Eddie shook his head as he sat back on his seat in the office at the van centre. Was this really his life? Would the only excitement he was ever going to get come from hiring out vans? Yes okay, he owned his own business and yes, it brought in good money and his credit score was good enough that he was able to buy a business for his girlfriend. But there was something so dissatisfying about it all.
His thoughts were pulled from him when there was a knock at the door. ‘Mr Corrigan, here are the time sheets from the staff for this week,’ Sandra, his secretary, said.
Eddie smiled as she sat them on the desk. ‘Thanks.’
He swung on his chair and watched as Sandra left the office. He stared down at the staff time sheets and sighed. He remembered the days when he was just a young teen, riding around on his dirt bike down by the fields at his old primary school, often not sober. The buzz of knowing that he could come off at any moment was what had kept him going. Or when he wouldn’t think twice about taking ecstasy, just so he could have the night of his life with the boys. The number of life-threatening activities he’d pursued told him he should have died a long time ago, but he didn’t. He was still very much present, yet he didn’t feel alive.
Those days were long behind him. But he missed them greatly, so much so that when Arabella had been arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery, possession and GBH, he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. How could her life be so much more exciting than his? Before they’d met, she’d been a tearaway teen. Always getting into trouble with the people she called friends, taking drugs, drinking and partying. Now she was friends with a proper criminal, and Eddie’s life was plain and boring.
He was glad she was home, of course he was. When she’d been in prison, he’d found the need to feel close to someone overwhelming and he’d had numerous one-night stands with other women. He was a man and he had needs. Arabella didn’t need to know about that and she would never find out. He’d been careful not to allow them into his life, except for one. The last one had turned into somewhat of a relationship. That hadn’t been his plan. He regretted the conscious decision he’d made to invite that girl back to the flat, back to the bed which he shared with Arabella. As good a shag as she was – as they all were – it still made him feel like shit to think of his inability to be faithful when things got tough. But he just couldn’t seem to stop himself. If she hadn’t gone to prison, he’d never have done it. He’d never have dreamed of cheating on her.
Shaking off the memories and the guilt gripping his stomach, he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and stared at the screen. No messages from Arabella. He wondered how she would get on, as the new owner of Hair Envy. As much as Arabella had no clue how to run a business, he was sure she’d get the hang of it. Even if she didn’t, she had Scarlett to do all the leg-work. Scarlett. He closed his eyes as her name floated around inside his head, before shaking it out again. Hair Envy was a thriving business in the heart of the city and he couldn’t let either himself or Arabella mess that up. Eddie had come too far in his life to ruin things.
He hadn’t been in trouble since he was a teenager, when his dad would bail him out of the mess he’d got himself into. The car thefts, house break-ins, the class C drug dealing. But he wasn’t a teenager anymore. He didn’t have a dad or his money to rely on to get him out of sticky situations. In fact, his dad was the only reason that Eddie had a business at all. The van hire company had been left to Eddie in his dad’s will, on the strictest instructions that he hunker down and run it properly. With his dad dead, Eddie was responsible for himself and if he threw away the business for the sake of an adrenaline rush then he’d be left with nothing. His mum had left before he could remember who she was, and he had no siblings. That was one thing he had in common with Arabella, that their mothers had abandoned them.
His phone rang then, jolting him from his thoughts. He answered it, listened to how excited Arabella was about going to see the salon for the first time. Eddie couldn’t help but wonder how Scarlett would cope with Arabella as her new boss. He was only half listening when she said, ‘I’ll see you later on tonight? Maybe we could go out for dinner or something? I wanted to talk to you about meeting Rox. She’s getting out soon and I really want to introduce you to her. She was my rock in there.’
‘Sure, I’ll see you back at home.’ Eddie hid the annoyance from his tone. He didn’t like the sound of Roxanne. Not because she was a criminal. But because Arabella seemed so besotted with her. He’d seen this kind of thing happen with her before. Growing up in care, not knowing how to create bonds and relationships with people, Arabella tended to jump into a new friendship with two feet, without truly seeing a person for who they really were. Those bitches, Amy and Shona, were a perfect example of that.
Opening Google, Eddie typed in Roxanne’s name. If she’d been in prison for ten years then maybe there would be something online that he could find out about her. And he wasn’t wrong. What he read surprised him. Arabella either didn’t know what this woman had done, or had been desensitized by her crimes due to spending so much time with her on the inside.
March 2010 – Glasgow
Female Glasgow Gangster Found Guilty
Twenty-eight-year-old Roxanne McPhail was found guilty today at the High Court in Glasgow of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs. She was also found guilty of attempted murder. Roxanne, who has quickly become one of Glasgow’s most feared female criminals, was sentenced to ten years in HMP Kirktonhill after the verdict was revealed.
Ms McPhail is said to have hospitalised Johnnie Munro after it is alleged that he owed her the sum of just twenty pounds. Ms McPhail was arrested at the scene of the beating, where she was later found to be in possession of cocaine and ecstasy.
The victim was not present in court for the sentencing, but it is believed that he is recovering from the attack and his drug addiction at home with his family. Johnnie Munro suffered a broken wrist, punctured lung and head injuries on the night of the attack, which left him in hospital for a month. No one from the Munro family was available for comment.
Roxanne McPhail’s partner, Jake Cairney, was seen leaving the court alone.
Eddie read over the ten-year-old article and raised a brow. Now this woman was ‘besties’ with his girlfriend. Roxanne sounded out of Arabella’s league, but highly interesting to Eddie. And by the sounds of it, it wouldn’t be long until Eddie got to meet her or her boyfriend.
Maybe these people were just the thing Eddie needed to fill the void. Maybe hanging out with them would give him his spark back. He missed the dangers of living life on the edge of a knife, and it had to be better than cheating on Arabella.