The Betrayed: A shocking, gritty thriller that will hook you from the first page

by Casey Kelleher

  ‘And while we’re on the subject of Tiffany, you need to rein in how much shit you’re giving her. She’s off her fucking face.’

  Tiffany could be a liability at the best of times. The girl was opinionated and with a gob on her to rival the size of the Dartford Tunnel she didn’t often hold back.

  Staring over at Colleen he was relieved to see her smiling. Her going off on her own with Tiffany, out of earshot, had made Jimmy feel on edge. Alex always swore that he didn’t ever discuss their private affairs with the girl, but Jimmy wasn’t entirely convinced. Alex could be just as bad as Tiffany when he was on one, a right nasty bastard, especially with a drink in him. Who knows what the man had said when he’d been caught up in the moment?

  Still, Colleen looked happy enough. In fact, judging by the way the two girls were talking and laughing so animatedly with each other, it looked as if they were genuinely getting on.

  Unaware of the argument the two men had just had, and with Colleen’s words of advice still circling around her head, Tiffany decided that she was going to take the bull by the horns and try and make amends with Alex. They’d already wasted enough of the evening as it was.

  ‘Ah, did you miss me, baby?’ Tiffany purred, strutting in between the two men, and draping herself seductively across Alex Costa’s lap.

  If he wanted to play games, then so be it. Tiffany was a pro at them. She was going to kill the man with kindness. She had no choice. She was low on gear and if she wanted more coke then she knew she had to tolerate Alex’s sulky moods. She’d done a lot worse to get what she wanted.

  ‘Leave it out, Tiffany.’ Alex shrugged the girl away from him, irritated as she started slipping her fingers under the fabric of his shirt.

  ‘Oh come on, Alex, lighten up a little bit yeah!’ Tiffany said tartly, realising that Alex wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

  Grabbing her hand harder than he meant to, Alex removed it himself.

  ‘Ouch! That hurt,’ Tiffany exclaimed. Then seeing his stony face, she gave up. Who was she kidding? Alex wasn’t playing hard to get. He was a bona fide arsehole and no matter how nice she was to him, the man was still going to treat her like she was nothing.

  ‘You know what, you can be a right moody prick sometimes,’ she said, deciding to stand up for herself. Though one insult was as far as she got.

  Alex was up off his seat. Incensed that Tiffany thought she could cunt him off so publicly, talking to him like that, he launched the girl off him.

  Screaming loudly as she hit the club floor with a thump, Tiffany half expected Alex to apologise to her. To say that he didn’t mean to push her. Sprawled out on the floor, she looked up and saw the steely glint in his eyes. He didn’t give a shit about her. Other people were looking over now too. Clubgoers standing nearby were all watching with fascination as the scene unfolded in front of them, pointing over to where Tiffany was lying in a heap on the floor. She felt her cheeks redden. Alex was making a holy show out of her. Humiliating her in front of everyone.

  She tried to save face. ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ Rubbing her knees, the skin grazed and bleeding where she’d scuffed them across the coarse black carpet, she was grateful that Colleen was immediately at her side.

  ‘Are you okay, Tiff?’ Colleen asked, looking up at Jimmy as if he should do something. She was horrified at Alex’s actions.

  Though Tiffany wasn’t done yet.

  ‘What the fuck is your problem, Alex?’ Trying to get back on to her feet, the girl was beyond mortified, her embarrassment quickly turning to anger. Alex had gone too far this time. ‘I don’t even know why you invite me out to these places. You don’t even like me.’ Tiffany was close to tears. ‘You’re a fucking bully, do you know that?’ Tiffany said now, no longer caring if she pissed the man off for good this time. No amount of money was worth being treated like this. She was done, and apparently so was Alex.

  ‘And you’re a fucking mess! Look at you! I bet you’ve hoovered all that shit up your hooter already, haven’t you?’ Alex shook his head with disgust, as he took in the sight of the girl still sprawled across the floor. Everything he despised about women. Desperate and needy. Alex was simply surprised that he’d put up with the slapper for as long as he had, if he was honest.

  She was right, he couldn’t stand her and he was bored of pretending otherwise.

  ‘Why don’t you do yourself a favour, Tiffany, and fuck off home!’ he said, shooting the humiliated girl one final look of contempt, stomping off, leaving her in floods of tears.

  Jimmy stepped in then. Giving Tiffany a helping hand up.

  ‘He’s had too much to drink. Ignore him. He didn’t mean any of that,’ he said, feeling sorry for the girl.

  Tiffany knew better.

  ‘Do you know what? Fuck him! Even if he came crawling back to me tomorrow on his hands and knees, begging me for forgiveness, I ain’t interested no more,’ she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice that almost gave away the hurt she was trying to conceal. ‘The man’s got issues, and I’m done with trying to work out what the fuck they are.’

  Fighting back her tears as she tried to regain her composure, she felt mortified that she had let Alex Costa get the better of her in front of all these people. She just wanted to go home now. Get out of this ridiculous outfit she was wearing and snuggle up with her cat.

  ‘I’ll have a word with him. He was bang out of order tonight,’ Jimmy said, seeing the look on Colleen’s face too. She did not look one bit impressed.

  ‘I think we should put her in a cab, Jimmy. It’s the least we could do,’ Colleen said, linking arms with Tiffany. ‘I think I’m going to go home too.’

  Jimmy nodded. He could clump Alex for the drama the man had caused tonight. In fact, if he stayed here for a minute longer he probably would.

  ‘Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that the night is over,’ he agreed.

  Throwing one final look at Alex, Jimmy shook his head wearily as he led Colleen from the club, while Alex stood at the bar downing more shots, no doubt celebrating the fact that he’d achieved his mission and ruined the evening for them all.

  Thirteen

  Tossing and turning in her sleep, Colleen felt panic engulfing her.

  She was trapped somewhere. In her nightmares. In her dreams. Trapped. Lost inside a deep forest, her eyes searching for an escape route. Only there wasn’t one. It was dark and murky and Colleen was running. Desperately trying to get away from something or someone.

  Who was she running from? A person? A monster?

  Looking down at her feet, the skin torn and scratched by the broken twigs that cracked beneath her; her pale skin turning red, as she felt the heat.

  The forest was on fire. The flames were drawing in. Cackling loudly as black smoke filled her lungs.

  Her chest felt tight, constricted. She could barely breathe. She could smell burning. Mild at first, then suddenly all-consuming. Heavy on her chest. Making her cough and splutter as she fought to get her breath.

  She was awake. Back in her bedroom.

  Wondering if she was still drunk from her night at the club with Jimmy, disorientated, she sat bolt upright in her bed. Trying to focus on something, to see through the darkness of the room, her eyes searched through the grey haze of smoke that swept in under the gap in her bedroom door.

  The fire wasn’t a nightmare. It was real, she realised, gripped with fear, her gaze resting on the crackling and spitting of bright yellow fire that she could see through the crack in the doorway.

  ‘Fire,’ she said, as if the word needed to be said aloud so that what she was seeing could engage with her brain.

  ‘FIRE!’

  Paralysed with fear and panic, Colleen could barely think straight. She didn’t know what to do first. All she did know was that she had to move and quickly. The flat was on fire.

  This was bad. Really bad.

  ‘MUM?’ Shouting at the top of her voice, the large influx of toxic smoke-filled air made
her instantly splutter. Coughing manically, her chest wheezed.

  Keep low.

  That’s what they said to do in all those fire safety adverts she’d seen when she’d been at school.

  Heat and smoke rises. She needed to stay low to the floor.

  Crawling on her hands and knees, the smoke was getting thicker. She could barely see her own hand stretched out in front of her now. Rubbing her hand on the carpet, feeling her way to the end of the bed, her fingers made contact with her small wooden chair in the corner of the room. Reaching up, Colleen grabbed at a T-shirt that she knew was draped over the chair’s arm. Wrapping it around her face, covering her nose and mouth, she hoped that it would act as some kind of a filter.

  The room was getting darker, foggier. Filling up with thick clouds of smoke. Her eyes were stinging now too. Watering, she could feel the blistering heat coming up through the floor beneath her.

  Then she heard the loud sound of glass shattering downstairs in the shop. The sudden explosion making her jump with fright.

  The window that Jimmy fixed.

  The rapid force of the heat breaking the glass panes.

  Colleen needed to get to her mother. She needed to make sure that she was okay.

  Focus, she told herself sternly, as she continued crawling along the floor towards the bedroom door.

  Maybe that’s what the noise was, she thought, hopeful.

  Her mother trying to get out. Or the Fire Service trying to get in.

  Reaching up to the handle, Colleen wrenched the door open, the blast of heat that hit her making her recoil for a few seconds, shrinking back into her room once more before she took a deep breath and peered back out along the hallway.

  The flames were far worse on the stairs. The fire was spreading rapidly throughout the building, the blaze licking its way up the wooden banisters towards them.

  Colleen eyed her mother’s bedroom door through the thick black smoke. It was closed. Fuelled by adrenaline and the fact that if they didn’t get out of here soon they would both perish, Colleen pressed the T-shirt tightly to her face before making a run for it.

  Running, she felt light-headed, dizzy as she pushed the bedroom door open, immediately closing it once she was inside. The smoke was even denser in her mother’s room. It felt as if there was no oxygen in here at all.

  She could hardly breathe.

  ‘Mum?’ Colleen called as she made her way to her mother’s bed, feeling her way through the thick flumes of billowing smoke. Crouching back down, crawling towards the bed, the heat beneath the floor made the carpet beneath Colleen’s knees feel hot.

  ‘Mum, can you hear me?’ Choking as she frantically patted down the mattress, her hands lifting the duvet up and sweeping the empty sheets in search of her mother, she realised the bed was empty.

  ‘Mum are you in here?’

  Looking over towards the window. It was still shut. The opening at the top of the glass far too small for a person to climb out. The only other way out was down the stairs.

  Had her mother already got out?

  Panicking that she’d been left alone in the flat, that she was trapped here all by herself, Colleen started for the bedroom door again. Stopping suddenly before she got there as she felt a niggling inside her.

  Her instincts were kicking in. Her mother wouldn’t have left without her. She knew that with a certainty. About to leave the room, Colleen’s intuition told her not to be so hasty.

  Crawling back around to the other side of the bed this time, to the narrow gap down beside the bed and the wall, Colleen reached out her hand, pressing on the carpet, until her fingers touched against something soft. Fine. Her mother’s hair, splayed out around her head; her mother was lying on the bedroom floor.

  ‘Mum, we need to get out of here. Mum, wake up.’ She was crying now. Hysterical at finding her mother sprawled out on the floor, the reality of the situation was finally dawning on her.

  They might die here tonight.

  Colleen needed to get them out of here and fast.

  ‘Mum, please. Wake up.’ Wildly shaking her mother’s unresponsive body, Colleen fought desperately to try and wake her up.

  Edel didn’t move.

  Colleen had no choice but to try and hoist her up. Dragging her forcefully by her arms, using all her strength, she could barely move her. Her mother was a dead weight. Colleen wasn’t even sure if her mother was still breathing.

  Colleen was struggling too. Her own body getting weaker now as the T-shirt she’d wrapped around her head lay discarded on the bedroom floor where it had fallen in her struggle. She was breathing in too much toxic smoke. Choking frantically.

  Turning on the floor, Colleen groped her way back through the darkness of the black, poisonous smoke.

  Alert to a strange noise just outside the bedroom door as she neared it: a scraping sound. Scratching. Followed by a long strangled meowing.

  Mr Tiddles. Her mother’s precious cat. The poor thing was trapped out there on the hallway landing, petrified of the heat and the flames as it tried to claw its way inside the room to safety.

  Opening the door, Mr Tiddles ran inside.

  Only there wasn’t safety here either.

  It was a sanctuary of false pretence. A trap.

  Now they were in here, there was no way out.

  Colleen stared at the stairwell, the inferno too intense for her to even consider going down there. Her mother’s room had no way out either. Their only hope would be to get back to Colleen’s bedroom. She could open her window. Climb out onto the windowsill.

  At least then she would be able to breathe.

  Only she couldn’t leave her mother. Crawling back to her mother’s side once more, Colleen couldn’t go any further.

  She was too weak now. Her eyes blurry, she was losing her vision. She collapsed in a heap on the carpet. Unable to even lift her head up, she fought to stop her eyes from closing.

  Reaching out behind her, she grabbed hold of her mother’s hand, clutching it tightly as her chest wheezed, making her gasp loudly. Her lungs screamed for air.

  They were both going to die, here, in this flat tonight.

  Though Colleen wasn’t fighting that fact anymore. Instead, finally closing her eyes, she was resigned to it.

  Fourteen

  Rushing down the corridor of University College London Hospital to the ward where one of the nurses had just told Jimmy Byrne he could find Edel and Colleen Walsh, Jimmy wasn’t sure what to expect.

  Colleen had sounded distraught when she had phoned him, crying hysterically as she relayed the night’s events. Jimmy hadn’t been able to believe what he was hearing. The shop and the flat had gone up in flames. Colleen and Edel had almost died.

  Jimmy had driven down Euston Road like a demon to get here. Abandoning his Range Rover in the hospital car park, he’d hurried in towards the cubicle in the far corner, his eyes fixed on the lady perched at the end of the bed, not recognising the blackened, soot-covered face looking back at him, the whites of the lady’s eyes so bright in comparison they looked as if they were glowing.

  ‘Jesus, Edel?’ Jimmy gasped, realising who it was. He rushed to her side, instinctively taking Edel’s hand as she stared back at him seemingly unfazed. ‘You look awful!’

  Edel had aged suddenly. She was frailer somehow.

  Until she opened her mouth that was. Wrenching the oxygen mask from her face, after a few seconds of coughing and spluttering, she found her voice.

  ‘Oh that’s just fecking charming, isn’t it, Jimmy? I mean, I know my hair’s a bit of a state but you don’t need to be so rude.’ Cackling with laughter, Edel shot Jimmy one of her crooked smiles.

  Jimmy couldn’t help smiling too, glad that Edel was in such good spirits after the horrific ordeal she’d endured.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Jimmy,’ Edel said sincerely, pleased that he had come. Colleen had not long gone off to find a payphone. Jimmy must have raced across London in record time to get here. The man was a diamo
nd. Sensing the concern on his face, Edel pointed at the chair for him to sit down.

  ‘Colleen’s just gone off to get me a cup of tea. Not that I’m holding out much hope of it being half decent in this place. I’ll probably leave sicker than I came in but beggars can’t be choosers. I’m parched, and all they’ve given me is a poxy jug of water. What I’d really like is a stiff G&T, but there’s no chance of getting one of them around here!’

  ‘Colleen told me what happened, Edel. Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?’ Jimmy asked, worried, though he could see that Edel Walsh was still as feisty as ever. ‘Colleen said that you were unconscious. That you’d been dragged out of the flat by firefighters?’

  ‘I’m grand now, Jimmy. The lovely fireman who rescued us said we were lucky to get out unscathed. I don’t remember too much about the fire to be honest. One minute I was in my bed having trouble breathing and then next thing I knew I must have passed out.’ Edel shook her head, still unable to believe how much of a close brush with death she’d had. ‘The firefighters found me and Colleen and got us out in time, Jimmy. We both lost consciousness. The doctors have checked me over and they’re just treating me for a bit of smoke inhalation.’

  ‘Well you certainly seem a lot better than I was expecting,’ Jimmy said, in awe of the woman’s strength.

  ‘I’m just counting my blessings, Jimmy. The fireman told me that the flat and the shop are completely destroyed. Everything’s gone, Jimmy, but it could have been a lot worse. Colleen’s alive. I’m alive. That’s all that matters.’

  Jimmy nodded. She was right, of course, but the way she was just taking everything in her stride so calmly made him anxious. She had to still be in shock surely.

  ‘Things are things. Everything’s replaceable. I’m just glad that my Colleen’s okay.’ Reading the man’s thoughts, Edel looked sad then. ‘The firefighters couldn’t find Mr Tiddles though. You don’t think that you could have a look could you, Jimmy? I know he’s just a cat, and a wild little thing at that, but I’ve had him since he was a kitten. He's my baby. He’ll be scared on his own.’