by Clive Barry
Sally ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, unlocking the front door by the key that was still in the lock.
When she opened it, a total stranger stood before her. Her heart beat faster and her stomach started doing summersaults again, Sally just stood and not a word came out.
The man in front of her was of slim build. He had a dark complexion, shoulder length, black wavy hair, and very deep dark coloured eyes. He was younger than Sally, maybe late teens, early twenties and was wearing a brown corduroy three quarter length jacket, old blue washed out denim jeans and a pair of cheap canvas trainers.
The stranger was the first to talk.
‘I like speaks at Charlie.’
Sally stood staring, her brain was numb, she was not sure of what to say but thankfully her mouth took over.
‘He’s not here at the moment and I don’t know when he’s gonna be back.’
‘When he be back? We have meeting last night, and he no comes.’
Sally’s mind was racing, at least this wasn’t the police, or there again maybe it was, and he was undercover.
Sally neither knew what to do, nor what to say, so again her mouth took over before her brain went into gear.
‘He didn’t say where he was going, he just left early this mornin’, when he comes back should I give him a message?’
The stranger nodded his head, looked up and down the road nervously then back at Sally.
‘Okay, I been try’ to calls ‘im but he no answer. You say ‘im Oggy come ‘ere, an’ you tells ‘im I see ‘im tonights same place, tells ‘im not be lates though, ‘cos I got explainin’ to do to men’s I don’t even like talks to, okay?’
Sally nodded and Oggy walked down the path then turned left down the road towards the town.
Sally felt that at any moment her brain was going to explode, it was in turmoil, she was trying her hardest to understand what had happened to her life.
Was it only yesterday morning that she’d woken up, broken and bleeding from Charlie? Now he was dead by her own hands, she’d found drugs and money secreted away in her home, strange people of foreign extraction were looking for him and where the fuck were her brothers?
She looked at her phone and the time display showed half past ten. ‘Is that all it is she thought? What a long day already.’ After a quick tidy up, Sally washed and dried her cup and plate from breakfast, together with the ones from the night before that the lads had used, she then decided to walk around and see Mam and Dad.
The walk to her parent’s house was a short one. They lived on the same estate just two roads away. As Sally got nearer, she could see her mam out on the front doorstep talking to a neighbour. Mam saw her coming and gave her a smile and a wave, said bye to the friend and walked up to meet her.
‘Oh, our Sally,’ Mam said ‘what’s ‘appened to your face my pet? Has that bloody Charlie been at it again? I don’t care what you say, this time I’m getting’ the lad’s to ‘ave a quiet word wi’ ‘im. I’m not ‘avin this, you’re our bonny little lass and it’s not allowed. Your dad’s gonna be so very upset when he sees yeh.’
Sally put her arms around her mams neck and the tears flowed.
‘Oh Mam hug me, just hug me,’ she sobbed.
‘Oh my pet, away inside, I’ll put the kettle on.’
Sally’s dad was sat in his favourite armchair next to the fireplace, reading his morning paper. He had his mug of tea on the little table by the side of his chair, on the other side was his portable oxygen in case he became too short of breath.
There was a big smile on his face as he said,
‘Here she is, here’s our Sally, where yeh bin petal? we bin waitin’ for yeh since yesterday.’
Then Dad saw her face and the smile disappeared.
‘Well now I bloody know where yeh bloody bin and why we didn’t see yeh yesterday, don’t I? wait ‘til I get my bloody ‘and’s on ‘im, I’ll friggin’ wring his bloody neck.’
Sally was not exactly sure what she was going to tell her parents. She knew it wasn’t going to be everything. She also knew it wasn’t going to be the truth, at least not all of it. Sally couldn’t remember a time when she’d told so many lies to so many people she loved, but she had to say something. She started by telling them about Charlie coming home from the pub after watching the football match and the two of them fighting. Then she talked about the kids for a while, telling her parents that Jenny had kept the kids overnight because her and Charlie were going to try and make up and finally she told them that Charlie had got up this morning and gone out somewhere, but she didn’t know where and that a man called Oggy had come to the house looking for him because Charlie wasn’t answering his phone.
Sally failed to mention that she had stabbed Charlie numerous times in the neck with a very sharp kitchen knife and that her big brothers were at this very moment in time disposing of his body somewhere. At least that’s what she hoped they were doing. She also omitted to mention the drugs and money she’d found in Charlie’s shoulder bag, that had now been secreted under the quilt on her bed. No there was quite a bit that Sally hadn’t actually mentioned.
‘Oggy?’ Said Dad, ‘only bloody Oggy I know is a young dark lad with a bad reputation. He’s supposed to be mixed up wi’ a bad lot that one, what’s he want wi’ Charlie anyway? Charlie wants nowt to do wi’ the likes of him, I’m warnin’ yeh, bad news’ll come of it, bloody bad news.’
They seemed to have believed what Sally had said, they always did. Sally could tell them just about anything she liked and ‘if our Sally said it, then it must be true,’ was the normal guarantee to whoever might be listening.
Mam and Sally talked on for a while, with Dad throwing his tuppence worth in every now and again. They verbally dissected the soaps on the television that Sally had missed over the past twenty four hours, had another cup of tea, dunked some more biscuits, then Sally prepared to leave.
‘How yeh strapped lass?’ said Dad.
‘You got enough to tide you over? I can give you a couple of bob if yeh need it.’
Sally smiled, bent over and kissed her beautiful Dad on the top of his balding pate,
‘No our Dad, I’m alright for now thanks, may need a borra later though if that’s okay?’
‘Aye lass you know where we are and when that Charlie gets home, you tell him from me, I’m gonna be ‘avin a word.’
Sally and Mam exchanged glances, they knew he wouldn’t, then Sally bid them both, ‘tarah for now’ and left.
Sally walked down the road outside Mam and Dads house feeling amazingly cheerful considering. The talk with her parents had somewhat restored her sanity and cleared her head a bit.
She was free of Charlie, she had money in her pocket, she was looking forward to seeing the kids after school, all she needed to do now was see her brothers and be reassured that she wasn’t’ going to be spending the rest of her days in a six by six cell in the woman’s prison at Low Newton somewhere over in County Durham.
On the way home, Sally decided to call at Jenny’s house. Jenny deserved an explanation or at least some sort of a reason for having to look after the kids the night before. Besides, Sally didn’t want to go straight home, she felt strange about being in the house by herself right now. It would be better once she had the kids with her for company.
Jenny also lived on the same estate as Sally, but in the opposite direction to that of Mam and Dads house, so Sally had to walk past the end of Frazer Avenue to get there. As she was passing, she looked down the road to see if her brother’s car was parked and was surprised to see the stranger Oggy standing a little way down from her own front path.
He definitely hadn’t been there when she’d left to go to her parents’ house, or at least she hadn’t seen him, so he had either been hiding or he’d come back. Sally didn’t want to talk to him again, not just yet, so she carried on walking, arriving at Jenny’s’ house a few minutes later.
Sally knocked on the front door and Jenny walked around fro
m the side of the house with wet laundry in her hands.
‘Hya pet,’ she said ‘just hangin out me smalls. Away round the back.’
Sally followed Jenny around to the rear of the house.
The small garden was very neat and contained a small tidy lawn with flowers in borders all the way around. There were also little terracotta plant pots dotted about, full of pretty flowers and small shrubs. Compared to Sally’s garden, this was like the pictures she’d seen in magazines of Alnwick.
‘What a pretty garden Jen,’ Sally admired, ‘I wish ours was even a bit like this, it would be a pleasure to be sittin’ out in this, rather than the jungle we ‘ave.’
‘This isn’t me,’ Jenny said shaking her head with clothes pegs in her mouth, whilst continuing to hang washing on the line, ‘this is our Geoff, he loves his garden, out in all weather pottering about. Yeh just missed him actually, he has an allotment as well, but that’s only for his veggies, he’s just gone to do some weeding, or at least that’s what he says. I know one of those bloody mates of his has a home brewery up there and he’ll come back tellin’ me about how hard he’s bin workin’ and how he’ll have to lie down for a while because of his bad back. Sleep it off is more like it.’
Both lasses laughed, then Jenny invited Sally in for a cup of tea.
‘So, Sally me love, what’s bin ‘appenin? I must say you look a lot bloody happier now than you did, ‘ave you an’ Charlie sorted everything out then?’
Jenny was a straight talking, no nonsense, short, buxom woman, that had a gentle spot for Sally.
‘Sort of,’ said Sally.
‘He said he was dead sorry and promised he would never hurt me again. He said he was goin off for a while to stay at a mate’s house to get his head together cos he were ashamed of hiself.’
‘Well I’ll believe that when I see it,’ interrupted Jenny, ‘we both know he’s said that a dozen times before don’t we? I hope for your bloody sake he bloody well means it this time pet, cos I hate seein’ you get hurt so much. My Geoff has never laid a hand on me. He knows the first time he does will be the bloody last, he wouldn’t wake up the next mornin’ and my Geoff likes to wake up at some time after a good nap, so he does.’
Sally smiled, she only wished she’d been able to have such a close relationship. In Sally’s small restricted world, what Jenny and Geoff had, was idyllic.
The two women talked and drank tea for the remainder of the afternoon, or at least until it was time to pick the kids up from school. Then they both walked down to the Infants school together. The talk was light hearted enough with both of them adding their own sense of humour and nonsense to the conversation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
After leaving Charlie’s house, Oggy had walked down the road towards the town centre but it came to him that he didn’t believe everything that Charlie’s pretty wife was telling him. He mistrusted what she’d said, but didn’t know why. Maybe it was her mannerisms, or maybe it was another of his inner senses telling him to beware.
Oggy didn’t trust anyone, only his senses, they’d saved him far too many times before to be ignored. Instead of heading back into town he decided to hang around. Maybe, just maybe, the little bitch was lying and the fat bastard was still in the house hiding from him, ‘I breaks his fuckin’ neck when I gets hold of him,’ he thought.
Oggy’s full name was Oghuz Ahmet Galata and he was a Turk from a little coastal town in the southern part of the Turkish, Mediterranean coast, called Mersin.
He’d left the family home a few years before when his mother had died of cancer, leaving no one to protect him from his violent, ever dominant father and his bullying three older brothers.
He’d been the runt of the litter and at eighteen had hitched, walked, begged, plenty of times stolen and would have done anything else that was required of him to get onto the shores of the United Kingdom, albeit illegally.
Once he’d arrived, he found and mixed with the villains of the London area who gave him an apprenticeship of sorts, inclusive of anything from picking pockets, extortion, keeping a stable of working girls and of course drug dealing.
He’d started at the bottom, but found he was a natural, quickly working his way into their trust. Drug dealing seemed to be his forte, making the most money for the least amount of effort. This was to become his trade of choice.
Oggy’s biggest problem was that he stole, he just couldn’t help himself. His fingers stuck to everything and anything if it wasn’t nailed down and if he thought he could turn a quick profit. Unfortunately, his fingers stuck to objects that belonged to some of the very wrong people and those wrong people he stole from wanted their goods back. Then they wanted to find him and kill him, but not before they hurt him, lots and lots and really lots.
So Oggy had moved from London and headed north to Seaborough because at some point somewhere, he’d been told it was easy pickings up north and so one day it was decided that this is where he would settle and set up in business all over again.
He was extremely worried now though, not only did he have a bunch of London bad boys on his trail for pocketing a rather considerable amount of their illicit drugs without paying for it, but he also had a bunch of Albanians wanting their drugs and money which Charlie had been told to look after on his behalf and the fat fuck wasn’t answering his calls, texts, or the fucking door, where the hell was he?
He saw the pretty young wife walking back towards the house. He’d watched her leave earlier by herself, but now she was returning with two kids, a young boy and a little girl. He didn’t know Charlie had kids, if these were his, it could be quite useful.
Sally and Jenny picked up their respective children and all walked home together, or at least part way together. Stopping outside Jenny’s house to say their goodbye’s and thank you’s, they then carried on towards Sally’s house.
The kids were full of it and never shut up all the way, talking of their sleep over, watching cartoons until late and drinking hot chocolate before they went to bed. Sally asked them what they wanted for their tea and it was unanimously egg and chips again, however when Sally mentioned the chippy it was a different story altogether and they all settled for a large battered sausage and chips each instead.
The chippy was next door to Mr Patel’s, so Sally went in and bought a large bottle of Cola as a further treat.
When they all arrived outside the front path of their house, Sally looked around cautiously to see if there were any signs of Oggy, but he was nowhere to be seen.
They opened the front door and Sally went directly into the kitchen and started to serve out their tea’s, when there was a loud shout from little Charlie.
‘Mam quick!’
Sally’s heart turned to stone as she ran into the living room with both kids glued to the spot.
‘What’s the marra?’ she screamed.
It was little Charlie that answered.
‘Mam we bin robbed! Dads chair and the rug ‘ave gone, someone’s nicked ‘em.’
Sally gave a sigh of relief, ‘if this is the worst then we should be alright,’ she thought.
‘No,’ she said softy, ‘your dad spilt,’ what, she thought, what did he spill? ‘Your dad was opening the big jar of pickled beetroot and you know what he’s like? Anyway it went everywhere, we had to get rid of everything in case we all got stains on our clothes.’
It worked, the kids looked at her then burst out laughing. To them, this was the biggest joke in the world, their dad got knacked.
The kids finished eating, then watched some television whilst Sally washed the pots. After Sally took them up to get bathed and ready for bed. She read them both a bedtime story and tucked them in and was just saying night, night when there was a knock at the front door.
Again, that feeling of dread crept over her as she walked down the stairs.
‘Please don’t let it be the police, please don’t let it be that Oggy, please, oh please, just let it just be the lads back.’
Sal
ly unlocked the front door and opened it cautiously.
‘Hya sis,’ came the voice, ‘put the kettle on.’
Sally smiled and flew into the arms of her big brother Paul, she then turned and hugged Mike.
‘Where the hell have you two bin? I’ve bin bloody worried sick about yeh. I thought yeh’d been picked up by the bloody bobby’s, you could at least ‘ave called us.’
Once the kids heard the voices, they came running back downstairs to see who the visitors were. Both Paul and Mike fussed over them for a while, then Sally ushered them both back to bed. Whilst she was upstairs she grabbed the satchel with the money and the plastic envelopes and brought them down with her.
The lads had made themselves comfy around the kitchen table with cups of tea and biscuits. They would have enjoyed something stronger, but Sally didn’t have anything, Charlie had drunk it all.
‘I guess you’re not gonna tell me where you took ‘im?’ Sally asked.
‘No!’ said Mike, ‘the less you know, the better, it’s enough to say he won’t be found.’
Sally nodded her head in acknowledgement.
‘I don’t think I really wanted to know anyway, what do you think my chances of getting away with this are? I don’t wanna go to prison or get me kids taken off us.’
‘I would say pretty good,’ replied Mike, ‘first off, no one’s gonna find the body. Second, no one actually knows or cares that he’s missing and third, the police won’t get involved unless they find summit, which they won’t, or if someone files a missing person, which would probably have to be you sis, but yeh only have to say he’s walked out on yeh, and yeh don’t know where to.’
Sally brought them both up to date with what she’d told Jenny and their parents. They both agreed it was probably as good a story as anything they could have come up with under the circumstances, then she broached the subject of Oggy.
‘Why the fuck would Oggy the Turk be coming around here to see the fat boy?’ Asked Paul, ‘he wouldn’t give Charlie the time of day normally, he’s only a small time drug dealer, but he mainly works for those nasty bad Albanian bastards. Now they are hard and fuckin’ ruthless, best off steering well clear of them.’