Read Online The Victim by Kimberley Chambers - Free Book Online Page B

something important had cropped up and he couldn’t attend the antenatal clinic with her.
    ‘This better be fucking important, Dad,’ Gary said, thoroughly pissed off that he’d been woken so early then his old man had had the audacity to turn up late.
    Eddie grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the bar and ordered everybody to drink one.
    ‘For Christ’s sake, Ed. It ain’t even ten o’clock. I was meant to go somewhere with Polly and she’ll annihilate me if I go home smelling of booze.’
    Not in the mood for Raymond’s marital issues, Eddie knocked back his drink in record time and slammed the empty glass on the table. ‘Fuck Polly, this is business and what I’ve got to say is far more important than anything your old woman will say to ya later.’
    Raymond immediately shut up and, as Ed began to tell the story of what he’d agreed with Jimmy O’Hara, Gary and Ricky sat open mouthed.
    ‘So, when your grandfather’s picture fell off the wall, I just knew I’d done the wrong thing. Call it fate, but I know now I can’t go through with it,’ Ed said remorsefully, concluding the tale.
    Ricky knocked back his Scotch and looked at his father in outright disgust. ‘How could you pay to arrange your own brothers’ deaths in the first place? That is sick, Dad, fucking proper sick. Say O’Hara gets to them somehow?’
    Gary shook his head in disbelief. ‘I know Paulie and Ronny are a pair of useless cunts, but they’re still family, Dad.’
    ‘Yes, I know they’re family, but they ballsed up, not us. All I was trying to do was keep the rest of us safe. O’Hara ain’t gonna let this rest, you know. If he can’t get to them, he’ll come for us, I just fuckin’ know he will.’
    Gary gave a sadistic smirk. ‘Worried about your new fancy piece, are ya?’ he asked sarcastically.
    As Eddie grabbed his eldest son by the neck, Raymond intervened and dragged Eddie away. ‘For fuck’s sake, arguing and fighting amongst ourselves ain’t gonna solve this, is it? Let’s get a grip and sort this out sensibly, shall we?’
    Ray turned to Gary and Ricky. They were good lads, but they were also playboys. Gary was twenty-nine now and Ricky twenty-seven. They were both handsome boys, but neither had settled down. Therefore, they had no idea about what it was like to worry about a wife or kids.
    ‘Your father has got a point, you know. If anything happened to my Polly or the baby, I couldn’t deal with it. Yous two are single: once you settle down and have kids of your own, you’ll understand where your dad’s coming from.’
    Gary shrugged. He had no intention of settling down. Tarts were a pain in the arse and ‘love ’em and leave ’em’, was his motto. ‘So what happens now, then? Are you just not gonna turn up to meet O’Hara?’
    Eddie rubbed the stubble on his face. He used slow movements from his cheeks to his chin like he often did when he was deep in thought. ‘I’ve got the dosh on me. I think I should still meet O’Hara and pay him the thirty grand. It sounds big bucks but it’s peanuts to me. Let him think he’s still got a deal. He won’t get to Ronny and Paulie, not if I put the word about.’
    ‘And how you gonna stop him fuckin’ getting to ’em?’ Ricky asked wisely.
    ‘Ginger Mick, Lee Adams, Scouse Lenny – they’re all banged up in Belmarsh and they all owe me a favour or two. I’ll get word to Paulie and Ronny to spend as much time as possible inside their cells. Any time they come out, I’ll have someone watch their backs.’
    ‘It’s an impossibility to get someone to watch over Ronny and Paulie all the time, Dad. I mean, how do you know that your pals are even on the same wing as them?’
    ‘Because I made phone calls on the way here. Flatnose Freddie knows everything; he also told me that Paulie and Ronny are sharing a cell. He reckons if they hadn’t have spilled their guts to the filth, the system would have definitely split ’em up, but they did, so no one