The Take

  Kitty saw the blood everywhere, spurting all over her new cream carpet and spraying her walls. Stoned, she was unable to move from the chair. She just stared at the seeping blood in morbid fascination wondering if this could really be happening.

  Freddie Senior was lying there, the skin on his face open in gaping flaps. He was literally trying to hold his face together with his hands.

  ‘You cunt! You’d treat my mother like she’s nothing? She ain’t got a fucking pot to piss in and you’re here with your fucking slag?’

  He started to punch his father in the head then, heavy, thudding punches that left his hands covered in his own father’s blood.

  Kitty started to shake, the shock of what had happened was finally kicking in and she tasted the bile as vomit filled her mouth. She swallowed it down and she shouted in horror, ‘What the fuck are you doing? I have got kids in there!’ Her voice sounded to her as if it was coming from miles away.

  ‘Fuck you, you ugly fucking cunt, and fuck your fucking kids. You ever talk directly to me again and I’ll ram that dope up your box and then use you like a fucking bong!’

  Freddie turned back to his father.

  The children were crying now, loud sobbing cries that told their mother they were frightened. The noise had woken them up. Kitty ran from the room in terror, worried now for the safety of her kids. Neighbours were banging on the walls but she knew they would not phone Old Bill. They just wanted the noise to stop.

  ‘My fucking mother ain’t got a fucking bean, you useless cunt.’ He watched his father groaning in pain without any kind of compassion. ‘You fucking ever treat my mum like that again and I will fucking kill you.’

  Freddie Senior, who in his day had been classed as one of the hardest men around, who had worked with the Krays and who was still revered for his past reputation as a bare-knuckle boxer, looked at his son and saw the future of their world.

  He wanted no part of it.

  Life had changed drastically, their world had changed dramatically, but he had never believed that this day would ever have come.

  He watched his son snort another line, take a drink from the bottle of whisky, and finally pick up the half-smoked joint, and then he passed out.

  Freddie washed up in the spotless bathroom. He liked the colour scheme and decided he might go for something like that when they next decorated.

  When he left the flat and the sound of Kitty sobbing and the children’s distressed voices a few minutes later, he had a spring in his step and a light heart.

  Chapter Eight

  Jimmy watched his father’s face. It was puce, and it was riddled with bewilderment and genuine disgust.

  James Jackson Senior was livid, and Jimmy could understand that. His brother had not only been beaten badly, he had also been publicly humiliated.

  It was hard for anyone of the old school to get their head round what had happened. It was unheard of, it was breaking every unwritten law and the worst of all was, the jury was out until Ozzy’s feelings were known.

  Freddie’s attack had reverberated around the manor in nanoseconds, thanks to Kitty and her big mouth. Jimmy understood his father’s ire but he wanted him to keep out of the aftermath if possible.

  Unlike his brother, Freddie Senior, James had never been that entrenched in the business. He had been a heavy, still was a heavy if needs be, but basically he liked a quiet life. He had never had the acumen to make it to the top, he was a drone, a day-to-day worker. He had never wanted the spotlight. Why would he? The spotlight was for people who needed to feel validated. James was quite happy with who he was.

  Freddie’s attack on his father had blown everyone away, not least young Jimmy who had not believed it until he had seen the man for himself. As disgusting as it was, in a way Jimmy understood why it had happened - not that he would voice that opinion out loud, of course. But in a strange way he knew that Freddie was doing what he thought was right. He had, though, as usual gone about it the wrong way.

  Freddie Senior had left his wife without any means of support and that was a definite no no. Husbands and sons were there to protect the wife and mother. It was how things worked in their world and Freddie Senior had to be reminded of his responsibilities. No one had a problem with that, it was the punishment meted out that had caused the uproar.

  Jimmy also knew that Freddie Senior had pushed his luck over the last few months. When you considered the facts, mainly that he had never in his life had such an easy ticket and was consequently milking it for all that it was worth, you might get an understanding of just how the whole episode had occurred in the first place. If he had just once tugged his forelock the whole chain of events might have been avoided.

  But Jimmy kept his own counsel. His was not to reason why, his job was to clear up the shit as and when it fell on them all from a great height.

  Maddie, for her part, was devastated at the turn of events, but had taken her husband back with quiet dignity. Yet, in reality, what choice did she have? He would be scarred for life and he was blind in one eye. It would be a reminder every time he looked in the mirror of what his son had done to him, and it would remind him of why. It was a reminder that they could all have done without.

  Freddie, meanwhile, acted as if nothing had happened and refused to talk about it. Jimmy had garnered the truth of the situation from Maggie who in turn had got it from her mother.

  Maddie and Lena had become bosom buddies overnight.

  The child had been the catalyst for that friendship and they both spent every waking hour near the baby. Jimmy almost hoped he had a brood of girls, if boys meant it brought the witches’ coven down on them.

  Jimmy’s mother, Deirdre, a small woman with a pretty face and a slim figure, was cooking as usual. No matter what time of the day or night, she cooked. If you walked into her kitchen at four in the morning, within five minutes a hot meal would be placed in front of you. She had done it enough times for him, and he had been grateful for it. He knew she would not give an opinion either way on the events of the last week and he, like his father, would have been surprised if she had. She was old school, this was men’s business and she would leave the men to sort it out.

  She watched and listened, but kept her own counsel.

  ‘You and him are tight, so tell me, what’s the fucker had to say to you about it?’

  Jimmy knew his father hated the closeness he had with Freddie, and he sighed. ‘He ain’t said a dicky bird, but I heard it was over him leaving his wife high and dry, not a penny piece or a bit of grub in the house, while he shagged that Kitty and snorted drugs.’ Jimmy knew he was trying to justify what Freddie had done.

  James Jackson Senior was annoyed. He loved his brother and though he knew his faults better than anyone, what Freddie had done was wrong. It was out of order and, worst of all, in their world there was no precedent for it. He had attacked his own father, left him maimed for life and to compound that act it had been on the night his son was born.

  ‘Nothing warrants what he did. Freddie will find out soon enough that people will not tolerate that kind of behaviour, no matter who they fucking work for.’

  It was a veiled threat and Jimmy felt his heart sink down to his boots at the words.

  ‘You keep out of it, Dad.’ His voice was sharper than he had intended and his father looked at him in abject shock.

  ‘Don’t you fucking talk to me like that, I ain’t me brother. I’ll rip your fucking nuts off, boy, you disrespect me like I am a fucking cunt!’

  Jimmy could see the fright on his mother’s face and hastily tried to make amends. ‘Look, Dad, just let it go. I would never disrespect you and you know that. All I am saying is that Freddie must have had his reasons, and at the end of the day it is nothing to do with me or you.’

  James Jackson was on the point of hysteria as he listened to his only child’s words. Then he was bellowing out at the top of his considerable voice, ‘Nothing to do with me? My fucking brother looks like the Elephant Man and yo
u say it’s nothing to do with me? His own child fucking mugs him off and leaves him for dead, and you think it’s a private fight? What fucking planet are you on?’

  He looked at his wife for confirmation of this statement. Jimmy knew they hated Freddie and all he stood for, but she shrugged as if in complete bewilderment at what she was hearing. She had done this many times before, she knew how to play the game.

  James Senior was a shouter, he shouted at the least provocation. It was something that had irritated his wife and son for many years. Yet while he was shouting they were safe. When he finally stopped shouting, trouble was sure to follow. Thankfully, nine times out of ten, he shouted himself out. Jimmy was hoping against hope that that would be the case now. Freddie would take Jimmy’s own father apart, without a second’s thought, and he had a sneaky feeling that James knew that. He was depending on him to make sure that if it all went off, he would protect him from a similar fate, and Jimmy would do that. His father was safe, safer than he realised.

  This was a worrying time for Jimmy, he knew that everything could collapse around them if this was not handled properly. And if it all came on top he would have to take Freddie out. That would mean out of the ball game, out, once and for all.

  Because Freddie was not a person you could fight and beat, and then expect to be left in peace with a cheery wave and a handshake. Freddie would hunt you down like a dog until he had wiped you off the face of the earth. It was his nature, it was why he was so good at his job. It was what was frightening everyone in their orbit. Everyone was thinking like his father, but no one actually wanted to do anything about it. They were all hoping someone else would do the dirty work for them.

  Anyway, Jimmy wasn’t sure he could beat Freddie in an out-and-out straightener. If it went off with Freddie, he knew he would have to kill him stone dead. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but at the end of the day, family was family.

  He left the house a little while later, and, going in the shed at the end of their tiny garden, he took out a small handgun he had hidden there. If necessary he would use it without a second’s thought. Freddie was a man where a gun was mandatory if you needed to explain anything serious to him.

  Deep in his boots Jimmy knew he was just waiting to see how Ozzy took this latest turn of events, because no matter what anyone else said or did, he knew it would be Ozzy who would decide what the final outcome was going to be.

  The new baby was being adored by his mother, his grandmothers and his sisters. He was a happy child who was never alone.

  All the females in his orbit were absolutely thrilled with him and he was thrilled with them. He was ruined. Only a week old, and already he was crying every time he was laid down. The grandmothers were convinced that this cleverness on his part denoted a brain the size of Albert Einstein’s.

  His father, however, was impressed that his little son was shrewd enough to already have women running at his every beck and call. Even Jackie was still enamoured of her child, although her nerves were shot with the events of the last few weeks. He allowed for that because he knew that women and hormones were a lethal mix. Jackie had the brain capacity of a gnat, and he was not about to turn her into a fucking gibbering idiot. He would leave the drink and the drugs to do that to her. But either way he would not be blamed for that as well.

  She had given him a son, and he was quite happy to give her a pass until she pushed him too far once more. He knew it would happen, Jackie was the kind of person who always fucked things up for herself. It was what she was good at.

  Since the turnout with his dad, Freddie had stuck close to home. He was being father of the year, and who could denigrate a man who wanted to be with his new-born son? It was the perfect alibi, it was the perfect excuse and he was determined that no one would ever put two and two together.

  He knew he was being discussed from one end of the manor to the other and he didn’t give a flying fuck about that. He was worried, though, about how Ozzy might perceive what he had done. He would swallow his knob if Ozzy took umbrage, but even then he knew it would only leave him with a grudge against Ozzy, and he held grudges like other people held bags of shopping.

  No one scared him. He was not so much proud of that fact, as he accepted it as the truth. There was not a man walking who could put any kind of fear in his heart. He was completely confident of his capabilities. He was always focused on the job in hand, he never deviated from anything he decided to do and he would die before he admitted he was wrong.

  At the end of the day he had seriously injured his own father, a man he had loved and revered, because he had crossed the line. His dad had left his wife without even the price of a packet of biscuits, left the woman who had visited him in prison, kept the home going while he sat on his ring doing fuck all, or spent most of his time with his birds. This was the same woman who had never once made his father ashamed of or embarrassed by her. She was respected around and about for her clean-living ways and her devotion to the church.

  How dare he think he could abandon her for a slag like Kitty Mason? Freddie would not have given a shit if he’d had a hundred birds on the go, so long as he took care of his business beforehand. His mother should have had first grab at his wallet, then what he did with the rest of his poke would have been his business.

  Freddie knew he was trying to convince himself, as well as everyone around him, of why he had taken his father out. If he was completely honest, he knew that the confrontation with his father had been a long time coming. He had needed to make the man aware of who he was now. Freddie Senior had still treated him like a kid, had talked over him when they were in the pub. Expected Freddie to finance him and his legion of hangers-on. It was all wrong. He was due the respect of everyone, his father included, and over the months it had been eating at him like a cancer. Even his father was competition to Freddie, and he should have bowed down to the superiority of his son’s new status.

  His mother had inadvertently given him the perfect excuse. He had defended her honour when in actual fact he had been defending his own.

  Maddie brought him in a mug of tea and, as she put it on the small coffee table beside him, he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

  ‘You all right, Mum?’

  It was more a statement than a question.

  ‘Never better, son.’

  It was what he wanted to hear and they both knew that.

  ‘I love him, you know.’

  She smiled sadly and nodded, unsure if he was talking about his father or his new young son.

  Joseph Summers was in the pub and he was being bought drinks left, right and centre. He knew it was because people wanted the SP on Freddie and his father, and he made a point of not discussing it. No one had asked him outright, and he knew they never would. They were hoping he would come over all indiscreet, and the amount of beers he was being bought were to hasten that happening.

  Joseph was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

  He saw Paul and Liselle eyeing him and smiled in their direction. Like everyone else they didn’t know what to do. It was an unheard-of situation and they were waiting to see how the main man himself reacted. After all, Ozzy had the final word on everything.

  Jimmy walked across the pub and was aware of the people watching him. Joseph grinned at him and he motioned to Paul to refill his glass.

  Paul brought them over two pints, and Joseph noticed how everyone was gradually moving away to make room for his daughter’s boyfriend. He loved this boy like his own, and he was over the moon that at least one of his daughters had got herself a decent bloke.

  ‘How’s everything?’

  Jimmy shrugged. ‘How do you think?’

  His voice said to drop the subject, and Joseph did not need to be told twice.

  Paul gave Jimmy a small envelope and he slipped it into his pocket. He made small talk until he had drunk his pint and then he slipped out of the pub with everyone’s eyes burning a hole in his back.

  Liselle automati
cally poured Joseph another pint and gave it to him on the house. He smiled his thanks and looked around the pub. He was glad to be in Jimmy’s good books because this thing could come on top at any moment, and he was interested to see what the outcome was going to be, though he didn’t want any actual part in it. His daughter’s husband was a piece of shit and in one way he hoped that he would be brought down a peg or nine. He certainly needed it, but Joseph had a sneaky feeling that Freddie Jackson, as usual, was going to get a pass.

  Ozzy needed him. He needed him because he was a lunatic with no scruples or morals or conscience. The law of the land might take a dim view of what Freddie had done, but if Ozzy said it was OK to nearly murder your own father, then that would unfortunately be that.

  Freddie and Jimmy were at the house in Ilford, the girls were all busy and Patricia was making sure that the ones to be cabbed to punters were all given their times and addresses. They always gave them a time, and if they were late they were looked for. It was one of the reasons they worked a house.

  The law was peculiar in that if the girls solicited on the pavement they were breaking it, but if they were cabbed to an address and got out of the cab on to a private property they were as safe as houses. It was laughable really, but the girls liked the cabs because they made a change, got them out of the house for a few hours and also meant they could take their time and maybe have a drink or a coffee before getting back to the fray.

  Patricia smiled at Freddie in a friendly way for the first time in weeks, and he felt his heart lift. He knew she must have heard about the altercation with his father and her smiling told him that she must believe he was in the right. It heartened him that someone he respected could see the justice in his actions. He needed her approbation at the moment.

  ‘You know that you have a call coming here tonight, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Jimmy relayed the message, don’t worry.’