Chapter 7
Saturday 23rd March 1991 - evening
Rita and Yansis had arranged to go out with Julie and Vinny on Saturday evening to a few of the pubs in Heaton Moor. Julie’s parents were looking after Emily overnight, so the four of them were free to relax, and didn’t have to rush back. Rita was glad of the chance to let her hair down, and take her mind off her recent stresses.
Perhaps because of her current frame of mind, Rita was downing drinks at a rapid pace, and before long she was worse for wear. The alcohol loosened her tongue and, as the evening progressed, her troubles came spilling out. It was while Vinny and Yansis were engrossed in a discussion about Vinny’s building business that Rita confided in Julie. Up to this point, she had told Julie some of what had been happening, but it wasn’t always easy to divulge everything, when Julie was busy looking after a two year old, and taking care of the bookkeeping for her husband’s business.
Julie was aware of what had happened in the Buckthorn Inn in Moss Side, and she also knew about Rita’s conversation with her sister. At this point, though, Rita hadn’t told Julie about her row with her father the previous day. As much as she loved Yansis, she didn’t always find it easy to open up to him the same way as she could with Julie. For one thing, it would set him against her father if he knew fully how Ged had treated her. For another thing, he didn’t understand her family like Julie did. Rita and Julie had lived near each other since they were children, so Julie was familiar with Rita’s upbringing, and knew about many of the things Rita had put up with as a child.
“I’m really worried about our Jenny, you know, Jules. That’s why I went to see my dad yesterday.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened, Rita? You still haven’t told me everything, have you?”
“That’s because he was a right nasty old bastard,” she whispered. “Wait till the lads go to the bar, and I’ll tell you.”
This gave Rita reason to down her drink even quicker and, when Yansis saw her empty glass, he took the hint and went to the bar with Vinny. While they were gone, she told Julie all about her run-in with her father, adding, “I’ve tried telling my dad she’s in danger, but I’m wasting my breath. He’s enjoying lording it over his mates in the pub too much. Since Leroy came on the scene, he’s been acting like he’s bleedin’ Al Capone, and my mam just agrees with everything he says. Honestly, you’d think it was still the dark ages, the way she lets him rule the roost. She could do with standing up to him once in a while.”
Once she had started, there was no stopping her. As well as wanting to offload herself, she also wanted to analyse the facts, desperately trying to draw conclusions, “My dad’s not as daft as he makes out, you know. All this time he’s been making out that he’s taken in by Leroy, and just wants to bask in the reflected glory, when really it’s all about protecting himself. He knows how dangerous Leroy is, so he doesn’t want to do anything to upset him. That’s why he makes out that he likes being a part of it all. What really pisses me off, though, is that he doesn’t mind seeing Jenny in danger, as long as he doesn’t stick his own neck out. If that cowardly old get won’t do anything about Leroy, then it looks like I’ll have to do it.”
“What can you do, though, if Jenny refuses to break away from Leroy?” asked Julie.
“I don’t know, I’ll think of something. I’ve got to get Jenny away from him somehow. My granddad would be turning in his grave now if he knew what a shithouse my dad had turned out to be.”
By the time Yansis and Vinny returned from the bar, Rita was reminiscing about the good times she had spent with her grandparents. They were her father’s parents who had looked after Rita and her brother and sister for much of their childhood, while her mother and father had spent most of their evenings in the pub. It was through her grandparents that Rita had gained her strong moral fibre, and because of this she had come to disrespect her father as she had grown into adulthood. Throughout most of his adult life, he had shunned work in favour of spending his time between the pub and the bookies, and he financed these occupations through a series of dodgy deals.
Once she had finished reminiscing, Rita made light work of her next drink before returning to the subject of her concerns over Jenny, recapping on her visit to the Moss Side pub. “What worried me, Julie, was the way the girl in the Buckthorn Inn said, ‘when Leroy is finished with her’, because it wasn’t said as though she was referring to finishing a relationship, but as though it meant when she had served her purpose. I’ve been wracking my brains trying to think what he wants her for …”
“Are you sure you’re not overreacting, Rita? She probably just meant finished with her, as in, when he’s had enough of her. Maybe he’s a bit of a womaniser.”
“No, no, you’re not listening to me, Julie.” Rita’s voice had risen, the force of the alcohol taking over, and Yansis and Vinny had now halted their conversation to listen to her. “Remember what we said about him coming to Longsight to escape from someone or something in Moss Side?” Before anyone could answer, she continued. “Well that might be why he’s moved in with Jenny.”
“Yeah, but why now? He’s been living in Longsight for a year,” said Vinny.
“I don’t know. Maybe they found out where his mam lives, or his mam got wise to what he’s up to, and doesn’t like him having drugs in the house. Maybe he thinks he can get away with more at Jenny’s than he can at his mam’s. After all, they’re supposed to be living together, so maybe he thinks it’s his own house, even though, from what my mam told me, the house is in Jenny’s name. Now why would that be? So it’s harder to trace him?”
“I suppose you have got a point,” said Julie. “She would get a council house more quickly as a pregnant woman on her own, as well.”
“And another thing,” Rita added. “Our Jenny might have refused to believe what the girls told me about the scar on his ex-girlfriend’s face, but you should have seen the look on her face. She was shitting herself! That can only mean one thing; if she was that frightened, then she must think Leroy is capable of doing something like that.”
This last line was a conversation stopper, which changed the atmosphere between them. After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, Vinny offered to go to the bar again, and Yansis accompanied him, leaving Julie with Rita.
“Let’s change the subject Reet. I think we’ve scared the lads off. How are things in Greece? Are you still getting on well with Yansis’s parents?”
“Oh yeah,” Rita replied. “I couldn’t wish for better in-laws, but I just wish they’d stop going on about grandkids all the time. It hasn’t half put some pressure on me and Yansis.”
“It can’t be easy for you. They’re big on family aren’t they, the Greeks?”
“Don’t I know it?”
By the end of the night, Rita had drank so much that she was making little sense, and she had scant recollection of getting back to Julie’s. When she got in bed, the room was spinning so much that she was thankful when sleep took over.
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Sunday 24th March 1991 - morning
Rita woke up on Sunday morning with an urgent need to get to the bathroom. She couldn’t remember how much she had drunk the previous evening, but she was paying the price for it now. For most of the day she was ill, and spent the time either lying in bed, willing her banging headache to go away, or rushing to the bathroom to empty the contents of her stomach. It was three o’clock in the afternoon before she felt well enough to go downstairs; even then, she couldn’t face anything more than a cup of coffee.
She had intended to visit Debby that day and, when she went downstairs, Julie reminded her of her plans. Apparently, she had told Julie about her encounter with Tracy in the Brown Cow on Friday, and how she was planning to visit her old friend. Julie hadn’t been as close to Debby as Rita, so she had decided not to accompany her.
The way Rita was feeling, she knew that any trip outside was out of the question for the rest of the day. She therefore d
ecided to put it off until Monday. Rita learnt from Yansis that he had offered to do some labouring for Vinny the following week, which she thought was a good idea. Part of his wages would be in lieu of rent, which eased her conscience, and made her and Yansis feel as though they weren’t putting on Julie and Vinny so much.
Because Yansis would be at work the following day, and Rita didn’t drive, she caught the bus to Debby’s house. It wasn’t too much bother as Julie lived within walking distance of the A6, which ran through the Riverhill Estate, on the way to the centre of Manchester. That meant Rita could be there in no time.
Chapter 8
Monday 25th March 1991 – late afternoon
Rita scarcely recognised the woman that answered the door. Debby had always been a big girl in a voluptuous, bubbly way. But she must have lost at least two stone, maybe three, since Rita last saw her. Her drab clothes hung on her like discarded rags, her lank and untidy hair dangling in clumps around her shoulders. Rita spotted the remains of a black eye on a face that was pale and drawn. “Ouch, that looks painful,” she commented, after they had gone through the preliminaries.
“Yeah, bloody kids with their toys all over the place. I tripped on one, and banged it on the banister.”
It was an unconvincing lie. The kids she referred to, clung to Debby, two of them, cautiously surveying Rita. Although both of them looked under four years of age, signs of desperation were already painted on their grubby little faces.
“Sod off and go and play, will yer?” admonished Debby and they scarpered.
Debby led Rita through to the living room. The place was filthy, the smell putrid. Rita moved some dirty clothing to one side so she could sit on the grimy sofa. As soon as she sat down, a mangy cat parked itself on her knee, and she pushed it away saying, “Sorry, I don’t do animals.” She immediately began to itch.
Rita and Debby made small talk, and Rita soon established that Debby was married to one of the lads off the estate. They had wed after Debby had given birth to her first child, and then another child had followed in quick succession. Because Debby’s husband was local, Rita thought she might know him.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Carl Carter.”
“Carl Carter?” Rita couldn’t place it at first, and she kept running the name over in her mind until an image emerged. “Oh God yeah, I remember him; thin lad, brown hair. Didn’t he used to hang around with Dave Sutton?”
“That’s right,” Debby replied.
Rita didn’t add anything else to her recollections of Carl Carter. Some thoughts are best kept to yourself.
“Actually, he works with your Jenny’s fella, Leroy,” added Debby.
With what she remembered about Carl Carter as a teenager, that didn’t surprise Rita, and she replied on impulse, “Oh yeah, got him selling knock-off as well as my dad, has he?”
A wry smile spread across Debby’s face, “Yeah knock-off, that’s right; gets us some good stuff. He gets loads of good fakes as well.”
Her rapid admission to the stolen and counterfeit goods, led Rita to believe he was perhaps selling more than that, but she didn’t comment. They chatted a little more, but the conversation was stilted. Apart from reminiscing about the past, they no longer had much in common.
During the time she was there, it seemed to Rita that Debby was becoming increasingly edgy. Eventually she got up and went to the toilet. She was gone a good ten minutes and, while she was away, the children crept towards Rita, hiding behind each other and giggling nervously. Rita’s heart went out to them. Poor little things, forced to live in this squalor.
Rita was desperate for the toilet herself so, when Debby returned, she announced, “Right, I’ll just nip to the loo too, and then I’m off.”
She wished she hadn’t been so desperate, as the bathroom was in as bad a state as she had anticipated. It was while she was hovering, trying to avoid contact with the soiled and stained toilet seat, that she spotted it. ‘Oh no!’ she thought. ‘Not Debby, not with them little ’uns in the house.’
She finished in the bathroom, made her excuses and left, but not before she had delivered her parting shot. “By the way, Debby, you wanna make sure you leave your knock-off where little hands can’t get hold of it.”
Rita was relieved to breathe in the city air after the malodorous filth inside Debby’s house, and the walk to the bus stop helped to clear the smell from her nostrils. However, when she reached Julie’s house, she still felt as though the stench clung onto her clothing, so she stripped down to her underwear, threw her clothes in the washer and found something else to wear.
“Jesus, that was an experience!” she said to Julie. “You wouldn’t believe how she’s changed. The place was a tip, and it stank something rotten.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and you’ll never guess what I found in the bathroom.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I’m hovering over this bloody manky loo, trying not to touch the seat, when I saw what looked like a syringe poking out of the top of the wash basket. I know … I shouldn’t have looked, but I was curious. It wasn’t just because of what it looked like. She’d been acting strange while I’d been talking to her, all edgy, as though she just couldn’t settle. So I went over to the basket when I’d finished, pulled the lid up, and I couldn’t believe my bleedin’ eyes! It was a syringe alright, sticking out of a supermarket carrier bag. There was a load of other stuff in the bag as well; some brown powder in a little polythene bag, a spoon, a cigarette lighter and some other things. It was like a bloody drugs factory!”
“Oh my God! Did you say anything?”
“Only in a roundabout way. I was too shocked to come straight out with it, but I think the other reason I didn’t confront her was because of the connection.”
“What do you mean?
“Her husband only works with Leroy, doesn’t he? It got me worried. I don’t know what the bleedin’ hell to do, Julie. I think that’s what made me suspicious, as well. She admitted that Leroy’s got him selling dodgy goods, but it felt like she was laughing as me, as though she knew there was more to it.”
“I can’t believe it, Rita. She must be stupid, especially after what happened to Amanda.”
“I know, and she’s got two little kids there. They could easily have got hold of those drugs where she left them. I warned her about that on the way out, but not in so many words. I just hope she doesn’t make a habit of leaving them where the kiddies can get at them; maybe she was rushing about because I was there.”
Amanda had been a friend of Julie’s, who had died of a drink and drugs overdose several years earlier. The experience had been particularly traumatic for the girls as her death had followed a night out with them, and Julie and Rita had been accused of her murder. As a result, they had been through a damaging period, especially Julie who had been close to Amanda.
Another thought occurred to Rita. “You’ll never guess who Debby married.”
“Who?”
“Carl bloody Carter. Do you remember him? A right sly little bastard, skinny, pasty looking, brown hair, a typical bully’s sidekick. No wonder she’s on drugs, if she’s married to him, and he’s working for Leroy.”
“Yeah, he was always up to no good. Christ, Rita, it just gets worse, doesn’t it? What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t got a clue.”
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Wednesday 27th March 1991 - morning
Debby felt dreadful. She’d been awake most of the night, suffering from the chills and cold sweats. When she had nodded off, she had been woken again by stomach cramps and an urgent need to run to the toilet. The diarrhoea had persisted for several hours, along with muscular aches and pains. Now she felt exhausted and her craving was intensifying, bringing with it feelings of extreme anxiety and panic.
This was her punishment for standing up to Carl last time they’d had a row. She hadn’t had a fix since Tuesday morning; he’d refused to give her
any heroin from yesterday afternoon onwards, even though she’d begged him for half the night. His response had been to make her sleep on the sofa so she wouldn’t keep him awake. This morning he still wouldn’t let her have anything, and now he was out.
She’d scoured the house from top to bottom, but she couldn’t find where he’d hidden the drugs. Maybe he’d taken them with him out of spite. The only thing she’d found was some cannabis, which had helped the anxiety a little, but not near enough. And it had done nothing to alleviate the other symptoms.
The children were becoming distressed because her behaviour confused them. When she lay on the sofa wailing, they wept too, without understanding what they were weeping about.
In her desperate state, she contemplated going to Jenny’s to see if Leroy was there. Maybe he would help her, but then she dismissed the notion. He wouldn’t be happy about her bringing business to his home. And it wasn’t a good idea to upset Leroy. She didn’t know if Jenny was even aware of him dealing drugs.
Oh God! What else could she do? She didn’t even know where Carl got his supplies from. He wouldn’t tell her. Maybe she should go to the Moss, see if she could buy some herself. But she didn’t have much money. And she didn’t have a clue who to go to. What could she sell? What did she have that was worth anything? Where could she sell it anyway? Damn! Damn! Damn!
She thought about her mother. Maybe she could drop the kids off with her, and see if she would lend her some money. But how could she go looking like this? What could she tell her? Her mother would know she was in a state, and she didn’t want her to find out she was on drugs. It would kill her! She would hang on, just a bit longer. Perhaps she could manage for a short while. But if Carl wasn’t back soon, she didn’t know how she would cope.
A Gangster's Grip: The Riverhill Trilogy: Book 2 Page 6