The Take (40 page)

Jackie could have skinned her son alive at this moment because his fuck-up had caused them to have a row. Freddie had put him on a curfew and, unlike every other time he had tried to rein his son in, this had been adhered to because Freddie had made a point of checking his son was at home. She was happy about this in one way, because it meant he spent more time with them, and not with his other women. But it was also nerve-wracking because Little Freddie didn't think he should be timed, thought he was too old and experienced to be treated like a child.

His father was not a man to be mugged off but although she had tried to explain this to her son many times, he wouldn't listen to her. He had never listened to her, that was the trouble.

As they stood in the front room like adversaries in a boxing match, the front door opened and Little Freddie strolled in with all the arrogance he possessed. He was enormous, and he was Freddie's double, but unlike his father, who had been a tearaway at his age, this boy was in deep trouble. It was only Freddie who could keep him in check. Jackie knew this, and she was glad someone could keep him in line, but she still could not bear to see him told off, in trouble or accused of anything.

Little Freddie stood in front of his mother and father and cleared his throat noisily. It was a calculated insult.

Freddie looked at his son and wondered for the hundredth time why he bothered with him. But he was not the usual little fuck, he was a
dangerous
little fuck. Well, the buck stopped here. He pointed his finger at him and said loudly, 'Where you fucking been, then?'

Jackie tried to lighten the situation by saying cheerfully, 'Here he is! I told you he would be here, didn't I?'

Freddie pushed her away from him and, looking at his son, said in a deep and angry voice, 'You telling me you can't tell the time?'

Little Freddie was staring at his father, and there was not one iota of fear in him despite his father's anger. Freddie knew this boy was out of order, that he was off the fucking scale and he was determined to bring him back to the fold, whatever it took.

The questions and answers then came thick and fast and without any kind of hesitation on either side.

'I said, where have you fucking been?'

'Out.'

'Out where?'

The boy shrugged. 'Just out with me mates.'

'What mates?'

'Just mates.'

'Do they have names?'

'Do yours?'

Freddie's fist connected with his son's chin so fast that the boy didn't have time to move away and protect himself. He was not expecting it, and he was even more surprised when his father followed through with another punch and then began beating him viciously.

Jackie watched her son as he was punched across the room, landing in a crumpled heap on the sofa, and she saw his father descend on him with that look on his face she deplored. She was screaming now, she was like a mad woman. No one hurt her baby,
no one
.

'Leave him alone!'

Freddie grabbed her arms and forcefully threw her from the living room, shutting the door behind her. Then he carried on the interrogation as if they had never been interrupted.

'What mates?'

His son was looking at him with open hatred and Freddie didn't care. He needed to know where he had been.

'Were you in the subway today?'

He saw Little Freddie's eyes widen and knew that what he had suspected was true, and no one was more sorry than him.

'So you were, then?'

Little Freddie shook his head in denial, with tears in his eyes. 'No, Dad, please, it wasn't me, it was them…'

Freddie looked at his son and wondered if he should do the world a favour and wipe him off the face of the earth now.

'Where the fuck is he, Jimmy?'

Jimmy held his arms out in supplication. 'How the fuck am I supposed to know that? What am I all of a sudden, Freddie's fucking dad?'

The anger in his voice did not go unnoticed by the other men in the pub's back room. Glenford, ever the peacemaker, said in a reasonable way, 'Relax, this is only a meet.'

Amos Beardsley knew he had overstepped the mark and was contrite. Everyone knew Freddie was a nutter, but Jimmy was the one to be seriously frightened of. Jimmy didn't need anger to hurt people, Jimmy needed
just cause
. A different thing altogether. With Jimmy, violence was always the last resort, and that meant whoever was in the frame was in deep shit.

He might have started out as Ozzy's front man but he was a main man now in his own right and, like all the big money makers, no one heard about him until it was too late. He surrounded himself with names, and yet he had never personally even had a parking ticket.

'Any chance of a drink?'

Glenford's voice was jovial. They all breathed a sigh of relief, including Jimmy, who knew what his friend was doing. 'Come with me, Glen, and we'll bring in a few bottles.'

They left the room. Once outside and in the bar area, Jimmy said quietly, 'I could fucking stomp that cunt, I really could.'

Glenford ordered the drinks and then pulled Jimmy to the main door and out into the cold night air. 'Stop it, Jim, you need to do damage limitation now. Freddie has had them over. You know that, I know it, he knows it, but more importantly,
they
know it. Now, boy, you have to give them their due. Do it with a bit of respect and they will let it go. Then you
have
to collar Freddie and read him the riot act once and for all.'

Jimmy didn't answer, but Glenford's easy-going, slowly spoken but serious-sounding West Indian accent was penetrating his brain.

'
Me
mean it, Jimmy. This have affected
my
earn as well, you know, and my boys are fit to be tied. Blood is blood, we accept that, but this is not the first time. They have only come to you now because Freddie won't listen to any kind of reason. Now he has disrespected them by not even bothering to turn up here tonight. These are
Africans
, and they won't care who he is, or
who
he working for. They will
not
forget this. And they are earners, boy, good earners. Not a fucking liability like some I could mention.'

Jimmy looked at his friend, and he
was
a friend. He loved this man and he knew Glenford loved him. In their world, real friends were few and far between.

'What am I going to do about him, Glen? It's like he thinks he is a separate entity, like he believes he is a law unto himself.'

Glenford smiled then, that friendly gap-toothed smile that had guaranteed him women and sexual favours all his life, and he answered his friend now with absolute truthfulness. 'But he is his own law, Jimmy.
You
have seen to that. No matter what he does, you protect him, and now I am going to tell you something that you won't want to hear. He
cunts
you, he has even tried to cunt you to
me
. Many times, and he knows we are
close
. In drink he is a fucking treacherous bastard, and you got to rein him in,
sooner
rather than
later
, because if you don't, you will lose your self-respect as well as everyone else's.'

Glenford was telling Jimmy something he had known for a long time but had not allowed himself to accept. He had let himself believe that Freddie lived by the same rules as he did, but he knew in his heart that Freddie was not capable of that. Freddie saw himself as above them all, himself included. He had to put the hard word on him, and he had to do it soon, but he was dreading it. Not because he was frightened of him, but because he knew it would be the end of them.

'Leave him alone, Freddie, you'll fucking kill him.' Jackie had run back into the room and was trying to drag her husband off her son and stop the beating that was starting to look like a murder.

'You little bastard, you fucking little cunt!'

Freddie was so angry he was spitting, and Jackie knew in her heart that this was serious because he wouldn't bother unless it was for a good reason.

She pushed herself in between them. 'Tell me what he's supposed to have done.'

She sounded like she knew he was going to give her a load of old fanny. As if
he
would
cunt
his own son unless he had to! This was not getting them anywhere. All the time his mother was there Little Freddie felt that he would be in with a chance.

So Freddie pushed his wife away roughly, but even he felt sorry for the woman who was still trying to hang on to a child, to a dream, that had never been there.

Little Freddie
hated
her. He hated everyone.

Jackie, the drunken fucking prat, really seemed to think that Little Freddie was just a
tearaway
, that everything he did was just kids playing. She had to know by now that was not true, she had to have realised by now that he was not
normal
, that he was lacking something, was not the full ten shillings.

'Well, come on, tell me what you think he's done now.'

She was actually fronting him up, yet he could hear the fear in her voice. She suspected her son of being the perpetrator of something terrible, but she was more scared of hearing about it than of the actual deed. So, as usual, she would try to pretend that it was everyone else's fault but his.

She was yelling at the top of her voice. 'You never give him a chance, do you, Freddie? You always try and make out that he is doing something wrong. Well, he was with
me
all day. What have you got to say about that, then?'

Freddie shook his head, as was his usual habit when faced with Jackie and her ramblings. 'Go and have a drink, Jack. I brought you in a bottle of good vodka to keep you out of my fucking face while I sorted this ponce out once and for all.'

'But what is he supposed to have done?'

Freddie decided to tell her the score. He dropped his son on to the floor without even looking at him. He then walked his wife out to their kitchen, or what passed as a kitchen anyway, and he said in total seriousness, 'Pour yourself a large one, Jack, you are going to need it.'

She sat on the stool nearest to her and started to cry. Pouring her a neat vodka, Freddie said, 'Sexual assault and mugging, Jackie. That is just for starters, love. We bred a fucking right good one, us.'

Jackie was shaking her head vigorously, she was denying that anything like that could ever happen in their family. She was really sobbing now, a noisy, frightened crying that told her husband that despite this denial, on one level she believed everything he was going to say without even hearing the facts.

'No, Freddie, you are wrong, not our boy, not my baby…'

Freddie dragged his wife up off the stool and whispered into her face with such hate and anger she was terrified all over again. 'She was eighty years old, Jack, and she was robbed and assaulted. And it ain't the first time he has done something like this either. I was guilty of letting it go the last time. I sorted it for him because that's what we do, ain't it, for our kids? But not this time, I ain't going to do it, he is a fucking nonce, a
nonce
, and I ain't fucking turning a blind eye. You had better shut your fucking trap, before I fucking shut it for you once and for all. He is a fucking
beast
and we have to sort this cunt out now!'

Jackie was bawling now. She was in bits, and she was also petrified that what Freddie was saying was true.

'You are wrong, Freddie, he is a little boy!'

For the first time in years Freddie felt something for his wife, he was so impressed with her loyalty towards their son. If Little Freddie had robbed a bank or even murdered someone he would have stood beside her and lied with her. But this was different, this was wrong. This was beasting, this was about the fucking nonces on the VPU units. This was so far out of his sphere it frightened him. Supposing this boy did something and people
heard
about it, knew that this fucking sex offender was
his
flesh and blood.

'It was Mrs Caldwell, your old granny's mate! They robbed her,
assaulted
her and then, how is this for a fucking party piece, Jackie, they set fire to a fucking tramp who had tried to help the poor old cow!'

Jackie was now on the edge, she was hysterical. 'He
wouldn't
do anything like that, Freddie, he ain't like that. My baby ain't like that… Why ain't they come for him, then? Why ain't Old Bill come here, eh?'

Freddie sighed. 'I was told about Mrs Caldwell by the attending officer. As luck would have it, we pay him off. He alerted me to what was going on, Jackie, and I have had to lay out serious wedge to keep this fucking ponce out of the nick. Now will you fucking believe me, Jackie? I only gave this cunt a pass because I can't live with what he's done. Or with people knowing what he's done. Can't you fucking understand that much at least?'

Little Freddie lay on the sofa in the living room and listened to his parents arguing. He knew from experience that eventually they would forget about him. He had fucked up, but for all his father's threats he wouldn't really put him away. He would ground him, watch him, and give him another curfew.

Then it would die down. The man who had sired him would find other things to do, and his mother would let him out and lie for him as always.

All in all, he had got off lightly.

Jackie came into the living room and gave her baby a gentle hug. She had finally understood where her husband was coming from, but no matter what he said or what he threatened, her son was going nowhere. He was not
bad
. If only Freddie could see him like she saw him. He was only a kid. Because he was a big boy for his age people thought that he was older than he was and tried to treat him like an adult. But he was only a kid and Freddie was too hard on him.

Everyone was against them, since day one she had fought against getting any kind of help. He was just a child and because his last name was Jackson he was ostracised and picked on by everyone. The filth hated him, the courts hated him, the social workers looked at her as if she was dirt! They had it in for him and all. He was her baby, her last-born, and she was not about to let anyone tell her that he was bad.