The Driver

by Mandasue Heller

Joe couldn’t help but smile. ‘Very James Bond,’ he teased. ‘What’s the big deal about someone renting a flat?’

  ‘The DSS,’ Cheryl told him, as if he really shouldn’t have needed to ask. ‘Molly reckons Chrissie’s still signing on from there, and she’ll get in trouble if anyone finds out she’s really living at Eddie’s.’

  ‘But if those girls rent her place,’ Joe said, trying to put it together in his head, ‘surely they’d have their own keys?’

  ‘We figure she’s trying to make it look like they’re just visiting,’ Cheryl explained. ‘Mind you, I don’t know why they’re being so careful, ’cos no one would dare grass her up. Eddie would kill them.’

  ‘Well, I certainly won’t be saying anything,’ Joe assured her. ‘I’m getting the impression that it’s not too smart to get on the wrong side of Eddie.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Cheryl said flatly, taking a last drag on her cigarette and stubbing it out. Glancing out of the window now and seeing how light it was, she said, ‘God, look at me keeping you up with all this gossip. I can finish the rest off. You go home and get some sleep.’

  Joe couldn’t deny that he was tired, and there didn’t seem to be an awful lot left to do, so he said goodnight and straggled home to his bed.

  6

  As Joe fell asleep on the floor below, Chrissie Scott was being dragged out of her dreams by insistent knocking on the front door. Knowing that it would be Eddie’s bitches, she threw her arm over to his side to tell him to go and deal with them. Furious when she found that he wasn’t there, she shoved the quilt off and staggered into the kitchen to get the keys, calling him all the lying bastards under the sun for saying that he was only nipping out for half an hour last night.

  Stepping into a pile of dog shit, she screeched, ‘Oh my fucking God!’ when it squelched up between her toes.

  Eddie had used up the kitchen roll and put the empty tube back in the drawer, and Chrissie refused to go to the bathroom and risk getting crap on her lovely carpet so she was forced to rinse her foot in the sink. And all the while the stupid bitches were still knocking, as if they thought she was deaf or something.

  Chrissie yanked the door open when she’d cleaned herself up, stalked past them and unlocked the adjoining flat. Following when they scuttled inside, she held out her hand, impatient to get this over with and get back to her bed.

  Elena gathered the money from her friends and handed it over, glad that Chrissie had come instead of Eddie, because he always took it from them individually and would have seen that Hanna had yet again brought home the least and Tasha the most.

  Standing beside Elena with her arms folded, Tasha stared at Chrissie with barely concealed contempt. Wrinkling her nose when Chrissie snatched the money and shoved it into her pocket, she sniffed the air exaggeratedly. ‘What’s that disgusting smell?’

  ‘Probably your body telling you it’s time to get a wash,’ Chrissie sniped, pulling the door open and backing out into the corridor.

  ‘Liar!’ Tasha hissed when Chrissie closed the door. ‘It’s her who stinks. You could smell her as soon as she came out.’

  ‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Elena said, slipping her jacket off and heading for the bathroom.

  ‘Make me!’ Tasha yelled, yanking her own jacket off and hurling it into the corner. ‘What are you staring at?’ she demanded, catching Hanna looking at her.

  ‘Nothing,’ Hanna muttered, rushing into the bedroom to escape.

  Katya was sitting on the couch taking her boots off. Tutting softly now, she said, ‘Do you have to be so nasty?’

  Spinning on her heel, Tasha gave her a dirty look. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sick of you picking on Hanna,’ Katya told her wearily. ‘She hasn’t done anything to you – why can’t you just leave her alone?’

  ‘She’s an idiot,’ Tasha snapped, taking a crumpled cigarette out of her pocket and looking around for a lighter. ‘And what’s got you talking all of a sudden? We usually can’t get two words out of you.’

  ‘I speak when I have something to say,’ Katya said quietly. ‘And this needs saying, because you’re upsetting Hanna and that affects us all.’

  ‘You’re making my heart bleed,’ Tasha sneered, inhaling deeply on her smoke and eyeing Katya with the same contempt she’d aimed at Chrissie. ‘You really think you’re something special, don’t you? But you’re no better than me. You’re exactly the same.’

  ‘I know,’ Katya agreed. ‘But I don’t take my frustrations out on everybody else like you do. We’re all trying to get through this as best we can but you’re making it unbearable. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Trying to get through this?’ Tasha repeated nastily. ‘You’re as stupid as she is if you think you’re ever going to see a happy ending. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is it, sweetheart.’

  Tasha was voicing what Katya was constantly struggling not to allow herself to think, and the words settled over her like a cold, dark cloak of hopelessness.

  A glint of malice in her eyes, Tasha said, ‘Oh, please . . . you’re not going to cry, are you?’

  Holding it together with difficulty, Katya said, ‘We all cry, Tasha – even you. You might hide it better than we do but you’re not so different on the inside.’

  ‘You’re so wrong,’ Tasha informed her. ‘You’re all weak, but I’m a fighter, and I’ll get out of here while you’re still sitting here accepting your fate like little sheep.’

  ‘What’s she going on about now?’ Elena asked as she walked back in just then with a towel wrapped around her hair.

  Raising her chin, challenging her to deny it, Tasha said, ‘I’m saying that you’re all pathetic little sheep who do as you’re told without question. But I’m a wolf, and I’ll bite and claw my way out of here – and I don’t care who I have to hurt in the process.’

  ‘A wolf?’ Elena gave a mocking laugh. ‘Have you any idea how ridiculous you sound? You’re a child, you silly girl. A spiteful, vindictive bully of a child.’

  ‘And you’re a whore,’ Tasha spat. ‘A dirty, disgusting whore.’

  ‘Just like you,’ Elena reminded her. ‘And if you’re so tough, how come you’re still here?’

  Tasha’s lips tightened. They all knew why she was still here – why they were all still here: because Eddie Quinn had them so terrified of what would happen if they tried to run that they could barely put one foot in front of the other when they were outside. But she would get out of this situation one day, and then they would see who was the strong one.

  Tired of Tasha’s nonsense, Elena turned her back on her and smiled at Katya. ‘Don’t fancy making me a coffee while I dry my hair, do you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Katya said, glad of an excuse to get out of the room. She hadn’t planned to tackle Tasha tonight, but she was so sick of these poisonous atmospheres. She had hoped that they could reach some sort of compromise and stop this constant bickering, but she’d known even before she started that it would be a waste of time.

  Staring at the wall now as she waited for the kettle to boil, her thoughts floated off Tasha and onto the man in the hallway. She’d seen him from the window several times but had never been able to see his face clearly. That was why she had looked at him when she’d passed him today, so that she would know what he really looked like instead of what her imagination had built him into.

  And, almost impossibly, he was even better-looking than she’d thought, with the kindest eyes she had seen in a long time. She never looked into those of the men who slobbered over her in their cars at night because she wanted to stay as far removed from them as possible. And she actively avoided looking into Eddie’s for fear of seeing the devil staring back at her. But the man’s had been such a lovely dark shade of blue, like a river in the moonlight.

  Snapped out of her romantic reverie by the kettle clicking off, Katya made the coffees and carried them through to the living room. Handing Elena’s and Tasha’s to them, she took her own and Hanna’s through to the bedroom. Han
na was in bed with the quilt pulled over her head. Leaving her cup on the bedside table, Katya undressed and headed into the bathroom for a shower.

  Standing beneath the water, she reached for the soap and rubbed it listlessly over her body. It would barely skim the surface, because God alone could reach the parts of her that really needed cleansing. But since it was becoming increasingly obvious that He had abandoned her, it would have to do.

  Next door, Chrissie had locked herself in the bedroom. The dog had leapt up at her when she’d walked back in and she’d kicked out at it to punish it for making a mess. It had immediately bared its teeth, forcing her to run for her life. So now she was pacing the floor, pressing redial on her mobile.

  It was almost an hour before Eddie answered.

  ‘Where the flaming hell are you?’ Chrissie launched into him. ‘You said you were only going to be half an hour, you lying swine! I’ve been up all night waiting for you.’

  ‘Something came up,’ Eddie said unconcernedly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘What’s up?’ she squawked. ‘Your flaming dog, that’s what! It’s crapped all over the place, and I stood in it – with my bare feet!’ Gasping with indignation when she heard him laugh and relate what she’d just told him to whoever he was with, she said, ‘It’s not funny, you dickhead. The vicious little bastard’s got me trapped in the bedroom!’

  ‘Give it a kick,’ Eddie suggested, still chuckling.

  ‘The only one who’ll be getting a kick is you if you don’t get home and sort it out,’ Chrissie snarled, deciding not to mention that kicking it was what had got her into this mess in the first place. ‘And you’d best be quick, ’cos I’ve already had to deal with your tarts. And I don’t see why I should have to lose sleep over them when I didn’t even want them here in the first place.’

  ‘Thought you said you hadn’t been to bed,’ Eddie reminded her.

  ‘Don’t take the piss,’ Chrissie retorted icily. ‘I don’t have to do your dirty work, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Eddie said dismissively. Then, ‘How much?’

  It was a random-sounding question and most people wouldn’t have had a clue what he meant by it. But Chrissie did, and it infuriated her that, after everything she’d said, that was all he was bothered about.

  ‘Six-forty,’ she lied, her voice thick with resentment.

  ‘Take fifty,’ he said, his tone giving nothing away so she didn’t know if he thought it was an acceptable amount or not. ‘And go get some girl stuff.’

  Making a strangled screaming sound when he disconnected the call without another word, Chrissie threw the phone down onto the bed and herself down after it. No doubt whoever he was with would assume that he’d just told her to go out and treat herself, but he’d actually been telling her to go shopping for the whores – as if she didn’t hate them enough already. But he certainly wouldn’t waste his precious time shopping, and he refused to let them do it, because he reckoned they would take the piss and spend his money on crap. So it was left to Chrissie. And after the hiding he’d given her for threatening to grass them up to the immigration people that time she’d learned that it was easier to do as she was told where they were concerned.

  She just wished they would hurry up and pay Eddie back. They were the ones who’d been desperate to come over here and they couldn’t have thought he was paying their fares out of the goodness of his heart. It was a business arrangement and he’d upheld his side of it. But they weren’t even trying to uphold theirs; always making excuses about why they hadn’t made as much as they should have, and lying that there weren’t enough punters when everyone knew that town was crawling with the bastards at night.

  Still, like everything else he toyed with Eddie would tire of them eventually. And when that day came Chrissie would take great delight in turfing their skanky arses out. Until then, she would carry on taking her revenge where she could get it.

  She only ever did little, sly things, because there was a very fine line with Eddie and if you crossed it you usually regretted it. The bitches were so terrified of him that they’d never dared complain about the times when she’d ‘forgotten’ to buy them sanitary towels or toilet roll, or when she’d given them nothing but beans and Spam for a whole week. But then, they had come from a country where she imagined they probably picked shit off the rubbish dump for dinner, so what did they care?

  Today she’d held back eighty quid from their money. She didn’t usually get a chance to get her hands on it, because this was the one area that Eddie maintained complete control over. But it was his own fault for staying out and giving her the opportunity. And if the bitches tried to say that they’d brought back more, it would be their word against hers – and Eddie would believe her every time.

  Cheered by the thought of a nice new dress, or maybe a pair of shoes to compensate for her disturbed sleep, she got up off the bed now and, braving the dog, went to take a shower.

  Eddie switched his phone off after the call. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Clive said, ‘Missus after money again?’ Smirking when Eddie nodded, he said, ‘Mine’s the same. And it don’t help that her sister’s gone and shacked up with that loaded cunt. All I ever hear these days is Chantelle’s fella’s got her this, Chantelle’s fella’s got her that. Does my bleedin’ box in.’

  Amused by Clive’s camp imitation of his wife. Eddie glanced over the seat at the two lap dancers snuggled up together in the back. Chrissie had been spot on about him being cagey because he was in the company of someone who didn’t know about his girls, although it hadn’t even crossed her mind that it might possibly be a female – or two. But she could blame Clive’s wife Letty, not him, because it wouldn’t have happened if Letty hadn’t abandoned Clive and pissed off to Lanzarote for a hen week. And Eddie was way too good of a mate to abandon him in his hour of need, so he’d had no choice but to go along when Clive had invited the tarts back to his for a party last night.

  And what a party it had been. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he’d necked so much coke and downed so much cognac, and his poor dick had never worked so hard in its life. He was absolutely knackered now, with the mother of all hangovers, so there was no way he was tagging along while Clive dropped the tarts back in Bury. He was just getting a lift over to his boy Kenny’s to pick up his money, and then he was going home to his bed for a well-deserved rest.

  When Clive pulled up at the corner of a row of terraced houses in Moss Side, Eddie got out and strolled down the alley. Letting himself into one of the small backyards, he smiled when Kenny’s mum answered the door.

  ‘Morning, darlin’. He up yet?’

  ‘He’s still in his pit,’ she told him, stepping back to let him in. ‘Go straight up, love.’

  Eddie took the stairs two at a time and crept down the landing. Pressing his ear against Kenny’s door, he grinned when he heard a faint snoring sound. Then he hammered his fist on the wood, yelling, ‘Get your hands where I can see them, you little prick – you’re busted!’

  Kenny was out of bed and halfway out of the window when Eddie pushed the door open a second later. ‘Fucking hell, man,’ he croaked when he realised who it was. ‘What d’y do that for?’

  ‘Just keeping you on your toes, matey,’ Eddie said, laughing at the sight of Kenny’s bare arse. ‘Ain’t warm out there – best watch nothing drops off.’

  Kenny climbed back inside and snatched his crumpled jeans off the floor. Pulling them on, he reached under his mattress and took out a cloth money-bag.

  Scowling now, Eddie snatched it out of his hand. ‘See, that’s what I’m talking about. You would have fucked off and left this, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I was asleep,’ Kenny muttered, as if that made any difference.

  ‘Well, strap it round your fucking cock if you’re going to do any naked flits in future,’ Eddie warned him. ‘’Cos I’m telling you now, if you let the pigs waltz off with my money you’re dead.’ Looking into the bag now, he stared at Kenny accu
singly. ‘Where’s the rest?’

  ‘Aw, come on, man, don’t be making out like you think I’ve been dipping into it,’ Kenny moaned. ‘I’m not like Tommy.’

  ‘No, ’cos you can still feed yourself,’ Eddie said, grinning again as he headed for the door.

  He went back downstairs, taking a couple of twenties out of his pocket on the way. Popping his head around the parlour door, he tossed them onto the couch beside Kenny’s mum.

  ‘I’m off, sweetheart. Get yourself a little something with that, eh?’

  ‘Oh, no, love, you can’t keep giving me money,’ she protested, scooping them up and flapping them at him. ‘Here, take it back.’

  Winking, Eddie closed the door and let himself out. She always tried to give it back but they both knew she didn’t mean it. Anyway, it made him feel good to bung her a few quid because the poor cow reminded him of one of those women in those old black and white films who spent their lives scraping by – and trying to make out like they weren’t complaining about it. She was so far back in the dark ages that she didn’t even have a flat-screen TV.

  But that was for her son to sort, not Eddie. He might be soft-hearted but he wasn’t running a fucking soup kitchen.

  The lap dancers had woken up by the time he got back into the car and they spent the next ten minutes desperately trying to flirt a repeat of last night’s drugs fest out of him. Ignoring them, Eddie told Clive to drop him a couple of hundred yards back and on the opposite side from the flats when they reached Ardwick, in case they clocked where he was going and got any funny ideas about coming looking for him.

  Eddie waited until the car was out of sight, then crossed over and slipped through a broken section of fence. Bypassing his own block, he headed down behind the other blocks to the red one at the far end.

  The stench hit him as soon as he opened Patsy’s front door. It was always rank in there, but after sitting in the car surrounded by the tarts’ perfume it seemed way worse than usual, and for a moment he wondered if he was about to find her dead.