by Jacqui Rose
Poking Shannon in the chest, Ma said, ‘I know what your head’s like. That crack has sent you stupid. You sure there isn’t anything else you’ve forgotten?’
Giving Ma a small smile, Shannon shook her head, knowing full well there was one thing. But she hadn’t forgotten it; it was simply that she’d never talk about it. Not to Ma. Not to Charlie. Not to anyone. She’d made a promise. And no matter what happened, she’d never breathe a word. ‘No, there isn’t anything else, I swear.’
Suitably satisfied, Ma sniffed. ‘Right, well you know what you’ve got to do, don’t you? Go on then, Shannon … Move!’
18
‘Keep looking! Keep looking!’ Franny screamed as tears continued to fall down her face. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. She took a left turn down Regent Street, jumping the lights, driving too fast, not caring about anything else but finding Mia.
‘This is crazy, Fran, we won’t find her like this. She could be anywhere.’
‘Keep looking!’
Alfie’s voice was full of concern as he gazed out of the window. ‘I hate to say it, but we need to call the police, darlin’. You need to call your mate and tell her what’s happened.’
‘I can’t! I can’t … We just got to find her! We just got to find her … There! Look over there! That woman, with a baby.’
In the dark of the morning, at the edge of Regent’s Park, Franny pulled over, skidding the car to a halt, her wheels bouncing up on the kerb.
Dashing out of the car, Franny charged at the woman, dragging at her clothes as she screamed in her face.
‘Mia! Mia! Give me my baby!’
Terrified and confused, the woman began to step back, falling against the black metal railings whilst trying to fend Franny off as she continued to pull the baby out from her arms.
‘Give her me! Give her me! I said give her to me! She’s mine!’
Petrified, both the woman and the baby began to scream.
‘Franny, Franny stop! For fuck’s sake! What’s wrong with you!’ Alfie grabbed Franny, dragging her off.
In shock, Franny stared at Alfie and then at the woman and at the baby: black straight hair instead of soft bouncing curls. Olive skin instead of pale skin. A boy instead of a girl. Somebody else’s baby.
Tears ran down Franny’s cheeks as she called after the woman who’d rushed off, holding her baby tight to her chest.
‘I’m sorry, okay … I’m so sorry, I made a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
Gently, Alfie put his hand on Franny’s shoulder. ‘Get back in the car, Fran. Come on, babe, let’s go.’
Franny nodded and climbed back into the car in silence.
As she drove off again, speeding round the outer circle of Regent’s Park before taking a left into Chester Road, Alfie spoke. ‘Franny listen to me, this is madness. You nearly killed that woman back there! We can’t just drive around.’ He frowned and reached across to the dash, something catching his eye. He grabbed it and instantly a chill rushed over him. Terror. His words were barely audible.
‘Franny … Franny … Stop the car. I know who’s got her.’
Franny glanced across at Alfie at the same time as she slammed on the brakes. ‘What?’
Swallowing hard to try to get his breath, Alfie whispered his words. ‘I said, I know who’s got her.’
‘How? What are you talking about? Tell me … Tell me!’ she screamed at Alfie as he began to read the letter out loud, which’d been left tucked on the dash.
‘Roses are red, Violets are blue, I’ve got the baby, what ya going to do?
Oh, and don’t call the police, I’m warning you!’
Drained of colour and feeling traumatised, Alfie gazed at Franny. ‘It’s from that guy I was telling you about. It’s from him. He’s got her, he’s got your friend’s baby.’
Franny stared at Alfie strangely. Her voice tight. ‘No, no, it can’t be.’
He crumpled up the letter in his hand. ‘It is, whether you like it or not, Fran.’
‘No.’
‘It is, I know it is.’
Franny shook her head, hysteria tingeing her tone. ‘It can’t be, it just can’t.’
‘I’m telling you it is!’
‘It ain’t, Alf!’
Angrily Alfie raised his voice. ‘I know what I’m talking about. He’s got Mia.’
‘He hasn’t! He hasn’t!’
‘He has!’
Franny screamed at the top of her voice. ‘He ain’t, Alf, he ain’t because they were from me.’
‘What?’
‘The letters were all from me! Not this person you think. So you see, whoever has got her can’t be him, because I wrote them. All of them.’
The car filled with silence as Alfie tried to comprehend what Franny had just said. He spoke in a hush. ‘You?’
‘Yeah.’
His eyes flickered with anger. ‘You wrote them?’
Franny gave a tiny nod along with a tiny reply. ‘Yes, all of them.’
Alfie’s voice was tight. ‘Even the letters I got when we were in Essex?’
‘Yes … I’m so sorry, Alf.’
‘Sorry?’
Franny nodded.
Alfie slowly turned to look at her, his face darkened as he stared in hatred and spoke in a measured tone. ‘I’m going to kill you.’ Then, incensed, he lunged at Franny. She screamed as he grabbed for her throat, but she managed to hit him off and scrabble out of the car, running towards the entrance of Queen Mary’s rose garden with Alfie only metres behind her.
With her heart pounding, she ran, skidding on the muddy path and across the wet grass as she headed towards the Japanese Gardens, racing towards the central island over the wooden bow bridge.
‘There’s nowhere to run, Fran, you might as well stop now!’ she heard Alfie yelling angrily as he charged along behind her in the dark.
Hoping to lose Alfie, Franny, panting, clawed her way up the large muddy mound of the gardens, crushing the delicate flowers as she did so. She slipped, falling down on her front in the wet earth as the rain started to pour down.
At the top of the mound, she leapt across the waterfall, her feet sliding off the slimy rocks, covered in green algae.
Making it across to the other side, Franny, soaking wet, pushed her way into the thick bushes, but almost immediately Alfie grabbed her and dragged her down through the dense, woody undergrowth by her hair. She felt every scratch from the twisted thorns and twigs as she fought to get away.
‘Ain’t no escaping me, darlin’, you should know that by now.’
She kicked out, catching Alfie square on his knee then elbowed him in his face, but unable to fight him off completely, she felt the force of Alfie’s fist smash against her face; the power of it knocking her to the ground.
Alfie sprang on top of her, his eyes void of any emotion. ‘I’m going to kill you!’
‘Get off me! Get the fuck off me!’ she screamed at him, but he slammed his hand over her mouth, the pressure of it driving her head further into the cold, wet mud. His hand was heavy and hard on her mouth and she bit down on it, sinking her teeth into his palm, drawing blood.
‘Fuck! You bitch!’ For a second Alfie pulled his hand away, giving Franny the opportunity to push him off, pulling herself up onto her knees; but he gripped her jacket, causing her to fall down face first in the mud before he twisted her arm behind her back.
‘Why did you do it, Fran? You sick bitch, why?’
‘I … I …’ She wrestled beneath him, her face still pushed into the earth.
‘Tell me! Tell me why the woman I loved would do that to me!’ He flipped her round, turning her to face him.
Covered in mud and with her face swelling, colouring blue and red, Franny screamed back, ‘I didn’t know! I didn’t know it’d upset you so much!’
Disgusted, he stared at her, then banged her head against the ground. She yelped. ‘Didn’t know! You saw how fucked up I was.’
‘No, I never … I mean, I
saw you stressed, but I thought, well I thought it was about Bree and about the coke you were taking, cos you were taking a lot of it. You never really told me how you felt about the letters until the other day. I wouldn’t have written them if I’d known they were going to affect you the way they did.’
Alfie, still sitting on top of Franny, yelled at her, ‘You should never have written them anyway! Do you know what you’ve done to me? Do you, Fran?’ Alfie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Look at the state of me. I’m a grown man and I’m fucking crying and you did that, Fran, you did that to me. Why couldn’t you have left well enough alone?’ He paused again, then wiping his face from the rain and his tears, he pulled out a gun from his jacket, pushing it hard onto Franny’s temple. He spat his words at her, ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now. Go on, come up with a reason, cos I’m happy to pull the trigger. You know I will.’
Sounding breathless and her words full of pain, Franny whispered, ‘Because of Mia … Who’ll find Mia, if I’m dead? You don’t even know what she looks like.’
Alfie shook his head, a multitude of different thoughts rushing through his mind. ‘You’re something else, you know? There’s always something for Franny Doyle to hide behind, ain’t there? Vaughn was right about you, you’re a fucking snake, and you’re a nasty bitch … and I hate you. You hear me, Fran? I hate you!’
Ignoring the fact that she was lying not only to Alfie but also to herself, Franny said, ‘I only did it because I was worried about you. It was the only thing I could think of to do.’
‘What? What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘After Bree, and after she … after she lost the baby, I knew that you were upset. The first couple of days you just sat around and drank. I was worried because I’ve seen you spiral before, so I wanted you to get away, to take a break, but you wouldn’t listen. You were having none of it. So …’
‘So, you thought you’d mess my head up?’
‘It wasn’t like that, Alfie, I swear. Even before the stuff with Bree, you’d had a tough year. I just wanted you to go away and recoup.’ She paused, then lying through her teeth, Franny added, ‘Selfishly, I just wanted the old Alfie back. I know now what I did was stupid, but the letters, well that was just my way to encourage you to go.’
Bemused and still enraged, Alfie spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Encourage? And that’s how you do it? Fucking hell! You’re a joke, Fran.’
‘I’m so sorry, Alf, like I say, I had no idea it would affect you like this, it was only because I was worried about you that I wrote them, but it never seemed like it was bothering you. You hid it well.’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault now?’
‘No, of course not. I just didn’t know you were so upset. I mean, I don’t know anything about this guy or why he’s in prison. The only thing you told me was you helped get him put away.’
Distraught, Alfie shook his head. ‘I ain’t a grass – it wasn’t like that.’
‘I’m not saying you are, I just know when you told me last year that he was being released, you seemed jumpy, and frankly, a bit scared …’
‘And you thought you’d take advantage of that by pretending the letters were from him, did you?’
Franny, shivering from the cold, stared up at Alfie. ‘I’m not proud of it.’
With a faraway look in his eye, Alfie said, ‘I really thought they were from him. I should be relieved that they’re not, but … but for some reason it don’t make me feel any better.’
Speaking just as quietly as Alfie, Franny asked, ‘Who is he, Alf? Tell me who he is.’
The spark of fury came back into Alfie. ‘So you can write another letter about it, play some more of your mind games?’
‘No, of course not.’
Alfie’s bellow caused the bird in the tree to flutter out the branch. ‘I don’t believe you!’
‘You’ve got to trust me, Alf. I’d never do anything to hurt you.’
Roughly, he grabbed her hair, pulling her head up inches away from his. He jammed the gun against her temple again. ‘Since when, Fran? Since when?’
‘Why don’t you just try me?’
Tears pricked in Alfie’s eyes. ‘Try you?’
‘Yeah.’
Bitterly, with pain encased in his words, Alfie said, ‘Okay, I’ll try you … You ready? You ready for this …? The guy I put away, twenty-odd years ago … he was a nonce.’
As Alfie moved from on top of Franny, to sit against one of the trees, she sat up and stared.
‘What?’
‘Yeah, a nonce.’
‘How did you know him?’
Alfie shook his head. ‘He was Charlie Eton’s dad. Barry Eton.’
Franny stared in horror at Alfie. ‘Charlie’s dad? I don’t understand. How did you get him put away?’
‘You ain’t getting it are you?’
Puzzled, Franny stretched out her arms wide. ‘Getting what?’
‘Me, Fran. He hurt me as well as Charlie, and it wasn’t just the once. I was thirteen years old and I was too scared to do anything about it … I couldn’t stop it. I tried to tell Charlie, but he was just a kid like me, so what could he do? And there was no one else to tell.’
Stunned, Franny whispered, ‘My God. I’m so sorry, Alf.’
‘I moved away from the area, got put away in a boys’ home. It was bad, but it was better than being around Barry. Then some years later, Charlie tracked me down. Turned out he knew all along what his dad was doing to me.’
Franny gasped. ‘And he never said anything?’
With his head down, unable to hold eye contact, Alfie shrugged. ‘Fran, he was petrified himself. He was an innocent kid as well. Back then, there was still hope for Charlie. He wasn’t like he is now. Anyway, he asked for my help. He had this one sister who was still living at home. She was having a terrible time. Cut a long story short, he needed me to give evidence against his dad. None of his sisters would go to court – they were too scared – and his mum, well she was a drunk, so that only left me and Charlie. And however tough it was, there was no way I was going to say no.’
‘And that’s why you and Charlie have an understanding?’
Alfie shrugged. ‘I dunno about an understanding, but we’ve got that connection.’
‘So what happened to his sister in the end?’
‘Charlie never really talks much about it. I don’t think he sees any of his family, but I wouldn’t know; last time I knew anything about them was years and years ago. I couldn’t even tell you their names. We were just kids back then. It’s only really been this past year since we moved back up to Soho that I’ve spoken to him. Like I say, he’s a different guy to the one all those years ago. After the court case we never spoke again. The only thing I do know about that sister is she was in and out of mental institutions most of her life then ended up overdosing in a back alleyway. She had a kid apparently. God knows what happened to her. The whole thing’s a mess.’
Franny reached over to touch Alfie. He drew away. ‘Don’t fucking touch me, Fran. I’m so angry with you … You know, the things Charlie’s dad did to me, that never goes away. You just learn to live with it. That’s all you can do, and that’s what I did do until …’
‘I sent those letters?’
And as the rain continued to pour down and dawn began to break, Alfie said nothing, only stared, and a tense silence fell between them.
It was a few minutes later before Alfie’s phone rang, breaking the silence. Sitting in the mud, he wiped away his tears and after rubbing his face, he took a deep breath before answering the phone. ‘Hello?’
Alfie listened to the caller, his face drawn. Then clicking his phone off, he turned to Franny in shock and disbelief. ‘It’s the club. There’s been a fire. The whole place has been destroyed.’
19
Driving back to Soho Square, Franny trembled. She had plenty on her mind, the enormity of the past few hours hitting her and the fear of what to do about Mia overwhelming her, but her t
houghts were interrupted by Alfie. ‘Do you think we should go and see what’s happened to the club? See if they’ve put the fire out yet?’
With her eyes firmly on the road, Franny shook her head. ‘No, just leave them to it. What good are we going to be? They probably won’t let us near anyway.’
Nodding but saying nothing, Alfie continued to gaze out of the window, but another thought came to him. ‘What were you going to tell me about Vaughn? Back at the club, just before you realised Mia was missing, you were talking about Vaughn.’
Trying to seem as casual as possible, Franny shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Alf, I can’t really think. I can only focus on Mia right now. That’s all I’m bothered about.’
‘I know, darlin’, but it’s weird. He ain’t answering his phone, but he left me this message earlier. He was adamant he wanted to speak to me … Listen.’ Alfie pressed his voicemail, putting it on loudspeaker, and a moment later, Vaughn’s voice filled the car. ‘Alfie! Alfie! For fuck’s sake, pick up the phone! I need to talk to you! Call me back as soon as you get this. If you don’t hear otherwise, I’ll meet you at the club. Make sure you call me back!’
Alfie swivelled round in his seat to look at Franny, seeing the raised bruise on her face. He felt ashamed. He’d never really hit a woman in his life. It just wasn’t his style, and as much as it’d been fucked up – really fucked up, what she’d done with the letters – she wasn’t to know Charlie’s dad had abused him and she certainly wasn’t to know even after all this time that the thought of Barry Eton turned him from Alfie Jennings, a face to be reckoned with, to the trembling little boy from all those years ago. And although most people wouldn’t have done what she did, Franny just wasn’t most people. She’d really only done what she’d thought was best for him. She’d been worried. Jesus, worried about how he felt about Bree leaving him – the woman he’d basically had an affair with. But that just showed Franny’s strength. No matter how hurt she’d been, she’d still put him first. In his book that took some doing, and it also meant he had no right to be angry with her. ‘So, what do you reckon, Fran? Have you any idea what he was talking about?’