Wishing and Hoping (29 page)

‘Tonight?'

He could barely hear her. ‘Speak up.'

‘Tonight,' she said again.

He glanced at his watch. It was reading seven o'clock. ‘Tonight. Eight o'clock. On the dot.' He could barely control his smug satisfaction as he stipulated the time. He gave her the address.

He'd been inclined to say that she didn't have much to say for herself, but he guessed she was nervous. That's why she'd sounded so abrupt, more clipped in speech than when she visited the prison.

Smiling, he poured himself a drink, sat down and waited.

Car headlamps swept over the ceiling. The curtains were drawn and he resisted the urge to look out. He wanted to savour this moment, to open the door and feel her fear. She had no choice but to submit to him; not if she knew what was good for her and her old man.

The doorbell rang. Smiling again, he took his time tipping the last of the whisky down his throat and then padded over the dark-turquoise shag pile carpet into the hallway in his slippers. His long departed wife had always stipulated that he wore slippers. Although she was dead and buried he just couldn't get out of the habit.

The top half of the front door constituted a glass panel. Normally he could see the shadow of the person waiting there. At this moment in time he could not. He guessed she had stood down from the doorstep. Perhaps she was even stepping away from the door, halfway to changing her mind. Well, he'd certainly take care of that!

Smoothing back his thin fair hair, he reached for the catch and turned it. The door flew back, surprising him and hitting him off balance. Two bruisers who must have been three times the size of Marcie Jones crashed into him like two-ton bulldozers, pushing him back along the hallway and into the curtained room. A third bloke closed the door in an obscenely gentle fashion, as though they were there to have a
church meeting. David Morgan's instinct told him that religion had sod all to do with what they were there for.

He was proved right.

By the time they'd finished with him his guts were aching and already he was pissing blood. He could smell himself, the fear sweating out of him.

The biggest of the three had huge hands. One of those hands was gripping him by the throat. A breathy voice said, ‘Don't worry, old son. There won't be any bruises. Now then, a little word from our boss. Hands off Michael Jones and his missus. While our mate Michael is in your care we want him to have the best of service. You got that?'

David Morgan nodded; an action that immediately brought on a severe bout of coughing.

‘Right, old son. You've got the point. Now. As for Michael's missus, it's obvious that your hormones are more than you can handle.'

He nodded to one of the others, a big black guy; a gold earring glinted in his left ear. Wasn't that the sign of a poof?

The black guy picked up the half-finished bottle of whisky. Glass shattered from its base as he hit it against the fireplace.

David Morgan's eyes opened wide in alarm as the jagged edges of what was left were brought to his face. He waited for the impact, the tearing of his cheeks,
the gouging of an eye. As he did so he was aware of his flies being undone.

He cried out, ‘No!'

His eyes fastened on the jagged glass and his now flaccid penis.

His cry became a whimper. He felt the glass cut his groin then lightly skim the stem of his John Thomas.

‘Christ, no,' he whimpered.

The blood was matting his pubic hair. He fainted when he thought they were going to cut off his tool. When he came around again he still had it. Only his groin bore the marks of their visit, plus the aching in his guts and his ribs.

Trauma got the better of him. He retched up everything he'd ate that day, pissed some more and smelled the unmistakable stench of his own faeces as his bowels let go.

BEING DECEMBER, THE
Isle of Sheppey was shrouded in a chill mist that cloaked buildings and people like a thick gauze veil.

It was far from cheerful and not a healthy climate, but that didn't bother Tony Brooks. London wasn't too healthy either, though it had to be said, London was far more exciting.

Babs had thrown a few things at first but had come round when he'd handed over a bundle of money and promised to take her out that night. Money and drink were definitely the way to his wife's heart – that and a good session in bed.

For a while things were fine. He'd liked indulging the kids at first but living with Babs was not to his taste. Tony Brooks could stand his wife for just so long. He would have stayed longer on Sheppey if his sons had been around more. For the most part he got lumbered with the little girl who made him feel awkward. He still wasn't entirely sure that she was his.

The boys appeared surprisingly independent, a little secretive, a little more grown up than when
he'd last seen them. He fancied they were involved in things they shouldn't be, but counselled that they were still children and couldn't possibly be turning criminal just yet, conveniently forgetting that he'd been a tearaway at their age.

Regardless of the threat from Paddy Rafferty, he was seriously considering going back to the Smoke when someone knocked at the front door. On answering it he found himself face to face with a uniformed copper and a plainclothes bloke with shoulder-length hair and a fuzz on his upper lip that was pretending to be a moustache. Both looked surprised to see him.

‘Mr Brooks? Tony Brooks?'

‘What's it to you?'

‘In a way. Can we come in?'

‘Why?'

He couldn't help being surly. Up until now the police had never paid him social visits; they always meant business. He held the door tight against his chest, the opening too narrow for a man to get through.

‘It's about your boys.' The plainclothes copper glanced at his notebook. ‘Arnold and Archie.'

‘Christ! Are they hurt?'

He flung the door wide open and the two men stepped inside. He took them into the living room, shoved a pile of ironing aside and bid them sit down.

‘We'll stand.'

The plainclothes copper introduced himself as Lenny Oswald and his colleague as Constable Plaistow.

Tony felt his stomach heave into his mouth. He could cope with just about anything except something tragic happening to his kids.

‘What is it?' His heart hammered. He stared unblinking.

‘This is something of a social call.'

Tony stared. His fear plummeted. ‘Well, that's a bit of a turn up,' he said scathingly.

‘We picked up some boys breaking into a warehouse. They reckoned they were doing it on the orders of your son, a right little Fagin by the sound of it.'

Tony remembered enough of his schooldays – the few days he'd attended – to know that Fagin was the fence in a story called
Oliver Twist
. He even remembered who'd written it.

‘Charles Dickens! That's the geezer who wrote that.' After he'd said it, he realised how much he sounded like someone in a TV quiz like
Take Your Pick
.

‘Do you know where your son is?'

‘Why?' His tone had turned surly. His stance was defiant.

‘We've got no real evidence, but it wouldn't hurt
to have a word with him – with your permission of course.'

‘Get stuffed!'

Detective Sergeant Lenny Oswald shrugged his shoulders. He had a leaning towards helping kids before they got into trouble too deeply. It was his belief that nipped in the bud early enough a youngster could be steered back onto the straight and narrow.

Implementing such a strategy hit the bumpers when confronted with an attitude such as that fostered by Tony Brooks. What chance did the boys have with a father like that? Lenny had heard rumours that the boys' father wasn't around much. Apparently he spent a lot of time up in London and was involved in God knows what.

He sighed. ‘Well. At least you know your boys have acquired a name for themselves. I'll leave it up to you then.'

‘Yeah. You do that.'

Shoulders back and fists clenched, Tony escorted the policemen to the door, holding his stomach in as though he was all tight muscle when in fact he was rapidly running to flab. One punch would have knocked the stuffing out of him.

Once they'd left, Tony grabbed his coat from the hook behind the door where everybody hung their coats. Luckily his was top of the pile. He vaguely wondered when Babs was going to have a clear out.
She just tossed stuff onto piles and never put things away properly.

It was beginning to rain, a fine spray windblown in from the sea. Turning up his coat collar he headed to where he'd had a ‘robbers' lair' when he was a boy. It had been a good spot away from prying eyes and ideal for boys to hide in. It had always boasted a sign saying
NO GIRLS.
Later on, as the hormones had taken over, the sign had remained but the boys took their girlfriends there, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't be disturbed.

He smiled when he came to the ramshackle construction half hidden behind old wartime concrete built to protect the island against an enemy who never got there. He suspected the corrugated-iron roof might be the very same that he and his pals had used years before.

‘Oi!' he bellowed at the same time as hammering on the roof.

Mutterings and the sound of grunted orders came from inside before a freckled face appeared. ‘Clear off!'

Tony grabbed the boy's hair before he had a chance to disappear. ‘Arnold! Archie! Come out 'ere before I come in there and drag you out.'

Silence. Tony grinned. He could imagine the surprise on his boys' faces; the old man was waiting outside. They could be in for a clip around the ear if they didn't get their story straight.

The moment he saw their expressions, he knew he was right.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he sauntered a little way from their hideout looking thoughtful and wearing a troubled frown.

‘The coppers are looking for you two.'

‘We ain't done nothing,' Archie blurted.

‘Nothing much,' Arnold added more hesitantly.

Tony was tempted to smile, but he had a part to play. He was their dad after all and they were supposed to respect him – right?

‘I don't want them coming round to see me again. Got it?'

The two boys nodded.

‘You better had. What the other kids do is up to them. Here,' he said, after rummaging in his pocket. He gave them half a crown each. ‘Don't spend it all at once.'

He went off whistling. By the time he was out of sight, Archie and Arnold were back inside their ‘den', telling the others that their dad was a real hard case and had done time in prison.

‘I wouldn't want to do time,' said the freckle-faced lad whose name was Sammy.

‘That's 'cos you're a wimp,' said Archie, giving his shoulder a shove. ‘Right. Now let's see what you got there.'

The boy handed over a bicycle lamp and a handful
zof penny chews he'd snitched from another kid under threat of being pummelled into pulp.

Tony Brooks sauntered off along the seafront sniffing the air and looking at the view. He was feeling self-satisfied. His sons were sorted. No more police. It didn't really occur to him that he hadn't warned them to behave themselves, merely to avoid getting tangled up with the law.

The fact was that he was feeling restless. Sheerness just didn't have the buzz of London. It didn't have the women either. The fact of the matter was that he didn't fancy his wife any longer. Regardless of the threat from Rafferty, he had to get back there before he died of boredom. The only reason he would ever come back to Sheppey was to see his old mum.

His mood plummeted at the thought of her. He'd gone to the hospital with her. The doctor had taken him to one side and put it on the line.

‘We can't do anything for her blindness, of course, and I have to warn you right now that we may have to take more than her toe off. It may be the whole of her foot. It all depends.'

People regarded Tony Brooks as a tough guy. When the doctor told him that he'd felt sick and totally helpless. He'd wanted to cry, him, the hard man of Sheerness and London.

‘You can't!'

His voice had sounded faint and faraway. Obviously
the doctor didn't think so. He'd stepped back, looking quite alarmed. It came to him that he was shouting but hadn't realised.

The doctor regained his composure. ‘It's a fine line between her living and dying. She's signed to give her consent for whatever has to be done.'

Tony couldn't get it out of his mind. Perhaps that was why he wasn't feeling so scared of Paddy and not purely because he was thinking of his mother. The truth was that he couldn't face seeing her suffering and the possibility that she might end up a cripple, walking with crutches or in a wheelchair.

When it came to sickness, Tony Brooks was an out and out coward and he knew it.

THE NIGHTCLUB WAS
buzzing, the neon Blue Genie lights bathing the customers in a chill blue glow.

Marcie looked for Sally who that week had been performing on stage with two pink feather fans and a trio of discreetly placed silver stars. Tonight was to have been her night off, her place taken by Slinky Salome and her twenty-foot python. All the same she had promised to call in, though when Marcie thought about it she realised Sally had only said ‘might' which was really unusual. They always met up on her nights off. Sally gave sterling support to a woman who was missing her husband.

Still, Marcie told herself, there was no law that said Sally had to be there.

People had congratulated her on doing a good job of running the Blue Genie. Marcie had managed to charm most of the clientele and men's eyes lit up at the sight of her. Should any of them be accompanied by their wives or mistresses, she was charmingly polite. If they were alone the charm was laid on that much thicker.