by Jacqui Rose
Gagging on the gun, Charlie stared wide-eyed at Franny. He went to pull the gun out of his mouth, but Franny’s words stopped him.
‘I wouldn’t do that, Char – who knows, it might go off. It happened to someone I know recently. So, I’d be careful if I were you. Really careful.’
Trembling, Charlie slowly brought his hands down by his sides, staring at Franny, waiting for what she had to say.
‘So, here’s the thing, Char, you told me that you haven’t seen your dad, yet I know different. I know he was here visiting you. Funny that, ain’t it?’
Charlie shook his head at which point, Franny jammed the gun further into Charlie’s mouth, causing him to reflex vomit. His mouth filled with lumpy sick, which dribbled out of the sides.
‘Watch what you’re doing, Char, you’ll block my gun if you ain’t careful.’
Charlie attempted to speak, but his words were incomprehensible.
‘Don’t bother trying to talk, Char, what you need to do is just listen. You see, what I think is, you obviously know something more than you’re letting on, so I’m not going to leave here until I find out where Barry is, and as always there’s the easy and the hard way.’
Without warning, Franny ripped the gun back out of Charlie’s mouth, the metal smashing down on his teeth again. He squirmed from the pain, his face screwed up as he choked on and wiped away the vomit in his mouth. He spluttered out his words.
‘I never lied to you! You asked me if I knew where he was.’
Suddenly, Franny backhanded Charlie across the face with the side of the gun, the crunch from his nose breaking filled the air as blood exploded from it.
She hissed at him, anger flashed in her eyes. ‘Stop lying, don’t play games because I have better things to do than be here with you, Char, and you’re really starting to piss me right off. Are you really that stupid that you’re going to deny it? We saw him coming out of the hospital.’
Through pain and fury, Charlie ranted. ‘I never saw him though! Maybe when he came up to see me one of the nurses told him I had a visitor, maybe when you were here, he came and thought better of it.’
‘But if you ain’t in contact, how did he know you were here in the first place?’
Charlie sounded desperate. ‘I don’t know! I don’t know, maybe someone told him. Maybe Ma let him know. Maybe she’s in contact with him. She never tells me anything. For fuck’s sake, Franny, I’m telling you the truth.’
‘But the thing is, I can’t believe you, Char. You already swore blind that you don’t know anything, so I ain’t going to believe you this time, am I?’
Arrogantly, Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t care what you believe.’
‘Then you must have a death wish, Char, either that or you get off on the pain.’
Franny walked to the end of his bed, throwing up the sheets to reveal Charlie’s bandaged stump. Out of her pocket she pulled a lighter. She flicked the flame, which lit up the dark, bringing it close to Charlie’s leg. ‘Now, I’ll ask you again, the hard way, or the easy way?’
Charlie’s eyes filled with terror as he tried to pull himself up the bed away from Franny and the flame. He hissed angrily at her, ‘You’re a sick bitch, you know that! A fucking sick bitch!’
‘Funny that, cos people have told me that before, but no, Char, I’m not. The thing is, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be, but seeing as you’re making this difficult for me, you leave me no option.’ She put the flame near his bandages, immediately causing Charlie to say, ‘All right! All right! I’ll tell you … It’s true when I said I never saw Barry. I swear I haven’t seen him since the court case all them years ago. I ain’t even had any contact with him until yesterday … Apparently, he’d been round to the club but thanks to your fella, I wasn’t there was I? Cos I was in here … But Ma, she sent me his number and either she or the people who work for me told him where I was.’
‘And that’s all?’
There was a slight hesitation from Charlie, which Franny picked up on.
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘Why am I sensing something more, Char?’
With his eyes on the flame, which Franny was playing with nearer and nearer to his leg, Charlie shrugged. ‘I dunno, cos there ain’t anything else to tell you.’
‘Where’s your phone, Char? I said, where’s your phone?’
Hesitating, Charlie cleared his throat, his eyes darting about. ‘Okay, okay, look, I called him yesterday, but I swear I never knew he was here. I had no idea he’d come to the hospital until you said.’
Franny moved even closer to Charlie, bringing the flame up to his face, so near that she heard it singe the tips of the stubble on his chin. He sharply drew away as she spoke.
‘What do you mean, you called him?’
‘After you came. I called him. I said that someone was asking about him, but I never said who, I swear I didn’t mention your name, and up until then, I hadn’t spoken to him before that – that’s the truth.’
Franny stared at Charlie with a mixture of confusion and hatred. ‘Why? Why would you do that after everything that he’s done to you? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I just wanted to give him the heads up, that’s all. I mean, whether I like it or not, he’s family.’
‘Family! Family doesn’t go around doing what he did to you. He terrified you when you were a kid, he terrified your sisters, and have you forgotten that you got Alfie to give evidence against him? You gave evidence against him, yet years later, you’re calling him, warning him. What’s wrong with you, Char?’
Charlie closed his eyes and rubbed his head. Genuine confusion sounded in his voice as he spoke. ‘Look, I know, you don’t have to tell me it’s fucked up. It’s all fucked up, but you can’t help who you’re born to, and somehow you’ve got to work out ways to live with it. Come to terms with it, otherwise it’ll eat you alive, and this is just my way of doing that.’
‘But you don’t have to help him. Char, you’re an adult now, you don’t need to have anything to do with him. You don’t have to be involved with what he does.’
Charlie shrugged, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘At least I didn’t mention your name, but it is what it is.’
‘Not when he’s still hurting people … I think he’s got Mia, Char.’
Charlie opened his eyes and stared at Franny. ‘Did Ma tell you that?’
‘No, she wouldn’t tell me who’d …’ Franny stopped, unable to say the word, and it was Charlie who filled in the blank for her.
‘Bought her?’
Franny nodded fighting back her tears again. Fighting back the panic that drowned out all her thoughts.
‘I doubt he did, Fran. I doubt Barry would. Ma would know she’d never get a penny out of him, and money is what makes Ma tick. Plus, my dad’s not into babies, he likes them a bit older.’
Franny shuddered. She felt ill at how easily Charlie spoke about it, as if they were simply talking about something as hum-drum as a shopping list. ‘But maybe it was one of Barry’s contacts, so although he didn’t … well you know, take her, perhaps some associate of his did. He could’ve been the middle man, Char? It’s a possibility, and it is a tight-knit world, and Mia would’ve gone for a lot of money.’
Unable to stop her eyes filling with tears, Franny clenched her teeth as she spoke. ‘Enough! I don’t want to hear that, I just want to find where she is. I know for certain he’s involved with some little kid, some little boy.’
‘What?’
‘Alfie saw him with a little boy, no older than six or seven. Don’t protect him, Char. Please.’
‘I ain’t. I swear I don’t know anything about any of this, and I wouldn’t have called him and warned him about you if I’d known.’
‘But why else would I have wanted to speak to him? You must’ve known it was about Mia.’
Charlie snapped. ‘How the fuck did I know that? You weren’t exactly Florence Nightingale when you came in, were
you? And we’re hardly each other’s number-one fans, are we? I didn’t think, all right. If someone comes and threatens me like you did, then I’m not really going to feel like a frigging chit-chat, am I?’
‘You don’t seem surprised that Barry had this kid though.’
Full of sincerity, Charlie looked at Franny. ‘Why would I be? Prison’s hardly going to reform him, is it? He would’ve met a whole lot more people, just like him, in there. They could keep their fantasies alive, they could sneak phones in, photos, swap stories. The wing he was on would’ve been like a holiday camp for nonces.’
‘Then if you feel like this, I need you to help me.’
‘Franny, come off it.’
Franny’s voice turned hard again. She stared at him. ‘Easy way or hard way, Char?’
After a moment, his eyes matching the hostility in Franny’s, Charlie said, ‘Fine, what do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to call him and find out where he is.’
‘He’s not stupid. He knows that I would never ask that. I’ve got no reason to.’
Franny sat down on the edge of the bed and began to think. The room fell silent and only the wind and rain on the hospital window could be heard. After a couple of minutes, Charlie suddenly said, ‘I’ve got an idea, and I reckon it just might work.’
32
Barry Eton dragged on his cigarette as he sat in the small, untidy bedroom of the mobile home that was situated a few feet behind his daughter’s. He enjoyed the solitude. After years inside, a lot of which was spent locked up for over twenty-three hours a day, having people around him constantly took some getting used to. So being on the private, secluded site, tucked away in the heart of Essex with Ma, was perfect.
Not that he’d seen Ma, apart from getting her to make the odd cup of tea for him and warm up the odd sausage roll. He liked to keep his privacy, and here suited him down to the ground. And there was no way Ma would knock on his door, unless of course she’d been invited to. No way at all.
For all the mouth she had, for all the front she had with other people, when it came to him, he knew that she wouldn’t dare give him the smallest of cheek, or even look at him the wrong way. The discipline he’d given her as a kid had made sure of that.
He sighed and yawned, passing wind at the same time as he listened to his son, Charlie, on the other end of the line. He felt irritated by the unwelcome disturbance, and he was still slightly on edge from not only someone asking around after him, but also the near miss they’d had back at the warehouse.
He’d been told that it was a safe space, that no one ever went there and up until then, they hadn’t. They’d been able to shoot a few films as well as live stream, but now they’d have to find somewhere else; though he supposed he was lucky that the security guard, or whoever it was who’d disturbed them, hadn’t seen his face. Hopefully, they’d just assume it was a bunch of youths messing about in the warehouse, who’d got a bit out of hand.
Annoyed at the thought of it, Barry growled. ‘What do you want, Charlie? I don’t appreciate being disturbed. Twice in twenty-four hours; it’s a bit much.’
‘Well that’s why I was calling. I … I got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Well they weren’t so much asking around about you, rather asking about your products. I didn’t realise that until just now. When they spoke to me, they weren’t really clear, or rather I didn’t understand what they were after when they talked to me, so I jumped to the wrong conclusion. You know, better be safe than sorry.’
Barry mocked nastily, ‘Shut up, you muppet, so you’re saying you got me looking over my shoulder for nothing?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You’ve always been a fucking idiot. What did I do to deserve such a son? So, what exactly does this person want?’
‘They’re customers of mine. I’ve known them for a while. They like to do the whole couple thing, and I think they’ve got tired of the girls I can supply, so they’re interested in some of the products you can get your hands on.’
Barry pulled a face, reaching over for the packet of peanuts by his side. He tore them open, pouring half the bag into his mouth. He spoke aggressively, spitting bits of nuts everywhere. ‘You see what I can’t get my head around is, why after all these years of you not bothering to contact me, let alone fucking apologise for ruining my life, would you call and tell me that?’
‘Things change.’
‘Yeah, they certainly fucking do, like I’ve finally got my freedom. Have you any idea what it was like in that place? All because you and your sisters along with that mate of yours, Alfie, couldn’t handle a few games.’
There was a long pause from Charlie as he swallowed down his anger, his hurt, his bile. He whispered the words: ‘A few games? Is that what you call them?’
Barry smirked to himself. ‘Oh, please tell me you ain’t going to start whining and crying like a girl? I would’ve thought you’d done enough of that to last you a lifetime.’
Coldly, Charlie replied, ‘I ain’t going to cry. Never again. Not for you. Not for anybody. That’s one thing I do know, you understand?’
Roaring with laughter, Barry started to cough as a crumb of peanut caught the back of his throat. ‘That’s more like it. That’s my boy! Now, tell me again what it is you’re after.’
‘Not me, but I’ve got some clients. They’re a married couple, who like their products young.’
‘How young?’
‘As young as you can get. They also aren’t bothered whether your products are pink or blue. All that matters is that they’re fresh. They’re willing to pay a lot.’
It was Barry’s turn to pause before he said, ‘You do understand when I get a call from you like this, it makes me nervous, makes me wonder what you’re up to. After all, I wouldn’t say you were the most trustworthy of sons.’
‘Listen, I’ve always had clients come and ask me for very young products, but until now, I’ve had my own business. I’ve had my girls and that’s suited me, so I’ve never really bothered with anything else. But now, who knows how long I’ll be stuck in here, and who knows if I’ll be able to run the club anymore. I have to start thinking of other ways to earn money. I thought I might as well make the most of you. After all, we’re family.’
Sneering as he stubbed out his cigarette, Barry said, ‘It’s a shame you didn’t think that way when you decided to give evidence against me in court.’
There was another long silence on the phone before Charlie spoke again. ‘Look, I ain’t saying that we’ll ever get to that point where we’re going on a cosy fishing trip together. But what I do think is that we can work together. I’ve got a lot of people who want what you can provide, and I’ll be able to guarantee that all of them are trustworthy. You won’t have any problem with them because they’ll only be people that I know personally. We can sort out the money properly later, but I’m thinking a fifty-fifty split … What do you reckon?’
Lighting another cigarette in the dark, Barry stared out of the window, not saying anything as he mulled it over, but eventually he said, ‘Maybe … maybe it could work. Eton and son. I like the sound of it, and in actual fact, I have got a product that’s just come my way. Six years old, blue, and as fresh as they come. So maybe, we should set up a meeting with these friends of yours, especially if they’re willing to pay for a quality product … Call me tomorrow and I’ll let you know more.’
In the side room at Queen’s Hospital, Charlie clicked off the phone. He closed his eyes, trying to keep his own pain locked away in his head, the place where he liked to keep it; then he looked at Franny who’d been listening to the whole conversation. His head was pounding and his mind racing with unwanted thoughts. ‘I think he’s taken the bait. I’ll give you the details when I know what’s happening.’
‘Did he say anything about Mia?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘No, but he ain’t going to talk on the phone a
bout that. I can tell he doesn’t trust me completely, so I didn’t want to push it. But I’ll find out more later.’
‘And you reckon he’ll meet us?’
‘Yeah, I do. He’s just come out of prison and although he has the contacts, he hasn’t got the money. And that’s what he’ll be looking for, to build himself up again. But be careful when you go and see him.’
Franny looked puzzled. ‘Why? You think he’ll have men with him? You think there’ll be trouble?’
‘No, not like that, but who knows where he’s keeping this kid. So, the thing is if you don’t play the game right, and Barry suspects for even a minute that you ain’t to be trusted, then you may never see this kid again. No one will, and you’ll certainly never find out about Mia. Anything else, Fran, is up to you.’
33
It had been twenty-four hours since Charlie had called Franny back, letting her know all the details of where to meet Barry and one of his acquaintances, but as Alfie stood by the bed, watching Franny sleep, finally looking peaceful after her having woken up in the night several times screaming, he was loath to wake her up.
He glanced at the time. It was already six-thirty, and the meeting was supposed to be in less than an hour.
He knew Franny wanted to go and meet Barry by herself, chiefly because she’d told him she was worried that Barry would recognise him. But he knew there was no possibility of that. After all, he’d been a kid the last time he’d seen him, and when he’d given evidence against Barry, he’d done so from behind a screen. Still, he’d begrudgingly agreed to play it Franny’s way.
Personally though, he thought the real reason she didn’t want him to go and meet Barry was because she presumed he wouldn’t be able to cope with it. That he’d be unable to handle speaking to Barry. That was the problem with Franny: she cared too much about him and always put herself second. Though in part, he had to admit she was probably right. The idea of seeing Barry nauseated him, and the fear, although he knew it was irrational, often overwhelmed him.
But now it was time to think of more than merely himself. The boy. Mia. And of course, Franny. It wasn’t right that she was going to have to deal with everything on her own just because he hadn’t dealt with his demons. And although Franny was certainly her father’s daughter, he was still Alfie Jennings. Face and name to be reckoned with, and as such, he needed to be looking out for her rather than the other way around.