Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama (16 page)

Chris and Dee exchanged meaningful glances. John’s right-hand man propped him up and helped him out of the club. Then she went directly to the storeroom to retrieve the tapes, took them to the room that served as her makeshift office and listened intently to his calls. He was drunk. He might have been careless on the phone.

To her fury the first call was to Trish:

‘Treacle! It’s John. I organised some flowers for you. Did you get them? Only I ain’t heard nothing . . .’

Dee hissed under her breath, ‘I’ll give you fucking treacle, you bastard. What a prick this guy is, honestly.’ She shut up to catch the rest of the call.

There was a pause and then John’s voice turned slightly menacing.
‘You know who I am; don’t twist my tail. People who end up doing that end up getting bitten.’

Dee was glad that John had given her rival the put-down but the problem was he had spoken in such an intimidating tone that maybe Trish would be so scared she’d call him back. And John hadn’t exactly given her the goodbye brush-off because he hadn’t heard from her. Perhaps she’d underestimated John’s attachment to the woman; perhaps Trish was more of a threat than she thought and wouldn’t go quietly. Worse, she knew what Dee looked like. If Trish turned up at the club, it would make life very difficult. But Dee was confident she could deal with that, and that a two-bit slapper like Trish would soon find another wealthy man to chisel.

There followed a series of business calls. All were carefully phrased and revealed nothing. Some seemed to be about the club, others about his real trade, but all were conducted using coded language, with references to our ‘friend’ or ‘friends’, the ‘product’ or ‘consignment’, and the ‘destination’. There was a lot of talk about ‘ice’; Dee couldn’t imagine her intended being involved in the freezer business. There was nothing she could understand in the calls to pinpoint exactly what John’s trade actually was. But then, right near the end of the line of calls, when his earlier boozing finally made John lose the run of himself, Dee managed to get something helpful:

‘Rocky? What’s up? Listen, mate, I went and saw Ingram this afternoon down Shadwell . . . I know, he was playing the plastic hard man as usual, the little prat . . . I know, Ingram couldn’t spot a tit in a row of cocks. Anyway, I’m not best pleased about this girl he hired to do errands for us. She picks stuff up at the pub around the corner and then looks after them. Turns out this girl is only sweet sixteen and a bit of a nutter . . . That’s right – can you believe it?’
He let out a loud belch.

‘I mean, what the fuck? As a precaution, I did arrange with my guy at the Pied Piper to call the cops and tell them there was a vulnerable teenager knocking around with all them benders in there . . . That’s right – it’s a gay pub. Good eh? Them people don’t want anything to do with the law, so it’s a good spot to do business in private. Anyway, Old Bill pulled the girl and it looks like she handled herself alright and said dick about ice . . . Nah, she didn’t have anything on her, I made sure of that. Anyway, I went down and had a word with Mickey Ingram to find out what he was playing at . . . Thing is I want to cut Ingram out of the loop and get someone else in. Could you look into it and see if you could find someone to run stuff off for me? I’d appreciate it.’

Dee’s mind was in a whirl.

Shadwell.

Mickey Ingram.

The Pied Piper.

Ice.

A sixteen-year-old nutter running errands.

At last, Dee had something to work with and she recalled that Knobby was doing something up at the Pied Piper too. She was still confused about what ‘ice’ could mean; she’d have to really put her head to trying to figure that out.

‘Out,’ Nuts ordered Liam Gilbert as they reached Epping Forest. He was still spitting mad about what Jen had told him this disgusting rat had done. No one did that to Nuts’ girl. No one.

As soon as they were outside, Nuts noticed with satisfaction that the creep looked like he was ready to wet himself.

‘If it’s money you want—’

‘Shut it,’ Nuts growled. ‘Just keep walking ahead of me and don’t stop until I tell you to. Try to run and I’ll hunt you down like the filthy animal you are.’

Jen’s former tutor started snivelling as he moved. Nuts knew this side of the forest like the back of his hand. His nan would always bring him here after his dad had put his mum in hospital, yet again. It didn’t matter what his dad did to his mum – shattered jaw, broken arm, cracked ribs – she’d always go back to him. ‘That’s just how it is,’ his gran would explain to him as they walked through the forest.

‘Stop,’ Nuts barked as they reached a beautiful, quiet clearing where as a child he’d romped around while his nan sat on a log drinking Sanatogen’s Tonic Wine straight from the bottle. ‘Take all your clothes off.’

The other man’s face went even paler as he started to beg, ‘Please. I don’t know what this is about, but I’m sure we can get this all sorted out like gentlemen—’

Nuts stormed up to him in three, big strides. ‘You want me to take your fucking eyes out with my bare hands you’re going the right way about it.’

Liam furiously threw off his jacket, so Nuts stepped back until the other man stood naked as the day he was born. Nuts wrinkled his nose at the flabby skin on display. ‘On your knees.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Isn’t that what you told Jen Miller to do? Get on her knees so she could suck your diseased dick?’

Liam shook his head like crazy. ‘She got it wrong. I would never—’

Nuts pulled back his fist . . . Liam got on his knees. He shook so badly that Nuts thought he was going to fall down. ‘You’re a dirty old man through and through, preying on young girls who are just looking to better themselves. I should really cut your tackle and balls off . . .’

Liam started crying; great, hulking sobs that shook his body from head to toe. Nuts leaned down and whispered in his ear, ‘It doesn’t feel good, does it, when someone has control over you? They can do what they want and there ain’t a bloody thing you can do about it.’

Nuts pulled himself straight, suddenly feeling a wave of disgust that he was breathing the same rotten air as this pathetic man. He got on with what he had to do. A few seconds later he started peeing all over him. Liam collapsed as he bawled like a baby.

Nuts kept up a steady stream as the words poured out of his mouth. ‘That’s all you’re good for, Liam boy – to be pissed on. Makes you feel dirty, don’t it? That’s how every girl you’ve ever forced to touch you feels. Dirty. If I was you, I’d hand in my notice tomorrow and never set foot in the East End again, because let me tell you, if I set eyes on your ugly mug again and hear that your willy’s been going walkabout, you’re going to find out what I can really do with a blade.’

Satisfied he’d put the fear of God into this snivelling excuse of manhood, Nuts finished up and cheerfully whistled as he walked away.

Twenty

‘I want to see the guy in charge,’ Tiffany demanded boldly to Man-donna in the Pied Piper.

Tiffany might be giving it the big ‘I Am’ to his face, but inside she wasn’t so full of it. When the message had arrived for her to pick up another package she got dead worried about the cops, and Mickey Ingram. If she put a step wrong she knew that Mickey was going to have her. She could still hear Stacey’s screams and moans in her head, sending a chill through her. What an animal. If he was willing to give his daughter a kicking, what would he do to her, someone who was no blood relation? He wasn’t the type of geezer she could walk up to and say she wanted out. And Tiffany wanted out. Revenge on Stacey’s dad would come later. For now, saving her own skin was enough and that meant having a little chat with the man in charge. She’d triple checked once she got near the pub, to see if there was any law around, and when she decided the coast was clear she’d gone in there and made her demand.

The buffed, smooth-skinned man in front of her let out a nasty laugh. ‘The guy in charge? You mean the landlord?’

‘No, I mean whoever’s running the envelope business.’ Tiffany was hanging tough but it was coming out wrong and she knew it. ‘I ain’t taking nothing until I have a bit of face time.’

‘Oh I see; you want to talk to
him
do you?’

Tiffany’s confidence grew and she nodded, like she was the big girl on the block. ‘That’s right.’

Abruptly her contact turned and started walking away.

‘Hold up, where are you going?’

‘I thought you wanted to talk to the boss?’ he answered without turning back. ‘Better follow me then, hadn’t you, sweetheart.’

Tiffany followed him to a corridor in the back and up a narrow staircase until they hit the top floor. He stopped at a door and shoved it open. Hand still on the doorknob he ordered, ‘In here then.’

She hesitated for a few seconds, then got her confidence back into gear and waltzed past him into the room. The room was empty except for a wreck of a chair, a battered-looking table and partially opened window.

Tiffany swiftly turned back around, saying, ‘What the heck—?’

But she never finished because he grabbed her by the back of the head and frogmarched her towards the large, single window. Tiffany was completely taken by surprise by his actions; he’d looked more like a fella who was interested in a tub of Nivea than getting into a ruck. Tiffany fought him all the way, her fists punching any part of him she could reach, but he might as well have been made out of stone for all the notice he took of her flying fists. When they reached the window he pushed it fully open with one hand and tipped her head out into the cold air.

Tiffany’s heart dropped in her chest. Her life flashed before her eyes. She remembered the number one lesson she’d learned about life – never,
ever
, show you’re afraid. But fear nearly crippled her when he started lifting the lower half of her body up. If she was going down, she was going down fighting. She tried to thump him a good one in the balls but he held his body back and at an angle that made it hard for her to connect to him. She flicked a foot backwards to kick him in his belly, but all she met was empty air. He pushed her once, twice, then she was hanging out of the window.

‘I thought you were alright and didn’t ask silly questions.’ He growled. ‘And now you come strolling in here, as cool as you like, and ask to speak to busy people who are out of your league. I’m afraid that’s rank bad manners. Now why don’t you catch some air and have a think about what you’ve said?’

The blood rushed to Tiffany’s head making her dizzy as she viewed the world upside down. She’d seen the world from this position once before when she and her mates had played Dare Ya on the roof of her block. But no one was being dared here.

Her arms hung heavy and hurt as they swung by her side. Her hair stuck out, including the wisps on the back of her neck. She clawed against the walls, scraping some of the skin off her palms, as if that was going to save her. She was terrified but she still had enough spit to scream, ‘I’m going to rip your bloody head off.’

Above her came a snigger and the loosening of the grip on her ankles. She dropped lower until she was hung out by her feet, like a piece of meat in the butcher’s. She cried out as she bounced into the wall and then back out again.

‘Having a think about things down there, are you? Is the fresh air clearing your head?’

‘Sod you!’ she screamed back.

One of his hands released her so that she was dangling by one leg. Tiffany’s heart fell lower into her body. Mistakes happened in these kind of games. Victims ended up dead. If her broken body was found in the courtyard below, the staff would sort a story out:
‘She was a suicidal druggie, officer. We tried to save her, but what could we do?’
Then she’d be forgotten. Only her mum would know better, stroking her hair down the morgue and whispering,
‘Stupid girl. If only you had listened to me, Tiff, you’d have never come to this.’

‘Have you done some thinking?’ her tormentor shouted.

Tiffany held back the stream of curses in her mouth. ‘Yes, I’ve done some thinking, I’ve done some thinking.’

He had the nerve to laugh at her and grabbed her other leg so she was more secure. ‘Just do your job, love, and keep your snout where it belongs. And don’t come up here again with any silly requests, wasting everyone’s time.’

‘I only wanted to talk to him—’

He shook her. ‘You don’t need to talk to anyone. Do you understand?’

‘Yeah, I get it.’ Her tummy started to roll; if she didn’t get inside soon she was going to puke.

‘That’s more like it. You see? I knew you could be a good girl if you put your mind to it.’

She let out a thankful breath as he started reeling her back in. Inside she collapsed against the wall, her legs too shaky to hold her up. He loomed over her like a figure from a nightmare. ‘Do you know how many people would kill to get a job like yours? There’s a queue a mile long of them. Fuck off downstairs and wait for me by the bar. And don’t make me do that again, or you really will get to meet the big guy – and there won’t be any talking going on, let me promise you.’

Tiffany got to her feet and staggered towards the door. On the next floor down she bumped into two women who were holding hands. They looked shocked by the state of her. One of them asked with mother hen softness, ‘Are you OK? What happened?’

But Tiffany wasn’t in the mood to explain herself to no one. She’d been a prize plonker. Even at her age, she should have known better than to ask to see the top dog. And there was always the danger that word would get to Mickey Ingram and then she really would be in the doo-doo. She slumped up against the bar, her weakened legs barely able to support her weight. The place had filled up since her little adventure upstairs. As she waited for the envelope, she noticed a woman she hadn’t seen before sitting on her own in the corner, watching her intently while stirring the drink in front of her. Tiffany avoided her gaze.