Shafted (23 page)

The stilettos were far too tight, but Nora had an idea and bustled up to Molly’s room. The girls these days liked the toes of their shoes to be wider than the pointed jobbies their mothers preferred, and Molly had about a million pairs to choose from. Picking out a pair of open-toed slip-on’s with a middling heel now, she carried them back down and told Patrick to try them.

‘They fucking hurt,’ he complained when he’d wedged his feet into them.

‘At least you got into them, so shut it,’ Nora scolded unsympathetically. ‘Now shove the jacket on, and let’s have a look at you.’

Laughing loudly, Jimmy said, ‘Fucking hell, man, you’ve got hairy legs for a bird. Don’t you think you’d best give ’em a shave?’

‘Just shove some tights on,’ Jane suggested, taking her make-up out of her handbag and laying it out on the table. ‘But let me do this first.’ Pulling a chair out, she pushed Patrick down onto it. ‘I’ll put some foundation on to cover your spots, and I’ve got some bright red lippy that should suit you. No one will ever guess you’re a bloke when I’ve finished with you.’

Breathing hard as Jane stood in front of him painting his face, Patrick gritted his teeth to keep the hard-on at bay. Dex had paid for her to have a boob-job before it all blew up between them, and they were jutting out at him like twin beacons of pleasure. He could smell her perfume, too, and it was bloody nice. Why the hell their Dex was bothering with boring Gaynor when he could be shafting this one, he didn’t know. But, then, Dex
did
still shaft her when he felt like it – he just didn’t let Nora know about it, because she’d only give him earache about diseases.

‘There we go,’ Jane said, stepping back when she’d finished. ‘You look like Marilyn Monroe.’

Looking at himself in the mirror, Patrick grimaced. ‘More like Danny fucking La Rue.’

‘Hey, don’t knock it,’ Jimmy teased. ‘
I
’d shag you if I saw you in a club.’

‘You’d shag a fucking
dog
if its hair was long enough,’ Patrick retorted angrily.

Telling them both to stop talking dirty, Nora flapped her hand at Jane, saying, ‘Give him your keys.’

‘He can’t take my car as well as me clothes,’ Jane snorted, folding her arms. ‘I’m not running a bloody charity here.’

‘You can take his till you get yours back.’

‘I’m not driving that fucking death trap. I’ll take Dex’s, or forget it.’

‘Dex would kill us if we let you take his Jag,’ Nora said. ‘He don’t let no one drive that.’

Pointing out that Dex wasn’t in any position to give orders, Jane shrugged. ‘Your choice. Oh, and I want a grand, as well. And don’t tell me you haven’t got it, ’cos Molly told me that bitch he’s shacked up with has got all his money.’

‘You’ll get your money,’ Jimmy said, no longer smiling, because this was the Jane they all knew and hated – give with one hand, snatch back with both. ‘But you’ll have to wait, ’cos it’s round at his place. And you ain’t getting Dex’s car, so forget that.’

‘Okay,’ Jane conceded, giving him a satisfied smile. ‘But don’t even think about forgetting the money, or I might just have to play dirty.’

‘And you might just wind up getting exactly what you’re asking for,’ Jimmy said quietly, his eyes flashing a clear warning.

Pulling Jane’s jacket on now, Patrick flapped his arms. ‘Well?’

‘Brilliant,’ Nora told him, circling him to look him over. Up close, it was obvious that he was a man, but from a distance it would be really hard to tell. And the coppers would only get a brief glimpse from wherever they were hiding as he walked to the car, so he should get away with it.

Exhaling nervously, Patrick said,‘I hope to God this works, ’cos if they pull me and take me to the nick looking like this I’ll get fucking gang-banged.’

‘Get the walk right, and you’ll be fine,’ Jane called after him as Jimmy herded him towards the door. ‘Just think like all them strippers you’ve seen over the years.’

Hanging back to give Nora a quick hug, Patrick said, ‘Right, I’m off then. Keep your fingers crossed, and I’ll give youse a ring when I get to Caroline’s.’

‘I thought you said you were going to Mooky’s,’ Nora said, peering up at him.

‘Yeah, ’cos I don’t trust
her
,’ Patrick hissed, nodding back towards the kitchen.‘Don’t be telling her
nothing
, Mam.’

Promising that she wouldn’t, Nora gave him a last kiss, then pushed him out of the door.

Sitting in an unmarked car at the end of the road, Carla saw the Lewises’ front door open and a woman come out. Sliding lower in her seat, she clicked her radio on and whispered, ‘Someone’s leaving the house.’

‘One of the lads?’ Keeton replied from the van, which was out of sight around the corner now.

‘Blonde woman. Want me to pull her?’

‘No, it’ll be that tart Lewis used to be married to. She drove past us before. She’s nothing. Just keep your eye on the house, make sure no one slips out with her.’

‘Will do,’ Carla said, settling back down to watch.

The woman drove past a minute later. Shaking her head in disgust when she saw the pink jacket, Carla wondered how come unattractive women always wore the most garish colours to draw attention to themselves when they really should be doing their damnedest to fade into the background. And, considering Dex Lewis prided himself on his ability to pull fit birds, he’d sure picked an ugly one to mother his child.

Keeping his cool, Patrick kept an eye on the unmarked car in the rear-view mirror as he reached the corner. He’d clocked the stupid bitch who was almost lying down in the front seat, and knew that she’d clocked him, too. But she wasn’t moving, so it was looking pretty good so far.

Spotting the tiniest glimmer of white in the mouth of the alley to his left when he turned onto the main road, he kept his gaze firmly to the front and, sticking his little finger out like women did, flicked at the fringe of the wig as he drove past the hidden police van, as if he was preening himself.

Laughing with relief when the van didn’t come after him either, Patrick waited until he was well clear. Then he put his foot down and bombed to his part-time shag Caroline’s house.

PART TWO

11

Inhaling deeply through his nose when the video came to an end, Larry crossed his legs and clasped his hands together in his lap as gasps of shocked disbelief and admiration rippled through the audience.

It was three months since he’d filmed the sham game show, and his career was back on with a vengeance. He was something of a national hero, in fact; everyone was clamouring for his story since it had emerged that Dex Lewis was guilty of far worse than the original charges that the police had wanted him for. The whole thing had exploded into something huge and crazy, and Georgie had been working her backside off as offers of new shows and requests for interviews poured in. Larry had even been offered a seven-figure deal to write his memoirs – which he would give serious consideration to, if he ever got a spare minute between interviews. But the way it was going right now, it didn’t look like he ever
would
, because his diary was absolutely chocka.

He was back where he belonged, and loving every single second of it!

Shaking her head beside Larry now, Raine Parker’s diamond rings sparkled like firecrackers as she moved her hand away from her mouth. Still gazing at the screen, on which the last shot of Larry slumped unconscious in Dex Lewis’s arms had been frozen, with a dark trail of blood zigzagging down his throat from the cut beneath his chin, she said, ‘
That
 . . . must have been the most
terrifying
moment of your entire life?’

Grinning wryly, Larry said, ‘Can’t say it was the most fun I’ve ever had.’

Laughing incredulously, Raine turned to the audience. ‘Is this just the bravest man you’ve ever met?’

‘Believe me, I wasn’t being brave,’ Larry chipped in modestly. ‘It was kind of out of my hands – if you know what I mean. He wasn’t exactly giving me the choice to stay or go.’

‘As we saw,’ Raine said admiringly. ‘But I doubt you would have escaped even if he
had
let you, because we all saw what happened. And you put yourself right in the middle of the action without any concern for your own safety, just to bring that awful man to justice. That deserves a medal, in my book – don’t you agree?’

She turned to the audience again, who immediately applauded.

‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t looking for glory,’ Larry lied when the noise died down enough for him to be heard. ‘I only did what anyone else would have done in that situation. He was a dangerous man, and I couldn’t just stand back and watch him get away – not when I’d made him trust me enough to turn up in the first place. I had to see it through to the end.’

‘Well, you certainly did that,’ Raine said, elegantly crossing her legs. ‘So, let’s talk about how dangerous this man actually was, Larry. Because burglary was just the tip of the iceberg, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Larry chuckled, nodding.

‘You see, it turned out that this man,’ Raine told the audience, ‘had far worse crimes to answer to than simply jumping bail. And if it hadn’t been for Larry, he would have got away with it.’ Back to Larry now. ‘Tell them what the police discovered when they checked Lewis’s DNA.’

Taking a slow deep breath, Larry said, ‘Kidnapping, false imprisonment, GBH, rape—’

‘Rape,’ Raine jumped in, glancing slowly around the audience for effect. ‘This
animal
and his gang
raped
an old lady whose son they were holding hostage in his own home. They’d already beaten him to within an inch of his life, and were in the process of
torturing
him when his mother heard noises and went to investigate . . .’ Pausing for several beats to let the horror of what she was saying sink in, she added, ‘And they
raped
her. And if Larry hadn’t been brave enough to go to Lewis’s house and persuade him to take part in the game show that day – putting his
own
life in danger, as we clearly saw from the video – nobody would ever have known that Lewis was involved. And not just Lewis, but one of his brothers as well.’

‘Yeah, but the other one got away,’ Larry said, shrugging, as if to say, ‘
Not my fault; I did my bit.
’

A suitably serious look in her pretty grey eyes – an expression which didn’t quite touch her perfectly painted face – Raine said, ‘And that was a pretty major concern, wasn’t it? Not only because he’s on the loose when we all know he’s capable of such heinous crimes; but also because you were actively threatened, weren’t you, Larry?’

‘Yeah. Dex Lewis made a point of telling me he was going to “get me” when they sentenced him.’

‘Weren’t you absolutely terrified?’ Raine asked, shaking her head incredulously when Larry gave another casual shrug.

‘Not really. I mean, he’s not exactly going to be able to
get
me any time in the next fifteen years, is he?’

‘What about when he gets out?’

‘I’ll be an old man,’ Larry chuckled. ‘I’m sure he won’t recognise me by then. Probably no one will. I’ll just be a sad old fart, shuffling round with my cats in my cabin in the hills.’

‘Rubbish!’ Raine scoffed, smiling flirtatiously. ‘You, Mr Logan, will
never
be a sad old man, because you’re far too handsome.’To the majority-female audience: ‘Don’t you agree, ladies?’

Smiling coyly at the roar of agreement, Larry nodded when Raine said,‘Let’s just hope the police catch up with the missing brother soon, so we can all sleep easy in our beds. But I think we can safely say that he’s not an immediate danger to you, Larry, because the police are pretty sure that he’s out of the country, aren’t they?’

It was true that Patrick Lewis had supposedly fled the country, but Larry was nowhere near as nonchalant as he was making out. In fact, he’d been so scared by Dex Lewis’s threat that he’d stayed with Georgie for almost a month after the court case, claiming that he was worried about her because she hadn’t been as well as she’d made out after her collapse at the hospital.

He’d enjoyed his stay, because Georgie lived in a secluded little house off the beaten track, and nobody knew where it was, which made him feel safer. And she’d fussed over him like a doting mother while he’d been there, feeding him real food instead of the convenience shit he usually favoured, and doing all his laundry. But he’d eventually tired of it, and had gone home to get some breathing space – preferring to suffer the nagging fears rather than Georgie’s incessant smothering.

She still insisted on driving him to every interview and appearance, though, which wasn’t too bad. But he’d have to tell her to back off soon, or people would start to wonder what was going on with them. And he wouldn’t mind being free to have a shag without her continually vetting the women who approached him, either.

Yes, he definitely had to cut the apron strings before it got too late.

Snapping out of his thoughts when Raine’s voice filtered through, Larry blinked several times to bring himself back to the here and now. He hoped he hadn’t missed anything, because it would be really embarrassing if she asked him a question and he couldn’t answer it.

Saying, ‘And even the
mother
was charged with handling stolen goods after Larry alerted the police to the haul he saw in their home,’ Raine sat back in her chair as if she was exhausted, and shook her head.‘Thanks to Larry, that is one family who won’t be terrorising our streets for some time to come.’

Modestly lowering his gaze as the audience erupted into applause again, Larry said, ‘I only did what anyone would have done.’

‘Well, I think you went well above and beyond,’ Raine countered firmly. ‘And I for one would like to see you get the recognition you deserve.’ To camera now:‘So, if the police are watching tonight, give . . . this . . . man . . .a . . .
medal
!’ Pausing to allow time for the renewed applause to die down, she said, ‘So, when can we expect to see the full version of the show, Larry?’