Chapter 4 (3389)
When Kelly had first started housebreaking, she had been too scared to research anything about it on the internet, so she had ended up taking a lot of things out with her that she had never needed. She used to bring a small toolkit with her, but had found that there wasn’t anything that she ever needed to do that a jemmy couldn’t handle. She’d even made some home-made pepper spray, the idea being it could be used to ward off guard dogs, but so far, she’d never robbed a place that had had one. Still, in the front pockets of her black cargo trousers she still kept a few things, being wary that the one time she didn’t bring them would be a one time she’d need them. Not things that would help with the stealing, but things that would help with the escaping, should the need arise.
It took her a moment to get her head together. Managing to stop her own screams, she reached into her pocket and took out a smoke bomb, just part of pack of cheap ones she’d bought from a party shop years ago. The kind used in paintball games and things, totally harmless, but if let off in an enclosed space, when people were already scared, it was absolutely terrifying. She’d only ever had to use one once before when a security guard had come across her at a warehouse. If you shouted ‘Poison Gas!’ at the same time, people ran for it.
She twisted the cap on the bomb and threw it to the floor. Red smoke filled the room in just a couple of seconds and while the young woman that had discovered her ran off screaming down the corridor, Kelly scampered back into the small bedroom and went to the window. She unlocked it, opened it, and then hauled herself out. Looking down she saw that it was an easy enough climb, past a lower window, then to the courtyard below.
It was a cobblestone yard, with wings of the house extending on either side. Lights were going on upstairs. She looked up and saw the window she’d just come out. Red smoke drifted lazily out of it on the gentle evening breeze. She’d forgotten to close it. The yard was walled on the only side that wasn’t part of the house, but the gate was open. She could hear voices coming from the other side of the wall. Was it people from the marquee? She wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to get into a struggle with anyone. She looked around, there were three cars parked in the courtyard. With shaking hands, she took the car-key she had stolen earlier and experimentally pressed the button on it. The expensive looking BMW closest to her chirped happily and flashed its lights. She threw her bag onto the passenger seat and jumped in. She didn’t have a driving license, but she could drive, so she tore out of the yard as quickly as she could, kicking up gravel everywhere when she hit the driveway. Two men, holding cans of beer, stepped out from the walled garden, but just watched dumbly as she drove out of the main gate and into the road.
She was panicked, her mind was racing, but after a few hundred meters she started to think again. Didn’t flash cars like these have trackers and immobilisers and things? She had no idea, but she really wanted to ditch it as quickly as possible. She headed into town, making for the park. She was thinking that she would drive to the top of Arthur’s Seat, leave the care there then run for home. There were no cameras up on the windswept cliffs of Holyrood Park that was for sure, so she could do a circuit and come back out at St Leonard’ Crag. The first police car she passed though, her nerve went and she threw the steering wheel over and dove into a bus stop. Then, remembering her bag and slinging it over he shoulder first, she clambered straight up a tall stone wall and into the trees beyond. After a few metres, she burst through the trees into some open ground. There was a fence up ahead and without any great effort she climbed over it and into the grassy land on the other side. Where was she? That question was abruptly answered when a herd of what she thought might have been gazelles ran in front of her.
‘I’m in the bloody zoo!’ she exclaimed to herself. At least she knew where she was though. She headed upwards, climbing steadily up the hill Edinburgh Zoo squatted on, jumping more fences when she needed to, until she reached the Corstorphine Hill Tower. The stone finger of the tower loomed darkly out of the trees, a single black finger that seemed to be pointing angrily at her. She ran on, following the path past the golf course and eventually to the street. Here she slowed to a walk and tried to slow her breathing. She walked on a half mile or so further until her nerves had settled a little. As she walked she took her phone out of her pocked and checked where she was. It only told her what she already knew, which was the she was still miles from home. Weighing all her options up in her mind she came to the conclusion that it was probably better not to be out in the open any more than she needed to be, so she ducked into an alley, removed her hoodie to reveal a bright red T-shirt that had a print of snarling tiger on it, then stuffed it into her bag on top of all the loot. She then let down her hair, which then sprang up into an unkept mess, and put on her glasses. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but at least she looked a lot less like a burglar. After a few deep breaths she took out her phone again and called an Uber.
She didn’t get much sleep that night so she was a bit groggy all through her classes the next day, not that the children noticed. Only Mrs Hunter did, as she noticed everything, and passing Kelly in the corridor at lunchtime said, ‘ye started a new box set, hen? You look done in.’
‘Oh,’ replied Kelly with a forced laugh. ‘No. Not that. Car alarm when off all last night, didn’t sleep a wink.’ Yeah, fuck you Hunter, snarled Miss Take internally.
On her way home, just as she was going past the row of shops before her street, she saw Paul Bevy coming out of the chipper. Before she could turn around, he spotted her and marched up to her.
‘I know it was you!’ he cried. ‘I know it was you, you cow!’
‘Me, what?’ she gasped, trying to act confused, but calm, as her emotions surged up inside her.
‘Don’t come it,’ he snarled as he waved an accusing finger at her. ‘I mind you threatening me. Then a week later all that stuff is in my bag. I’m nae daft. I can put things together. And now another one! The dibble have got so much against me now they don’t know wither to charge me with out of everything they thing I’ve done!’
‘Just tell them the truth, Paul.’
He menaced her with his fish supper. ‘I know it was you!’
Running out of patience she snapped back. ‘Well, knowing and proving are two different things, are they not Mr Bevy?’
This almost admission, confused him long enough for her to get past him on the pavement and walk primly off down the street. Paul studied his shoes for a second or two, mumbling under his breath. He then looked up and shouted one last time. ‘I know it was you! I’ll sort you out!’
‘Go home, Paul. You are in enough trouble,’ she said over her shoulder.
She went and got a coffee at McDonalds before going home. That wee shite, she thought as she sipped at it. Well, I suppose he doesn’t know I was out last night doing something that might save his skin. She sat for a while, then making up her mind to help Paul a little more she went home and changed, and took the bus into town. She bought a few things, then sat down on a bench in the Princes Street Gardens, looking up at the castle that dominated the view over the railway line. On another burner phone she left a message on the Crimestoppers website to the effect that Paul Bevy was innocent of breaking into Orlando and Wraithston. They could figure out Button Grove, the place she’d turned over last night, for themselves. She listed one stolen item from each place, details that had not been released by the police as far as she knew.
‘Well, for whatever that is worth,’ she muttered as she tossed the mobile into a park bin. Sat on the bus home brooding. That little shite, she thought again, has caused me so much trouble. At least he’s not at school bothering the girls any more. Well, I’ve done what I can. One more thing to clear up and hopefully I’m done.
Monday evenings was her karate night, but she decided to skip it. At home she called the sensei, she was a black belt and often helped out with the children’s classes. She used the same excuse she had used with Mrs Hunter and after a bath she went to bed.
The next evening, she decided to go see her fence. It was unusual for her to go so soon after a break-in, something that Treacle remarked on when she entered his shop on Easter Road. He sold far and mid-eastern imported furnishings, rugs, throws, curtains, carvings and anything else that could fit inside a shipping container although he didn’t get many customers. Most business was done in the back rooms where he sold homegrown marijuana. The drug dealing itself was also, to a certain extent, another front, this time hiding from the crime gangs of Edinburgh rather than the police and general public, for fencing stolen goods from the various housebreakers and footpads that freelanced in and around the nation’s capital.
Treacle was an old man, tall, skinny, shaggy headed and unshaven. He habitually dressed in a baggy and unwashed woollen jumper with unravelling sleeves and wore an embroidered beanie on his head to keep his bald spot warm.
‘So where did this lot come from then Gav?’ he asked as he laid out her treasure on the long table in his grotty kitchen. While at his shop, Kelly posed as a 12-year old boy called Gavin. She wore a parka several sizes too big for with the hood up and a baseball cap underneath it to further hide her eyes. As far as she cold tell, Treacle had never suspected that she was actually a woman in her late twenties.
‘Button Grove, west end. What have you heard about Wraithston, Treacle?’
‘Since I last saw you? All hell is breaking loose. The Hamiltons are going around smashing in heads. Never know for their subtlety, our friends in the Hamilton Clan, young Gavin. They think it was the Romanians on account of Mack having a vampire bite on his neck.’
‘What you talking about?’
‘Someone had pierced his neck to make it look like he’d been bitten by a vampire. Apparently, this is a calling card of the Romanian Mafia. I know not of these things,’ shrugged Treacle. ‘But so I have been told.’
A wave of fear flushed through Kelly. Things just went from bad to worse every single day. She groaned and pushed her hands up under her cap to scratch at her hair. It was untied and running wild, a giant afro bush of tightly curled locks. Trying to act like the greedy little guttersnipe she was pretending to be she pushed on to hide her fear. ‘What about the gear? Sold it yet?’
‘Listen Gav, I can’t shift that Wraithston stuff now. The Hamiltons will kill me if they know I’ve got any of it. I’ll take this new stuff, but I have to give you the Wraithston stuff back. It was always going to be a big risk, stealing from Mack the Knife.’
Treacle gave her a weak smile, and always fishing for information he went on. ‘What did you see that night Gav? What time were you there?’
‘I told you, man. He got done in before I got there.’
‘Well, whatever Gav. I’m too trusting a fellow to dig too deeply into the timeline of events. Either way, selling the goodies is impossible at the moment. Later maybe.’
‘Come on man,’ said Kelly, who was truthfully thinking at that moment she was willing to give up on all the money if the situation she was in could be made to just go away. ‘Surely you can shift it without getting found out? I mean, man, isn’t that literally the job of a fence?’
Treacle seemed to stop and think for a while, moving some of the Button Grove loot around on the table as he pondered something.
‘Well, how about three grand for the stuff you’ve given me now and three for the Wraithston stuff?’
‘The Wraithston stuff alone is worth thirty, man,’ she grumbled. She didn’t know if he was trying to stiff her on the Button Grove stuff, he probably was, but she hadn’t had a chance to price it out. The Wraithston stuff, however, she knew the value of down to the last penny.
‘I know that Gav, but how am I going to shift it?’
‘Ebay.’
‘If it was as easy as Ebay then you wouldn’t need me, Gav.’
‘I do my job, you do yours, Treacle.’
Treacle put down the engraved ebony horse he was holding and tried to catch her eye from under her cap. ‘Gav? Earth to Gav? How are you not understanding me? Hamiltons. Romanians. Mucho stabbie-stabbie. I, my friend, do not want to join the ranks of the stabbing victims. I’ll sit on your gear, but I’m not going to sell it now. If you want the cash up front, then I’ve only got so much on hand. This situation is your own fault, young man.’
Kelly hopped from one foot to the other. ‘Wunt me, didn’t see nothing. Must have happened after I left.’
Treacle smiled again and gave her a long-suffering fatherly look.
‘You should watch yourself, Gav. OK, tell you what, I’ll give you ten for everything all together, but if you want it in notes you’ll need to come by tomorrow. Ok?’
‘Yeah, all right.’
Later that night, once she was home, showered and changed she sat at the seat by the phone in her hall, as she often did when stressing about the aftermath of a job, watching the door. She gave up thinking about how much Treacle was robbing her pretty quickly. She’d be down twenty thousand, but at least the gear would be gone and the ten in hand would certainly come in handy. Her thoughts turned quickly to Paul. What if he had been talking to the police? That was the main question rolling around in her head now. What would they think if he did? They already knew about the fight between her and Paul regarding his groping of Jennifer Knight, and had heard her side of it. Surely, they would think he was just throwing baseless accusations around? And yet, it would put her name into it. They cold easily background check her and find out about her past in London. Maybe start asking questions. Any scrutiny from the police was the last thing she wanted right now.
She drummed her fingers on the wooden table, watching the door. There was a frosted glass panel in it, at eye level for a regularly sized person. When someone came to the door, which wasn’t often, she saw them as a dark disjointed silhouette.
She laughed and shock her head, patted down her hair and rubbed her face. She always did this, she mused, sitting in the hall on a kitchen stool, chewing things over. The idea of a table for the phone was so old fashioned, she knew that. It was laid out just as her mum’s had been with a pen and notepad neatly beside the telephone on a small wooden table designed for the purpose. It had a rack underneath it that held out of date phonebooks and crushed up old Yellow Pages that had been left there by her step-dad after he’d moved out. She should really go and watch TV to keep her mind of things, but sometimes she enjoyed indulging in her fears. She sat, her fingers returned to the table and resumed their drumming. Her brain resumed its scheming. Perhaps she should talk to the police herself? They had said she could call them if she wanted. The Nigerian woman had seemed nice and approachable. Perhaps she could find out what leads they had? Was that even how they talked? The idea of getting pally with the cops was just a fantasy she knew, and idea lifted from some film or other she’d watched. Even if she had the nerve for it, it would most likely only breed more problems. When other people were involved in her crimes, things started to get unpredictable. At heart, she admitted freely to herself, she was a coward. She always tortured herself with anxiety for weeks after a job, but when that wore off after a month or two, she needed her next fix. The simple act of planning a job was often enough for her, and she’d planned far more burglaries than she’d actually carried out. Up until recently, all her jobs had been meticulously planned, every eventuality catered for, every problem looked at from every angle. She’d never accounted for a dead body before and now her game was totally off. She’d broken in to Button Grove so ludicrously under-prepared she’d ended up racing off in a stolen car.
‘Stupid,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘Then the zoo. What an idiot.’
I should really go check the news, see if there is anything about Sunday night, she thought, but drum-drum went her fingers and she remained rooted to the stool. After staring at the door long enough though, her thoughts would always return to the night her mother was murdered and as always, unable to think about it without seriously distressing herself, she would get up and go to bed. Once she was under the covers, she watched TV on her phone until, sometime after three in the morning, she fell into a troubled sleep.
Wednesday night, after school, after self-defence classes, she dressed as her alter-ego Gavin and went back round to Treacle’s shop.
‘Ah, young Gavin, there is the boy himself,’ said the old man with unusual joviality. ‘Here for his six grand.’
‘Ten.’
‘Oh aye, ten of course. Got it right here, printed it myself this morning, ha-ha.’
Nervously Kelly followed him through the shop, into the back room and then into the kitchen.
‘Not here, Gav old chap. The money is downstairs in the safe. Step this way.’
Kelly, already on edge, was starting to feel something was up. She never went down the cellar steps, Treacle always brought the money up. He was ushering her in though, holding the door open. She went down the stairs, the lights were already on and the door at the end of the corridor was open. She looked up at Treacle, and he motioned her onwards.
She entered the room, then groaned as her worst fears realised. Four men sat at a table amongst piles of bags and boxes, each of them playing with their phones under a naked light bulb. The saw her enter and stood up, big tough looking men dressed in black, like nightclub bouncers. Two of them made to circle around behind her, cutting her off from the door.
‘I’m sorry Gav,’ said Treacle with regret in his voice. ‘They were going to kneecap me, what could I do?’
It took her a moment to get her head together. Managing to stop her own screams, she reached into her pocket and took out a smoke bomb, just part of pack of cheap ones she’d bought from a party shop years ago. The kind used in paintball games and things, totally harmless, but if let off in an enclosed space, when people were already scared, it was absolutely terrifying. She’d only ever had to use one once before when a security guard had come across her at a warehouse. If you shouted ‘Poison Gas!’ at the same time, people ran for it.
She twisted the cap on the bomb and threw it to the floor. Red smoke filled the room in just a couple of seconds and while the young woman that had discovered her ran off screaming down the corridor, Kelly scampered back into the small bedroom and went to the window. She unlocked it, opened it, and then hauled herself out. Looking down she saw that it was an easy enough climb, past a lower window, then to the courtyard below.
It was a cobblestone yard, with wings of the house extending on either side. Lights were going on upstairs. She looked up and saw the window she’d just come out. Red smoke drifted lazily out of it on the gentle evening breeze. She’d forgotten to close it. The yard was walled on the only side that wasn’t part of the house, but the gate was open. She could hear voices coming from the other side of the wall. Was it people from the marquee? She wasn’t sure, but didn’t want to get into a struggle with anyone. She looked around, there were three cars parked in the courtyard. With shaking hands, she took the car-key she had stolen earlier and experimentally pressed the button on it. The expensive looking BMW closest to her chirped happily and flashed its lights. She threw her bag onto the passenger seat and jumped in. She didn’t have a driving license, but she could drive, so she tore out of the yard as quickly as she could, kicking up gravel everywhere when she hit the driveway. Two men, holding cans of beer, stepped out from the walled garden, but just watched dumbly as she drove out of the main gate and into the road.
She was panicked, her mind was racing, but after a few hundred meters she started to think again. Didn’t flash cars like these have trackers and immobilisers and things? She had no idea, but she really wanted to ditch it as quickly as possible. She headed into town, making for the park. She was thinking that she would drive to the top of Arthur’s Seat, leave the care there then run for home. There were no cameras up on the windswept cliffs of Holyrood Park that was for sure, so she could do a circuit and come back out at St Leonard’ Crag. The first police car she passed though, her nerve went and she threw the steering wheel over and dove into a bus stop. Then, remembering her bag and slinging it over he shoulder first, she clambered straight up a tall stone wall and into the trees beyond. After a few metres, she burst through the trees into some open ground. There was a fence up ahead and without any great effort she climbed over it and into the grassy land on the other side. Where was she? That question was abruptly answered when a herd of what she thought might have been gazelles ran in front of her.
‘I’m in the bloody zoo!’ she exclaimed to herself. At least she knew where she was though. She headed upwards, climbing steadily up the hill Edinburgh Zoo squatted on, jumping more fences when she needed to, until she reached the Corstorphine Hill Tower. The stone finger of the tower loomed darkly out of the trees, a single black finger that seemed to be pointing angrily at her. She ran on, following the path past the golf course and eventually to the street. Here she slowed to a walk and tried to slow her breathing. She walked on a half mile or so further until her nerves had settled a little. As she walked she took her phone out of her pocked and checked where she was. It only told her what she already knew, which was the she was still miles from home. Weighing all her options up in her mind she came to the conclusion that it was probably better not to be out in the open any more than she needed to be, so she ducked into an alley, removed her hoodie to reveal a bright red T-shirt that had a print of snarling tiger on it, then stuffed it into her bag on top of all the loot. She then let down her hair, which then sprang up into an unkept mess, and put on her glasses. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but at least she looked a lot less like a burglar. After a few deep breaths she took out her phone again and called an Uber.
She didn’t get much sleep that night so she was a bit groggy all through her classes the next day, not that the children noticed. Only Mrs Hunter did, as she noticed everything, and passing Kelly in the corridor at lunchtime said, ‘ye started a new box set, hen? You look done in.’
‘Oh,’ replied Kelly with a forced laugh. ‘No. Not that. Car alarm when off all last night, didn’t sleep a wink.’ Yeah, fuck you Hunter, snarled Miss Take internally.
On her way home, just as she was going past the row of shops before her street, she saw Paul Bevy coming out of the chipper. Before she could turn around, he spotted her and marched up to her.
‘I know it was you!’ he cried. ‘I know it was you, you cow!’
‘Me, what?’ she gasped, trying to act confused, but calm, as her emotions surged up inside her.
‘Don’t come it,’ he snarled as he waved an accusing finger at her. ‘I mind you threatening me. Then a week later all that stuff is in my bag. I’m nae daft. I can put things together. And now another one! The dibble have got so much against me now they don’t know wither to charge me with out of everything they thing I’ve done!’
‘Just tell them the truth, Paul.’
He menaced her with his fish supper. ‘I know it was you!’
Running out of patience she snapped back. ‘Well, knowing and proving are two different things, are they not Mr Bevy?’
This almost admission, confused him long enough for her to get past him on the pavement and walk primly off down the street. Paul studied his shoes for a second or two, mumbling under his breath. He then looked up and shouted one last time. ‘I know it was you! I’ll sort you out!’
‘Go home, Paul. You are in enough trouble,’ she said over her shoulder.
She went and got a coffee at McDonalds before going home. That wee shite, she thought as she sipped at it. Well, I suppose he doesn’t know I was out last night doing something that might save his skin. She sat for a while, then making up her mind to help Paul a little more she went home and changed, and took the bus into town. She bought a few things, then sat down on a bench in the Princes Street Gardens, looking up at the castle that dominated the view over the railway line. On another burner phone she left a message on the Crimestoppers website to the effect that Paul Bevy was innocent of breaking into Orlando and Wraithston. They could figure out Button Grove, the place she’d turned over last night, for themselves. She listed one stolen item from each place, details that had not been released by the police as far as she knew.
‘Well, for whatever that is worth,’ she muttered as she tossed the mobile into a park bin. Sat on the bus home brooding. That little shite, she thought again, has caused me so much trouble. At least he’s not at school bothering the girls any more. Well, I’ve done what I can. One more thing to clear up and hopefully I’m done.
Monday evenings was her karate night, but she decided to skip it. At home she called the sensei, she was a black belt and often helped out with the children’s classes. She used the same excuse she had used with Mrs Hunter and after a bath she went to bed.
The next evening, she decided to go see her fence. It was unusual for her to go so soon after a break-in, something that Treacle remarked on when she entered his shop on Easter Road. He sold far and mid-eastern imported furnishings, rugs, throws, curtains, carvings and anything else that could fit inside a shipping container although he didn’t get many customers. Most business was done in the back rooms where he sold homegrown marijuana. The drug dealing itself was also, to a certain extent, another front, this time hiding from the crime gangs of Edinburgh rather than the police and general public, for fencing stolen goods from the various housebreakers and footpads that freelanced in and around the nation’s capital.
Treacle was an old man, tall, skinny, shaggy headed and unshaven. He habitually dressed in a baggy and unwashed woollen jumper with unravelling sleeves and wore an embroidered beanie on his head to keep his bald spot warm.
‘So where did this lot come from then Gav?’ he asked as he laid out her treasure on the long table in his grotty kitchen. While at his shop, Kelly posed as a 12-year old boy called Gavin. She wore a parka several sizes too big for with the hood up and a baseball cap underneath it to further hide her eyes. As far as she cold tell, Treacle had never suspected that she was actually a woman in her late twenties.
‘Button Grove, west end. What have you heard about Wraithston, Treacle?’
‘Since I last saw you? All hell is breaking loose. The Hamiltons are going around smashing in heads. Never know for their subtlety, our friends in the Hamilton Clan, young Gavin. They think it was the Romanians on account of Mack having a vampire bite on his neck.’
‘What you talking about?’
‘Someone had pierced his neck to make it look like he’d been bitten by a vampire. Apparently, this is a calling card of the Romanian Mafia. I know not of these things,’ shrugged Treacle. ‘But so I have been told.’
A wave of fear flushed through Kelly. Things just went from bad to worse every single day. She groaned and pushed her hands up under her cap to scratch at her hair. It was untied and running wild, a giant afro bush of tightly curled locks. Trying to act like the greedy little guttersnipe she was pretending to be she pushed on to hide her fear. ‘What about the gear? Sold it yet?’
‘Listen Gav, I can’t shift that Wraithston stuff now. The Hamiltons will kill me if they know I’ve got any of it. I’ll take this new stuff, but I have to give you the Wraithston stuff back. It was always going to be a big risk, stealing from Mack the Knife.’
Treacle gave her a weak smile, and always fishing for information he went on. ‘What did you see that night Gav? What time were you there?’
‘I told you, man. He got done in before I got there.’
‘Well, whatever Gav. I’m too trusting a fellow to dig too deeply into the timeline of events. Either way, selling the goodies is impossible at the moment. Later maybe.’
‘Come on man,’ said Kelly, who was truthfully thinking at that moment she was willing to give up on all the money if the situation she was in could be made to just go away. ‘Surely you can shift it without getting found out? I mean, man, isn’t that literally the job of a fence?’
Treacle seemed to stop and think for a while, moving some of the Button Grove loot around on the table as he pondered something.
‘Well, how about three grand for the stuff you’ve given me now and three for the Wraithston stuff?’
‘The Wraithston stuff alone is worth thirty, man,’ she grumbled. She didn’t know if he was trying to stiff her on the Button Grove stuff, he probably was, but she hadn’t had a chance to price it out. The Wraithston stuff, however, she knew the value of down to the last penny.
‘I know that Gav, but how am I going to shift it?’
‘Ebay.’
‘If it was as easy as Ebay then you wouldn’t need me, Gav.’
‘I do my job, you do yours, Treacle.’
Treacle put down the engraved ebony horse he was holding and tried to catch her eye from under her cap. ‘Gav? Earth to Gav? How are you not understanding me? Hamiltons. Romanians. Mucho stabbie-stabbie. I, my friend, do not want to join the ranks of the stabbing victims. I’ll sit on your gear, but I’m not going to sell it now. If you want the cash up front, then I’ve only got so much on hand. This situation is your own fault, young man.’
Kelly hopped from one foot to the other. ‘Wunt me, didn’t see nothing. Must have happened after I left.’
Treacle smiled again and gave her a long-suffering fatherly look.
‘You should watch yourself, Gav. OK, tell you what, I’ll give you ten for everything all together, but if you want it in notes you’ll need to come by tomorrow. Ok?’
‘Yeah, all right.’
Later that night, once she was home, showered and changed she sat at the seat by the phone in her hall, as she often did when stressing about the aftermath of a job, watching the door. She gave up thinking about how much Treacle was robbing her pretty quickly. She’d be down twenty thousand, but at least the gear would be gone and the ten in hand would certainly come in handy. Her thoughts turned quickly to Paul. What if he had been talking to the police? That was the main question rolling around in her head now. What would they think if he did? They already knew about the fight between her and Paul regarding his groping of Jennifer Knight, and had heard her side of it. Surely, they would think he was just throwing baseless accusations around? And yet, it would put her name into it. They cold easily background check her and find out about her past in London. Maybe start asking questions. Any scrutiny from the police was the last thing she wanted right now.
She drummed her fingers on the wooden table, watching the door. There was a frosted glass panel in it, at eye level for a regularly sized person. When someone came to the door, which wasn’t often, she saw them as a dark disjointed silhouette.
She laughed and shock her head, patted down her hair and rubbed her face. She always did this, she mused, sitting in the hall on a kitchen stool, chewing things over. The idea of a table for the phone was so old fashioned, she knew that. It was laid out just as her mum’s had been with a pen and notepad neatly beside the telephone on a small wooden table designed for the purpose. It had a rack underneath it that held out of date phonebooks and crushed up old Yellow Pages that had been left there by her step-dad after he’d moved out. She should really go and watch TV to keep her mind of things, but sometimes she enjoyed indulging in her fears. She sat, her fingers returned to the table and resumed their drumming. Her brain resumed its scheming. Perhaps she should talk to the police herself? They had said she could call them if she wanted. The Nigerian woman had seemed nice and approachable. Perhaps she could find out what leads they had? Was that even how they talked? The idea of getting pally with the cops was just a fantasy she knew, and idea lifted from some film or other she’d watched. Even if she had the nerve for it, it would most likely only breed more problems. When other people were involved in her crimes, things started to get unpredictable. At heart, she admitted freely to herself, she was a coward. She always tortured herself with anxiety for weeks after a job, but when that wore off after a month or two, she needed her next fix. The simple act of planning a job was often enough for her, and she’d planned far more burglaries than she’d actually carried out. Up until recently, all her jobs had been meticulously planned, every eventuality catered for, every problem looked at from every angle. She’d never accounted for a dead body before and now her game was totally off. She’d broken in to Button Grove so ludicrously under-prepared she’d ended up racing off in a stolen car.
‘Stupid,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘Then the zoo. What an idiot.’
I should really go check the news, see if there is anything about Sunday night, she thought, but drum-drum went her fingers and she remained rooted to the stool. After staring at the door long enough though, her thoughts would always return to the night her mother was murdered and as always, unable to think about it without seriously distressing herself, she would get up and go to bed. Once she was under the covers, she watched TV on her phone until, sometime after three in the morning, she fell into a troubled sleep.
Wednesday night, after school, after self-defence classes, she dressed as her alter-ego Gavin and went back round to Treacle’s shop.
‘Ah, young Gavin, there is the boy himself,’ said the old man with unusual joviality. ‘Here for his six grand.’
‘Ten.’
‘Oh aye, ten of course. Got it right here, printed it myself this morning, ha-ha.’
Nervously Kelly followed him through the shop, into the back room and then into the kitchen.
‘Not here, Gav old chap. The money is downstairs in the safe. Step this way.’
Kelly, already on edge, was starting to feel something was up. She never went down the cellar steps, Treacle always brought the money up. He was ushering her in though, holding the door open. She went down the stairs, the lights were already on and the door at the end of the corridor was open. She looked up at Treacle, and he motioned her onwards.
She entered the room, then groaned as her worst fears realised. Four men sat at a table amongst piles of bags and boxes, each of them playing with their phones under a naked light bulb. The saw her enter and stood up, big tough looking men dressed in black, like nightclub bouncers. Two of them made to circle around behind her, cutting her off from the door.
‘I’m sorry Gav,’ said Treacle with regret in his voice. ‘They were going to kneecap me, what could I do?’
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