Frankie rubbed her eyes and yawned. The chorus of early birds celebrated their spoils from a ground saturated by overnight rainfall outside her window, giving fair warning she would get no more chance to catch up on what had been a restless night. She threw the curtains wide, took a gulp of the morning air at the window and then walked to the wardrobe to examine her naked body.
The bruises on her inner thighs were changing to the strange, yucky yellow hue. She made a short prayer of thanks to her gods for their assistance in preventing Freddy Field from defiling her body and for sending Pavli to help them affect an escape with her boss from an unpleasant fate in the Fields’ lair. Tommy and she had grudgingly agreed their passions should be allowed to simmer for a cooling-off period. It would give either the chance to reconsider their urges, or prepare both so much more to enjoy the eventual, ultimate bond in affection and desire for each other.
Tommy took the boy Pavli to his home, where according to the latest information from him, his wife was still absent.
Showered, dressed and her cutely rounded belly filled again with a sustaining portion of fruit and fibre cereal, Frankie waited for DS Jimmy Dennis to pick her up. He had expressed surprise at the account she gave him of the events of Saturday. But there was something in the manner of the brief conversation she had with him that did not ring true, with him not showing genuine appreciation of their story, nor relief for their safety.
It occurred to her that he, being a typical bloke, had not been best pleased she had made the promotion to DI before he did. But she thought ample time had passed for him to overcome his disappointment and rise above professional jealousy. Perhaps it might be best she revise her opinion of him and be more wary. His phone call to Tommy, after she specifically warned him against making communication, was an unforgivable lapse of discipline. She grabbed a large shoulder bag as she watched the DS into the car park.
‘Where to Ma’am – I mean Frankie?’
‘Let’s take a look at the underground operating theatre you found at East India Docks after I told you what Minas Elliot had to say, Jimmy.’ She knew he despised being addressed so familiarly by anyone and most especially her. But the DI was in one of her bloody-minded moods. She was determined he should squirm a bit first before she read him the riot act about his errant text call to Tommy. There was a belligerence in DS Dennis that begged the question; was the call an error, mischievous; or, and this thought caused her to experience a cold shiver, was it perhaps calculated and malicious?
‘Scene of Crime are still there, though, Frankie – they reckon they will be for maybe another thirty six hours or so, p’raps more, with their hunt for DNA and stuff all over the place to be made.’
‘We might just find they’ve turned up something that would help us get a warrant to jump on Field today, if we’re lucky.’
The DS was in a panic. But he tried to prevent sign of it creeping into his voice as he manipulated the keypad of his cell phone to send a covert text message. He said, ‘The DPC say we won’t get manpower until the Joint Terrorist Analyst Centre is certain the Anti Terror guys have rooted out the Ukrainians before the Monday, noon deadline. You don’t want to tread on the DPC’s toes, Frankie.’
It was a failed attempt to disguise the inner turmoil caused by his efforts to conceal the conflict of interests that motivated him.
Frankie’s reservations about the DS’s manner solidified and gave her grounds to regard his recent behaviour and motivations with a more serious consideration. Any ambitious officer would grab the kind of chance she’d outlined to enhance their record and advance their prospects. To be directly instrumental in a field operation to avert the apocalyptic event threatened by the elusive Petruso Knishovo would certainly qualify for decoration. With her experience of yesterday in the forefront of her mind and in the matter of her own life and death, it was in her best interests to trust no one other than Tommy. She must keep a tight leash on her subordinate.
‘Don’t you forget I’m SIO on the illegals’ bodies case, Jimmy. If I can get a substantial lead on the Fields, and find out what has happened to the young girl, Tatyana, then there’s every possibility we don’t have to worry about doomsday at on Monday after all. There’s no report yet of any Ukrainians being picked up yet, except dead ones. We can’t wait till then.’
‘Whatever you say, Frankie, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Frankie groaned inwardly. Every exchange with the DS so far that morning left her with increasing doubts about his allegiance. And there it was again, totally intangible, but something rang very ominous, almost final, about the inferences hidden in the sergeant’s words. She looked along the quayside, busying with the Sunday morning tourist trade. Suddenly she banged her head against the window when the DS hangered a right and swerved the car into the entrance of a multi-storey car park. The BMW’s tyres screamed in protest as the car sped up the spiral of levels and out into the sunshine, passed a stationary Humvee, and sped to the furthest end of the rooftop area. The car screeched to a halt at the barrier.
‘It certainly is a splendid view of the river from up here, but I have to say this doesn’t look much like an underground operating theatre to me, Jimmy, and I honestly don’t think we have time for sightseeing.’ Frankie reached into her shoulder bag and took a firm grip on the Mas G-1 automatic pistol. ‘I already guessed you’ve been got at, Jimmy. I never took you for a bent copper, before today, more a self-serving and unreliable team member, prone to a bit of a covert gamble here and there, maybe. And I certainly would not have believed you’d sell out to the likes of the Field scum. They are finished; surely even you can work that one out, Sergeant? And so are you, now.’ She took out the pistol, stuck the bare barrel into his ribs. ‘Just be a good boy and drive us, nice and careful, back to the station – like now!’
‘I’m really sorry, Frankie, baby, but you really should have listened to me. Anything you can do to me just doesn’t compare with what these guys will do to me if I let them down.’ He motioned for Frankie to look behind her. ‘And, honest injun, it’s not the old “Look behind you trick” Frankie. I’d just be a good little girl and let me have the gun, if I was you.’
The DI quickly glanced in the door mirror. The Humvee had moved up behind them and parked with its engine ticking over at the BMW’s nearside rear wing.
Two A-91 assault rifles were aimed at her through the police car’s rear window, both weapons in the grip of two men who were every bit as mean looking as the guns.
Frankie thought furiously for a solution to this unanticipated stand-off. She resisted the impulse to turn round. She dug the pistol harder into the traitor’s ribs. ‘I’m afraid your request is so not very attractive, Sergeant. You just better tell King Kong and Mighty Joe Young to back off, now, or you get it first.’ There was going to be no miracle diversion to get out of this one, Frankie thought. But playing for precious seconds gave her time to muster enough courage to make the unavoidable do-or-die break for safety.
The DS held his hand up in a signal to the two men to hold back, maintain position. ‘Now, now, that is not very nice. If you behave yourself, Ma’am, before I let them get their hands on you I must insist you sit on my face. And when I’ve muffed that luscious little delicacy nestling you’re sat on I’ll treat you to your last taste of civilised appreciation and give you a real elegant rodgering. But after that, I’m sorry, my little Pussy Gal-lant. I can’t give you any guarantees on just how unpleasantly any of those hairy-arsed bastards are going to treat you when they see just how so built for it you really are. They call themselves Ukrainians. But peculiar to their culture, I believe the sport of turking the arse off of argumentative, tasty built shags like you is one of their favourite pastimes. Oh – yes, I knew there was something else, I think you had better hand me that gun. My friends tend to shoot first and then ask questions in these complicated situations. And any diatribe might confuse things, because they don’t speak very good English and we don’t want any communication difficulties causing them to get the wrong idea about our British hospitality, do we?’
Frankie threw her body forward across DS Dennis’ legs and pulled the trigger; the bullet ripped into the sergeant’s hip. She turned the ignition key, slammed into reverse and dived into the pedal well to ram her hand on the accelerator. Tyres squealed and the air was filled with the smoke from burning rubber.
The two Boyko’s soldiers had no time to regain balance or release any rounds. Too late they realised the danger they were in. When they tried to retreat, their immediate escape route from the BMW’s path was blocked at one side by the barrier and their Humvee at the other.
Given time, and most necessarily, a reasonable choice, Frankie would have preferred to arrest both criminals. But with no time and severely limited choice and knowing the outcome was her life or theirs, the conclusion was foregone, practically no contest. Her eyes shut very briefly in an unspoken prayer for a successful result as the speeding BMW careered backwards and bounced over the two men.
DS Dennis whimpered and groaned as Frankie heaved his body round, rummaged in his pockets and confiscated his cell phone.
Having possession of sufficient evidence in defence of her actions, she pushed him off the blood soaked driver’s seat and out of the BMW with her foot. ‘You’ve made enough mess in police property, you scum-ball. Out you go, you dirty, bent bastard. And bleed, you bastard, bleed to death before the fucking ambulance gets here. Just do something decent for once and save us honest taxpayers some bloody money.’ She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and got out of the BMW to check on the Ukrainians. Satisfied they were alive, albeit in considerable pain but still conscious and breathing, she snatched an instinctive glance at her watch and walked over to the Humvee. She brandished the car keys she had fished out of the pockets of one of the two Ukrainians.
The Humvee was a formidable looking set of battle-wheels, a veritable “A Team” wagon, equipped with bullet-proof windows, armoured roof and panelling. It being a left-hand drive vehicle was no problem for Frankie; she’d had plenty of experience with its size and control features while holidaying on the American continent. But she knew she had better whisk the mini battle-wagon as quickly as possible away from the car park and the prying eyes of other police officers, undoubtedly on their way. She didn’t want them to spot the cache of weapons and ammo containers stowed in the vehicle’s customised luggage space. Her appointment with SOC at the operating theatre was just going to have to wait a while. The drive at Tommy’s house in Epping was just the place to conceal the very welcome gift-horse of a war-horse.
At the emergence of the ambulance on the top deck of the car park, the back end of the Humvee disappeared from the scene via the exit ramp.
*
Tommy speared the half-dozen fried sausages from the pan and shared them equally between two plates already loaded with scrambled egg, bacon, grilled fresh tomatoes and fried bread.
‘Get this down you, lad, and then we’ll see what the rest of the day has in store for the pair of us bachelor housemates, eh?’ Tommy laughed, put a plateful in front of the boy and sat down and commenced a serious assault on the other.
Pavli nodded and tucked into his without need of further encouragement. The degree of respect and gratitude in his eyes for Tommy held more meaningful thanks than any spoken word might have conveyed.
Tommy’s good cheer was mostly a brave front adopted for the benefit of the adolescent. The humid, storm-laden night had passed fitfully and slowly. The lingering effects of the heroin; an anxiety wrought from dread of more reports of Stella’s outlandish escapades, at the door or over the phone, and the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of an accursed lust for Frankie gave him no peace of mind. His jaw ached, his head was sore and he bore signs of a black eye, remnants from Terry Field’s vicious and cowardly attentions.
But in the light of another fine summer’s morning, he could enjoy satisfaction in the knowledge that Frankie was safe. Her beautiful body was no longer prey to the debased whims of the filthy monster, Freddy Field. The possibility of the decadent, amoral fiend ever getting another opportunity to letch Frankie with his one evil eye or tear into her with his stub of a cock made the idea of contributing to the crime lord’s death seem a fitting and noble crusade. The image of the heartless bastard grunting and groaning in orgasmic ecstasy while defiling her body with the vile seed of evil made him feel, for none of the reasons in a popular and very pertinent love ballad, the closest thing to crazy he had ever been. He took a long gulp of hot, black coffee to cool down the hate and anger threatening to boil and overflow in him.
In him too was the dismay caused by Stella’s disappearance, apparently gone off her head and intent on shagging herself to death. A dear wife, mother of their two children, out there somewhere, completely deranged and determined to vent her frustrations and assuage some perverted desire on an uninhibited sexual rampage with person or persons unknown. More ominous and worrisome was what intended to do with his cherished Mas G-1 o she had in her possession. Information from the forensics material checked so far at the veterinary surgery threw no further light on her whereabouts other than confirmation of her carnal and evidently multi-orgasmic tryst with a mystery sire. Circumstantial indications, despite reasoned logic, suggested the new man she wanted in her life and body was Doctor Minas Elliot, the owner of the property and reputed to be a lifelong homosexual. There was no additional news or trace of either.
Tommy gave Pavli an Autosport magazine to browse through while he cleared away and washed and returned the breakfast things to allotted cupboards and drawers. Habit was an awful condition, and he could hear Stella’s voice snapping at him to be careful as he tidied up.
But there was a third quandary, which sat smack bang opposite him at the table. There could be absolutely no conclusion other than that the lad was an illegal entrant. It was going to be difficult securing him a permanent place in the UK, but not impossible. With the immigration clamp-downs and current political lack of sympathy towards illegal aliens, they would have to rely on Romania’s recent entry to the EU. But he vowed the lad would be sent back there over his dead body, if that proved to be where he came from.
Pavli jumped up in alarm at the rapidly approaching sound of a heavy motor vehicle engine and ran to the kitchen window. He grunted excitedly, turned and adopted a posture as if he were wielding a sub-machine-gun.
Tommy grasped his shoulders and pulled him across to the side of the window casement. It was obvious the kid was trying to tell him something, had recognised and been disturbed by the distinctive voice of the engine.
The throaty growl of the souped-up V8’s power unit rattled every window frame at the front of the house as the Humvee rounded the central island of bushes and rumbled into view. It scrunched to a halt in the gravel driveway.
Tommy cussed his luck. Thanks to Stella, there was no gun in the house. He reached for the wall phone.
His desperate attempt to dial direct for a police armed response unit was stopped by Pavli. The lad grabbed his arm, pointing and stuttering.
Tommy whooped like a child with relief and glee. His hand punched the air in elation as he watched Frankie climb out of the Humvee.
She waved back at the two faces in the window as she ran to the front door. The strange combination of her peroxide mop of hair and its aggressive “Out of bed” style and sober office suit cut an incongruous image.
Frankie finished her coffee, and her accounts of what happened in her skirmish with DS Dennis and her two Ukrainian antagonists.
‘So where from here, boss? We can’t just sit and wait, surely?’
‘Tommy – you know you can call me Tommy, out in the field, Frankie. I think we know each other well enough.’ The Supt was not sitting in the relaxed comfort he would prefer, still mindful of the warm embrace they shared not fifteen minutes previously. The prolonged contact, with her breasts crushed against him, her belly and thighs pressed into his and the eternal message in the exchange of their body warmth, it was definitely not the greeting of a DI to her superior officer. Every second of that embrace was so important to him to ease the ache of doubt he suffered in his tormented desire and lust for her. The lust still refused to rest its throb in the enlarged focal point of his desire to be with her in the truly biblical sense.
Tommy selected a number on his cell phone
‘I’ve alerted the Vice Squad to raid the Honeycome and get that poor girl out of there along with any other drug-dependent sex-slaves caged up in there. We’ll take my car and do what you set out to do this morning, Frankie; get ourselves a warrant to move on Freddy Field now, never mind what the DPC says on the matter. The lad can stay here and watch a bit of daytime telly for a while, keep his head down.’
Frankie clapped her hands. ‘When we’ve been to the docks and made sure we can get our warrant, we’ll stop by and check things out at the vet’s place on our way to Field Manor. There might be some sign of Elliot and your wife, if not perhaps some clue to where they have gone.’
‘I saw enough sign of those two at the damn place to last me through this lifetime and well into the next, thanks, Frankie.’ He turned his back to Pavli, and trembling with trepidation but unabashed, got hold of his penis, still semi-erect inside his trousers, and spoke very softly, ‘You’ve got to know you’re the only person who can give this frustrated, infatuated thing of mine a hope of enjoying some of the thrills you know it hungers for since the other night, Frankie. I’m finding it hard …’ He stopped, with embarrassment, and then, ‘ You know what I mean Frankie – but if there’s a hope we can turn the clock back, take it from when, well, you know when it was so wonderful before... I can wait.’ He spread his hands and shrugged. It was a plaintive gesture and it carried an unmistakable beg for reassurance.
Frankie got closer, cupped her hand to whisper in his ear. She put her other hand down to grasp his excited penis at the same time. ‘It will have to be a wait, but one neither of us are going to regret, Tommy. There is a ravenous want deep down in the very bottom of my belly, making Frankie’s pussy’s lips very hungry for a taste of a particularly handsome specimen of a hard cock. A cock not so far from pussy at this moment will soon be visiting her delights.’ She squeezed her fingers around as much as they could grip of the iron hard bolt of his fully stiffened flesh through the trouser material. ‘This cock will fit perfectly nicely inside my frustrated, infatuated pussy when it’s time, Tommy. I know they will both take quickly to each other and spend many happy hours learning how wonderful it is when two such frustrated, infatuated things come together, and it won’t be too soon for me.’
At the feel of the first warning throb she pinched the base of it at his testes sharply and then pulled her hand from his impatient flesh.
‘Sorry, but better to clip on the safety, let you hang on to that lot of ammo you’ve got loaded in the breech, bursting to fire into me. Soon you can empty the whole damn magazine into me, cannon-balls and all. We will let go, all guns blazing, at our happy hour, eh, Tommy? But let’s go and kick some scumball arse right now.’
*
Freddy and Tina Field stood side by side and watched the hearse make its sombre path from the gate on its approach to the Manor. The atmosphere was duly mournful, but did not hide the disparity of feeling spelled out by the body language of both parents. There was a silence between them which matched the expressions on their faces. It lasted until the gilded, glass-plated, gleaming black symbol of tragic loss pulled up in front of the Field family and their cohorts assembled at the columned front door. The driver got out, walked to the back of the vehicle and unlocked the panel. He stood aside and waited, head bent down respectfully. He looked as though he were about to burst into tears with fear. His colleague did not budge from his seat in the hearse.
Tina could not hide her despair and grief a second longer. She screamed as only a mother would in the throes of the anguish born from the loss of a child. Her scream gurgled to a sob. It wracked her body as she ran to the rear door of the hearse, wrenched the panel open, fell and prostrated herself at the end of the cheap coffin containing the body bag.
Carla joined her mother at the hearse as quickly as her injuries allowed her to get down the steps to the vehicle. She huddled up to Tina, embraced and comforted her mother as much as the wound to her left shoulder would permit.
The brothers, Terry with his head swathed in bandage and demeanour swathed in embarrassment, peered in through one of the side windows. Their attention was fixed on the crudely scrawled wooden plaque laid against the body bag.
“REST IN PIECES ALL FIELD FAMILY” was the cryptic epitaph.
Billy walked to the back of the vehicle, took his mother by the arm and walked her away from the hearse. ‘Come on, Ma, we’ll bring Philip into the chapel for you, an’ then we can all say our goodbyes to him. I’ve already made arrangements for our own family vault to be made at the side of the lake. It will be completed this week without fail.’ It was no lie about the vault, but he was not telling his mother the extent of his anxieties about the consignment presumed to be Philip’s body. Billy was no great student of history and legend other than what he’d gleaned from Reader’s Digest while attending to the more personal aspects of his ablutions. But it had occurred to him there would be no better Trojan Horse the Knishovos could choose to send as a perfect booby-trap than the body of a beloved family member.
‘Nobody touches the body bag until the dog has checked it out,’ Billy ordered. He looked at his father, but it was a look given in a way like never before. ‘I think we’ve got to have a bit of a rethink about this truce, Dad.’
Freddy did not move from the front steps. His head was gripped in the throes of a depressing brainstorm. His grief was as great as that of anyone while his guilt was nearly as great as his grief.
But Freddy’s shame at becoming so self absorbed, having his one good eye taken off the ball and hoodwinked by some flibbertigibbet, prick-teasing cunt of a policewoman was not just unbearable, it was unpardonable. He knew there would be no easy way to win back his wife and family’s loyalty. He knew she had tolerated much of his philandering down the years, but to pursue his selfish fantasies at the risk of insult to her esteem and sensitivities was juvenile and insane. And to compound his utter humiliation, he was stood like a spare part on the front steps of his fortress looking down on a hearse bearing a plywood box, inside it a military issue body bag containing the corpse of his youngest son. Now he must seek to ensure the death of every remaining one of Knishovo’s family. But revenge would be small compensation for the loss of a son, vilified and slain by the hand of a traitorous upstart, an illegal immigrant he’d helped into the country and welcomed onto his territory, even if it was for his own ends. Now he wished he had heeded his old friend Trigg’s warning about getting involved with the Ukrainians.
Freddy Field now stood, a silent witness, in denial to the lifeless proof that enmity and grief are the certain harvest of gratuitous violence and greed.
‘Dad!’ Billy knew everyone in earshot expected some response from his father, regardless of his current loss of marital and parental esteem.
Freddy shook himself back from the thousand-yard stare in his eye and walked down the steps to join Billy. ‘Check if you wanna be double sure, boy, but you can take it from me, it’s our Phil in there. The dirty Russki bastard thinks he’s so clever, thinks he’s rubbin’ our fuckin’ noses in it, good an’ proper. Prob’ly never occurred to the thick cunt that he’s doin’ us a favour, we all want our boy back, even like this. But that bleedin’ sign says it all. An’ I reckon I know what it don’t say, an’ you can guarantee we’re gonna have ourselves some uninvited visitors tomorrow – part of his grand, midday Monday spectacular, that’s my bet.’
Terry flipped his phone shut and walked back to join his father and brother. He beckoned them to step further away from the cadre of the Field family’s soldiers milling around at the bottom of the steps. ‘The plod – my mouth at the Plaistow nick, reckons they’re goin’ on about a raid on the Honeycome, Dad. That Tommy Cowper bastard an’ the blonde bitch are waitin’ for a warrant. That little fuckin’ shag you sat on Pavli’s todger is the one they’re after.’
The shriek of surprise from Tina coincided with the smack that Freddy gave Terry on the sore side of his head.
‘Arghhh – Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that for, Dad?’
Freddy looked quickly at Tina. She had overheard too much, obviously, and was not going to be best pleased if she learned exactly what went on with the lad and the young girl. His hand was at his eye patch once more.
But Tina had as much reason as he to be nervous, to hide the main reason for her reaction. She did not ever want Freddy to get wind of her friendship with Tommy.
‘What on earth is Terence on about? I’ll overlook his awful language, but he definitely referred to some girl and Pavli. Where is my little lamb, anyway?’
Billy was quickest on his feet with a reply. ‘The copper, Tommy Cowper, he called here yesterday, routine enquiries. He saw Pavli, got suspicious an’ took him off for questionin’ about his identity.’
‘Just stop this prevarication, I am not stupid, William Field. I know what your awful street vernacular means. Your father’s firm has made enough money for years, from the pathetic specimens who can’t get enough sex from where they ought, in those places he likes to call drinking clubs. I would just like someone to please tell me what it all has to do with Pavli?’ Tina was glad there was no suspicion of her reaction at mention of Tommy, but she began to grow anxious for her young ward. ‘What little shag of Pavli’s are the police after? Why do I think I am going to be very sorry when I find out why?’
Freddy said, ‘He saw some young girl in the lane, Lovely, when he was out with Jaws, an’ they got a bit stuck on each other. Lads on the gate see no reason to stop her comin’ in, an’ apparently they got a bit carried away, quite natural like, in his room. Him usin’ no protection is what she was carryin’ on about. I just thought the girl’s at the club would put her right on all them sort of things. Whatever else they find at the club, the stupid bastards still won’t have nothin’ to come back at us. Do you honestly think I would run a joint like the Honeycome so’s the ol’ Bill could pin anythin’ on us, my Lovely, do you?’
‘And Carla’s bogus friend, this blonde police woman, the one you shamed me and made such a damn silly, sex-starved fool of yourself with, this Francesca – and this Superintendent Tommy Cowper, where do they come into this love’s lost dream of Pavli’s? Is it some new idea, kind of ménage a quatre they dreamed up, or what?’
‘Aw, hell, Tina, they got Pavli, they got the bleedin’ girl – we don’t know why think they know what they do, but we got enough trouble on our hands to worry about, without all that shit.’ Freddy concluded the matter with Tina in total denial of the problem, the manner in which he concluded most other of the firm’s issues he was unable to resolve in his favour, by using suitably twisted logic or blatant evasion.
Tina was not one to wash dirty linen in public. She also realised she had blurted Tommy’s rank, but could not recall any of them using it. She desperately needed time alone to get her head round the turn of events over the past couple of days. Life appeared to be in a spiral, nose-diving out of control. ‘I’m going to take a little walk around the lake with Carla. Please make sure you get Philip into the chapel for me by this afternoon. And you, Frederick Field, if you see me coming, stay out of my way. I am in no mood for your company, and will not be for some time. And just so you can’t say I did not give you sufficient warning, I don’t want to see you in my bedroom tonight – you can sleep where you preferred to be last night, in the guest room.’
Carla stared at her mother. She had not missed the unwitting blunder her mother had made in her outburst about the policeman. Carla, the temptress, the sexual virago, was suddenly a confused, frightened little girl.
Tina secured and made Carla comfortable in the invalid chair and left for the lake.
‘Office, now,’ Freddy told his sons. ‘Trigg, you an’ some boys make sure the package really is Philip, not booby-trapped – an’ get him suitably laid out in the chapel ready for my Lovely Lady.’ He gave the hearse driver a bunch of fifty pound notes. ‘You lads will be best off if you remember to forget this mornin’s work. That way you’ll stay out of the back of your wagon a lot longer, if you get my drift?’
The two men nodded, relieved and very nervous; pleased to hear they were to get out of the place and equally anxious to forget every aspect of the unexpected Sunday morning bit of cash-in-hands.
Back in his study, Freddy sat for some minutes browsing through well thumbed pages of a school exercise book. Billy and Terry watched without comment. The Old Man’s expression was clear indication that patience was the desired mood of the moment. They were both aware of the book’s contents and could guess what he was about to say.
Freddy grunted, adjusted his eye patch, looked up and said, ‘In the last twelve months we’ve put over a hundred an’ forty grand of insurance Saul’s way to spread around his blue serge, Masonic muppet mates. It’s about time we got ourselves some payback, Terry – I don’t want no risk of trouble comin’ our way out of that raid on the Cunnyhome. So tell that fuckin’ shyster to earn his salt beef an’ bleedin’ roll-mop herrin’s, an’ remind the cunts just who is actually payin’ for their festive boards. Get on it, boy.’ Freddy threw the book back in a desk drawer. ‘Billy, you an’ me got to make sure we got all the angles covered here in the grounds – I got a feelin’ in my water Knishovo is gonna make his move on us in the mornin’, while the ol’ Bill have got their hands full with his bomb threat. An’ I don’t know where he’s got the muscle from so quick, but I reckon he’ll be mob handed; he knows he’s gotta be.’
‘He’s got to be so off his bleedin’ trolley,’ Billy said. ‘Okay, we know he’s one pissed off Ukrainian, but bombin’ the underground – an’ tellin’ the ol’ Bill exactly when you’re gonna do it! Why the hell didn’t he just do it an’ hope it is passed off as another al Qaeda attack? What a prize pea-brain. An’ we still don’t know what the hell happened to the kid that all the fuckin’ fuss is about.’
‘Jesus, Billy,’ Terry snapped, ‘why don’t you just ring the cunt up now an’ just explain to him how to blow us an’ London up an’ fuckin’ well get away with it Scot free?’
‘Cut it out, the pair of you,’ snarled Freddy.
The house phone rang.
Freddy listened without emotion. He grunted his grudging assent to something and put the phone down. ‘Un-fuckin-believable! That’s all we need right now,’ he said. ‘Minas fuckin’ Elliot has turned up with some bleedin’ woman he’s got in tow. He says he’s got some information he reckons will be of use to us.’
‘We do owe him big time, Dad, he did save our Carla’s life,’ Billy said.
‘Never mind that. We all know the Doc’s a soddin’ dirty old fudge-packer, an’ he didn’t never do anythin’ he wasn’t ever paid more than well enough for. Let me go an’ fuck the ol’ poof off, Dad, we can do without him nosin’ round here right now.’ Terry never relished being in the vet’s company.
‘You don’t be worryin’ your bonehead none, an’ get yourself into the Smoke an’ sort out Saul Jacobs, Tel boy. I think it’s possible both you young guns are beginnin’ to forget just who it is decides if the Doc or anybody else, for that matter, is wanted in this house – whether it’s right now or any other bleedin’ time.’
While Freddy Field prepared a cigar, Minas Elliot and Stella Cowper sat and waited; the three were the only occupants of the study. The don did not fail to notice the usually taciturn vet had stridden in with a spring in his step, a new glint in his eyes. Freddy found it hard to believe the Doc’s air of contentment could be due to the woman, who apparently was called Stella Dahlia; a name he reckoned was more suited to a drag queen. Nice kind face, a real fucking shame about the rest, he thought.
But she positively glowed, sat unabashed. The fine material of her dress outlined outrageously large and enticing nipples and clung to a mini walnut-whip swirl of a navel. The material moulded like a second skin to the rest of her ultra-slim frame. It followed her body’s every, slightest movement, an unmistakable clue to the absence of any under-garments beneath. Freddy guessed that her glow was down to the old poof somehow doing something right for the skinny bitch.
Stella did not miss Freddy’s reaction. She knew her new found allure was due to the abundance of sexual gratification; sexual activity more stimulating to her inner needs and appetites in that they were sated by her new lover’s far reaching member, suitably energised for high endurance. He was continually primed and at the ready, physically maximised and spiritually energised by timely administrations of sildenafil citrate. The quest to match Tommy’s apparent appetite for extra-marital sexual thrill was added spice to her lascivious adventure.
Freddy took an exaggerated puff of his cigar, pursed his lips and blew a perfect smoke-ring ostentatiously between the odd couple. He looked at Doc Elliot, at Stella, and back at the Doc. It was a quizzical look, an unspoken question he immediately answered for himself. He shrugged, illustrating his lack of concern, the logic and philosophy involved in the sexuality of those he regarded as deviants was too complex an issue to fit into his black and white checkerboard concept of life. The unusual and perversely attractive image of the skinny bitch Stella was beginning to generate signals of interest inside Freddy’s trousers. But despite a strong, ridiculous curiosity to see how it felt to tear her skinny, rabbit’s arse off her bones while he pumped her scrawny belly full of bull-dust, he rejected the idea. He would be too much of a fool not to realise he was in deep enough trouble without digging further. The sooner the Doc fucked off with her the better. ‘Okay, Doc, spill what you got, then.’
The Doc gave an account of the racket Philip had set up, a blow by blow report on the eleven illegal immigrants slaughtered and the income, down to the last penny they received for the organs.
Freddy fiddled with his eye patch, tried valiantly to suppress his fury at being kept uninformed about the dangerous, extra-curricular line of business being operated by his son. The severe consequences for his dead son’s nice little earner began to flood his brain with a sickening impact, began to explain why lots of things which ought not to be happening suddenly were.
‘Somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ me, Doc, is what you know about the girl that the mad fuckin’ Russian is on about. You just told me about eleven illegals that I just don’t care a fiddler’s fuck about. But I think we ought to be talkin’ about the little bitch who’s missin’ an’ gone an’ got Knishovo so crazy he’s gonna blow London up, the one who our Philip is supposed to have took an’ shafted.’
It occurred to Freddy that the enigmatic Doc Elliot knew a lot more about Phil’s death than he was prepared to let on. But the old poof’s reluctance was probably not without good reason, because he must know his glee would soon be turned to a bit more than dismay if he had any involvement in Philip’s death.
Stella got up and leaned over the vet. She took hold of his hand. ‘Tell him everything, Minas, darling. You know it’s probably the only way we can feel really safe again. And it might just stop all this horrible talk about bombs.’
Freddy’s eye was glued to Stella’s arse. The material of her dress was caught in and sculpted the cleavage between her tiny buttocks. A latent hate in him for women as a species, fostered over the years because of their control over him, was suddenly a rabid fever. The frustration that the teasing bitch of a copper put him through, his humiliation in front of his sons with the bitch kid, the degradation of being found naked, bound and helpless, by his wife, they must all be atoned for. This smug, bony bitch of the Doc’s was going to breathe her last, come her last, with his cock buried in her gut, and he would personally feed her to the dogs, with her bit off nipples as starters. The old poof could watch and wank while the dogs fought over her bones.