aren’t the cops here?” I said.
“We can’t call the cops,” Del said. He made the same irritated sighing noise he’d made outside. “If we call the cops the people who’ve taken Lumey will most likely kill her.”
“What planet are you on, Derrick? You tell me Lumey’s missing. Claudia’s going off her trolley out there and you’re stuck on your arse doing nothing.” I looked around the room. There were empty DVD cases and stacks of paper everywhere. The place was a mess.
I never called him Derrick unless I was really pissed off with him and both of us knew it.
“Listen,” he said, in that calm, calculating voice he always used when he was playing for time. “There’s stuff you should know.”
“From where I’m sitting that would seem to be the understatement of the century.”
“Hold your rag, Jen, this isn’t helping. You’ve got to calm down.” He leaned forward in his chair, his scrawny arse balanced on the edge of the seat, arms folded across his knees. “For a start, I know that Lumey’s okay.”
“What do you mean, you know?” I was listening now. I knew we were getting to the heart of things. Everything I’d said until then was just a warm up, my way of telling my brother I was frightened and upset. The thing is, I knew Del, and I knew from the moment I came up the drive and there were no cop cars that there was more to this business than first appeared. I understood that Del had sent Claudia away because he wanted to tell me stuff he didn’t want her finding out, either because it was dangerous or because he knew he was in the wrong. Knowing my brother it was probably both.
“I had a phone call about an hour ago. I know who’s done this and I know what they want. I can give them what they want, so there’s nothing to worry about. What I need you to do is convince Cee of that. Everything will be all right, so long as we sit tight and play ball. No one knows, no one gets hurt – simple as that.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, but it was a token protest, my own play for time. I looked Del straight in the face and it was only then that I saw how scared he was really, how scared for his daughter. He was hiding it well and I believed he was telling me the truth about the phone call but he was still scared. Because he knew he was not in control, because he knew as well as I did that he was in the kind of situation where things can go wrong in less than a second.
Because he knew that Lumey was alone and probably terrified.
His eyes were like pinpricks: hard, green water. He looked as if he wanted to kill the world.
“What have you done, Del?” I said. “I’m saying nothing to Claudia until you tell me the truth.” I spoke more gently this time, but I felt certain he would know from my tone that I meant business.
“Okay, okay.” He shifted around on the edge of his seat. He really did look awful, worse than Claudia in a way because Claudia was just frightened, whereas Del also knew he was responsible for what was happening. I wanted to go to him, hug him, tell him we’d sort this shit out together the way we always had. I couldn’t do that, though. I knew that if I let him see I felt sorry for him there was a danger he would spin me a line, that he would tell me the story that suited him, rather than the story that was true.
I made myself hold back. It sounds cruel, but I had to, for Lumey’s sake.
“I lost something that belongs to someone else,” Del said. “Something that’s worth a lot of money. They want their money back, that’s all.”
~*~
Del had been running glass. It wasn’t just a one-off, either, it had been going on for years. He’d been using yard winnings to purchase large consignments of the drug through a gang who had a contact in one of the facilities where the medical-grade stuff was produced. He’d then sold it on to another group in London for a considerable mark-up. The glass was transported in canisters of fertilizer via the
“We can’t call the cops,” Del said. He made the same irritated sighing noise he’d made outside. “If we call the cops the people who’ve taken Lumey will most likely kill her.”
“What planet are you on, Derrick? You tell me Lumey’s missing. Claudia’s going off her trolley out there and you’re stuck on your arse doing nothing.” I looked around the room. There were empty DVD cases and stacks of paper everywhere. The place was a mess.
I never called him Derrick unless I was really pissed off with him and both of us knew it.
“Listen,” he said, in that calm, calculating voice he always used when he was playing for time. “There’s stuff you should know.”
“From where I’m sitting that would seem to be the understatement of the century.”
“Hold your rag, Jen, this isn’t helping. You’ve got to calm down.” He leaned forward in his chair, his scrawny arse balanced on the edge of the seat, arms folded across his knees. “For a start, I know that Lumey’s okay.”
“What do you mean, you know?” I was listening now. I knew we were getting to the heart of things. Everything I’d said until then was just a warm up, my way of telling my brother I was frightened and upset. The thing is, I knew Del, and I knew from the moment I came up the drive and there were no cop cars that there was more to this business than first appeared. I understood that Del had sent Claudia away because he wanted to tell me stuff he didn’t want her finding out, either because it was dangerous or because he knew he was in the wrong. Knowing my brother it was probably both.
“I had a phone call about an hour ago. I know who’s done this and I know what they want. I can give them what they want, so there’s nothing to worry about. What I need you to do is convince Cee of that. Everything will be all right, so long as we sit tight and play ball. No one knows, no one gets hurt – simple as that.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, but it was a token protest, my own play for time. I looked Del straight in the face and it was only then that I saw how scared he was really, how scared for his daughter. He was hiding it well and I believed he was telling me the truth about the phone call but he was still scared. Because he knew he was not in control, because he knew as well as I did that he was in the kind of situation where things can go wrong in less than a second.
Because he knew that Lumey was alone and probably terrified.
His eyes were like pinpricks: hard, green water. He looked as if he wanted to kill the world.
“What have you done, Del?” I said. “I’m saying nothing to Claudia until you tell me the truth.” I spoke more gently this time, but I felt certain he would know from my tone that I meant business.
“Okay, okay.” He shifted around on the edge of his seat. He really did look awful, worse than Claudia in a way because Claudia was just frightened, whereas Del also knew he was responsible for what was happening. I wanted to go to him, hug him, tell him we’d sort this shit out together the way we always had. I couldn’t do that, though. I knew that if I let him see I felt sorry for him there was a danger he would spin me a line, that he would tell me the story that suited him, rather than the story that was true.
I made myself hold back. It sounds cruel, but I had to, for Lumey’s sake.
“I lost something that belongs to someone else,” Del said. “Something that’s worth a lot of money. They want their money back, that’s all.”
~*~
Del had been running glass. It wasn’t just a one-off, either, it had been going on for years. He’d been using yard winnings to purchase large consignments of the drug through a gang who had a contact in one of the facilities where the medical-grade stuff was produced. He’d then sold it on to another group in London for a considerable mark-up. The glass was transported in canisters of fertilizer via the
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