The Take

  She had waited over an hour for him, and she had finally had enough. Now she just wanted to be back inside with her family, in the warmth of the pub and sharing their grief together. She was wrong to have left them at all.

  She started to walk back slowly. Her heels were high and her feet were killing her, and she was nearly back at the pub when he pulled up.

  She decided to ignore him. Just once, she felt she had the right to make him come after her. She walked inside with her head held high and her feet giving her serious gyp.

  Terry Baker followed her inside, and it was the biggest mistake of his life.

  Roxanna and Kimberley were talking about her pregnancy, and Kimberley was a little bit jealous, but only in a nice way. She envied her sister her life. Dicky was a real diamond and anyone with half a brain could see that he worshipped her sister. Kim didn’t have a man. She was still trying to keep herself clean, make a life for herself and she was doing that well enough to please everyone.

  The death of little Jimmy had made them all reassess their lives in one way or another and the girls were talking about Roxanna’s baby because they couldn’t discuss the tragedy any more. It was far too upsetting. The thought of poor Mags having to wake up and find out it was true was playing on both their minds. Dianna came back inside and they nudged one another. They knew Dianna had a fella, but no one could get anything out of her about him.

  Jackie was completely gone, and she shouted out gaily, ‘Here, Di, where you been, then?’

  Dianna smiled and went over to her mother. She noticed that Patricia was also the worse for wear.

  ‘I just popped out for some air, Mum, that’s all.’

  Jackie laughed her dirty laugh that annoyed the girls with its innuendo. ‘Is that what they call it now, Pat? I’ve come up for air a few times. So have you and all, I bet, Freddie can go all night!!’

  She was shrieking with mirth now and Dianna could have clumped her. Imagine her saying that to Pat, as if they were all girls together. Terry must have heard what she had implied about her own child too, and this upset her.

  Pat laughed with Jackie as was expected, but she didn’t really think it was funny. She had enough on her mind without listening to this crap, but she had to stay. She wanted to see Freddie, hear what had happened from him. She actually needed him for once and this was a real departure for her.

  ‘Hello Terry!’ Jackie’s voice was loud, and it was friendly.

  Terry Baker walked over to the bar and said jovially, ‘Is that Jackie Summers as was?’

  It had been so long since anyone had called her by her maiden name, and tonight Jackie was pleased to hear it. Jackie Summers.

  It seemed like a lifetime since she had been called that.

  ‘Terry Baker! As I live and breathe.’ She looked round at her daughters to show them off. Now they were off her hands she enjoyed people seeing these good-looking girls of hers. She knew she had no right to take any of the credit at all really, but that didn’t stop her.

  ‘Here, girls, this was my first boyfriend. We was in the juniors and I went out with him to make your dad jealous.’

  They were laughing together and Dianna wanted them to drop down dead, she wanted them to disappear. She could tell Jackie, her mother, had been on the okey doke, as Terry was himself. Like her mother, once he had snorted a few lines he got outrageous, he forgot what he was saying and, more to the point, who he was saying it to.

  ‘Nice-looking girls, Jackie, but then you were a looker in your day, eh?’

  Jackie ignored the inference that she was a bit battered around the edges, and ordered more drinks for them. She liked Terry and he had been away for a long time on an armed robbery, so she allowed for him talking out of turn. Fifteen years with no one but a load of other men and his right arm could do that to a body, she knew.

  Dianna was blushing and she was convinced everyone in the pub knew her secret. All she wanted now was for the floor to open up and swallow her.

  ‘So what brings you here, then?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘Same thing as you, I assume. A drink, Jackie.’

  Jackie smiled. ‘Oh, we’ve been in here for a while—’

  He interrupted her and said unpleasantly, ‘I guessed that one, love, you’re fucking well gone.’ He laughed at his own joke. But no one was laughing with him.

  Jackie was still unaware of the undercurrent around her, but Paul and Liselle were making eye contact. This could be more aggravation and they knew it.

  ‘Have you heard, Tel?’

  ‘Heard what, mate?’ He was all ears now, pretending to be interested in what Jackie was saying, holding out his hands in a theatrical flourish.

  Pat and the girls had picked up on him immediately. He was wacked out of his head and he was after a row, was looking for a scapegoat. He was disrespecting Jackie Jackson, and that alone said he had to be on a death wish.

  Jackie, though, was oblivious to the fact he was taking the piss. It had not even occurred to her.

  ‘Poor Jimmy Jackson lost his son today.’

  Terry frowned as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and then he said sarcastically, ‘And where did he lose him exactly, Jackie, in the public bogs? In the Amazon jungle, up Jack’s arse and round the corner? Where?’

  He was staring into her face and he was half smiling a nasty, sarcastic smile that was daring her to answer him.

  It finally penetrated Jackie’s brain that he was having a rise out of her. She was hurt, and she was upset. He had made a fool of her and she had not noticed it happening, but she knew now that everyone else had.

  Dicky was watching carefully and she knew he was waiting to step in. But Terry was an old mate, why would he want to mug her off like that in front of everyone? He knew who her old man was, and to take the rise out of the child’s dying would never be forgiven by any of the people within earshot, let alone Freddie and Jimmy when they heard about it. And they would hear about it.

  She felt a hand gently guide her away from Terry. ‘Why don’t you take your drink and fuck off, mate, learn a bit of respect?’ Dicky was fuming, he wasn’t going to have this, especially not off an ice cream like Terry Baker.

  Terry turned towards him and said menacingly, ‘Why, are you going to make me, then?’

  Dianna was mortified. Why was he doing this? Why was he causing all this trouble? She was on the verge of fainting with fright.

  ‘With pleasure, mate. You want a fucking row, you just got one.’ Dicky was well up for anything that was going now.

  Jackie turned back.

  ‘Stop it, Terry. What’s the matter with you? What is your fucking problem?’

  He looked at Jackie then and she saw complete and utter disgust in his face as he said loudly, ‘Who are you then, Jackie? Who the fuck are you to ask me what’s wrong?’

  He was poking his finger at her now, and Jackie being Jackie was not about to let him get away with taking the piss out of her, let alone slagging her off like she was no one.

  As her arm came back to punch him, Patricia grabbed her and pulled her away, and then Dicky went in like a bulldog.

  Paul had already cleared the glasses from the bar, and he jumped over it wielding a baseball bat, which he brought down on Terry’s head with all the force he could muster. Dicky grabbed it off him and all hell was let loose.

  A pole dancer and friend of Jackie’s called Pat the Pole, or Pat Fletcher, had also been on the receiving end of Terry’s vicious tongue and, being the type of woman she was, she was determined to join in the fray. She aimed a kick that unfortunately hit Dicky instead, knocking him flying. Her shapely legs were her prized asset, and more than one man was pleased to get an eyeful.

  Pat’s husband, Harry Fletcher, a market trader from Romford, was a man who knew how to look after himself. He prided himself on the fact that he was scared of no man; the only person he was even remotely scared of was Pat’s mother, known to all and sundry as Nanny Donna. As Harry jumped in and tried to remov
e his wife from the middle of the fracas, a large young man called Richie Smith shouted out, ‘Leave her to it, Harry, she’ll do a fucking better job than you.’

  Even Dicky was laughing as Richie helped Harry calm his wife down. Then he turned back to Terry Baker. Terry was about to get the hiding of his life, and no one watching the event, not even young Dianna, was willing to help him out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Terry was lying on the filthy floor battered and bleeding, and against her better judgement Dianna went to him. As she tried to kneel on the floor beside him to give him some kind of comfort, Roxanna dragged her away roughly.

  ‘Leave him, Di, for fuck’s sake. He is a fucking muppet.’ Her tone showed that she thought her sister had gone mad.

  But look at him, Rox, he’s in a right state.’

  ‘Fucking right and all, so he should be.’

  Rox’s voice was hard and without any emotion whatsoever, and it occurred to Dianna that even though she professed to loathe their so-called father, Rox was actually more like him than she thought.

  In fact, it was the loyalty factor that was kicking in, no more and no less.

  Dianna could hear Terry groaning, knew he had to be in terrible pain and she didn’t know what to do about any of it. She had caused all this. He had explained about her father hating him, and how Freddie had used him in the past. If she had only waited for him outside, if only she had not walked away from him like she had, this would never have happened. Now look at him. He would never forgive her, she knew that, and who could blame him?

  His forearm was shattered, it was hanging loosely at the elbow. He had been trounced so badly that he would never be able to work again. He was covered in his own blood and even though they knew he would live, that would not guarantee him a pass once Freddie Jackson heard the full story.

  Terry had to have been mad to even think he might get away with mugging off Freddie’s kinfolk. Jackie Jackson was renowned as a piss head, a pill popper and a wanker, and that was just what her friends said about her in the comfort and safety of their own homes. But she was Freddie Jackson’s wife, even if he only stuck around because of the boy. Jackie was off limits to anyone who valued their life, their family’s lives, or their credibility.

  Terry Baker must be off his trolley, but then, they had heard the stories about him. Gossip was, after all, their main conversational directive. It wasn’t classed as gossip, of course, it was classed as tipping each other the wink, or giving out the nod. They dealt in facts, not women’s chat.

  Dicky was shaking with the anger and the excitement a real heavy tear up created in a body, especially when he was the undisputed victor. He gulped at the brandy handed to him by Paul, and he felt the friendly and respectful hand that squeezed his shoulder gently. Paul was telling him he had done the right thing.

  As he looked at Rox he knew he had pleased this beautiful woman of his no end. She was made up with pride, and she was beaming at him now as he tried to calm himself down.

  He had saved her mother’s reputation, what was left of it anyway, and defended her honour. Whatever she might think of her mother privately, no one outside their tight-knit circle of family would ever hear it from her. Jackie was, after all, her mother. In their world that accounted for everything.

  Dicky understood that way of thinking, and he would give Jackie her creds. His own mother had been on the game most of her life, and he respected her for that. He didn’t like it, but he understood it. The grief he had taken as a child over her chosen, but ultimately lucrative, lifestyle had paid off for them both. The fights that had consequently ensued as she had been called names, been denigrated by the kids he mixed with, had stood him in good stead for this kind of life. He could have a row, and he appreciated the fact that he could take on men much larger than him, because that had been a must all his life.

  Fight or die, had been his only option then, and he had fought for his mother at first and then later on for himself, for the respect of his peers. His father had been either banged up or on the trot most of his life. She had done what she could to keep them clothed and fed, and no one would ever say anything about her that was even remotely out of order.

  Now the fight was over, the doors had been locked and the place was to all intents and purposes out of bounds, especially to the Old Bill. It was taken for granted that, naturally, no one had seen or even heard anything that had happened.

  Terry would be dumped outside a hospital at some point, but for the moment he could lie there and think about what a cunt he was, because that was the general consensus of every person in the building.

  Rox pulled Dianna to one side and said under her breath, ‘What the fuck is going on with you? He was cunting our mother and you were going to help him?’

  She was trying to understand this sister of hers, who as far as she was concerned needed a slap herself. They all knew the score, they had grown up knowing the score, so why would Dianna, Dianna of all the people in this place, try and help him? It didn’t make sense, but being a clever girl the reason why hit her like a billiard ball in a sock.

  ‘Is he the mystery bloke? Is he the fucking squeeze you’ve been hiding away? No wonder you didn’t want the old man to know about him. That is Terry Baker.’

  Dianna nodded. She had been sussed.

  ‘Dad hates him, Di.’

  Dianna was nearly in tears. ‘Dad hates everyone.’ She sounded like a petulant child even to her own ears.

  ‘He hates him for a reason and you know that. For all his faults Dad looks out for us in his own way. Terry Baker was banged up on an armed robbery and he caused untold aggravation for the old man before he went. You would do well to remember that in future.’

  Terry Baker had gone down in history as one of the only people to ever mug off Freddie Jackson and get away with it, but only because of a lucky capture while robbing a NatWest bank in Silvertown. No one knew what had caused the barney in the first place, only that Freddie had been looking for him for days before the fatal blag. The lump Terry had incurred had in fact been a lifesaver.

  He was handsome, a man with panache, and he was also what was commonly termed an arsehole. He had gone down in local folklore as a man who had blagged with no rhyme or reason, except for a pump-action shotgun and two mates as stupid and naïve as he was. He had always been a person with a personality deficit, which was caused by his complete lack of one in the first place.

  He would argue over a pound, and with drink or drugs inside him he became morose and aggressive and he was also under the mistaken impression that he could take on all comers. Terry Baker was a lot of things but a fighter was not one of them. He was a weapons man, a machete king, not a fisticuffs person, regardless of what he might think to the contrary.

  But women loved him. He knew how to push all the right buttons and his handsome face was adept at hiding his utter contempt for the female population. He had seen Dianna as nothing more than a bit of fluff, some fun. He was shagging his biggest enemy’s daughter, and what more could any man in his position want?

  ‘Dad, please, Dad . . .’

  Freddie sighed as he stopped the car. As he looked as his son, his boy, he was not surprised to find that he had no feelings for him whatsoever. He had felt a lot of emotions about this child over the years, anger, love, sorrow. Even he was susceptible to a child’s ability to make you love them, make you protect them, but even Freddie Jackson had his limit.

  No matter what he had done in his own life, no matter how badly he had treated Little Freddie and even Maggie over the years, he could not, in any way, shape or form countenance his son’s actions.

  Little Freddie frightened him. This was a child who, without knowing it, had taken away the son he had secretly loved.

  Jimmy Junior had been everything he had wanted in a child. He was also his trump card in a war that he had caused by himself and which he was also fighting by himself. Every time Jimmy had made a new deal, had cranked his power up another notch, Fredd
ie had been able to console himself that he had the upper hand, that he knew something Jimmy boy didn’t. He had needed that power.

  Then something had happened that he would have believed impossible, and after a long time of fighting it, had eventually had to accept it.

  Jimmy Junior had got under his skin, had made him vulnerable. And this child of his, Little Freddie, had somehow sensed that, had resented that, and like his father would, he had taken steps to prevent it from going any further.

  In one way, a detached part of him could see the boy’s point of view, but it was wrong. Little Freddie was far too young to be removing anyone from his orbit. Far too young to have countenanced even letting the thought cross his mind.

  He kept seeing that little boy fighting for his breath, and it was the knowledge another child had wilfully and purposely brought that suffering about that was so hard to stomach. He desperately needed to make some sense of it all. He loved Little Freddie in his own peculiar way, and he knew this child loved him, really loved him.

  He had proved that by his actions.

  He also knew that this boy of his was a time bomb. One day he could be at risk from his son, and Rox’s child could easily be what he saw as the next threat to his security.

  Driving along, he had told Little Freddie that he knew what he had done and that he was going to give him up. Not to the filth, that would be too much even for Freddie Jackson, but he would put him into care and leave him there to rot.

  But now he had actually stopped the car, had made himself stare into Little Freddie’s eyes, he wondered whether he could in all honesty go that far. This boy had kept him in a house he hated, with a woman he had not wanted since before he had been sentenced and shut away from the world for years, and he had been dragged up by his wife, the child’s own mother, the person who should have been the one to make sure he was secure and cared for. Jackie had a lot to answer for, and he had a lot of things to make good somehow, to mend.