CRUEL SECRETS Page 41

  Kelly felt uneasy. Judging by Cyril’s preparations, it looked as though Sheila was one hard-faced bitch. “Cyril, is this all necessary? I mean, I could just give her what she wants. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Now, babe, you listen to me. I know it ain’t your fault that you were born into this world, but the fact of the matter is you were. Like it or lump it, you need protection right now, and it’s my job to give it. If it ain’t Sheila trying to take from you, it’s only gonna be some other greedy cunt.”

  Kelly frowned in puzzlement. She had no idea what he was on about, but whatever it was, she wasn’t happy about it.

  “Kel, don’t you get it, babe? You are a very wealthy woman. Fuck me, everything Eddie owned will go to you, and I know the filth can’t touch it. All his money was carefully put through the washing machine.”

  Now Kelly was even more confused than ever. “Washing machine?”

  “Oh, dear, dear me, let’s go back upstairs … boys, you get yaselves sorted and try not to shoot each other.” He pushed her back up the staircase and into the drawing room. “Look, babe, I don’t need to tell you how our firm got our money. The thing is, ya can’t just rob a bank or a G4S van, and buy houses and cars, ’cos you have to explain where the money comes from. So, we make sure it goes through the bank account legally. Christ, I have all sorts of businesses that do that. Anyway, so did ya ol’ man, so all his millions are not touchable. It all goes to you. Now, being that you are Eddie Raven’s daughter, and the owner of a few haunts, like a nightclub and a pub, some cunt will want their share. Ya father had enough enemies.”

  Kelly swallowed hard and suddenly felt her world crumbling; she wasn’t ready to take on the gangster underworld, and she had no idea how she would do this on her own. She didn’t want loads of money either; all she wanted was a quiet life, whatever that was.

  Cyril could see the look of despair on her face and felt compassion for the girl. “It’s all right, my babe, you have your own firm, me, Frank, Blakey, and the boys, and I don’t mean fucking Bill and Ben down there.”

  She laughed and then nodded. “Has it all come to this? I suppose this is what my life is all about now.”

  “Well, it’s up to you. But it’s all yours for the taking. The money’s good and the pubs and club take in a decent earn. The protection racket, that’s pretty much sewn up, but I guess it will always be challenged, and of course there’s the diamond. Once you sell that little nugget, you can live like a queen.”

  Kelly had a lot to think about. He was right, she would be a very rich woman, but all that money had come from crime, and if she was to spend a penny of it, then she would be like them. But, if she turned her back on the money, then she would forever be thinking what if. She hated bullies more than anyone and right now the biggest bully was Sheila. She may not have had the chance to sort out her father and Toni, but she was determined to bring down Sheila, with or without help from Cyril.

  The rest of the day was filled with Cyril’s guided tour and the boys making the most of the facilities. They were like kids on holiday. The east side of the house was mainly the entertaining area with a games room, in which Ditto thought all his birthdays had come at once. For, not only was there a snooker table, a bar, and a huge curved TV and gaming centre, there was also an indoor heated swimming pool, sauna, and Jacuzzi. Which silly sod said crime doesn’t pay? This was heaven! But Ditto and Reggie were astute enough to realise that with this lifestyle came exceptionally high risks, and so, as they gazed in wonder at all this luxury on tap, they were not planning on following in Cyril’s footsteps any time soon.

  Whilst the boys skipped from bedroom to bedroom choosing theirs, just delighted to enjoy the facilities, Kelly was unpacking her small case in what was now her own room, and in doing so, she was deliberating on what she wanted in her own life. The truth was, she had left school with nothing, served time for manslaughter, and only knew how to sell fake goods and maintain the books. Was one side of her genes naturally aligned to the criminal fraternity? She knew one side wasn’t! What could she really turn her hand to, and who would employ her anyway?

  Cyril was downstairs with Frank, Blakey, and Beano. Beano was another man in their firm and their ear to the ground. Like a Native American tracker, he could sniff out anyone. A trusted man, with a highly trained skill, he really should have worked for MI6, but he earned more money getting involved in covert operations for those who employed him, mainly Eddie’s firm. He had never liked the man though.

  “So, Beano, what did ya find out?” asked Cyril.

  Beano, a small man with a cheeky grin, replied, “Since Patrick’s death, his manor is now run by the Carters. They took over the protection, literally overnight. The Jolly Roger has been claimed back, the cocaine is drying up because the Colombians only dealt with Patrick, and so there is trouble, and Shelia is in the middle of it all. By all accounts, she took her little firm over there, throwing her weight about, and she managed to get out before Johnnie Carter blew her head off, not literally though. The Colombians won’t deal with a woman, so right now, boys, she is desperate to get her hands on that diamond because before long she won’t have a business left. She might have been the brains behind it all and so dangerous in that respect, at one time, but it’s different now the Carters are a big firm and they see her as an old woman. She’s lost three of her men – dead – already, and two others have also quit.”

  Kelly was listening outside, taking it all in. As soon as she appeared in the doorway, the men all greeted her like she was a child, hugging her and kissing her, and calling her the baby.

  “So, the poisonous dwarf is weak and has probably taken a good bashing to her reputation. I think it’s time I had a word with my grandmother because, like all tormentors, she needs to be taught a lesson.”

  The men were startled, and it was at that point they saw a woman, not a cute, lovable niece. Observing her face critically now, they saw she had a glint in her eyes, like Eddie’s, and a cool yet sharp countenance, which they admired. She could be an asset to their firm.

  “Kel, this ain’t a game, babe. She is still a fucker and handy with a tool.”

  “I know, Cyril, I ain’t naïve. I might not have grown up in the life, and the truth is I can’t even load a gun, let alone hold up a bank, but I ain’t scared either. I ain’t scared of anyone, to tell ya the truth, so maybe that’s my problem, but I have made my decision. I am going to wipe out that bitch, so she can’t harm another living soul.”

  Frank, in his gruff voice, laughed. “I gotta hand it to ya, babe, you do have guts. I watched you rip into Eddie. A fearless fucker you are.”

  “I have got a plan. She can have the diamond back …”

  “What!” screeched Blakey. “No fucking way, that’s yours! Don’t give it to her, it’s worth millions!”

  Kelly laughed and looked at Beano. “Can one of you go to any jewellers and just buy a big blue crystal about two inches long and an inch wide? Sheila won’t know the difference, unless she has a picture.”

  The men chuckled and Beano wasted no time. “Right, no worries. I’ll be back later. I don’t need to know the plan. I just hope that you know what you are doing.”

  Kelly nodded and waited for him to leave. All eyes and ears were on her. “So, tell me about these places I own. Do they serve food?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah, top notch as well, why?”

  “I might not be able to use a gun, and I don’t think I could stomach slitting her throat, but I sure as hell can poison the bitch over a nice roast beef and a cosy family reunion.”

  “So why the fake diamond?” asked Frank.

  Kelly smiled. “My back up. I can’t guarantee she will dine with me, but I can make sure she never gets her hands on the gem.”

  The three men looked at each other, grinning.

  “And what about Bill and Ben?” asked Cyril.

  Kelly laughed. “They are on holiday. I don’t want them hurt. You see, daft as they are, they
kept me safe for years and looked after me well. I love them like me own brothers, so I want them out of the way.”

  “And Keffa?” asked Cyril.

  “Oh, yeah, I need him out of the picture, too. He was going to have a word with Sheila, to tell her to back off. I’d better call him.”

  The phone rang but there was no answer. Kelly felt her heart racing. Please pick up.

  Ten minutes went by and there was still no answer. She began to pace the floor, panicking. If they had got to him, she wouldn’t bother with the poison; she would use one of Cyril’s hand grenades and blow them to Timbuktu.

  She returned to the men and instantly they could tell something was gravely wrong. “He’s not answering. He always answers to me.” A lump lodged in her throat and the blood drained from her face. Cyril put his arm around her and pulled her close. The tears trickled and the men saw Kelly as a child again. They were all eager to comfort her.

  “Listen, babe, he may be in the shower,” suggested Frank awkwardly.

  Kelly looked at her phone; it suddenly lit up, blasting out a tune. It was Keffa’s number. Her shoulders relaxed then and she smiled at the men. “It’s him.”

  She answered the call and froze; her eyes flashed with anger, and every muscle in her face tightened, as she listened to the demands made by Sheila. Christ, another one of her dear friends was being held hostage by a devious bastard. The men deduced then that Sheila had him.

  “If you hurt him, I swear to God, I will slice you in half. ’Ave ya diamond, but touch Keffa, and you are a dead woman walking. Do you hear me!” she screamed down the phone.

  Now in a rage, she pushed past Cyril and headed for the cellar, with the men following her, trying to calm her down. With little effort, she hauled back the trap door and jumped down the stairs. Her eyes flitted from one gun to another before focusing on a handgun. Trembling, she snatched the weapon and looked at the ammunition. “Cyril, load this for me.”

  “Hold on a minute, Kelly, what’s going on? You can’t go in with all guns blazing!” declared Frank.

  “Oh, no? I most certainly can! I am gonna shoot the woman. She has Keffa. I don’t even know if he is alive. She laughed at me down the phone. The bitch laughed at me, calling me a silly little girl. Well, girl I’m not, and I’ll show her silly, when she has a bullet through her nut.”

  Frank grabbed her arms and tried to calm her down. “Don’t be reckless. It won’t do any good. You have to be sensible and plan.”

  Kelly slowed down her breathing, yet her eyes remained wild. What was she doing? Of course, she couldn’t go shooting anyone. Not only had she never loaded a gun, she had never fired one. All the anger, fear, and desperation had momentarily left her uncontrolled and looking totally foolish. This wasn’t her; she was better than that. “Sorry, Frank, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  The phone rang again, and yes, it was Sheila. “Now I have your attention, Kelly, listen to me very carefully. I am not playing schoolgirl games, so if you want your boyfriend back in one piece, you will do as I say. Any funny business, and let’s just say, there will be no black cock for you tomorrow.”

  Kelly had the phone on loudspeaker, so the others could hear. Cyril grabbed a pen and paper from off the side table. He scribbled, stay cool, listen to her terms. She nodded.

  “So, what do you want, Sheila?” Inside, she was seething but knew she had to concentrate: she had to play the game.

  “Good girl. Now I want to meet you, alone. Bring the diamond, and Kelly, I mean alone. Don’t go bringing your two idiotic sidekicks, ’cos they will get hurt.”

  Cyril nodded to Frank and whispered. “Sheila has no idea Kelly is with us.”

  “Where?” was all Kelly said, fighting back the urge to verbally tear into her.

  “Your home, of course,” replied Sheila, sarcastically.

  Kelly was nonplussed by the front of the woman. “What do you mean, my home?”

  Sheila laughed again down the phone which got Kelly’s back up. “Maureen’s, the house in which you murdered my brother. It seems only fitting, really. You bring the parcel and Keffa gets released. It’s that simple. So, I will see you here in, let’s say, an hour.”

  Yet another déjã vu experience, she thought, just like Eddie kidnapping Peter. But this time, she wasn’t going to act recklessly. She was going to listen to the men. After all, this was what they did; they were the poker specialists, when it came down to someone’s life on the line.

  “Sheila, I will be there, and you can have the poxy stone, but I can’t make it in an hour, it’s impossible. I am down in Hastings.”

  Cyril was smiling and nodding, letting Kelly know she was saying all the right things.

  “An hour or else,” demanded Sheila.

  Kelly was shaking and Frank put his hand on her shoulder to ease her nerves.

  “Listen to me, Granny. I ain’t superwoman, I can’t defy time, so if you want the diamond, then you will have to give me two hours, and if you hurt Keffa, then you can kiss your arse goodbye!”

  There was silence for a few seconds. The men looked at each other with half-smiles. The young woman was doing just fine. Then Sheila spoke. “All right, Kelly, two hours at Maureen’s, you on your own, with the diamond, and Keffa will live.”

  “Put him on the phone or there’s no deal,” ordered Kelly, in a calm tone.

  “He ain’t here. Anyway, you don’t call the shots, I do. So, if you want him alive, then do as you are told. I ain’t playing games, Kelly. If you want to test me, then you will have a dead boyfriend on your hands, and believe me, madam, it will be messy.”

  Blakey moved away into another room to make a few phone calls, while Cyril and Frank stayed with Kelly. Cyril nodded for her to agree.

  “Okay, but if you hurt him, you are right, it will get very messy.”

  Sheila laughed again down the phone. “Kelly, you have no idea what messy looks like, so stop acting the hard prat and just do as I tell you, and then you can go back to your shitty life with your pathetic so-called family … Two hours!” she yelled and then slammed the phone down.

  Blakey returned. “Right, Kelly, does Keffa still live at Latchmere?”

  Kelly nodded and listened as Blakey was talking to someone on the phone. Once he had finished, he smiled. “Well, Kelly, Keffa is at his flat we think because his car’s parked outside along with her boy Junior’s little two-seater red Porsche, the flash prick. So, it’s my guess no more than two men have him. All the other cars parked outside there are accounted for.”

  The plan was put in place. She felt relieved she had Cyril and the others on her side. They were like the A team. She wanted to laugh at the madness of it all. Yet they seemed to know exactly what they were doing. It was just like a military exercise she had seen on the television.

  Cyril explained that Sheila had taken too much for granted and hadn’t done her homework properly and fucked up big time by assuming that Kelly was alone in this world. She had mistakenly thought that by taking Keffa as a hostage and using him as a bargaining chip, she had removed Kelly’s only ally. Sheila was so determined to get her hands on the diamond, that she had too many fatal flaws in her plan. “This, my girl, will be a walk in the park.”

  Kelly drew the layout of the house, so once they were in, there would be no surprises.

  Frank and Cyril piled into one car; they were picking up two of their men on the way. Beano was good at his job and had returned with a blue crystal. She laughed when he’d handed it to her. “Cor, I know who to go to when I do my Christmas shopping.” He inclined his head and shyly smiled. He found himself in awe of her looks and admired her mature approach to it all. Blakey and Beano jumped into another car; they were off to Keffa’s flat with Kelly’s set of keys to get in. Keffa had given her them, a few months ago, to use if ever the need arose.

  Kelly left Ditto and Reggie alone in the house, oblivious to what was going on. They were in a world of their own, enjoying all the amenities. Ronnie stayed behind
. He would keep the property safe from intruders. Before she left, she poured some poison into a perfume bottle from a container she had found down in Cyril’s war room. The men left fifteen minutes before her, and for old geezers, they had just become very dangerous tooled-up gangsters. It took Kelly by surprise how they changed from doting ‘uncles’ to significant hard-faced killers, and she was relieved they were on her side.

  The drive back to her home gave her time to think. She was worried about Keffa but felt confident in the belief her men knew what they were doing. It was strange she was about to embark on a mission to take out Sheila, her own grandmother. Yet, she pushed the idea to one side that the woman was family because she had learned a long time ago that blood is not thicker than water, not her blood at any rate. The last time she’d done this, trade for a man’s life, she was in a state, tearing through the streets, sweating, shaking, and acting rashly. Not this time though. She was on a mission and her focus was not on releasing Keffa because she knew Blakey and Beano would see to that. This time, she was intent on ridding the world of more members of her evil family. Reality had slapped her in the face. Her life was so far removed from religious brainwashing that now she was thinking like a criminal. Even driving without a licence was a risk but one that sat her at the back of the queue after murder.

  By the time she reached the house, Cyril and Frank had secured Sheila and Jordan at gunpoint.

  Their plan was simple and executed to perfection. After dropping Cyril and Frank off in a cul-de-sac behind Maureen’s house, for them to make their way towards the back of the property, two men on Cyril’s payroll created a distraction. They pulled up outside the house, with the music blaring, and then jumped out of the car and pretended they were having a massive argument. Conscious that the fracas the men were causing would have the Ol’ Bill on the scene, Sheila and Jordan rushed outside to break up what was now a full-on fight and send them on their way. This provided the opportunity for Cyril and Frank to slip inside undetected through the back door, as they waited to catch Sheila and Jordan off guard at gunpoint.