Authors: Julie Shaw
He hadn’t forgotten and he would never forgive. He was going home to unfinished business.
That Vinnie hadn’t been able to finish off Joseph ‘call me fucking Joe’ Devanney had, for a time, angered him greatly. It had always been a long shot – and something of a poser in the planning, too. It was tricky having to balance hurting him so hard and fast that he finished him off quickly and doing what his heart said was what really needed doing – and could anything be bad enough for the cunt who was responsible for the photographs of that wide-eyed little girl that still burned so brightly and repulsively in his head?
And perhaps, all said and done, it was good that he survived. Survived fucked up and with his genitals beyond repair. That was good. He survived as a warning to every other cunt like him. And that he survived held another important positive. Had he died then Vinnie would have been done for murder rather than ABH, and those extra three years he served would have been substantially longer. Perhaps long enough that another nonce – the one he really wanted – would have popped his clogs before Vinnie had the chance to take the matter of his demise out of his filthy, child-molesting hands.
It was a watershed moment for Vinnie, deciding on his destiny. Once he’d reached the conclusion that taking Melvin out was the only practical course of action, life in prison had become something of a breeze for him. Once he’d emerged from the ashes of his former self, healed both bodily and mentally, it served simply as a period of time in which to prepare and focus. He ate well. He exercised regularly. He was in the prime of his life and his body responded by becoming fit and lithe and strong and dependable. He played the game – so much so that Gordon would often clap a fatherly hand across his shoulder, saying ‘That’s the way, son’ whenever Vinnie did the mature thing and walked away from bother – and he did that all the time now.
He made ‘friends’ superficially, smiled when social cues dictated it, became angry when circumstances dictated it was expected, settled scores as and when safe and appropriate.
He had become, to all intents and purposes, a version of himself. One that was fit for purpose in any given prison situation, and the only time he was his true self was when he was alone, with his nose and heart and head inside a book. Though he guarded this version of himself diligently. His prison self would do just as the other inmates did, and trade baccy for porn mags, so he had a small stash for recreational purposes. He rarely looked at them, though it was all about conforming to type, obviously, so if you passed his cell you’d see just what you expected to see: an inmate, lying on his bunk, porn mag open in front of him, thinking the same unrequited carnal thoughts everyone else did.
What they didn’t know was that out of sight there would more often than not be a real book –
Great Expectations
,
The Count of Monte Cristo
or
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
– carefully concealed between some slut’s wide-open thighs.
‘You ready, son?’ Malvern said, interrupting Vinnie’s thoughts again. ‘Or d’you love it so much you want to do an extra week or two? Only they’ve asked me to fetch you and escort you down to pick up your things and get processed out of here.’
Vinnie laughed and slapped Malvern across the back. ‘Get me things? I was still reading the fucking
Beano
when I came in here, sir, so I doubt there’ll be anything much I’m going to want to take with me.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you, if anyone’s messed with my Crombie or owt,
they
, sir, are going to be a dead man.’
They made their way along the landing down the stairs, and through the process of being processed, and Vinnie was pleased to see his precious Crombie still fitted him. Slipping it over his shoulders felt like slipping on a whole new persona and, once he was into it, he found he actually rather liked it. It had the benefit, he thought, as he signed the various papers, of beautiful simplicity.
‘Now, lad,’ Malvern said, as he prepared to finally release him, ‘do you have any plans for the outside?’
Vinnie looked at him, feeling he was at least deserving of his honesty. ‘Not really, sir,’ he said. ‘Not anything you’d want to hear about, anyway.’
And then he was gone. Led out of the main gates and waving across the road to Brendan, who was leaning against the bonnet of a battered green Cortina.
Vinnie walked across to meet him and he didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see Malvern’s look of disappointment. Didn’t want to weaken his resolve.
Vinnie took a final drag on his ciggie and yawned as he slid into the passenger seat of Brendan’s car. It had been a long night for both of them, but in a good way – the best way – and he was grateful to his mate for being so brilliantly organised. Though who’d have imagined he’d been so clued up about the red-light district in Wetherby? That had certainly been a turn-up.
It had been a good decision to hold off driving back home for a day. It had been a good way to spend his resettlement allowance, not to mention a way of thanking his best mate, but mostly it had re-orientated him, and, yes, settled him. Set him up.
‘I take it you enjoyed your night with the Whore of Babylon then, mate?’ Brendan said, chuckling, as he pulled back out onto the street to begin the long journey home.
‘I’ve had better, our kid,’ Vinnie answered, grinning.
‘You’ve had better?’ Brendan snorted. ‘Fuck off! I’ll bet that place was a fucking riot compared to all the pillow biting you’ve been doing for the last six fucking years!’
Vinnie reached across and cuffed his mate round the back of the head. It was so good to be back. And he intended making the most of it while he could. ‘So,’ he said, once they were back on the motorway to Bradford, ‘before I throw myself into the fray, what’s going down? Anything?’
‘Not a lot,’ Brendan said. ‘Same characters doing the same shit as always. Gerard and Martin have been in and out of Armley nick for the past couple of years, oh, and Martin’s had a kid. You know that Lizzie Conley? Well, she’s bringing up his sprog. They’re not together, like, but I think he still goes round for a bit of how’s your father. Like I said,’ he chuckled, ‘nowt much has changed really.’
‘Speaking of nothing changing, you seen anything of our Lynds?’ Vinnie asked him. ‘What’s she up to? No sign of that freak Robbo sniffing around again, I hope?’
Brendan shook his head. ‘Not sure he even lives round here any more, to be honest.’
‘And she’s not shipped in another smackhead or got herself knocked up again, has she?’
‘No, don’t worry. No danger of that, mate.’ He paused. ‘Look, don’t take offence –’
‘As if. I don’t give a flying fuck what she gets up to.’
‘– but she’s not good these days, Vinnie. If it weren’t for your Josie, those poor girls of hers would be living a fucking awful life. Well, Robbie already is – but then you know that already. But, well, you’ll see soon enough, I suppose …’
‘Honestly, mate,’ Vinnie reassured him, ‘don’t worry about it. There’s not a lot anyone can do about it, is there?’
‘Though actually,’ Brendan said, ‘there
is
probably something you should know.’
‘Which is?’
‘Mucky Melvin.’ He glanced across at Vinnie.
Vinnie felt himself stiffen. ‘What about him?’
‘I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, mate …’
‘What?’
‘Well, you know I told you when I wrote about him approaching our Kelly’s little ’un on the street a while back? Well, and like I say, I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but someone told Kelly they’d heard – and I don’t know who from – that your Lyndsey’s Sammy’s been running errands for him lately. Like I say, it’s all a bit Chinese whispers, but, well, I thought you ought to know, mate.’
Vinnie digested this piece of information as if it was a piece of particularly resistant gristle in a prison stew. It lodged halfway down and it was a real act of will to swallow it. He’d taken in the information about Brendan’s sister’s girl with a degree of detachment. It was entirely what he’d expected because Melvin was a fucking nonce and that’s what fucking nonces did. It wasn’t so much a guilty one-off as a fucking career for them. And there was always another little ’un on the production line to target. He also knew that Brendan’s sister would keep her little one safe. But as for Lyndsey … He stared ahead for a bit, thinking.
For half a second he thought of telling Brendan the whole story about his own sister. He knew about Robbo trying it on with her, of course, and that Melvin had as well, but no more. And Melvin had tried it on with every child in a fucking skirt, hadn’t he? But something stopped him. Something instinctive. And something rational as well. Would it help anything for Brendan to know? No, it wouldn’t.
‘Cunt,’ Vinnie settled on finally, as a response. ‘Anyone know where he’s hiding out these days?’
‘He’s not been hiding, mate. Last I heard, he was in a squat somewhere down the bottom of the estate right now, or so I’m told. Though something tells me that he might want to now.’ Brendan glanced across at Vinnie. ‘You thinking of going after him? Giving him a bit of a pasting?’
Vinnie smiled at his friend. ‘Can’t think of anything I’d like to do more,’ he said. ‘Well, I can, but right now I’m all shagged out. Anyway,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his Woodbines. ‘I need to speak to our Sammy first, don’t I?’
And hopefully not hear the same sickening tale about that cunt, that … no, he thought. Don’t think the worst yet. Remain positive. After all, he didn’t doubt that, with what they had for a mother, his nieces were far too savvy to set foot in the fucker’s lair. ‘But not a peep about it, okay? I don’t want that cunt getting wind that I’m back.’
‘Not a peep,’ Brendan promised. ‘But don’t you do anything without me, Vin. I mean it.’
Vinnie smiled at his friend. He was the best mate anyone could wish for – always had been. He was as loyal as they came, Brendan. A bloke with a really good heart. But you needed more than a heart for what Vinnie had in mind – a bloody strong stomach, for a start. No, there was no way he’d involve his oldest friend, not in a million years. Vinnie didn’t want that kind of shit on his conscience.
‘Don’t you worry, mate,’ he lied. ‘Scout’s honour. I do nothing without my fucking side-kick tagging along, don’t you worry.’
‘Side-kick?’ Brendan chided. ‘You cheeky bastard!’
Nothing had changed. Nothing. It was like he’d got stuck in a time-warp. Or been shot into one of those worm-holes they were always going through on
Star Trek
. Only with crap instead of asteroids for company.
He got out of Brendan’s car, grabbed his case, and thanked his mate for coming to get him.
‘See you in the Bull later?’ Brendan asked. ‘Or you stopping in with your mam tonight?’
Vinnie laughed. ‘Is the pope fucking Catholic, mate?’
He waved Brendan off and glanced around the empty mid-afternoon street, feeling a heaviness come over him that wasn’t just about his raucous night last night or the fry-up they’d wolfed down at the motorway services. Six fucking years, yet nothing seemed to have altered. The world had changed so much, yet up here, it was like they’d forgotten to tell anyone. As they’d driven into the estate it was like he’d been transported straight back to being a teenager. Same peeling houses, same broken fences, same littered, overgrown gardens – did no one ever think to trim a fucking hedge here? He smiled to himself, thinking back to Thorp Arch and the extensive grounds there. Thought of Gordon and how proud he always was of his fucking shrubberies. And how order and cleanliness and routine and discipline had been something he now took so much for granted that coming back felt like entering a shit-hole.
Looking up at his sister’s house, he noticed the bathroom window was still broken. How long now – nine years? I could fix that for her, he thought. Well, in a different life, a different circumstance. As it was, it would probably have to stay broken.
He walked the length of the short path in less than half a dozen strides, gave a quick blast on the front door then turned the handle. It wouldn’t be locked, he knew, because it never was.
He then stepped inside and, ready as he was to see whatever state his sister might be in, he had to do a bit of a double take, seeing his nieces. He wasn’t even sure that he’d have recognised them.
They, however, certainly remembered him.
‘Alright, Uncle Vin?’ Lou said – least, he
thought
it was Lou. Yes, yes it was. Lou was the older one. Must be what now? Thirteen?
‘Alright as I’ll ever be, I suppose, love,’ he said, smiling. ‘How about you two?’
Sammy smiled shyly at him. ‘I’m okay,’ she said.
Lyndsey got up from the sofa where, it seemed to Vinnie anyway, she might well have sat since the last time he saw her, without ever once getting up.
‘Grown a bit, haven’t they?’ she slurred.
They had definitely done that, Vinnie conceded. And changed a bit, as well. And in ways Vinnie wasn’t quite comfortable with. The pair of them were plastered in make-up. Bright blue eyeshadow slicked like chalk marks across their eyelids, thick black lines painted round their eyes. The way they dressed, too – he knew fuck-all about fashion, but it must have had some major shift since he was banged up, because the pair of them looked like something out of fucking Shalamar, putting him uncomfortably in mind of the ministering angel who’d attended to his baser needs last night.
It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
Christ
, he decided.
If this is what happens when you let a fucking bird run the country, she could fuck right off again
. He sat down across from the girls, still trying to take them in. ‘Well,’ he said to Lyndsey, ‘you going to make me a cup of tea, or what? That’s what normal people do when they have visitors, I’ve heard.’
‘Fuck off,’ Lyndsey said, but she shuffled off to the kitchen anyway, leaving the girls sitting looking at him self-consciously.
He waited till he could hear Lyndsey banging around – hopefully constructively – then turned to Lou. ‘Do us a favour, babes,’ he said. ‘Run and give your mum a hand. I just remembered I forgot to tell her I don’t take sugar in my tea these days, and she’ll probably bung three teaspoons of the stuff in. Oh, and some biscuits. See if she’s got any? I know it’s a long shot but I’m starved.’