TRAPPED (8 page)

Max had taken the girl to a hotel, roughing her up and putting the fear of God into her. Turning her from a hardened brass into a quivering wreck. Her face had been messed up and Frankie had taken her to one of the top docs in Harley Street to get her nose and jaw fixed. The girl hadn’t stayed in London, deciding to return home to her native Glasgow with a few grand given to her by Frankie.

Frankie had then put the word out for none of his associates or acquaintances to do business with Max again. That had been a lot of people. In essence, Frankie had put the glass ceiling on Max being able to go further in his business and making the money he wanted to, as well as reducing him to a man who people feared but no one respected.

Frankie had then wanted to leave the feud. He’d shown Max that in a way he understood; he’d had his punishment. But the feud had started to grow, leaving him with no control over it. Johnny and the Donaldson boys got into endless fights. Gypsy stoked the flames as if she was building a bonfire, and each time he came across Max the man wasn’t ever able to keep his mouth shut and walk away. Leaving Frankie with no other option but to put him in his place, like he’d done last night by throwing the drink over him in the casino.

Frankie sighed, putting his hand out to touch the top of his wife’s head gently. The one good thing to come out of being stabbed would be having Gypsy at home with him without excuses. There’d be no sloping off to the shops or to the bars to meet her cronies for a drink, no squeezing half an hour to herself. After all, she could hardly tell a man who’d just been stabbed that she needed to go and get her nails done. He hated to say it but perhaps Max Donaldson had done him a favour after all.

Gypsy touched Frankie’s hand in response. She’d had such a
fright when Johnny had called. She’d thought the worst but
hoped for the best. Thankfully she’d got the latter. And the more
she thought about what had happened the more thankful she became. Now Frankie would be laid up for the next few weeks perhaps she’d get some of that longed for freedom quicker than she thought. She’d be able to go to the shops and go to the bars to meet the girls without him popping up from nowhere. She hated to say it but perhaps Max Donaldson had done her a favour after all. Smiling, she looked at Frankie who smiled back just as warmly.

Frankie’s phone rang, jarring them both out of their own thoughts and waking Johnny up from his cat nap. Gypsy picked it up in her most eloquent of tones.

‘Hello? Gypsy speaking.’

There was a pause and she rolled her eyes as she listened to
the caller on the other end, then quickly passed the phone to Frankie. It was his sister. Gypsy watched as Frankie spoke loudly with a big grin on his face.

‘Lorna! Alright girl, how are tricks?’

Gypsy looked at Johnny who was dropping off to sleep again and pulled a face. She got up to go and find something to eat. She wasn’t interested in listening to her husband’s conversation with Lorna.

She didn’t like Frankie’s sister. She was a loud-mouthed meddling bitch who thought she was Lady bleeding Muck because Frankie had a few bob. Before she’d met Lorna, Gypsy had been looking forward to meeting her, wanting to take her shopping and to hear about what her husband had been like as a child, but within an hour of picking her up from the airport she’d hated every bone in the woman’s body. From the moment Lorna landed from Belgium, she seemed intent of trying to cause a rift. Instead of being pleased that her brother was happily married to Gypsy, she wanted to cause problems. Bad mouthing her to Frankie behind her back and making constant snide comments. Not only had it irritated her, it’d hurt because all she’d ever wanted was to be friends.

It’d taken some hard negotiation but Frankie had managed to persuade Lorna to get back on a plane to Belgium one week later. She’d kicked up a fuss, wanting to stay another two weeks but they’d waved her off, all breathing a sigh of relief to see the British Airways logo speeding past them on the runway.

That’d been fifteen years ago and Gypsy hadn’t seen her since. Apart from occasionally picking up the phone to her, Gypsy had hardly spoken to her either.

Lorna’s occupation when she’d lived in London was as a small-time fraudster. Gypsy knew the police had wanted to question her on a number of chequebook scams; apparently one of the reasons she’d run off to Belgium. Her scams hadn’t been on any grand scale, though according to Frankie she’d done a couple of short stretches inside.

This was one of the reason’s Gypsy had been saved from any more of Lorna’s visits. Lorna couldn’t just jump on a plane. She was wanted but had no intention of serving any more time and unless Frankie provided her with a false passport to travel on she was stuck in Belgium.

Gypsy had managed to persuade Frankie not to sort one out, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. Frankie was a good man by nature, so the idea of his sister pining for the streets of London hurt Frankie, to the point of restless nights.

Twenty minutes later Gypsy found her way back to the cubicle. Plonking herself back on the chair next to Frankie her cockney twang was clear to her.

‘Well, what did the old witch want? It’s unlike her to call on a Tuesday; thought she’d be busy flying about on her bleeding broomstick.’

Frankie scowled at Gypsy. Lorna
was
a witch, a great big interfering one, but she was also his sister. Whatever trouble she had or hadn’t tried to cause between him and Gypsy the last time, she’d proved her loyalty to him by the weekly phone calls, the sending of the birthday and Christmas cards and her constant – yet turned down – offers of her coming to pay them a visit.

She was family – and family meant something. Not something, everything, so it didn’t feel right Gypsy bad-mouthing her. He’d always felt bad about the way he’d packed her off when she’d come to stay. But if he was honest he’d also been mightily relieved. The bickering between Lorna and Gypsy had done his nut in. If it hadn’t been for the company of Johnny, he’d have booked himself into a hotel.

Even though he’d sent her back to Belgium, he’d always shown Lorna respect, and wife or not, Gypsy needed to do the same. If she couldn’t, then the least she could do was keep her frigging cake hole shut.

‘Don’t say that Gypsy, she’s my sister.’

‘Yes, more’s the fucking pity.’

‘Oh so much for the soft-spoken lady. You’d put the blokes down Smithfield to shame.’

‘You know how she takes me, Frank.’

‘Is it too hard to hope my missus and my sister can get on?’

‘It is when it’s bleeding Lorna. Turn it in Frankie, you know what I’m saying’s true.’

He did know but he wasn’t about to start admitting that to Gypsy.

‘I tried to get on with her Frankie, you saw that. I took her shopping, for facials, to the casino. I even got her a pedicure from Marco and you know how long his waiting list is.’

Frankie didn’t and couldn’t see how having your nails manicured by some queer working in Knightsbridge was any different from getting them done by any of the girls in Chinatown which he on occasion did. But he didn’t say anything and listened patiently whilst Gypsy continued to work her jaw overtime about Lorna at the same time as stuffing her face with the grapes she hadn’t even bothered giving him.

‘Fuck me Frank, we showered money on her and all she did was bleeding moan and criticize. She tried to cause trouble between us. It’s no good shrugging your shoulders Frankie Taylor because you know as well as I do that she did. I’m telling you babe, that woman is a nasty piece of work. No matter how hard I tried with her she still acted like an ungrateful cow. What did I ever do to her? It was the longest fucking week of my life Frank, bleedin’ …’

Frankie had heard enough. He banged his fist on the side of the hospital trolley and immediately regretted the action. A sharp pain tore through his side, making him grit his teeth and throw back his head as he spoke.

‘Well now you’ve got a chance to try again because once I told Lorna what’d happened to me, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’m sending one of my men over tonight to give her a passport. By the morning she’ll be on her way.’

Frankie felt the bag of grapes hit his face before he saw it. Then he proceeded to listen as Gypsy screeched at the top of her lungs at him, before storming out of the Accident and Emergency department.

He looked at his son – who was now fast asleep – and sighed. At first he wasn’t really keen himself on his sister coming. But the more he mulled it over the more he thought he might be a good idea, even aside from the guilt he already felt for keeping her away for so long. It struck him he might be able to use Lorna’s visit to his advantage. Lorna might be
just
the person he needed.

As much as he’d try to insist on Gypsy being by his side over the next few weeks, he was well aware she’d try her hardest, make all the excuses she could to go out on her little jaunts. And when she did? He’d send Lorna, just to watch her, just to make sure he knew exactly where his pretty little wife was going. Yes, maybe this visit from his interfering, busybody sister was just what he needed.

Maggie tucked a sleeping Harley into bed as she looked around the tired room. The woodchip wallpaper had been painted several times, yet it did very little to disguise the damp seeping through the walls, looking like dark angry clouds against a sky of pink. There was a section of the wallpaper which was peeling off completely, and had been patched up by Harley’s colourful abstract pictures.

The view from the tiny window looked out onto rows of monolithic grey tower blocks overlooking Tottenham Court Road. And with a heavy heart, Maggie knew this was where Harley had called home for nearly thirteen months. She was past furious.

Kissing her sleeping daughter on her head, Maggie looked once more at her, not quite believing they were finally reunited. She’d washed Harley’s hair and now it lay in beautiful blonde ringlets on her pillow rather than the matted hair she’d been greeted with earlier. Her face was tiny with rounded cheeks, though worryingly they were less round than they had been a year ago. Her freckles almost looked painted on, splayed perfect tiny brown dots spread across her tiny button nose. She was nothing short of perfect.

Quietly, Maggie closed the door. Giving up smoking hadn’t lasted. She lit up a cigarette, hungrily inhaling the smoke deep inside her lungs, trying to calm herself down. Hoping to stop her head from racing but more importantly, her temper from rising.

The television in the small lounge was on but the sound was turned off and Gina Daniels sat in the tatty burgundy chair in the corner. Maggie pulled a face in revulsion as Gina crammed another bite of the fried egg sandwich into her already full mouth. The egg dribbled out onto her lips, onto her chin and all over her fingers. Unabashed, Gina sucked the runny yellow spillage noisily.

Maggie stared at Gina who seemed deep in thought. She had to find a way to get Harley out of the flat but at the moment she didn’t have anywhere to take her. She couldn’t take her anywhere near home; even being on the other side of Oxford Street was really too close for Maggie’s liking.

In her family only her mum and Nicky knew about Harley and, until her daughter was much older and able to fend for herself, that was the way Maggie was going to keep it.

When she’d first discovered she was pregnant she’d been beside herself with excitement. She hadn’t thought she’d feel that way, especially as having children had never been high up on her list of priorities.

Her mother had casually raised her eyebrows when she’d told her, as if to say she didn’t expect anything different. Then when she’d told her the full story, the casually raised eyebrows had turned into a worried furrow. ‘Maggie, be careful. I’m so scared for you.’ Maggie had watched her mum tremble in fear and the surge of hatred towards her father had hit her once again. She’d taken her mother in her arms, trying to comfort her, trying to reassure her it’d be fine. Though she herself hadn’t known how it would be. ‘It’s okay, Mum. I’ll make it okay. I promise.’

The next person she’d told had been Nicky. He was the only other member of her family she really trusted. Telling Tommy hadn’t even come into the equation. He was lost to himself and over the years her elder brother had become lost to her. She’d tried to reach out but whenever she did, Maggie sensed a dark and powerful rage coming from him which frightened her, not for herself but for him.

When she’d been three months pregnant her mother had come up with a workable idea. She was going to pretend she was looking at a stretch. It hadn’t been difficult to convince anyone. Nobody had cared or questioned it. Her father had just sniffed when she’d told him she was looking at ten months inside for handling stolen credit cards. No one else had said anything or had even been concerned. Even though she hadn’t really been going away, Maggie had found the reaction painful, but it’d still been the perfect alibi.

She’d rented a poky room in Brighton and far from being lonely, she’d enjoyed the time away. The feeling of Harley growing inside her had been exciting and beautiful. It’d felt fresh and pure, unlike the rest of her life. Of course she’d missed Soho, it was in her blood, but her mother and Nicky had visited. There’d been days when they’d just walked on the beach together, eating fish and chips, enjoying each other’s company. Simple but so very rare. A world away from the heaving streets of Soho.

After Harley had been born everything had become slightly trickier. It’d taken a lot of juggling but Maggie had wanted to get back to Soho. Everything she’d ever known was there. It was the tie that bound.

Her mother was there who needed her; had always and would always need her. And though there were times Maggie wanted to run and keep running, taking Harley far away to build another life, she knew she couldn’t. Because there was no one else to protect her mother. Maggie was trapped. In a way they all were.

Nicky had found a flat to rent in Holborn for her. Far enough away from Soho, but near enough to be there each day.