The Victim (5 page)

‘It was definitely Joyce. I was always round your house years ago and she still looks the bleedin’ same. I could hear her chatting and laughing with Eddie. There ain’t many people got a full-on laugh like your Joyce has, Stanley.’

Feeling the colour drain from his cheeks, Stanley grabbed Louise’s arm. ‘Are you sure it was Eddie with her? Think carefully, because this is important.’

Louise was rather merry. She also wasn’t the brightest of girls and didn’t even realise she’d said the wrong thing. ‘Of course I’m sure it was Eddie. Everyone knows who Eddie Mitchell is, don’t they? Blimey, Stanley, my mate Carol went out with him before he got with your Jess, so I know what he bloody well looks like. He even bonked Carol in the back of his car once while I was sitting in the passenger seat like a bloody gooseberry.’

‘Whatever’s the matter, Stanley?’ Jock asked, as he returned to the table and clocked his pal’s deathly white face.

Stanley ignored him and turned back to Louise. ‘How long ago did you see them in the pub together?’

‘About six or seven weeks ago,’ Louise replied, necking the rest of the wine in her glass. She had just sort of realised that something was amiss when her dad had shaken his head frantically behind Stanley’s back and she didn’t fancy any agg with Eddie Mitchell. She stood up and smiled. ‘Perhaps I got it wrong, Stanley. My eyes play me up terrible sometimes. In fact, I’m going to have an eye test next week to see if I need glasses.’

Stanley knew without a doubt that Louise was lying. He stood up just as the waiter reappeared.

‘Omelette and chip, sir.’

Filled with anger and betrayal, Stanley pushed the waiter, who then unfortunately dropped the plate on the floor.

‘Stanley!’ Jock yelled, as he chased his friend out of the restaurant.

‘Leave me alone, Jock,’ Stanley warned. ‘You knew about this, didn’t ya? Go on, fucking admit it.’

Jock at least had the sense to look shamefaced. ‘I’m so sorry, Stanley. I didn’t wanna get involved, I knew how you’d react and I didn’t wanna cause no trouble between you and your Joycie.’

Stanley turned to Jock with a look of pure hatred on his face. ‘You were meant to be my poxy mate!’ he screamed.

‘I am your mate, but everyone knows what Eddie Mitchell is capable of and like most people, I don’t wanna cross him. I’ve gotta think of my own family’s safety, ain’t I?’

As Jock turned to grab his arm, Stanley roughly pushed him away. He then walked towards him and, as Jock backed into a wall, Stanley pointed his forefinger into his face. ‘Me and you are finished, Jock and don’t you ever fucking contact me again.’

Full of pent-up rage, Stanley turned on his heel and stormed over to his car. He had been betrayed by the two people closest to him in the worst possible way and he would never forgive either of them until the day he died.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Are you OK, Frankie? You been ever so quiet since visiting time. Did your brother upset you or something?’ Babs asked her cellmate.

Frankie sat down on the edge of her bed. ‘I’m OK, it’s just I’ve been thinking about my kids a lot today. I try not to as a rule, because it upsets me too much, but sometimes you just can’t help it, can you?’

Babs stood up, walked over to Frankie’s bed and sat down next to her. ‘Look, don’t feel you have to, but I feel so much better inside for telling you my story, so if you wanna tell me yours, I’m a good listener. Like me, you’re a lovely person, Frankie, and I know something bad must have happened to you as well.’

Frankie bowed her head and stared at her feet. Her dad had always told her to be careful to whom she told things. ‘Tell no bastard nothing, Frankie, especially someone you’ve only known five minutes’, he’d always say.

Frankie turned to Babs. She might have only known her new friend for what her dad would call ‘five minutes’, but gut instinct told Frankie that she could trust her. Not only that, she was desperate to share her burden with somebody, so she took a deep breath and started right at the beginning.

‘I met Jed on my sixteenth birthday in a club in Rainham called the Berwick Manor. I was there with Joey and my friends and it was the first time we’d been to a proper nightclub. We usually just went to a local pub, but the Berwick held these rave nights and we were all desperate to try it ’cause everyone had said how good they were. Anyway, I met Jed at the bar and I was instantly smitten by him. He was good looking, confident and charming and he had the most beautiful bright green eyes that I’d ever seen. We got chatting, he bought me a drink and it wasn’t until we swapped names that I realised who he was. Apparently, we’d met once before when we were kids.’

‘Whaddya mean, who he was? Was he famous or something?’ Babs asked, intrigued.

Frankie shook her head. ‘He was the son of my dad’s biggest enemy. My dad’s a bit of a face, you know, a sort of gangster, and for years he had this feud going with a bloke called Jimmy O’Hara. Well, it turned out that Jed was Jimmy’s son.’

Babs knew a lot of drug dealers like her ex, Dennis, who were into prostitution rackets and similar stuff, but most of them were scumbags. She didn’t know any real gangsters. ‘So, is your dad like the Krays or something?’

Frankie shrugged. ‘Sort of, I suppose. He’s a moneylender and he’s got his fingers in loads of other pies. He comes out of Canning Town originally, but he’s quite famous all over. I don’t know too much about the businesses he runs, but I do know everyone’s shit-scared of him. Every school me and Joey attended, everybody wanted to be our friend because of who our dad was.’

‘Wow, that’s well cool,’ Babs said, in awe.

‘Anyway, getting back to Jed. Knowing who he was, I should never have got involved with him in the first place. I knew if and when my dad found out there’d be murders, but I was so young and naïve, I just couldn’t help myself. Jed was so sexy and I’d never felt that way about any boy before. To be honest, I’d never really had a proper relationship before Jed.’

‘So, what happened next?’

‘Well, we started dating and we both fell in love. With everything that’s happened since, I do often wonder if Jed ever really loved me at the time, or if he was just trying to get one over on my dad, but I don’t think he was. At first, I’m sure Jed really did love me.’

Babs was fascinated. When she was at school, she’d been in the play
Romeo and Juliet
and the way Frankie was telling her story reminded Babs of it in some strange sort of way. ‘Tell me more,’ she said, as she put a comforting arm around Frankie’s shoulder.

‘I fell pregnant with Georgie within months of meeting Jed. I didn’t know what to do, so I told my brother. Joey advised me to have an abortion. He said Dad would go mental, but I couldn’t do that, Babs, so I told Jed about the baby.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Jed was really pleased. He’s a travelling boy, you know, a gypsy, and they all have their kids young. He even proposed to me, but when my dad found out, everything went dreadfully wrong.’

‘So, what did your dad do? Did he beat Jed up, or what?’

Frankie shook her head. ‘As a kid I was always a daddy’s girl. Joey was very close to my mum, he never used to get on that well with my dad, but I did. My dad adored me. Because Jed was Jimmy O’Hara’s son, I couldn’t face telling Dad what I’d done. He would have been so angry and disappointed in me, so I took the coward’s way out. Jed and me, we hid behind a bush until my dad went out, then I went indoors and told my mum. My Uncle Raymond was there, he worked for my dad, and he went mental and tried to lock me in the house, but Jed confronted him, then we legged it back to his. Jed only lived down the road; he had his own trailer on his father’s land.’

Frankie paused. She didn’t even want to think about Jed, let alone remember her romance with the evil bastard, but she had to carry on now and once she had told Babs, she would never tell anyone ever again. ‘It was Jed’s idea to go to Tilbury. His dad had a trailer there on an old scrapyard and Jed said my dad would never find us there, but he did.’

‘What did your dad do, Frankie?’

Reliving the memories as though it was yesterday, Frankie started to cry. Her mum had died that night and, looking back, she now realised it was all mainly her fault. When Frankie’s cries turned to painful sobs, Babs held her friend’s shaking body to her own. She soothed Frankie by stroking her long, dark hair.

‘Sssh, it’s OK, sweet child. You have a lie down and get some rest. If you wanna talk again later, we can, and if you don’t, then that’s fine by me.’

Joycie Smith was thoroughly enjoying the latest episode of her favourite soap. She always prerecorded
EastEnders
and watched it when Stanley wasn’t about, as his constant jibes and criticism of the programme often resulted in an argument.

‘Load of old bleedin’ codswallop. Ain’t nothing like the real East End. I should know, I was born within the sound of Bow bloody Bells,’ Stanley would constantly chirp.

Sipping a drop of sherry, Joyce put her glass down and clapped her hands in glee as her current fancy man appeared on the screen. Up until recently, Joycie’s only love interest had been that Eamonn Holmes off GMTV, but since that dishy David Wicks had appeared in
EastEnders
, Eamonn had taken a back seat in her affections.

Fantasising that David Wicks was snogging her instead of the actress playing his girlfriend, Joyce was annoyed as she heard Stanley’s car pull up outside. ‘Bleedin’ nuisance,’ she mumbled as she pressed pause.

‘What are you doing home? I thought you were going for a meal with Jock,’ Joyce shouted as she heard his key in the lock.

Stanley marched into the room, his face as black as thunder. He walked towards his wife and stared at her with a look of pure repugnance. ‘How could you, Joycie? How fucking could you?’

Joyce was stunned. What was she meant to have done? Surely Stanley didn’t think she was having an affair or something. ‘Whatever you on about? You silly old sod.’

Stanley had never hit a woman in his life, but he’d been made so furious by his wife’s betrayal that he could have quite easily knocked her from one side of the room to the other. Restraining himself, he instead pointed a finger in her face. ‘You have been fraternising with the enemy, Joycie. I know all about you meeting Eddie Mitchell in the Bull in Romford. How could you sit there laughing and joking with that bastard when he obliterated our daughter? You absolutely repulse me. In fact, I fucking hate your guts.’

Shocked by her husband’s contorted expression and harsh words, Joycie decided to be truthful with him. ‘It’s not what you think, Stanley. I only met up with Eddie the once to sort things out between him and Joey. It’s what Jessica would have wanted and I did it for her.’

‘Don’t you dare say you did it for our daughter. I know exactly why you met up with him – ’cause you love being associated with the villainous bastard, you always have done. You only encouraged our Jess to marry him because he was a face and that gave you something to brag about. In that warped, fucked-up mind of yours, our daughter ending up with a notorious gangster gave you the street-cred you’d always craved. Well, let me tell you something, Joycie, you are a nasty little nobody, and none of them people you used to brag to even fucking liked you. Even your friends Rita and Hilda can’t bastard well stand ya – no one can. You’re an evil old dragon; everybody knows exactly what you’re like.’

Livid that Stanley had brought her friends into the argument, Joyce knocked his dumpy finger away from her face, stood up and gave him a dose of his own medicine. ‘You wicked, bald-headed old bastard! How dare you call me a nobody! If anybody’s a nobody in this house, it’s you, Stanley. You have no style about you, no bloody class, and that’s why you always hated Eddie Mitchell from the word go, because he was something that you wasn’t. I loved my Jessica more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and if I can accept that what happened was an accident, then why can’t you? Both Frankie and Joey have forgiven their father – they know how much he loved their mum – but no, not you, you have to be the odd one out, Stanley. Bitter, twisted and full of grudges, that’s what you are.’

Unable to control his boiling temper any longer, Stanley lifted his right hand and slapped Joyce fiercely around the face. ‘You are poison, Joycie, and I’m leaving you. In fact, I want a divorce.’

As Stanley stomped out of the living room, for the first time in donkey’s years Joyce was left totally struck dumb.

Back in Holloway, Frankie had stopped crying and was now ready to continue her story. ‘Where was I?’ she asked.

‘You and Jed had fled to the trailer in Tilbury,’ Babs reminded her.

‘Oh yeah. Well, my mum rang my mobile, said that my dad was on the warpath and she asked if she could come and see me to sort things out. She was so sweet, my mum, she was beautiful and everybody loved her, Babs. Anyway, I gave her the address, but not long after she’d turned up, my dad and uncle Raymond turned up as well, so my mum hid under the bed. My uncle kidnapped me; he bundled me into a car and drove off. He didn’t know that my mum was there, but he’d put tape over my mouth and my hands were tied up, so I couldn’t even tell him. Finally he realised something was wrong and he stopped the car. When I told him that my mum was in the trailer, his face went white and he drove straight back there. But, we were too late. By the time we got back there, my beautiful mum was already dead.’

As Frankie began to cry once more, Babs rested her young friend’s head on her shoulder. ‘If it’s too upsetting for you to talk about your mum’s death, just tell me what happened with Jed,’ Babs suggested.

Frankie nodded, then wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sweatshirt. Talking about her mother’s demise was still far too raw and she couldn’t relive it – it was too awful for words. ‘Well, after my mum, you know, died, my dad got put in prison and I moved in properly with Jed. Things started to go downhill almost immediately. I hated his mother and I couldn’t adapt to what he called “a traveller’s way of life”. By that time I was trapped, though. I was pregnant with Georgie, my mum and dad weren’t there to help me, and I wasn’t even speaking to my grandparents. Jed was a bastard. He knew I couldn’t run away ’cause I had nowhere to run to, so he did exactly as he pleased. I was so naïve, Babs. I used to think that he was actually working when he stayed out all night, but he was out shagging other birds. Jed was such a convincing storyteller, even God would have believed his lies.’

Babs squeezed Frankie’s hand. ‘Don’t beat yourself up for believing him. They’re all lying bastards – trust me on that one, honey.’

Frankie smiled gratefully, then carried on talking. ‘Looking back now, apart from right at the beginning, I can’t believe that I ever really loved Jed. I mean, how can you love someone who tries to strangle you and gives you black eyes regularly? And I’m sure the night Harry was conceived, Jed practically raped me.’

‘You can easily love an evil man like that, because I did it also, remember?’

‘He even got another girl pregnant while we were together and I still forgave him, but one day I woke up and I felt differently. The love I’d had for him had turned to hate and I wanted him out of mine and my children’s lives.’

‘So, is that why you stabbed him then?’

Frankie fell silent for thirty seconds or so. Apart from her friend, Kerry, nobody knew the real reason that she had stabbed Jed, and she was weighing up whether she should tell Babs or not. She turned to her cellmate. She had barely spoken to Kerry for weeks and she had to tell somebody the secret that was burning a hole in her heart.

‘My grandad was a legend in the East End. Harry Mitchell was his name, and I think he was one of the biggest villains to ever come out of Canning Town. He wasn’t the best grandfather in the world – me and Joey rarely saw him – but obviously I still loved him ’cause he was my dad’s dad. Anyway, a few years ago my grandad got murdered. It happened on Christmas Day and it was awful for my dad. Well, to cut a long story short, I found out that it was Jed and his cousin Sammy that had killed him and that’s why I tried to kill Jed. That and everything else, I suppose. I just lost it.’

Babs eyes were like organ stops. Her own sorry tale was just about druggies like Dennis and nonces like Peter, but Frankie’s sounded like something out of one of those gangster movies. A bit like
Once Upon a Time in America
.