Respect (Mandasue Heller)
Table of Contents
Also by Mandasue Heller
The Front
Forget Me Not
Tainted Lives
The Game
The Charmer
The Club
Shafted
Snatched
Two-Faced
Lost Angel
The Driver
Broke
About the Author
Mandasue Heller was born in Cheshire and moved to Manchester in 1982. She spent ten years living in the notorious Hulme Crescents which have since become the background to her novels. Not only is she a talented writer, but she has also sung in cabaret and rock groups, seventies soul cover bands and blues jam bands.
RESPECT
Mandasue Heller
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Mandasue Heller 2014
The right of Mandasue Heller to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 76948 7
Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 444 76947 0
Hardback ISBN 978 1 444 76946 3
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
For Karen Brookes, with love and a million memories.
Until we meet again xx
As always, I have to thank my lovely family for their constant support and love. My man, Win; my mum, Jean; my children, Michael, Andrew, Azzura (and Michael); my grandies, Marissa, Lariah, and Antonio; my sister, Ava; Amber, Martin, Jade, Reece, Kyro, Diaz, Auntie Doreen, Pete, Lorna and Cliff, Chris, Glen, Natalie, Dan and Lauren, Toni, Joseph, Mavis, Valerie, Jascinth, Donna, and their children … lots of love to you all.
Thanks, as ever, to my ace editor, Carolyn Caughey, for the brilliant advice and support. Also the rest of the superb team at Hodder: Lucy, Emilie, Emma, Rosie, Francine, Phil – to name but a few.
Immense thanks also to my lovely agent, Sheila Crowley.
Thanks to Nick Austin – your copy-editing has taught me a lot! Also, Cat Ledger, Wayne Brookes, and Martina Cole – for everything.
Love to great friends, Betty and Ronnie Schwartz, The Dysfunctional Duchess: Kimberley Chambers, Liz Paton, Katy and John, Norman Brown and Hilary Devey.
And a special mention to my
Lost Angel
dream-team: Jac and Brian Capron, Ann Mitchell, Rowetta and Chris Coghill. Can’t think of a better cast – or nicer people.
A big thank you to Carrie Austin for the invaluable info on the working life of PIs.
And last but never least, a million thanks to the buyers, readers, libraries, and my friends on FB & T. You all make it worthwhile, and I greatly appreciate the support and chats.
Respect!
PROLOGUE
‘Get the fuck out of my house, you stinking, cheating, lying bastard! Go on … fuck off – and don’t come back!’
‘Shut your mouth, you crazy bitch.’
‘Why? Scared the kids’ll wake up and find out what a loser you are? Well, they’re my fucking kids, not yours, so don’t you be worrying about them!’
‘You’d best quit pushin’ me!’
‘Or what …? You gonna whack me again? Go on, then – if you
dare
!’
The words were followed by a loud smashing sound, and Chantelle Booth shivered in her bed on the other side of the wall. She was frequently woken in the middle of the night by the sound of her mum and Jase shouting at each other, and she usually covered her ears and tried to ignore it. But tonight’s argument sounded nastier than usual and she was scared to go back to sleep in case something really bad happened.
Jase hadn’t long moved in but he was already messing her mum around; staying out for days on end, then walking back in as if nothing had happened. And the silly cow usually welcomed him back with open arms – but not tonight, by the sound of it.
Chantelle was glad about that, because she didn’t like Jase. He acted nice, but she had seen through him the instant she first clapped eyes on him. And she had enough experience to know the difference between real nice and fake nice, given how many men her mum had brought into their lives since her little brother Leon’s dad had walked out on them. The real nice ones didn’t tend to stick around too long, but the fake ones, like Jase, hung around like bad smells, making her mum cry and spending her money on drugs and drink so she couldn’t afford to buy food or pay the bills.
A heavy thud on the wall rattled Chantelle’s headboard. She sat up and bit her lip when she heard the creak of her brother’s bed springs through the wall on the other side. She hoped he wasn’t about to wake up. He was only eight, and slightly built for his age, but his handsome baby-face disguised a man-sized temper, and he was bound to fly off the handle if he saw Jase hurting his mum – which would only make everything ten times worse.
Unable to bear it any longer when her mum let out a piercing scream, Chantelle leapt from her bed and rushed into the hall – just as her mother hurtled out of her own room with Jase on her heels.
‘Stop it!’ she cried when Jase slammed her mother up against the wall and put his hands around her throat. ‘Leave her alone!’
‘Now see what you’ve done,’ Mary Booth hissed, using the interruption to regain her footing and push Jase away. ‘Happy now, are you?’
Jase flapped a dismissive hand in Chantelle’s direction. ‘Go back to bed – everything’s cool.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Chantelle sobbed, taking in the bleeding gouges in his cheek which she guessed her mum had raked with her nails, and the bruise that was starting to darken her mum’s eye. ‘You’re always hurting my mum, and I don’t like it. I don’t like you.’
Jase narrowed his eyes and stared angrily back at her. ‘Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, you black bitch?’
‘Oi! Don’t talk to my daughter like that!’ Mary protested, smacking him on the side of his head. ‘And she ain’t black, she’s mixed-race, you ignorant bastard, so get your facts right!’
Jase clenched his fist and went to punch her, but hesitated at the sound of someone hammering on the wall that divided Mary’s flat from the one next door. ‘You know what? Fuck this,’ he sneered. ‘I’ve had it with you and your dramas.’
‘Where d’y’ think you’re going?’ Mary demanded when he turned and walked back into the bedroom. ‘Don’t think you’re crawling back into my bed like everything’s okay, ’cos it ain’t happening. I want you out.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m gone.’ Jase sat down on the edge of the bed and dragged on his jeans. ‘I can’t hack this shit no more. You’re doing my head in.’
‘Yeah, well, now you know how
I
feel,’ spat Mary.
Jase stood up, pulled his jumper over his head, shoved his feet into his trainers and, pushing past Mary, strode back out into the hall.
‘Where you planning to go at this time of night?’ she asked, shaking now because she’d realised that he really was going to leave. ‘I’m telling you now, if I find out you’ve been anywhere near that slag Wendy Thompson I’ll throw her right over the fucking balcony – and you right after her! Is that where you’re going? Is it …?’
‘None o’ your business.’ Jase grabbed his jacket off the hook behind the front door and shoved his arms into the sleeves. He cast a quick glance back at Chantelle who was still standing there in her nightdress, tears streaking her pretty face, legs shaking visibly. Then, sucking his teeth, he walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Infuriated, Mary yanked it open again, screaming, ‘Don’t you fucking
dare
go to that bitch! I’m warning you, Jase – I’ll kill the pair of you!’
‘Let him go,’ Chantelle pleaded, grabbing her mum’s arm to stop her from going after him. ‘
Please
, Mum. We’ve got each other, we don’t need him.’
Mary shook her off angrily and stumbled out onto the landing. She’d been sure that Jase would be heading to Wendy’s flat eight doors down but the walkway was deserted. Standing there, with the wind lashing her cheeks and whistling down her ears, she picked up the faint slap of footsteps going quickly down the communal stairs and rushed to the balcony.
‘Where you going?’ she yelled over the rail when Jase emerged onto the path a few seconds later. ‘Got some other tart lined up already, have you? Some bitch who don’t care that you’ve already got a woman?’
Jase walked on without responding.
‘Go on, then!’ Mary shrieked at his back. ‘Go to your whore – see if I care! But don’t come crawling back to me when she gets tired of your useless arse and kicks you out, ’cos you’ve fucked me about for the last time! D’ya hear me, you dirty piece of shit? We’re finished!’
‘Mum, stop it,’ Chantelle pleaded, her bare feet freezing on the icy concrete as she tried to drag her mother away from the balcony edge. ‘You’re gonna fall!’
Chest heaving with fury and pain as Jase strolled around the corner and out of view, Mary clenched her fists and pummelled the iron railing. Then the tears came, and she sank to her knees and wailed.
‘For God’s sake, stop that racket!’ a hoarse voice barked. ‘We’re trying to get some flaming sleep here. We haven’t all got the luxury of sitting on our backsides watching Jeremy bloody Kyle all day – some of us actually have to
work
for a living.’
‘Fuck off!’ Mary pulled herself together at the sound of her next-door neighbour’s voice and lurched back up to her feet. Swiping the tears from her cheeks, she glared at the man who was peering out at her. ‘Get back in your coffin with that corpse you call a wife before I knock you out, you fat bastard!’
‘I’m calling the police,’ he spluttered, quickly pulling his head in and slamming the door shut when Mary lunged towards him.
‘Go on, then – I dare you!’ Mary kicked his door. ‘But don’t blame me when all your windows get put through, ’cos everyone already hates you round here, so see what happens if you bring the pigs round, you dirty grass!’
‘Mum, come home.’ Chantelle tugged on her mother’s hand again, terrified that she was going to get herself arrested.
Exhausted by now, Mary’s shoulders suddenly slumped. She looked balefully out across the estate in the hope that Jase might have changed his mind and be on his way back, but the area was as deserted as the landing she was standing on.
Relieved when her mum walked back into their flat, Chantelle followed and closed the door on the biting cold. She was shivering wildly, but her fear changed to concern when her mum turned the kitchen light on and her injuries became clear. Her eye was so badly swollen that it was starting to close up, and there were livid red marks on her neck from where Jase had throttled her, and scratches and bruises on her bare arms and legs. It was the worst fight they’d had by far, and Chantelle prayed that it really was over this time.