Chapter Seventy-Eight
‘What do you mean, Declan? How could you have fucking lost them?’
Michael Flynn was genuinely perplexed. This wasn’t happening, surely? The Cornels were fucking idiots. How the fuck had they escaped?
Declan Costello was mortified; this was like amateur night. ‘Look, Michael, that Jack is a lot more fucking with-it than we gave him credit for. He followed his brother into the john, and they went out the fucking window. No one could have foreseen that.’
Michael Flynn was looking at Declan Costello as if he had never seen him before in his life. He was so outraged at the man’s complete fucking dereliction of his duty, he wasn’t sure he could be trusted not to hammer him into the ground.
‘This is fucking unbelievable! I have been entertaining the Colombians all night. All you had to do was keep an eye on two northern fucking wankers, and you are telling me that they outwitted you? They scrambled out of the crapper window, and no one fucking noticed anything? Are you telling me no one was outside?’
Declan shook his head in abject denial; he was reeling with amazement. He had kept a low profile, waiting for Michael to arrive, and now it was completely fucking naused up in the worst way possible.
‘Was he armed?’
Declan nodded once again. ‘He had two firearms, a Glock, and a smaller handgun.’
Michael laughed sarcastically. ‘Oh, that is just fucking great. Just what I need – a drunken fucking northerner after my blood, running the streets of London without a care in the fucking world. You useless crowd of cunts. If anything happens to cause problems with Salvatore, I will personally hunt every fucker involved down, and I will kill them myself.’
Declan looked around. Everyone in the club was looking at the floor; no one wanted to catch Michael’s eye, or bring his wrath down on their heads.
Michael was in total shock. He was in the process of making a deal with one of the most dangerous men on the planet, and nothing –
nothing
– could go wrong. If Salvatore Ferreira thought that there was even a minuscule chance of aggro he would back off faster than a transvestite at a tractor pull. Salvatore had travelled to England because he had been assured that nothing could happen to him while he was here. If he was dragged into a police investigation because the Cornel brothers decided they wanted to chance their arm, it would cause murders – literally.
‘Get out there, Declan. I want everyone we have on our payroll looking for them. There’s a twenty grand bonus on each of the Cornels’ heads. Find them, and find them soon. I’m going home. I assume you already have people watching my drum? The last thing we need is my wife and daughter put in the frame.’
Declan nodded. ‘’Course. Give me some credit, for Christ’s sake.’
Michael stormed out of the club and, as soon as he was gone, Declan turned to the doorman. They were terrified for their lives, knowing they had made a major fuck-up.
‘Patsy, get on the blower and get four of your guys over to Michael’s drum sooner rather than later. I will organise geting everyone out on the pavements. We need to find the Cornels and, when we do, I will fucking skin the bastards alive myself.’
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Jessie Flynn woke up suddenly and, turning on her bedside lamp, she listened intently. Whatever had woken her from her sleep was still going on. She could hear her mother’s voice shouting at someone. Her mother
never
shouted at anyone. She was one of the most inoffensive people on the planet. This was not something she had ever experienced before in her life. But she could hear panic and fright in her mum’s voice.
Jumping out of bed, she ran from her bedroom, and across the large landing to her mother’s room. ‘What’s happening, Mum? What’s going on?’
Josephine was at her balcony doors and, at the sound of her daughter’s voice, she turned quickly towards her, saying quietly, ‘Go back to your room, darling, and lock your door. Don’t argue with me, just do what I say.’
Josephine didn’t want the men on her drive to know her daughter was in the house with her. They were after trouble. They wanted Michael, and she knew they were not leaving without a fight.
‘Have you phoned the police, Mum?’
Josephine shook her head angrily. ‘’Course not, and don’t you either! Just do what I said, will you!’ She was almost shouting at her daughter now, and Jessie was getting more frightened by the second.
She could hear a man’s voice shouting angrily, ‘I’m warning you, lady, open the fucking door or I’m blasting my way in.’
Jessie watched in shocked amazement as her mother shouted back loudly, ‘Go on then, I dare you. But it won’t be easy. A fucking cannon couldn’t get through there. My husband will fucking be here any minute, and he will kill you. He will fucking take you out, mate, and laugh while he does it.’
She shut the balcony doors and pulled the wooden shutters across, locking them quickly. Then, as she ran from the room, Jessie followed her mother down the stairs, and into her father’s office.
‘Mum, we need to phone the police!’
‘No, we don’t! They are the last people we want on the fucking doorstep!’
Jessie Flynn couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Mum! We need to get the police here now!’
Josephine was opening the large safe Michael used for his cash, and Jessie watched as her mother removed a large shotgun. Priming it expertly, she pushed her daughter out of the door roughly and, standing in the hallway with the gun aimed at the front door, she bellowed, ‘For the last time, Jessie, will you do what you’re told for once. We don’t need the police, OK? I’ve already rung for help. Now will you just
move it
!’
Jessie heard the urgency in her mother’s voice, and she ran up the staircase quickly, but she turned at the top of the landing, and watched her mother – her quiet, kind-hearted mother – calmly lock all the downstairs doors, before she once more positioned herself in the centre of the hallway, the gun cocked, her lovely face set into a grimace of hate.
This was unbelievable – it was like something from a TV programme! There were men outside trying to get in, trying to burgle them and, instead of phoning the police, her mum was preparing to take them on single-handed. It was wrong. It was terrifying. This was something that the police should be dealing with, surely? Her dad knew the police, they were always round the house having meetings with him.
She was shaking with fear now. She sat on the top stair and, pulling her nightdress over her knees, she watched her mother as if she had never seen her before. And she hadn’t – not this mother, anyway. This was a woman Jessie had never met before. This was a woman Jessie was actually frightened of.
She heard glass shattering – the men had smashed through the back door. She saw her mother turn towards the locked and bolted kitchen door, the gun poised, and ready to discharge. This was a nightmare. None of this was happening.
‘I’m armed, and I will blow you away, you bastards. I’m warning you now. Go while you still have a chance.’
The sound of cars screeching to a halt on the gravel drive was loud, and she saw the relief on her mother’s face. Then she heard her dad’s voice.
Her mother opened the front door quickly, and her father was inside the house. She could hear the sounds of his men’s feet as they scrambled around. He was holding her mother to him tightly, kissing her hair and talking to her in a low voice, calming her down, making her feel safe.
Jessie watched silently, aware that none of them had even noticed her. She moved quickly and quietly, so she was out of view, tucked behind the banisters at the top of the stairs, and hidden by the darkness. She heard her father ask where she was, and her mother tell him she was locked in her bedroom. She saw him sigh with relief.
‘Who are these people, Michael? What are they after?’
She saw her dad take the shotgun from her mother’s arms carefully.
‘I’m so sorry, Josephine. This was an accident. It should never have happened, darling. You didn’t call the police, did you?’
Jessie saw her mother shake her head quickly. ‘’Course not. But I tell you now, another ten minutes and I would have. They were nearly inside our home! Our
home
, Michael! Jessie was terrified.
I
was fucking terrified.’
Michael was holding his wife tightly once more. Jessie could see the love they had between them, and she felt the tears come. It was so powerful to see them like that, holding each other so tightly, so attuned to each other’s needs, and looking so perfect together. Then she heard her father chuckle, and she knew that the danger was over, that everything was going to be OK.
‘You’re a fucking diamond, Josephine, and no mistake. Fucking shotgun primed and ready to use just like I taught you. I am so proud of you, darling. Defending your home, your baby. I always knew I had picked a good one, and this proves it!’
Jessie was astounded to hear her mum laugh shakily at her father’s words. ‘I was scared to death, Michael, I can tell you that much.’
‘I know that, darling. Now you go up and sort out our little Jessie. Tell her it was a robbery gone wrong, and it is all fine now. Bless her, she must have been terrified. I need to shoot out for a while, but I will leave some blokes here, so don’t worry. This is a one-off, darling. A fucking complete outrage, caused by two fucking imbeciles known as the Cornel brothers who, for some reason, got the breaks they needed by complete accident. It should never have got this far! After I have dealt with them – and, believe me, they will rue the day they travelled down south to front me up – I will then deal with the men in my employ who let this fucking abomination happen.’
Jessie ran back to her room quickly and, locking the door behind her, she went to her bedroom window, watching as the men her father employed forced the two culprits into the back of a Range Rover. She could hear the two men protesting, and see the way they were being punched and kicked violently. She was still shaking with fear as she watched her dad walk over to the Range Rover, and take a piece of lead piping from one of his men, before dragging one of the robbers out of the Range Rover, and on to the driveway. She watched the man’s head burst open as her father struck him over and over again with such force she could see the man’s skull and his blood spraying everywhere.
She could hear her father screaming in anger, ‘You dared, you
dared
to come to my home! My fucking home! I will kill you. I will fucking kill you stone dead!’
The other men just stood there, watching her father as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The violence was so matter of fact, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to deal with it. The whole driveway was lit up like Battersea Power Station, so she watched it all in glorious technicolour.
She was still vomiting into the expensive porcelain sink in her beautiful en-suite bathroom when her mother banged on her door, demanding entry.
Everything she had heard about her dad was true. She had finally seen it for herself. But it was her mother’s actions that had really shocked her. That had made her realise just how little she knew about the people she lived with. Suddenly, she felt she didn’t know anything any more.
Chapter Eighty
‘Listen to me, Jessie. I know exactly how this looks, but you’re too young to understand the reality of what happened here tonight.’
Josephine was heartbroken. She had never wanted her daughter to have to experience something so frightening. She had made coffee for everyone, left them clearing up downstairs, and then brought her daughter into her bedroom. Locking the door behind them, she had tried to explain as best she could that sometimes things happened, and there was nothing anyone could do to prevent them.
Jessie was staring at her mum, her lovely, quiet, kind-hearted mum, who everyone thought was as soft as shit and treated with kid gloves. Her entire life, she had believed that her mum was weak. Jessie had always felt that she needed to be protected, and Jessie had been willing to do just that. But it had been a lie. Her lovely mum, who had her ‘problems’, was actually capable of literally anything. Her mother obviously knew all about her dad and his business. Jessie knew her mother would have shot those men without a thought if the need had arisen. She had handled that shotgun like a pro. She was a liar; like her dad, her mother was a great big whopping liar. Here she was, acting like butter wouldn’t melt, when it was all an elaborate act. Everything in her life had been a big pretence.
‘Please answer me, Jessie. Talk to me, darling.’
Her mum sounded so genuine. It was amazing – she actually sounded as if she cared. She was once more all nervous tension; she even looked anxious, her voice quivering with emotion.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say, Mum.’
Josephine was relieved to hear her daughter actually speaking. She had not said a word for so long. ‘I just want you to understand that what happened tonight was a one-off. It wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it. Please, Jessie, you have to understand that, darling. Your dad would die before he would ever have let you see that.’
Jessie nodded slowly, unsure what else she was supposed to do.
Josephine Flynn could understand the way her daughter was feeling. She had been party to something that she had no experience of, and Josephine remembered only too clearly how disturbing it was to witness it first-hand. But there was nothing anyone could do about that now. Most importantly, Jessie needed to understand that she could
never
discuss it with anyone outside their family. Here were some things that were best kept private.
Grabbing her daughter’s hands in hers, Josephine squeezed them tightly, as she said huskily, her voice choked with emotion, ‘Come on, Jessie love. You must have guessed that your dad wasn’t the usual. I mean, I know you must have heard things about him.’
Jessie was sitting beside her mum on the bed, and she could feel the warmth of her mother’s hands as she gripped hers tightly. It felt wrong. She wanted to pull her hands away, push her mother as far away from her as possible. But she still loved her mum more than anything. This made no sense to her. She was just a kid, only fourteen years old. She didn’t know how to react to the night’s events. She had been a witness to extreme violence and murder – something that would have frightened her had she seen it on a movie screen, let alone in real life. Now here was her mum, acting like it was nothing, as if it could be explained away and forgotten about.
Josephine brought her daughter’s hands up to her mouth, and kissed her fingers gently, so desperately sorry for the girl’s predicament. She’d do anything to take the pain away instead of having to make her daughter understand the importance of family loyalty, and how easily a careless word could destroy the life they had together.
‘Look, Jessie, I know you can’t understand any of this now, but you will one day. When you’re older and wiser, you will understand why I am asking you to forget about tonight. I need you to promise me that you will never ever tell
anyone
, not even your nanas, about this. You’ve already guessed how serious this situation is. You’re not a foolish girl. Remember, your father needs your loyalty now, and so do I.’
Jessie watched her mother carefully. She understood then that her mother would always put her father first, no matter what. She had sacrificed her own peace of mind for her husband many years before, and that was why she was so strange. Jessie did understand about the loyalty that her mother was asking of her. Family loyalty, along with being Irish Catholic, had always been seen as very important. Now her mother was asking it of her, and she couldn’t refuse. No matter what she might be feeling deep down inside, she suddenly realised that she could never,
ever
, turn against her own family. It was a real moment of revelation for her. The knowledge that, even after all she had witnessed, all she now knew about her parents, if push ever did come to shove, she would never breathe a word to anyone. The fear that had overwhelmed her was suddenly replaced with another fear – the fear of losing the only life she had ever known. She had no other choice, and she would do what was expected of her.