Toxic

4

Great Dunmow, like so many other small market towns across Essex, was surrounded by picturesque countryside and as Alfie Jennings drove through the rural location, sitting on the River Chelmer, once home to the Romans, his mind thought back to yesterday. To the woman in the woods. She’d looked terrified, running away from something or someone, but she’d dashed away before he’d had a chance to speak to her. He was certain he knew her from somewhere, he was sure of it, her face looked so familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. It would come back to him, he was certain.

Driving past the small shops and museum on the winding, pretty high street, Alfie turned left, flicking his cigarette out of the window as he tried not to let himself think about Franny. He couldn’t get his head around the text. He didn’t know what he was supposed to think. But what he did know was he needed to sort out the shit she’d landed him in.

Pulling up his Range Rover by a large thatched yellow house, set by a private lake and standing in several acres of pristine grounds, Alfie got out, resisting the temptation to call Franny again. That could wait. He didn’t want to wind himself up any more than he had to because if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose it. Big time.

Trying to crick the tension out of his neck as he pressed the buzzer on the gates, Alfie waited, the heavy rain trickling down the back of his coat.

Eventually he heard a man’s voice crackling through the intercom, speaking in the broadest of Yorkshire accents. ‘Hey up Alfie, you look like you could do with a brolly.’

Alfie looked up to the CCTV camera, his face curled up in a snarl. ‘Just let me fucking in.’

He heard laughter as the electric gates duly swung open but before Alfie could get to the house, a large man with a protruding forehead and a Bryllcreamed sweep over, came around the corner armed with two golfing umbrellas.

‘Here take this, we’ll go into the garden and talk.’

Alfie stared at Lloyd Page. Lloyd had come down from Sheffield fifteen years ago to become one of the biggest drug traffickers in the East of England, as well as one of the boldest swindlers around. The man wouldn’t lose any sleep over robbing food from his own baby’s mouth if it meant him getting a few more quid.

‘I ain’t partial to country walks, Lloyd. I’d rather talk here.’

Lloyd belched loudly, sending the smell of pickled onions into Alfie’s face. ‘Suit yourself. You’ve always been a stubborn bastard.’

Alfie narrowed his eyes, gazing coldly and evenly at Lloyd. ‘I’m not here to do niceties, I’m here to find out if there’s anything going on.’

With the umbrella in one hand and a cigar in the other, Lloyd smirked, holding Alfie’s gaze.

‘This is what I couldn’t understand on the phone when you called. You see, I was under the impression that you were supposed to take over Reginald Reynolds’ crown. You and Vaughnie were supposed to be the next Kingpins, the whole of the East thought that, yet here you are, begging me for a touch.’

‘I ain’t begging no one.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

Lloyd shrugged. ‘I don’t believe you Alf, I think something’s not quite right. I reckon you’re a bit desperate, otherwise why would you be here without your sidekick? Funny that.’

Alfie stepped in close to Lloyd. ‘Do I look like I’m laughing? And you don’t need to worry about the ins and outs of my business. All you need to know is that I need a job, and quick. And you also need to keep your mouth shut about me being here.’

‘And why would I do that? I think a lot of people would want to know, don’t you?’

‘Because, Lloyd, you ain’t stupid and you like your life too much. You and me, we go back a long way, which means I know everything that you’ve done. I know everyone that you’ve turned over, everyone you’ve ripped off. Wasn’t it only a couple of years ago you pulled one over on the Peterson brothers. Robbed over a ton of heroin right from under their noses. To this day, Smithy Peterson and his brothers want to know who it was. And rumour has it, they like burying people alive.’

‘You wouldn’t snake?’

‘Oh, I would, Lloyd. I’ll do what I have to. I’ll take no prisoners, son.’

Lloyd’s face turned into a picture of anger. ‘It’s quiet at the moment, there isn’t anything much about.’

‘Then unquieten it, because I need something.’

Sighing, Lloyd said, ‘Look, there might be a shipment of coke coming through in the next few days. It’ll be on a lorry and I was hoping to get my fingers on it. I’m speaking to my sources at the moment. It’s not certain yet, but it sounds like it could be an easy job.’

Alfie stared out towards the immaculate landscaped garden. Jacking lorries of coke was a young man’s game, often a mug’s game, and it certainly didn’t help that it was Lloyd Page he’d be working through. He was, as Vaughn had always described him, an idiot of the biggest kind. But then, it seemed like it might be his only option if he couldn’t sort out the problem with Franny. Not that jacking a lorry full of blow would give them the money they needed, but it was a start.

‘Then I’ll have that.’

‘Alf, come on, I needed that myself …’

‘I said, I’ll have that.’

‘But it might not even happen.’

‘So, you better make sure it does.’

5

Bree Dwyer felt her husband’s breath before she saw him in the dark of their cream-walled bedroom. Her body ached and the ropes tied round her hands and ankles cut deeply into her, burning and rubbing. The dried blood from her nose sat in crusty lumps above her mouth, and with the air of a priest, Johnny smiled warmly, kissing Bree calmly on her head before untying her from the wicker chair that had dug and scraped into the back of her bare legs.

He looked at her, his head cocked to one side. ‘Well?’

Licking her torn lip and flinching, Bree knew exactly what was expected of her. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny.’

He leaned in, the overpowering aroma of his sickly-sweet aftershave rushing up Bree’s nose.

‘And?’

‘And I ain’t ever going to try to leave you again, because …’

She faltered, feeling nauseous.

‘Because?’

‘… because no one leaves Johnny.’

A wide grin spread across Johnny’s wind-tanned face. He laughed, pleased with himself.

‘So you’ve learned your lesson this time, darlin’?’

Bree willed herself not to vomit there and then. Whatever she did, Bree Dwyer knew there was no way she could be sick in front of Johnny. Panicked, her eyes filled with tears as she desperately tried to swallow down the bile that rushed with force into her mouth.

Johnny’s eyes darkened. ‘I asked you a question.’

The door suddenly flung open, making Bree jump, and giving her the distraction she needed to alleviate the nausea.

There, standing in the doorway, was Ma Dwyer; oedema-swollen ankles and feet pushed tightly into stained, pink fluffy slippers and dressed as usual in her thigh-length silk dressing gown.

Looking contemptuously at Bree, Ma pulled out her nasal pump spray, keenly squirting it up into her left nostril. ‘What’s going on, baby?’

Johnny circled his fingers inside the thin, pale yellow cotton dress Bree was wearing. ‘I’m just waiting for an answer, ain’t I, Bree?’

Bree nodded, her eyes darting from Ma to Johnny.

Ma Dwyer frowned. ‘Well we ain’t got time for you two to get all lovey-dovey and kiss and make up. We gotta be somewhere. You best get moving, Johnny. Eddie Styler don’t like to be stood up … Oh, bleedin’ hell, here comes Noddy.’

Ma crossed her arms across her enormous, braless breasts as she watched her other son, Ryan, come nervously into the bedroom.

Ryan Dwyer turned to his mother. ‘Ma?’

‘Shut it!’ And with that, Ma Dwyer marched out of the room.

Giving a last, cutting glance to Bree, Johnny headed for the door whilst snarling instructions to his brother. ‘Make sure she don’t go anywhere, Ryan. You understand me?’

And not waiting for an answer, Johnny hurried away.

Ryan, spectacularly identical to Johnny, looked at Bree. She smiled at him tenderly as he touched her bruised, swollen face. His damaged brain trying to understand.

‘Johnny’s angry with Bree. You should never leave Johnny. Trouble. Ma says there’ll be trouble.’

‘I know, sweetheart, I know.’

Bree went to the door, looking down the hall before closing it quietly. Pressing her body against it, she turned back to look at Ryan, her eyes filled with tears.

‘But one day Ryan, we will. We’ll leave here for good, and you’ll be free, and then sweetheart, we’ll have no more trouble.’

It was dark and the private traveller site was quiet apart from the sound of the dog barking on Willoughby’s farm, some way off in the distance. As Kieran sat under the bushes – a place where he often slept – watching Ma Dwyer waddle down the path in her silk dressing gown, forcefully sniffing the white bottled, nasal plastic pump spray she always carried, he dug his fingers into his leg; drawing blood, feeling the pain and enjoying it.

The steel blade he held in his other hand caught the light of the moon. He smirked, glimpsing the reflection of his mouth, then, quietly humming, Kieran Dwyer began to cut.

6

‘Pick up, for God’s sake! I don’t know how many bleedin’ messages I’ve left but you can’t keep ignoring me. For fuck’s sake Franny, why are you doing this to me, darlin’? Just call me and let’s sort this out. I get that you could be mad at me. Maybe I didn’t give you as much attention as I should’ve done, or maybe you think I don’t tell you that I love you enough. But I do love ya, from the minute I knew ya, I started falling for ya. But Jesus, Fran, whatever it is I’ve done, don’t take it out on our future. Vaughn’s future. You want me to come and find you, Franny? Is that what you want, darlin’? To show you I care? Cos I do, but I just haven’t got time for these fucking games at the moment! Franny!’

Alfie took the phone away from his mouth, taking in deep breaths of air to calm himself down. He tried again. ‘Look baby, I know you’ll get these messages so please, just call me. I need to get me hands on the money. Sort this deal out with Reenie Reynolds before it goes tits up. I’m trying to be patient here girl, but you won’t answer any of me calls, so what am I supposed to do? I feel like a muppet talking to this machine so for fuck’s sake, talk to me! Yes, I’ve made mistakes, probably lots, but surely it can’t be two million pounds’ worth of mistakes! Franny! You do realise if you were anyone else, I’d hunt you down and put a bullet in your fucking head … but I can’t do that can I? Cos I love ya. I fucking love ya … Franny!’ He shouted down the phone before slamming it hard on the white kitchen table.

‘Alfie?’

He turned, startled. ‘Lola, I never saw you.’

She looked at him strangely. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’

Lola came to sit down next to him and took his hand gently. ‘Don’t give me that darlin’, I spent half me life playing people, so I know when someone’s telling me a Jackanory.’

‘Look, it’s okay.’

‘It ain’t, is it, though? You look like you haven’t had any kip and you probably haven’t eaten either. Here, have some of this.’ Lola picked up the jug of porridge, pouring it into one of the breakfast bowls on the table. It slopped heavily in.

‘Eat up, love.’

Alfie Jennings knew there were some things in life he couldn’t do; hurting a kid, mugging a person, knocking his missus about, to name but a few. And now as he stared at the lumpy, water-logged, powder-clogged porridge, eating it was one more thing to add to the list of the things he could never do.

‘Come on Alf, eat up or you’ll be a bag of bones.’

Alfie raised his eyebrows at Lola. He gave her a crooked smile. ‘More like I’ll be a bag of bones if I eat it. I’ll be bleedin’ six foot under. The state of it, girl.’

Lola Harding, an ex-Tom turned café owner who meant the world to Alfie, cackled heartily; happier than she’d been for a long time.

Feeling the varicose veins in her legs begin to throb, her expression became serious.

‘What’s going on, Alf? What’s happening with Franny? You missing her, is that it?’

He didn’t want to talk about Franny, mainly because it hurt, but it hurt more knowing he didn’t know why she was doing this or maybe he did.

Franny had been good for him. She’d made him grow up. Taking none of his bullshit or his womanising ways and he’d liked it. He’d liked the fact that when they’d got to Spain he’d slowed down and no longer had to look over his shoulder, but after a while, slowing down felt like a death sentence. A long, slow, agonising one and maybe she’d known that.

He’d tried to fight it. He really had. Tried to ignore the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. But no matter how much he’d tried to be what Franny had wanted him to be, he just couldn’t do it. How could he? After all, he was Alfie Jennings, the boy from the East End, where poverty had lingered in the air and a black eye came quicker than a cup of tea. The boy who’d spent much of his childhood waiting outside the various brothels in Soho for his alcoholic, bullying father to cop off with the endless toothless Toms. The boy whose friends were the pimps, gangsters, bouncers and club owners of Soho. The boy whose brother, Connor, had died on a robbery gone wrong. And the boy who’d wept as he’d held his dead mother’s hand all night when he’d found her in the outhouse, covered in blood, still clutching the shears she’d stabbed herself with after life had become too much. And it was those moments that had made the boy become a man.

He’d become driven, determined and ruthless. Deciding life owed him but he didn’t owe anything to life. He hadn’t cared who he’d hurt; eliminating anyone who’d got in the way of him achieving his goal – to become one of the untouchables. A face. Someone no one could hurt again.

And that’s how he’d lived, and he’d been happy. But then he’d met Franny and all that changed. He’d done what he vowed he’d never do. He’d fallen in love. Given it all up and moved away.

It was perfect, or it had been until happy became restless, so when Reggie Reynolds had got in touch he’d jumped at it, arranging to come back to England to get back in the game as soon as he could. He loved the life he was born into. It was part of who he was. But in all that time, he realised he’d never asked Franny how she felt. Never asked her if it was okay with her if they came back. So maybe, just maybe, this was her way of payback. Two million pounds’ worth of payback. Oh yes, Franny Doyle had a lot to answer for.

Angry at the thought of her, he clenched his fist, before leaning in to kiss Lola on her cheek. ‘I’m where I need to be, but I need to tell you something about the money, and you need to swear you won’t tell the others.’

7

Surrounded by marshes and wide-open wheat fields near the grassy sea wall just outside Bradwell on the Dengie Peninsula of East Essex, Eddie Styler spat the last bit of curried chicken out of the car window, landing it at the feet of Johnny and Ma Dwyer.

He picked out the piece of cardamom pod stuck in his back tooth as he got out of his hired Porsche Cayenne. It was important to keep up appearances. He no longer had Reginald’s men to stand behind, and word was slowly getting out that he’d lost it, that he was no longer a name to be reckoned with. But he had to put up a front. He needed to pull off this deal no matter what. And Ma and Johnny were the perfect people to do it.

Hobbling across to the pair – the skin on the back of his feet had been rubbed off by his new Gucci loafers – Eddie looked at his watch. They were late. And late in his books equated to a lack of respect.

Eddie stared at Ma and Johnny, his squat rounded body dwarfed by Johnny’s tall frame and Ma’s wide girth. He enjoyed seeing the unease in their eyes. The fear which for the past few years had come hand in hand with his name. If only Sandra looked at him like that, but the only thing he ever saw in her eyes was contempt.

Pulling his thoughts away from his wife, Eddie channelled his secret humiliation and snarled at the pair, realising that neither of them knew that he no longer had any of Reginald’s men at his beck and call. ‘What the fuck time do you call this?’

Johnny shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I had a few domestic matters to sort out. You know how it is.’

‘No, I don’t, but what I do know is you’re mugging me off. And I don’t like it at all. Makes me think I can’t rely on you and that makes me very nervous.’

Ma Dwyer piped up. She and Eddie went back a long way, and of all people he should know better than to think that. ‘Look, ain’t no one mugging anyone off. Johnny ain’t like that, you know he’s trustworthy. He’s never let you down. If you’ve got a problem, talk to me.’

Eddie, having never liked Ma Dwyer for all the time he’d known her, nor liked the influence she had on Johnny, raised his voice. ‘When I want your fucking opinion, Ma, then shoot me, cos when things become that desperate, I know it’s over. But until that time, keep your mouth closed … The only thing I want to hear is that everything is ready. I don’t want any fuck-ups, cos if there are, I warn you Johnny, it’ll be your head along with your Ma’s which’ll be floating out to sea for the gulls to wax off.’

Smarting slightly, Johnny nodded. ‘Everything’s in order. Ain’t nothing to worry about … but Eddie, and I don’t mean any disrespect by this, but we were wondering when we were going to get our money, or at least part of it anyway. You know it’s usually fifty per cent up front.’

Walking back to his car and feeling the chill of the sea air, Eddie stopped. Fuck. He’d hoped he might’ve got away without them asking. People asking questions was the last thing he needed. Then, deciding the best form of defence was attack, Eddie swivelled round, pointing his chubby finger at them as he padded towards them, putting Johnny in mind of a penguin.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Are you calling me cheap? You saying I ain’t good for it? Don’t forget who I am. Reggie might be dead and gone, but that don’t mean anything’s changed. You disrespect me, you disrespect all of Reginald’s men. One word from me and they’ll have you for fucking breakfast.’

Johnny put his hands up. ‘Like I say Eddie, ain’t no disrespect meant. It’s just that …’

The sound of Eddie flicking out a retractable metal baton stopped Johnny saying another word. Even he knew when it was wise to leave it.

8

Bree Dwyer reached out her hand for Kieran as she crouched on the ground. She was sore, and the bruises on her body and face had mottled her skin, turning from red to blue. ‘Come on Kieran, you can’t sit there all day … Please, darlin’, come out.’

She smiled sadly as he sat under the bush, scowling and refusing to move.

‘Why don’t you come inside with me. We can make a cake. Watch some TV. What about playing with your sister. Molly would like that. Anything you want to do, but please come out.’

Looking at her coldly, Kieran kicked at the dusty ground with his feet. ‘Dad said you tried to leave. He said you didn’t care about us anymore.’

Bree felt the anger towards Johnny swell up inside her but she spoke warmly to Kieran.

‘What? No! Sweetheart, you know I love you.’

Kieran’s face screwed up in fury. ‘No, you don’t … You’re a bitch! I hate you!’

‘Please, don’t say that. Listen to me darlin’, I …’

‘Kieran! Kieran!’ Ma Dwyer’s shrill voice came from inside the mobile home, carrying across the length of the site. ‘Kieran! Where are you?’

‘I’m coming!’

Scampering out from underneath the bush as quick as his legs would allow, Bree watched as Kieran ran without bothering to look back.

Feeling the hard ground on her knees and the heaviness in her heart, she sighed, sadness overwhelming her.

About to get up, Bree caught a glimpse of something under the bush. Glancing behind her and making sure no one was around, she reached over, stretching out her arm and scraping the skin on her elbow as it caught on a small, sharp twig.

She grabbed hold of the object, pulling it towards her, and was surprised to see it was Kieran’s grey duffle bag. Quickly zipping it open, Bree frowned. Her thoughts raced back to Kieran as she stared at Molly’s favourite toy giraffe, shredded and cut up into tiny pieces with a razor blade lying in what remained of the stuffing.

Confused, Bree rummaged some more. At the bottom was a rolled-up blue plastic carrier. She pulled it out, feeling something hard inside it. Immediately she placed it on the ground, taking another cautious glance around before unwrapping the bag.

A tiny yelp escaped from her lips. She stared in horror, feeling a sudden chill. Inside the bag were bones. Small little bones looking like skeletal remains. Bones wrapped up in a dirty knitted shawl that looked like it belonged to a tiny baby.

9

Janine Jennings, dressed in a luminous pink velvet tracksuit, drowned out the sound of the Jacuzzi bubbling away in the corner as she snored loudly on the cream lounger by the side of the blue tiled indoor pool.

Vaughn, lying next to her, stared up at the glass retractable roof. He sighed, irritated. ‘Turn it in darlin’, you sound like a bleedin’ billy goat … Janine! Janine!’

Not getting a response, and resisting the temptation to poke her hard, Vaughn stood up, walking across to the French doors which looked out over the garden and terrace and onto the wide-open countryside beyond, surrounding the village of Wimbish. He watched the sun shining down on the sandstone paving as he thought about Casey.

He missed her. Waking up to her. Joking with her. Confiding in her. She was his best friend. Though ironically, when they’d got together, he hadn’t known if it was even going to last more than a day. She had her demons, drinking to blot out her pain and he had a problem with getting close to anyone at all.