The Take (61 page)

'Who told you about it, Jimmy? Jackie?'

He did turn then. 'Jackie knew about it and I fucking didn't?'

He was angry now and she was shaking her head in denial. 'She found out by accident the other day. Kimberley told her, she had overheard him taunting me at little Jimmy Junior's funeral. Kim let the cat out of the bag in anger, she never meant to cause any trouble. Did Jackie tell you, Jimmy? I have to know.'

He shook his head and the droplets of water were cold as they hit her bare arms. He was everything she had ever wanted, and now he was all she had left.

'He was taunting you at the boy's funeral?'

She nodded brokenly. 'I was terrified of what you would do if you knew, and of Jackie's reaction. You know how jealous she was of him, Jimmy, she would have lost her mind and caused trouble for us all. I was only trying to keep the peace. I was doing what I thought was best for everyone involved…'

He retied the towel he was wearing around his waist and then he walked out of the room without a word.

She heard him as he padded down the stairs. She lay down on the bed, the bed she had shared with him for so long, and she was so upset, she couldn't even cry.

In the kitchen, Jimmy opened the fridge and got himself a beer. He was angry again. The thought of Freddie touching his Mags was hard enough, but to know he had taunted her with it was too much to bear. All those years they had been together, all the time he had spent with Freddie, helped him out, drunk with him, had him in his home, and he was laughing at him, he was laughing up his sleeve at him because that silly bitch upstairs had tried to keep the peace!

Her and her getting it all out in the open… if only she knew what had happened to her little boy. She wouldn't be able to live with that, so he was not going to force the knowledge on her, unlike her, who wasn't happy unless she was dragging the guts out of everything, analysing every fucking sentence that was said to her.

He didn't want to talk to her about it. Why couldn't she understand that, for him, it was too much information? He was better off not talking it over, not fucking knowing all the ins and outs of the cat's arse.

Once things were said out loud they were out there for ever, and some things were best left unsaid. It didn't mean that he didn't care, or that he didn't understand. It just meant he could cope with things better if he was allowed to digest it all in his own time, and at his own pace.

He couldn't look at her now, not in the same way. She had spoiled herself for him, and she should have known that. She was his wife, and she should have known him well enough to leave well alone. He had felt sorry for her, he had felt so very sorry for her, but now he felt nothing but anger and spite towards her.

He knew as soon as Freddie told him about his so-called tryst that he had to have forced himself on Maggie, there would not have been any other way for him to take her. But it had been the way he had insinuated that Jimmy Junior was his child that had caused his death, because he had believed him. It didn't matter, he had loved that boy and that would never change, but Maggie going through all that for years, living with him and his innuendos and his fucking laughing face, that was, at this moment, too much for Jimmy to bear.

He raced up the stairs and Maggie jumped in fright as he stormed into the bedroom. Grabbing her roughly by her arms, he shouted into her face, 'Thanks to you, that ponce was laughing at me for years. I was the butt of his jokes and I was not in any way aware of it. I had no fucking idea that he was taking the piss out of me, you stupid fucking mare.'

He threw her away from him and she lay there terrified as he dragged on his clothes. Then he looked at her and said, 'You weren't doing it for me, you were doing it for that scab you call a sister. I fucking done him, you believe me when I tell you I done him up like a fucking kipper, and I was
all right
about what had happened. I knew he would have to have forced you, I knew that without a second's doubt. But I tell you now, Maggie, you and him between you have fucking destroyed me. You spent all this time knowing what he meant and listening to him saying all those things to me, and you still didn't fucking feel like you should tell me what was going on. I feel like the cunt of the year, and you took me for the biggest cunt of all. If for no other reason, you should have let me in on your big secret at the time it happened, so I would at least have been aware of it when he was taking the piss out of me.'

Maggie was sitting up now and shaking her head in distress. She understood that all his real feelings were coming out.

Jimmy was good at hiding things, that was why he did so well in his chosen occupation. In the police station he had told her in no uncertain terms that he knew everything, and that he never wanted to discuss it. If you didn't talk about it, then it never happened was an old maxim of his.

Now she had forced him to confront what had happened, it had backfired on her and she wished with all her heart she had not started this.

She saw it now from his point of view. He was suddenly remembering every little thing that Freddie had said, all the slights, all the innuendos, and putting them in their proper context. For someone of his dignity and his self-belief, that would eat at him, gnaw at his very soul, and she had caused this pain. She had kept it secret and it had nearly destroyed them. Then she had forced it out into the open and that had been the catalyst for the total destruction of their lives.

He looked at her as she sat there crying, and he felt the urge to strangle her. He was angrier with her than he had ever been in all their time together.

'Jackie was all you cared about, all your life it's been about her. I have had to put up with her every fucking Christmas, every fucking holiday. It was her you were more worried about, and that is what I am so fucking angry about. I can't face the truth like you, Maggie. I would rather do me ostrich impression. You should have left me alone. Stopped fucking pushing me. You wanted this all out in the open, well now it is. I hope you are fucking happy now. You got what you wanted, Mags, you finally know what I really think.'

With that he left the house and she heard his car screech off the drive.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jimmy woke up to the feeling of a soft moist mouth on his erection, and he sighed tiredly. He didn't have the heart to tell the girl that it was only a morning glory, a piss proud. She tried her hardest but he was deflating at an alarming rate. In the end she looked up at him, and he smiled as he said, 'Better luck next time, eh?'

She grinned and jumped off the bed. He watched her lazily as she grabbed her belongings and slipped from the room.

That was the beauty of prostitutes, all they wanted was what
you
wanted, no more and no less. No long-winded fucking conversations, and no fucking harping on about their families or their problems or their poxy lives.

He felt bad now, though, and that annoyed him even more. He was sleeping with anything that moved, and that was only accomplished with the aid of alcohol and, more recently, Viagra.

He yawned again, and he realised he could smell himself. Jumping out of the bed he slipped his clothes on and made his way downstairs.

Patricia shook her head at him as if he was a naughty boy. 'I hope you fucking paid the poor whore, they ain't working for nix, you know.'

Jimmy gave her a lazy, annoying smile. 'What's it to you, Pat? This is my place. I own them all in one way or another.' He didn't mean it, he was just trying to antagonise her. 'Are you going to Freddie's funeral, then?' He shook his head nonchalantly. 'Why, are you?' Jimmy left the house then, pleased he had got a rise out of her. He drove back to Glenford's quickly. He was desperate for a shower and a change of clothes.

Jackie and her girls were all together in the church. Little Freddie was still outside, and Jackie knew he was chainsmoking cigarettes.

The body had finally been released, and his murder was just another crime that was classed as unsolved. Hardly a soul had turned up for the funeral. Her mother was coming, his wasn't, no surprise there. Nor was her father, and no wreaths had been delivered anywhere. This didn't upset her, it annoyed her. There was a subtle difference.

But once the day was over she could start a new life, that was what she kept telling herself. It was all that got her through the nights.

She surveyed her daughters. They were beautiful girls and she was proud of them. She had never really bothered with them before, but now she saw them all the time and she actually knew about their lives and their thoughts.

Freddie's influence over the house was gone, and she was enjoying the freedom that not being in love brought her.

She would pop over Maggie's tomorrow, see how she was faring. She did not expect her here today anyway, but she had offered to go if that was what Jackie really wanted, and she had been pleased about that. Been pleased that Maggie cared enough to do something like that for her. But she had assured her sister that she would be all right with her girls, that they would see her through it.

She wished they would hurry up and get started. She was dying for a drink and she had a lot to do today. This was the most important day of her life, at least that was how she felt about it though she wasn't so sure her family would agree. She had never buried her husband before. This was a definite first in her book.

The priest was looking at his notes and she hoped that he got Freddie's name right. It was not as if he had known him, after all.

Glenford was leaving the house when he saw Jimmy's car racing up the road. So he went back inside and put the kettle on. He had time for a coffee, that was the good thing about their lives. You never had to live by the clock like most people did. You could pick and choose your hours. It was one of the life's main attractions.

Jimmy walked into the little kitchen and his bulk took up the whole room. 'All right, Glenford!' He was smiling and laughing as usual. 'You know Freddie gets planted today?'

'No, never heard a word. Who told you?'

'Ugly Pat. She ain't going, anyway.'

Jimmy yawned loudly, and taking a joint from the ashtray he lit it up and toked deeply on it before saying, 'I am fucking knackered. I have to get me head together today, though. I am going to visit Oz tomorrow and I have a few things to get sorted first.'

'You look like shit, Jimmy.'

He grinned. 'I feel like it and all, don't worry.'

'You spoke to Maggie yet?'

Jimmy looked at his friend and shrugged. 'No point, nothing to say.'

'It's been two months, Jimmy. What the fuck you and her argued about I don't know, but if you leave it much longer there will be no going back. The longer you leave things the harder they become.'

'You are preaching to the converted, mate. Now let me drink me coffee and smoke me spliff without feeling like I am on the sofa with Lorraine Kelly. Not that I would knock her back if she gave me half a chance!'

Glenford laughed despite himself. 'Have you been to the pub yet? It's nearly finished. Paul said it looks too nice for his usual clientele, which includes us, I suppose.'

Jimmy laughed with his friend once more, and a few minutes later Glenford shot off. His smiling façade slipped away immediately.

'You need anything else done today, Mrs Jackson?'

Lily Small had been cleaning Maggie's house for five years, and she felt that they had a rapport. She came in five times a week and she cleaned the place from top to bottom, and she had sussed out ages ago that Mr Jackson had left his wife.

Mrs Jackson was putting a good face on it all, but Lily had seen the weight drop off her and the frown lines appear as if by magic. Losing that lovely little boy was hard enough, and maybe the strain had been too much for them. She could understand that, it was still too raw even for her, so God knew how this poor cow must be feeling.

She would give her eye teeth to know what Mr Jackson had done, if he had done anything of course, but trying to get anything out of this woman was impossible. She was tighter than a duck's arse that had been superglued.

'Can I iron Mr Jackson's shirts?'

Maggie smiled then. She gave old Lily points for perseverance anyway. She could make Mo Slater look like a deaf mute, but before assassinating her nearest relatives or her neighbours, people whom Maggie had never met nor would want to, Lily would puff up her ample chest, pull on her cigarette and say the magic words that had made both Maggie and Jimmy roar with laughter once she had left the premises: 'I am not one to gossip as you both know, but…'

Now, as she stood there trying to glean even a smidgeon of information on her employers' predicament, she repeated her question, eyebrows raised and cigarette hovering near her orange-painted mouth. 'Well, shall I iron Mr Jackson's shirts? I know just how he likes them.'

'If you like, Lily.'

Maggie knew she was annoying the poor woman but it was the principle of it all. Her life was hers, and she had no intention of gossiping with anyone, let alone Lily, whose lips, Jimmy used to joke, were looser than a Scandinavian whore's. Even her poor mother had given up trying to find out what was wrong, so Lily had no chance.

Maggie understood what Jimmy had meant now. If she didn't tell anyone then it had not happened. If he came back, no one would know anything and they could just get on as normal. He was right, sometimes things were best left unsaid, it made it easier to live with them somehow.

She poured herself a cup of tea and took it through to the conservatory. She had piles of paperwork to get done and now was as good a time as any. The salons were all doing well, extremely well in fact, and this knowledge didn't have the normal effect on her. Instead of a quiet pride, she had no real interest in anything. Every day he was away from her, she died a little bit more inside.

She had not heard one word from him, and she had not attempted to contact him either. Money was still piling up in the bank so she just carried on as usual, but the loneliness was getting to her, and no matter how tired she felt, as soon as she got into bed, her brain went into overdrive and she relived two separate days of her life, over and over again.