Snatched

Mandasue Heller

The Front

Forget Me Not

Tainted Lives

The Game

The Charmer

The Club

Shafted

Mandasue Heller

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette Livre UK company

Copyright © Mandasue Heller 2009

The right of Mandasue Heller to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 294 3
Book ISBN 978 0 340 89954 0

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette Livre UK company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

To dear friends,
Jaynie Maunsell and Ray Bello
– gone but never forgotten.
Also Conrad Morton.

Acknowledgements

As ever, love to my partner, Wingrove Ward; mum, Jean Heller; children, Michael, Andrew, & Azzura, and precious granddaughters, Marissa and Lariah; sister, Ava; Amber & Kyro, Martin, Jade, and Reece; Auntie Doreen, Pete, Lorna, Cliff, Chris & Glen; Natalie, Dan, & Toni. Our Heller family, USA; and the Wards: Joseph, Mavis, Valerie, Jascinth, Donna, & children. And love to the rest of my family – past and present.

A massive thank you to the Hodder team – Carolyn, Emma, Auriol, Lucy, to name but a few . . . You’re all great.

My agents, Cat Ledger, and Guy Rose.

Nick Austin.

Hi to Betty & Ronnie Schwartz, Martina, Norman Fairweather, Wayne Brookes, Faye Webber.

And to the real Jackie Harris, who won the competition to have a character in this book named after her.

And lastly, a long over-due hello to the friends who shared the crazy ride through the Hulme of the 80’s with me – good and bad, they were life-changing days indeed!

PROLOGUE

Squeezing through the gap in the railings, Nicky Day scrambled down the embankment and thrashed through the nettles standing guard below. Gritting her teeth when painful welts sprang up on her hands and legs, she stumbled over the tracks of the disused railway line and hauled herself up the facing bank, clambering over the chain-link fence into the field beyond.

The sky was already turning a deep stormy violet as the winter shadows closed in, making visibility poor as she picked her way through the overgrown bushes bordering the wasteland. Catching her foot in a tangle of roots, she went down heavily, gashing her cheek on a rock and catching her hair in the brambles. Sobbing, she tore herself free and hobbled on. There was no time to stop; Kelly Greene and her gang wouldn’t be far behind when they realised that she’d come this way. And if they caught up with her now, she was dead.

Reaching the end of the bushes at last, she scanned the darkness ahead through her tears. There was an exposed area of some fifteen feet between here and the road, and she had to make sure that Kelly hadn’t pre-empted her and gone that way to ambush her. No one seemed to be around, so she took a tentative step out into the open.

Squealing with fear when somebody grabbed her ponytail, snapping her head back on her neck, she flailed her arms to keep her balance. But the first savage punch knocked her clean off her feet – and the blows that followed made sure she stayed down.

1

Pacing the living room floor, Sue Day glanced at her watch and cursed under her breath. It was almost 8.30 and the taxi was due any minute, but Nicky still wasn’t home. And if she didn’t get a move on Sue was buggered, because there was no way she could go out and leave Connor in the house by himself. She’d have to send the taxi away when it arrived – and there was no chance of getting another one at this time on a Friday night.

Going across to the window she yanked the curtain aside and peered out, only to find the road just as deserted as it had been every other time she’d looked out over the past hour. Snatching her cigarettes up from the window ledge, she lit one and exhaled loudly. Nicky was so selfish, sometimes, she really was. One night a week, that was all Sue needed. Was that really too much to ask?

Putting the finishing touches to her make-up at the mirror over the fire, Julie Ford glanced at her friend’s rigid back and rolled her eyes.

‘Oi, quit bloody stressing before you set me off,’ she scolded. ‘She’ll not get here any faster with you glued to the window, so do something useful and spark me one of them before you drive me mental.’

Sighing, Sue let the curtain drop and slid another cigarette out of the packet. Lighting it, she passed it over. Julie was right; she should stop worrying before she ruined the night. Nicky was a good kid, and if she’d promised to be home, she would be.

She’d
better
be.

Swiping a thick coat of gloss over her scarlet lipstick now, Julie turned to get Sue’s appraisal.

‘Well, what d’y think? Babe, or double babe?’

‘Triple,’ Sue said, feeling a sudden twinge of envy.

Julie was a big girl, but she certainly knew how to make the most of her ample figure, and it was
her
that the men always made a beeline for at the club every weekend. Sue was much better-looking, and at least two stone lighter, but she rarely got much of a second glance – until closing time, when she invariably found herself lumped with the mate of whoever Julie had hooked for the night. Julie reckoned it was her own fault for giving off
I-belong-to-someone-else-so-back-off
vibes, and that considering it was almost a year since Terry had gone off with his teenage tart, it was high time she got back on the horse – and stopped complaining about the saddle. Which was all right for
her
to say, seeing as she got all the studs while Sue was left with the nags.

But tonight was as good a night as any to make a new start, because it was Julie’s birthday, and she’d got them a double date with a couple of salesmen she’d met in town earlier that day. Sue wasn’t holding out much hope of hers being anything special, but she’d promised to make an effort and have a good time, and had even bought herself a new outfit to make a good impression. And she looked bloody good in it, even if she did say so herself.

Now all she needed was for Nicky to get home before she lost her nerve.

Curled up on the couch behind them just then, Connor’s stomach rumbled loudly. Clapping a hand down on her enormous breasts, Julie said, ‘Christ, that was loud, mate. You got the hungry hippos in there, or what?’

Shaking his head, Connor cast a guilty glance at his mum. She’d shouted at him earlier for refusing to eat his dinner, but he didn’t like tinned sausages and beans, and that was all she ever made these days. He was starving now, but he’d rather wait for Nicky to get home because she’d do him proper sausages, and mash with butter and milk, and everything. He just wished she’d hurry up.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t fed him yet?’ Julie gave Sue a disapproving look as she flicked her ash in the general direction of the small waste-paper bin. ‘Leaving it a bit late, aren’t you?’

‘I offered him something when he got back from school,’ Sue told her defensively, watching as the ash missed its target and settled on one of her fluffy slippers. ‘He said he wasn’t hungry.’

‘Well, he sounds like he is now,’ Julie said, holding the cigarette between her teeth as she turned back to the mirror to tease her hair. ‘Give him a biscuit. That always did it for mine when they wouldn’t eat.’

Yeah, and look how
they
all turned out
, Sue thought meanly, remembering how disgusted she’d been the one time she’d met Julie’s fat, unhealthy, hyperactive kids. Glancing at Connor now, she gave him a dark look, to let him know that if that had been his plan all along, to get a biscuit instead of proper food, it wasn’t going to work.

A car horn hooted outside. Running to the window, Julie saw the cab and snatched up her jacket, saying, ‘Come on, girl, get a move on. They charge extra for waiting, you know.’

‘Er, aren’t you forgetting something?’ Sue jerked her head in Connor’s direction. ‘I can’t just leave him. We’ve got to wait for Nicky.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Julie murmured. Then, clicking her fingers: ‘Try her mobile.’

‘I’ve already tried three times, but she’s not answering,’ Sue reminded her irritably. This was the one thing that really annoyed her about Julie – that she couldn’t remember even the simplest things from one minute to the next.

Sighing, Julie folded her arms. ‘Well, I hope she’s not too long, ’cos you know what’ll happen if we lose the cab. We’ll have to get the bus instead, and they’re not exactly reliable round here, are they?’

‘Don’t blame me,’ Sue muttered, snatching up her mobile and tapping yet
another
message into it telling Nicky to get her arse home right now.

‘Great!’ Julie complained. ‘First date I’ve had with a bloke who’s got more money than sense in ages, and now I’m gonna be so late he’ll have pissed off with some other bitch by the time I get there. And we won’t get another chance, you know, ’cos they’re only here for the weekend.’

‘Tell you what,’ Sue said tetchily, tossing her phone down onto the coffee table and reaching for another cigarette. ‘Why don’t you just go by yourself, eh? I’ll stop here and watch telly on my own for the rest of the night – like usual.’

Sensing that her friend was on the verge of slipping into one of her moods, which would take days of coaxing to get her out of again, Julie danced up to her and gave her a cuddle.

‘As if I’d leave you alone on a Friday night, mate. Anyhow, there’s no way I’m going out with two blokes by myself. I’d get a right reputation.’

‘Like you haven’t already,’ Sue snorted softly, only slightly mollified.

‘Aw, shaddup!’ Julie grunted, waddling back to the window to make sure that the taxi was still there. Turning back with a grin after a moment, she said, ‘Hey, I think we just got lucky, kiddo; it’s Titty Man.’ Stubbing her cigarette out, she tugged on the elasticated neckline of her top, bringing it dangerously close to nipple territory. ‘Think I’ll just nip out and keep him entertained while we’re waiting. That should buy us a bit of time.’

Calling after her not to go giving him a heart attack, Sue winced when the door slammed shut. Shaking her head, she said, ‘She’ll have that door right off its hinges one of these days, you watch.’