The Take (56 page)

Paul, however, was absolutely gutted. He knew that Freddie was on the edge and poor little Melanie had not experienced Freddie with the hump just yet. As she was a relative of his wife's he would have to step in at some point and that was not something he was looking forward to.

At the moment, though, Freddie was like a sniffer dog in a crack house, happy as a sandboy and enjoying the afternoon's events. He hunted strange like other men hunted deer. He was quiet, he was watching her every move and when the time was right he was going to shoot this fucker down. If she was good at her trade she might get a second airing, if not she would be forgotten in the time it takes to find a new one with bigger tits and the pure attraction of unknown territory.

It was the chase he loved, the conquering of the girls. Once that was achieved they were history.

Dianna was in bits as both her sisters shouted simultaneously and with equal anger and annoyance, 'Oh shut up, Di!'

Maggie stared at the three girls she loved with all her being and then she turned to her sister and said quietly, 'Don't be so silly, Jackie. Kimberley heard wrong, that was all.'

Kimberley grabbed the branch she was being offered and hoped that it would stop her drowning in her own guilt. 'That's right, I was not sure what I was going on about, Mum. We were arguing, and I wanted to hurt you, that's all.'

'You fucking lying whore, you fucking junkie slag! You know what happened, I ain't fucking stupid!'

Maggie was under no illusions about how this knowledge was going to be received by the main antagonists, but she was past caring. Nothing could ever hurt her again and she wasn't sure she was even capable of keeping the peace with her sister. If push came to shove she was willing to annihilate her. If that's what it took to shut this slob up, then that was fine by her.

But she forced her voice to sound calm and civil once more. 'Come on, Jackie, have a drink, a coffee or a vodka, you choose.'

Jackie knew she was being offered a face-saver, a chance to stop this madness before it got out of hand, but Maggie's utter calmness was her undoing.

Even though she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this girl, and Maggie still looked like a girl, had been
raped
she could not for the life of her let that fact seep outside her closest circle.

'You are offering
me
vodka? Sure
you
don't want one now your fucking secret's out?'

Maggie looked into her sister's bloated face, remembering when she had been everything to her, had been the mainstay of her life. And she had been, there had been a time when Jackie had been the whole of her world, when she had always included her little sister in everything.

Maggie was more man aware that loneliness had been the real reason then, but it had also been because Maggie had taken on the kids for her.

She had practically brought the girls up, and she had to admit she had enjoyed every second of it, unlike this sorry item in front of her who only saw her kids as a wage each week, people to chain their father to the floor and make him cough up in more ways than one.

Maggie had played with them, bathed them, tidied up for Jackie and listened to her as she had run down everyone within a five-mile range — family especially, mates, and anyone she was jealous of. Since that encompassed everyone in the world she could get very irate. Jackie slaughtered everybody, and she did it in such a way that it was ages before you realised exactly what she was doing.

By the time she had been fourteen Maggie had stopped wanting to be like her, and instead become adamant that her life would be the complete opposite of Jackie's. She would pay her
own
bills, look after herself if needs be, but she was determined not to become a part of the man she was with like Jackie had.

Jackie's biggest fear was being left without a man, her man, but it was the man she loved so much, who had reduced her to the fat, scruffy wreck she was now. She was living proof that love was not the wonderful emotion young girls thought it was going to be. The man she loved had raped her little sister and yet she still had the power to delude herself, because everything was
always
about Jackie, never about anyone else.

'Was little Jimmy Freddie's son? I need to know.'

Jackie sounded so self-righteous and so fucking banal all at the same time, it was better than a play as far as Maggie was concerned. This woman had always been an innate coward, and this was being proved to her once again. Jackie only kicked off when she knew that the fight she had caused would be stopped.

Maggie laughed, but it sounded forced and it also made her sound like a woman who had had enough, enough of life, enough of the world and enough of the woman in front of her.

'If you really thought that there was anything remotely true in what you are saying, me and you would be rolling around the floor fighting now, Jack, and you know it.'

'Too fucking right.'

'But we ain't, are we, Jackie?'

The sarcasm was evident and Jackie Jackson had to acknowledge that her little sister was a force in her own right.

'There's still plenty of time for that, lady.' She pointed a grubby finger at her sister as she said loudly and in a voice full of her own self-pity, 'You always had your eye on my fucking Freddie, you always got what you wanted out of life. I was never good enough for Mum and Dad, it was always you! Now, the one thing I have and you fucking think you can take it!'

'What are you on about, Mum? Maggie is the best thing that ever happened to you, or us!' Dianna realised immediately she should have kept this gem of wisdom to herself, and Kimberley pushed Roxanne out of her way as she went to her mother and said angrily, 'I was winding you up, Mum, please listen to me.'

Jackie wanted to take the exit and leave the madness of her world, but she couldn't. This would eat at her now and she knew she had to sort it out today once and for all, no matter what the cost.

'Either go home and sober up, Jackie, or talk to me properly, OK?'

There was a steely quality to her sister's voice that Jackie had never heard before. In fact, she would go as far as to say that it was distinctly disrespectful.

'I will break your fucking neck, you cunt!'

Maggie sighed once more. 'Is that really the best you can do, Jack? Call me names, call
me
a cunt, the one word that I hate more than any other? I just realised, Sis, it sums you up lovely, doesn't it? I lost my child and you think you can come round here shouting the odds, because you think I wanted the piece of shit you married. You had better sort yourself out, mate. Listen to yourself now and again, you selfish, drunken fat bitch!'

Maggie waved her hand at Jackie like she was nothing and turned to the girls, who were huddled together in various stages of shock.

'Take her home, for fuck's sake. Get her out of my sight!'

The animosity was almost tangible between the two women now.

'I'll fucking kill you, Maggie Jackson. You'll fucking regret taking the piss out of me, lady.'

Maggie turned back towards her sister. She spoke quietly, and with menace, enunciating every word slowly and clearly, her own well-manicured finger poking her sister in the face.

'You lay one hand on me, Jack, and I will
wrap
you around this house. I am capable of it and all, mate. You
don't scare me any more
, you haven't scared me since I was at school. You are a big, fat, bloated, mouthy, fucking no neck, and that is your problem. You know that better than anyone else does and that knowledge kills you.'

Maggie was shaking her head in disappointed anger. 'I buried my baby and you would still bring this shit to my door? If there's any killing to be done this day, it will be done by me, get it? And you remember that if you bring this little soiree into my Jimmy's world, Freddie and you will both be finished, and I will see to that personally. You are not welcome here, Jackie. I have carried you for years and I don't fucking need this
crap
in my life any more. Now fuck off home before I really lose my rag.'

Chapter Twenty-Nine

'Please tell me what the fuck is really going on, Jimmy. Me nerves are nearly busted with all this.' Glenford was laughing as he spoke but Jimmy knew he meant it seriously.

'I told you, I ain't carrying him no more. I have had enough of him. Not before time, is it? Anyone else would have aimed him out the door years ago. But he was family, and I swallowed because of that. End of story.'

'Beginning of the story, more like.'

Jimmy shrugged, and Glenford knew that he would not get any more from him. Instead, he asked, 'Is he still on a promise?'

'From what I gather, yeah.' Jimmy grinned now. 'Freddie and his skirt, eh? I remember when he was released and he was clocking anything with a pulse.'

Glenford laughed loudly now, his new gold teeth glinting in the weak afternoon sun. 'It his hobby. Strange is what keeps the man alive.' Then he sat down on the comfortable leather sofa in Jimmy's office and said seriously, 'What is this about, man? I can feel your anger, feel your body rhythms are all out of sync. I just want to help you, man, you are me best friend and you know that. I think there's a good chance that I am yours as well, you know.'

Jimmy nodded in acknowledgement.

Glenford was shaking his heavy dreads in consternation now, and, picking up half a joint from the heavy white soapstone ashtray in front of him, he relit it. Puffing on it heavily he said, 'Since Jimmy Junior, you ain't been right, you specially ain't been right with Freddie. It's almost like you blaming him.'

Jimmy loved this man like a brother, and he wasn't surprised that he had worked out the cause of his problems so easily, but he could not say out loud what was still careering around his head every second of every day.

Freddie's son had killed his baby, his boy, his life's blood.

Freddie was on the laughing gear. The girl had provided a decent bit of sniff and, mixed with the whisky and Freddie's bad humour, he was now rocking.

Melanie thought she was the height of sophistication, she sniffed as loud as possible and with dramatic hand gestures so that everyone around her would know she had taken cocaine.

Freddie didn't have the heart to tell her that it was cut so badly, if it was a geezer it would have a face full of Mars Bars. He had scored some decent shit for himself off a mate that lunchtime, and he had just slipped it to Melanie who was now about to fly higher than the Hubble spacecraft.

Her eyes were already glittering and, he had to admit, coked-out birds before they hit the deck had a certain charm about them. This little bird really believed she knew her gear, knew a snort and knew a puff.

What an embarrassment she really was. A fucking babe in arms to him, and that was just how he liked them.

In a few minutes she would start to talk the hind leg off a table. He would find out all her business, and Freddie was looking forward to that. She was a lamb, and lambs like this one needed slaughtering badly. This was going to be a life lesson for her. He only hoped she realised how lucky she was that he was taking such an interest in her, even if it was mainly to kill a few hours and see if Jimmy came to him for a change.

He forced another drink on her and she gulped at it, as he knew she would, because her mouth was now drier than a nun's tits, and the whole bottom of her face had gone numb. As she leaned forward he saw she was about to stumble and he grabbed her in his arms, in a tight bear hug that made her feel cared for, made her feel safe.

'Steady on, girl, you sure you're all right?'

He was jovial, he was on his best behaviour, and he was also copping a feel of her very adventurous-looking Bristols. He guessed from her smile that they had been handled more times than a footballer's dick but he didn't care about that. He fancied a bit of soft, and big bouncy ones were always good for a bit of soft.

Judging by her belly, which she was now forgetting to hold in, she usually drank lager.

Well, she was in for an education today, and he was just in the mood to start educating her.

Paul was worried about the condition of his wife's niece and knew without a doubt that he was going to get the blame for it. 'Leave her alone, Freddie. Come on, Mel love. Go on up to Liselle.'

Melanie pushed her long straggly blond hair out of her face and said belligerently, 'Piss off, Paul, I am over eighteen, you know.'

Her hostility was rubbing off on Freddie now as he watched the little scene unfolding before his eyes. 'What the fuck's it got to do with you anyway, Paul?'

Paul shrugged. 'It's Liselle's niece.'

Freddie bellowed at the poor girl, 'Are you? Really?'

She nodded and they both started to laugh.

Paul knew when he was beaten but he tried once more, knowing Liselle would get a blow-by-blow account off the regular punters. 'Come on, you're off your nut. Let me take you up to Liselle, eh?'

Freddie pushed Paul's arms away from the girl, nearly knocking her over in the process.

'Fuck off", you prick, she is all right with me.'

Paul sighed. 'Come on, Freddie, how would you feel if it was one of your girls? Liselle will do her crust, and you know it.'

He was the voice of reason, the nice bloke. None of which cut any ice with Freddie Jackson, who only saw his afternoon's shag disappearing before his eyes. 'Fuck off, Paul, and I mean it.'

The menace was evident, as was the way he suddenly straightened up, pulled back his shoulders and bared his teeth, making him look almost feral.

'Why don't you go and ring Ozzy, or even Jimmy, his chief arsehole licker, and grass me up, tell them what I've been doing all day, eh? You fucking snotbag… Tell them, right, that I think they are a pair of cunts. Go on—' he was laughing now at his own words — 'tell them that. Go on, I dare you.'

Everyone in the pub had gone quiet as he shouted out his insults and Paul knew his ravings were going to be all over the place within hours. Freddie should have known better than to let his mouth run away with him like that. It wasn't the first time it had happened, though, lately it had been a frequent event. He was more annoyed that Freddie was mouthing off like that to impress a little girl who was destined for everything their world had to offer, except of course greatness.

Melanie was her mother's daughter, and he gave her three years before she really was old before her time. Paul could have launched his wife's niece out of the door and through Barking Park. Instead, he shook his head sadly and watched the girl as her screeching laugh became a very deep and very nasty smoker's cough.

She was eighteen and three months and she was listening to Freddie Jackson as if he was the oracle and looking at him as if he was something the cat had dragged in just for her.

Well, fuck her now, let her make her own mistakes. He had just about had enough. If Liselle stayed upstairs he was safe enough. If not, she could sort this lot out herself.

Jackie was alone in her house and as usual she was drinking vodka mixed with wine. She had been so sure that she was going to lay Maggie out once and for all, but she had ended up leaving with her daughters and her shame at her predicament was growing by the second.

Her daughters should have seen her confront and conquer the woman who had accused their father of rape, yet she knew they believed it of him. Her own kids thought that little of their father, and she knew they thought even less of her.

It was this that was troubling her so much. In a few hours her whole world had come crashing down around her ears and she knew that there would never be any going back now. Her mother and father would be in bits about it, especially after the kid dying. He was the kid now, because she knew in her heart that Freddie was his father. Freddie had fathered that little boy.

If Maggie told Jimmy what she had said there would be murders. Maggie had denied it all but she had known her sister was lying through her teeth. Maggie was trying to save her, trying to save the family and on one level she understood that. But looking at Maggie today, with her perfect hair and her perfect home, the usual jealous animosity was to the fore.

Even with the grief she knew her sister was having to cope with, Jackie still found it hard to feel any pity for her. In fact she felt that Maggie had all the luck, even her bloody kid had died and she was once more a free agent.

What she wouldn't have given to have offloaded hers over the years. Especially the girls, who had driven her mad with their backchat and their constant sniping at her.

She picked up the bottle of vodka and saw that she had downed over two thirds of it, and she wasn't even starting to feel drunk. It took longer and longer now, she was just topping up. She was half pissed all day every day. But instead of her usual happy feeling she was experiencing an incredible anger. It was bubbling away and the more she thought of how she had humiliated herself at Maggie's, the more she felt she should do something, something spectacular, to make amends.

Rape! She was having a laugh if she thought that old flannel would wash. The hate was inside her once more. She could never allow herself to believe that her husband had done something so monstrous. It was, she decided, the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard of, and she was not going to let that fucking skank get away with the accusation.

She swallowed down the rest of her drink and poured herself out another, larger glass. She was feeling in the mood for revenge now and she had a good idea how she was going to achieve it.

Jimmy needed a rocket up his arse and she was going to see that he got just that. She would make Maggie think twice before she threw around those kind of allegations.

She was almost out of control now, she knew the signs, and she knew she was on the verge of losing the little bit of rationality she possessed.

Everyone was the enemy now, including her slag of a husband, and especially that skinny bitch who had the nerve to call herself a sister.

Paul was on the phone to Jimmy. 'He is cunting you up hill and down dale. Everyone is blanking him as best they can, but you have to come and get shot for me, Jim. He is fucking out of order.'

'Start clearing the pub, Paul, on the quiet, OK?'

Paul sighed and whispered angrily, 'I have had enough of him. Liselle is like the fucking anti-Christ, walking round with a face like a fucking Rottweiler chewing on a hornet's nest, and blaming me for her niece being out of her fucking box. And to add insult to injury, he is accusing me and you of being arse lickers for Oz. Who will not be in the least impressed when he hears about this lot.'

Paul sounded worried. Freddie was not a man anyone would take on lightly, and Paul, even though he had his shotgun, would much rather leave the man's removal to Jimmy Jackson.

Jimmy sighed. 'You're like a fucking old woman, Paul. Get a fucking grip, you nonce. Just do what I say and clear the pub. Leave everything else to me. I want a car and I want peace and quiet, do you get my drift?'

Paul didn't answer and Jimmy knew then that he was finally taking the seriousness of the situation on board.

'When I arrive, I want you to fuck off, and I don't want to see you until the morning, all right?'

Paul was nodding in complete and utter consternation. 'OK.' Only that morning he had said there would be murders. He had not, however, meant it literally.

Freddie was calling out to him from the bar, 'Phoning your boyfriend? Tell him I am ready when he is.'

Melanie was laughing her head off and this alone was annoying Paul. He knew Jimmy could hear it all as well. He felt like a kid who had been caught out grassing, but then again, he knew that was how Freddie wanted him to feel.

'Ignore him, Paul. Just get yourself out of there, OK.'

The line went dead then and Paul stared at the phone as if he had never seen it before. As he replaced the receiver, he saw his wife standing at the top of the stairs. The fear on her face was evident as he said quietly, 'Pack a bag, we are out of here.'

'What about Melanie?'

Paul shrugged in exaggerated boredom. 'What about her?'

Maggie was alone, and as always since her baby had died she let the quiet envelop her. She liked being on her own. It gave her a feeling of security because she could still pretend that he was alive, that he was going to walk through the door laughing with his daddy. Only poor Jimmy walked in by himself and the bubble burst and she became more aloof than ever.

All that wasted time, all those years when she had not been able to even touch the child without a feeling of revulsion. Freddie taunting her with his eyes and with his smiles, how had she lived through that?

She wondered at times how she had coped with it all. Now she would put up with anything to have him back beside her, no matter how much his presence might hurt her.

And Jackie — the balloon would be going up soon there. She knew her sister too well. Now she had this big black secret that she could use as a big stick, and Jackie would take great pleasure in beating her with it.

Maggie hated her at times, and she never wanted to see her again, but it was still second nature to her to try and protect the woman who would happily destroy her and her life.

She waited patiently for her husband to return.

'This is between me and Freddie.'

Glenford sighed, much like Paul had a few minutes earlier. 'Let me come with you, eh?'

Jimmy shook his head. 'Nah, I have a lot of sorting out to do. You get yourself off home, mate. You've been stuck to me like shit to a blanket all day.'

'Is this as serious as it feels, Jimmy?' Glenford's voice was soft. He had a deep brown voice and it was a kind voice, unless the person he was addressing had upset him in some way. Then his voice sounded deadly, and the listener was aware that their days were liable to be numbered unless they did
exactly
what he was asking of them.

It was this determination, which Jimmy also had in abundance, that had made them such good friends.

'Do you remember all those years ago, Jimmy, when Freddie tried to have me over with that shit grass?'

Jimmy nodded.

'I knew even then that you were to be trusted and Freddie was nothing but a piece of shit. A lucky piece of shit, he had been lucky enough to have been banged up with Ozzy who saw a worker and utilised him. But without you he would not have lasted a month, and do you know the worst thing of all?'

Jimmy shook his head.

'Freddie knows that as well, and that, my friend, is why this day had to come.'

Jimmy grinned. 'I never begrudged him a thing, always a fifty-fifty split, and I still had to fucking bail him out. Do you know how much we have collared over the years? Fucking fortunes, and I watch him putting on his thirty-grand fucking bets, and his fucking cars that he runs into the ground and then fucking dumps. He don't even bother to fucking insure them half the time, a sixty-grand motor and he can't even be bothered to insure it. All that dough and he is still scratching a fucking living. I ain't giving him a fifty split any more. I haven't for years, and he has never once questioned it. He gets twenty per cent now because I couldn't bear to see that money being spunked. He ain't earned it anyway, I earn it. I use me fucking nous, he just threatens people, but it shows you how much working knowledge he has of the businesses that he ain't ever questioned it. It has never occurred to him that the wedge is huge for us. He has no concept of the real world whatsoever.'

Glenford listened carefully, and then he said, 'In all these years this is the first time you have ever said anything like that. This is really serious, isn't it?'

Jimmy smiled. 'Nah, it's just long overdue, that's all.'

He jumped into his motor. Glenford watched him as he sped away and he wondered at a man who was so relaxed when going into what was, in effect, the lion's den. Freddie was a nutter, Freddie was not all the ticket, and that meant you never knew what he was going to do next.

He only hoped Jimmy bore that in mind when he confronted him.

He made a mental note to ask around some of his cronies to see if he could shed any light on what had occurred between the two men. He didn't hold out much hope. He knew Freddie cunted Jimmy at every available opportunity, but Jimmy was aware of that and so it couldn't be starting to bug him now.

No, whatever this was it went deeper than anyone could imagine.

'Oh, Jackie, you're drunk as a lord!' Lena was furious and Jackie enjoyed the effect she was creating.

Joseph shook his head at Maddie, who was in the flat for her weekly chat and shop with Lena. It was hard to believe that those two had once been enemies over their children marrying, and yet now were like bosom buddies.

Joseph raised his eyebrows and Maddie pursed her lips primly. Jackie sober was bad enough, but drunk she was a nightmare. It was as if she grew with the drink, somehow. She was a big girl anyway, but with drink in her she seemed enormous. Maddie knew it was a silly way to think and that it was only because Jackie was so accident-prone while in her cups.

As she barrelled through the small flat into the kitchen, she caught sight of her mother-in-law and said loudly, 'Have you heard?'

Joseph sighed in annoyance and even in her drunken state Jackie saw the toll the boy's death had taken on her parents. They seemed much older, and her mother's usually spotless home was grubby, unkempt and uncared for.

'Heard what?' Joe sounded irritable and this irritated his daughter in turn.

'About your darling daughter Maggie.'

No one spoke, and Jackie felt on the verge of screaming. As usual, none of them thought the marvellous Maggie could do any wrong.

'You leave poor Maggie alone, she's enough to contend with.'

It was her mother's tone of voice, the reverence with which she spoke about Maggie, that set Jackie off and she hollered as loudly as she could, wincing at her own inebriated ramblings, 'She reckons my Freddie raped her. Have you ever heard anything like it?'

She now had what she always wanted, the attention of the whole room, and as three pairs of eyes looked at her in absolute disdain she bellowed, 'And she reckons, or
so
she told my Kimberley anyway, that Jimmy Junior was his baby, Freddie's son, not your fucking precious Jimmy's.'

'Get out, Jackie.' Her father's voice was harsher than she had heard it for years. He grabbed her by the hair and he physically dragged her to the front door. Opening it he threw her with all his might out into the small lobby.

'Fuck off, and don't you ever come back here again, you hear me?'

Jackie was unsure exactly what had happened until the door slammed and she scrambled to her feet. Her father's voice was so final, so full of dislike, that she understood that any last chances she might have had were long gone. Kneeling on the floor, she cried as she had not cried in years.

Melanie was aware that they were alone in the pub. Her uncle Paul had put a bottle of Scotch on the bar and Freddie was pouring it out for them both in huge quantities. The coke had made her higher than she had ever been, and the sudden exodus around her was making her feel uncomfortable for some reason.