‘I better go Nanna Babs,’ Courtney said getting to her feet, ‘or I’ll be late.’
‘But you ain’t finished your brekkie.’ The girl had hardly touched a bite.
Courtney lifted one side of her shoulder in a shrug. ‘I only usually have cereal.’
‘Cereal ain’t food,’ Babs muttered. ‘You need something solid and hot in you to keep you going until lunchtime.’
Courtney suddenly launched herself at her, flinging her arms round her almost knocking Babs backwards in her chair. Babs clung onto her, holding on tight.
‘It’s gonna be alright, you hear. Everything’s gonna come good,’ she crooned over and over.
A few minutes later Babs waved her happily off at the door but as soon as Courtney turned the corner of the balcony Babs’ cheer dropped turning into a fierce scowl. That girl was putting on a brave front if ever she saw one. What if Courtney fell to pieces at school? Jen had been on top of the moon at Courtney getting a place at that posh all girls’ outfit in town, but Babs wasn’t so convinced it was the right move. If Courtney went into meltdown that fancy headmistress would probably tell her to buck up and feed her some stiff upper lip shit.
Babs was distracted by an almighty row coming from inside the flat. She rolled her eyes heavenward. Give me strength. Looked like she was going to have to knock some heads together. Again!
She found Tiff and Flo going at it in the doorway of the bathroom. In their night clothes no less. Flo in a tiny T-shirt with enough sparkle and glitter for a glam rock band and Tiff almost in the all-together. Spitting and snarling with the back alley manners of two cats fighting over a fish bone.
‘I got here first.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘You always leave water all over the gaff.’
‘Least I don’t leave it smelling like a sumo wrestler’s jockstrap.’
‘’Ark who’s talking, the woman with half the black forest hanging outta her armpits.’
Babs couldn’t tell who was saying what, insults flying left, right and sideways. Her head reared back as something suddenly occurred to her; their faces were almost carbon copies of each other. Thanks to Stan’s oats spreading, it was his face that stared right back at her. They had been born months apart which made them almost twins really. The girls would go ape if she pointed that out to them.
Instead she fumed, fists flying onto her hips. ‘Will you please knock it on the head, the pair o’ ya.’
They took not a lick of notice. Right, that was it. Time to remind these two blockheads who was paying the bills round here. Babs marched into the kitchen, filled a bucket, stomped back and, with a gratified smile, chucked the water at them.
With pleasure Babs watched them gasp and splutter as the water dripped down their scanty clothing.
‘What the fuck did ya do that for?’ Tiff groused, shivering as she madly wiped water from her dumbstruck face.
Flo had the grace to keep it schtum.
Babs stabbed her finger at each in turn. ‘I will not have this carry on in my drum. Got it? Jen’s fighting for her life in the ozzie, her girls are stopping here, probably scared out of their young wits, and all you two numpties can do is go at it like spoiled babies. Give us all a fucking break will ya.’ Only at the end did Babs realise her voice had risen to raise the roof status.
She threw the bucket on the carpet drained to her very bones. She meandered, like a sleepwalker, to the sitting room and plonked down on the settee. If only Tricky Dickie were here so she could lay her weary head on his strong shoulder.
‘Sorry mum.’ Babs looked up to find the pair looking sheepish in the doorway.
Flo added, ‘Yeah, apologies Mummy Babs.’
Tiff took off with firecracker intensity again. ‘’Ere, she ain’t your mummy anything, got…’ She clammed up when she clocked the furious threat lighting up Babs’ face.
Tiff leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms. ‘What you gonna do bout Dee?’
The million-dollar question.
‘What can I do?’ Babs raised her hands hopelessly in the air surprised she had the energy to move them. ‘She’s a grown woman. A mother herself. Knows her own mind.’ Helpless, that’s what she felt. The family she’d built with her own bare hands crumbling right in front of her.
Flo stuck in her two pence worth. ‘That Neville being her dad and Pearl’s brother, what a turn up for the books that was.’
Fury piled high inside Babs just hearing that fucker’s name. ‘Ain’t it just. That bastard left me in the right lurch back in the day.’ Those weren’t easy memories for her to dwell on.
‘Don’t want to say this mum, but you really know how to pick ‘em…Oi!’ Tiff finished on as Flo elbowed her in the side.
‘The important thing is,’ Flo began, ‘how to we get Dee and her thieving relatives to understand you don’t have the gold.’
A sharp rat-a-tat at the front door got in the way of Babs’ answer. Flo moved towards the door, but Babs’ sharp voice stopped her. ‘What the heck you doing?’ Her gaze roved over the younger woman’s clothing, or lack there of. ‘If it’s the postman you’ll give him kittens. Anyroads, you’re both ruining my carpet and I only bought it down the Roman four months back.’
‘Serves you right for being handy with a bucket.’ Tiff having a snide.
Ignore her. Babs did just that and headed for the door. When she opened it her mouth formed an O; no one was there. But there was a good-sized cake box with a ribbon wrapped around it, lying on the ground. Her lips split into a grin. Probably one of the good people on The Devil trying to support her during her time of need.
Babs picked it up, took it inside and kicked the door shut behind her. Then an idea came to her.
‘Little Bea,’ she sang out as she moved towards the kitchen.
Her granddaughter presented herself, mercifully minus ‘Killers In The Night’. Babs knew Little Bea had a sweet tooth.
‘Look what I’ve got.’ She held the cake box temptingly up and winked. ‘Park yourself down and we’ll have a slice or two.’
Little Bea nodded, but no light lit up her gaze as she sat down. No matter, she’ll be grinning away when she took her first bite.
Humming away Babs placed the box on the table, gathered two small plates and a bread knife.
‘I’m hoping this is a chocolate cake, your fav.’ She said.
Babs flipped back the lid of the box and screamed when she clocked the contents.
A hand grenade and a handwritten note attached in capital writing:
‘MILLER YOU THIEVING SLAG
WANT OUR GOLD
NOW.’
41
‘Bout bleedin’ time too, thought Courtney as the change of lesson buzzer screeched over the Tannoy system putting a merciful end to the mind-blowingly boring violin lesson. Hells bells, what would the kids on The Devil say if they saw her toting a violin? Take the proper piss outta her for one with some smart arse claiming you could smoke the strings and get high.
She loathed this school but it was better than stopping indoors at her Nan’s. All that chat about what happened to her mum was doing her head in, big time. It hurt so much to see her mum lying there fighting for her very life and knowing she’d played a big part in it. If only she had stopped mad bird Dodgy from gatecrashing the club none of this would’ve gone on. The only person she’d confessed her part in it to was Aunty Dee when she’d coughed up about those two gun-toting tossers Pinky and Styley. Aunty Dee had pulled enough strokes when she was a young un and so hadn’t given Courtney the third degree and, more importantly, promised to keep what she had told her hush-hush. However, it didn’t lessen the guilt she carried.
‘Right ladies,’ Mr Baxter called out interrupting her thoughts, ‘don’t forget to continue to practice those glide-like movements on your bow.’
Mr Baxter was one of the few male teachers and he was every inch the creative type with his floppy, brown hair, sun-tanned skin and standout baby blues. Courtney d
idn’t fancy him herself but plenty of the other girls had the hots for him. Some of them now giggled behind their hands. Courtney rolled her eyes; what a bunch of rank babies, carrying on as if they’d never seen anything in trousers before. Mind you, he was such a lovely bloke, with a gentle manner and a voice as soft and as sweet as when he played his violin.
As the girls put their instruments away, getting ready to rush off to their maths class, Mr Baxter turned his kind eyes to her.
‘Courtney, if you don’t mind staying behind for a minute.’
If looks could kill Courtney would be stone dead with the vicious, envious gazes the other girls slung her way. She ignored the lot of them. They could piss off to high heaven; most of them didn’t like her and were blatant about showing it. An East End girl coming to their school was too much to swallow. Well, tough tats; she’d earned her place fair and square and was going to do her Nanna Babs and mum proud.
‘What do you want to see me about sir?’ Courtney nervously asked as soon as they were on their own.
Crikey! He’d better not be getting ready to go into, ‘I’m sorry about your mum’ patter. She’d had a bellyful of that with the headmistress and nearly blubbed her heart out. She was bone tired of crying, all she wanted was for her mum to open her eyes and come home.
He gave her an encouraging smile, tiny, gentle lines creasing the corners of his eyes. ‘I noticed that your left arm and shoulder still need strengthening to hold your violin properly.’
Courtney heaved a small sigh of relief that he wasn’t going there about her mum. ‘I have been practising sir.’
A big, fat, porkie, of course. She was a crap violin player, no two ways about it, so why bother practice? The screech she made was enough to make deaf dogs on the estate run for cover.
He moved towards her. His voice was soft and easy. ‘I’ve got an exercise that will really help you. Place your violin in the usual position.’
She did so awkwardly, shoving the instrument under her chin. Felt like she was wearing a neck brace. Her mum in the ozzie flashed in her mind. Tubes coming out of her, face sickly pale, the life draining out of her.
‘Courtney?’ Her teacher’s voice snapped her back into the music room. ‘Are you OK?’
Her breathing was doing strange stuff in her chest. ‘Yes sir.’
Mr Baxter smiled at her, didn’t utter a word. He must’ve sensed how she was feeling but was in tune enough with her to keep it to himself. What a guy!
His hands suddenly fluttered nervously in front of him. ‘Is it alright for me to touch you, so I can show you the correct position?’
‘Yeah, o’ course sir.’
He coughed timidly as he stepped behind her. His body leaned into her as he placed his hand over hers that held the violin to her neck.
His other arm snaked violently round her waist.
He slammed her back into his body and growled, ‘You want to tell your grandma Babs to mind her step.’
Courtney shook with absolute terror not able to believe what was happening. ‘Mr Baxter, what are you doing?’
She tried desperately to wriggle away but he held her neck so tight she could feel his hot breath gliding down her neck.
‘You tell her that Pearl wants her gold back, you hear?’
His hand over hers jammed the violin hard into her throat until she was gagging for air.
‘I said do you hear me?’ he snarled like a man possessed.
Mr Baxter had turned into a raving loon and Courtney was trembling uncontrollable with fright. How did he know about her Nanna Babs? And how did he know about her fallout with her mate Pearl? Courtney shook from head to foot terrified of what he might do so she nodded her head as quickly as she could.
‘You better tell her,’ he did a horrible pause, ‘or else this is what will happen to you the next time I see you…’
Abruptly he let go of her taking the violin with him. He snapped the neck off it and chucked the broken instrument on the floor.
Courtney gasped for breath as she stumbled away. On shaking legs she grabbed her bag and belted out of the music room.
Mr Baxter, aka The Salesman, calmly lifted a satisfied eyebrow as he watched her go. He didn’t earn much as a part-time music teacher so when Pinky and Styley had approached him with the proposition to clear his gambling debts to earn some ready cash he’d jumped at the chance. In return all they wanted was an ordinary looking Joe with an upmarket accent to help get new customers to sign up to their protection racket. As soon as he’d realised that one of his girls, Courtney, belonged to the Miller family the brothers were feuding with he’d got straight on to his mobile to Pinky. Now they’d added a new bow to his work for them. Now he was a proper villain. He was threatening people not flogging insurance. A new bow…He laughed at that. Clever!
It was happy hour for Courtney as she emptied the last drops of a bottle of a supermarket own brand of voddy that she’d half inched from a store during lunch break. She sat in the toilet cubicle still quaking from her dust up with Mr Baxter. Tears ran down her face as she curled over and sobbed until her chest hurt. All she could see was him snapping the neck of her violin and then threatening to do the same to her. Some kind of hard man he was putting the frighteners on a young girl like her. Just like her dad who had battered her mum black and blue whenever he felt like. Her granddad Stan had been the same, trying to choke the life outta of her Nan. She’d put a stop to her granddad but who was going to put a stop to Barmy Baxter?
Courtney put her hand over her mouth as she gagged. This paint stripper taken on an empty stomach was trying to make its way straight back up again. She was going to have to tell her Nanna Babs what he’d….but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want any more bother, but what choice did she have? It was either let on to her nan or her neck was going to end up like her violin.
Courtney stiffened as footsteps briskly click-clacked passed the loo’s main door. She was too off her face to tell the time but she knew she’d been gone from her geography class way to long. She stood up, swayed like a sail in the wind and held on to the wall to get her bearings right. Courtney dumped the empty bottle in the toilet cistern and quickly chewed two soft mints as she set off to class.
Mrs Pringle, the geography teacher, was going on about tropical rainforests or something when Courtney entered. The room went silent as every eye landed on her. Courtney tried to look sober. It didn’t come off though; she was too far gone. Fuck the lot of ‘em. She gave one and all the evil eye.
Most of these poxy girls hadn’t ever taken the time to be her friend. They all thought she was the wrong girl in the wrong place, just because their families were doughed up and hers wasn’t. Being the scholarship girl was like having a red cross on the door during the plague.
‘Miller,’ Mrs Pringle snapped, ‘you’ve been gone for nearly twenty minutes. Lessons in this school aren’t optional you know.’
‘I went for a tipple miss, in the karzie miss – it’s the only way I can face your lessons, you know what I mean?’
Some of the girls tittered while others gasped.
Mrs Pringle went red in the face and with outrage bellowed, ‘I beg your pardon?’
Courtney could see why drunks started fights; it was all too easy when you’d had a skinful.
‘A swift half litre of the rough stuff miss down in the john or the saloon bar as I prefer to call it. Ere, you ain’t got a sandwich on you babe? I think I need something to soak it up.’
A collective, horrified gasp went up so she turned to them. ‘And you lot can fuck off ‘n’ all with your homes in the country and your pony clubs. Bastards…’
The geography teacher was looking nervous now; she wasn’t used to backchat in her classroom. Her tone softened. ‘I see – well, perhaps we should go and see the school nurse? I can see you’re intoxicated.’
‘Intoxicated? Why is it no one in this school can speak English proper? I’m not intoxicated babe, I’m pissed, three sheets, Brahms and Liszt. Fucking
intoxicated? Fuck me.’ Courtney swayed slightly which jogged her memory and she remembered what the question was. ‘School nurse? Nah, you’re alright love, I’ll stay for your lesson. I could do with a nap and nothing says the land of nod like you droning on at the whiteboard.’ She looked at a girl in the front row. ‘Oi, move your arris, I’m having that seat.’
The girl shifted herself. Courtney plonked unsteadily down and then slumped forward onto the desk where she closed her eyes. There was a lot of whispering going on around and above her.
It seemed to go on for a very long time before a man’s voice said, ‘Courtney? Shall we go for a walk and then perhaps we can go and see the headmistress?’
When Courtney looked up, she saw that a posse had been put together. There was Pringle, the school nurse, another teacher and the caretaker.
He was the one talking to her so she answered him. ‘Nah, fuck that mate, I’m alright.’
More whispering and then hands fastened around her arms and she was pulled upright.
‘Oi! Oi! What do you think you’re doing? Get your filthy mitts off. That’s assault, that is, I know my rights.’
The teacher, nurse and caretaker dragged her to the doorway where Pringle was holding the door. The teacher had recovered her bottle now she had some backup.
‘I’ll be waiting for an apology from you young lady. Then again, perhaps you won’t get the opportunity to give me one as I expect the headmistress will decide you’ve delighted this school for long enough. Good luck at whatever chav comp you end up at.’
Courtney managed to drag her right hand free and to her mouth where she stuck two fingers down her throat. It was the time-honoured method used by bladdered teenagers down the ages. Courtney choked and gagged and then, although she’d had nothing much to eat, she managed to throw up the contents of her stomach. It wasn’t much. But it was enough to coat Pringle’s spit-polished shoes in yellow and green puke.
Blood Secrets_A gripping crime thriller with killer twists Page 24