Matilda Wren (8 page)

He didn’t just pawn jewellery. He would take anything he thought he could sell on. He was fair and always made sure he traded within current regulations when it came to money borrowing. That was why people came back to him again and again.

As long as you don’t take the piss, your customers will remain loyal. He would give them a fair price for what they wanted to pawn and also adequate time to buy it back from him, before he put it out in the shop for sale.

Kenny had trained up his two grandsons and four of his nephews, to take over when he died. They basically ran the shops now but he wasn’t quite ready to hand over the reins just yet. His illegal enterprises wouldn’t be handed down though, he already knew who would inherit the many hidden stakes he held in nightclubs, pubs and brothels across England. His protégé was ready now, but Kenny wanted the reins for a while longer.

He was mighty proud of his legal business. It made him feel less uncomfortable about his other business. Maybe that was why he spent so much of his time in his shops.

He particularly liked the Romford one though. It was one of his bigger premises, which meant he had the room for bulkier stock; furniture and appliances such as fridges and ovens.

It was a real money spinner too. He had gained new customers who didn’t want to pawn their belongings but had stuff they no longer required. He bought them and sold them on. People lapped up second hand items. He had turned the Romford shop into a little showroom, with separate areas for kitchen appliances, sofas and dining room sets. The windows gave a good view of the busy street and the road that separated the two long sides of terraced shops.

He saw the car pull up outside and the driver get out. He smiled to himself. It was going to be another prosperous day, he thought.

Sean swung open the door with a force and bounded in. “Fuck me old man… Y’take some pissing finding y’know.”

Kenny just grinned and settled himself on his stool, behind the counter. He picked up his glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. He didn’t need them. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight. He liked to use them as a prop; he thought it made him look important.

“I have been all over the fucking show looking for you this morning. I found your eegit of a nephew, screwing some sort out the back, up against the bins. Real classy that Ken.”Kenny chuckled and shook his head. He knew who Sean was referring to straight away.

“You been up Barking then?” he asked “Yeah…Fucking Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and now here… I was just about to fuck it off altogether.”

Sean was pacing the floor. He looked slightly agitated “You alright there Fergus? Something you wanna talk about?” Kenny enquired, interested. There was always a drama with Sean.

“Do you not like phones or something? Where’s that mobile I got you?”

Kenny could feel the antagonism from Sean pervade into the room. He grinned, showing a full set of perfectly white veneers.

“Why do I want my ear’ole to be permanently connected to an electronic device that ends up ruling my life?” Kenny imitated a telephone attached to his ear with his thumb and finger. “Besides, I’m always around.” Why are you so restless anyway?”

“I want you to find someone for me Ken.”

“Sure. No Problem. Got a name?”

Sean hesitated for a few seconds. He looked at the man before him. He liked this man. Honestly, truly liked him. He had used Kenny a lot over the years and he had never let him down. He had always delivered. He never asked questions and if asked, he had always given Sean good advice.

They had grown close while Sean was making a name for himself. There was a connection between them. It was unspoken but evident to both. Over the last few years, Sean had become a face in his own right, even if he wouldn’t admit that himself. His pure love for violence had put him there and kept him there.

There wasn’t many a brave man who was prepared to take on Sean Fergus. He looked at Kenny like a kind of mentor, who had taught Sean all about how to find those who are hiding and while Sean was still in the learning process, Kenny helped him out from time to time; when things got too much for him or when Sean’s temper got too much for him. Because of this, Sean had entrusted Kenny with certain snippets of his life; Rachel being one of them.

It was Kenny that had taken it upon himself to fish her out. Sometimes Sean’s behaviour really worried him and he believed he would become more settled and less fractious if he knew where she was, that she was happy and settled and living a good life. He compiled quite a dossier on her, before he handed it over to Sean.

“Well, speak up boy.” Kenny’s voice boomed. He was getting slightly impatient, yet intrigued at the same time.

Sean paced a bit more. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. He puffed out the smoke noisily and rubbed his face with his hand.

“James Porter.” The atmosphere rapidly altered. “I want you to find me James Porter.”

Kenny stared at the man in front of him. He pulled his glasses off and threw them back onto the counter.

“Are you ‘aving a fucking laugh? What you wanna go doing that for? That is not a good plan Sean, really it aint.”

Sometimes Kenny could sound like he swallowed a dictionary; his articulation and intelligence astounded most people he met. Other times he showed the real east end sewer mouth he had adopted as a child. Now was one of those times.

“You started this Ken. You told me where she worked, where she lived, all about the kid. You went looking. I hadn’t.

I had left it where it was…”

“You hadn’t left it where it was boy and you know it. You aint stopped banging on about her for the last five years, for as long as I known you.”

Kenny threw his arms up in exaggeration, deliberately showing the offence he felt. He walked round the counter, past Sean and over to the window, not looking at him as he past. He kept his back to him while he closed the large Indian hessian blinds.

The room went dark, until he switched on the lights by the door. He turned the ‘Closed’ sign round and dropped the latch.

Sean watched him all the time.

Their eyes finally locked when Kenny stood in front of him and sighed. “I gave you her as a favour, as a present…

for peace of mind like… so you can let it go.”

“You found her to screw with my head Ken.” Sean poked a finger into Kenny’s chest. “It’s what me and you do…

manipulation. Jeeze we’re the fucking bollocks at it…”

“I am not you Sean.” Kenny butted in offensively. “I don’t take to this as much as you do.”

“Bullshit. Fucking bullshit Ken. You love screwing with people, you love the power you feel when you have something they want. It's why me and you work so well together. Who are you trying to fucking kid… eh?”

“You know what you are Sean.” Kenny took a slight step closer. “I don’t need to tell you. You know it more than anyone. Finding her was so you can put it all to bed son.

This is all her fault. You gotta see that? She has made you into this. Has she come looking for you? Has she fuck…

this is all in your ‘ead. She couldn’t give a diddly squat and you… you blunder through your life, punishing anyone that crosses your path, because of what she did to you.”

He put his hand up to Sean’s face and brushed his lips with his thumb.

Sean looked at him for a second or two and then pushed his hand away roughly.

“Then why is she in my bed, in my house, right now?”

Kenny took a step back. That was a first. Normally he could predict Sean’s move but he hadn’t seen that one coming. Sean had always said it was a good thing that Rachel had ended it. That his one saving grace was that he had never hurt her like he knew he could. That he would never be able to be around her again.

Kenny never imagined he would actually make contact with her. He looked slightly warily at Sean. He may be the closest thing to what Sean could call a friend but that didn’t mean Kenny had forgotten who he was. This was Sean Fergus he had just made an advance on.

“Just find me Porter old man.”

He walked past Kenny and unlocked the shop door.

Opening it, he turned round and looked at him.

“I’ll be in touch… yeah?”

Kenny stared at the young man at the door. Some psychopaths blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings; they are intraspecies predators. Kenny found that by conceptualizing Sean as a psychopath, a remorseless predator, helped him to make sense of what often appeared to be senseless behaviour.

He had seen firsthand the dispositions of manipulation and selfishness, the desecration of social norms and ultimately the instrumental violence associated with psychopathic behaviour, he had seen them all exhibit in Sean; but fleetingly he had also seen regret or something like that. It was in passing moments of panic and realisation and his composure was quickly regained but Kenny had witnessed it all the same.

That was enough for Kenny to believe that somewhere deep inside of Sean was salvation; emancipation from whatever it was that obsessed him, was possible. Kenny truly believed that it was Rachel who had made him this way. He didn’t know how wrong he was. Sean looked at him for a long second and then walked out.

He got in his car and slammed his fists down on the steering wheel. He cursed Kenny for making things complicated. He cursed him for putting thoughts in his head, which he definitely didn’t want to be there. He leant over and opened the glove box. Pulling out a small plastic tub, he looked around the street.

Cutting two long thick lines, he snorted them down within seconds. He felt it slide down his throat and suppressed an urge to gag. Starting the engine, he pulled out into the road and drove away from the shop. He didn’t see that Kenny had reopened the blinds and was standing at the window watching the whole scene before him.

* * *

Maureen Fergus was a great hefty woman, with short dumpy legs; her shortness accentuating the ungainly bulkiness of her frame. The traditional floral print dress and starched beige apron that she wore was a long running family joke, her husband telling anyone that would listen that she had seven of them hanging in her wardrobe, one for each day of the week. Her popularity was as apparent as the sky is blue, her house being a free for all. Friends and neighbours knowing the door was always open.

She was involved with the community activities on the modest Brentwood housing estate, as she was the key holder for the hall that sat at the back of St George’s church and she loved nothing more than to gather with her cronies and have a good gossip.

To the outside world, she lived for her family, kept a nice home, neat garden and went to church on a Sunday. She had been faithful to her husband throughout her whole marriage and had bore him a son and two daughters. To Maureen, her life was not quite the picture she painted.

The daughters were not the apples of her eye, as she made them out to be and her son, he troubled her, gave her nightmares sometimes. Her mother used to tell her that he was a bad apple.

She often looked back, to when he was a baby, her first born, Sean, such a bonny wee lad with a thick mass of blonde hair and squirming arms and legs. He always seemed to be pushing her away, even from a day old he fought against her embrace.

He refused point blank to be breast fed and whenever she picked him up, he would scream. It didn’t take very long for Maureen to start resenting him. She had wanted him for so long and had suffered a few miscarriages before he had arrived; a strong healthy boy.

As he grew into a child he became more and more distant from her.

She would watch him sometimes, playing with his toys.

When he was five years old, he had received a pellet gun as a present from his father; an idea she had not agreed with.

He would line all his action hero figures up against the wall and then he would shoot them all down.

Maureen looked over her nice garden with her nice new garden furniture, all paid for courtesy of her son. Her Husband Mick thought he was bloody marvellous. She sniffed loudly. She knew the truth, even if he couldn’t see what was in front of his nose. What they had bred between them.

Still, she comforted herself with knowing she had done right with her daughters. Well, better than she had with Sean. At least her daughters loved her. The eldest girl, Alice, was a good girl. She was smart, had done well at school and lived in London working as a legal secretary.

She had a lawyer fiancé, owned her own house and was in the middle of planning the wedding of all weddings. This made Maureen happy, although she would like to see more of her daughter.

Something told her that Alice was ashamed of her family background and she didn’t blame her. They lived in a council house on a run down and half derelict council estate. What is there to show off about that? Maureen had made sure her home was always immaculately presented though and, thanks to Sean, she had brand new furniture in every room, all mod cons; surely that should count for something.

Her other daughter, Maisy, was a different entity altogether. She suffered deep bouts of depression, always had done, ever since she was a child. It started when she was about nine years old. She would suddenly just stop talking and stare into space for hours. The only person that could seem to get through to her when she was like that was Sean.

Being five years older than her and the fact he also had tendencies to shut everyone out, it marvelled Maureen that such closeness between them existed. He would sit with her for hours during her bad days. He would hold her and stroke her hair and whisper endearments into her ear. He had a lot more patience than she gave him credit for.

Sometimes she just wanted to shake her daughter and yell at her to snap out of it. She had tried to get her to see a doctor a few times but Sean was always dead set against it. Always telling her to let it be, that any family problem should be sorted out within the family; it didn’t do for outsiders to get involved. Sean insisted there was nothing wrong with her but the last few years had been the worst.

Maureen couldn’t believe it when her youngest daughter went into labour on the kitchen floor. She was only eighteen. She didn’t even know she was seeing anyone, let alone pregnant but sure enough she helped deliver her granddaughter into the world. Tiny little thing she was, still was now, at the grand old age of three.