The Victim Read online

  Alice ignored the mention of Frankie, crouched down and hugged both children close to her chest. She had been so wrapped up in her own grief, she had sort of neglected these two and they needed her, needed her badly.

  ‘From now on, yous two cheeky little chavvies can have whatever you bleedin’ well want. Your Nanny Alice loves you both very much.’

  Eddie had woken up early, made love to Gina, then ordered her to have a lie-in while he cooked the breakfast, for a change. Watching his grandkids being carted off back to the O’Haras’ last night had upset Ed immensely. He had spoken to the police and demanded answers as to why the O’Haras hadn’t reported them missing in the first place.

  ‘They should be with us, a normal family who would love and care for them, instead of living with a load of two-bob pikeys,’ he’d insisted.

  The two coppers had very nearly burst out laughing. Neither had ever had any personal dealings with the Mitchells before, but every police force in England were well aware who they were, what had befallen them in the past, and they were anything but bloody normal.

  When Ed had got back home last night, he’d poured himself a large Scotch and had a proper heart-to-heart with Gina about the upbringing of their baby. Eddie had insisted that she must give up her job for good and be a full-time mum and, as luck would have it, she had seen sense and agreed.

  ‘I always told myself that the day I fell pregnant I would walk away from it all. I loved being a private detective but it’s a job for a childless woman, not a mother,’ Gina admitted, not wanting Eddie to think she was jacking it in just because he wanted her to.

  As he was about to scramble some eggs, Eddie’s mobile rang, so he took the saucepan off the hob. It was Gary. He had had a problem with a geezer who had done a bunk. ‘What does he owe?’ Eddie asked, when Gary finally stopped talking.

  ‘Well, he borrowed twelve grand and promised he would pay it back in six weeks, so me and Ricky did a deal with him. He was desperate for it that day, so we said yes, but only if he paid us back sixteen. We said we’d take ten in a month, then give him the extra two weeks to pay the odd six. It was a month yesterday since we lent it to him, so we went round to his gaff to pick the ten up. When we got there, we found out he’d done a runner. It didn’t take us long to find out where he was. We gave his mate a proper good dig and then he gave us the address. I tried to ring you all last night, but I couldn’t get hold of you. Where was you?’

  ‘What’s the cunt’s name?’ Eddie spat, ignoring the question. He’d been in the money-lending game for years now and because of his reputation, people rarely dared take the piss out of him.

  ‘Colin Griffiths, but he sometimes uses Simmons as his surname as well. He used to be a publican, ran a couple of dives in Barking and a couple more in East Ham. I think he might have even ran the Central at one point.’

  Eddie was fuming. He and Raymond had a meeting with a geezer over in Whitechapel who owned boozers in the East End and wanted to pay protection to get rid of an Asian gang who had been making a nuisance of themselves. Ed made his decision and smashed his fist against the wall in annoyance. Twelve grand was peanuts to him, but it was the fucking principle, not the money. ‘I’ll tell Raymond to go to our meeting alone and I’ll pick you and Rick up in an hour, Gal.’

  Over in Holloway, Frankie was in a far happier mood than her father was. The prison had organised an antenatal class for anyone on the maternity wing who wanted to attend, and she and Babs had put their names down for something to do.

  In the maternity ward there were a lot of young girls who were first-time mothers, and their faces were a picture as the woman was describing ‘how to give birth in the correct manner’ out of some textbook she was reading from. The woman’s posh voice wasn’t doing her any favours, either. Most of the girls in Holloway were as common as muck, and they had never heard anybody who spoke the way she did; she sounded as if she had a plum in her mouth, and even Frankie was shocked by her upper-class accent.

  When the woman picked up a doll, put it in a plastic bath and said the word ‘vagina’ as she was washing it, nearly all the lags burst out laughing. In their world it was called a noony, a snatch, a cunt or a fanny.

  As she and Babs were giggling, Frankie noticed a girl with dark hair staring at her. She had seen the same girl looking at her earlier. ‘Don’t look now, but there’s a girl that keeps looking at me. She’s got a black cardigan on, curly shoulder-length hair and she’s on your left. Look in a minute and see if you know who she is.’

  Babs did as Frankie asked, then nudged her pal. ‘Never seen her before. Perhaps she’s a lezzie and fancies you.’

  ‘Don’t say that, that’s all I’m short of,’ Frankie said worriedly.

  Laughing, Babs gently punched Frankie on the arm. ‘I’m only winding you up. If she was a lezzie I doubt she’d be preggers, would she? And even if she was one of them bisexual bitches, you’ve no worries, ’cause Babbsy will look after you, sweet child.’

  When the posh woman ended her speech with, ‘May God bless each and every one of you,’ Frankie stood up with the rest of the girls. The girl who had been staring at her immediately approached her.

  ‘Are you Jed O’Hara’s girlfriend?’ she asked.

  Frankie was instantly on her guard. The girl was obviously a traveller; she had the same strange accent as Jed and his family.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ she asked boldly.

  The girl held out her right hand and smiled. ‘I’m Katie, Katie Cooper. I don’t know if Jed ever mentioned my sister, Debbie. She went out with him for a year when he was fourteen. Debs was older than him, she was sixteen at the time.’

  Frankie shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t and Jed’s not my boyfriend, he’s my ex.’

  Katie shook her head understandingly. ‘I heard what happened, news travels fast in our community. Jed’s a bastard and I don’t blame you for what you did to him. I wish I’d had the guts to do the same to him and that cousin of his myself as payback for what he did to me and my sister.’

  Frankie looked at the girl suspiciously. ‘All travellers stick together,’ Jed had always told her.

  ‘Mitchell, move, come on, and you, Lewis, back to your cells,’ the screw shouted at Frankie and Babs. Babs stared at the screw. She was going nowhere without her friend.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Babs said, urging Frankie to move away from the girl.

  Frankie allowed herself to be led away. She didn’t like Katie – she was a traveller and Frankie had never met a decent one yet. Glancing around to make sure Katie wasn’t behind her, Frankie turned to Babs.

  ‘I don’t trust her. She’s probably one of Jed’s spies and he’s told her to befriend me.’

  Babs put a comforting arm around Frankie’s shoulder. She could tell that speaking to that girl had upset her, reminded her of the past. ‘There ain’t many people you can trust in here at all, honey.’

  Frankie linked arms with Babs. She trusted her with her life. ‘Especially travellers. I fucking hate ’em, Babs.’

  Back at the O’Haras’, Georgie and Harry were both being thoroughly spoiled rotten. Their dad hadn’t left their side all morning, neither had Nanny Alice or Grandad Jimmy and they’d been playing games with them, which was unheard of in the past. Usually Georgie and Harry were expected to amuse themselves.

  Alice heard a car pull up outside and looked out of the window. ‘Oh dordie, it’s the gavvers and they’ve got some woman in a smart suit with them. They ain’t taking the chavvies away, are they?’ she asked, petrified.

  Jimmy put a comforting arm around his wife’s shoulder and ordered Jed to answer the door. ‘It’ll be OK. They probably just wanna check that Georgie and Harry are OK,’ Jimmy assured his wife.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Jed asked, as he opened the front door. There was a male and female copper and also an important-looking woman in a smart grey suit.

  ‘Are you Jed O’Hara, Harry and Georgina’s father?’ the policewoman asked. Carol
Cullen had asked the police to accompany her, as she suspected a breach of the peace could take place.

  Jed nodded. He hated the Old Bill, wanted to tell ’em to fuck off, but he knew that kind of behaviour wouldn’t do him any favours. ‘Georgie and Harry are absolutely fine. They’re in the living room playing with their grandparents,’ he said politely.

  ‘I’m DS Fletcher and my colleague is PC Hughes. Could we come in, Mr O’Hara? Mrs Cullen needs to speak to you about the children.’

  Jed immediately started to panic and dropped his politeness. ‘Who is she?’ he asked, pointing at the woman in the smart suit.

  ‘I’m Mrs Cullen,’ the woman said, holding out her right hand.

  Jed ignored the gesture, ‘Who are you, then? What do you want? We ain’t committed no crime.’

  ‘I’m a social worker and I need to speak to you regarding your children’s welfare.’

  Jed unwillingly led the trio into the lounge. If they could see the kids were happy, with a bit of luck they would piss off and leave his family alone.

  Alice was shaking like a leaf as Jed handed out the introductions. The gavvers always scared her, but today the social worker accompanying them was scaring her more.

  ‘Hello,’ Georgie said beaming, as she spotted the nice lady who had come to Nanny Joycie’s house the previous evening.

  ‘Can we see Mummy now?’ Harry asked bluntly.

  Carol crouched down and patted both children on the head. ‘How are you both today?’ she asked.

  ‘OK. Daddy, Nanny Alice and Grandad Jimmy have been playing cowboys and Indians with us,’ Georgie replied happily.

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ Carol said, as she stood up and turned back to the adults.

  ‘You ain’t takin’ ’em away. I won’t allow it,’ Alice said, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Stop worrying. Nobody’s taking the children away from you,’ Carol said kindly.

  DS Fletcher cleared her throat. She had only recently been promoted to DS after being in the force for many years and she took her new role extremely seriously. ‘Why didn’t you report the children missing yesterday?’ she asked.

  Jed felt his hackles rise. ‘I explained all this last night. We were searching for ’em ourselves. Us travellers are a close-knit community. I had my own reinforcements, so there was no need to bother you. I knew they’d turn up alive and well anyway, kids always do.’

  DS Fletcher looked at Jed in disbelief. Any nutter could have picked up those poor children yesterday. ‘Do you not realise the seriousness of not reporting the disappearance of children so young? They could have been abducted by a paedophile, run over – anything could have happened to them.’

  Jed was beginning to lose his temper now. What was the bitch insinuating – that he was a bad parent? ‘All kids run away. I did it loads of times when I was their age. It’s all part of growing up, ain’t it? Anyway, I’ve had a good chat with them and both Georgie girl and Harry have promised me faithfully that they will never do anything like that again.’

  Jed turned to his children. ‘Go on, you tell the policewoman that you won’t run off again, like you told me.’

  ‘We promise we won’t run off again,’ Georgie said.

  ‘I won’t, ’cause my legs hurt,’ Harry mumbled.

  ‘We idolise them kids and you can see that they’re clean, loved and well fed,’ Alice said proudly.

  Jimmy put a comforting arm around Jed’s shoulder. If his son lost his temper, which he was quite capable of, the kids might be carted off there and then.

  Carol Cullen turned to Jed. ‘Could I speak to you alone for a minute?’

  Jed led her out to the kitchen. He’d seen his mum give him a warning look and he knew he had to learn how to control his temper more, especially when dealing with the authorities. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit snappy, but what with my brother being killed and then Luke, my son, it’s been a tough time lately,’ he explained.

  Carol nodded understandingly. ‘The reason I’ve come here to see you today is about access for the children to visit their mother. I spoke to Georgie and Harry at length last night and it is clear that they miss their mother dreadfully and, in my opinion, it would be in their best interests if they were to have contact with her.’

  Jed stood with his mouth wide open. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. ‘Are you serious? Frankie is a loony, a proper nutter. She tried to kill me, for fuck’s sake. Would you want your kids seeing a potential murderer? I love my chavvies and I don’t want them anywhere near that monster of a mother of theirs.’

  ‘Calm down, Mr O’Hara. If you keep behaving like this, I will have to write a bad report on you and chances are you will lose your children for good.’

  Telling Jed he might lose his children was like waving a red rag at a bull. ‘Get out of my house, you fucking shitcunt!’ he shouted as he tried to bundle Carol Cullen towards the front door.

  Jimmy, Alice and the two police officers heard the fracas and ran out to the kitchen.

  ‘Whatever’s going on? Leave my boy alone,’ Alice screamed, as the two Old Bill grabbed hold of Jed.

  ‘Calm down, you dinlo,’ Jimmy yelled, as Jed tried desperately to free himself.

  Georgie and Harry had followed everybody else and were now standing at the kitchen door, holding hands.

  ‘They wanna let my chavvies visit that slag in prison,’ Jed shrieked.

  ‘Over my dead body are they visiting that evil whore,’ Alice yelled.

  Guessing that they were discussing her mum, by the words ‘visit’ and ‘prison’, Georgie put her two penn’orth in. ‘But me and Harry want to see Mummy. That’s why we ran away, ’cause we wanted to find Mummy.’

  As Jed began to scream at Georgie, Jimmy shoved him and Alice out of the back door and locked it. ‘Jed don’t mean to get angry. He’s so stressed at the moment, what with his boy being murdered,’ he explained.

  ‘One more outburst from your son and he’s nicked,’ Fletcher replied meaningfully.

  Carol felt dreadfully sorry for Georgie and Harry. Life with the O’Haras seemed even worse than she’d anticipated it to be.

  ‘Can we see Mummy now?’ Harry asked her innocently.

  Carol led them into the lounge and sat down next to them on the sofa. ‘I’m going to take your case to something called a civil court and then hopefully you will be able to see your mummy again.’

  Eddie Mitchell was not in the best of moods. Driving to Milton Keynes to extract money out of some prick who had underestimated him was one reason, and the other were the looks on Gary and Ricky’s faces when he’d just told them that Gina was pregnant.

  ‘Fucking hell! Anyone would think that I’d just told you someone you were close to had died. Ain’t you happy for us, or what?’

  Gary glanced at his brother. Both were thinking about their future inheritance. ‘Yeah, course we are, but a newborn baby’s a lot to take on at your age, ain’t it?’

  Eddie slammed his foot on the brake and mounted the kerb. ‘I’m fifty-three, not eighty,’ he yelled angrily.

  ‘Does Frankie know yet?’ Ricky asked. His half-sister was not going to be pleased; she hadn’t even come to terms with her dad being with Gina yet.

  ‘I’m visiting Frankie tomorrow, so I’ll tell her then. Joey, I’ll ring tonight. I saw him yesterday, but with all the chaos over Georgie and Harry, it was neither the time nor the place. Now check that map and see where we are. It’s Bradwell village we’re looking for.’

  Ricky gave him directions. Five minutes later, they’d found where they were looking for. ‘This is it. Do a right here, then first left and it’s number sixty-six.’

  Eddie pulled up a few doors away from the address. He glanced around to make sure nobody was about, then got out of his Range Rover. ‘Does he live here with anyone?’ he asked Gary.

  ‘Dunno. The geezer never said.’

  Ed grabbed his baseball bat from under the back seat. It was a standing joke between him
and the boys that they carried the full baseball kit around with them. They even had catcher’s mitts and a helmet complete with ear flaps. They’d got tugged a good few years back, just before Ed had got put away, and the filth had swallowed the lie that Gary was training to become a professional baseball player. They’d cracked up for days over that one.

  ‘You knock,’ Eddie ordered Ricky, as he stood to the side of the porch and placed the bat beside the wall.

  ‘Is Colin in?’ Ricky asked, as a plump, dark-haired bird with big knockers answered the door.

  ‘No, I think you’ve got the wrong house. My fella’s called John,’ she said.

  ‘This is definitely the right address,’ Ricky insisted.

  The woman shook her head. ‘We’re not from round here, we’re from East London. We only moved here two weeks ago, so maybe you’re looking for the previous tenant.’

  Eddie poked his head around the porch door and smiled. The mention of East London had given it away; Colin was obviously using a different Christian name and was now calling himself John. ‘Where is your bloke, out of interest? Can I have a word with him? You never know, he might have a forwarding address for Colin. We need to contact him because his mum has died and it’s her funeral on Friday.’

  ‘Are you three policemen?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Yes, love,’ Ed said politely.

  ‘You’ll find my John in a pub called the Victoria Inn. Spends half his life in there since we moved here, he does. His surname is Griffiths,’ the woman said laughing.

  Eddie grinned at the woman, then walked away. ‘Thank you, you’ve been most helpful, and I’ll tell you something else, if I had a pretty woman like you indoors, I wouldn’t be spending all my time in a pub.’

  The woman giggled, waved and closed the front door.

  Eddie, Gary and Ricky walked back to the Range Rover. They all knew that John Griffiths was actually Colin. The dickhead was even using his own surname.

  ‘We passed that boozer on the way ’ere, it’s only a couple of minutes down the road. What I suggest is yous two go in and bring the cheeky cunt outside. I’ll wait in the motor and then we’ll take him for a nice little ride.’