by Martina Cole
The vehicle was a Range-Rover, but the grille at the front had two large pieces of metal butting out of it.
The Range-Rover mounted the pavement and crashed into a G-reg, top-of-the-range Mercedes, sending it crashing into the BMW beside it. The cars were then pushed along, the screeching noise deafening as metal scraped metal. The Mercedes was now on its side, looking like something prehistoric in the dim moonlight.
Colin and Charlie, grabbing their scattered wits, jumped from the Rolls-Royce Corniche. Both unused to handguns, they immediately forgot them in the heat of the moment. They stood, Colin with the half-built joint still in his fingers, as the Range-Rover smashed up the cars in front of them. The car lot was a wasteground in five minutes and the Range-Rover, used previously for ram raiding, drove sedately along the road, the occupants giving the boys a two-fingered salute as they passed them.
Five more minutes went by and the police arrived, alerted by a woman in the flats along from the car lot who could hear eight car alarms going off at once. Colin and Charlie were already gone.
Paddy heard the news fifteen minutes after it happened and blew what was known in the building trade as a gasket.
Stephen Brunos answered the phone and listened in amazement to what Paddy was telling him. Quickly getting dressed, he left his flat in Tobacco Dock, taking his car keys and his wallet. It wasn’t until he was driving towards Essex that he realised he didn’t have any socks on.
He arrived at Donna’s at three thirty-five in the morning. Davey and Carol Jackson were already there, as were the police. Donna was sitting in her kitchen in shock, Dolly was making tea, and Carol Jackson was calling the police, the perpetrators of the offence, and anyone else she could lay her tongue on, whoresons.
Detective Inspector Richie Richardson was already sick to death of her.
‘Mrs Brunos, have you any idea who would do this to your car lot?’
Donna shook her head for what seemed the millionth time. ‘No idea whatsoever. I’m just glad we’re insured.’
She looked at Davey as she said this and he had the grace to drop his eyes. The car lot, as well as all the sites, had all been hopelessly under-insured. It was one of the first things Donna had sorted out. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for a car dealer to under-insure, because some of their cars were ringers, or cut and shunts. No one in their right mind insured them, that was up to the purchaser. Donna, in ignorance of this, got the insurance increased.
Dolly had made yet another cup of tea and everyone was sitting subdued around the large antique scrubbed pine table.
The DI spoke to Davey. ‘Have you had any trouble with a customer recently? Maybe someone who bought a beast off you? It happens all the time.’
Davey straightened up and said nastily, ‘None of our motors are beasts, mate, we deal in prestige cars. You saw them for yourself, didn’t you? Mercs, BMWs, Rollers. We ain’t talking Dagenham dustbins here, an odd Sierra or fucking Metro! They were decent motors!’
Richie Richardson waved a hand to calm him down. ‘How about part-exchange motors, any pigs there? You sell them off, I take it?’
Davey shook his head. ‘Go straight through the auctions at Chelmsford. Anything under a D-reg Jag is useless to us. We shove them straight through at Chelmsford as I keep telling you. You don’t part-ex on a forty grand motor with a fucking Reliant Robin, do you get my drift?’
‘All right, all right, keep your hair on. I have to ask these questions. Any suspicious characters around the car lot lately?’
Carol Jackson pulled on her cigarette and said, ‘They’re all weird, mate. We get all sorts - daydreamers who want to sit and smell the leather upholstery and imagine pulling a bird in a nice motor, to old boys who can afford the cars but go back to their Granadas. We don’t keep tabs on the people who look, for Christ’s sake. Most of our working day is spent with people who do just that - look!’
The DI finished his tea. ‘I’ll be off then. Listen, if you get any thoughts, give me a bell, OK?’
As he got to the kitchen door he turned back. ‘By the way, has anyone got it in for your old man, Mrs Brunos? I hear he’s doing a long stretch.’
Donna looked up with frightened eyes. ‘Not that I know of. Everyone liked my Georgio. But I could ask him, I suppose, when I go to see him.’
The DI smiled at her kindly. ‘You do that, love.’ He nodded once more and walked from the room followed by his sidekick, DC Lines.
Richie Richardson felt sorry for Donna Brunos. It had come as a shock to her, a genuine shock. This wasn’t an insurance scam as he had first suspected; there was more to it than met the eye. As he passed through the large entrance hall and took in the antique clock, he shook his head in disbelief.
Crime, it seemed, certainly did pay, and bloody well by the looks of it. He himself had a seventy grand mortgage and his house was worth less than he had paid for it, he had a wife and three kids, and was lucky if he got a week in Bournemouth once every two years.
He banged the front door with a satisfying slam on his way out.
Stephen saw out Davey and Carol and sent Dolly up to bed. In the kitchen he covered Donna’s hand with his own.
‘It sounds to me like vandals, love. Don’t let it get to you.’
Donna sniffed loudly. ‘Why, though? Why would vandals want to do something like that? I know a few years ago we had paint thrown over the motors, that’s kids’ idea of vandalism. This seems . . . Oh, I don’t know, more sinister somehow.’
Stephen smiled a smile he would have sworn he didn’t have in him. ‘Kids are much more aggressive nowadays,’ he told her. ‘From what that woman said it sounded like a ram-raiding vehicle. They’re out-and-out fuckers now, you’ve only got to read the papers.’
Donna was quiet as she listened to him. The silence was getting heavy when she finally spoke.
‘Ram-raiders, as I understand it Stephen, go after electrical goods, or clothing, Reeboks and stuff like that. Why would you just smash up a car lot? There’s no logic in that. If you had a vehicle with the capacity to smash through Dixons’ window, why use it on a car front? There’s more to this than meets the eye.’
‘Now why would you think that, Donna?’
She wiped her nose with a tissue. Even this action was performed gracefully.
‘I think there’s a lot I’m not being told. By you, Davey, and everyone.’
Stephen laughed heartily. ‘Don’t be silly, Donna.’
‘You sounded just like Georgio then. He would say that to me. Those exact words, in fact. Listen, Stephen, I have realised in the few months he’s been away that we were living way beyond our means, that everything was hopelessly under-insured: the car lot, the sites, even this house. If this place had gone up in flames one night, we’d have been lucky to buy a three-bedroomed semi on the money we would have got off the insurance. The land would have been worth more. There was hardly any money in the business accounts, I had to talk that arsehole Pemberton into extending our credit to finish the building work, yet Georgio and I were taking holidays all over the globe. Our cars, I have also found out, are lease-hired. Georgio’s is being repossessed, while mine is now paid up, courtesy of some jewellery I had. So please, Stephen, don’t ever tell me not to be silly again. I love Georgio with all my heart, with my very breath, and I am going to visit him tomorrow and get this all straightened out, once and for all.’
She stood up unsteadily and walked to the kitchen door. ‘You are welcome to one of the guest rooms, there’s four of them. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Donna went out and Stephen heard her footsteps as she padded up to bed in her slippers.
Of everything she had said, the most shocking thing of all was the word ‘arsehole’. In twenty years he had never heard Donna mutter a single obscenity. She was really upset, that much was obvious, and more so was the fact that they had all underestimated her, Georgio most of all.
Stephen lit himself a cigarette and sat in the quiet kitchen. Maybe it was best for her t
o find out the truth of everything now, before it all got too involved. But how would Donna react to knowing that a man like Lewis was on her tail?
The thought of Lewis frightened even him shitless, Stephen admitted. What on earth would it do to a gentle creature like Donna?
He hoped that his brother had some answers for her, because he sure as hell didn’t, whether true, made up, or induced by drugs. He had nothing to say to her at all.
Donna got back into bed, her mind numb now. The car lot had been destroyed by vandals . . . She shook her head in the darkness. She didn’t believe that.
Whoever had destroyed the car lot had a reason, and the reason had something to do with Georgio. She wasn’t sure of this because she had no proof; it was purely gut instinct.
She had found out so much over the last few months, and now she had to face Georgio with her knowledge, or lack of knowledge as the case may be. But on one thing she was determined. Tomorrow she would find out exactly what was going on. Georgio owed it to her.
More importantly, she owed it to herself to find out.
She was still awake when the first fingers of light crept in at her bedroom windows.
Chapter Nine
The prison environment was already getting to Georgio. He wondered, at times, if without the presence of Lewis, he might have found it easier to bear. Many of the inmates shared a rough camaraderie. If a man’s wife had sent him a Dear John, there was always someone to advise him.
The sound of a young inmate on a ten-stretch, crying his heart out, was rarely mentioned the next day by the other men. The futility of their situation was often the hardest thing to bear. Lock-up every night at seven-thirty was hard; even a ten-year-old child was allowed the freedom of an evening to watch TV or write a letter, read a book or go for some air in the garden. For the men sharing a cell it was either easier to bear, because you could chat for a while, or harder because you were locked in a small space with someone you detested, and to add insult to injury, you were also forced to share their toilet facilities. Nothing was private. Opening your bowels was done before an audience.
A few of the other cons were quite intelligent. Those were a bonus, as far as Georgio was concerned. Many were not exactly bright. Most men used up hours of their day in the gym. Pumping iron was an escape, a way to get rid of excess energy or sexual desire. A way to keep in shape, hang on to a bit of self-respect. All the men had hard bodies; even the older ones had physiques a younger man, living an easy live on the outside, would have envied. Pumping iron was also a defence mechanism. The bigger you were, the less chance of a confrontation. In an environment where a fight could ensue over a matchstickthin roll-up, it was only common sense to at least look as if you could take care of yourself.
Georgio had the added worry of living on a Wing that consisted of lifers. Long sentences were the norm here; they were all either A Grade, or Double A Grade. This included murderers and terrorists as well as run-of-the-mill hard men and bank robbers. This in itself wouldn’t have been so bad if the Wing had not been the domain of Lewis. He was making it as hard as possible for Georgio. The only redress Georgio had was never, by word or deed, to let on that Lewis was getting to him.
Georgio knew that once Lewis found out where his money was, that would be the end of him. The real end of him. Death was cheap in Parkhurst, whether by your own hand or someone else’s. Rape was more prevalent on B Wing. It seemed that the shorter the sentence, the harder men found it to be without their wives. Georgio wondered if a really hefty sentence shut down your libido. As if it was a subliminal way of helping you through your sentence. Most of the men plastered their walls with naked women, and the more exotic magazines were like gold dust, hardcore porn being the main desire of most of them. Yet once the magazine was read, once the desire was again prominent in their minds, they seemed to lose the urge for the pictures and the magazine was sold on to the next bloke. Ribald comments were much safer and funnier. They broke the gloom and some of the men were natural comedians. It was therefore safer to joke about sex than think of it constantly. The women on daytime television were particularly good for a bit of fun.
As Georgio lay on the bench press, forcing the weights up over his head, his mind strayed to Donna, as it did more and more lately. Donna was his lifeline, his only definite friend. She was there for him, he knew that without a shadow of a doubt. Most of the men on the Wing were terrified of their wives finding an alternative pay cheque or a longtime bed partner. The biggest fear was that their wives or girlfriends would get pregnant. You could forgive the old woman an indiscretion, even make a joke of it. Be the big understanding man who took her back, after she had begged for a while; none of your friends would think any the worse of you. But a big bouncing baby was another kettle of fish altogether. That could not, and would not, be forgiven. Even if they wanted to. The other men would soon have something to say about that. You lost face, and losing face was tantamount to dying in this kind of set up. Georgio was glad he didn’t have those kind of worries on top of everything else. It was hard enough to get through the day as it was without the added torture of thinking of Donna with her long slim legs wrapped around someone else’s waist.
Many of the men were in for killing their wives or girlfriends. It amazed Georgio that they could bother to kill for the kind of women he saw in the visiting rooms. Most were typical blaggers’ wives, with bleached blonde or dyed black hair, leather jackets and tight ski pants, their bra-less chests encased in tiny crop tops underneath the jackets. It was like the blaggers’ wives’ school uniform.
A few of the men had decent sorts, women they loved and respected, but these were few and far between. The average lifer had maybe three marriages under his belt by the time he was thirty-five. After each sentence he would be released and would marry a young girl, fresh-faced, well-used, and loving the notoriety of being married to an armed robber. Both the girl and the man knew it was doomed to failure, that the man would move on, the girl would move on, or the Old Bill would intervene in the happy relationship. Knowing all this, Georgio thanked God for his Donna, even though he admitted he had not been the husband she thought he was. But that was all to the good.
What Donna didn’t know, couldn’t hurt her.
Donna walked through the automatic doors and stood in front of a female warder. She held her arms outstretched while the woman felt under her bra line, along her body, and inside the waistband of her skirt. She tidied herself up while the woman went through her shoulder bag. She gave Donna a numbered key, allowed her time to take her purse from the bag and then shut it and its contents into a small locker. Opening the next set of doors, Donna was finally allowed through to the visiting area.
Parkhurst’s visiting area was quite large. It held a small canteen rather like the lock-up fastfood shops you might see on any British Rail station. This sold tea, coffee, soft drinks and sweets. As you walked through the large doors, on your right-hand side was a play area for the children, containing everything from small rocking horses to a Wendy House. Children were already happily playing there, unaware of their environment. Fathers and mothers watched them with delight.
Donna walked over to the left and the table area. The tables were spread as far apart as possible and women sat alone waiting for their spouses or sons to be brought through. Donna took a seat and placed her purse on the table. She smiled at an old woman waiting patiently at the table next to hers. The woman dropped her eyes back to her knitting and Donna sighed.
Already the buzz of conversation was quite loud. When the doors at the back of the room opened, Donna breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Georgio bound through them. He was wearing black jogging bottoms and a Lacoste shirt. He looked fit and healthy, only the lines on his face denoting the strain he was under. She stood up and he kissed her hard.
‘Hello, darlin’. Am I pleased to see you!’ He took her purse off the table and removed a five-pound note from it.
‘What do you want? Coffee?’
&nbs
p; Donna nodded and watched him as he purchased two coffees, five Mars bars and one KitKat. The KitKat, she knew already, was for her.
As he sat down once more and gave her the change, looking for all the world like a little boy, she felt a pang of sorrow for him.
‘So what’s been happening, Donna? How’s everything?’
She took a deep breath and said calmly, much more calmly than she felt, ‘Someone trashed the car lot last night. All the cars on the front were destroyed.’
She watched the incredulity on her husband’s face and forced herself to carry on.
‘The police think it was vandals, out in a large Range-Rover with nothing else to do. I don’t think so myself.’
Georgio sipped his coffee, to give himself time to sort out in his mind what his wife was saying.
‘I hope you’ll have some answers for me today, Georgio, because I really feel that after last night, you owe me an explanation.’
He wiped his hand over his face in agitation.
‘Look, love, you had better tell me what happened last night, from the beginning.’
It was Donna’s turn now to sip at her coffee. She swallowed the bitter liquid, shuddering inwardly at what she was about to do. In nearly twenty years of marriage she had never once questioned her husband about anything; she had never questioned where their money went, what he did with it, how the credit cards were paid. She bought clothes as and when she wanted them; her American Express card was like her third hand, always there no matter what. She had never even had to take money out of the bank because there was always ample cash in the small safe in Georgio’s office. Their bills were paid by standing order, she had never had to balance a cheque book, ask for a statement, or even think about money at all, except when she was spending it.