Alfie was feeling refreshed. With all the tension from the week, he hadn’t bothered going back to Essex after the meeting with the Albanians, instead picking up two toms who he knew through Vaughn.
He was going to throw them both out in the next half hour, but not before he’d got another blow job from the blonde. He wanted to be relaxed before his big night. He was due on stage at nine and as long as there were no more dramas, Alfie was certain he was going to knock the audience dead.
He was hoping Vaughn would come in and he’d be able to ask him about Casey. With that thought in mind, he grabbed hold of one of the sleeping women’s backsides and pulled her towards him on the leather super-king-sized bed, ready for some more action.
Vaughn Sadler couldn’t understand it. Leaning over the pot in his vast hothouse, he poked the dying buds of the climbing Altissimo
rose he’d been trying to grow. He’d thought by the summer it’d be creeping up the far glass wall, vigorously climbing with rich, slightly scented bright scarlet flowers, which eventually would turn a deep crimson. Altissimo in Italian meant ‘in the highest’, and so far, Vaughn thought, it was hardly living up to its name.
Sometimes he had to laugh at how totally absorbed and wound up he became over his gardening; if anyone had told him a few years ago he’d be spending hours on end tending to his roses he’d have thought they’d been too long on the old crack pipe. It also amused him when he thought about what Connor would’ve said if he could see him elbow-deep in flowers and fertiliser, but maybe if his friend had been here, he wouldn’t have had to find something to try to distract from the raw pain he felt when he thought about Connor Jennings.
‘Connor; you okay?’ Vaughn turned round in the car and watched in dismay as his friend took a swig from a bottle of whisky. ‘What the fuck are you doing? I need you clear-headed, Connor, not bleeding three sheets to the wind.’
‘I’m just taking the edge off a little. Have you got a problem with that?’
‘Too right I have. I want you staying in the car when we get to the warehouse; I’m not having you fuck up this job for us.’
‘Don’t try to fucking tell me what to do, Vaughnie, never tell me what to do. Some of these goons might think you’re some big fucking hot shot, but I’m not one of them.’ Connor Jennings sneered at his friend before taking another gulp of the whisky, whilst the other men in the car watched with interest the fall out of their boss and his best friend.
Vaughn was aware of the other men’s eyes on them; usually arguments between him and Connor were kept behind closed doors to help retain the respect from the other men but, as usual, the whisky had made Connor obnoxious.
Some men were able to drink but Connor wasn’t one of them. No drink suited him; vodka made him cry, brandy made him want to entertain the masses and whisky made him sullen and aggressive. The last thing Vaughn needed now was to try to tolerate a pissed-up Connor Jennings.
If anyone else had spoken to Vaughn like that, he would’ve given them a reason to go to the dentist, but this was Connor. He loved him as if he was his own flesh and blood, and in Vaughn’s book that meant never hurting him; even if it meant having to put up with crap he’d never normally put up with.
Vaughn knew the other men were waiting to see what he’d do about the lip he was getting, but they’d have a long wait because he wasn’t going to do anything apart from give Connor a good talking to later in private.
He saw the driver ‘Doc’ Phillips give him a sympathetic raise of his eyebrows. He liked Doc; he was a man that could be trusted and relied upon and he’d used him on a lot of jobs over the past couple of years.
He’d had met Doc when he was on remand for handling stolen goods and Doc was serving five years for supplying morphine. Doc had already been struck off by the medical board a few years earlier for self-medicating on hospital drugs, but that hadn’t lessened his enthusiasm for opium or narcotics in general, though his drug use had never interfered with the jobs he did for him. Vaughn knew Doc was reliable and would never arrive to do any smile and smirk eyeballed up like Connor had.
Arriving at the warehouse, Doc turned into the side yard and turned off the ignition, signalling to the van behind them to do the same. Vaughn could see the tall fenced gates of the warehouse had been left open as arranged and the night lights turned off. He couldn’t see the security guards; another discreet arrangement which his money had bought. It looked like it was going to be an easy job; he hoped it would.
Although the warehouse was a working one, at night it was dark and deserted and the smell of blood from the dead carcasses hung in the air. It was freezing; on the verge of sub-zero; the combination of the harsh winter’s night and the temperature needed to keep the fish and meat cold made it feel unbearable even to Vaughn’s gloved hands.
‘Fuck me, it’ll freeze me bollocks off. This’ll put paid to me having kids.’ Vaughn spoke quietly and grinned whilst gesturing to the other men to follow. They had to be quiet. He didn’t think there was any immediate danger but he still liked to be cautious just in case any of the warehouse staff had decided to grass them up, or worse, the McKenzie brothers had got wind of it.
A few minutes later they were at the back of the warehouse and standing in front of the metal door where the brothers had stashed the heroin. Vaughn turned to the men, his eyes adjusting slightly to the dim night lights of the warehouse which were never turned off.
‘Okay, behind here is our just reward, gentlemen; you know what the plan is. Doc, you go …’ Vaughn stopped and looked around quickly. His senses suddenly became on heightened alert and when he spoke the anxiety in his voice was evident to the men.
‘Where’s Connor?’
The other men gave a quick glance round and a shrug, not wanting to say anything which might make them culpable for Connor’s absence.
‘Stay here, I’ll go and find him.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Doc Phillips followed him.
The walkway in the warehouse was clear and as deserted as it was when they came in, which meant Connor must have gone back outside or he’d gone through one of the back ways. Vaughn cursed out loud; he knew he shouldn’t have brought him; he should’ve insisted at the very least he stay in the car.
Doc and one of the other men were still a few feet behind him and in the very far distance Vaughn could hear dogs barking. The shadowy gloom of the light made it difficult to see properly and as Vaughn hurried down a corridor he realised they were now in the derelict part of the warehouse; it
seemed to creak with hidden noises and was filled with unfamiliar smells; the remains of pipes and tubing lay abandoned on the floor making it precarious to walk. From the eerie silence of the darkness, Vaughn heard a faint sound; a cry.
‘Connor!’
Vaughn bolted forward in the dark to where the noise was coming from, stumbling and tripping over unseen objects. It was pitch black and getting colder by the moment and when he stopped to get his bearings he could feel water dripping on his face. A torch light was shone from behind him; it was Doc with another one of the men. Vaughn grabbed the torch and shone it round the room, startling a rat which scurried quickly away from the beam.
‘Connor!’ Vaughn’s voice was layered in worry. Another cry came but this time it seemed closer as if it was coming from above. Vaughn shone the torch upwards and recoiled as he comprehended: the drips of water were drips of blood, slowly trickling through the broken floorboards of the ceiling.
Vaughn ran towards the far stairwell, knocking Doc and Jimmy out of the way. The wooden stairs groaned with the heavy weight of his urgency as Vaughn took them two by two. At the top, he shone the torch again and in the middle of the room he could see Connor lying on his back; he looked strange and Vaughn couldn’t make out why until he moved closer; Connor had fallen through the hole in the ceilling, becoming impaled on the two-foot-high pane of glass which was now sticking out of his stomach.
‘Help me.’
Vaughn ran to Connor at the same time Doc and Jimmy made it into the room. From behind him he heard Doc scream, ‘No, don’t! Stop!’ as he yanked the glass out from Connor’s stomach. The blood spurted up into a fountain, pumping everywhere. Vaughn fell to his knees, holding Connor as he shook and started to convulse.
‘Oh my god!’ The blood continued to pour out of Connor, saturating them both and pushing Vaughn to yell at Doc for help.
‘Do something for fuck’s sake!’
Doc Phillips stood motionless. ‘I can’t.’
Vaughn scrambled to pull out the hand gun in his pocket and pointed it at Doc as he screamed at him again.
‘I said do something!’
Doc shook his head slowly and as Connor trembled in his arms, it suddenly hit Vaughn why Doc had yelled at him to stop; he’d instinctively pulled the glass out of Connor and had inadvertently signed his death warrant by causing him to bleed to death.
‘Connor! Oh my god I’m sorry, what have I done?’
Vaughn pressed his head against Connor’s and he felt the staggered breath on his face.
‘I’m cold, Vaughnie.’
Vaughn looked at Connor under the torch light now held by Doc; his face was pale and waxy and with every trickle of blood coming out of his body, his life was draining away. Vaughn felt Doc kneel next to him.
‘Say goodbye, Vaughn; he won’t have long. It’s time to say goodbye,’ Doc said gently.
The cry from Vaughn met with the look of terror in Connor’s eyes.
‘I’m not ready to die. Don’t let me die, Vaughnie.’
‘You’re not going to. You’re going to stay with me. Do you hear me?’
Connor nodded weakly and arched his body as he started to cough mouthfuls of blood and Vaughn felt a squeeze on his shoulder from Doc. He looked down at Connor and saw he was trying to say something.
‘Alfie. Look after him for me.’
Vaughn couldn’t see through his tears but he picked Connor up towards him and held him tight, rocking him against his body.
‘I won’t need to, Connor, because you’ll be there.’
‘Promise me. Please Vaughn, just say you will.’
‘I promise, I promise.’
Connor’s head began to loll to the side as he mouthed a silent goodbye; his eyes stared out into the darkness; blank, void, unaware of his surroundings.
Frantically Vaughn shook him and Connor’s eyes refocused for a moment, locking with his.
‘I love you.’ And then the glaze came back into Connor’s eyes; and stayed. Connor Jennings was gone forever.
Vaughn took a deep breath and tried to focus on the dazzling buds and colours of the other roses instead of his thoughts but it was so hard once the box began to open.
They’d tried to make him leave Connor’s body at the warehouse but he couldn’t; not there in the dark, not on his own. He’d taken him home instead of the smack and the McKenzie brothers had never known how close they’d been to losing their fortune.
They’d driven Connor’s body to the hospital where the staff had been suspicious and called the Old Bill, but within a week they’d released the body and they’d been able to give Connor the East End funeral to beat all funerals.
Alfie had taken it hard at first and had either not spoken or been on all-week benders. Eventually he’d managed to get his life back on track, but he rarely spoke about Connor. Vaughn imagined the suicide of his mother when he was a kid and the death of his beloved brother a few years later was too painful to put into words.
As for himself, he’d been left with the guilt of killing his best friend. Doc Phillips had tried to assure him Connor would’ve died anyway even if he hadn’t pulled the glass out, but no one would ever know or could tell him that for sure.
‘Vaughnie, I know you feel bad but you’ve got to give yourself a break. No one told him to get pissed and wander round an old warehouse as if he was on a bleeding sightseeing trip; Jimmy said he’d been shooting up only an hour before we went on the job. If anyone’s to blame he is. Stop giving yourself a hard time.’
It hadn’t made a difference what anyone said; he knew Connor was bang on it and he knew he’d been drinking. He alone could’ve stopped him coming on the job but he hadn’t done it and no one understood how that made him feel. No one understood how every moment of every day he missed his friend.
Fuck. He had to stop thinking. Flowers were meant to relax him, according to the guy who’d introduced him to them. When he’d served his last stretch inside, he’d walked into the cell and it’d been plastered with pictures of flowers.
He’d assumed wrongly the lag was a shirtlifter but he turned out to be a father of four who was serving life for stabbing his missus twenty-six times in the neck and face, having come home early from work to find her shacked up in bed with his own father. The prison shrink had told the lag he had anger issues and for therapeutic reasons he’d been allotted the job as gardener in the prison garden, and there he’d fallen in love with nature.
Vaughn had used his connections on the outside to get the screws on his wing sent a box of champagne along with cigars and an iPod
each, and in return, he’d been able to join his cellmate in the garden, learning about the rights and wrongs of growing roses and getting out of the twenty-two-hour lock-up regime Strangeways
had in place.
Vaughn had served three years out of an eight-year sentence he’d got for his part in dealing in counterfeit banknotes. When the judge had sent him down he’d decided enough was enough and he was going to retire, and when he’d walked out of prison two years ago, he was as good as his word.
He’d always been careful with money and he’d enough put away in offshore accounts to live in luxury for the rest of his life. He had no family or kids to look after and apart from his sister, who he always made sure was alright by sending her money each month, the money he had was all for himself, to do what he liked with.