Disobey (17 page)

‘Why not, Chloe-Jane? What can’t you do?’

‘Tell you. I can’t tell you the last time I saw him … He never bothered to come and see me, but that don’t mean he ain’t my family. He is and he always will be.’

Franny protested, ‘I doubt he’ll want to know now. You’ve messed things up from both ends. You lied to me and the way Alfie will see it, you grassed him up. It’s over, Chloe. He said you were trouble and he wasn’t wrong.’

‘Why are you saying these things? Why?’

Franny’s face was red with anger. ‘Because your lies nearly cost my friend’s life; and that’s still in the balance. She could still die. Don’t you see, Chloe, your lies have caused a lot of people to get hurt? Think about it, Chloe-Jane, if you hadn’t lied to me, telling me that Alfie wasn’t involved in the casino night then I wouldn’t have gone round to Whispers. Do you understand what I’m saying? I wouldn’t have bothered, and then nothing would’ve happened to Casey.’

Chloe was distraught. ‘Franny … Please.’

Franny’s voice hardened as the images of Casey lying on the floor in Whispers flashed into her mind. ‘No, it’s not
please Franny.
Like I keep telling you, it’s over. I want you gone and I don’t want to see you again.’

Chloe-Jane held onto Franny; tugging at her sleeve like a young child. ‘I’m sorry!… I’m so sorry, Franny, please. Please don’t throw me out, I ain’t nowhere else to go … I got nowhere else to go.’

It hurt Franny to see such a vulnerable girl in such turmoil. But her weakness towards the situation only lasted for a moment; she knew she couldn’t live her life in the heart of such lies. She didn’t want to be around people who could hurt her. And Chloe-Jane had.

‘I’m sorry Chloe, I’ve said all I there is to say. You need to leave now.’ Franny put her hand out to Chloe-Jane. ‘Can I have my keys back?’

‘Fran …’ But the look in Franny’s eyes made Chloe stop. She’d seen that kind of look before. The look that said it was pointless. The look that told her it wasn’t worth putting up a fight any- more.

Going into her pocket, Chloe pulled out the key, placed it gently into Franny’s hand then turned and walked out of the flat, into the darkness of Soho. Alone once again.

‘Well?’ Mr Lee waited for Lin to close the door behind him. They were streaming live and the sound of the girl screaming wasn’t conducive to discussions.

Lin, feeling a bit of food in his back teeth, rolled his tongue in his mouth. ‘More interesting than either of us thought.’

‘I’m intrigued.’

‘You were right. Certainly the cat was amongst the pigeons. Vaughn Sadler’s girlfriend was shot.’

Mr Lee stood up as if he’d just received an electric shock. ‘I didn’t give you orders to do anything. Just go and see what was happening I said but now …’

Lin grinned, interrupting. ‘Not me. They had done it to themselves …’

Self-satisfied, Mr Lee nodded. ‘And so they fall.’

‘I got word from one of our sources that the only one left in Soho is Alfie Jennings.’

‘Ah, yes, the irrepressible Mr Jennings.’

‘What would you like me to do?’

Mr Lee walked across to the window. Watched the leaves fall from the tree. How apt. How like the leaves the faces of London were. So quickly they’d dropped and divided. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy.

And as they had run and dropped Soho, Mr Lee would run and pick it up. Pick it up and do with it as he saw fit. And there was nobody to get in his way, nobody except …

‘Get rid of him. Get rid of Alfie Jennings, permanently.’

Lin raised his eyebrows. ‘In any particular way?’

Mr Lee smiled. ‘As painful and drawn-out as possible.’

26

Alfie Jennings sat in the waiting room in the hospital, his head in his hands. He didn’t even want to contemplate the past few hours’ events. He couldn’t. He had lost everything. Yes, he still had his money from the diamonds he’d sold from a robbery, given to him by Franny some time back, well for the time being anyway; but what good was money when everything you held dear had vanished or collapsed?

‘Oi, is there any word yet?’ Alfie called to the passing nurse.

‘I’m sorry, there’s no news yet, Mr …’

‘Jennings.’

Alfie went into his pocket and brought out some money. Taking a quick look round to make sure no one was watching, he pushed the money into the woman’s hand. ‘Find out, will ya?’

The nurse, tired from her long shift, sighed irritably. She stood back, distancing herself from the money. ‘I’m sorry, but that won’t make a difference.’

Alfie’s anger was palpable. ‘Won’t it?… Well how about this … And this.’ He threw more money at her, pulling fifty-pound notes out of his pocket and showering the nurse with them as if it were confetti. ‘Here you are, love. Not enough hey? Why don’t you take it all? Go on … take it. If it means you’ll tell me what’s happening with Casey; take the frigging lot.’

The nurse raised her voice to be heard over Alfie. ‘Mr Jennings!… Mr Jennings! It’s not about money.’

‘No?’

‘No … If you can just calm down, then I can explain.’

Alfie was now almost beside himself. ‘And you couldn’t have done that before hey? You couldn’t have fucking explained before?’ He kicked out at the blue plastic chair, not really thinking anything of it until a split second later when an extraordinarily sharp pain shot through his toe and into his foot, sending shockwaves of excruciating agony up his leg.

He held onto his leg crying out, ‘Fuck … fuck … me fucking toe.’

The nurse, unmoved by the display in front of her, gazed in contempt at Alfie. ‘You should get that looked at; you could’ve broken it, but then that’s what you get for kicking chairs that are fixed to the floor. It’s also one of the reasons why we did it, because of people like you.’

Alfie gazed up at the woman with fury in his eyes. ‘This is funny to you?’

‘No, not at all. In fact, far from it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients who I need to see to, and as I said before you broke your own toe, there’s no news. Casey is still in surgery, as she has been for the past two hours.’

Alfie was about to pursue his gripe with the nurse but he heard a familiar voice behind him. One he could do without hearing.

‘What the fucking hell are you doing here? You’re not wanted. Go on; go.’

Alfie turned around, unable to completely ignore the throbbing in his toe. ‘When you run the hospital, or even have a say about my life, Lola, you can tell me what to do. Until then, and I’m going to try and put this as politely as I can … Do one. Fucking do one, so help me God I’ll …’

‘You’ll what, Alfie?’

‘Yes, I’d be interested in hearing what you’ll do too, Mr Jennings.’

Two voices were heard behind him. Alfie swivelled round to see Franny, who was in the process of turning round herself to see who’d spoken.

‘Hello Mr Jennings, good to make your acquaintance, I’ve heard a lot about you. The name’s Detective Spencer, I’m Detective Teddy Davies’s replacement. You remember him don’t you?’

Alfie didn’t say anything but oh yes, he remembered Detective Davies alright. Who couldn’t? The man had been as bent as a U-bend and as full of shit as one. Davies had been in Del Williams’ pocket for quite some time before things had turned nasty between the two of them.

Detective Spencer turned his supercilious attention to Franny. He smiled unconvincingly, though it was hidden under his greying moustache.

‘Ms Doyle, isn’t it? I think we’ve met before.’

Franny snapped at Spencer, giving him a cold stare. ‘Yes I know, when you arrested my father on a false allegation, wasn’t it?’

The detective sneered. ‘I like to call it unproved;
false
is rather a strong word, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t think anything about you, Detective Spencer, now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve come to see my friend.’

‘Not so fast, Ms Doyle, I need a word, but before I do the faces just keep popping up from the past. Lola? Lola Harding.’ The detective paused to roar with feigned laughter. ‘Who’d have thought hey? Who’d have thought you’d still be alive and kicking?’

Lola shook her head. ‘You’re scum, Spencer, always have been, always will. You make Davies look like Snow White.’

Spencer turned back to Franny. ‘Perhaps we can go somewhere quieter?’

‘I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

‘That’s where we differ in opinion. Shall we?’ Spencer gestured to the visitors’ room.

‘Is this official, detective?’

‘No, just routine enquiries.’

‘Well in that case, I’ll tell you again, I’ve got nothing to say and anything
you’ve
got to say, you can say it here, in front of everyone.’

Infuriated and determined to push on with his questioning, Spencer glared at Franny, hissing his words. ‘Ms Doyle, where were you when Casey Edwards was shot?’

Franny turned away, refusing to look in Alfie’s direction. ‘Detective, I’ve already …’

‘We’ve charged Vaughn Sadler with attempted murder. And depending on if Ms Edwards gets through the night, it well may be murder.’

Franny, Alfie and Lola all baulked but it was Alfie who spoke. ‘You’re taking the piss. You lot are taking the fucking piss. He would never hurt Casey; he loved her.’

Spencer’s voice was sarcastic. ‘Well I’d hate to see what he did when he didn’t want to hurt her.’

Franny interrupted. ‘Where are you keeping him? Who’s representing him?’

Detective Spencer looked at his watch. ‘All in good time, Ms Doyle, I’ve got an appointment with a Big Mac. I’ll be back on duty in an hour, we can talk then.’

Ten minutes after Detective Spencer had gone in search of his midnight McDonald’s, Franny, Lola and Alfie sat outside the ICU department, having been informed that Casey had come out of surgery.

‘Happy now? Are you happy now?’ Lola’s voice was loud and full of passion and for a minute, Franny thought she’d have to tell her to keep it down, but it soon dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘Look what you lot have done.’

Alfie, not in the mood for anyone, and needing time to think, growled at Lola. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about you. You, Frankie, Del and even Vaughn. All the lot of you. You were supposed to come and help Soho, not bring chaos on it. I loved you Alfie, Franny loved you; we all did but you screwed us all over by getting involved with the casinos when you knew better. We’ve given you chance after chance and we did it because we cared. We hoped that one day, you’d sort yourself out and show us it was worth sticking by you, but instead you went on your own selfish path, and now look. Casey’s life is hanging in the balance, the others have upped sticks and gone, and the triads are breathing on our necks like a teenager in the back row of the movies … Even your niece, Chloe-Jo …’

‘Jane. Chloe-Jane.’

‘Jane, Jo, you know what I mean, Alfie, don’t be smart. Even Chloe-Jane got caught up in all of this.’

At the mention of Chloe-Jane’s name, Alfie rolled his eyes. Franny tried to push the guilt she’d been feeling for the past couple of hours away.

‘They’ve all gone. All of them, and now it’s only us. How the hell are we supposed to keep the triads at bay?’

Alfie said nothing, he felt ashamed. Not that shame would help anyone, all it did was allow him to feel sorry for himself.

‘Alfie, I’m talking to you.’ Lola angrily pushed on.

‘I know and I’m listening but what the fuck do you want me to do?’

Franny whipped round. ‘Perhaps do something that you haven’t done before; be a man. A real man.’

Alfie looked bemused; of all the things she could accuse him of, not being a man wasn’t one of them.

Reading his thoughts, Franny continued. ‘Oh please, don’t look like that, Alfie. Anyone can walk around banging their chest and threatening people with a gun, but the mark of a real man isn’t what they do when all is well, it’s what they do when things get tough. It’s then you see the true colours of a person.’

‘Fran, listen; I feel me balls are being squeezed and I don’t know which way to turn for trailing crap with me. I’m sorry, okay. I know that’s not what you want to hear but I am, let me explain why I did it.’

Franny shook her head, sadness filling up her eyes. ‘There you go again, Alf, making this about you and singularly you. Don’t you see, I don’t care
why
you did it, or why you felt the need to lie to me when you knew perfectly well lying would break us. You and I are over. Get that into your head, because all that energy you’re wasting on trying to figure out how you can come up with an excuse about why you did this or that could be better used to figure out what we’re going to do.’

‘Fran, look, you and me, well we …’

‘Stop! Alfie, stop! There you go again; you’re trying to talk about us. Us is no longer. If you want to do something for me, do this; pull your self-pitying, self-indulgent head out of your bullshitting ass and help us find a solution for Soho, Casey and Vaughn.’

Like a man on a self-destruct mission, Alfie opened his mouth and let his hurt show in his words. ‘Vaughn … Oh I see, that’s how it is. You and Vaughn. When did it start, Franny?’

‘Excuse me?’

Franny couldn’t believe what she was hearing and even though Lola didn’t want anything to do with Alfie at the moment, she couldn’t help but stand behind Franny, signalling him to keep his mouth shut. But to no avail.

‘Don’t give me the wide-eyed innocence, Fran, it all makes sense now. You and Vaughn. That’s why Casey had gone back on the treacle ain’t it?… What’s the matter, Fran, hit on the truth have I? And there’s you talking about telling the truth.’

Franny stood with her mouth open, and although Alfie suddenly felt what he was saying was something he shouldn’t, he carried on regardless. ‘You see, sadly for you, Franny, I spoke to Casey and she couldn’t look me in the eye when I asked her what was going on. I can see now the girl was covering you; poor cow, for what? So she can be laying in intensive care tubed-up to the nines.’

The fury and volume of Franny’s voice surprised everyone in the waiting room. ‘How dare you! How dare you insinuate I’d do something only a lowdown dog such as yourself would do? I don’t know why Casey didn’t come and tell me she was struggling, but whatever the reason, it isn’t because I was boning Vaughn. You don’t get it, do you? It was you, Alfie, you I loved. I was happy with you, all I wanted was to be with you and all I asked for was the truth. Is that so hard, is it? No, don’t answer that because whatever comes out will be a lie, and I don’t want to hear any more lies. Now get out, go. ’Cos I never want to see you again.
Never.
Go to the Costa like the others, go to Essex, go to the moon and back for all I care, but don’t come near me again.’