Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Resolved to tell Jen the truth, Tiffany opened the door, but before she could say anything there was flash of yellow and orange, a rumble of thunder and the windscreen crashed backwards into thousands of pieces, showering her with shards of glass. For a few seconds, she sat rigid as an ironing board while her head tried to understand what had happened. It was only when Jen came rushing up to her, showing her the gun and crying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It went off. Are you alright?’ that she understood that her sister had accidentally fired it.

  Tiffany climbed out of the car and snatched the pistol from her hand. ‘I’ll look after that. Some fearsome gunslinger you are.’ She checked the gun and tried to find the safety catch. ‘Mind you, the old man is partly to blame; fancy keeping a shooter in a toolbox with the catch off. What a prat Stanley Miller was.’

  She could see her sister was desperately trying to fight the tears – tears of utter madness and rage. She put her arm around Jen and gave her a hug. ‘Alright, come on, we’ll go up there together and see if we can find out what’s going on. But the shooter’s for self-defence, OK? And chuck those knives and the hammer away. We won’t be needing them.’

  There were clanks as Jen did as she was told and threw her various weapons into a ditch. Through muffled sobs she asked her sister, ‘How are we going to get in there?’

  Tiffany laughed. ‘Hadn’t really thought this through, had you, sis? Don’t worry; I know how to find my way in. They’re too arrogant to make the place really secure; they think no one would dare try and break into their home. Although having seen Dee in full sail, I’m not all that surprised.’

  They reached the perimeter wall of the house. ‘But I’m afraid we might have lost the element of surprise. Your gun shot will probably have alerted everyone for miles.’

  In the walls was a wooden gate that led through to the back garden. Tiffany turned the latch and led her sister through. They walked past the flowerbeds, avoiding the lawn where they might be seen and over to the conservatory. Inside the house there was no sign of life.

  ‘Hide by the shed while I check the front.’

  Tiffany made her way down the decking that joined the back garden to the front, that Dee had named ‘Lovers’ Lane’. She ducked low as she passed the kitchen window, then very carefully peered inside. A miffed-looking John was struggling with the popcorn maker. He seemed unhappy but not like a man who’d just organised the kidnap of two children. Tiffany was more convinced than ever that she was about to break into a gangster’s house on a wild goose chase with a crazy sister and a gun. She carried on down Lovers’ Lane until she reached a wooden partition with a gate in it that led out to the front gardens and the drive where various vehicles were parked, including John’s Range Rover, which looked in a sorry state after the crash. Over by the gate was another car, covered with a tarpaulin.

  There was no sign of visitors and no sign that John had stationed anyone out front to keep an eagle eye open for unwanted ones. When Tiffany got back to Jen, she shook her head. ‘Let’s go. The kids aren’t here. John’s in the kitchen making popcorn for Christ’s sake. Kidnappers don’t make popcorn.’

  Jen’s expression grew stubborn. ‘They’re in there. I know they are. Mother’s intuition.’

  Tiffany gritted her teeth, felt the gun in her pocket and gestured with her head for her sister to follow. ‘Alright then, mad bird. Let’s go.’

  Nuts had twisted and turned to avoid the reach of John and Dee, for a crime he hadn’t committed. But that was then. Now it was just a case of staying alive. Christ he’d only tried to make the situation right by nicking another Pirano FS that he heard was being kept safe in a garage in Broxbourne. The only problem he had foreseen was that it was bloody blue and that had been easily sorted (or so he thought) by a re-spray. But he’d got that totally wrong, not realising that mad woman Dee also had her car customised.

  He sat in darkness, bound hand and foot with a duster taped to his mouth, the only light coming from a couple of CCTV screens showing footage from the garden and the drive. He knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but he also knew how to keep his nerve and he had some time. Dee had visitors. He was safe until they went and the deadly couple upstairs came down to lay into him again. Using his tongue as a makeshift fork he began chewing the duster into pieces, slowly but surely, and then storing the shreds in his cheeks like a hamster. When there was enough space in his mouth he began levering the tape that closed his lips, using his tongue again. Filling his lungs with air, he blew through the small spaces on the sticky surface of the tape covering his mouth while grinding his jaws to loosen it. Finally, he moved himself and the chair he was tied to across the floor and over to a bench, by bumping it from side to side. He pressed the dislodged tape against the wood with his head and rocked it backwards and forwards. The tape finally came free. He spat the chewed duster on the floor.

  He looked upwards. Dee and John had visitors. But who? If it was a team of police officers, they might come down if they heard cries of help. If it was friends of John’s, they would still be coming down but not to help out. He shuffled his chair along the floor to inspect the weapons John had stockpiled in the makeshift safe room. They included knifes, an axe and a ceremonial sword. They were all temptingly sharp but he had no spare limbs to use them with. He knew he only needed one. He moved himself over to get some more light from the CCTV screen to examine the bindings on his arms and legs. His hands were tied with rope. It would take some cutting. Nor could he wriggle free from the knots. He knew the more he struggled, the more his wrists would swell and the more firmly he would be trapped. But the bonds around his feet were stockings and Nuts could see they had ladders in them. They might give, under enough pressure.

  He shuffled back to the weapons and managed to pull a knife off the wall between his teeth, then went back to the door where he dropped it, before tipping the chair and his body along with it onto its side. Working himself and the chair along the floor like a snail with cramp, he drew up against the blade and used his teeth to wedge it into a gap in the doorframe so the fearsome-looking edge was pointing outwards. Finally, he worked himself back so that John’s mad bitch wife’s stockings were resting against the blade. He rocked the chair and himself against it, bending and stretching his body in agony as he tried to cut through his restraints. Within seconds he managed to take down the first stocking without injury. He bit his lip in pain rather than cry out and alert his captors as he turned the chair over with his now free leg and tried the same trick on the other side. That worked too, but at the cost of a gash through his trousers and sock and into his ankle, which dripped blood onto the floor.

  With his legs free, he struggled to his feet, his wrists still tied to the chair. He soon realised that the drops of blood were turning into a trickle. He knew that time was short. If his foot seized up, it was over. If he’d cut an artery, he might be over. He had more freedom of movement now his legs were free but he knew that running the ropes on his wrists against the knife risked slashing them. And even if he was unbound, he still had to get the fuck out of this room. He willed the bleeding to stop but as his haunted eyes flashed around the room, his attention was caught by a CCTV screen where two figures were moving along a garden wall, taking care not to be seen. Transfixed, he could see they were both women and that they were both of a certain size and build. They disappeared from one screen and then reappeared on another. Finally, a lone woman appeared on a third screen, her face fully on display. No doubt about it this time. It was Tiffany. He knew without having to see her who the other bird was.

  For a few moments, Nuts forgot the rope and his wound and wondered aloud, ‘What the fuck are they doing here?’

  By the conservatory door was a water butt, which collected rain from the gutter above. Tiffany pushed it back and took a key from underneath, which she used to turn the lock. She went inside followed by Jen. Tiffany could tell that her sister was struck by a bad case of nerves when she giggled, ‘I should be locked up
in St Clements . . .’

  ‘You’re not wrong there,’ Tiffany whispered, agreeing. thinking they both deserved to be sectioned in the local psychiatric hospital, a couple of minutes’ walk from The Devil. ‘Now shut up. And remember, we’re here to see if they have the girls, that’s all. Dad’s shooter is just insurance.’

  Tiffany was beyond anxious herself. As she held her ear to the door to see if anyone was on the other side, she understood the full enormity of what they were doing when she heard John’s heavy and unmistakable footsteps on the other side. She listened as they faded and headed to the back of the house – the snooker room probably, or Dee’s ‘Hollywood’ room, where guests could watch films on a big screen, sitting in plush seats. That was more likely. John had been making popcorn in the kitchen so perhaps they were watching a film together; in which case, there would be time to go around the house undisturbed.

  She pulled the door open, went into the hall and listened. She could hear no noise and she was confident her ex-employers were at the pictures. Tiffany gestured to her sister to follow. The two women came to a halt at the top flight of steps that led down to darkness. Tiffany listened intently to the house but could hear nothing. ‘Wait here. Down there is their safe room. If the kids are anywhere, they’ll be in there.’

  ‘I’m coming too.’

  ‘No, we can’t get in. It’s got a keypad. Don’t worry, I’ll knock. If there’s anyone in there, I’ll hear.’

  Tiffany crept down the steps into the gloom where the forbidding door was flush against the wall. She tapped on it gently and pressed her ear up for any sound on the other side. There was none. She tapped more loudly the next time and listened even more intently but there was still no noise. At the top of the steps she shook her head. ‘No, listen, if they were going to be anywhere, it would be there. Let’s quit while we’re still ahead.’

  Jen grew pissed again. ‘Give me the gun and I’ll bloody do it myself. I’m not leaving here until we’ve checked everywhere.’

  For crying out loud . . . But without another word, Tiffany took her quietly and quickly upstairs and, very gingerly, they looked into all the rooms. Only Nicky’s door was closed and had a light inside.

  Jen was curious. ‘Whose room is this? Could they be in there?’

  ‘It’s the kid’s. You met him in that burger bar . . .’ She didn’t add, ‘and he’s the author of all our misfortunes,’ but she didn’t need to. Tiffany opened the door and went in. She knew, without the tell-tale sound of computer games being played, Nicky wouldn’t be there. Those beeps and bumps were his signature tune, his fingerprints. Jen followed. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s probably out joy riding.’

  As they made their way back down the stairs, Tiffany heard a door swing open below and John’s footsteps. She turned in panic and hustled her sister back to the landing. Leaning over the bannister, she saw John pass and heard him muttering, ‘What am I, a fucking usherette-come-waiter now?’

  Frozen to the spot, the two women waited until John returned the way he’d come, holding a bowl full of popcorn under one arm and a pot of tea in the other. His footsteps faded and a door swung shut. Baffled, Tiffany sat her sister down at the top of the stairs. ‘Something’s not right here. They don’t have tea; they’re coffee drinkers. And what’s with all the popcorn? Dee watches her figure and John can’t eat that much, he’d be sick. They’ve got no visitors or there’d be cars outside. I don’t get it.’

  Jen drew a deep breath. ‘I do.’ She rose to her full height and scampered down the stairs as if she were in her own home, turned and headed towards the back of the house. Panic stricken, Tiffany chased after her. ‘Sis, please, they’ll hear you; the whole fucking house will hear you.’

  ‘Let them hear me. Now get the shooter out, we’re here on business.’

  She pushed through a connecting door and, as Tiffany followed, she could hear the voices of John and Dee on one side in the snooker room and the sound of cartoon music coming from ‘Hollywood’ on the other. Jen turned to her sister in triumph. She pointed at the music. ‘That’s where my kids are.’

  Jen kicked open the double doors to ‘Hollywood’, reaching for the light switch on the wall. She threw it and everything in the darkened room became clear. In the middle of the front row of plush crimson seats was Nicky with a bowl of popcorn on his lap. Jen’s two daughters sat either side of him with their hands in the bowl. Nicky picked up the remote and hit the pause on the film, Finding Nemo.

  For a few brief moments, everyone in the room froze, too shocked to speak. Even Nemo looked stunned on the screen. Nicky rose to his feet, tipping the bowl and scattering popcorn on the floor. Horrified, he hissed, ‘Tiff, Jen, what the fuck?’ He then turned to the little girls and said, ‘Pardon my language, ladies . . .’ and then, back to the two women, ‘What are you doing here? Get out, flippin’ hells bells, before Mum and Dad see you.’

  Tiffany ran to pick up the girls so they could make their escape but Jen was too quick for her. She got there first and Tiffany could almost feel the delayed hours of anger welling up inside her sister as she flew at Nicky screaming, ‘What are you doing with my kids, you fucking, kiddie napping little bastard?’

  Nicky looked at the door in fear and whispered loudly as he could, ‘Your kids?’ His eyes nearly jumped out of his head.

  Jen ignored him as she hugged and smiled at her children. ‘Are you alright, my little angels? Nothing bad has happened has it?’ She turned to Tiffany. ‘Come on, let’s leg it.’ She turned her attention and anger on to Nicky. ‘As for you – if you’ve hurt my kids, I’ll make you suffer until you wish you’d never been born.’

  But Nicky wasn’t listening; his eyes were firmly fixed on the door, dreading what was going to happen next. As if on cue, the doors flung open and Dee waltzed in like a cowboy in a saloon. ‘What’s the racket? We’re trying to have a quiet chat in there.’ It was Tiffany that her eyes alighted on first and she didn’t seem in the least surprised to see her. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it? I had a feeling you might turn up again, sooner or later. Still, it’s no great shakes; you can join the party.’ Then she clocked Jen. ‘And who are you?’

  Jen put her children down, jerked her hand into her sister’s pocket and grabbed the pistol. She levelled it at Dee.

  Sixty-Seven

  ‘Get out of the way.’ Jen’s voice wobbled as she held the gun tight, keeping it trained on Dee. No one moved. ‘Let us go and there won’t be any drama. Otherwise, I’ll fucking splatter you all over Essex.’

  The two small girls seemed unsure if this was all a game or not but they held on tight to their mother’s legs. But they released their grip slightly when they saw Dee walking across ‘Hollywood’ until the pistol was only a few inches from her chest. ‘Put the piece away babes. You’re upsetting the children.’

  ‘Get out of the way.’

  But Dee stood her ground. ‘I don’t know who you bloody well are or what the effing hell you think you’re doing in my house, but you touch a hair on these kids’ heads and you’re finished.’

  Jen twisted her mouth with rage as she pushed the pistol into Dee’s chest. Then she screamed, ‘You stay away from my bloody children.’

  Dee reared back, her face smothered in shock. ‘Your kids? What the hell is going on here?’

  Before Jen could respond Courtney tugged her mum’s leg. ‘Mum, why are you being nasty to Auntie Dee?’

  Jen used her spare hand to pull her daughter close and snarled, ‘Don’t ever call this evil woman ‘‘Auntie’’ darling. She’s not and never will be your Auntie.’

  Another voice intruded as the door swung open again. ‘How are my girls getting on? I . . .’ Dee’s mother’s voice froze in her throat as she took in the scene before her.

  ‘Mum, stay back,’ Dee shouted.

  ‘Mum?’ both Jen and Tiffany said, stunned.

  Babs Miller’s heart sank as she stared at all three of her daughters.

  ‘Mum, wh .
. . what’s going on?’ Tiffany asked, her head still spinning. ‘Dee says she’s your daughter. Is that right?’

  They were all in the snooker room, John and Nicky teaching Courtney and Little Bea how to play while Babs and her daughters sat in a corner across the room. The atmosphere was tense, all of them on edge, and Babs knew that she was the only one who could get this sorted. But first, she wanted some answers of her own.

  ‘Jen, what the hell are you doing here, waving that shooter around? I nearly had a heart attack in the flippin’ doorway.’

  ‘And you will have heart failure if you don’t tell me and Tiff what’s going on,’ Jen stormed back.

  Jen’s girls giggled as John praised Courtney for popping a blue.

  Babs badly needed a glass of Blue Ruin to steady her nerves. No, make that a whole flamin’ bottle. ‘It was before I met your Dad. Let’s just say that I was a girl who liked life – you know, parties, meeting fellas.’ Seeing the astonished look on Jen and Tiffany’s faces, she added, ‘I was a young girl once, just like you two. I wanted a bit of razzamatazz in my life. What girl wouldn’t?’

  ‘But why didn’t you ever tell us that you had another girl? That we had another blood sister?’ Tiffany asked. Her eyes turned to Dee. ‘And of all people, Dee fucking Black.’

  ‘Bloody hell . . .’ Jen muttered under her breath.

  Dee finally spoke. ‘That’s right, dear sisters, Babs here fobbed me off on a foster parent while you two were getting the full-on mum treatment. I ain’t saying it was because my dad was black or nothing but you’ve got to ask a few questions there, haven’t you? Still, we’ve kissed and made up now – ain’t we, Mummy? On the other hand, at least I missed out on having Stanley Miller as a stepdad. He sounds like a right chancer. Mind you, at least you know who your old man is.’