by Emma Tallon
Sammy had been found this morning, which meant he had been killed last night. All day she had been waltzing around with her head in the clouds, dreaming of what their union would bring, making plans, sending him messages, whilst he’d been sat cold and lifeless, with a bullet in his brain. She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, feeling so stupid.
As she opened her eyes her gaze landed on the Furla bag standing proud on the side in front of her, and the tears began to fall. She reached into the bag and pulled out the pile of papers she had been so excited about just half an hour before. She stared at them for a moment, thinking back over all the things they said they were going to do together. Things that would never happen now. As the sobs she had been holding at bay finally broke through, she dropped the passport application into the bin, closed the lid and walked away.
Forty-Seven
Jim walked out of the small corner shop on the estate where he currently rented a room and breathed in the air with a broad smile. The stench of bins and weed was as prevalent as ever in the rundown area, but today it didn’t bother him. This would not be his home for much longer. Soon he would be able to afford a nice big house somewhere with a view. And hopefully nice and close to a good local pub, he thought cheerily.
Clutching the brown paper bag that held the bottle of whisky he’d just purchased, he began to whistle as he crossed the street. Today was a day for celebration. The information he had passed to Sophia had paid off, which meant not only was she indebted to him, but his biggest potential problem had been exterminated. All he needed to do now was drive home the pressure on Mollie. She would be in a complete state, having just lost her eldest son, but it would make her easier to manipulate if he played his cards right.
The thought of what he had been part of caused a small stab of guilt to pierce his happiness for a moment, but he swiftly shrugged it off. She had always planned to take Freddie out, anyway. His participation made no difference to the outcome, but at least by being involved he benefited from it.
He passed a group of youths and ignored them as they stared him out. One ran off, pushing past him in his haste to get down the alley before him.
‘Oi, watch yourself,’ Jim yelled, annoyed. He had nearly dropped his whisky, and he hadn’t just bought the cheap stuff. No, this time he had splashed out on the top-shelf stuff. He couldn’t wait to get home and toast his bright new future.
He wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of urine as he made his way through the narrow alleyway between the buildings and sidestepped a bag of rubbish that had been dumped there and foraged through by a cat or fox at some point. As he reached the end of the alley the youth that had run through appeared up ahead and smiled at him. He frowned as he stepped out onto the pavement beyond.
‘What’s your game then, ya little—’
But he didn’t get time to finish his sentence before the wooden baseball bat that was swung from around the corner caught his head with full force and knocked him unconscious.
The icy water hit his face like a sharp slap, waking him up and making him jump in fright. Crying out in fear and confusion he tried to move his hands but found he couldn’t. They were bound behind his back, lashed to whatever it was he was seated on. Jim squeezed his eyes shut and blinked them open a couple of times, trying to clear his vision. It was blurry, partly from the water and partly due to the double vision he was experiencing.
That’s right, he remembered as he began to collect his thoughts. I was knocked out…
‘Oi, what – what’s the meaning of this?’ he spluttered, trying to keep his eyes open despite the throbbing pain coming from his head.
Was it those kids?
He blinked once or twice more and then squinted as he looked around. He was in some sort of old barn. His heart skipped a beat as he registered this. The Tylers favoured barns, it was well known they had several dotted about for when they didn’t want people to hear what was going on. But would Paul really have already found out about his part in Freddie’s demise?
Sure enough, as he twisted his head, he clocked Paul. He groaned in dismay, but then his groan turned to a gargling choke as he saw who was with him. It was Freddie. His jaw dropped. How could Freddie be there? Sophia had killed him the night before. She had gone up there, aimed at his head and pulled the trigger. She’d confirmed that he was dead. This didn’t make any sense.
Jim’s head reeled as he tried to make sense of it all. What had happened? How had Freddie survived?
The expression on Freddie’s face was murderous and Jim felt a flood of dread wash through him. Putting two and two together he came up with a sharp four as he realised that he wasn’t getting out of this barn alive. He started whimpering and tears filled his eyes.
‘Oh, don’t you dare,’ Freddie said with disgust. ‘You were ballsy enough to try and blackmail my mum, knowing the possible consequences, so be fucking man enough to take them.’
Jim squeezed his eyes, trying to dispel the tears. So that’s why he was here. He tensed his body and tried to think of anything he could possibly say to get out of this, but no matter how hard he wracked his brains he couldn’t think of anything. Mollie had told them. Which meant he’d crossed the ultimate line as far as the Tylers would be concerned. He’d gone after their mum. A civilian. An innocent loved one under their protection. There was no coming back from that. He swore under his breath, kicking himself. He hated Mollie in that moment, more than he ever had before. This was all her fault.
Freddie walked towards the man tied in the chair and looked him up and down in disgust. He felt sick to his stomach that this pathetic creature was the man who had fathered him. When the penny had dropped during his conversation with Mollie he’d felt as though his whole world was collapsing. Everything he thought he’d known about himself had been a lie. His dad – his beloved dad – who had raised him in the early years and who he’d idolised, was just a stand-in. It wasn’t Richard Tyler’s blood running through Freddie’s veins, it was this guy’s.
He had sat down and listened as Mollie had quickly continued and told him all about the blackmail and how she had tried to mortgage the house in order to keep this from him. At first he had been angry, livid even, that she had kept this a secret for his whole life. He was angry too that she’d been stupid enough to fall for a slimeball like Jim and get herself pregnant. But then as he tried to find the words to throw at her, he thought about everything she had done for him ever since, and although his head was reeling he realised he couldn’t blame her. She had just been a young girl in a bad situation and had done the best she could.
Freddie had watched her cry from across the room as he processed everything that this meant, understanding her predicament but unable to go to her and hold her just yet. Then, when she was finished, he told her to go home and that he was going to sort it all out. Family was family, however it had come about. And she was his mum. He’d always have her back.
Clearing his throat, Freddie tried to get his head firmly in the game. However sick he felt, however many questions were swirling around in his brain, he needed to focus on dealing with Jim right now. He stared at the other man, hatred burning through his eyes.
‘So, you’re the piece of shit that put my mum in the family way and then cast her off,’ he stated. Bile rose to the back of his throat and he swallowed it down.
Despite his fear, Jim barked out a small laugh and tried to brazen it out. ‘If I’m a piece of shit what does that make you then, son? Half piece of shit and half what… slag?’
Freddie jerked forward and smashed his fist into the other man’s face with force, knocking both him and the chair over. His nostrils flared as the insult to his mother sent him over the edge.
Paul grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t let him push you into making this easy for him,’ he murmured.
Freddie shrugged Paul off roughly and sniffed, straightening his jacket and pacing up and down to walk it off. As he calmed back down to a simmer he nodded at his brother and Paul tact
fully stepped back. This was Freddie’s fight.
Jim spat out a mouthful of blood and half a chipped tooth and tried to move from the awkward position he’d landed in. His hands were still tied tightly behind the chair and he was on his side, face pressed uncomfortably down on the ground. He quietly seethed as he heard Paul’s words. He was many things but stupid wasn’t one of them. After assessing the likelihood of getting out of this alive was zero, he quickly realised his best hope was to rile Freddie into ending him quickly. But it seemed that Paul had sussed out this tactic too.
Holding out hope that Freddie was hot-headed enough to be riled up anyway, he continued. ‘Ahh come on, son,’ he mocked. ‘Is this any way to treat your old dad? Not that I ever wanted kids. Nothing but thankless parasites really, aren’t they? I wasn’t going to be tied down just because your mum was too stupid not to get sprogged up. Nah, I let that oaf Richard take that bullet. Stupid twat that he was.’
Freddie clenched his jaw and, with difficulty, resisted the urge to smash his foot into Jim’s face. ‘Richard Tyler was ten times the man you could ever hope to be,’ he growled. ‘You’re not fit to wipe the shit off his shoe.’
‘Not that he has any need for shoes these days, though, eh?’ Jim shot back with a mocking laugh.
Freddie’s lip curled and he turned and smashed his foot into Jim’s stomach viciously. ‘Got a lot to say for a dead man, haven’t you?’ This time Jim turned quiet and Freddie narrowed his eyes into a hateful glare as he stared down at him. ‘Not that you’re going to hell just yet. You’ve got some debts to repay first.’ He shook his head. ‘You said you were friends with my dad. That was a fucking lie. Why?’
‘Ha!’ Jim spat. ‘Your dad was the bane of my fucking life,’ he snarled, finally discarding the mask of lies he’d worn all this time. ‘I lost twenty-five years of my life because of him.’
‘What do you mean?’ Freddie’s attention sharpened. Something had always been off about the way Jim had taken that life sentence. He just hadn’t been able to put his finger on what it was.
‘What I mean,’ Jim said, trying to shift into a less uncomfortable position, ‘is that he was the one who sent me down. I didn’t work for Big Dom and Vince. Nah, I was never good enough for them,’ he said bitterly. ‘I was desperate for an in back then, desperate to show them what I could do and earn some real wedge for once. I made out alright on me own, but I could have doubled it overnight working for a firm like theirs. But Richard Tyler was their golden boy. He could do no wrong. When I went asking, he told them not to hire me and they listened. For years I tried, but it was always the same answer. Honestly, you make one fucking mistake with a bird and it never fucking leaves you.’ He grunted, finding it difficult to continue talking in the position he was in.
Paul reached down and yanked the wooden chair upright. Jim rocked to one side and then the other before he righted himself in the middle. Blood trickled from his mouth and broken nose, down and off his chin. He looked up at Freddie with eyes bloodshot from age and alcohol and once more Freddie wondered how he could possibly have ever been fathered by this man.
‘So one day I decided if I couldn’t make money with them, I’d make it off them.’ His bloodstained lips curled into a nasty half smile. ‘Richard was set to go up against another boxer who was top of his game. It was rigged, he was set to win it, but the odds at the bookies had swayed people to bet the other way.’ He spat out a mouthful of blood to the side. ‘I put on several big bets against him, like the rest of the crowd. Then I drugged him with a bunch of muscle relaxants half an hour before the fight. It weren’t hard, sneaking into the changing room and lacing his drink. He was busy out the back with you and your mum. She’d brought you kids to watch the great Richard Tyler, your dad,’ he mocked. ‘The drugs kicked in, in the second round. His punches were pathetic and he started swaying all over the place.’
Jim paused to chuckle. ‘It was funny as hell. The other guy couldn’t exactly just stand back and not take his chance, not with so many people watching. They’d have known it was rigged. He had no choice but to knock him out. I made a lot of money that night, as did a lot of other people. But somehow…’ his smile faded and his expression darkened, ‘your mum found out. She told Richard and Vince and they took me out to an old warehouse – not much different to this, actually,’ he said, looking around at the dark barn. ‘They gave me a choice. Not that it was much of a choice,’ he growled. ‘And that was how I ended up taking the lifer. They stitched me up and took the best years of my fucking life,’ he said, his voice rising to a bitter shout. ‘So, you want to know why I’ve got such a grudge against your mum, that’s why. She stole my life from me. And she damn well owes me. They all do.’
Freddie looked at him, not really seeing the bloodied, angry man in front of him, but seeing Mollie in a whole new light. He remembered that night. He had been excitedly watching in the audience, eating the popcorn he was always allowed as a treat on fight nights and helping to keep an eye on his younger siblings. Richard had suddenly begun to act strangely. Freddie had been worried for his dad, scared he had fallen ill. There had been no celebrating after this fight or even the good-natured commiseration drinks that were the norm after a loss. After this fight Mollie had ushered them home quickly to their beds and hushed conversations had wafted up the stairs through the night as different people came in and out of the house. Now, after all these years, he knew why. Now he also knew why everyone hated Jim so much and the lack of recognition he’d received for the life sentence finally made sense.
He cocked his head to one side and looked at Jim. ‘I really couldn’t care less what you think you’re owed. Sounds like you were owed what you got, to be honest. And you were lucky at that – if I found you pulling that with one of my set-ups you wouldn’t have got away with a holiday at Her Majesty’s pleasure,’ he said, pointing a finger at Jim. He shook his head and began to pace. ‘You know, funny enough, your first mistake wasn’t abandoning my mum when you found out she was pregnant,’ Freddie continued. ‘Nah. Not that I condone that, but I guess, like her, you were young and naïve. I don’t respect you for that, but I won’t take a pound of flesh for it either.’
A pound of flesh? Jim’s ears pricked up and he widened his eyes with dread.
‘No, your first mistake was slapping her round the face and threatening to punch her in the stomach if she told anyone I was yours.’ Freddie walked over to the side of the barn where a multitude of items lay on an old trestle table. He picked up a large, sharp knife. ‘That you’re going to pay for with a finger.’
‘What?’ Jim paled. ‘Come on. You want me dead just do it, Freddie.’ His eyes darted back and forth between the brothers. Paul stared back at him levelly, no emotion in his face. Freddie seemed more interested in the knife than anything Jim had to say. ‘Come on,’ he said again, panic beginning to colour his tone. ‘Just do it, come on.’ His voice rose in panic. He couldn’t deal with torture. He didn’t have the stomach. ‘I’ve been through enough,’ he whined. When Freddie continued to ignore him, he tried to wind him up again. ‘Your mum was a slag, would open her legs for anyone, that one. I couldn’t wait to be rid of her.’ He began throwing all the insults he could think of. ‘And – and Richard, he was like a potato on legs for all the brain power that geezer had. Fucking tosser. Come on, Freddie, do it!’ he roared.
‘Nah, I don’t think so, Jim,’ Freddie replied calmly. He had a tight grip on his emotions now and although rage was fuelling him it was running cold and calculated rather than hot and rash. ‘I want you to hurt first,’ he said with feeling. ‘Really hurt.’
Paul reached down and untied one of Jim’s hands from its bindings, then pulled his arm forward and held it at the wrist, tightly. Jim struggled and bucked against Paul, but Paul’s grip didn’t waver.
‘Get off me! Get the fuck off me!’ Jim yanked as hard as he could, but the chair just moved closer to Paul rather than his hand coming free. ‘No!’ he yelled, as Freddie walked over. ‘
No!’
Freddie prised open Jim’s fist and got a good hold on his little finger. ‘This,’ he spat, ‘this is for threatening my mum the first time, when she was at her most vulnerable.’ Pressing the sharpened blade down into his finger he gritted his teeth and forced it through the joint connecting it to the hand.
The bloodcurdling scream that escaped Jim’s mouth was almost feral as the pain set in. After a few seconds he went quiet and swayed dangerously to one side. The severed finger dropped to the floor and blood began gushing from the open wound. Reaching into his back pocket where he had placed it earlier, Freddie pulled out a cloth. He bunched it up and pressed it tight to Jim’s hand.
‘Can’t have you bleeding out before we finish now, can we?’ he asked. ‘Now, where were we? Paul, can you recall?’
‘That was his first finger for his first crime, Fred,’ Paul answered in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘Ah, yes.’ Freddie turned his stare on Jim once more, his eyes flashing dangerously. ‘Your second mistake was turning my nan against my mum. Did you know she went the rest of her life never talking to my mum again? Mum wasn’t even invited to her funeral,’ Freddie said. ‘Eats her up inside, that does. All because of you.’ Freddie pointed the bloody knife in Jim’s face and the other man flinched away.
‘Fr-Freddie,’ Jim wailed, trying not to be sick from the pain. ‘You’ve made your point. Please…’
‘Please?’ Freddie questioned. ‘Please what?’
‘Please stop. Come on.’ Jim groaned. ‘I’m your dad, I’m blood. Whatever I’ve done you can’t deny that. How can you do this to blood?’ He knew it was a weak argument even as he said it, but it was worth a try.
‘Dad? You ain’t my dad.’ Freddie paced a few feet away from him and then turned and came back. ‘Richard Tyler was my dad. He was the one who was there for me, who picked me up when I fell over and cheered whenever I won. The one who kept me clean and fed and taught me how to ride a bike. Who taught me how to be a man.’ Freddie bit his lip as the grief for the man who raised him rose up from where it always lay, just beneath the surface. He pushed it back down. ‘You know I used to think blood meant family. I used to believe blood was thicker than water and all that bollocks. But then over the last few years our family has grown, and I would take a bullet for each and every member of that family. And do you know, barely half of them are actually blood-related.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Family…’ He leaned into Jim’s face as he emphasised the word. ‘Family is what you make it.’