Suzy saw her indecision and pulled out a twenty-pound note and a small silver-foil package.

‘Finest grade, not cut yet, so be careful, Kath. This is shit hot gear.’ The girl’s smile as she held out the package and the money was reassuring. ‘It’s only for an hour, love, and no touching, I promise. Just a few photos and a bit of fun. Straight up.’

Kathy took the money. ‘Have you heard about Kerry?’

The tall girl shrugged. ‘She’s a cunt to herself. Always leaving them poor kids on their own. They’re better off without her.’ She was picking up Rebecca in her arms as she spoke.

Kathy suddenly wanted desperately to snatch the child back from her but the weight of the package in her hand stopped her. Inside she felt awful, but inside she was also craving the oblivion the heroin would give her. It was a vicious circle and she knew it. She wasn’t stupid, though. She knew they never touched the kids because she had checked them over when they came back.