Blood Brothers (31 page)

By the time he had them all neatly strung, he was confident of his meals for the next few days, and the thought of them lying on his plate, all fat and juicy, made him salivate.

He’d cook them up with a nice dab of butter and serve them with a few well-chosen root potatoes and veg which would be discreetly removed from Farmer John’s allotment. Oh, and a jar of cider to wash it all down. ‘By! You’ll be living like a king on this little lot,’ he chuckled to himself.

He went on his way, content with the world; except for the absence of regular work and the fact that the few pounds he’d managed to earn here and there was not enough.

Whistling merrily, he knotted the end of the twine to secure his fine catch. That done, he tied the whole ensemble around his waist in a knot. ‘Time I was off home,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t want all the dogs and cats in the area getting a sniff of you lovely things!’

He laughed. ‘Dopey fish! You never learn, do you eh? I put the bread on the hook and I drop the hook into the water, and being the greedy, daft buggers you are, you take the hook like you were born to it.’

He smacked his lips. ‘Before you know it, you’ll be dancing and sizzling in the pan, ready to fill old Jimmy’s belly.’

Still chuckling at the thought of his meal, Jimmy quickly covered the distance between himself and Frank.

Jiggled about by his jaunty stride, the fish swung and danced around his hips; the strong unpleasant odour rubbing off on his duffle coat, but did he care? Not Jimmy. No way.

His mood was such that he even began singing. It was an old pub song, a bit randy and bawdy in nature, but one of Jimmy’s favourites.

It was also the signal that told Frank he was on his way.

Jimmy’s merry song came to an abrupt halt as he climbed over the stile, and he was grabbed from behind by the scruff of the neck. ‘Well now, Jimmy, you sound far too happy for my liking!’

Frank had him fast by the throat. ‘I’m glad you’re in good voice though, because I want you to sing for me while you’re at it. D’you think you can do that, Jimmy? Can you sing for your old friend, Frank?’ With immense strength, he yanked him over the stile. ‘Well?’

Jimmy’s eyes were big and scared. This was the moment he had dreaded. His every instinct had warned him that Frank was never far away, and that when he did show his face, he was bound to seek him out. And he was right. He couldn’t stop trembling.

‘Don’t hurt me, Frank!’ His throat was squeezed so tight between the other man’s fingers, the words came out in a gargle. ‘What d’you want?’

‘I want answers, Jimmy.’ Frank thrust his face close to Jimmy’s. ‘Information, and lots of it! That’s what I want…for now.’

‘I don’t know nuthin’!’ Jimmy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with fearful speed.

‘Is that so?’ Frank shook him hard. ‘Well, I tell you what we’ll do, shall I?’

Jimmy nodded.

‘I’ll release my hold on you, and then I’ll tell you what I need to know.’

He smiled, a slow, evil smile that made Jimmy’s skin crawl. ‘Then, you can answer my questions, and if the answers suit me, well then, Jimmy, I might just let you go on your way. So! Is that a deal?’

Jimmy nodded again.

‘Good! I knew you’d see the sense of it.’ Just to make sure he had his full attention, he squeezed his fingers tighter round Jimmy’s neck.

When Jimmy made a strangled sound, he grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘One other thing,’ he warned. ‘If you talk to anyone…
anyone at all,
about me being here, I’ll have to hunt you down and shut you up…for good.’ He smiled into Jimmy’s face. ‘Now then, Jimmy. Do we still have a deal?’

‘Yes, Frank.’

Keeping Jimmy close, he asked, ‘Why was Alice at the hospital today?’

‘I’m not sure.’

For a long moment, Frank stared at him. ‘Tell me what you know.’

Only too aware of what Frank was capable of, Jimmy opened up. ‘I honestly don’t know. It might have been something and nothing.’ He dared not reveal what he’d overheard, about Alice being pregnant.

Frank grabbed him by the neck. ‘Are you telling me the truth, or is there something you’re covering up? You’d better answer me, Jimmy!’

‘Like I said…I don’t know why Alice was at the hospital, Frank. I expect it was a check-up or summat. I mean…she was hurt bad, wasn’t she? Maybe she has to have regular appointments, I don’t know!’

Seemingly satisfied on that point, Frank had another question. ‘She didn’t see me, but I followed her today. I was
right behind and she never knew. I followed her to the hospital, and then I followed her back to her grandparents’ house.’

Jimmy recalled what he knew. ‘There was a lot of trouble. When they let Alice out of the hospital, your dad said he didn’t want her there…not after what she did. It seems her mother didn’t want her neither. Rumour has it, that she went to stay at her grandparents’ house. At least, that’s what I heard.’

‘So nobody wanted her, eh?’ His delight was obvious. ‘Well now, I can’t say I’m surprised. I mean, she’s got what she deserves, hasn’t she? She’s nothing but a filthy little tart! What woman would sleep with the brother of her husband to be…Who would do such a shameful thing, Jimmy?’

Jimmy said nothing. He didn’t want to rile Frank any more than he was already.

‘Is she seeing anybody?’ Frank spat out the words. ‘Is she cheating again?’

Panicking, Jimmy shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so! I don’t imagine that for a minute. Honest, Frank, I only know what I know…that you hurt her bad and she was a long time in hospital, then she went to live with her grandparents. I don’t know nuthin’ else. Honest to God, I don’t!’

Knowing what a coward he was, Frank believed him. ‘I’m surprised you even know that much,’ he chuckled. ‘People know what a gossip you are, don’t they, eh? Nobody tells you anything as a rule. They feel they can’t trust you to keep it to yourself. Isn’t that so, Jimmy?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Frank, nobody tells me nuthin’.’

‘Ah, but you still manage to find out in your own devious little way, don’t you, eh?’

Jimmy felt proud. ‘Yes…sometimes.’

‘There you go then! That’s why I came to you, and nobody else, Jimmy. I knew I could count on you to let me know what’s
been going on since I’ve been away.’ He paused, his eyes boring into Jimmy’s. ‘So, what else has been going on then, eh?’

‘I don’t really know nuthin’ else, Frank.’

‘Don’t you lie to me now, Jimmy, because I wouldn’t like that. Y’see, it would make me really angry.’

‘Please, Frank! I’m not lying. I don’t know any more.’

‘All right then, but now I have another question.’

He paused, before going on in a low, deliberate voice. ‘This time, I want you to think very hard before you answer, because this one is more important to me than you know.’

‘I’ll try, Frank. I really will!’

For a long moment Frank waited.

He watched Jimmy squirm and he bided his time, and when he thought Jimmy was about to break, he said harshly,
‘I need you to tell me where Joe is.’

Jimmy had been afraid he might ask that.

‘Well!’ Frank was impatient.

‘I’m sorry, Frank. I don’t know that one.
Nobody
knows, because Tom and Nancy have kept it all to themselves. Y’see, they didn’t want Joe to be bothered. They wanted him to be quiet, so he could mend without anyone being a nuisance. And they didn’t want Alice going near him neither.’

He saw no harm in explaining. ‘She kept asking after him d’you see? She asked anyone who might know, but nobody did, because Tom and Nancy never told. When Joe was moved away from Bedford hospital, they asked the hospital never to say where he was; especially to the newspapers, and especially when they kept hanging about, waiting for you to turn up, Frank.’

He nervously finished, ‘I expect they’re still watching for you, Frank.’

‘Ssh!’ Frank put his finger to Jimmy’s lips. ‘I don’t want to know that. What I want to know is where Joe was moved to, and why.’

He gave Jimmy a suspicious look. ‘Are you sure you don’t know where he is?’

Jimmy nodded.

‘If you’re hiding something?’

‘I’m not!’

‘Mmm. All right then. Now you listen carefully. Being on the run does not mean you’re altogether unaware of what’s happening in the outside world. Like everyone else, I read the papers.’

He lapsed into deep thought, before revealing his ideas. ‘It’s a shame I didn’t manage to finish Joe off, but there’ll be other chances. I’m a patient man as you well know.’

He smiled. ‘You and me, Jimmy we’ve had our differences but we can put them behind us now, can’t we, eh? We need each other, you and me, don’t you think?’

Jimmy made no response, and Frank was too deep in thought to notice.

He gabbled on, ‘I knew they’d taken him to Bedford hospital. And I thought there was little hope that he might survive. Unhappily for me, he proved them wrong, but he was hurt bad; at least I got that right anyway!’

He persisted in his questioning. ‘You say my parents didn’t want Alice going near him? Is that right?’

‘They really turned against her, Frank. Especially Tom.’

Frank smiled at that. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. Dad was always a stickler for doing the right thing. Every bad thing that ever happened to our family was caused by what she did!’

He had a rare stab of conscience. ‘I’m sorry I hurt my dad. But it was his own fault. He should never have got in the way.’

He frowned. ‘As for Mum, well, she’s always been too damned soft…seeing the good in everybody. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she hadn’t tried to stop Dad from getting rid of the little bitch!’

His voice fell to a whisper, and for a moment he seemed
totally oblivious to Jimmy’s presence: ‘Mum needs to realise that we’ve all had our lives ruined by her dear little Alice! Oh, but she’ll learn! One of these days, somebody will need to teach her a lesson she won’t forget!’

There was such a rage in him that when Jimmy took a step back, Frank was on him. ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’

‘I thought…I just thought…’ What he actually thought was that Frank had gone completely mad; that he was talking about hurting Nancy…his own mother; and that really spooked him.

Shaking him hard, Frank put the question again. ‘I’ll ask you one more time. Where’s Joe?’

‘I don’t know, Frank! Truly, I don’t know. It’s a secret.’

‘You’d better not be lying, Jimmy!’

‘I’m not lying. I wouldn’t lie to you, Frank, you know that.’

Frank did know it, and he said so, but he remembered what Jimmy had told him earlier. ‘You said they didn’t let on where Joe was, because they didn’t want Alice going to see him?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Frank.’

‘So, that means he must have thought she
wanted
to see him?’

‘Oh, she did. She still does. Mandy’s mother is a real gossip. She chatters about what Alice said to Mandy, and the word is that Alice is desperate to see Joe.’ The second the words were out, Jimmy could have bitten off his tongue, but it was too late to take it back, and now Frank was seething.

‘Is that so?’ He was silent for a while, his mind alive with such hatred he could taste it. ‘And has she seen him?’

Thinking Frank’s question was a trick, Jimmy shook his head vehemently. ‘If I knew that, I might know where he is, but I don’t.’

‘And I don’t really know what to do with you, Jimmy.’

‘What do you mean, Frank?’

‘Well, I mean, you haven’t told me an awful lot, have you? You’ve told me about the bitch being turned away from the
cottage, and that she has a longing to see Joe.’ He glared at him. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else I should know?’

‘I told you she’d gone to her grandparents.’ Jimmy could see his life ending there and then, and he began to panic. ‘You can torture me if you like, Frank, and I won’t be able to tell you anymore, because I don’t
know
anymore. I keep myself to myself. I don’t like being round people. They stare at me. They think I’m stupid!’

Growing anxious, he started gabbling, ‘I’ve told you how your dad means to keep Alice away from Joe, and I’ve told you she intends to find out where he is. Anyway, that’s what Mandy’s mum says, and I believe her.’

‘Bugger off, Jimmy!’

‘What?’

‘I said…bugger off!’

Jimmy was visibly relieved. ‘So you’re not gonna hurt me then?’

‘Oh! Now you’ve got me worried, Jimmy.’

‘Why?’

Frank was cruel to the bitter end. ‘Well, there must be a reason as to why you think I should hurt you.’

Taking hold of Jimmy’s collar he drew him forward. ‘Am I right to be suspicious, Jimmy?
Is
there a reason why I should hurt you? You know what? I’m beginning to wonder if you’re hiding something from me. Are you, Jimmy? Are you hiding something?’

‘No!’

‘Right, then you’d best do as I said, and bugger off…before I decide to take you to pieces.’

Jimmy did not want telling twice.

He knew from personal experience how dangerously unstable Frank was.

Taking to his heels, he clambered over the stile and ran like the wind down the lane, with Frank laughing and calling out,
‘RUN JIMMY BOY! I might take a mind to come after you. Remember what I said…one word about me and what we’ve been talking about, and I’ll have you!’

Jimmy knew it, which is why when the string broke from round his waist and his well-earned meals fell to the ground, he didn’t even stop to collect them.

Frank saw it, and laughed out loud. ‘You’re a prize dimwit, Jimmy,’ he chuckled as he went on his way. ‘Thick as a plank and twice as gormless!’ But he secretly thanked Jimmy for the information he’d given him.

‘So, now all I have to do is get to Joe. First though, I need to find out where he is.’

It was a dangerous risk he was prepared to take, what with the police hot on his tail. But it would be worth it, just to finish the job he started.

As he went back to the car, his mind was spinning. ‘So! we’ve got a badly injured patient who’s been moved from Bedford hospital to somewhere else. So, why did they move him, eh?

‘It seems he’s got injuries they can’t deal with. Yes! That must be it. Mmm! Chances are they had to move him because he needed special treatment, or delicate surgery, and they weren’t equipped to deal with it at Bedford.’