The Take

  His mirth was almost demonic in its intensity, and Jimmy knew Freddie was enjoying this, that he was really loving it. ‘Remember when you announced to the world that Maggie was finally in the club, and I said to you then, if you remember rightly, “Are you sure you didn’t have any help?” ’

  He was grinning. He was getting his revenge now, and it felt good. ‘Why do you think Maggie, the little homemaker, rejected him, Freddie? You don’t think it was because of who the father was, do you? All the time you thought you were stitching me up, I was shafting your old woman, mate.’

  He was laughing again, louder this time, as if this was the most hilarious thing he had ever witnessed or heard.

  ‘You cunt, Freddie, you fucking vicious cunt! But dream on by all means. My Maggie wouldn’t touch you with a fucking barge pole.’

  Freddie stopped laughing then because he knew he had him on the ropes, and he said seriously and demurely, but with that evil smile he had perfected over the years, ‘Ask her, Jimmy, ask her about our little tryst. It was on your anniversary. You were licking the Blacks’ arses in Scotland, and I was licking your wife. Got lovely tits, your Maggie, nice and plump and full, just how I like them.’

  The heavy glass whisky bottle was smashed down on to Freddie’s head in a split second. The strength of the blow was such it knocked Freddie on to his knees, and it had been so unexpected that he had not even had time to react to it and protect himself. This, he knew, was because Jimmy was at the peak of his anger.

  Jabbing at Freddie with the broken bottle, Jimmy felt the warm spray of blood as he severed the carotid artery, and then he stabbed viciously over and over again.

  He was swimming in a red mist of blood, and the smell was overpowering.

  The anger in him was so acute that even when he knew Freddie was dead he still slashed at his face and head until he was unrecognisable. The need to hurt this man was so overwhelming that he actually felt sorrow when he realised that Freddie Jackson was really dead. It was too quick a death for him, but it had been gruesome, and that was some consolation.

  Freddie’s blood was everywhere, all over the bar area. The ceiling had been sprayed liberally with it and the floor, the dirty old pub carpet laid there in the late sixties and still maintaining a faint blue and gold pattern, was drenched in deep red sticky blood.

  Jimmy felt lighter in himself than he had done in years.

  He stopped, as suddenly as he had started. The high piercing screams of Melanie finally alerted him to what he had actually done. She had witnessed it all.

  Now, standing there covered in Freddie’s blood, Jimmy Jackson finally understood the immense power of anger and hatred. For a few moments, he knew, he had become Freddie Jackson.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Maggie had been sitting in the police station for hours, but they were being very nice to her, which meant tea and coffee was offered at appropriate intervals.

  Now, after five hours, she was finally being allowed to see her husband.

  As she walked through to the interview room she felt a deep coldness inside her. The policeman smiled at her as he opened the door, and the heavy sound of it closing behind her made her jump, grated on her nerves.

  Her husband was standing by a table and chairs. There was video equipment set up all over the place, and she was so on edge that she could actually smell the cup of coffee he had been given minutes earlier.

  He looked well, and that surprised her, but he looked older somehow, which for some reason, made him look even handsomer.

  This was such an alien environment for her that she was frightened at seeing him here, surrounded by all this electrical equipment and looking, for the first time ever, vulnerable.

  Jimmy looked at her for long seconds before saying, ‘I am sorry, babe.’

  She smiled as best she could before she went into his arms and enjoyed the feel of him once more. ‘Have they charged you?’

  She felt him shaking his head and her heart started pounding in her chest, she felt faint for a few moments, and then it passed.

  ‘They ain’t got nothing. Don’t worry, sweetheart, after forty-eight hours they either charge me or I am free to go.’

  He was staring into her eyes and she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to hold his gaze. The guilt she was feeling over everything was weighing on her with a crushing heaviness that was almost physical in its pain. This was what she had been dreading for all these years, Jimmy finding out what had happened to her.

  She knew for certain when she had looked at him that he was finally aware of what Freddie had done to her. Nothing else could have caused this much mayhem. If he had wanted Freddie dead for any other reason, then it would have happened quietly and without any kind of fanfare.

  The fact he was holding her tightly told her he was still with her, still loved her, and so she said quietly, ‘What happened, Jimmy?’

  Jimmy looked into her eyes once more, then he kissed her softly on the lips. The feel of his gentle mouth was nearly her undoing.

  ‘Remember this, Mags, little Jimmy was my son. I know that and you know that.’

  She smiled sadly, ‘I know that better than anyone, Jimmy.’

  ‘He tried to break us, but he won’t, mate, he weren’t worth a wank, and neither is anything he ever said.’

  She squeezed him to her then, knowing he had killed the person he had once loved more than anyone else in the world.

  She only wished now she had let this all come out years ago. Her silence had ruined everyone’s lives in the end, yet all she had ever wanted was to keep the peace, to protect everyone she loved from a man who she hoped was burning in hell at last.

  Jackie was looking down on the body of her husband, and she was without tears. She had insisted on seeing him, even though she had been warned that he was not in a fit state to be seen, that he had serious head and neck injuries, and she would be well advised to let her father identify his body, so she could remember him how he was.

  She had been on the verge of outright laughter, as the only thought that popped into her head was of her saying to these nice people, ‘What, you mean, dirty, scruffy, drunk and drugged, and with a fucking bird on his arm?’

  But she had not said it, she was aware she was getting the sympathy vote, and she was not about to fuck that up for herself. Her father was being lovely, and she wasn’t going to do anything to upset him or anyone else for that matter.

  But her first glance at Freddie’s body had not sent her into convulsions or tears, as she had thought it would, it had just sobered her up. Now, as she looked at him and the obscene wounds that had been inflicted on him, she felt nothing but an odd calmness.

  Looking down at him, knowing, seeing for herself, that he really was dead, she felt a weird elation washing over her. It was as if everything in her life had been careering at full speed towards this moment in time.

  She felt the strangest feeling, as if she had won something.

  She had known instinctively, from the first time she had kissed him, that she would one day have to look at his dead body. His temper would be his downfall, and his luck would eventually run out.

  She had always assumed that he would pick on the wrong person one day, and either find himself up against someone with a will, and a temper much stronger than his, or someone with a huge fear of him and a sawn-off shotgun in their hand.

  She had never in her wildest imagination dreamed that that person would be Jimmy.

  She had also believed, that when it finally happened, and Freddie was gone from her, she would be destroyed. But she wasn’t. In fact she was surprised with herself, because all she felt looking at his lifeless corpse, was a deep and abiding sense of euphoria.

  She felt free.

  She had always said to friends that it would be easier for her if Freddie died, rather than if he left her for someone else. She always joked that she could cope with that, with not being with him as long as no one else was.

  While he was alive, an
d breathing, she could not bear the thought of him with anyone but her. Yet now he was gone, and his shagging days were over, she was almost happy inside, because he had died her husband, and that meant she was now his widow. All the women he had pursued over the years and all the girls he had given kids to were nothing to her now, because Freddie was gone, and he had gone while she was still his legal, his wife. Now she would never again have to worry about him, or where he was, or even wonder what he was doing.

  All this business with Maggie could be conveniently forgotten, and her mother and father would have to allow her back into the fold. She would watch her P’s and Q’s, and make herself likable. She was no good on her own and she was going to need her family, and Maggie especially, as she had plenty of dosh as well as a very forgiving nature.

  These were wonderful thoughts, and she was enjoying them.

  Freddie would have left her eventually, she had always known that, and her life had been blighted because she had wondered, every day, if that was the day he would meet the love of his life.

  And it would have happened in the end. He would have hit an age where he needed to prove himself, needed a young bird on his arm to make him feel young once more. He would have met one, the usual blaggers’ bird, a tanned no neck with a council flat, who would be only too willing to play him, because he needed her youthful adoration and she had a killer body and a desperate need for the criminal limelight. Freddie would have succumbed to one of them in the end. All women in her position knew that.

  She had been his bird once, many years ago, but four kids and Freddie Jackson as a husband had aged her before her time. Even if she had kept herself nice, had all the treatments, fought off age with a fucking hatchet, youth always won in their world.

  It was what she had dreaded more than anything else. Without Freddie she was nothing, but as his widow, she would still have the honour of his name and the respect due to her because of his reputation.

  Over the years she had socialised with sixty-year-old men who had children younger than their grandchildren and wives younger than their daughters. She had also observed many of the first wives as they were pushed aside like an old crisp packet. These were the women who had borne their husbands’ children, visited them in prisons all over the country, who had loyally lied to the police and in some cases under oath for their men, and been happy to do it. Then suddenly, some little bird enters the frame, thin, with a fake tan, no stretchmarks, a Gossard bra and the conversation of a retarded orang-utan, and she was now the new significant other in his life.

  Overnight, it was as if the first wife, the one who had struggled to keep things going when times were hard, and the kids were small, the one who had borrowed money off her family when things were tough and spent her youth defending her husband to everyone who told her he was a waster, and who should now be enjoying the benefit of her husband’s hard graft, was dumped unceremoniously and it was suddenly as if she had never existed.

  The older children either accepted the new bird because she was a permanent fixture now, not a quick booty call (those girls knew their place and had the sense to ignore the man when he was out with family), or they ended up not talking to their fathers, and by taking their mother’s side they then put themselves up for a life of hurt and betrayal.

  It was awful seeing the look in the women’s eyes when you met them out shopping, or at their children’s weddings. You could see the bewilderment and the pain and, worst of all, you could see the way people treated them now they had been discarded. They were barely tolerated. She had witnessed first-hand the humiliation on their faces if the husband was there with the new wife, who Jackie had noticed nearly always got drunk and caused a scene because even the woman he had left for them was seen as a threat.

  She had been pleased to see that once the girl had got the man off the wife, she then had to live with the knowledge that it could easily happen to her too, and she did not have the benefit of the years together that the first wife did.

  The pain in the women’s faces as they watched the men they still loved with their new and improved models had always been painfully evident to Jackie, no matter how brave a face they put on it. These women, like her, eventually realised that they had devoted their lives to, and showered all their love on, a man who had no concept of what they had gone through over the years, and who felt no actual guilt for casually smashing their lives to pieces.

  That had terrified her for years, the prospect of Freddie discarding her with about as much care and attention as he would a cigarette butt, or a used Durex.

  Now all her fears of that happening were gone. All her worries were gone, and she felt as if she had just thrown off the weight of the world from her shoulders.

  She was glad he was dead, because dead meant that she could finally love the rotten bastard in peace.

  Kimberley and her two sisters were outside the police station having a cigarette with a very subdued Dicky.

  They had brought their aunt something to eat. She had accepted it gratefully, and they were pleased to see that she was not treating them any differently than she had before this awful day.

  The fact their father was dead had not really sunk in yet. They were still trying to get their heads around the knowledge that it was Jimmy who had murdered him.

  They had all been questioned and had all said the same thing, that they had no idea what could have happened. Until they were given the nod, that was all they were prepared to say on the subject.

  ‘Poor Dad.’

  Dianna sounded so sad, and Kimberley hugged her younger sister tightly. ‘Yeah, as you say, poor Dad.’

  She looked at Rox and they exchanged glances that told Dicky they were not going to be mourning the man they called father for very long.

  ‘Let’s get back to Mum, eh? Look, Glenford has just pulled up in a black cab.’

  Dicky walked over to him and the two men shook hands.

  ‘It all being taken care of. Get the girls home now, OK?’

  Dicky nodded. ‘The brief’s here at last, and she ain’t half got some trap. We could hear her bollocking them all from out here.’

  Glenford grinned. ‘She good all right. They been looking for me all over me work places, so I am going in voluntarily now and get it over with. From what I can gather from a friend in the Met, they are pulling in all his known associates.’

  Glenford threw his joint away carelessly and said on a laugh, as he walked off, ‘Better not bring that in with me, eh?’

  Dicky laughed with him. He was absolutely thrilled to be a part of something this big, and he knew that this was important to his standing in the future. He would be watched and judged by them all to see how he handled this event.

  Well, like most people he had never been Freddie Jackson’s biggest fan. He had to deal with him because he loved his daughter, and she was being a blinder.

  She was upset but not surprised by the news her father had been found in Epping Forest naked, beaten and partially burned. He was still smouldering when a man out dogging had tripped over him while walking back to his car after an enjoyable time watching couples having sex on their back seats. A fitting end for Freddie Jackson, when you thought about it.

  Melanie was still crying, and Liselle, who loved her niece dearly, was on the verge of smacking her one.

  This was her own fault, and Liselle was bloody annoyed that her niece was at the centre of this mayhem. If Mel had not chased the bloody glamour of criminals and all they entailed, she would not be in this predicament now. She was a nice girl, and she had a lovely nature, but she was only ever going to be bird material. She had too much trap and too much flesh hanging out to ever be anything else.

  She only hoped that this had taught Mel a lesson on life, and about fully comprehending the world you chose to live in, both the good bits, and the bad. You had to be a certain type of woman to survive in their world, and she knew that from personal experience. You had to understand the men, and you had to understand what th
ey did, and what drove them to do it. If you didn’t grow up in their world, or know the unwritten laws, you were no good to them. You had to have complete acceptance of how they lived their lives, so no matter what they did, or what they were accused of, you only cared about them getting off with it. Nothing else mattered.

  You also needed to be able to keep your mouth shut, and never, ever volunteer information about any part of your husband’s life to anyone, no matter who they were.

  It was a good life if you knew how to play the game. She had been doing just that for many happy years with her Paul, and she wouldn’t change a second of it.

  Now that Melanie had an insight into what could happen when you were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person, she might have a serious rethink about what she actually wanted out of life.

  Paul sighed, and said to the distraught girl in as calm a voice as he could, ‘Stop this, and listen to what I am telling you.’

  Liselle went to the girl and slapped her across her face with all the force she could muster. ‘For fuck’s sake, will you stop fucking crying and listen to us. Do you understand how much shit you are in, girl?’

  Melanie stared at her aunt with terrified eyes, and she finally stopped crying. Paul turned her to face him. ‘Jimmy Jackson is a bad man. I would lay money on him being the baddest man in London, and you might be Liselle’s niece, but that won’t cut no fucking ice with him if you ever breathe one word of what you heard in the pub. This is serious, Melanie. You have to forget everything about what happened, right? It never happened. You are going on a long trip to Spain with Liselle tonight, and you will use the time there to empty your fucking brain. But I warn you, if you ever even hint that you saw or heard anything . . .’