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

by Casey Kelleher

  But the masked gunman got there first.

  Aiming the gun at Jimmy’s head, he shot him at point-blank range. The loud gunshot echoed out across Tilbury Docks as, this time, the bullet couldn’t fail to hit its target.

  The searing pain that ripped through Jimmy’s skull felt like an explosion. A flash of white light, temporarily blinding him as a ringing sound screamed loudly inside his ears, replaced as quickly as it had come by numbness.

  Then, nothing at all.

  Jimmy Byrne was dead, lying in a pool of his own blood on the cold concrete of Tilbury dockyard.

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘Fuck!’ Marlon shouted as he pressed the buttons of his phone, driving at full speed back down the dirt road. The white Beamer hot on his heels.

  Marlon waited for his accomplice to pick up before screaming down the phone.

  ‘You fucking killed him, man! That wasn’t the fucking plan!’

  Desperate to get the fuck out of there, Marlon was on autopilot now as he floored the accelerator and drove like a maniac through the tall metal gates. He didn’t even know how the fuck he was managing to drive the van and talk at the same time. He couldn’t even think straight right now.

  Jimmy Byrne was fucking dead.

  That had not been the plan at all. They were supposed to just get in there and get the money. In and out. No one was supposed to get hurt. The guns were only being used as decoration, that’s what Marlon had been told. They’d only brought them along because they’d guessed, rightly, that Jimmy wouldn’t do as he’d been told and turn up alone. They wanted to make sure that no one caused them any trouble.

  ‘He’s fucking dead,’ Marlon said again, repeating the words over and over, as if somehow the information would sink in. Only, Marlon was in shock now. The sheer panic evident in his voice. Shaking violently, his body flooded with so much adrenaline that he felt like his heart was going to burst out through his chest.

  This was bad. Really bad.

  From where Marlon had been standing, further back in the yard, facing the bright lights of the motor boat, he hadn’t been able to see fuck all. Certainly not the men’s faces.

  He had a vague idea that the man on the boat had been Kieran Dobbs. His fucking mate. He was dead too. As the gunshots had fired out around him, Marlon had simply frozen. He’d watched as Jimmy had tried to make a run for it, holding the double-barrel shotgun in the man’s direction, only there was no way that Marlon could shoot him.

  Not Jimmy.

  The man had helped Marlon. All those years ago, when Marlon had first rocked up at Jimmy’s warehouse looking for work, Jimmy had given him a chance when no one else would. Aware that Marlon had no experience, the man had taken him under his wing. He’d given Marlon a chance to prove himself, letting him start out at the bottom, but slowly Marlon had worked his way up.

  That was the most head fucked thing about all this.

  Robbing the man, Marlon could just about justify. Jimmy had money coming out of his ears. Half a million was nothing to the man. For Marlon, though, it would change his life.

  Killing Jimmy had never, ever been part of that plan.

  What the fuck had they done? They’d both be royally fucked now. Stealing a load of cash from Jimmy would have initially pissed a few people off, but murdering the man in cold blood, this was the start of a fucking war. There would be repercussions.

  ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’ Marlon said, trying to hold the phone to his ear steadily, as his hand shook violently. He tried not to cry.

  ‘You need to lay low for a bit. Go home. I’ll give you a call tomorrow and tell you what we’re going to do,’ the voice at the other end of the phone said calmly, as if nothing remotely untoward had just happened. As if Jimmy Byrne hadn’t just been murdered.

  That was the scariest fucking thing of all.

  Then the phone went dead.

  Marlon watched as the Beamer sped up, before overtaking him.

  ‘FUCK!’ he bellowed, thumping his hand hard on the steering wheel; scanning the roads around him to make sure that he wasn’t being followed, he felt paranoid as fuck now, convinced that someone would see him, or that his motor would be picked up by CCTV.

  Marlon may not have pulled the trigger but he was part of this. He was there. That made him an accomplice.

  Screeching the van to a halt, he pulled over at the side of the road. Scrambling out of the driver’s door, almost falling out on his arse in his haste, Marlon doubled over as he threw up violently all over the gravel.

  He was crying now; he hadn’t even realised until he felt the tears streaming down his face. The harrowing image of Jimmy lying on the floor, his blood pooling around him; the gunshot wound to his head; the sickening gaping hole in the man’s skull.

  Spitting out the last mouthful of bile that burned inside his mouth, Marlon wiped his mouth with his sleeve before getting back inside the van.

  As the sudden flash of headlights reflected in his rear-view mirror startled him, Marlon almost did a double take. Turning around to check that he wasn’t just hallucinating, that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, his mind went into panic mode as he spotted the car, just off in the distance behind him, coming out from the dockyard that Marlon and his assailant in the white Beamer had just come from.

  Hurtling towards him at speed, it was gaining on him.

  Shit!

  Marlon put his foot down, desperate to get out of there before the cavalry arrived. He swerved his motor onto the opposite side of the uneven dirt track. Staring in the mirror he could see the lights hurtling towards him now. Getting closer. Following him.

  ‘FUCK!’ he shouted again.

  Someone else had been at the dockyard tonight? Someone who had slipped underneath the radar.

  Someone knew.

  Almost losing control of the van, Marlon skidded across a muddy verge, his heart pounding inside his chest, as he realised the severity of the situation. The Beamer was long gone. It was only him out here. If he was caught for this, he’d be killed. Whoever it was following him would demand retribution for Jimmy.

  Sweating now as he gripped the steering wheel tightly, Marlon forced his foot to the floor with force, putting some distance between them as he sped up once he reached Forge Road. Ahead he could see the old fort. That would be the obvious place to turn into, though, right now, Marlon couldn’t afford to be obvious.

  He skidded around the sharp bend, taking the narrow exit on the left instead. Opposite the fort, he veered the van up a narrow dark mud track, pulling in behind the hedgerow that lined an old abandoned dockers’ pub that sat in complete darkness.

  Killing the ignition, and switching off the headlights, Marlon sank down into his seat, his heart pounding so dramatically that he could hear the dull rhythmic thud inside his ears.

  Glancing up into his rear-view mirror, he waited, praying that the car wouldn’t pull in behind him as he saw another flash of bright white light. He winced. Closing his eyes, resigned to the fact that the game was up for him. Only to open them a second later to darkness.

  The car had driven right past him.

  Unable to believe his luck, Marlon wasn’t taking any more chances. Leaving his headlights off, he started the engine and made his way back on himself, until he reached the muddy verge further back that he’d passed minutes before. Cutting across the grass, he entered the main industrial estate on the other side. Then hitting a couple of backroads and, minutes later, Marlon was back on the main road, switching his lights back on now as he followed the exit signs for the slip road that led to the motorway.

  He kept his eyes on his rear-view mirror. Scanning the deserted road behind him, he felt a small fleeting sense of relief.

  Though it was only fleeting.

  Despite the fact that he’d managed to lose whoever it was that was following him, the night had gone horribly fucking wrong.

  Jimmy Byrne was dead, and someone was onto them.

  Marlon didn’t have a cl
ue what the fuck was going on right now, but what he did know was that if there was any chance of there being so much as a flicker of heat on them then he needed to do as he’d been told and lay low for a bit.

  Wait for the next call.

  The last place he intended to go tonight was home.

  Speeding up, it looked as though Gina Jones would be getting that visit that she was harping on about after all.

  Thirty-Eight

  Alex Costa had lost count of the amount of times that he had replayed the video on Gavin Hurst’s laptop. Over and over again. Each time his eyes homing in on those piercing green eyes of Jimmy’s. So blissfully unaware that he was being filmed.

  Alex was taking it all in. Every word, every movement. He’d studied Jimmy’s expressions, his body language, as he writhed around in the bed with the younger man.

  He’d been right that Gavin had been young. This scrawny-looking prick of a kid, strutting about his flat completely naked as if he’d just walked in from shooting a Calvin Klein commercial. All buff, and toned. His mop of blond hair. Smiling and laughing playfully with Jimmy. At ease with the man. Gavin Hurst had been at least two decades Jimmy’s junior. Barely twenty years old. Fuck! And to add insult to injury Jimmy looked smitten with the kid. This wasn’t just a casual fling like Jimmy had made out. Alex could see how relaxed both men were in each other’s company. The way that they fucked with the passion that only two men in love could. There was such intimacy between them both afterwards too, when Jimmy held the boy in his arms, as they’d both shared a cigarette in bed. The affinity between the two men disappearing quickly after that, as Gavin Hurst got up and sauntered across the room. Every part of him still exposed. Smiling into the camera as he passed it, his back to Jimmy. Though it hadn’t taken long for Jimmy to cotton on to what the sly fucker had been up to.

  Seconds later the kid was on the floor.

  The wrath of Jimmy as the man lost the fucking plot. Punching the boy repeatedly, over and over again, until his body lay still on the floor. Completely motionless. Dead.

  Alex watched then as Jimmy slumped down on the floor, staring at Gavin’s body as he cried openly. This was the bit that cut Alex to the bone. The bit that made his heart physically ache inside his chest.

  Jimmy hadn’t just acted out of anger.

  He’d acted out of love.

  Hurting from being betrayed by someone he loved, Alex watched until the end. Seeing the shock as the man spotted the laptop filming him. Watching the anger on his face as he pulled the wires from the machine.

  Alex slammed the laptop shut. He dragged the duvet from his body, throwing it across the back of the sofa that he’d spent the past two nights sleeping on, unable to face going to bed alone. That was the pathetic mess that he was now. He couldn’t even bear to sleep, convinced he’d be hounded by nightmares. He chose to stay up and drink himself to oblivion instead.

  Making his way across the lounge floor, still pissed, stumbling as he went, Alex had trashed the place. Books and magazines. A pile of paperwork that had sat on his dining table, all of it scattered across the carpet. An empty bottle of Scotch. Pizza boxes, full of food that he couldn’t stomach finishing. The stale cheesy smell suddenly catching him off guard.

  He only just made it to the toilet in time. Leaning over, his hands on the wall either side to steady him, Alex threw up. The memory of the video etched on his brain now, as he gagged violently until his stomach was empty, his throat raw. Wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, Alex moved over to the sink.

  Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he barely recognised the wreck of a man that stared back at him. He looked like shit: dark, puffy bags under his eyes; the short designer stubble on his chin a full beard.

  It had been three days since he’d heard the news that Jimmy was dead. Three days that somehow felt like no time at all and forever all at once. Alex hadn’t left his apartment since he’d heard the news. He’d barely managed to leave his sofa. Consumed by such a complex web of emotions, his head was all over the place. He hated Jimmy for what he’d done to him and he was angry that the last time they’d seen each other they’d argued. Jimmy had only confessed about fucking the kid because he’d needed Alex’s help. Alex would probably have never found out otherwise. Jimmy wouldn’t have told him jack shit.

  He’d been good at that – keeping secrets. He’d used him again. Right up to the very end.

  About to play the video one more time, determined to inflict as much suffering on himself as he could so that he could numb all his feelings towards Jimmy, so that he could hate the man – then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much – he was interrupted as a call came in on his phone.

  It was Jack Taylor: his friend who’d been discreetly looking into tracing whoever it was had blackmailed and murdered Jimmy.

  ‘We didn’t find anything, Alex,’ Taylor said, regretfully.

  Alex closed his eyes. The laptop and Jimmy’s phone were the only leads they had. Alex was certain that they’d find something.

  ‘Are you sure? Can’t you check again?’

  ‘I’ve personally checked both units a dozen times over, Alex; whoever it was behind Jimmy’s demise was fucking clever. They made sure that there was no way of tracing anything back to them. I’m still waiting on a warrant so we can access the laptop’s IP address, but going on the findings so far, or lack of, I should say, I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

  There was silence, until Jack Taylor spoke again. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t give you better news. I’ll get onto the DI in charge of the case here and see if he’s uncovered any other evidence from down at the dockyard. Maybe we’ll have more luck with that?’

  ‘Thanks, let’s hope so,’ Alex said, doubting that very much as he hung up the phone.

  He was in limbo now. The last few days passing him by in a drunken haze while he’d waited for this phone call, and now it had been confirmed.

  There were no clues, no fucking leads. Jack shit.

  Unable to sit in this apartment on his own for the third day in a row, Alex decided to get dressed.

  He needed to get out of here. Get some fresh air.

  The four walls were closing in on him. Suffocating him.

  Alex might have to live out the rest of his days broken hearted, knowing that deep down Jimmy never really loved him, not that way that Alex had loved Jimmy.

  Jimmy Byrne was dead.

  Nothing and no one could bring him back now and Alex’s only consolation was that at least Jimmy couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  He couldn’t have him, but no one else could either.

  Thirty-Nine

  ‘Right that’s it, you two little buggers are going to bed!’

  Making a dive for his two sons Marlon dragged the boys apart just as Taye, the smaller of the twin boys, grabbed a fistful of Marlon Junior’s hair. The boys were fighting over a toy that they both wanted to play with, screaming hysterically as they dragged each other across the patio.

  ‘Are you just going to sit there and let them beat the living shit out of each other?’ Marlon asked, staring over at Jordanna who was currently sprawled out on the sunlounger by the pool, dressed in her skimpy designer bikini and a pair of ridiculously high wedged sandals. She was blissfully enjoying the warm evening sun as if she was the Queen of bleeding Sheba.

  Seemingly oblivious to the fact her children were near to killing each other, Jordanna took another sip of her white wine spritzer.

  ‘Boys will be boys!’ she pouted, as she did her usual of making allowances for her children’s boisterous behaviour.

  ‘Spoilt little shits more like!’ Marlon spat. ‘They don’t do fuck all that you tell them.’

  ‘They’re two, Marlon!’ Jordanna said in a huff, shooting Marlon a look as if he had two heads on his shoulders as she slammed down her half-finished spritzer on the patio table.

  ‘I should have known that this last-minute romantic getaway of yours would be too good to be true,’ she complained. ‘How the
hell is there supposed to be any romance when the kids are running me ragged?’

  Jordanna was over the moon when Marlon told her they were going on a little holiday to Marbella. She’d always wanted to go there, and when they’d first rocked up at the luxury villa in the heart of Costa Del Sol, Jordanna had felt her dreams had come true. The whitewashed modern villa must have cost Marlon an absolute fortune, but he’d insisted that he had it all in hand.

  Fuck knows how.

  Still, Jordanna wasn’t going to complain. As she stared out over the bustling marina of Puerto Banus, all she could think about was how far away she felt from her boring, monotonous life back home in their pokey flat in Vauxhall.

  ‘Just sort them out, will you, Jord?’ Marlon said, hoping she would get up off her fat lazy arse and actually do something today. Marlon was sick to death of listening to the boys screaming and crying. His head was already wrecked as it was. He just wanted a bit of peace and quiet so that he could think straight.

  ‘I tell you what, crazy little notion here, I know, but seeing as you’re their father, Marlon, how about you deal with them?’ Jordanna said; the noise of her two boys playing behind her didn’t bother her one bit. Of course they were going to fight from time to time, that’s what boys did. She certainly wasn’t going to stress herself out over every little spat that they had.

  The truth was that Jordanna actually liked that her sons were both so strong-willed and had minds of their own. They might only be two, but already they were fearless and unrelenting and Jordanna didn’t have any notions about taming them. Besides, constantly disciplining the two boys was too much like hard bloody work. Not that Marlon would know anything about that. Since the kids had come along, he’d been only too happy to leave her to the bulk of the children’s care.