Back at the car park outside Queen’s Hospital, Franny stared at Alfie. Her thoughts were a muddle and it felt like she was spiralling. The pain in her chest was constant and she couldn’t shake the sense of nausea away. Even to concentrate on everyday things seemed harder with each passing moment. All she could think of was Mia and it was all she could do to stop Alfie finding out but that didn’t stop her wishing she could tell Alfie everything. To share it with him. To relieve her burden, but she knew that was impossible.
Panicked she shook her head. ‘No way, you ain’t going in to see him. You hear me, Alf? You’ve already made a mess of things. So, no, you ain’t going in.’
Angrily, Alfie raised his voice, irritated and on edge. ‘Don’t tell me what I’m going to do. There’s a kid out there who needs my help.’
It was like a firework had gone off in her head as she screamed at Alfie, unable to keep her emotions under control. ‘There is, but there’s also Mia to think of! Have you forgotten about her! Have you? Well have you?’
‘Calm down, Fran, for fuck’s sake!’
‘No I won’t calm fucking down, not until you listen! I’m not going to let you storm in there and ruin everything.’
Bemused as Franny burst into tears, Alfie snapped, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Trying to get her temper back under control, Franny took a deep breath and shook her head. Even though the stakes somehow seemed even higher now, she still had to keep her eye on the ultimate goal. Find Mia and then get the hell out. All along she knew that if Alfie ever found out about Mia and Bree, he would kill her, but more so now than ever.
He was angry and she’d known him long enough to realise that when he felt something so deeply, so passionately as he did right now, if he realised on top of everything else that his daughter, Mia, was out there missing, there’d be no talking, simply a bullet in her head; and then Mia would be certainly lost forever, if she wasn’t already.
Whatever happened, whatever Franny had to do, she needed to keep Alfie away from Charlie as well as Barry. ‘What I’m talking about is seeing you would be like a red flag to a bull. You should’ve heard him before – there’s no way Charlie will speak to you. Jesus Christ, he’s lost his leg, Alf. He’s never going to walk properly again, and that’s because of you. He’s pissed, and you know something, Alf? I don’t blame him.’
Furiously, Alfie banged his chest. ‘He ruined our business. Burnt the fucking place down. So he needed payback … Don’t look like that, Fran, I know he did it, cos who else would it have been?’
Uneasily, Franny shrugged, wanting to change the subject. ‘Who knows? Who knows if he did and you didn’t even wait to find out if it was him. I told you to back off and wait but you couldn’t do that, could you? Anyway, the point is, he wants to kill you, so he ain’t exactly going to start talking if he sees you.’
‘But, Fran, it’s not like he even told you the truth, is it? He blatantly lied about Barry, so what’s going to stop him lying this time around?’
‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t.’
‘No, Fran, I’ll make sure he doesn’t, and if I don’t get the truth out of him, well he can kiss goodbye to life as he knows it.’
Scrabbling around for excuses for why Alfie shouldn’t go up and see Charlie, Franny quickly said, ‘But if we both go, and Barry does come back here, then we might miss him; or if I stayed here and you went to see Charlie, that wouldn’t work either. I don’t know what Barry looks like. At least if you stayed in the car you could keep an eye out, and if he did turn up, I dunno, take down the car registration or something.’
‘But what are the chances of him reappearing?’
Franny spoke matter-of-factly. ‘Alf, any chance is better than nothing.’
Thinking about it, Alfie nodded his head. What Franny was saying made sense. And in truth, him wanting to go up and see Charlie had been more about his paranoia than Franny not being able to handle him.
For some reason he’d convinced himself there was a motive behind Franny not being keen on him going to see Charlie. It was ridiculous, because it was obvious that the only thing that mattered to Franny was trying to find her friend’s baby and the only thing that should matter to him, was to somehow find out the whereabouts of the boy. Anything else shouldn’t even come into it.
‘Yeah, okay and I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s stupid for us to both go up there. I’m just a bit of a mess at the moment, head’s all over the place. I’m not thinking straight. Thank God for you, hey? Left down to me, I think I’d probably fuck this all up more than I have done already.’
Franny gave a tight smile. ‘Yeah well, it’s tough for you – I know that. So, whatever I can do to help, then it’s all good.’
‘Yeah, all good. You and me, we make a great team.’
Alfie leant over to kiss Franny. He’d missed being close to her. These last few months had been crazy, and he kicked himself for not confiding in her from the start. She was what they talked about when they said: behind every successful man is a strong woman. She certainly was his strength. His everything. And the fact that he’d jeopardised all that for Bree, for anybody, was almost unthinkable.
Drawing away from her, he smiled sadly and asking a question he knew she wouldn’t really have the answer to, but he needed to ask anyway, Alfie said, ‘Do you think that we’ll find them?’
Franny stared into Alfie’s face, her voice a whisper. ‘Yes, I do, and you know why? Because we won’t stop looking for them until they’re safely back.’
Inside Queen’s Hospital, Franny walked along the corridor to one of the lifts that took her up to the critical care unit.
The place seemed deserted apart from a few of the night staff and porters and for some reason Franny felt the whole place had an unsettling calm in the air.
At the door of the unit, one of the nursing staff, a tall young woman, stopped Franny.
‘I’m sorry, visiting hours are over.’
‘Can’t you make an exception? I really need to speak to Charlie Eton.’
‘I’m sorry, we don’t allow visitors now unless it’s an emergency and you’re a close family member.’
‘That’s exactly what I am … I’m his cousin, so can you let me in?’
The nurse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can give a message if you like.’
Firmly, Franny said, ‘No, this is something I need to tell him myself. You see there’s been a death in the family, and as you can imagine I need to tell him personally rather than just on the phone or you giving him a message for me. I don’t want to wait until morning; it’s difficult enough for us already.’
Concern and sympathy suddenly showed on the young nurse’s face. ‘Oh yes, of course, I’m so sorry to hear that.’ She stopped and glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Look, I’m sure it’ll be fine to go and speak to him, just take as long as you need. If I can get you something to drink, let me know.’
Franny smiled but it was cold, lacking any kind of warmth. ‘No, it’s fine but thank you for asking.’
‘Not at all. Would you like me to show you where Mr Eton is?’
‘Oh no, I know exactly where he is.’
In the darkness, Franny walked quietly into the hospital room where Charlie lay, still with tubes and machines surrounding him. He was asleep but the sound of Franny pulling back the trigger on her gun made Charlie’s eyes open. She jammed the nozzle into his mouth, clattering and smashing past his teeth.
‘I told you I’d come back if you lied to me, and what do you know, here I am.’
Gagging on the gun, Charlie stared wide-eyed at Franny. He went to pull the gun out of his mouth, but Franny’s words stopped him.
‘I wouldn’t do that, Char – who knows, it might go off. It happened to someone I know recently. So, I’d be careful if I were you. Really careful.’
Trembling, Charlie slowly brought his hands down by his sides, staring at Franny, waiting for what she had to say.
‘So, here’s the thing, Char, you told me that you haven’t seen your dad, yet I know different. I know he was here visiting you. Funny that, ain’t it?’
Charlie shook his head at which point, Franny jammed the gun further into Charlie’s mouth, causing him to reflex vomit. His mouth filled with lumpy sick, which dribbled out of the sides.
‘Watch what you’re doing, Char, you’ll block my gun if you ain’t careful.’
Charlie attempted to speak, but his words were incomprehensible.
‘Don’t bother trying to talk, Char, what you need to do is just listen. You see, what I think is, you obviously know something more than you’re letting on, so I’m not going to leave here until I find out where Barry is, and as always there’s the easy and the hard way.’
Without warning, Franny ripped the gun back out of Charlie’s mouth, the metal smashing down on his teeth again. He squirmed from the pain, his face screwed up as he choked on and wiped away the vomit in his mouth. He spluttered out his words.
‘I never lied to you! You asked me if I knew where he was.’
Suddenly, Franny backhanded Charlie across the face with the side of the gun, the crunch from his nose breaking filled the air as blood exploded from it.
She hissed at him, anger flashed in her eyes. ‘Stop lying, don’t play games because I have better things to do than be here with you, Char, and you’re really starting to piss me right off. Are you really that stupid that you’re going to deny it? We saw him coming out of the hospital.’
Through pain and fury, Charlie ranted. ‘I never saw him though! Maybe when he came up to see me one of the nurses told him I had a visitor, maybe when you were here, he came and thought better of it.’
‘But if you ain’t in contact, how did he know you were here in the first place?’
Charlie sounded desperate. ‘I don’t know! I don’t know, maybe someone told him. Maybe Ma let him know. Maybe she’s in contact with him. She never tells me anything. For fuck’s sake, Franny, I’m telling you the truth.’
‘But the thing is, I can’t believe you, Char. You already swore blind that you don’t know anything, so I ain’t going to believe you this time, am I?’
Arrogantly, Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t care what you believe.’
‘Then you must have a death wish, Char, either that or you get off on the pain.’
Franny walked to the end of his bed, throwing up the sheets to reveal Charlie’s bandaged stump. Out of her pocket she pulled a lighter. She flicked the flame, which lit up the dark, bringing it close to Charlie’s leg. ‘Now, I’ll ask you again, the hard way, or the easy way?’
Charlie’s eyes filled with terror as he tried to pull himself up the bed away from Franny and the flame. He hissed angrily at her, ‘You’re a sick bitch, you know that! A fucking sick bitch!’
‘Funny that, cos people have told me that before, but no, Char, I’m not. The thing is, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be, but seeing as you’re making this difficult for me, you leave me no option.’ She put the flame near his bandages, immediately causing Charlie to say, ‘All right! All right! I’ll tell you … It’s true when I said I never saw Barry. I swear I haven’t seen him since the court case all them years ago. I ain’t even had any contact with him until yesterday … Apparently, he’d been round to the club but thanks to your fella, I wasn’t there was I? Cos I was in here … But Ma, she sent me his number and either she or the people who work for me told him where I was.’
‘And that’s all?’
There was a slight hesitation from Charlie, which Franny picked up on.
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘Why am I sensing something more, Char?’
With his eyes on the flame, which Franny was playing with nearer and nearer to his leg, Charlie shrugged. ‘I dunno, cos there ain’t anything else to tell you.’
‘Where’s your phone, Char? I said, where’s your phone?’
Hesitating, Charlie cleared his throat, his eyes darting about. ‘Okay, okay, look, I called him yesterday, but I swear I never knew he was here. I had no idea he’d come to the hospital until you said.’
Franny moved even closer to Charlie, bringing the flame up to his face, so near that she heard it singe the tips of the stubble on his chin. He sharply drew away as she spoke.
‘What do you mean, you called him?’
‘After you came. I called him. I said that someone was asking about him, but I never said who, I swear I didn’t mention your name, and up until then, I hadn’t spoken to him before that – that’s the truth.’
Franny stared at Charlie with a mixture of confusion and hatred. ‘Why? Why would you do that after everything that he’s done to you? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I just wanted to give him the heads up, that’s all. I mean, whether I like it or not, he’s family.’
‘Family! Family doesn’t go around doing what he did to you. He terrified you when you were a kid, he terrified your sisters, and have you forgotten that you got Alfie to give evidence against him? You gave evidence against him, yet years later, you’re calling him, warning him. What’s wrong with you, Char?’
Charlie closed his eyes and rubbed his head. Genuine confusion sounded in his voice as he spoke. ‘Look, I know, you don’t have to tell me it’s fucked up. It’s all fucked up, but you can’t help who you’re born to, and somehow you’ve got to work out ways to live with it. Come to terms with it, otherwise it’ll eat you alive, and this is just my way of doing that.’
‘But you don’t have to help him. Char, you’re an adult now, you don’t need to have anything to do with him. You don’t have to be involved with what he does.’
Charlie shrugged, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘At least I didn’t mention your name, but it is what it is.’
‘Not when he’s still hurting people … I think he’s got Mia, Char.’
Charlie opened his eyes and stared at Franny. ‘Did Ma tell you that?’
‘No, she wouldn’t tell me who’d …’ Franny stopped, unable to say the word, and it was Charlie who filled in the blank for her.
‘Bought her?’
Franny nodded fighting back her tears again. Fighting back the panic that drowned out all her thoughts.
‘I doubt he did, Fran. I doubt Barry would. Ma would know she’d never get a penny out of him, and money is what makes Ma tick. Plus, my dad’s not into babies, he likes them a bit older.’
Franny shuddered. She felt ill at how easily Charlie spoke about it, as if they were simply talking about something as hum-drum as a shopping list. ‘But maybe it was one of Barry’s contacts, so although he didn’t … well you know, take her, perhaps some associate of his did. He could’ve been the middle man, Char? It’s a possibility, and it is a tight-knit world, and Mia would’ve gone for a lot of money.’
Unable to stop her eyes filling with tears, Franny clenched her teeth as she spoke. ‘Enough! I don’t want to hear that, I just want to find where she is. I know for certain he’s involved with some little kid, some little boy.’
‘What?’
‘Alfie saw him with a little boy, no older than six or seven. Don’t protect him, Char. Please.’
‘I ain’t. I swear I don’t know anything about any of this, and I wouldn’t have called him and warned him about you if I’d known.’
‘But why else would I have wanted to speak to him? You must’ve known it was about Mia.’
Charlie snapped. ‘How the fuck did I know that? You weren’t exactly Florence Nightingale when you came in, were you? And we’re hardly each other’s number-one fans, are we? I didn’t think, all right. If someone comes and threatens me like you did, then I’m not really going to feel like a frigging chit-chat, am I?’
‘You don’t seem surprised that Barry had this kid though.’
Full of sincerity, Charlie looked at Franny. ‘Why would I be? Prison’s hardly going to reform him, is it? He would’ve met a whole lot more people, just like him, in there. They could keep their fantasies alive, they could sneak phones in, photos, swap stories. The wing he was on would’ve been like a holiday camp for nonces.’
‘Then if you feel like this, I need you to help me.’
‘Franny, come off it.’
Franny’s voice turned hard again. She stared at him. ‘Easy way or hard way, Char?’
After a moment, his eyes matching the hostility in Franny’s, Charlie said, ‘Fine, what do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to call him and find out where he is.’
‘He’s not stupid. He knows that I would never ask that. I’ve got no reason to.’
Franny sat down on the edge of the bed and began to think. The room fell silent and only the wind and rain on the hospital window could be heard. After a couple of minutes, Charlie suddenly said, ‘I’ve got an idea, and I reckon it just might work.’