Poison Page 2

‘There ain’t no games. You’ve got it wrong. I never killed her.’

  As Detective Balantyne collected his things and stood up from the chair, he smirked before leaning down and whispering in her ear. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t care if you did or not. The point is … I’ve finally got you, Doyle!’

  Then pulling his navy anorak on and heading for the door, Balantyne stopped and turned to look at Franny. ‘You’ve been laughing at us all too long, Ms Doyle, but you won’t be laughing soon. The jury will be happy to convict scum like you … and if you want my advice, I’d confess – the courts always like someone who pleads guilty. Saves a lot of time and they look at that favourably when it comes to sentencing. Who knows, you could be out before you turn ninety. Think on, Ms Doyle, think on.’

  3

  After Detective Balantyne and her solicitor had left the room, Franny put her head in her hands. She fought back the tears of anger and frustration, determined not to show or even feel anything because, after all, where would that get her? But she knew that was going to be hard. The situation she was in, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t know if she was ever going to get out of it.

  Her solicitor – who’d been her father’s solicitor and had acted for most other men in the firm when they’d been in trouble – frowned as he came back into the room. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to one of my sources in the police. I’ve got some bad news for you, Fran.’

  Franny’s face darkened. ‘Do I need to hear this now, Ed?’

  ‘I think you do.’

  Taking a sip of water, Franny braced herself. ‘Go on then, hit me with it.’

  Ed Romano spoke with the faintest of Italian accents. ‘I think – and my source is good, they’re reliable – I think Balantyne has got some witness statements.’

  Franny sat up. ‘What? That’s impossible.’

  ‘I wish it were, Franny.’

  ‘Who? For fuck’s sake, Ed, just tell me?’

  ‘It’s Vaughn. You’ve certainly made an enemy there. My source didn’t know exactly what was in the statement but Vaughn’s told them he saw what happened. He’s basically saying he witnessed you killing Bree.’

  Franny blanched. She knew that Vaughn was gunning for her, but even she didn’t think that he’d be cooperating with the Old Bill. In their world, what Vaughn was doing went against all the rulebooks. She shook her head. ‘No, that’s bullshit. Your source must be wrong; I would’ve known if he’d given a statement.’

  Ed, playing with his gold ink pen, shrugged. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. It’s a wonderful thing, anonymity.’

  ‘You can’t give a statement anonymously.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can, under sections 74 to 85 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, orders known as “investigation anonymity orders” can be requested at the very start of an investigation – especially in a murder case. They can also apply to the court for a “witness anonymity order” during trial. Shall we say, it provides certainty to people who may have relevant information that their identities will not be disclosed.’

  ‘So not only is Vaughn a snake, but he’s also a coward, hiding behind anonymity,’ sneered Franny.

  ‘I suppose he needed to keep it quiet. Vaughn talking to the police … well, that’s the ultimate betrayal, isn’t it?’

  This time Franny didn’t answer. He was right though – Vaughn giving a statement was so far removed from what they were and what they stood for, it was hard to even believe. And she was certainly going to make him pay … however long that took.

  Taking a deep breath, Franny said, ‘Anyway, his word won’t stand up for much. What jury is going to believe a face? Who’s going to believe a man who’s spent his days in a life of crime?’

  Absentmindedly, the solicitor touched the small bald spot on the back of his head.

  ‘I don’t know, but it seems they’re willing to put it to the test. And there’s one more thing …’ Franny’s whole body slumped as the solicitor continued to say, ‘You’re not going to like it but there’s another statement as well.’

  Franny looked puzzled. ‘Who?’

  ‘Shannon Mulligan. Apparently her statement is almost identical to Vaughn’s.’

  This time, in the privacy of the prison’s interview room, Franny did lose her cool. She slammed her hand on the table and shouted, ‘They’re lying! They’re both lying! Shannon’s always been nothing but a lying bitch!’

  Calmly Ed said, ‘Look, try not to let this rattle you. We’ll sort it.’

  Franny’s eyes widened. ‘How? How the fuck are you going to get me out of here?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, but, Franny, you’ve got to stay positive.’

  Hating feeling emotionally vulnerable, Franny pulled herself together. She bit her lip, trying to control the panic. Then she shrugged and did her best to look and sound casual – but the feeling of anxiety still sat heavy on her chest.

  Her eyes narrowed and a steely look crossed her face as she said, ‘Vaughn was beginning to lose his control with Alfie.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Well, Alfie had stopped listening to him. He’d started to ask me advice, take my opinion over Vaughn’s – whether it be in business or money matters. And of course, Vaughn didn’t like that and now he’s doing all he can to get rid of me once and for all. I was a threat to him before, but believe me, I’m going to be a threat to him again. Not only that, I’m going to be his worst nightmare.’

  She stopped speaking for a moment and gripped her fists together before adding, ‘I have to get out of here, you understand? And I want you to get Alfie to come and see me. I need to see Alfie.’

  4

  Alfie sat with his back to Mia, his hands covering his ears as she screamed. He wasn’t sure how long he had sat there or she had cried, but it seemed like an eternity. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. And yes, fucking yes, he hated himself for it, but he certainly hated Franny more for it.

  She was to blame for it. She was to blame for all of this but the thing he hated more about it – the thing that ate away at him – was that, as much as he hated her, he loved her. And God almighty, above anything else that was the most fucked-up thing about it all.

  ‘Shit!’ He lashed out, kicking a small glass table, sending it flying across the room, causing Mia to scream more.

  The whole situation was so fucked up; his girlfriend was behind bars for killing the mother of his child, and on top of that he now had a banging headache. How it had all come to this, he couldn’t even begin to get his head around.

  A voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Hello, Mr Jennings. You should really get that door fixed – you never know who might come by when you’re least expecting them.’

  At the sound of the voice, Alfie jumped and turned around. Standing there with a machete in his hand was Mr Huang, the head of a notorious South East Asian triad gang, and a man who spelt trouble. Big, big trouble.

  As Alfie watched, his heart beginning to race, Mr Huang – slender and immaculately dressed in a three-piece grey-striped suit – nodded to his men, who made a human wall behind him. Staring at the baby and sounding younger than his sixty-plus years, Huang asked, ‘Yours, Mr Jennings?’

  Alfie cautiously nodded but said nothing as he kept his eyes on the large blade Mr Huang spun in his hands. ‘How old is she? Seven, eight months?’

  Again, Alfie nodded and again he said nothing.

  Huang’s tone danced between icy and amusement. ‘Parenting isn’t easy at the best of times, but especially at this age. You have to watch them all the time; they’re always having accidents when you least expect it. You can’t be too careful.’

  Smiling, but without it reaching his eyes, Huang looked around the small but expensive flat, decorated in matching silver and purple furniture. Then casually, he walked over to Mia, picking her up. Immediately she stopped crying and began gurgling happily, her nose running as her tiny fingers played with Huang’s red bow tie.

  ‘They
like to be rocked, Mr Jennings; it’s something about the motion that soothes them. But then I’m not here to swap baby notes with you, I’m here to talk about the money you owe me and show you the kind of penalties I charge for late payments.’

  ‘Look …’ Alfie tried to say something, but as he did, Mr Huang, who was still holding Mia, drew back his leg and kicked Alfie hard in the side of his head, sending him crashing into the wall.

  Alfie felt the pain shoot through his head to his jaw to his chin and tasted the blood in his mouth as he watched Huang put Mia back down on the floor next to him.

  Through the pain Alfie stared up at Huang. He could feel his right eye closing and a burning agony at the back of it. He listened as Huang spoke in a whisper.

  ‘Mr Jennings, if I were you I’d watch your tone. One thing I can’t abide is rudeness, it’s certainly no example to give your daughter … So, come on, Mr Jennings, let’s try again shall we? Where’s my money?’

  ‘You’re going to get it,’ Alfie snarled roughly.

  Huang chuckled. He glanced at his men then ruffled Mia’s soft, blonde curly hair. ‘Oh, I know I am, that isn’t in question. What I want to know is when?’

  Watching Mia become fascinated by Mr Huang’s grey, leather shoe, her tiny fingers playing with the tassel on it, Alfie shrugged, more aware than ever of his tone. He needed to stay calm and at least try to sound respectful. ‘I’m working on it, okay? I ain’t taking the piss. You just need to give me a bit more time.’

  Mr Huang crouched; his knees cracking as he did so. Staring at Alfie directly, he tilted his head to one side and grinned as he put the tip of the machete blade on Alfie’s cheek. His small, beady eyes were dancing with amusement behind his thick, round glasses. ‘I think I’ve given you enough time, don’t you? If it weren’t for the fact that I quite like you, Mr Jennings, you would be dead by now. But that isn’t to say you won’t be dead by next week if you don’t give me my money, and what’s your little girl supposed to do then? Little girls need their daddies you know.’

  Then without warning Huang slashed the blade across Alfie’s face. Alfie yelled out in agony as the blood spurted out of the three-inch wound, flowing through his fingers as he pressed his hand against his cheek, hoping to stem the rush.

  Every part of him wanted to fight, wanted to beat Huang senseless, but he knew better than to try to attack; for a start he was outnumbered and Mr Huang and his men wouldn’t think twice about chopping him up into tiny bits if he retaliated.

  Trying to hold together the thick flaps of skin on his cheek, Alfie grimaced and groaned in pain.

  ‘Mr Jennings, don’t be such a baby, it’s only a little cut. I don’t think even your daughter would make such a fuss.’

  Huang spun round and placed the blade on Mia’s cheek. She gurgled and laughed as Huang said, ‘Shall we see?’

  With no hesitation, Alfie leapt at Huang, knocking the blade out of his hand. ‘Don’t you fucking touch her, you bastard. You fucking animal. You hear me! Get the fuck away from her.’

  Immediately Huang’s men charged forward. They leapt on Alfie, pinning him down on the floor as Mia started to scream again.

  Getting up, Huang straightened and dusted down his expensive hand-made suit. He turned and glared at Alfie, pressing his foot into Alfie’s throat whilst watching the blood pooling onto the thick, cream carpet.

  A mixture of pain and fury raced through Alfie. He tried to say something but he struggled to breathe under the pressure as Huang’s foot continued to press down on his throat.

  ‘That was very foolish of you, Mr Jennings, and I’m also somewhat surprised. What do you take me for? Do you really think that I’m capable of hurting your daughter? Or rather it would be more truthful to say that’s really not my style at all. Whatever happened to the British having a sense of humour? And look what’s happened now; you’ve ruined my shoes. These were my favourite pair you know.’

  Huang took his foot off Alfie’s throat then proceeded to wipe the blood from his shoe using Alfie’s face as a cloth, causing Alfie to scream in agony as the steel-toe-capped loafer ground into the wound on his cheek.

  Huang cleared his throat. ‘I’ll be back soon, but in the meantime, I want you to think on. Next time I might not be so kind … oh and, Mr Jennings? Don’t forget what I said: babies like to be rocked. You should really try it.’

  And with that, Huang nodded to his men who set about Alfie, knocking him unconscious. The last thing Alfie Jennings heard was the sound of Mia screaming.

  5

  Franny lay back on her bed staring up at the empty top bunk’s rusting springs. Unlike a lot of the other women, she hadn’t bothered to make the magnolia-walled cell anything like homely. It was bare and uninviting, cold and bleak. No photos, no posters, certainly not a calendar – Jesus, she already knew exactly how long she’d been on remand and the last thing she needed was a reminder.

  No, she didn’t want anything up on the walls – to her it was like saying she was staying, that this would now be her home for the next twenty years. It was almost like admitting defeat, and as her father had told her on a number of occasions, death was her only defeat.

  Sighing, she glanced around. The whole place stunk. The prison had a constant smell of shit, sweat and Spice – a nasty, synthetic drug that either turned the women into zombies or psychotic animals. Only last week some Spice had been smuggled into the prison inside the bodies of three dead rats, thrown over the prison walls. And now the smoking ban had come into play, it seemed the intake of Spice had gone up tenfold.

  Although there was supposed to be a flushing toilet in the corner of her cell it hadn’t actually worked since the second day she’d been here, so she was forced to use the bucket in the corner.

  The whole place seemed to be ingrained with dirt that just couldn’t be washed out. The bed sheets – which were supposed to be fresh each week – looked like they’d just been swapped from one dirty set to another and the cold air whirled in through the prison window bars as if looking for some sanctuary.

  Absentmindedly playing with her hair, she sighed again, forcing herself not to think of Mia and how much she missed her. From the time Mia had been born she’d loved and treated her like she was her own, which had come as a surprise; she’d never seen herself as maternal, and certainly no one in her life had ever accused her of it.

  That was the main reason she needed to get out … That and having her day of reckoning with Vaughn. She could taste that. She was hungry for it and it was what was keeping her going. Vaughn and Mia were her motivation and, of course, Mia needed her … Her Mia. None of them deserved such a beautiful little girl, not even Bree, her mother, had deserved her.

  To her, Bree had been weak, and when it had mattered, Bree just hadn’t been able to cut it. Even before Bree had died, the whole situation had been a mess. Franny thought about the fact that when Alfie had thought that she’d run off with his money and left him – which hadn’t actually been the case – he had drowned his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle and in the arms of Bree, who he’d known since childhood.

  When eventually she’d reappeared and discovered that Alfie had taken up with Bree, as usual she’d hidden her hurt and just got on with it. Though that hadn’t been the end of the story – far from it, that had just been the beginning.

  Alfie had still been in love with her but he’d also fallen in love with Bree and that’s when things had become really complicated.

  Bree had been like a fish out of water in the life she and Alfie lived. She’d found it frightening and hated every part of the life of crime. So, when Bree had discovered she was pregnant that had been it; Bree had wanted out. She’d wanted to run, but she knew that if and when Alfie found out about her pregnancy, she would never escape Alfie or the life he lived. Because, to Alfie, family was everything.

  Although it was the last thing Bree had wanted to do, she had decided to have an abortion; however, strange as it was, by then Franny had actually become frie
nds with Bree, so instead of standing by and just watching Bree go through with it, she’d decided to help her by putting a plan into place.

  She had felt sorry for Bree – at first – and even though she knew it was dangerous for her, she had helped Bree get away from Alfie, though of course he’d known nothing about the pregnancy. So behind Alfie’s back Bree had settled into a new life and a few months later had given birth to Mia.

  But the overall pressure of living a secret life had gotten to Bree and as a consequence Bree had put them both in danger by thinking she could come out of hiding or, even worse, tell Alfie what she had done, believing he would just forgive and forget. Which was a joke in itself; Franny knew Alfie well enough to realise that the betrayal alone would’ve meant a bullet in her head and, though she doubted Alfie would’ve actually hurt Bree, he would’ve taken Mia and not let Bree see her ever again.

  But Bree hadn’t wanted to listen and in the following months not only had Bree become a loose cannon with her continual threat to confess all to Alfie, but in Franny’s opinion, Bree had also become a useless mother. So, not having anyone else around, it had fallen on her to look after Mia. Surprisingly Franny had relished the challenge, and even more surprisingly, she had come to love the little girl like she was her own.

  Looking back, she supposed Bree was probably jealous of her bond with Mia or perhaps Bree was just one of life’s parasites; unable to live without having someone to latch on to. In any case, Bree had certainly pushed her to the limits: needy and neurotic, crying all the time and generally being emotionally unstable. Something Franny had no patience for; traits she despised in people, especially in women. She and Mia had certainly had enough of Bree on the day in question. The day Bree had died …

  Before Franny’s thoughts had time to move on, she felt someone sit on the corner of her bed, and quickly she slipped the prohibited phone her solicitor had smuggled in for her into the hole she’d made on the bottom side of the top bunk mattress.