by Nick Oldham
And that was the beginning of their relationship.
They kept it under wraps. Johnny did suspect that Luke had sussed what was going on, though he said nothing, even if his looks and the odd comment betrayed his knowledge. Jake, the least intelligent member of the gang, did not have a clue.
As Charlie’s release date approached, things became tense between the two young lovers who had become smitten with each other.
Johnny did not really have a lot of time to consider things, because from his prison cell, Charlie began calling the shots again. Luke returned from his visits to Preston with instructions and promises from Charlie, and he expected Johnny and Jake to do what they were told. The gang was getting its act together and prosperity loomed over the horizon.
Luke and Jake were excited.
Johnny wasn’t, but he was sucked in and realized he could not pull out of it.
There were jobs to suss out and other things to do.
Charlie wanted to carry out a robbery on the day he was released. It had to be an afternoon job and have a substantial amount of cash. Luke found an Asian-run convenience store in the Spotland area of Rochdale that seemed ideal. The gang watched it for a few weeks and followed the daughter of the owner to the bank a few times. Jake claimed he watched her deposit fifteen grand, but that later turned out to be rubbish. There was also the mysterious property Charlie wanted Luke to find for him. Somewhere in Rochdale, some run-down shop or something. Luke never told Johnny and Jake what Charlie was thinking, but it eventually became clear to Johnny that Luke hadn’t got a clue either. He was just following instructions.
There also had to be several vehicles sourced, which was Johnny’s speciality.
Johnny stole a big four-wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser from Manchester and changed the plates, then left this vehicle in Preston for Charlie and Luke to use for the ‘bit of personal business’ Charlie needed to complete on the morning of his release. Johnny also arranged for another car for Charlie and Luke to swap to after this mysterious business so they could travel back home after the Toyota had been dumped and torched. Whilst this was all going on in Preston, Johnny and Jake would be driving back to Whitworth in the Chevette (another car acquired, but not stolen, by Johnny) carrying Charlie’s electronic ankle tag.
Johnny also had to arrange for two vehicles to be used in the robbery itself, as well as sourcing a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition for Charlie to carry.
Johnny knew he was good at getting all these cars and stuff and although he didn’t exactly know what was going on in terms of Charlie’s big plans, he had to admit he was actually quite enjoying pulling all these bits together.
However, the question of him and Annabel still hung in the air.
Johnny tried hard when Charlie arrived home and found it exciting to go on the robbery, but even he was shocked by the high level of pent-up violence in Charlie and the image of the shopkeeper being blasted by the shotgun lingered vividly in his mind, as did Luke’s unnecessary beating up of the shopkeeper’s daughter – but Johnny guessed that was just bravado on Luke’s part, sucking up to his brother, trying to prove himself.
Late that afternoon, they got together at the farmhouse up on the moors – after having the shit-scare of the police roadblock on the lane, which turned out to be nothing at all to do with them, but something happening at Abel Kirkman’s place. That had been an anxious couple of minutes as the cop talked to Charlie and Luke, who were driving the old Range Rover, followed by Johnny and Jake in the Chevette. Johnny had half-expected to see the officer’s head get blasted off.
They made it unscathed to the farmhouse where, waiting for Charlie’s triumphant return home, were stacks of booze, food, some weed, DVDs and an Xbox linked up to the TV with lots of games to play.
And Annabel.
Charlie made a very public display of slobbering kisses all over her and touching her up in front of everyone, and although she made occasional eye contact with Johnny, she made a good job of welcoming home the returning hero and lover, who, on the way, had murdered two men and was not even thinking about it.
After Charlie had fondled Annabel’s bottom and made a few remarks about it having grown somewhat, he turned his attention to the booze and tossed a four-pack to each gang member before dragging Annabel across to the settee, plonking her on his lap and expertly flipping the tab on his beer with the thumb of one hand, whilst wriggling his other hand up her short skirt.
Then he looked around, beaming, raised the can and said, ‘I’m fucking home, lads.’
They all raised their cans in response, but maybe Johnny’s did not go up quite as high or as enthusiastically as the others’.
His girl was on the lap and in the arms of another man, whose hand was up her skirt – and it hurt badly.
The great plans that Charlie had for the future were unveiled expansively and authoritatively as the drinking, eating and smoking began.
Johnny sipped his beers slowly, listened quietly, but Charlie’s overfamiliarity with Annabel was getting him more agitated and he had to fight hard to control himself, especially when she managed to give him a hopeless look of despair. He also did not like the fact that Charlie’s plans were a done deal; the thought of essentially being a pimp did not sit well with him.
Sometime in the early evening a car drew up in the farmyard outside. Charlie heaved Annabel off him, saying, ‘You’ve become a heavy bitch,’ and went to the door as someone knocked.
A few moments later he re-entered the living room followed by Hassan.
‘Guys, guys,’ Charlie said. ‘I want to introduce you to Mr Hassan. Mr Hassan, this is Johnny.’ Johnny raised his beer can. ‘And this is Jake. You already know Luke, my brother.’ Hassan smiled warmly, clasped his hands together and bowed graciously. ‘Mr Hassan is our new business partner.’
An announcement Johnny found somewhat ironic, bearing in mind Charlie’s recent gunning down – with glee – of an Asian man, as though killing an Asian person conferred a special status … and now he was working with one.
Johnny almost guffawed into his beer.
Charlie and Hassan stepped back into the entrance hall, closed the door behind them. Their muted voices could be heard through the door and at one point the decibel level rose into an argument, then subsided again. The front door opened and a couple of minutes later Charlie stepped back into the living room ahead of Hassan, who roughly pushed two young girls in ahead of him. Luke immediately recognized them as the ones he and Charlie had had sex with earlier at the brothel in Preston.
Johnny sat upright, frowning.
Jake did the same, but his eyes lit up. If the gang had been a litter, Jake would have been the runt. He appreciated anything he could get, was happy to chase scraps and be Charlie’s gofer.
But Johnny was instantly uncomfortable and did not like the look of these girls. Even a fool could see they were drugged up to the eyeballs, which were wide and dopey looking. Their whole demeanour was slow and not ‘with it’.
‘This is what it’s all going to be about,’ Charlie declared. ‘And these two ladies are just some tasters for you guys to nibble on.’ He laughed dirtily.
‘Magic,’ Jake said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together.
‘Thought you’d like it,’ Charlie said. But he eyed Johnny and his lack of eagerness with suspicion. The girls stood on thin, unsteady legs, swaying slightly. ‘Go on, lads, one each for you guys.’ He indicated Johnny and Jake. ‘Screw ’em till your heart’s content.’
‘What about me?’ Luke whined.
‘Didn’t you have your fill this morning?’
‘Yeah – but I want it again.’
‘Sloppy seconds, then.’ Charlie pushed one of the girls towards Jake, who stood up and had to catch her before she fell over. ‘Upstairs, back bedroom.’
With an expression of dumb happiness etched across his face, Jake waltzed the girl out of the living room.
Charlie put his hand on the lower back of the other girl
and forced her towards Johnny.
She was extremely beautiful, Johnny had to admit. Dark skin, lovely green eyes shaped like almonds, slightly oriental in her looks, with a slender neck and body.
He took her to a smaller room upstairs, just a single bed in it. As if she was on autopilot she pushed him down on to the edge of it, gyrated her slim hips sensuously in front of his face and began to remove her clothes. This was not a particularly complex manoeuvre as all she wore was a pair of three-quarter length cargo pants and a baggy T-shirt. Under these garments she had on a grubby bra, and a gold thong ran through her shaved pubic area. She took off these last items and continued the rhythmic dance, squeezing and rolling her nipples and sliding her middle finger into her vagina.
Johnny watched, wincing, petrified and full of distaste. Not at her – she was the victim in all this – but at what Charlie wanted to get them into. He would rather rob supermarkets or steal cars, thank you. That seemed a far more honest way to make a living than using other human beings.
She sank to her knees in front of him, between his legs, and unzipped him.
Before she could take anything further, Johnny gently took hold of her round, pretty face and looked into her dead eyes.
It was almost as if she was seeing nothing.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Those guys’ll thank me … I brought them a coming home present,’ Charlie boasted, leading Annabel up the stairs to the front bedroom of the farmhouse after waving Hassan goodbye. He would be back sometime later to collect his goods. He led her by the hand and almost swung her through the door, then flung her on to the double bed. ‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ he said, and pushed up her skirt, pulled down her panties and flicked them aside, burying his face between her legs.
Annabel grimaced at the ceiling, a tear rolling from her right eye, as she tried to accommodate and understand Charlie’s pent-up lust. But she was tight inside, wound up, and although she emitted the right noises she felt nothing as he licked and probed her with his tongue and fingers, without finesse.
Then he rose above her, having discarded his jeans and underwear.
‘Babe – you’ve got a tub,’ he remarked, drawing his hand across her lower belly. ‘Put on a bit of weight since I went away … kinda like it,’ he said, and slid his hands underneath her backside to raise her so he could slam brutishly into her.
‘No, no, no,’ she screamed and wriggled away from underneath him, rolling off the bed on to her knees, where she covered her face with her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.
‘What the hell?’ he demanded. ‘I’m home, I want a shag – is that too much to ask? Get your lardy arse back on to this bed and suck me off,’ he ordered her.
‘I can’t,’ she cried, ‘I don’t want to.’
Rage surged through him as he leapt off the bed and hauled her roughly to her feet, shaking her, the two facing each other with the lower portion of their clothing missing.
‘You can’t? What d’you mean, you can’t? You’re my girl and we do what I want,’ he growled, jerking her close by gripping both her elbows. His mouth was close to her ear. ‘Get that? I’m outta stir and I need something that you have,’ he whispered as his hardness brushed against her. ‘So you lie down on that bed, open up and we will shag until the cows come home, yeah? Until you hurt, because that’s how I’m feeling.’
He stood back, his lips ripped into a snarl, his booze-ridden breath overpowering her, making her feel sick. She tried to push him away, then sagged on to her knees and retched on the floor.
‘Jesus,’ he said contemptuously, ‘what have you been eating?’
Annabel wiped the spittle away from her mouth with the back of her hand, then she rose unsteadily and stood bravely before him. She thrust out her belly. ‘You said I was fat? Big arse, big gut.’ She placed her hands above and below her stomach, tenderly cupping it.
‘Yeah, you got fat.’
‘No … no I didn’t, I got pregnant.’
Charlie’s face screwed into a ball of disorientation. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what pregnant is? Up the duff? Well, I’m up the duff. I’m going to have a baby and I’m glad about it.’
Suddenly the bedroom door crashed open and Johnny came in.
Charlie and Annabel’s eyes shot towards the intruder.
‘I’m pregnant and Johnny’s the dad.’
Charlie had got over his incomprehension and abruptly understood each word. He spun savagely to her and punched her hard in the stomach, as hard as he could. She doubled over and sagged down to her knees, clutching herself.
Johnny leapt across the room with a roar, arms extended.
Charlie twisted, brought up his forearms and knocked Johnny sideways, deflecting the attack. Then he laid into him.
In pure physical terms, Charlie should have been no match for Johnny, who outweighed and outreached him. What made the difference was Charlie’s mindset of merciless, no-conscience aggression – and that would always reign victorious.
He fell on to Johnny in a frenzy, using his fists to beat him into submission.
‘So this is it, eh?’ Charlie paced the floor. ‘I get banged up and then I get cheated on by my girlfriend and one of my best friends. One of my gang. I thought you were my family,’ he screamed.
He stopped pacing and stood directly in front of Johnny.
They were all back in the living room, fully dressed.
Johnny and Annabel had been thrown across the settee.
Luke and Jake stood by the door, both terrified by the events.
The two prostitutes had been herded down the cellar steps, the door closed and locked behind them.
Johnny and Annabel watched Charlie.
‘This,’ his hand swept around the room, ‘is the thanks I get.’
He was bouncing with rage, shaking with it.
‘Bastards!’ he hissed. ‘Bunch of bastards.’ He spun ferociously to Luke. ‘Did you know? Did you know they were shagging?’
Luke swallowed, shook his head in a lie. He knew all right.
‘I feel like I’ve been shafted, well shafted.’
‘We’re in love,’ Annabel cried.
Charlie glowered hard at her, the strength of his stare forcing her to cower. ‘Love my arse. I’ve been taken advantage of. I’m in the friggin’ slammer for two years and you know what I’m doing? No? I’m plannin’ our future, getting us out of the robbing business into something easier, more lucrative … real money.’
‘What?’ Johnny sneered through his cut and swollen mouth. ‘Keeping girls prisoner while blokes come and fuck them?’
‘If you want to see it like that, yeah. But they’re just business, that’s all. And anyway, that’s not the point. Point is, while I’ve been banged up, working out our future – our future,’ he stressed, ‘you two fuckers have been having it off behind my back, taking me for a complete nob.’
‘I don’t want your future,’ Johnny said. ‘At least there’s a dignity, a bravery in robbery … not keeping girls as slaves.’
‘Fuck you and fuck what you think.’ Charlie leaned into him, then he stood upright, turned to the silent, awestruck Luke and Jake. ‘You two with me?’
They nodded.
‘OK – drag this bastard out to the stable and chain him in one of the loose boxes. We’re going to beat him to death.’
Annabel tried to hold on to Johnny, covering herself with his blood, but they dragged him free and out through the front door. Annabel raced to the window to watch and screamed with horror when, halfway across the yard, Charlie scooped up a pickaxe that was just lying on the ground and whammed one of its points into Johnny’s backside, causing him to scream and fall and roll in agony.
He was in total blackness. A dirty hessian sack had been pulled over his head and tightened with a drawstring around his neck.
His hands were bound in front of him with thick parcel string, then a loop of rope had been threaded around the string between his wrists and h
e had been tied to a metal ring in a loose box in the stable block, which had not seen a horse or any other type of livestock in it for twenty years. The place was in virtual decay, but the fixtures and fittings were still there, if rotting and rusting.
He stood, straining to hear.
He knew Charlie and Luke were circling him silently, like leopards. He could sense them.
Then he heard a dull slapping noise.
He knew what it was.
Baseball bats being smacked into the palms of hands.
Sounded like dull applause.
Johnny’s breathing became tight as he tensed himself for the first blow, already knowing how this would go because he had once seen Charlie attack someone with a bat. That time he had relished a laid-back approach and had not started with the head because that would have ended it all far too quickly. Charlie had gone for the limbs first. The muscles in the arms and legs, softening them up, causing them to spasm in pain. Then the joints. Knees, elbows, shoulders, causing excruciating pain. Then the stomach, back and ribs, until finally, at the point where the victim had thought he had felt all the pain that could be dished out, Charlie went for the head.
Charlie would begin that section with a bit of playful prodding and tapping of the skull. Then the force of the blows would increase in power, gradually building until there was a crescendo of contacts, after which point the victim would be unconscious and would not know if he had lived or died.
The slapping stopped.
Johnny tensed.
The first strike was on the back of his lower right leg, the calf muscle. Charlie hit him hard. Johnny gasped and sank to his knees, only to be heaved back on to his feet as the pain from the blow radiated up and down his legs, making him want to vomit.
‘Pussy,’ Charlie sneered.
‘You gonna hurt me, just get it over with,’ Johnny hissed through his clenched teeth.
‘I’m going to have too much fun to get it over with quickly,’ Charlie said, his mouth close to the side of Johnny’s head. He rammed the end of the bat into Johnny’s ribs and pushed him sideways.