by Kerry Kaya
“Yeah well, I’ve got his cards marked.” He opened the car door and stepped out onto the pavement. As far as he was concerned, Joseph Hatton had served his purpose. His days were numbered.
“And you reckon King’s definitely in there then?”
“Only one way to find out, eh?” George raised his eyebrows as he answered.
They sauntered toward the pub and George brought out his arm, bringing his firm to a halt. He clenched his fist around a length of iron piping. “Remember, that cunt King is mine,” he reminded them. Tonight, he would get his revenge on not only the theft of the Ecstasy pills, but also, more importantly, his brother’s disappearance.
They nodded their heads, eager to get inside the pub, and even more eager to get stuck in and down to business.
* * *
There was only one place Fletch wanted to be, only one person he wanted to speak to, and that was Susan King. Having raced to the nearest taxi rank, he’d jumped into the back of a black cab and told the cabbie to put his foot down.
Standing outside the house Billy owned, he dragged his damp hair away from his clammy forehead, desperately trying to make himself look more presentable. As an afterthought, he lifted his arms, gave his armpits a quick sniff, and then after wrinkling his nose, without hesitating, he banged his fist on the wooden door.
Through the glass windowpane, he watched her come into view, surprise was etched upon her face as she unlocked the door. Barefoot, and dressed in a pale pink cashmere sweater, dark denim fitted jeans, and with her hair tied up in a messy bun, as always, she looked beautiful.
“Fletch,” she cried. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you.”
“Billy,” she began.
“He’s still in the pub.”
She nodded her head, pulled the door open wider, and led the way into the lounge. “When did you get out?”
“Today … this afternoon.”
At this, she turned around and smiled. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”
“No, I don’t. I look like shit.” He resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. Instead, he sank down onto the sofa and held his head in his hands. “I’m in a right fucking mess, Suze, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”
“It can’t be that bad, surely?” She knelt down on the Chinese silk rug before him, the rich tapestry a swirl of vibrant colours in the otherwise pale lemon room. He grasped hold of her hand tightly, his fingers curling around hers.
“It’s Tina. She’s …”
“What? What about Tina?”
“She’s …”
“What is it?” Susan urged him.
She’s pregnant, and …”
Susan’s heart lurched. She swallowed deeply and dropped his hand. He snatched it back, holding onto it for dear life.
“I don’t know what to do.” He looked down at her, holding her gaze, pleading with her. “I don’t know what to do, Suze. Tina and my mum, they’ve … they’ve just this minute sprung it on me. No warning, no nothing. Tell me what I should do.”
“I … I can’t tell you what to do, Fletch. You have to do what’s right.”
He rubbed his hand across his face. “Please, Suze, help me out here, please. I’m begging you.”
“I can’t,” she repeated, her voice faltering. “You know that I can’t.”
“But I don’t love her,” he cried. “I’ll never love her; you know that I won’t. How can I when I …?”
“Maybe you don’t right now,” she interrupted. “But in time, you will.”
“No,” he shouted. “No, I won’t, Suze.” He wanted to shake her, to make her understand. “Never.”
“Fletch.” She grasped his hand in hers even tighter. “She’s having your child, and you have to do what’s right.”
“Yeah.” He gave a bitter laugh. “She’s having my kid, and I don’t even know her surname. I barely even know her. I don’t want to know her. I thought that I’d come out of nick and that we’d …”
“What?” She narrowed her eyes. “You thought that we’d what?”
“I thought that me and you …” He squeezed her hand. “… I thought that we’d, I don’t know.” He watched her reaction closely, hoping more than anything that she felt the same way. “Be together, I suppose.”
“We can’t.” She spoke softly, her heart and mind conflicting once more. How did this man, at least sixteen years her junior, have so much of an effect on her, she wondered?
“But why not? The way I feel about you …” His shoulders slumped downwards in defeat, and despair flooded through him. If only she could see just how sincere he was. No other woman would ever compare to her; it was impossible. “The way I feel about you, that’s never going to change, Suze, and you know it isn’t.”
“We’ve already been through all of this; we’ve already discussed it. It’s over.”
“No,” Fletch spat. “We haven’t discussed shit.”
“Yes, we have.” Two pink spots appeared on Susan’s cheeks. Her back was up, and she had no intention of backing down. “And what about Billy, eh? My husband? What we did was wrong, Fletch, not to mention dangerous. You know he would have killed us both if he’d ever found out. You work for him. You, of all people, should know what he is capable of.” She tilted her head to the side watching him. “You know what I’m saying is true.”
“You’re scared of him.” Fletch’s mouth fell open. “You’re scared of your own husband.”
Susan’s cheeks flushed. “And so should you be,” she answered, through gritted teeth.
“I could’ve handled Billy; I would have done that for you.”
“Done what exactly?” She snatched her hand away from his, sat back on her hunches, and threw her arms up in the air. “What could you have possibly done? This is Billy we are talking about.”
“I would have made him disappear.” Fletch stuck his chin out, thoroughly believing the words he spoke. He would have done just about anything to keep her by his side, even if that meant committing murder.
“And what about Tina? Would you have made her disappear, too? She’s carrying your child, Fletch.”
“I already know that,” he snapped. “It’s all I’ve thought about since she told me.”
“You should have been more careful.”
A hot flush crept up his neck, and he looked away. Susan was the last person he wanted to discuss his sex life with. Even though he knew he was being irrational, he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d betrayed her somehow.
“She told me she was on the pill,” he answered, his voice low.
Susan lifted her eyebrows; her expression said it all.
“I know,” he sighed. “Oldest trick in the fucking book, and me, like a stupid prized prick, fell for it.” He caught hold of her hand. “Forget about Tina. I just want us to be together, Suze. Just you and me. We could leave right now.” He clasped her hand tightly and began to stand up. Warming to his idea, he became more animated. “I don’t have much money, but it’d be enough for us to get away. We could go somewhere that Billy would never find us. We could …”
His enthusiasm was infectious, and a bubble of hope spread through Susan’s body. Coming to her senses, she shook her head. As much as she wanted that to happen, she knew it never would. Billy would hunt them down, and more than likely murder them in the process. It was a risk she couldn’t take.
“But I …” His shoulders slumped downwards, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight. “You know how I feel about you.” His cheeks flamed a deeper shade of red. “You know what I’m trying to say, Suze? What I’m trying to tell you?”
“I know.” Susan gave him a sad smile. “But Billy …” She was interrupted by the shrill ring of his mobile phone. She watched as he fished the device from his jacket pocket.
“It’s him … Billy.” He sighed looking down at the call ID. He switched off the call and pulled his fingers through his hair. Within seconds, the ph
one rang for a second time.
Still staring down at the mobile phone, Susan’s voice was low. “Maybe you should answer that. He could be on his way home.”
He gave her a pained expression, inhaled deeply, then pressed answer. Not taking his eyes away from her, he rubbed his palm across his jaw. “Okay.” His voice rose as he spoke into the phone, the colour draining from his face. “I’m coming.” Reluctantly, he stood up. “I have to go; it’s my uncle … he’s just been stabbed in the boozer.”
“Is he okay?” Pressing her hand to her open mouth, she gasped out loud.
“I don’t know.” Every fibre inside of him screamed at him not to leave this woman, yet he knew he had no other choice. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “You know that I love you, right?”
Silently, Susan nodded her head.
“I’m gonna sort this out.” He swallowed down the hard lump in his throat that was choking him, and even as he said the words, he knew this was one situation he wouldn’t be able to magic away. No amount of wishing would make Tina, Billy, or the baby, disappear. “I will sort it out, I promise.” With those parting words, he raced back out of the house, leaving Susan to stare helplessly after his retreating back.
Chapter 9
Amid a sea of flashing blue lights, Fletch raced down the street toward the Robin Hood public house. Ambulances and police cars were parked haphazardly across the pavement. He glanced inside the back of an ambulance as he sped past and did a double take.
“Fletch.” Stevie pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers.
“What the fuck happened?” His breath coming in short bursts, Fletch tore his eyes away from the ambulance.
“Bannerman and his firm turned up,” Stevie answered, as he came to stand beside his best mate. He nodded toward the paramedics as they worked on Frank. “Was pandemonium, mate. Before we even knew what was happening, Shank, the mad bastard, went for your uncle, sliced open his gut.”
“What?” Fletch brought his hands up to his head and made to move forward. As he inched closer, he could see his brother toward the back of the ambulance. He knelt beside the stretcher, his head hanging down low. Leaning inside the open back doors, Billy was speaking to a police officer, his arms moving around animatedly as he spoke.
“It ain’t looking good, mate. There was claret everywhere.” He cleared his throat, still feeling shocked. “His fucking guts, Fletch … they were hanging out of him.”
Fletch had heard just about enough. His stomach churned, and he made to push his way past the police cordon. “That’s my uncle in there,” he yelled at the officer trying to block his way.
“Fletch,” Billy turned his head. “Get over here, mate.”
“See, I told you it’s my uncle,” he roared, shoving his way through. “Is he gonna be okay?” His eyes were wide, as he looked past Billy into the ambulance.
“I don’t know, mate.”
“Spence.” As he stepped up into the ambulance and over piles of discarded blood-stained gauze and empty sterile packaging, he tore his eyes away from the stretcher to look at his brother. “How is he doing?”
Spencer’s face was ashen. “I don’t know,” he cried. “He’s bleeding bad, and it won’t stop. Why won’t it stop, Fletch?”
Laid out on the stretcher, Frank’s skin was grey and clammy, his eyes closed. Strapped across his face was an oxygen mask. Just like the discarded gauze on the floor, the white shirt he was wearing was soaked in deep red blood.
“Is he going to be okay?” His stomach churned even harder and he pressed his fist into his mouth as a wave of nausea swept over him. Even as he asked the question, he could see the concern etched across the paramedics’ faces. “Come on, Frank,” he urged. “Stay with us.”
“We need to blue light him to hospital.”
There was an urgency to their voices, and still unable to believe his eyes, Fletch nodded his head. He turned to Billy. “Tell Stevie to go and get my mum and meet us at the hospital.”
As the rear doors were hastily closed on him, Billy solemnly nodded his head.
* * *
Tina was still feeling tearful when a loud banging on the front door caused her to widen her eyes in alarm.
“See, I told you he would be back soon,” Jenny grinned. “You have to understand it was all a bit of a shock for him. I knew he would come around in the end though.”
“But doesn’t he have a key?” Tina wiped away her tears and looked to the living room door expectantly.
“Yes, he does,” Jenny frowned. She pushed herself out of the armchair, hoping and praying that it wasn’t the police on her doorstep again. That was the last thing they all needed. Warily, she made her way out to the hallway and inched open the front door. “Who is it?” she asked, peering outside into the darkness.
“It’s Stevie, Fletch’s mate.”
Relief flooded through her. “It’s all right; it’s only Stevie,” she called out. She opened the door wider and beckoned him across the threshold. “So, where is he then?” She crossed her arms over her chest and her tone became stern. “I suppose he sent you to do his dirty work for him, did he? Well, you can go back to wherever you came from and tell him, from me, to get his backside home and talk to that young girl in there. Going out of her bloody mind with worry, she is.”
“No,” Stevie shook his head. “He did send me, Mrs. Fletcher, but not for that reason. It’s Frank. He’s been in an accident.”
The colour drained from Jenny’s face. “Frank? You mean, my brother, Frank?”
Stevie nodded his head.
“In an accident, you say? Well, what kind of an accident? Are we talking about a stubbed toe here, or something more serious?”
Stevie swallowed deeply and his breath caught in his throat. “We were in the boozer and he was slashed. He’s in a bad way. Fletch sent me to take you up the hospital.” He looked over his shoulder. “Billy’s waiting outside in a taxi. He’s gonna take us there right now.”
“What?” She clutched at her chest, feeling slightly dizzy, and peered around the open door to see the taxi cab waiting outside. “Well, is he going to be okay?” she asked, leaning against the hallway wall to steady herself as she slipped on her shoes.
“I dunno, but it doesn’t look good.” He hopped from one foot to the other. “We have to get a move on, Mrs. Fletcher. Fletch and Spence are waiting for us up the hospital.”
She slipped on her coat. “Tina, darling, I have to go to the hospital,” she called out.
“Is it my Fletch?” Tina asked, as she came to stand in the hallway.
Jenny shook her head. “It’s Frank, he’s been in an accident.” Without a backward glance, she left the house with Stevie leading the way down the pathway. They may have had their problems in the past, but Frank was still her brother and the uncle of her two boys. Dear God, she prayed, please let him be okay.
* * *
“Mum,” Spencer called out to his mother.
The scent of disinfectant filled Jenny’s nostrils as she charged down the hospital corridor. Coming to a halt in front of her youngest son, she pulled him into her arms.
“Are you okay?” she asked, giving him a critical once over.
Spencer nodded his head. “It’s Uncle Frank, he was bleeding a lot, Mum. It wouldn’t stop.”
“I know, my darling.” She turned her head to look at her eldest boy. “How is he?” She crushed Fletch to her chest and wrapped her arms around him.
“I don’t know, Mum.” He glanced across to where the operating theatres were situated. “They took him straight into theatre.” He rubbed at his forehead. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see not only the vast amount of blood Frank had lost, but also the wide slash across his abdomen. “It’s not looking good, Mum,” he said quietly, out of Spencer’s earshot.
At this, Jenny nodded her head. She placed her arms around both of her sons’ waists. “All we can do is let the doctors do what they do best and make him better.” She
gave them a warm smile and bit down on her bottom lip to stop the tears from flowing from her eyes. Now, more than ever, she had to be strong for the sake of her two sons.
* * *
As soon as he had exited the Rotherhithe Tunnel, George slammed his foot on the brake and brought the car to a screeching halt. With a face like thunder, he threw open the car door, jumped out, and pulled Mickey across the back seat.
“What did I tell you?” He threw his cousin up against the car door. “What did I specifically fucking say?”
“What?” Barely able to catch his breath, shock was etched across Mickey’s face. “What … what have I done wrong?”
“I told you I wanted King. But oh no, not you, you mad bastard, you couldn’t fucking wait, could you? I don’t recall telling you to slice that cunt wide open.”
“What?”
“Did I tell you to slice him open?” George roared.
“No, but …” He averted his eyes. “… He was asking for it. He looked at me funny.”
“Of course he looked at you! You would look as well if some mad bastard was swinging a sword around.”
“Yeah, but …”
“Don’t give me, yeah but …” He pulled Mickey closer to him. Their faces were so close that George could smell Shank’s rancid breath. “I told you to fucking wait.”
“I’m sorry, George.”
George clenched his fist into a tight ball, his eyes becoming dark and murderous. “Yeah, you fucking will be.”
Two fast jabs hit Mickey square on the jaw. As he stumbled backwards, his cousin’s heavy fists rained blows down upon him. Finally, and with as much strength as he could muster, George executed a sickening kick to the side of his head.
The occupants of the vehicle watched on warily, as George proceeded to pull out a small handgun from the inside of his jacket.