‘Me and the boys, we’re going back to the flat. Without you.’ Chucking down his passport onto the marble floor, Jordanna couldn’t even bear to look Marlon in the eye as she spoke, and he knew with certainty that she really meant what she was saying this time.
This wasn’t the usual dramatics, the normal screaming and fighting that Marlon had come to expect when Jordanna lost her temper with him. She meant every word she was saying. Cold. Withdrawn. She was really leaving him. Refusing to fall for Marlon’s empty promises, his lies.
Jordanna clutched her boys to her hips as she carried them out the front door.
‘I’m sorry!’ Marlon called after her, knowing that it was hopeless. That Jordanna had made up her mind.
‘So am I!’ she shouted back.
Marlon watched until the cab disappeared out of sight, then going back in he slammed the door, leaned up against the frame. She’d really left him this time.
Only, making his way back in the kitchen to finish the rest of the whisky, Marlon realised that he wasn’t alone.
Forty-Two
‘Fuck!’
Turning around, the last person Marlon Jackson expected to see, sitting at the breakfast bar as he walked back into the villa’s kitchen, was Jack Taylor.
‘Jesus Christ, Jack, you scared the living shit out of me!’ Marlon tried to keep the nerves out of his voice as he spoke, tried to look calm. He could feel the beads of sweat forming on his forehead, the sinking feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, but he already knew. Jack Taylor, Jimmy Byrne’s bent copper, was here in Spain. Here at the villa. That could only mean one thing – Marlon was completely fucked now.
‘Women, huh! It sounds like you’ve well and truly pissed her off this time though, mate,’ Jack said, avoiding the question as he nodded over at the front door that Marlon had just slammed behind him.
‘We had a row,’ Marlon stuttered. His head was spinning, as he tried to piece together what the fuck was going on. How did Jordanna know about Gina? How? And why the fuck was Jack Taylor here?
He didn’t have to wait long for the answers.
‘These fuckers can land you in all sorts of trouble if you’re not careful.’ As if reading Marlon’s mind, Jack Taylor waved the mobile phone that Jordanna had given him in the air towards the man, deliberately taunting him; unable to hide the smug grin on his face as he let Marlon know that he’d been caught red-handed.
The phone. Shit! Jordanna had found the phone.
‘Not very smart, was it? Leaving shit like this lying about, especially given the content,’ Jack said, his eyes not leaving Marlon’s, drinking in the man’s fear at being caught out.
Marlon didn’t react. He didn’t know how to. Standing there looking at Jack Taylor with a gormless expression on his face, his heart pounding in his chest, he looked as guilty as hell and he knew it.
‘You know! I think Jordanna was more bothered about all those messages on here between you and this slapper,’ Jack said, shaking his head as if Marlon needed reminding of how he’d brought this little visit on himself.
Then tapping the phone and scrolling through the messages, he shook his head disapprovingly.
‘But, you know, as nice as these charming interactions between you both are, where you’ve been shoving your cock really doesn’t interest me.’ Glaring at Marlon. Waiting for the man to say something. To defend himself, to speak up, Jack Taylor continued: ‘I have to hand it to your Mrs, she had balls calling me and telling me what she did.’ He let the penny drop as to exactly why he was here. ‘It’s not nice, is it? Having someone fuck you over? I guess it’s true what they say: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Ain’t that just the truth?’
He smirked then. ‘Nice little gaff you’re renting here. Jimmy must have been slipping you some money that none of the rest of us were aware of!’ He glanced around the villa, knowing full well how Marlon had got the money. ‘I have to admit it’s impressive. All open-plan. Makes the place feel huge, doesn’t it? All tiled in white too. Immaculate. Be a real shame to make a mess in here, wouldn’t it?’
Reaching down to the waistband of his trousers, Jack pulled out the gun with a silencer on the end of it, and pointed it straight at Marlon’s head.
‘Whoa! What are you doing?’ Marlon said, his words coming out in a nervous stutter as he held his hands up in protest.
Alone in the villa now. Alone and faced with a gun that Marlon had no doubt Jack Taylor would happily use, he glanced at the door, his eyes resting on the latch, wondering how much time it would take him to reach it, to get outside. Jack would be on him by then. He was certain of it.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Jack said, following Marlon’s gaze. ‘Now let’s get down to business, shall we? We both know why I’m here, Marlon, don’t we? Let’s not play silly games. We’re way beyond that now, don’t you think? You’ve got some serious talking to do!’ he sneered.
Jack Taylor had never personally been a fan of Marlon’s. He’d always found the bloke far too cocky for his liking. The other men had all joked that Jimmy Byrne had a soft spot for Marlon. It had been a running joke because Jimmy had taken the lad on and given him a chance when most of them wouldn’t have given the likes of Marlon so much as the time of day if they met him in the street. He was a regular wide boy. Too much chat, not enough action. Though, luckily for Marlon, he’d somehow managed to prove Jimmy right. He’d turned out to be a good little worker, doing whatever jobs that Jimmy had lined up for him without so much as a question; and because of how keen he was to always get the job done, Marlon had ended up working his way up the ladder.
He had become one of the firm.
He was trusted.
Only now he’d committed the ultimate crime: he’d conspired against his boss and double-crossed him.
‘I didn’t do it,’ Marlon said. ‘Please, I swear to God, Jack, I didn’t shoot Jimmy.’ Marlon was pleading for his life now.
He’d sworn that he wouldn’t ever say a word. That he would take the secret he kept to his grave; only, faced with a gun pointed at his head, Marlon hoped he could see that promise through. He might be a lot of things, but one thing he wasn’t was a grass.
‘I swear on my boys’ lives. Taye and Marlon Junior’s lives. It wasn’t me that shot him.’ Marlon was crying now. Picturing it all in his mind, as if he was back there. ‘If I’d known that Jimmy was going to get shot, I would never have got involved. I swear to you, Jack. It was only ever about the money for me. We were supposed to get it and get our arses out of there.’
‘Who pulled the trigger?’ Jack said, his finger hovering above the trigger of his gun.
Marlon was whimpering. He knew that he was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Jack would kill him no matter what. The only way that Marlon might be able to get out of this was to try and distract the fucker.
Try and escape.
‘Who was it?’
Marlon didn’t speak. He wouldn’t. His mouth had gone dry, his throat closing up. Losing his bottle, he felt like he was going to wet himself.
‘I’m not saying shit,’ he said, praying that he was doing the right thing trying to call Jack’s bluff. He needed to try and buy some more time.
‘Well you see now, that’s a real shame,’ Jack sneered. ‘See, you are going to tell me who killed Jimmy even if it takes the very last breath in your tortured battered body.’
He walked towards Marlon, indicating to him to make his way to the front door. Jack kept the gun on Marlon. ‘One false move, and I’m going to fucking shoot, do you understand?’
Marlon nodded. He could see by the look in his eyes that the man didn’t need much encouragement.
For now all Marlon could do was try and stay alive.
‘Good, now fucking well move. We’ve got a plane to catch. I know some people back in the UK that will be very interested to speak to you, Marlon.’ Jack Taylor grinned. ‘Very interested indeed.’
Forty-Thre
e
His head pounding from the brute force of the kicking that Jack Taylor had given him, Marlon Jackson could barely lift his head. Back in England now, and sitting in what he recognised as one of Jimmy’s many barns that the man had used to store his illegal shipments, every part of Marlon’s body was screaming out in pain.
He could feel the hot sticky liquid dripping down the back of his neck. He was bleeding? Trying to raise his arms so that he could check, he realised he couldn’t. They’d been tied tightly behind his back. Strapping him to the chair, the plastic cable ties were so tight that they were cutting in to his wrists.
Even trying to force his eyes open was a mission. Swollen shut, he could just about see out of the tiny gap in his left eye, focusing on a light that looked like a doorway, a shadowy figure standing nearby.
Marlon tried to scream, to shout for help. It was no use though. His lips were cracked and dry from where his mouth had been forced open, the material that had been shoved inside his mouth stopping him from calling out. He felt weak and exhausted from the beating that he’d received. He must have blacked out.
‘Nice of you to finally join us again,’ Jack Taylor spat, pulling the cloth from the man's mouth, glad that Marlon had regained consciousness.
He heard another noise then. The heavy footfall of a man nearing him. Getting faster as he approached; his footsteps speeding up. Then the full force of a punch to the side of his head.
Screaming out, crying, as his right ear exploded. An excruciating pain erupting inside his head, making him feel suddenly sick, dizzy, as if he was about to pass out again. His head lolled to one side.
‘You fucking bastard!’ this was Daniel Byrne now.
Marlon didn’t even have time to pray for the attack to stop as another punch landed on the opposite side of his head, the dull thud radiating through him once more.
‘That’s enough.’ A female voice.
Nancy? What the fuck was going on here?
‘I’ll say when it’s enough!’
Carrying on with the attack, Daniel Byrne continued raining punches down on Marlon, lifting the man out of the chair by a few inches with the force of his blows, as the seat rocked violently from side to side.
Marlon could barely comprehend where he was, what was happening.
‘I said that’s ENOUGH!’
All he knew was that the female voice he’d heard had commanded the beating to stop. And then the punches had suddenly stopped. For that alone Marlon was grateful. As the ringing in his ears subsided, he concentrated on the clicking of heels as they crossed the cold concrete warehouse floor, the heady scent of sweet musky perfume filling the air around him.
It was Nancy Byrne, he was sure of it.
Trying to focus, to keep his head up, he could taste the familiar metallic bitter taste of blood in the back of his throat.
‘He’s no good to us dead,’ Nancy said. In the four days since her father had been murdered, her world had been turned upside down.
Her father, as it turned out, had been living a lie.
‘We know about the recording,’ she said, barely able to digest what she’d heard had been on it. The sordid, disgusting recording didn’t ring true in Nancy’s world, but she knew that Jack Taylor had told her the truth. It hurt. The not knowing. Out of everyone, Nancy had always thought that she had been the one closest to her dad. That she’d known him the best.
Turns out she hadn’t known him at all.
‘We know about how you tried to blackmail our father.’
Daniel knew too, though he’d taken the news far worse than Nancy. Consumed with anger that he had no means of channelling, Daniel just wanted to lash out. To make Marlon pay for his part in their father’s murder.
Nancy wanted that too, but first she wanted him to talk.
‘Who pulled the trigger?’
Marlon shook his head. ‘I don’t know about any recording. I only went there to get the money.’
Bang!
Daniel administered another almighty punch to Marlon’s head; this time perforating his eardrum with the blow.
‘For fuck’s sake, Daniel, do you want him to talk or pass out again?’ Jack said, getting annoyed at how little progress they seemed to be making. He never liked Marlon, always found the bloke to be a cocky little prick; give the bloke his due though – he could take an almighty beating. He knew that he was fucked no matter what he said, and kudos for the man for not opening his mouth and blabbing like the snake Jack had had him down for. As much as he hated Marlon for being part of the plot to kill his friend, he also had a begrudging respect.
Many men would have given up ages ago.
‘Tell us who did the job with you, Marlon,’ Nancy intervened, trying to use a different tactic; her voice sounding soft, almost kind. ‘We know it wasn’t you, so if you tell us then you get to walk out of here. You’re not who we want. You know that, don’t you? Tell us who did the job, Marlon.’
Marlon didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Unable to even say his own name now, he was drifting in and out of consciousness. The pain in the side of his head was eating him up inside, so acute that he could barely tolerate it. Every now and again, he’d hear part of a sentence, a conversation. His name being spoken. The three people in the room talking.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Jack Taylor said, disappointed by the turn of events. He’d done what he thought was the right thing and served Marlon up to Nancy and Daniel so that Jimmy’s kids could get the retribution for their father that they so needed.
Only Marlon wasn’t even going to give them that. The sly little fucker was going to take what he knew to his grave.
‘Alex will be here soon. If anyone will be able to get the truth out of him, Alex will,’ Nancy said, the steeliness in her voice sounding just like her father’s as she spoke with full certainty. Nancy was counting on it.
She just hoped Alex hurried up; they were getting nowhere fast without him. But Alex Costa would get Marlon talking.
‘I want him dealt with.’
Marlon knew that they were just calling his bluff. Making out that they were going to kill him, so that he’d finally confess. Marlon knew how to play the game. They’d have to let him go eventually. He just needed to keep to his story and say jack shit. Though, that was getting harder and harder to do. He didn’t think he could physically take much more.
Letting them all know that he would never talk, Marlon mumbled.
‘Wait. He’s saying something,’ Nancy said.
‘Say it again, Marlon, we didn’t hear you.’
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he half laughed, half cried as he mouthed: ‘I said, fuck you.’
Daniel Byrne’d had enough now.
Grabbing Taylor’s gun from the table, he pointed it straight at the man’s head, as Taylor and Nancy flew at him to try and stop him.
‘Don’t do it, Daniel, he hasn’t told us…”
“Told us what? Look at the fucking state of him, Nancy. He ain’t going to tell us shit. He was there, Nance. He may not have pulled the trigger but he was part of it. This cunt is just as guilty.”
Marlon lifted his head.
His vision blurred, he stared at Daniel Byrne. Standing over him, the gun pointed at his head.
His ears were ringing so loudly inside his skull. The pain so immense that he was barely conscious.
Opening his mouth to speak, to put an end to all this madness. Only now the words wouldn’t come.
Daniel pulled the trigger.
‘This is for my dad, you fucking obnoxious piece of shit!’
‘Just wait—’ Nancy’s words came too late, abruptly stopping mid-sentence as she watched the bullet enter Marlon’s head.
Marlon’s last thoughts as his neck snapped back, as the bullet entered his temple, were how his accomplice had assured him that no matter what happened he wasn’t to talk, no matter how convincing they sounded they wouldn’t end his life.
He’d been played right to the end.
Forty-Four
Watching helplessly as the six pallbearers lifted her father’s coffin out from the back of the vintage hearse and onto their shoulders, carrying Jimmy Byrne to his final resting place, Nancy Byrne finally allowed herself to cry.
It was a welcome release.
For weeks now, since her father had passed, she’d been left numb, completely in shock.
Unable to comprehend that her father, so strong, so powerful, had really been murdered. His life snuffed out, just like that.
Nancy was so used to hiding her emotions from the rest of the world, from herself, that her father’s death hadn’t felt real.
Until today. Her father’s funeral. The day that her beloved dad was being laid to rest.
There would be no escaping her grief now.
She switched off from the priest’s recital, from the words that were thrown around. Empty, meaningless words.
Just another funeral. Another person laid in the earth, turning to dust. Nancy stared at the congregation. The sea of faces. So many Faces.
All of London’s finest were here to pay their respects today. Her father’s so-called friends. Crooks, criminals. Gangsters.
These people didn’t care about her father, not really, not like Nancy did.
Her father was her hero. He was the one person that had made her feel as if she could one day rule the world, as if nothing was beneath her. The one person in her life that Nancy had adored and loved like no other.
The Betrayed: A shocking, gritty thriller that will hook you from the first page Page 27