by Jules Grant
Mind you, Mina was impressed so it’s not all bad.
It fell apart for a while in the east after Daz and Tony were hit, until Danny pulled it back together, took over the Darts. I keep my ear to the ground, doesn’t do to lose touch.
Mike went down for thirty-nine years minimum this last April, Big Tommo for thirty-five. Threw the book at all nine of them, even though everyone knows Mike had nothing to do with those two murders. I’m not pointing the finger but they want to look north. Tried them all over in Liverpool, Gartside shitting himself he’d have no witnesses left if he paraded them at Minshull Street or Crown Square. For a while the whole town went crazy, half of Greater Manchester’s Finest leg it into the witness protection programme, gives evidence in secret, never comes back. Word on the street now is there was a grass or an undercover on the inside, maybe both. Maybe Daz and Tony were in on it. Me, I wouldn’t know about that. Strange how these rumours can take hold once they start.
Danny keeps my patch going for a percentage, washes the money, gets it out to Lise every couple of months for their keep. Spanish school fees are sky high these days no kidding. Danny wants us to branch out, legal highs, but I told him there’s no way I’m selling that shit, who knows what might be in it? I’ll stick with the real stuff, tried and tested – you’ve got to have some sense of responsibility. It’s a bit of a pisser letting Danny take the cred for Tony and Daz but I’ll get the chance to update my CV sooner or later, no doubt about it. I keep a hold of the forensics in case he changes his mind. I’m not an idiot.
Mina comes in to see me when she can, brings me in a clean sim now and again so I can speak to Ror, hear what she’s up to, how she’s grown. Last time there were photos – Lise with her freckles all joined up and laughing, smoke from a barby in the background, Ror brown as a nut and doing a handstand, Sonn teaching Rio to dive in the pool. Fair made my eyes sting.
Father Tom came to see me yesterday. Thinks I should grass everyone up, reckons I can get some kind of deal, be out in a year, no sweat. I told him, forget it. Three and a half years is pretty lucky all told for possession of a firearm and resisting arrest, seeing how I kept shtum and they couldn’t make anything else stick. And this way once it’s all over me and Ror are home-free, no looking over our shoulders for the Social or the police, no point taking a shortcut if leads straight to fuck all. And when I think of Ror kicking about in the sun laughing, learning to swim, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Carla comes to me in dreams on and off and we still get up to all sorts. I reckon when someone dies there’s this whole other world going on right alongside, we just can’t see it unless they want us to. I used to lie on the bunk for hours trying to sleep, willing it to happen. Just to get to her, you know, just to see her face. Now I don’t bother so much. I know she’ll come to me when she’s ready, when she feels like it, and that’s just the way it’s always been.
And hey, don’t even think about feeling sorry for me. Locked up with three hundred lonely women, how hard can it be?
About the Author
Jules Grant was born in Scotland and grew up in Manchester. This is her first novel.
Copyright
First published in 2016 by
Myriad Editions
59 Lansdowne Place
Brighton BN3 1FL
www.myriadeditions.com
Copyright © Jules Grant 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or firms, is purely coincidental
‘Renegade’ taken from Everything Speaks in its Own Way by Kate Tempest © Zingaro Books, 2012. Reproduced by permission of Kate Tempest
‘When I Remember Your Love I Weep’ taken from Selected Poems: Rumi translated by Coleman Banks, Penguin Books, 2004 © Coleman Banks, 1995. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (pbk): 978–1–908434–86–9
ISBN (ebk): 978–1–908434–87–6
Designed and typeset in Sabon LT
by WatchWord Editorial Services, London
Sign up to our mailing list at
www.myriadeditions.com
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter