The Take

  Lena had spent the best part of thirty years trying to look, outwardly at least, respectable to Mrs Faraday and two other tenants of the council block who acted as if they lived in Kensington Palace. Between her husband and Jackie she had fought a losing battle over those years. Now, though, with the grief inside her and the voice of Mrs Faraday bringing back memories of long-ago days when she had been humiliated by her. Lena suddenly lost all her maternal instincts and bolted from the flat like a banshee. Physically picking up her daughter by her clothes, she pushed and dragged her down the stairs, then she threw her out on to the pavement.

  ‘Go home and sober up, you drunken mare, and don’t come here any more. We’ve had enough of you for one bleeding day.’

  She was pleased with herself for not letting a string of expletives come out of her mouth as was usual.

  Mrs Faraday, who had been watching from her doorway, said primly, ‘And about time too.’

  To which an overwrought Lena answered, ‘Oh, fuck off back inside, you nosy old bag.’

  ‘Do you think Mum will be all right?’

  Dianna shrugged. ‘Who cares? I have had enough of her, to be honest. Drop me at the hospital, will you?’

  Kim sighed. ‘You’re not going to see that Terry, are you?’

  ‘Mind your own business, and ask Rox if I can stay at hers tonight. I think there’s going to be fucking murders at home.’

  ‘That’s nothing new.’

  Both girls were wary now of talking too much about Maggie and what their father had been accused of. It was too raw for them, too much out of their experience, so they decided to leave the adults to it and then just pick up the pieces afterwards, as was usual in the Jackson household.

  But they were both frightened of what the outcome was going to be.

  Jimmy and their father were both hard men, both were capable of taking care of themselves and both were due to have some kind of tear up because everyone knew that Jimmy had overtaken his mentor years before.

  Maddie listened in silence as poor Joseph vented his spleen, and she knew it would do him the world of good to let out some of his anger and his sorrow. He looked awful.

  As she got up and poured the boiling water into the teapot, he seemed to remember that this was Freddie’s mother sitting at the table, and suddenly all his fight left him and he said sadly, ‘Sorry, Maddie, it’s nothing personal to you, love, but I fucking hate him. Everywhere he goes he causes upset or trouble of some description.’

  She sighed then and patting her as always immaculately coiffed dark hair she said regretfully, ‘I feel the same way about him meself.’

  Lena thought she was going to drop down dead at the table in shock. Maddie had said him, in a voice drenched in hatred, and she knew she was talking about her son. Her Freddie, the love of her life.

  Lena went and shut all the doors in the flat, and she closed all the windows too. Jackie had resumed her crying in the street, but this time it wasn’t going to wash. She was not going out to her. She always ended up going to her house to sort her out, or picking her up from a pub because her mother’s phone number was the only one she ever seemed to remember when drunk, or dragging her in from the street outside after an argument had gone over the top, and she was fed up with all the bloody drama of it.

  Maddie poured the tea and as she sat down in the chair once more she said quietly, ‘Freddie killed his father, you know.’

  Lena and Joseph stared at the tidy-looking woman opposite them, and both wondered if they were hearing things.

  She nodded at them as if to confirm that what she was saying was true.

  ‘He was never the same after the beating Freddie had doled out to him. That’s what he does you see, my Freddie, he beats you down. He sucks all the confidence and the life out of you and before you know it you are like that poor child who’s screeching for England out there.’

  She lit a Kensitas cigarette and sipped at her tea in the ladylike way extremely thin people seem to possess naturally, before saying softly, ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t put it past my son to have slashed his father’s wrists for him. My husband had the blood count of a man five times over the legal driving limit, the coroner told me that to try and make me feel better. But I know Freddie was responsible, and he knows I know. Whatever happened in that room only happened because Freddie wanted it to happen, because Freddie made it happen.’

  She smiled weakly at her two friends then, and Lena wondered how long this poor woman had wanted to get that family secret off her wheezing chest.

  ‘You can’t fucking out me, what about Ozzy?’ Freddie was still gobsmacked. He had expected a row, he had even convinced himself that he might even have to take this lairy little fucker out.

  He was more than aware, though, that if he offed Jimmy for whatever reason his days on this earth would be numbered. Jimmy had too many friends in their world, real friends and he gave them all a good living, himself included.

  The one thing he had not expected today was to be told he was out of a job, out of the firm and out of all that entailed for him, from birds to money to a decent fight when he wanted one. But if Jimmy thought he was going to lumber him with a serious out, well, that was not going to happen, he was determined not to let that happen.

  Jimmy shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Oz has given everything over to me. When he dies, and I hope that is not for a long time, it’s mine, Freddie. I am to all intents and purposes Ozzy, and everyone answers to me. That, unfortunately, once included you, Freddie, but not any more. Ozzy, if you are interested, is right behind me.’

  He could see the way the pupils of Freddie’s eyes widened at his words, and Jimmy admired the way he recovered himself so quickly.

  ‘You are finished on this manor, mate, and you had better accept that. If anyone employs you then I don’t deal with them any longer and, ergo, neither will anyone else. It’s as simple as that. No one works anything here without my express say-so, remember. I have a touch off everything and everyone, the blags, the clubs, the pubs, the dealers, even the late-night fucking burger vans are indirectly run by me or mine. I rowed you out fucking years ago, Fred, and now you are really out, out in the freezing-your-gonads-off cold. You and that animal you spawned with your piss head of a wife are dead to me. All that is left for you now, Freddie, is to pick up and start over somewhere else, because you ain’t welcome here.’

  He picked up his mobile and his car keys and made to leave.

  Freddie grabbed him by the shirtsleeve. ‘You can’t do this to me, Jimmy.’

  Jimmy shrugged him off aggressively. ‘I just did, Freddie. You had your chance and you blew it, like you’ve blown every chance you’ve ever had.’ He shrugged once more and then smiled happily. ‘Bye.’

  Freddie had envisaged many things on this day but not to be outed. Out of all this meant he was a complete no one, it meant all he had ever known would be gone from him. He would have to move away, he would have to disappear because the shame would kill him otherwise. No one would even acknowledge him if Jimmy outed him. He felt almost sick now with apprehension and dread.

  He had to keep his wits about him, he had to try to talk his way through to Jimmy, Jimmy who had loved him once. The enormity of what had happened was hitting him like a ball-peen hammer, and he felt fear, real fear, for the first time in years.

  ‘He is my son, Jimmy, don’t forget that. I got him help, he’s on drugs . . . It was a game, that’s all, a tragic game that went wrong.’

  Jimmy looked into the face so like his own and said with absolute incredulity, ‘He needs locking away and I tell you now, once this is all over, if you ain’t fucked off out of it somewhere new, I am telling a few choice people what the score is with him. Joseph knows, he always said Little Freddie was a fucking few paving stones short of a patio. If I see him I will fucking kill him. He might be a kid but he is a big cunt and he’s a dangerous cunt, and he is for the out along with you and that fucking scab you married. I don’t ever want to clap eyes on you, tha
t retard you fucking fathered, or the fucking moron you call your wife, ever again.’

  Freddie tried for the sympathy vote. He could not be outed and he could not bang his boy up. He had been banged up and he knew what it was like.

  ‘You can’t fucking tell me what to do with my child. He is a kid. He is a big fucker I admit, but he ain’t got the brains he was born with. Jackie was always out of her box when she was carrying him, you know that. That’s what happened to him, Jimmy, that’s why he is like he is . . . He is on the pills now and he is a changed boy.’

  For the first time in years Jimmy heard a real emotion in Freddie’s voice. He grinned. ‘You don’t honestly believe that I am going to swallow that load of old cods, do you? Let you off with another caution like I did with that poor Stephanie and fucking Jewish Lenny? You’re a fucking animal and you bred an animal. You live like fucking animals in that filthy shit hole you call home. You are a man whose card has been well and truly marked, mate. No one will touch you with a fucking dodgy DVD now, Freddie. The word is out. You are finished, and if you are foolhardy enough to think that you can fucking resume your usual skulduggery, under my nose, then you are even more stupid than I thought.’

  He poured himself a Scotch then, and he sipped at it before saying quietly, and without passion or even a hint of smugness, ‘Do you know the funny thing, Freddie? No one defended you, not one person even asked what you had done to get a punishment like this. No one has been outed for years, yet no one was curious about why you were being blanked. They were all more relieved than anything else, and I can understand that, because I am relieved meself that I ain’t got to fucking have you hanging round my neck like a cast-iron fucking albatross any more. And I made it perfectly clear that you are to be treated like a fucking pariah, and everyone from Glenford to the Blacks was over the moon about it.’

  Freddie was once more in mortal agony at his words and it occurred to Jimmy that he had expected violence, extreme violence. In fact, he had placed a small axe in the back of his trousers. But Freddie was too busy trying to think his way out of the total blanking he was going to get when this all came to fruition.

  Jimmy had taken Freddie’s very livelihood from him, a serious step in their world where compensation was paid out liberally if anyone happened to accidentally tread on someone’s toes, either by encroaching on their scams, or even something trivial like dealing in the same clubs. This was a world where your reputation was only as good as the firm that you worked with, drank with or was employed by you. Freddie was past killing him, because once Jimmy was dead he would lose all chance of ever getting another in, getting another take, and their take had been huge and yet he knew that Freddie was probably boracic lint as per usual. He just spunked it all up as he got it.

  He had worked out one night that Freddie had spent over half a million pounds on his house over the last fifteen years and yet it was one of the scruffiest in the street. They had not even bought it on the Right to Buy Scheme. They were still on the fucking council and he knew they were still in rent arrears. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so very sad.

  The man he had visited all those years as a young boy had been a figment of his imagination. His boyhood hero was now reduced to less than nothing and he felt not one iota of compassion for him.

  Freddie glared at him now, and Jimmy knew that the implications of what was going to happen to him in the future were starting to sink in properly.

  ‘You would do this to me.’ It was said without menace, it was said without a questioning tone, it was a statement of fact.

  Jimmy nodded silently.

  Freddie finally understood then that Jimmy would do it, more to the point had already done it. He had a nasty feeling that his predicament was being discussed by people even as they were standing here. He looked at the two of them in the bar mirror and saw they were evenly matched protagonists, except, as he looked properly, Jimmy, being of lighter years and larger build, looked already like the victor.

  Freddie saw then, for the first time, what he could have been, should have been.

  Jimmy looked the part, acted the part, he was the part.

  ‘Have you served my boy up, grassed him?’ This was said with accusation, with the disrespect that would normally be reserved for a grass, a supergrass in fact.

  Jimmy didn’t answer him. His face told Freddie what he thought of the accusation and that he would not give the question any credence by honouring it with a reply.

  But he could grass. Freddie knew he could take the fucking lot down if he wanted to and the filth would reward him, he was sure. The idea took root as he knew it would, and he filed the thought away for future reference.

  He stood there for long moments with his huge hands clenched into fists and an almost electric charge going through him as he gradually allowed the predicament he had caused to sink into his brain.

  ‘Well, I ain’t going quietly, Jimmy. I’ll fucking kill you before I will let you do this to me. You’d fucking humiliate me, you fucking scumbag. When everything you got, you only got because of me!’

  He was poking himself in the chest now as he began to lose his temper once more. ‘I was the one who done the lump and set all this up. I was the one who had to listen to that boring cunt’s stories of the old days over and over again, and set the meets up, and I brought you in with me because I loved you, and now you are snatching it off me. But you remember, Jimmy, that it was me, it was me who laid the foundations of everything we have now and you know it. I want my fucking compensation, because without me you would still be nicking fucking cars and selling dope on the side.’

  Jimmy refilled his glass with whisky and sipped it once more. He was almost enjoying himself now. ‘Without you, Freddie, I can grieve for my boy in peace without wondering if that mad cunt of yours will be nearby. I can work my living now, without worrying about what trouble or upset you are going to cause with your fucking big trap. Without you, I don’t have to listen to your crap fucking stories or feed and water your fucking ugly wife. I know what you’ve said about me over the years, Freddie, you treacherous cunt. I hear everything, and do you know what? I expected better off of you, but deep inside somehow I always knew you were just a two-faced, jealous and fucking incompetent wanker. Without me, Freddie, it’s you who are nothing, mate. You, not me.’

  Freddie knew he was beaten and yet it just would not register in his brain. His life as he knew it was over, he would be suspect now that Jimmy was giving him the cold shoulder, and if no one knew the real reason, and he was confident that they didn’t, then they would assume the worst. That he was a grass, or a fucking nonce, a poxy kiddy fiddler, or worse still that he had stolen off his own.

  He suddenly realised with a stunning clarity that he had to kill Jimmy, if for no other reason than to make himself feel better, and also to make sure his son was safe for the future. Little Freddie might not be the child of his dreams but he was the child of his loins and as such he would see him all right.

  He tried one last time to appeal to Jimmy’s better nature. If it all went well he was back in and he would keep a low profile for a while until this all died down. If he was out then he would get his money’s worth from this long streak of paralysed piss he had once called his kin.

  ‘It was all a terrible tragedy, Jim, but he is my son. Can’t you understand that?’

  His voice sounded broken, and Jimmy had to give it to him, he was in the wrong profession. If ever anyone was born to be an actor it was Freddie Jackson.

  ‘He is me boy and he has his whole life ahead of him. He is my son.’

  Jimmy grabbed Freddie’s jacket with such strength that Freddie was reminded of just how big this man actually was. Pushing him back against the bar he said angrily, ‘And Jimmy Junior was my son, remember, and he’s fucking dead. And you are dead as well, aren’t you, dead and gone? You might as well be pushing up the fucking daisies now because I have already put the word on the pavement that you are to be blanked by one and all
, and believe this, Freddie, you will be.’

  Freddie knew he meant it, and he was still struggling to think how the fuck he was going to walk away from this train wreck without a scratch. He grinned then and, pulling himself up to his full height he backed away from Jimmy. Smoothing his clothes down as if he was the most fastidious person on earth he said snidely, ‘You sure about that, about him being your son, I mean? After all, we all know he’s dead, don’t we?’

  He was laughing and Jimmy felt the air leave his stomach as the words sank in.

  Freddie picked up his drink and toasted Jimmy before saying, ‘At least I hope he’s dead, we planted him after all . . .’

  His laughter was loud and it was genuine. Freddie actually thought that was funny, that it was a joke. Jimmy stared at the man he had loved and loathed over the years and realised suddenly that this was the real Freddie, that he had always been like this, this was exactly who he was. And he had produced another one just like him, a selfish, violent bully. He was suddenly thrilled to be Freddie’s nemesis, thrilled to be able to dismantle this ponce’s life and enjoy his decline from the security and safety of his own large gated residence. The less Freddie had going for him, the further he dragged him down, the more Jimmy knew he would feel better, and if not exactly assuaged, then at least compensated for his grief.

  Freddie was roaring with laughter, and then he started shouting, ‘Let me out, Dad, it’s dark down here!’

  He was imitating Jimmy Junior’s voice, and as he listened Jimmy felt as if he was going to go mad with grief. ‘You are unbelievable. Nothing is too low for you, is it, Freddie?’

  ‘You got that right, and remember that for the future, won’t you? But dad, now that’s a good word, ain’t it, Jim. Dad, help me, Dad, it’s dark and damp and full of worms in this box.’

  He kept repeating ‘Dad’ under his breath until he said jovially, ‘But which one of us should be the one to help him, I wonder? Women talk see, and you two ain’t produced any more chavvies, have you, Jimmy? A bit suspect that, don’t you think? I have four with Jackie alone. That’s without me “outside kids”, as your pal Glenford would call them. You sure you ain’t a fucking Jaffa, mate?’