Authors: Kate Kray
‘Yeah.’
‘He
is
completely different from Dad, isn’t he? Thank God. Well, maybe he
will
be your dad from now on. We can be a real family, just the three of us. Just as you’ve always wanted.’
They walked along in silence, past a long row of large display windows, before Ruby grabbed Rosie’s arm and pulled her into a shoe shop.
‘Mum,’she said, with a trace of fear in her voice, ‘what if Sophie and the girls want to come back? Will we have to leave?’
‘That won’t happen, Rube. I promise. Andrew wouldn’t allow that to happen… he’s not like that. He’s dependable, trustworthy… decent. Now, come on – what do you think of these?’ she asked, picking up some bright orange trainers.
‘Urgh!’ Ruby exclaimed, sticking out her tongue.
Three weeks after the move, the letting agent still hadn’t found a tenant for their old house, so Rosie decided to take it off their list. This was partly due to the fact that it wouldn’t really bring in much money, but also because she really wasn’t ready to tell Johnny that she had moved… that would open a can of worms that she really wanted to keep shut.
Whenever she went back to the old house, the answerphone would be full of messages from Johnny, and there would always be at least one letter with the familiar ‘HMP Maidstone’ stamp. The messages he left, for the most part, were no longer menacing. Rosie could only assume that he was involved in some new scam. The only time Johnny was ever happy was when something was going down. Whatever the reason, Rosie really didn’t care, just so long as he left her alone.
Eddie, on the other hand, was proving more difficult to shake. As soon as he realised that Rosie wasn’t answering the phone at home, he was constantly sending her messages on her mobile. Most of the texts concerned ‘the job’ he had told her about at the hotel. He was just relentless, always trying to convince her that she ‘had to do it’, and that she ‘owed him, big time’. Her initial way of dealing with Eddie – sticking her head in the sand and not answering his calls – clearly wasn’t working.
Rosie just wanted them out of her life… removed like gallstones, or a tumour. But she’d known Johnny long enough to know that that was never going to happen. He was such a possessive man that, even with him being locked away, he could still cast an imposing shadow on her new life.
Of course, Johnny was going to find out eventually… that couldn’t be avoided. But Rosie was desperate to put it off as long as possible. After all, none of Johnny’s friends moved in the same circles as Andrew… they would never go to the theatre or the opera – it just wasn’t their bag. She did her best to forget, but every night, when Rosie’s head hit the pillow, she would think of him. Johnny would go crazy if he discovered that another man was trifling with his wife. In his world, trifling with another man’s wife while he’s locked up is the
ultimate
taboo. Worse still, if the husband doesn’t take violent retribution, then it’s considered a weakness on his part. Andrew’s life could be in danger.
But, despite the guilt that Rosie felt about keeping it from him, if Andrew ever mentioned Johnny she always changed the subject. She portrayed that part of her life as well-and-truly over, like it was some cesspit that she had pulled herself out of, and never wanted to revisit. Aunt Madge – the quiet voice of reason throughout Rosie’s life – had told her to get it all out in the open. ‘Johnny won’t like it,’she said, ‘but the longer you leave it, the worse it’ll be. There’ll be hell to pay if he hears it from Eddie, mark my words.’
But how could she tell Andrew, and risk ruining everything? He didn’t have the first clue just how dangerous the twins and their friends were. Dismissing them as mindless thugs, he’d told Rosie that if they came back into her life, he’d deal with it his way… the proper way. Rosie knew that meant ‘the police’…
like they could help
.
No, Rosie decided, Andrew didn’t understand Johnny and Eddie, or how dangerous they could be. How could he?
J
ohnny was flying high. Business was booming – three more shipments of wooden doors had arrived from Panama and, in the arches under London Bridge, the cocaine had been successfully extracted. Johnny’s share was stacking up, and Eddie had recently told him that already there was £290,000 waiting for him in a safe deposit box. So, as long as the deliveries kept coming, Johnny was going a have quite a nice little nest-egg when his sentence was complete.
The Regent’s Safe Depository on the Finchley Road was a favourite of London’s underworld. Unlike banks, business was always conducted with no questions asked. Customers could, at short notice, access the safe depository seven days a week, 365 days a year. The beauty of the Regent’s was that identity could be verified electronically, without ID. Indeed, the identity of those who used Regent’s was closely guarded. Once an account was established, you need never disclose the contents of your box to anyone, so it was tucked safely away from the prying eyes of your rivals, and nosey policemen from the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU). Accessing boxes was, of course, conducted in complete privacy, inside secure viewing rooms. If you had the money, Regent’s would tailor your contract to suit your requirements. In short, it was perfect for storing ‘secret’, unaccountable funds.
So – after every shipment had been processed, cut, and sold – Eddie would make the slow journey to the Regent’s Safe Depository. Finchley Road is one of the busiest thoroughfares in London, frequently jammed with slow-moving lanes of traffic heading out of the nation’s capital. Cars and vans would crawl past Lord’s Cricket Ground and the multi-million pound houses of some of the country’s richest hedge-fund managers, all the way to the M1.
Eddie was a regular client, and on his most recent visit, he confidently walked past the security guards, and gave a knowing wink to the pretty receptionist. She pressed the button to open the secure doors that led to the strong rooms, the secure home to 6,717 safety deposit boxes. Eddie swung his metal briefcase, which contained Johnny’s latest cut, onto the table, and made his way along the rows of boxes until he reached number 743. After turning a small, brass key in the lock and sliding the box out, he returned to the table and opened it.
It contained three bundles of neatly-packed bank notes, two forged passports, some rounds of ammunition in a sealed plastic bag, and two handguns – a semi-automatic Glock 9mm and a converted Brocock, both weapons of choice for British gangsters.
Eddie opened his briefcase and gently placed the thick stack of fifty-pound notes along side the others in the box. After four successful shipments Johnny’s share was growing fast. He eyed the money greedily, his mind quickly calculating what it could buy. This wasn’t the first time that he’d done this, but when it came to Johnny’s cut, Eddie never missed a beat. They shared the same blood – Johnny was his twin, his shadow. Whatever the brothers did, they did it together. That’s how it had always been, since they were boys. Everything was split 50-50, straight down the middle. Eddie closed the lid of the box, smiling to himself as he replaced it in slot 743.
Johnny walked with an air of confidence on C Wing – chest puffed out, head held high, and with a knowing smirk on his face. The news from Eddie had given him a real lift, not far off the feeling he used to get after a few fat lines of coke. Everything suddenly looked better, cleaner, brighter… it was all coming together. No longer did he spend the lonely hours before he could get to sleep thinking of mowing the lawn or enjoying a Sunday afternoon barbecue with the family. Now, in his head, he would visit the Regent’s, open his safe deposit box, and count and re-count his cut.
Including the money from the Panama deals, Johnny now had over a million pounds stashed away… and it was still growing. When Eddie, on his last visit, asked how he was going to spend it, he’d used that old line: ‘Fast cars, women, drink, drugs… I’ll probably squander the rest.’ He was only half joking.
The other inmates at Maidstone were happy, too. The change in Johnny was obvious and they no longer felt anxious when they spoke to him. There was no need to tip-toe around him anymore – he wouldn’t blow up, like he used to. A few even felt confident enough to comment that they’d seen his wife on the TV.
In fact, Johnny found it quite funny that his wife was now a big star. When they lived together, he’d considered Rosie’s earnings as her pin money. And as for her poncey acting mates, they were just mugs. He’d not for one moment considered that it would go anywhere. Even now, he still thought it was all just a flash in the pan. Besides, he and Eddie had far more important things bubbling, than concern him self with such meaningless girly trivia.
That was not an opinion that Andrew seemed to share. With the post-production on
My Fair Lady
almost complete, he was always telling her that she was destined to become a household name.
He arranged a lavish dinner party at their home to introduce her to some of his oldest friends, and had proudly announced that she ‘possessed a voice that is so deep, dark and commanding that she can make a shopping list sound like erotic poetry’. Rosie had been suitably embarrassed and gave his leg a gentle kick under the table.
Andrew’s friends were won over by Rosie before they had even finished their starters. One even commented that, after five minutes of listening to her talking about the joys of acting, it was easy to understand why Andrew was so completely and utterly smitten. In the flickering candlelight, wearing a daring, slinky green satin dress, Rosie looked radiant. As she glanced around the table, she felt happy to be alive.
Ruby sat beside Andrew, hanging on his every word. Earlier, when she had come downstairs in her new red dress and he had told her how lovely she looked, Ruby had felt her tummy flip over. She didn’t understand why she had that reaction, or why his compliment had meant so much, but it just felt
right
that Andrew had taken the time to say that she looked nice. Her dad –
her old dad
– would never have been able to make her feel like that. Ruby was such a confident and creative girl she had slipped into her new life like slipping a hand into a well-fitting glove. She looked across at him, laughing at her mum’s Eliza Dolittle accent.
‘Mum, Mum,’ Ruby squealed, running into the kitchen as Rosie was making after-dinner coffee for everyone. ‘Guess what!’
‘I don’t know, Rube,’ said Rosie absentmindedly, turning on the percolator, trying to remember where the ‘best’ cups were.
‘I’m going to be a model! I’m going to be a model, just like you.’
‘I’m an actress, not a model, sweetie,’
‘Model, actress, what
ever
,’ Ruby said. ‘Andrew said he’s going to help me. He
knows
people, you see. I’m going to have my photographs taken… and we’re going to put a portfolio together… and then I’m going to go on “go-sees”.’
‘That’s great,’ Rosie said, rummaging in the cupboard under the sink.
‘Do you even understand what “go-sees” are?’
‘Hmm,’ said Rosie, standing up, putting her hands on her hips, and pulling a face. ‘Let me see. Are “go-sees” when you
go
and
see
an agent, by any chance?’
‘Yeah, yeah, got it in one,’ said Ruby, dismissively. ‘
Any
way, Andrew is going to help me, with all his contacts in the modelling industry. He’s going to sort
everything
out, and I’m going to have professional photographs taken, and we’re going to put a fabulous, fabulous portfolio together, and I will become Britain’s next top model – the new, younger, and even-better Kate Moss.’
‘If it’s all right with your mum,’ said Andrew as he entered, carrying a stack of dirty plates.
‘Of course it is,’ said Rosie. ‘Where are the good cups? Or are you happy for them to share coffee out of Ruby’s
High School Musical
mug?’
‘The cupboard over the dishwasher, ’said Andrew, smiling.
‘Can I go on my laptop?’ asked Ruby, as she poured herself a large glass of orange juice.
‘Ask Andrew. You don’t want to be rude to all of his friends.’
‘’Course you can,’ he said, ruffling Ruby’s hair. ‘But come down and say goodbye later, okay?’
‘Okay,’ said Ruby, closing the fridge door.
‘Who are you talking to on that computer, anyway?’ asked Rosie. ‘You’re always online.’
‘Just friends! Now, can I please –’
‘Listen to me, young lady,’ Rosie said, cutting her off. ‘Be careful – you never know who you are talking to.’
Ruby shook her head in disbelief. ‘Oh,
Mum
! Please give me
some
credit! I’m not stupid, you know. You should encourage me, like Andrew does.’
Rosie looked into dear little Ruby’s eyes and smiled. She was growing up pretty quick, but was still young and innocent… and vulnerable.
‘Mummy’s only looking out for you, darling.’
‘So I can go now?’
Rosie frowned. ‘Go on then,’ she said. ‘But don’t stay on too long. Read a book for a change!’ Ruby dashed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. ‘And don’t forget to come and say goodbye!’
Rosie’s mobile rang, and Andrew headed for the door.
‘Let me know if you need help with the coffee.’
‘All right,’ she said, picking up her phone. She didn’t recognise the number.