The Forgotten_An absolutely gripping, gritty thriller novel

by Casey Kelleher

  Though he looked just as shocked as Nancy was, her words suddenly snapping him out of his daze.

  She watched him falter. Taking in the carnage before him. His stare wavering as he took in the sight of the woman lying motionless on the floor, a pool of blood seeping out around the knife.

  He’d stabbed her?

  He needed to get the fuck out of here, and fast. Quickly, he made a grab for the bag down on the floor at Bridget’s side.

  Nancy shook her head, disgusted at the realisation of what was happening.

  Money. That’s what this was all about.

  That’s why Bridget was splayed out on the floor with a knife sticking out of her, that’s why this place looked as if it had been torn apart.

  This bastard was robbing her.

  He’d stabbed Bridget.

  The money meant fuck all to her now, but there was no way that she was going to let him get away with hurting her mate.

  Springing to her feet, Nancy stood blocking the doorway. Her hands holding on to the doorframe. Her eyes flashing with defiance.

  If this fucker was going to do a runner, he’d have to go through her first.

  It was stupid of her, desperate, but she had to do it.

  He moved quickly. Too big and too fast for her, trampling towards her like a rhino on a stampede. He grabbed at Nancy’s shoulders and slammed her backwards with such force into the wall behind her that he was surprised when she didn’t leave a dent.

  Instead, she slid down the paintwork, crumpling into a heap on the floor, her expression dazed as he jumped over her, as if she was nothing more than an inconvenience. Just a piece of dirt on the floor.

  The tightening in her chest made her breath wheeze. Nancy took one last parting shot, in the hope of stopping the man in his tracks. Grabbing at his leg, she hooked her hands around his thighs and used all her body weight to try and pull him down. It worked; the bastard lost his balance. Falling like a hot sack of shit, he slammed down onto the floor next to her. Wincing, she heard the crack of his jawbone as his face took the impact of his descent.

  Nancy made a grab for the handbag on the floor next to her and tossed it back into the room, into the far corner, towards Felicity.

  Another tactic to stall the fucker, until Jack got here.

  Only the man wasn’t going to stay down for long. Already getting to his knees. Nancy picked up the pot plant that lay on its side, discarded on the floor from where it had been previously thrown or kicked. Holding it high above her head, she brought it down vigorously on the man’s skull. Watching as the ceramic pot smashed into several large pieces.

  She hoped to knock the man out, but somehow, Christ knows how, the man still managed to get back up. Stunned now, unsteady on his feet, but up on them all the same.

  Ten out of ten for persistence, she thought. Nothing was keeping this fucker down.

  Sensing that Nancy wasn’t going to give up without a fight, he lunged at her, punching her hard in the stomach. Winding her. Sending her straight back down to the floor.

  Then he ran. Back down the hallway, towards the back of the house.

  Just as Jack Taylor and some of Nancy’s men came hurtling through the front door.

  ‘Nancy?’ he shouted. Reaching the woman and checking that she was okay while signalling to the other men to get after the intruder.

  Seeing her pale face, eyes wide with worry and shock, he asked, ‘Jesus, Nancy? Are you okay?’

  She indicated towards the kitchen, to where Bridget was lying, bleeding, the knife still inside her.

  Finally Nancy Byrne spoke, her tears coming then, despite herself. ‘That bastard stabbed her, Jack. She hasn’t moved. We need to call a fucking ambulance! Now.’

  Ten

  ‘You stupid fuck!’ Dennis Watkins shouted, incredulous now at what he was hearing. Running his fingers through his sparse, thinning hair.

  He stared over at his mate, Louis Blackwell, and shook his head, before cursing loudly to himself, at the enormity of the situation that Kyle Boyd had just brought to his doorstep.

  Literally.

  The two men hadn’t been able to work out what the fuck had happened at first, when Dennis had opened the front door to find Kyle standing there. In the middle of the night, crying and mumbling. Making no sense.

  His face pale, his clothes covered in blood.

  He initially thought that Kyle had been attacked. Instinctively wanting to help the lad, he’d quickly ushered Kyle inside.

  Into his cramped little kitchen, of his Clapham flat.

  Only as the story unfolded, they soon learned that the stupid fuck hadn’t been attacked at all. This was all his own doing. He’d taken it upon himself to do a job on the sly without them, and somehow he’d managed to completely fuck it up.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ Dennis Watkins growled. Seriously pissed off now at the complete audacity of the kid. ‘Going back on your tod and doing the job alone? What’s that all about? Ain’t I paying you enough?’

  All the work they’d done. All the jobs they had set up and, in just one night, Kyle Boyd had managed to jeopardise everything that they’d all worked for.

  Dennis and Louis had the perfect little operation. A home security company. Installing CCTV and state-of-the-art security systems. They targeted some of the richest houses in London.

  Only what their rich clientele weren’t aware of was that they always made a note of the key codes and access points while they were at the property.

  Then they bided their time. Waiting weeks, sometimes even months, to strike. Careful not to arouse anyone’s suspicions that they were involved in the scam.

  They would break in to the property when no one was home and deactivate the alarm system. Resetting all the data that the boxes recorded on their internal memory, so that it didn’t look as if the machines had ever been tampered with.

  If there was ever any fallout as to why the alarm system hadn’t been triggered, and did the job it was supposed to have done, they could prove to the victim of the burglary that the alarm had been working perfectly. That the evidence of when the alarms had been activated and deactivated had all been recorded as expected, and that the customer had clearly just forgotten to set it.

  It was a foolproof system, as long as they all stuck to the rules and stayed professional and discreet.

  Only Dennis had fucked up, it seemed. He was the one who had given Kyle Boyd an in on the job too. Having met the kid on a legitimate call-out at a big apartment block, and sensing that Kyle Boyd would go far with a bit of direction, Dennis had given the kid a break. Though he’d gone against his better judgement, it seemed now. And this is what he got in return. Zero fucking loyalty.

  Not only had he gone behind his and Louis’s backs and taken this job for himself, but Kyle-divvy-bollox-Boyd then had the barefaced cheek to bring this shit back to his door. The kid really did have balls, Dennis had to give him that much at least.

  Turning up here and expecting Dennis and Louis to somehow bail the fucker out.

  The whole situation was just one great big head-fuck.

  ‘I just can’t get my head around the fact that you just took it upon yourself to go back, on your own. What were you thinking? That’s not how we fucking work, and you know it.’ Hoping that Kyle had some sort of explanation. That he hadn’t just purposely cunted Dennis off, after everything Dennis had done for him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dennis. Truly I am,’ Kyle said now. His body violently shaking as he continued to hold a cloth under his nose in a bid to stem the blood flowing from his newly acquired broken nose.

  Though his nose was the least of his problems for now.

  He’d stabbed someone tonight. He hadn’t meant to. He truly hadn’t.

  He didn’t even think anyone would be there at that time of night. He thought the place was empty.

  By the time he’d realised there were two birds inside the house, it was too late.

  One of them was brandishing a knife, and h
ad come at him with it, too.

  All Kyle had done was try to defend himself. He’d meant to get the knife off her. To twist it away from her, and out of her grasp.

  Only it hadn’t worked out that way and he’d ended up stabbing her by accident in the struggle that ensued.

  Now, every time he closed his eyes all he could see was that shocked expression on that woman’s face, as the knife had plunged into her flesh. The way she’d slumped lifelessly down onto the floor.

  The knife handle sticking out of her, circled by a ring of deep red blood.

  Leaning over, Kyle threw up the contents of his stomach all over Dennis Watkins’s kitchen floor.

  ‘What if I’ve killed her, Dennis?’ Kyle Boyd was openly crying now. Aware of just how pathetic he looked; only suddenly he no longer cared. ‘Shit! What if she’s dead? What have I done? I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened. She just launched herself at me. Shit, I’m so sorry, Dennis.’

  ‘Oh, you’re sorry?’ It was Louis Blackwell’s time to talk then. Dennis’s flatmate and business partner was done with sitting in silence while Kyle sat there blubbering and begging Dennis for forgiveness like a fucking pussy.

  Kyle Boyd wasn’t getting an ounce of sympathy from him, not one.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you just say that in the first place? ’Cause sorry makes everything okay, doesn’t it?’ Louis spat, Kyle’s abysmal attempt of an apology pushing him well and truly over the edge.

  This was typical Kyle all over.

  Fucking things up, and then crawling back here begging for forgiveness and knowing how soft Dennis was with the kid, how Dennis saw something in the kid that Louis couldn’t, ‘potential’, the cheeky fucker would probably get it too.

  He knew something like this would happen eventually.

  Of course it would: Kyle Boyd was a liability.

  Louis had never liked him from the off, and he’d made no disguise of the fact.

  The kid was way too full of himself. Acting the big I am, trying to worm his way in with Dennis. Which only riled Louis further – that Dennis couldn’t see what was staring him in the face.

  Maybe now Dennis would realise what a fuck-up the kid really was.

  ‘I’ll tell you what he was doing going back there on his own. He wanted the money for himself, ain’t that right?’ Louis spat, clenching his fists tightly at his sides, to stop him from launching them into Kyle’s snivelling mug as Kyle shook his head

  Denying that was the reason why.

  ‘Bullshit. You know whose fucking house that was, don’t you?’

  Kyle nodded.

  Of course he did. They all did. It was Nancy Byrne’s place.

  Everyone knew the Byrne family. They were notorious, and Kyle had heard an earful of stories from Dennis and Louis from the second that Nancy Byrne had called the job in. The drugs, the clubs, the brothels.

  Kyle had seen it all first-hand, how much money the woman was clearly making, now that she’d bought herself that big, fancy gaff over in Mayfair.

  The stories must all be true.

  Which didn’t bode well for him at all now that it had all gone tits up.

  ‘Well, I hate to tell you this, Kyley-boy, but you are fucked, mate. I mean stealing from a Byrne is bad enough, but you carved up one of Nancy’s girls! Are you fucking insane! Nancy Byrne has probably already put the word out on him, Dennis. Half of London will be on the lookout for him now. The best thing we can do is stay the fuck away from this prick before he drags us down with him.’

  Kyle threw up again. Heaving until there was nothing left inside him.

  Louis was right, he was in a whole world of shit now. The type of shit that he wouldn’t be coming back from anytime soon.

  There would only be one outcome from his actions tonight. He’d either get a capture from the law, or a capture from Nancy Byrne and her cronies. And given the choice between the two, Kyle could only secretly hope that the Old Bill caught up with him first.

  And even if they did, chances were that Nancy and her men would still find a way to get to him eventually.

  He was screwed.

  Eyeing Dennis, pleadingly then. Searching the man’s eyes for a flicker of empathy towards him. Something. Only it wasn’t to be.

  Dennis simply shook his head.

  His mind well and truly made up.

  ‘Louis is right,’ Dennis Watkins said as he paced the kitchen. ‘We should never have let you in on the job. I took too big a risk on you.’

  ‘Oh finally!’ Louis said, glaring, as Dennis was only finally realising what Louis had been telling him all along. That Kyle wasn’t up to the job. That the kid was a liability.

  Dennis had insisted on learning that the hard way.

  ‘But, Dennis. Please. I’m sorry. Honest to God, I’m so sorry,’ Kyle said, his face burning with humiliation as he felt his tears start again then too.

  He wanted to explain. To try and make Dennis understand. He was heart sorry, genuinely. Sorry that he’d been so stupid and gone back to the house. Sorry that he’d stabbed someone. A woman, no less. But more than anything he was sorry for letting Dennis down.

  The man believed in him. Or at least, he had done up until tonight.

  Only Kyle had fucked all of that now. Dennis deserved an explanation.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it. It was stupid, I know that now. But I overheard one of the girls saying that they were all going out tonight. I thought the place would be empty. I wasn’t going to do anything. Honest to God, Dennis. It’s just…’ Kyle stopped himself. Babbling nervously, he realised he’d said too much.

  ‘Just what?’ Louis said, instantly picking up on Kyle suddenly cutting his words short, mid-sentence.

  ‘Only, when I told my girlfriend whose house it was, and that I’d seen the bag of money, she told me that I should do the job. On my own like…’ Kyle looked at the floor now. Unable to look the two men in the eye. ‘She said that this was my chance to take a shot at Nancy Byrne, and that if I didn’t take it, then she’d end it with me.’

  Unable to believe that he was admitting out loud to these two men what his girlfriend had threatened him with. How pathetic he sounded now that he was repeating her ultimatum.

  How weak and feeble he must be coming off.

  But they didn’t know Jess.

  ‘Your girlfriend told you to do it?’ Louis wrinkled up his nose in disgust at what he was hearing. Of all the excuses, this really was a joke.

  ‘You don’t know how forceful she can be,’ Kyle cried. ‘Her and Nancy go way back. Jess has got some personal vendetta against Nancy Byrne. It’s like she’s obsessed. There had been no way that I could have said no to her. She would have left me.’

  Jess had been insistent that tonight was the perfect opportunity to get to that bitch, Nancy.

  ‘Jesus! I’ve heard it fucking all now, haven’t I?!’ Louis exclaimed, shaking his head at Kyle, incensed. ‘Is that what this boils down to, is it? When the shit hits the fan, you blame your missus! Fucking hell, you really are a fucking degenerate, ain’t ya!’

  Unable to control his temper any longer Louis lunged at Kyle; grabbing the younger lad by the tops of his arms with both hands he threw him on top of the kitchen table. Wrapping his hands tightly around the kid’s throat, squeezing the life out of him.

  ‘You jeopardised everything we’ve worked for and now, by coming here and laying this all on us, you’ve royally fucking stitched us up too. You prick.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I swear to God, Louis…’ Spluttering now, fighting for breath, as Louis Blackwell’s grip tightened around his throat, with his every plea.

  Kyle kicked out, struggling to get the older man off of him.

  He was almost six-foot tall himself, but Louis was a man mountain in comparison. The bloke weighed at least double what Kyle did.

  Kyle didn’t stand a chance.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  His lungs were screaming for breath, his chest wheezing.
<
br />   He felt as if he was going to pass out. As if he would die right here on the kitchen table.

  Dennis Watkins finally stepped in.

  ‘Enough, Louis!’ he shouted, grabbing hold of Louis’s hands. Prising the man’s tight grip free from the kid’s throat. Sensing that if he didn’t intervene soon, Louis would end up throttling the life out of the silly bastard. ‘I said, that’s enough.’

  Restraining the man, he waited as Kyle rolled out from under Louis and scuppered across the table. Gasping for air as he went.

  The tension between the men in the room palpable now. The room completely silent then as the enormity of Kyle’s fuck-up tonight was at the forefront of all their minds.

  Finally Dennis spoke.

  ‘Tonight was a fucking abortion, of that there’s no doubt. But the last thing I need now is you two fucking killing each other too.’

  Dennis eyed Louis then, giving the man his final warning.

  ‘The damage is done, so just leave it. All we can do is make sure that we don’t get fucking dragged any deeper into this shit than we already are. We need to keep our heads down for a bit. Make sure the heat is well and truly off us.’

  ‘I really am sorry,’ Kyle said then, wiping the dripping blood off his face. Relieved that Dennis was still prepared to back him up after everything he’d done.

  With Dennis onside, at least Kyle didn’t have to worry about facing Nancy Byrne and her crew alone.

  Only Kyle was reading it all wrong. Dennis wasn’t planning on doing jack shit for the kid.

  ‘You’re damn right you’re sorry,’ Dennis Watkins said with a nod of his head. ‘You fucked up tonight, big time. A lesson learned for you. And for me too.’

  Kyle looked confused then.

  ‘That’s it, Kyle. You’re out. We won’t be working with you again, not after this. Louis was right all along. I should have fucking listened to him. You’re not up for the job, and taking you on has nearly cost me everything. Chances are, we still might lose the lot because of you,’ Dennis said, with all seriousness, wanting no more involvement with Kyle Boyd now he’d fucked them over. ‘If Nancy Byrne and her lot catches up with you, you are going to be a very fucking sorry kid, indeed! Now get the fuck out of my house, and anyone comes sniffing around asking questions our names better not leave your fucking mouth, do you hear me?!’