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Synopsis:

Highly acclaimed for her hard-hitting, uncompromising and compelling writing, as well as her phenomenal Number 1 success, Martina Cole is the only author who dares to tell it like it is. After the recent runaway success of "The Take", Martina's new novel, "Close", is the story of the women who are left behind. Set in London's dark and violent gangland, this novel tells the tale of a gutsy mother and her two sons, and their lives in and out of jail. With her characteristically haunting writing and visceral subject matter, Martina Cole, has written yet another compulsive bestseller.

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By

Martina Cole

Copyright © 2006 Martina Cole

Hardback (ISBN-13) 978 0 7553 2859 8

For my Peter, Mr Peter Bates

Prologue

The pain was finally easing and the woman sighed with relief.

She glanced at the clock once more. Its ticking was heavy in the quiet of the room. Her long fingers picked at the candlewick bedspread, then the warmth of her bedding made her relax once more with the anticipation of the long sleep.

Her old granny had bragged about the long sleep, the only time a woman ever lay down without consequence, she said. Meaning that the grave alone could finally give you any kind of rest. It was a truth she had not understood for a long time. Had not wanted to believe that a time would come when you were so tired of living that death actually seemed inviting, so you didn't care about leaving the people you had spent your life looking out for, had spent your life taking care of. It had seemed almost unreal then, imagining herself with the criss-cross lines of old age, the paper-thin yellowed skin of regret, for a life lived without any kind of thought for the future when the future was important. The future was eventually all about what you had
really
done, not what you
wished
you had done. Then, to crown it all, the final realisation that sex was nothing more than a primeval urge, an impulse, a bodily function like shitting or farting, not love.

She sighed again, heavily, the rattling of her bony frame reminding her how fleeting life really was.

Too much had happened in her life and it had finally tired her out, she was sick of fighting, she was ready to rest. She wanted to see her girl, her baby girl at last. See her Colleen. Take care of her.

It was time for her final sleep all right, she knew that much. But until she had seen all her children, made them understand her decision, she would wait until the time was right.

'I will break your fucking neck if you don't stop cunting me around.'

The words were spoken quietly, not in anger, but they were laced with a malevolence that only a fool would choose to ignore. When Pat Brodie threatened, it was always done in an almost friendly fashion. It was his eyes that told the person he was talking to that he meant business. That he would destroy them without a second's thought, and smile while he did it.

Mikey Donovan kept his temper under control with difficulty; he was doing this man a favour and a half, and they both knew it. But cocaine was a sacking offence for people who worked for the Home Office, especially screws, and he had been supplying it for a while. Now there was a dearth of it and Brodie was not impressed. What did he expect him to do, magic it from thin air?

Pat Brodie was a handful, and although Mikey knew that he had a lot on his mind, his mother on the verge of snuffing it was affecting him badly, but even amiable and pleasant-natured Mikey had had enough. Brodie was one powerful man, built like the proverbial brick shithouse and he was also far above the intelligence levels of the usual blaggers Mikey came across. Add to that a natural cunning and a psychotic personality, and you had one dangerous bastard to contend with. He was in for the alleged murder of his brother, and that alone spoke volumes.

Hard fuck did not even cover it, as far as Mikey was concerned, and he had seen his fair share of those over the years. No, Brodie was that totally unexpected quantity; he was an intelligent lunatic and they were as dangerous as they were rare.

'You had better have worded me good for a compassionate visit, Donovan, because I need out, and if I don't get bail, I am going to hold you personally responsible.'

Mikey sighed, he had not expected any less.

Brodie knew he was stronging it and he knew that no matter how much Donovan might feel the urge to retaliate, he wouldn't. He was a screw, and like most screws in hard nicks, he knew how far he could go.

The faint smell of cold tea and buttered bread reminded her of summer days long gone. She closed her eyes and allowed the memories to wash over her.

She could feel once more the oppressive summer heat of years gone by, a heat so intense that it had caused the petrol fumes to hang on the air. She could smell the different aromas of Sunday lunches cooking along the street. The roast was expected by the men, and no matter that the kitchens would all be as unbearably hot as her own and that standpipes were being used everywhere because of the usual summer drought, the women would still be expected to produce a huge meal for three o'clock on the dot. For after the pubs turned out the men would meander home in a state of inebriation and with a raging hunger brought on by drinking steadily from ten-thirty that morning.

She knew beef was the preferred meat of the day, but the smell of chicken and pork was just as popular when money was tight and someone had done a dolly at an abattoir, making the meat available when by rights they shouldn't have enough poke to put a fucking sandwich together. It was all about paper, as her old man used to say. On paper things looked different, paper was just another excuse to scam, whether it was meat, clothes, whatever. Thanks to those little bits of paper no one went without. Except the people who owned the goods being bartered, of course, and they didn't count. After all, didn't they have enough?

She smiled then, remembering those lazy days. Then she remembered her husband had lived off paper and that it had caused a lot of aggravation when he had died, been murdered. In fact, she had been left boracic lint, and that had caused its own set of problems. She had ended up with two more kids, just to feed the ones she had already acquired. Her mother had made it her life's work telling her how she had fucked up. Then she had decided that she was the perfect daughter, but only because she had been scared of her own company. And that woman had loved Lance so much it had been almost a mania with her from his birth; she had adored him from the off. But
she
had never liked him, her own son, and she had always felt there was something sinister about him, even when he had been a baby. And she had been right.

She could hear her boys laughing as they kicked a football around the sparse grass of their backyard, see her daughters sitting on the back doorstep in their Sunday finery, pouring out imaginary cups of teas for their dolls and feeding them imaginary cakes made from dandelions and buttercups. Their thick blond hair brushed into tidy ponytails and their chubby childish knees scuffed with scabs that had been picked over leaving small bloodstains on their long white socks. The high-voiced laughter of her girls until the ball the boys were kicking would inevitably find its way over to them, knocking their carefully prepared picnic flying. She could remember the fat tears in her twin girls' eyes, her poor little daughters' bewilderment at the male presence that always managed to disturb the games, and her own relief at their brothers' hearty kindness as they picked up the brightly coloured plastic tea set, and assorted dollies and tried, in their overly masculine way, to set it all right once more for them.

Pat Junior, the eldest, always the leader, his rough but kindly ministrations being copied by the other boys who knew it was expected of them. Pat loved those girls and he took great care of them, his brothers as well, in his own haphazard way. Colleen's death had taken him hard and she knew how he felt; it had nearly destroyed her, but she had learned a great lesson from it, they all had.

Poor Colleen had been far too good for this world; an old saying that had been proved only too true.

Kathleen and Eileen, the twins, adored their brother Pat, as had Colleen, and he would hug them and make them laugh once more, before going back to the game of football with the girls' adoring eyes turned to him as always. He was a good boy, and he was a good man, whatever anyone might try to say about him. He was his father's son all right, and for that she would always love him.

Now her Shawn was another good lad, as was Shamus, and she knew she would get a good look at them before she finally went for the long sleep.

The long sleep was such a wonderful thought; she was tired, bone weary in fact. Her mind was once more back in the present and now she could smell the faint odour of her own body; her sweat was sweet, almost like almonds. She knew it was the drugs she was on, the smell emanating from her pores a constant reminder of her old age and her pain-racked body.

There was nothing left of her now, the once voluptuous curves were nothing but bone and sagging skin. She smiled, she actually looked like her granny. Oh how history repeated itself.

She glanced at the photograph in a heavy silver frame that stood on her bedside table; in the photo she was a young woman with her eldest son in her arms, and a belly full of arms and legs. She knew now something she had never known back then.

She had been beautiful, really beautiful, and she had wasted it. Wasted the only thing she had ever really had going for her. Because in those days a woman's looks were all she had.

Her stepfather's rough, cigarette and whisky-soaked voice came to her, laughing as he said, 'You are sitting on a fucking goldmine, girl, remember that.'

Her mother had gone off her head at him, screaming at him not to put those thoughts in her mind. She hated him, she realised now. Her mother had tied herself to a man who wasn't, as her granny would always say with a drink in her, worth a wank.

She tore her eyes away from the offending photo, unable to bear looking at the woman she had once been, and comparing her with the cancer-riddled wreck she was now.

But her life had been eventful, if nothing else.

She closed her eyes and retreated again into the past, which was becoming more and more real to her with every passing hour.

Patrick Brodie was still waiting patiently for word that he could visit his dying mother. He didn't hold out much hope, though his brief had pointed out that he was only on remand even if they were making out like he was already sentenced. He would love to hold her in his arms once more. Feel her familiar embrace one last time.

She had been a game old bird, and a good mother, despite everything that had happened to her in her life.

He remembered her as he always did, in her heyday, shouting the odds, putting his father in his place. Cooking her gargantuan meals and always with a cigarette in her mouth.

She was such a character, and he had loved her more than anyone else, even after all the problems with her men after his father's untimely demise.

His father's murder had hit them hard, but his mother most of all. She had lost more than a husband, she had in effect lost the only person who had ever really valued her other than her kids.

His father's death had been the catalyst for all their problems and the hardships, and he saw that now. It had turned Pat into the man he was, made him the man he had become. The man who was awaiting trial for the murder of his brother, his own flesh and blood. A murder for which he had not one iota of remorse, only sorrow that he had not done it earlier. Got shot, got rid. Eradicated him as you would any kind of predatory vermin. They couldn't prove it, and no one was going to talk, he was as sure of that as he was sure of his own name. Everyone knew he had done the dirty deed, but no one could prove it. In this country you needed evidence, not circumstances, and he was confident of a 'not guilty' verdict.