Blood Sister: A thrilling and gritty crime drama (35 page)

The crazy neighbour snarled, looked her up and down, gobbed a disgusting greenie at Babs’ feet and then slammed the door.

‘You wanna call the social on her,’ someone yelled.

And then what? thought Babs instead of answering. The kids would end up in care and, as far as Babs heard it, there were rarely any happy-ever-afters for children in those care homes. Still, she couldn’t be having no toddler toerags trying to rob her gaff. The next time it happened, she’d have to get some of the guys she knew to go around and have a quiet word or find out if the woman had any decent family to let them know what was going on.

‘Mum, you alright?’

Babs’ face lit up when she saw her two daughters coming along the landing.

‘Yeah.’ She kissed both her girls on the cheek. ‘The new neighbour is off her head on God knows what. I saw one of her kids trying to abseil through my bathroom window like he’s bleeding Spiderman.’

‘You want me to have a word?’ Tiffany asked already moving towards next door, but her mum caught her arm. ‘Leave it alone. Those type of people always have trouble following them, so she and her witch brood will be on the move soon enough.’

After they got inside and Tiffany had dumped her gear in her room they all sat down for a brew in the sitting room. Babs had put a finger of gin in hers – alright a couple of fingers – not too much mind, just enough to keep her brain alert.

‘I’ve got to get rid of Nuts,’ Jen suddenly burst out. ‘I can’t do it anymore. The bastard has got to go.’ Then the whole sorry mess poured out for Tiffany’s benefit – the dinner money, the violence, the non-job. Babs’ heart ached for her eldest. Who would’ve thought that nice Nuts would’ve turned into a geezer who used his fists as hammers once his front door was shut and stole his kids’ dinner money.

Tiffany shoved herself to her feet. ’He’s putting his hands on you?’ She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. ‘No fucking way. I’ll teach him a lesson . . .’

Jen grabbed her arm and dragged her back. ‘That isn’t going to help. Sit down.’

As Tiffany retook her seat, she muttered, ‘I tell you what, if a man laid a hand on me I’d fucking cut off his nuts and then come back later to do the same to his knob.’

‘Come on, Tiff,’ Babs said, ‘you’re meant to be making your sister feel better. It isn’t Jen’s fault her fella turned into Mike Tyson. Plus, let’s get real, I doubt you’ve seen any man’s family jewels with all that female company you keep touching up.’

Tiffany gave her mum a dirty grin with a teasing twinkle in her eyes. ‘You want to come over to the dark side, Mum, you might enjoy it.’

Babs took a deep slug of her drink, like she had to wash her mouth out, just at the thought.

Jen let out a heavy sigh as she rubbed her palm against her forehead. ‘Who would’ve thought it was going to be me who would make such a wreck of her life.’ She caught her sister’s eye. ‘Ten years back, everyone said that I was going places and you were going to the dogs.’

Babs gripped one of her hands fiercely. She still couldn’t believe that it was Jen who’d made a colossal cock-up of her life and not Tiffany. Tiff had been a train crash waiting to happen, but look at her now. Steady job, legit money in her pocket and a love life – although Babs would have wished it slightly different – that made her happy.

‘That’s the problem with life,’ she told her daughter softly, ‘you’re on one path one day and the next you’re on another, without understanding how you got there. The important thing is figuring out how to get back to where you want to be.’

‘I just want him gone, Mum,’ Jen said. ‘All he ever brings to my door is a load of heartache. He slammed me into the wall the other day while the girls were in their bedroom and all I kept thinking was, what if they walk in? They’d be scared out of their bloody wits.’ Jen shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks. ‘I felt like total shit, total shit.’

‘Fucker,’ Tiffany let out between gritted teeth.

Babs grabbed Jen’s other hand and squeezed. ‘Maybe what we should do love is sit him down, explain the situation and maybe he’ll get it and leave.’ Even to Babs’ ears, that sounded feeble. Men from Nuts’ background didn’t just up and leave after a bit of soul searching.

‘Are you off your rocker, Mum?’ Tiffany declared. ‘The guy’s strutting around The Devil like he’s the dog’s bollocks of Mile End, and you think he’s just going to piss off, all peaceful like, thank you very much.’

‘Well, come on then, Miss Clever Clogs,’ Babs threw at her, ‘what do you suggest Jen does?’

Tiffany made direct eye contact with her sister. ‘I know it isn’t the way we do things around here, but Jen could go to the authorities – tell them what he’s doing. If you say he’s hitting the girls, they have to do something. Child cruelty, ain’t it?’

‘No, no no.’ Babs stood up. ‘He’ll find her and sort her out so that she won’t ever do any talking ever again. I know women who’ve done it and, believe me, not many of them are around to tell the tale.’ She moved over to the sideboard and poured some more gin in her cup, a lot more this time. Once she was sat down again she continued, ‘I know some people from the past. Faces. A couple owe me some favours . . .’

‘You, Mum?’ Jen sounded and looked scandalised. ‘You know some dodgy people? Nah, never. You were always bleating on at us to walk across the street if we ever saw anyone like that coming our way.’

Babs flushed and there was something in her expression that neither of her daughters could place. She took a swig of her drink. ‘I was a young girl too once. Made my share of mistakes long before your dad came along. Believe me, I made sure I made no more mistakes after Stanley did a bunk.’

Babs could see her girls looking at each other as if trying to square the image they had of their mum with the one she was giving them now. Bloody hell, if her Jen and Tiff ever found out about her past, she didn’t know what she would do.

‘The one mistake I never made,’ Babs said, feeling choked up, ‘was having you two. So I’ll pull in some favours and get him bashed about a bit.’

‘That won’t work,’ Tiffany shook her head. ‘He’ll just end up in the ozzie, get fixed up and, like some psycho homing pigeon, come back to Jen’s. And if he gets a sniff that she was involved, who knows what the nutter will do.’

‘It’s just creeping me out,’ said Jen. ‘Every time I step foot in my place, knowing he’ll either be there or about to come through the door.’

Tiffany’s Nokia pinged with a text, so she checked it and then stood up. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. I need to meet this kid I’m keeping an eye on for his parents. Get your brains into gear; we’ll figure this out. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’

Forty-Eight

Nuts walked into his local boozer, The Old Swan (or The Knackered Swan as people on the estate called it, because it looked like it was standing on its last legs). He saw Kevin straight away at his usual spot, a small, round table in a corner, chatting on his mobile. His mate grinned as soon as he saw him and said into the phone, ‘Catch you later, darling. Don’t forget to warm my slippers by the fire.’ With a chuckle he turned to Nuts. ‘Where you been, my son, you’ve been a bit scarce.’

Nuts plonked himself down and smirked. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

Kevin shuffled forward. ‘You hiding something from your old mate?’

Nuts grinned back smugly. ‘Let’s just say I’ve got a little tickle – no, make that a big tickle – going. It’s going to net me a pretty sum.’

Kevin didn’t look pleased. ‘You cutting me out? After everything I did for you while you were banged up in South London.’

‘’Course I ain’t. Just something that came my way, lively like, and if there’s one thing I am, it’s a man of opportunity.’

Kevin still looked miffed, but Nuts wasn’t about to blab about his potential good fortune. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t owe his friend nish. Sure, Kev had made sure that Jen and the girls were taken care of while he was away and got him a few essentials through the back door of Brixton, but that didn’t mean he had to tell him about every plump pie he had a finger in. Plus, if the truth be known, he was getting right fed up with his old friend. They had been knocking around together since he’d moved to The Devil and Kev was still talking about hitting the big time. You didn’t talk it, you went out there and found it. That’s what Nuts told himself he had done. This time he may have hit the jackpot.

‘But what about that bizz I was telling you about, the one I said can open the doors for you?’

Here we go, Nuts thought, Kevvie boy singing the same tired tune about doors that swung open when he declared, ‘Open sesame’. The problem was, Kev’s doors turned into walls that got so high to climb they were dangerous.

‘That’s going to have to . . .’ Nuts didn’t finish as he eyeballed a group of women chatting away as they came through the door. They were young, fresh and with enough flesh on display to make Nuts forget he had a lady and kids waiting indoors. One in particular caught his eye. Now that’s what you call a finger lickin’ piece of meat. Colonel Sanders eat your heart out!

‘I fancy my chances there.’ And with that he swaggered over to the bar where the women gathered, not hearing Kevin whisper, ‘You wish.’

‘You alright, girls,’ he presented himself. He kept his eye on the one he was interested in and dismissed what he considered to be the two trolls beside her. She couldn’t be more than twenty, with buffed-out platinum-silver hair and legs that made him almost come just gazing at them.

‘Nuts is the name ladies – not because I am nuts but because I’ve got lots of them.’ He raised his eyebrows and winked. ‘You know what I mean?’ His signature chat-up line never failed to please. ‘So, can I buy you a bevvy, love?’ He flashed his teeth at Miss Long Legs.

She stared at him for a few seconds. ‘I know you, don’t I?’

Nuts puffed his chest out and then leaned cockily on the bar. ‘I’m a name around here, you get me, a bit of a legend. People want anything done, especially with motors, I’m your man.’ He leaned in. ‘In fact, I’ve got a beauty of a ride that’s got the right shade to go with your hair.’

‘No, that isn’t it,’ she said. ‘You’ve got two girls in Marshall Lane Primary School.’

Nuts straightened up. ‘Nah, you must be getting me mixed up with some other fella.’ He got cheeky again. ‘Although I’ll be your daddy anytime you say darlin’.’

She twisted her lips. ‘You’re Sasha’s dad, or Little Bea as the other kids call her. Know how I know? Because I’m the teaching assistant in her class, Mr Taylor. Mr Lesley Taylor, that’s who you are.’

Bollocks. Nuts made a swift exit towards Kevin, but that didn’t stop him hearing what she said loudly to her friends: ‘Word is, he was nicking Little Bea’s dinner money.’

He almost did an about turn as his blood started to boil. He wanted to rip the tell-tale tongue out of her fucking head. Who did that blonde woof-woof think she was, coming into his boozer and batting her eyelids and dishing the dirt to any and everyone? He should grab her hair and drag her out the back and fuck the shit out of her until she moaned her arse off about him being boss. But he kept his thoughts and hands to himself; bashing up some woman in public was not a good look.

Kevin was creasing up with laughter when he got back to the table. ‘Lesley? I thought you said your name was Leonard?’

Nuts wasn’t about to explain how that name had haunted him through his early life, with the other kids taunting him with the nickname Lez.

‘The dumb bimbo’s got it wrong.’

He ordered a pint and thought of the day he’d be splashing cash all over the place when his deal came through. He wanted to see bitch teaching assistant’s face then.

Tiffany ended her phone call with Jen and placed her mobile in her pocket as she approached the Blacks’ house. She could hear Dee loud and clear before she reached the door. But couldn’t hear John so it was like listening to one end of a phone conversation.

‘My motor’s been gone twenty-four hours already and you ain’t got it yet? And the little bastard who stole it is still at large with both ears, both arms and both legs still attached? Call yourself a man? You useless twat. Some fucking gangland face you are – more like a garden gnome . . .’

Tiffany rang the bell. When Dee answered it, her contorted face managed a smile. ‘Oh, hello, babes. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m just having a domestic here with the old man.’ She raised her voice and yelled over her shoulder. ‘Of course I shouldn’t need to raise my voice but when you’ve got a useless prick for a husband, you don’t have much choice.’

She turned the volume down, to say to her part-time nanny, ‘He’s fucking useless. Don’t you find men are a bit like dogs, babes? They need a kick now and again if you want them to go for a walk.’

John was sitting in an armchair with a mobile in one hand and a pencil in the other. He was scribbling in a notebook. Tiffany could see he had a list of names in it, some with ticks, some with crosses and some with question marks. He seemed to be about halfway down his list.

‘You’re sure about that are you?’ he said into the mobile. ‘He ain’t been released early or anything? Alright, mate, thanks for your help.’ John ended the call and turned to Dee. ‘Do you think you could turn the abuse down when I’m on the phone to people? It’s bad for business. I’ve got a reputation, remember?’

Dee was stalking the room, a drink in one hand, a ciggie in the other. She turned to Tiffany and scoffed, ‘Hear that, babes? He’s got a rep? Fuck me . . .’ She looked back in anger at John. ‘And did Ronnie Lemons steal my car?’

Her husband sighed wearily before he corrected her. ‘His name is Lemmy Lemons.’

‘I don’t care if his name is Petticoat Lane Fruit and Veg Lemons, did he steal my effing car?’

‘No, he didn’t. That was his brother on the phone. Lemons is doing a stretch for possession with intent, so it can’t have been him . . . Don’t know how he got into that, high end car blags was always his thing.’

Dee wasn’t interested in the suspect’s career change. ‘And how do you know Ronnie Lemons is in HMP? Have you checked? His brother could be stringing you along.’