CRUEL SECRETS Page 36

  A vulnerable smile tugged at her cheeks. “You came for me, Keffa, that’s all that matters.”

  He looked into her frightened eyes and smiled. “I told ya, I will always have your back.”

  He was true to his word; any trouble and he was by her side, like her shadow, except he was twice the size of her. She thought about Peter; he had shot past her with a look of abject terror on the way to his car. He didn’t stay to help her or even stop her going inside that house. She didn’t hate him for it though. She just knew he wasn’t from her world; he was too clean. Keffa had risked his life twice for her now, and she knew he would do it again.

  “You saw the scars, I, err …”

  Keffa smiled. “We all have scars, babe.” The front door opened and out walked Cyril, followed by Frank and Blakey. She watched them walk down the drive. As Cyril approached the car, Kelly lowered the window. He leaned inside and gave her a sympathetic smile. “I am so sorry, Kelly. We had no idea. I would have taken you in meself to live with me.”

  He looked at Keffa. “You look after her, mate, she’s a diamond.”

  Keffa nodded. “Always.”

  “Is he—” Kelly wanted to say dead. Nevertheless, she didn’t have a chance to finish.

  “Dead? Nah, babe, but he might as well be, by the time his little underhanded scams get out. His reputation has well and truly been flushed down the pan. A man like him needs his status upheld to survive. You wait, someone will come for him. But it’s that satisfaction of knowing he will be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of his natural. It’s like tenderising steak, if ya know what I mean.” He kissed her cheek. “You are a good kid and a beauty, ya got that from ya mother, ya real mother. Now, she was a gem, a special kid, and beautiful. You look like her, Kelly.”

  Kelly felt the lump in her throat and her eyes began to fill up again. “Do you know where she is?”

  Cyril shook his head, with a sorrowful expression. “I ain’t seen her in over twenty years.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Toni pulled herself off the sofa and stood in front of the mirror, wondering whether to drown her sorrows or take the complete pot of tablets. She was having too many flashbacks, brought on by recent events; and since Kelly had entered her life, she was stirring all those demons from the past. Until now, Toni had successfully managed to push those harrowing events so far to the back of her brain that it was as if they had never happened, but now reality had kicked in and focused her mind. She thought again about her mother’s sweet voice and her loving eyes, and then her father’s face that was always black from carrying those coal sacks. They would have gone to their graves in peace, with no feelings of guilt or regrets. She looked at herself; her soulless green eyes could never have glowed with such sweetness as her mother’s had. Just as her brother had malice in his blood, she had too.

  Kelly’s eyes had the same colour as hers, pools of emerald green, but those of her niece were round and innocent with a fresh kindness about them. She couldn’t really understand why she despised Kelly; she had no reason to. In fact, she should have loved her and looked out for her, but who needed a kid running around?

  She peered into her reflection again and was mortified when all she could see was Naomi’s face, pleading with her, begging her. Then she saw her life fade away, as her eyes clouded over. It wasn’t the butchery afterwards that affected her so much: it was the expression in her eyes, the windows to her soul.

  What had it all been for, really? Had it been for her brother? She was weak, shallow, and pathetic. There was nothing strong about her; she acted on his orders all the time. Then she thought about him: he was feeble. He could kill a man with a bullet or slice someone’s throat, but could he do the messing butchering? No. She had done the really grotesque acts. She, not Eddie, had cut out Mickey’s and Jack’s eyes. He couldn’t stomach it. She wanted to seem hard and eagerly did the unthinkable. She loved the kudos and the respect. Yet, that was all it was, a massaging of her ego. Now, she was the one left with the guilt and the blood on her hands. She couldn’t physically see the consequences of her actions, but in her mind, her eyes were fixed on Naomi and being met with an icy stare and a smirk. It scared her. Her body was now coated in a greasy sweat. She felt clammy, then sick, and had to lie down again. The sleeping tablets had been no help at all. They simply made her dreams turn into voids of hell where she was trying to kill Naomi once more. As she lay there, thinking about the bunny, she felt the urge to smash her head against the wall to stop the visions and the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had to get up to be sick again. The room was closing in and her head was light. She tripped over the coffee table and fell on her face, puking at the same time. The cold sweat cloaked her, and she tried to move her head away from the stinking bile. Eventually, she got to her feet and pulled back the curtains to see darkness outside, but as to what time or which day it was, she had absolutely no idea.

  Her car was parked at an odd angle in the street. She could drive to Eddie’s, perhaps talk about the past. Maybe he could help her to get the hellish thoughts out of her head? It was too unbearable to live with the visions and the guilt. It was consuming her, sending her screwy. Yet he should share her pain; after all, he was responsible. He had made her do it and made her feel worthless without him.

  *

  Whilst Toni was in a state – not for her life but for her sanity – Eddie was worried for his life. He didn’t know what to make of the men, as they silently left without a threat or a promise. It was strange and Eddie was not going to hang around to find out his fate. His arm was getting worse – the painkillers were absolute crap. However, he managed to fill a holdall with his money, diamonds, and deeds to his house. All he needed now was his passport, but he was in too much of a panic to think where he had left it.

  He was on a life licence and not allowed to leave the country without permission from his probation officer for the next few years. His dream of living in Spain would therefore have to be carefully planned through the probation services and his pretty probation officer, who was sucked in by his charms. But he didn’t have much time. He needed to get away tonight, if possible. On impulse, he thought about the pigs and convinced himself that Cyril was off to tell his mad brother, Howie, to starve the beasts ready for him. He shuddered and reached for the brandy. Those men’s dying screams were still ringing in his ears; the crunching and snorting, as the pigs gored through their bones, made him break out in a sweat.

  The loud bang on the door made him jump, so convinced was he that the firm had come back to get him. He peered behind the curtain to find Toni looking a wreck. He hurried to the door, pulled her in, and slammed it shut behind her.

  “Fucking ’ell, Tone, ya look like ya just been dug up from a grave!”

  She followed him into the lounge and glared around at all the luxuries, and then she looked at him dressed in his designer clothes. She didn’t notice his bandaged arm, still distracted from her conscience haunting her.

  “Make yaself useful and help me find me passport,” he ordered. With his back to her, he desperately searched the drawers.

  “I need to talk to ya, Eddie, about Naomi.”

  Eddie stopped what he was doing and faced her. “What the fuck is the matter with you? For Christ’s sake, that was years ago. Why are ya going on about it now?”

  “Eddie, it was wrong what we did!”

  He rolled his eyes and turned to pull open another draw. “Yeah, well, Toni, so is taking your library books back late. Fucking get over it!”

  “I can’t get it out of me head. It’s like she’s haunting me.”

  He turned around again with his nostrils flared. “I’ll fucking haunt you, if you don’t shut your pathetic whingeing. Look, what ya got out of it, Toni, and now ya wanna moan!” He moved around the table, kicking the camera out of the way, and began searching the next set of drawers.

  Toni was sitting on the sofa, agitated, her arms folded below her breasts. As she stared at
Eddie, she realised he didn’t care at all.

  “Tell me, Eddie, what did I get out of it?”

  The drawer was pulled completely from the cabinet and the contents emptied all over the floor. “I dunno, a car, a pad … I dunno.”

  Toni’s guilty thoughts were being magnified by the minute, and she was in a right state, as she looked at him in total desperation. Her lonely existence had just slapped her in the face. She had no family, only Eddie, and he was too interested in himself, even after all these years. If only she had stayed away from him and married her first love.

  He was a northern lad from Leeds with an honest and fun-loving personality. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than when he was in Toni’s company. He had offered to take her away to live on his father’s farm, but Eddie hadn’t approved and called him a poncing weasel. She had always wondered if Eddie had scared him off. Eddie wouldn’t have been so cruel – surely, he loved her too much to hurt her like that? She stared at the mess Eddie was making of turning out his drawers. She wanted to laugh aloud because she knew where his passport was: he always kept it in his gun drawer. She smiled to herself; it would be out of date now, unless he had renewed it in the last couple of years. She got up from the sofa, walked over to the glass-fronted cabinet, and pulled open the drawer. Eddie was still swearing and shouting, frustrated that he couldn’t remember where he had left it.

  “I hate my life you know. I can’t handle this sick feeling,” she said, as she stared down at the opened drawer. The small grey gun was there, next to his passport. She knew it was loaded – it always was.

  “I don’t think I can go on. I wish I had gone up north with Max. I loved him, ya know.”

  Eddie was getting more frustrated by the minute and only had half an ear to his sister’s chuntering. He wanted her to go and leave him in peace, to sort his shit out, but she was there, whining in the background. He finally pulled open the last drawer to find nothing but an old Rolex and a few bullets.

  “What ever happened to Max, I wonder?” Her voice was dreamlike, as if she was in another world.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you shut up? That twat is six foot under. The wanker should have listened the first time. Now, help me look for the passport, or take ya droning someplace else.”

  There was silence, as it dawned on him the passport was in the cabinet with his gun. Slowly, he turned to face Toni, and his heart raced. She was holding the weapon in both hands.

  “You should never have done that, Eddie. I loved that man and he loved me. You had no right. You let me believe he ran off with another woman … It’s odd, ’cos in my heart, I knew you had something to do with it. But I never thought ya killed him, though.”

  Tense, Eddie watched his sister’s strange behaviour. It was as if she was possessed by the devil. She even spoke differently. It was slow and meaningful. Her eyes were vacant as though she wasn’t there. His throat suddenly became dry and he had difficulty in swallowing. It was a surreal moment, for sure, and a totally unprecedented moment in his life, as the shoe was on the other foot.

  “We shouldn’t have done the things we did – Naomi, Mickey, Jack, Maureen.”

  Finally, Eddie was able to process mentally the reality facing him. At last, he could see he was in trouble. “I never hurt Maureen. It wasn’t me that killed her, it was Kelly. I saw her that night, and she was like a sick nutcase. I only went over there to find the fucking bunny, and I saw Maureen on the floor and Kelly over her, stroking her head. She is one evil bitch. So, Toni, honestly, it wasn’t me. Please, sis, put the gun down.”

  But Toni’s stare remained transfixed. “What about the others, though, Eddie? We killed them and we should never have. I can’t live with it anymore and neither should you.”

  Then the unthinkable happened – fast. She fired the gun and watched as the bullet hit Eddie right in the middle of his forehead. Blood and brain matter went up the wall and covered the carpet. Then there was silence. She felt nothing: no grief, no pain, no guilt. So she turned the gun around, placed it in her mouth, and fired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Two weeks later

  It was Eddie’s probation officer who discovered he was dead. As she lifted the flap of his letterbox to peer in, it was the smell that grabbed her. She called the police and they broke the door down. Lucy Kane was a young woman, working her way through the ranks, and had Eddie Raven assigned to her. He was a handful, she knew that much, but secretly she liked him, and he knew it. He had her wrapped around his little finger. She was happily married and so she held Eddie at arm’s length. Her husband would have gone spare. He was a detective inspector, a bit of a workaholic, and she loved him, but at times he did piss her off with his whiter than white view on life.

  She was worried when Eddie failed to show up for his appointment, and for a week he didn’t answer his phone. The thought he had absconded was too much of a risk to her path up the career ladder, so she put the wheels in motion.

  Cautiously, she followed the police inside and gasped when she saw the two dead bodies decomposing. The putrid smell made her gag so much, she had to rush outside into the fresh air. Maddox pulled into the drive and saw Lucy’s predicament. “Stinks, don’t it!”

  She gave him a sideways glance. Smug bastard. Lucy knew only too well he was a bent copper. She found Eddie’s files puzzling, because for every nicking he got off, Maddox was behind it. It was obvious why he had that satisfied grin on his face. Whatever Eddie had over Maddox, it would now go to the grave with him. Lucy then had a sudden thought. She would make sure that if there was anything in the house that could incriminate Maddox, in any way, she would see to it he left empty-handed. Her husband, DI Kane, had suspected Maddox for years of walking that dangerous line. But he turned a blind eye: after all, it wasn’t in his remit. But then the chief inspector, with his built-in shit detector, had pulled him in not so long ago and asked him to keep a keen eye. Pillow talk had led to Lucy being informed of their suspicions.

  She followed him inside and watched as Maddox sensed her eyes on him. He turned to her in his deep gruff voice. “You can leave now!”

  Lucy gave him a relaxed smile. “No, I want to stay. I have a report of my own to write.”

  With contempt smeared over his face, Maddox was fearful to push her too far. He knew very well who her husband was and had half an idea he was being scrutinised, and so he needed to tread carefully. Hillary wanted him to retire and live the high life, jet-setting off to sun-filled places. He was smitten, and stupidly he had disclosed his fortune to her, although it was only courtesy of Eddie Cako and his firm. So the news that Eddie Raven was dead was like a dream come true. Eddie had enough on Maddox to send him down for a long time, but now he was dead, Maddox was a free man. He could retire and spend his money, living it up with Hillary. He would never have to watch his back again.

  What was on his mind now was anything in the house that could link him to Eddie’s corrupt dealings. He glanced at the phone, sitting on the table, and painstakingly stifled the urge to grab it. Realising that Lucy was eyeballing him, he was desperate to remove any taped conversations and certainly his number.

  Eddie Raven had been a very crafty man and Maddox guessed he would have saved a few nuggets of info to blackmail him, if need be. For years, he had been supplying Eddie with tip-offs and losing evidence that could have locked Eddie up for a long time. The partnership they’d had stood both of them in good financial stead and he was not going to have it blown away through some do-gooder like Lucy Kane.

  He kept one eye on the phone and one eye on her. Lucy could have cut the tension between them with a knife. She was cute and clocked his shifty eyes settle on the phone. Just then, forensics turned up and he was called outside. He glanced back at the phone and that idiotic move cemented her thoughts. As he left, she light-footedly stepped over to the table and slipped the mobile into her pocket. Then, pulling out her own phone, she photographed the holdall. With a nudge and a wink at one of the officers, she
said, “I’ve taken a picture of that bag, just in case anyone decides to take it.”

  The police officer, PC Elliot Monk, smiled and nodded. “I’ll hand it straight over to forensics, Mrs Kane.”

  “Thanks, Elliot, how are the kids?”

  “Yeah, good, they will be starting school next September.”

  Lucy knew that Elliot was on the lookout. He had been given instructions by her husband and understood exactly how to play the game.

  “Elliot, take this phone and make sure it’s bagged up and sealed, prime evidence.”

  She slid the phone into Elliot’s hand and left. With forensics now taking over, the lounge was a hive of activity. DI Maddox rushed back into the room and was frozen to the spot – the phone had gone.

  *

  Kelly was busily redecorating the lounge. She wanted the house to be fresh and inviting for when Lippy returned, if she was well enough to, of course. Ditto was pasting the wallpaper and Kelly was painting the skirting boards. She was amused at how Keffa and Ditto were so out of their comfort zone.

  “Bluey, honestly, I can get decorators in and have this done in half the time. At least they’ll know what they’re doing. This is hard work,” uttered Keffa, clearly not amused.

  Kelly looked up to see him hanging the paper. He was right; he had no idea what he was doing: the wallpaper for the recesses, either side of the fireplace, had tropical birds, and yet they were now hanging upside down.

  “They look stoned,” laughed Ditto.

  “Well, what a stupid design. Whose idea was it to have fucking birds?”

  Kelly screwed her nose up. “Mine, actually, I thought it might brighten the place up.” Then she laughed because it really did look stupid.

  Keffa peeled off his new set of white overalls and folded away the ladder. “Right, stop!”