Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama (13 page)

Jen looked at her mother still seething and then threw the kitchen door open and strode over to where Nuts was sitting with a hangdog expression. She sat next to him and collected herself. ‘Alright, what do you want?’

He gazed at her sheepishly through those memorable blue eyes of his. ‘I just wanted to apologise.’

‘OK. Well, I accept your apology – now do one and don’t come back.’

He pleaded, moving slightly forward in his seat, ‘Let me take you down the boozer for half an hour. I’ll tell you what happened and then bring you home. Then you’ll never see me again. I promise.’

Jen studied his face. He did indeed seem very sorry. But she wasn’t fooled. ‘You promise? You promise if I do that you won’t bother me again or come round here trying to soft-soap my mum?’

‘Absolutely, I know I’ve blown it.’

Jen bit her lip. ‘You’ve got thirty minutes.’

‘Enjoying your burger, little man?’

‘Yes. We don’t get these at home. I don’t know why.’

Dee giggled with joy. Even though she knew her friend Marsha would be frantic with worry about where he was, she was enjoying little Kyle’s company so much she took him to an upmarket diner she knew. She also wanted to reward him for performing so well at John’s now ex-girlfriend’s.

She trilled, ‘You’re a little star, Kyle! You’re going to win an Oscar when you become an actor one day and Auntie Dee’s going to help you.’

But Kyle didn’t want to be an actor; he wanted to be a bus driver. And that, Dee lamented to herself, was the problem with mums like Marsha; they didn’t encourage ambition in their kids. Didn’t tell them how they could reach for the stars even from a council block in East London. The poor little sod was doomed before he started.

‘When I have my little boy, he’s going to be exactly like you,’ she whispered, tapping him sweetly on the tip of his nose. Except he wasn’t going to be no fucking London Transport bus driver.

Kyle peered up at her. ‘Are you having a baby, Auntie Dee?’

Dee smiled at him gently. ‘Not yet. I’ve got to marry my fiancé first. He’s a big, strong man with lots and lots of money and we’re going to have lots of little Kyles to fill up our big house with.’ Dee had always acted on the principle that if you behaved as if something was going to happen, it would.

‘Did your mum have a big house?’

Dee became wistful. ‘My mum? No, my mum was a loser, Kyle.’ She only just managed to avoid saying – like yours. ‘I’m afraid it all went pear-shaped for my mum. She couldn’t find the right bloke. She hooked up with my dad, who I suspect was a prime piece of rubbish.’ Kyle was too busy with his burger to listen to what Auntie Dee was going on about. There weren’t many people she could or would tell the story to. Little kids, like Kyle, were about the only people she felt she could share secrets with.

‘So my mum got herself a new fancy man who she married. Only the trouble was, he was even worse than my dad.’ She’d managed to get her mum to tell her at least that part of her history. Her voice became harsh. ‘I was kicked to the kerb and farmed out to relatives and the like.’ Now her voice resounded with glee. ‘But then he dumped her anyway.’

Kyle looked up from his burger again, ketchup smeared at the side of his cute, little boy lips. ‘You didn’t live with your mum?’

Dee wiped the red sauce away delicately, with a napkin. ‘No and it’s just as well. I might have ended up like her. I see her every now and again, just to remind myself how not to do things. That’s the important thing in life, Kyle. Get yourself the right parents. Get the wrong ones and you’re screwed.’

By the time Dee got Kyle back to his mum, Marsha was in a right state. Dee got a choice selection of verbal for keeping the kid out late and she swallowed it because she didn’t want Kyle to hear her effing off at his mum. She had rules about cursing in front of children – most of the time.

But Dee had another reason to try and keep Marsha sweet. She needed the phone number of a man her friend had been smooching with for a while, before dumping him because he was a booze merchant, spent half his life in Ladbrokes and nicked money from her. He was a former telecoms engineer who’d been sacked for misconduct, and Marsha was so shocked that anyone would want this guy’s number that she gave it to Dee with a warning not to have anything to do with him.

Of course Dee wasn’t expecting to trust Jimmy Kite any further than she could throw him, but she did require his services. She’d already disposed of her fiancé’s girlfriend; that had been the easy part. Now she needed to become a trusted partner in John’s business affairs, so that he couldn’t do without her. (A firm basis for any marriage.) And for that, she urgently needed Jimmy’s help.

For the final phase of the ‘Put John in a Box Called Dee’ process she would have to rely on herself.

Jen was in a hurry to get this over with. As she hurried down the balcony to the stairwell with Nuts in tow, she peered over the edge of the wall. ‘Oh great. Now I’ve got her to deal with as well.’

Nuts looked down too. ‘Who’s that?’

‘My sister Tiffany. The girl who put the bitch in witch.’

‘Your sister?’ He gazed at her amazed, like he couldn’t believe that gorgeous Jen came from the same womb as trackie girl downstairs.

‘You’ve met her. She was the mouthy girl outside the club, and the one you called a looby-loo when you brought me home.’

Nuts didn’t seem interested. ‘Oh, right.’

They carried on towards the end of the balcony until Jen stopped when she saw her sister emerge from the stairwell.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Knob off,’ Tiffany hurled back, not looking at Nuts or missing a step as she brushed past her sister.

‘Sometimes . . .’ Jen hissed as she stared daggers into her sister’s back.

‘Sometimes,’ Nuts finished for her, ‘you can’t save the whole world.’ He chucked his dog end over the landing wall as Jen decided that he was right. Tiffany was on a one-way track to trouble and she’d done her best to steer her in the direction of the straight and narrow.

Pushing her annoying sibling from her mind she followed Nuts down the stairs, resuming their journey to his car. When they got there, Nuts nodded to the boys who were keeping guard on his flash motor.

‘That’s alright, Nuts. Pleasure doing business with you,’ one of the lads said with a grin. Obviously money had changed hands earlier. Jen made a note to remind Nuts to pay after the job got done on The Devil or he’d be ripped off left, right and centre. Then she almost slapped her forehead. What was she saying? There wouldn’t be a next time.

As they buckled up, Jen said, ‘On first name terms with the local scrotes I see. And where’s the Merc then? In the shop being repaired?’ She couldn’t help herself from sounding proper sarky.

Nuts nodded. He seemed weary. ‘You still think I nicked it don’t you?’

Jen was upfront with him. ‘Yeah, I do actually.’

At this he turned the ignition on the BMW, looked at her and gave her a grim smile. ‘You’re right. I did pinch it.’

Sixteen

Tiffany didn’t stop at home for long. She decided to head back out again, despite her mother’s half-hearted attempt to stop her.

‘You’re not going down the cemetery Tiff,’ Babs ranted. ‘The Bill will be there. How many more times do you think you can have a run in with them before they fit you up for something serious?’

‘I ain’t going to the cemetery, I’m going to see my mate.’ Not that it’s any of your beeswax, she thought defiantly.

‘Which mate?’ Babs’ features turned stormy. ‘Better not be that Stacey Ingram, my girl, or I’ll have your hide.’ But the front door had already slammed behind Tiff, leaving her mum raving to thin air.

Tiffany scampered down the stairs, stopping briefly to take a drag on the spliff that was being smoked by the two boys who’d kept an eye on Nuts’ car. Then she walked the half-mile to a maisonette in a block in another sprawling part of the estate, where Stacey lived with her mum. As she got closer she heard the thump of music from a house party on the top floor and saw the silhouettes of people dancing to Shaggy’s ‘Oh Carolina’.

She decided against ringing the bell. She knew what response she’d get if fire-breathing Mel Ingram answered the door. So she walked down the road collecting small pebbles and stones, then, one by one, she threw them up against Stacey’s bedroom window. It took several hits before her friend’s face appeared. She looked down, saw who it was and snapped the curtains shut with horror. Tiffany resumed throwing stones – larger ones this time that sounded as if they might crack or break the glass. Unable to stand it anymore, Stacey came back, threw the window open and hissed, ‘What do you want?’

‘To hang out,’ Tiffany responded happily, swaying along to the music coming from the party upstairs. She loved dancing.

‘No chance.’

But Tiffany was in no mood to be sent away with a flea in her ear. ‘I’ll just ring the doorbell and ask your mum—’

‘No, no. I’ll come, I’ll come,’ Stacey cried.

A few moments later, her friend appeared at the front door, closed it gently behind her so it made no sound then grabbed Tiffany by the sleeve and dragged her down to the dark end of the street. ‘Are you out of your mind coming round here?’

‘Your mum still not happy then?’

‘Never mind my mum. My dad’s been round; she called him up.’

Even Tiffany was slightly alarmed. Strange as it seemed, she had never seen Mickey Ingram. Sure she’d heard he had a fist-thumping reputation, but he didn’t live on the estate and when he was around Tiffany made sure she kept well out of the picture. ‘I thought your dad was long gone. I thought your mum hated his guts.’

Stacey shrugged like she just didn’t understand the world anymore. ‘She does. That’s how bad things are Tiff; my mum got my dad round to read me the riot act about hanging out with you.’

‘Me?’ Tiffany stabbed a finger in her chest.

‘Yeah you – or any other dirt bag Miller, as he put it. Please, Tiffany do me a favour,’ she pleaded with her friend. ‘Leave me alone, at least for now.’ Then she suddenly remembered. ‘And what were you playing at with the kissing thing at lunchtime? What was that about? You do realise I had to snog Simon Watts in public this afternoon, that dick, just so people don’t think I’ve gone lesbo shaped. I know you like a wind-up, Tiff, but you always have to take things too far. If that got back to my mum and dad, I’d be down the cemetery alright. But for good this time.’

Tiffany looked at her friend and felt sorry for her. She’d moved on but Stacey hadn’t. Perhaps that was because Tiffany was more like her sister than she liked to think. Jen wanted to be better than other people and Tiffany wanted to be worse, but it amounted to the same thing really. The world was up for grabs – if you dared reach for it.

‘I’m only having a laugh.’ Tiffany tried to bring the happy back to their chat. ‘Your problem is, you worry too much about what other people think. Stuff ’em.’

‘And your problem is you don’t think enough. I have to live round here; I have to live with my mum, and now I’m pulling visits from my dad.’ Stacey flicked her gaze fretfully towards her front door. ‘Look, I’ve got to go before Mum notices I’ve gone. I’ll see you around . . .’

Tiffany let her go. She knew Stacey would buckle. She didn’t have many friends and her mum was a complete bastard. But if that wasn’t enough, Tiffany knew the threat of turning up on her doorstep again would be enough to get her back out. She watched as Stacey hurried back to the house, slipped her key into the lock and turned it slowly. Then she went carefully inside. But she hadn’t been careful enough. There was an almighty explosion of shouting inside the house that included a man’s voice. He barked, ‘Who told you to go out? Eh? You slag, I’ll show you how it is.’

Tiffany drew closer and shivered as Stacey screamed and the noise of thumping and banging came from the hallway. Then there was silence interrupted only by a mewling and the occasional muffled howl that sounded more like a wounded animal than a human being.

Tiffany’s heart filled up with an emotion she couldn’t name; her chest and throat felt tight and her tummy muscles crunched together. Trembling and afraid of what she’d see, she drew closer. The front door was wide open and the man’s voice was deadly quiet but unapologetic. ‘You asked for it, you got it. I’m warning you, girl, if I have to come around here again, I’ll give you something to cry about. Stop sneaking out. Stay away from the Millers. You better believe I know all about that family and I’ll find out if you draw breath anywhere near them. Stay away from them. You hear?’

A large man emerged from the front door and closed it behind him. Tiffany ducked behind a car. He rearranged his suit, shirt and bracelets, pulled out of shape whilst beating her friend, then adjusted his tie and began walking down the street. Bollocks, he was coming her way. Quickly she crouched low as he went by; she could hear him muttering to himself, ‘Fucking women . . .’ Further down the street, he got into a car and drove away.

A dazed Tiffany slowly stood up and looked over to the flat. It was only the prospect that she’d cause even more trouble for Stacey that stopped her running up to the front door and offering her support. The thought of her mate – so small and delicate – hurt and probably bleeding, tore her up. Her mum might threaten to raise her hand to her, but that’s all it ever was – a threat. Babs Miller would never lay a hand on her. But what could she do about Stacey? Nothing. Plus, she had another problem now.

She walked home, head down. In the days when she still went to school, the teachers had brought in a policeman and former criminal who’d done eight years for armed robbery. This repentant crook had begged the kids not to consider crime as a career option. Gangland is not, he explained, like you see on the TV or in films. It’s not tasty geezers running around in fast cars, robbing banks and then going down the pub afterwards for a pint and a laugh. It’s a cruel, evil world where terrible things happen and lives are ruined. The cop had backed up what the ex-jailbird had to say. Crime, he promised the kids, is definitely not cool.