Staying Out

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2Filled with concern for his sister, Barry moved closer to the bed. He slipped his arms protectively about her thin shoulders. “You’re shaking.” He stated the obvious. “What was it? A bad dream or something?” Barry regarded her pale features, enormous green eyes heavily ringed with darker shadow patches. Her skin felt chilled, clammy beneath his palm on her cheek. He watched as she fought for self control. For all her outwardly tough act his kid sister was still vulnerable, still capable of breaking down like any other female and showing emotion.

Christy huddled into the strength of her brother’s arms. “It was awful.” She looked into his face helplessly. Barry decided how frightened she appeared, a fragile butterfly in his grasp, her long auburn hair cascading curtain-like over her shoulders, spilling on to her small almost non-existent breasts. His heart was going out to her. Barry cuddled her protectively closer. Judging by her appearance no-one in a million years would have imagined she had pulled an armed raid or toted a sawn off shotgun. Christy buried her head in her brother’s warm chest whilst he gently began stroking her hair.

“You want to tell me about it?” he offered quietly. Christy swallowed hard. “It isn’t really true what I said. All those cracks I made about the blag. I didn’t mean any of it, honest.” Her voice issued partially muffled by his robe. “What I said about enjoying it and everything. It was all an act.” She started to cry, long pent up frustrated tears of helplessness.

During her four years’ incarceration in Holloway Christy had scarcely shed a tear either for herself, for the loss of her miscarried baby, even for Rick Morelli since there had no-one there to relate to or to understand. Now things were different. She had Barry now. Barry, who had been like a father to her, in spite of his youth throughout her growing years.

“When Rick shot that security guard I was as scared as hell, I really was, in spite of what I said.” She shivered involuntarily. Barry clutched her tighter automatically. “There was so much blood and everything.” Voice trailing, she raised her eyes to his face tearfully. “The guard looked like he thought Rick had been bluffing. They implicated me because I threatened to top the guards too if they didn’t do as they were told. But that was all a big act too. I couldn’t have pulled that trigger, honest, I couldn’t have.”

He rocked her gently as if she were little more than a child in his arms. “It’s all over now,” he placated. “You did your time for it. All you have to do now is start afresh. Forget the guilt! I know it won’t be easy, but I’ll always be here to help whenever you need me.”

“Will Mum ever forgive me?”

Barry paled. “She will in time, I reckon,” he attempted to reassure her, but there was very little faith behind his words.

Linda appeared in the doorway suddenly. “What’s all the fuss about?” she demanded, securing her robe tightly about her ample hips, shattering the rapport which had sprung up between brother and sister. The beginnings of jealousy were flowering inside Linda on witnessing how close they were, Barry with his arms around Christy’s shoulders, she with her head on his chest. How long had it been since he had cuddled her with such care?

Instinctively aware of his wife’s jealousy, the look of outrage on her face, Barry slipped his arm quickly from beneath Christy.

“I had a nightmare, that’s all.” Christy muttered. Still on the defensive with her sister-in-law, she reached for a faded blue candle-wick robe, one item remaining from her own personal collection that Linda had not seen fit to burn. “I’ll be Okay now.” She added.

“Good!” said Linda tartly. “Some of us have to get up for work in the morning!” As she left the room she shot a meaningful glance across to her husband. Barry, looking swiftly humbled and chastised, said nothing, although he offered Christy an apologetic shrug before leaving her room.

Christy waited patiently until the door had closed on her brother before she moved into the bathroom. Splashing her face with cold water, dabbing it over her stinging eyes, she reflected on how much better she felt after the unleashing of her emotions. She decided it was positively the last time she intended to give vent to them. Tomorrow there were things to do, plans to be made. It was obvious Linda resented her living there. With the twenty-five grand Christy had stashed she could do something with her life. Perhaps she might move away from London, make it to Spain, or Rio or somewhere. The Spanish seldom, if ever, repatriated British crooks.

During her four years imprisonment Christy had thought of little else but the money. She pushed the nightmare into the background now. The bad part, the murder of the security guard, Rick’s reason for just blowing him away so cold bloodedly, the cold bare-faced lies against her, courtesy of the national rags at the time of her trial.

GUN GIRL KILLS SECURITY GUARD

It was as if the newspapers wanted her to have been Ivan Tyler’s killer. The very fact that a girl was responsible for shooting a security guard seemed to invoke more fascinating reading somehow.

As Barry explained, there were plenty of people outside who would give their eye teeth to lay hands on her money. The Filth. The underworld. People like Alex Chadwell.

Reflecting on how Chadwell had come on to her that day. He chatted her up, trying to pull her, three days before the blag. She had spat in Chadwell’s face and called him a pig. She and Rick had been fractious with each other. They had argued the night before the raid. Rick had been jealous of Chadwell, thinking she fancied him. She had begun the argument. He had ended it with that familiar look of his. One he thankfully used on her rarely, but enough to freeze the blood in her veins. “Enough’s enough, darlin’. There’s nothing worse than a whining female!” And she shut up immediately.

Then the aftermath of the Security Express raid. Christy had argued with him about his shooting the guard. Still in shock she had picked a fight with him, calling him a cold blooded killer to his face. She at him that she didn’t want no murder wrap hanging over her head. Morelli had snatched up the sawn-off she had carried on the raid and threatened her with it. It had been Billy Sherrin who had stepped in between them, scared Rick might use the weapon on her since he had been mad enough over her accusations. Only Steve had warned her to keep her mouth shut, that Rick had had his reasons for topping the guard. He had hinted later something about Morelli being hired. Christy hadn’t believed a word of it, at least not at the time.

It had been the turning point. Someone had contacted the Filth even to informing each respective gang member by name to them.

It was Paddy McIllvaney, the arms dealer to whom she had entrusted the key to the safe deposit box, the Irishman much too afraid of going to prison because of his illegal arms deals to talk. Christy prepared to grass him up, anonymously of course, if he did.

Christy smiled to herself. Yeah, Spain would be quite nice at this time of the year. Sexy sun bronzed Spanish waiters at her beck and call. Sparkling clear waters. Endless miles of sprawling golden beaches. God, it was almost too much to contemplate and not feel excited. The thoughts of the money serving to banish any superfluous traces left over from the nightmare she had so recently experienced.

Detective Inspector Vic Simmons absentmindedly rubbed his unshaven jaw, his cool grey eyes drawn to his sleeping wife Rita. On the starched white pillows, the ever-present multi-coloured hair rollers she seldom, if ever, retired to bed without. Like it was a bloody ritual with her. He was relieved Rita was still asleep. At least she pretended to be, no doubt to avoid the unenviable task of having s*x with him. So who the s**t was he kidding anyway? He just didn’t fancy it anymore.

At 45, Vic Simmons was ostensibly a celibate man, the blame for which he put on his work. Living and breathing the old place, twenty-odd years of accumulated facts and files. Of arrests. Of shootings he had been unable to avoid dealing with. A face involuntarily surfaced within his mind’s eye. A girl’s face, indisputably beautiful with stunning emerald green eyes, reminding him of a particularly vindictive she-cat. One uncomfortable memory he had hoped would remain forever buried in the annals of the Yard.

It was early, shortly before seven a.m. Unable to return to bed, Simmons showered, shaved, dressed, the usual morning routine. One he had perfected over this twenty years.

Arriving at the Yard by 8.00am, he wasn’t surprised to note both male and female officers hard at work at their desks, typewriters clanking noisily in unison. The men dejectedly sifting through yesterday’s mug-shots with little hope in their hearts of making an arrest. Even at this early hour, taking statements from night time offenders.

Simmons entered his own office unhurriedly, the room squat and basically furnished. His second home. Or maybe his first? Nursing a cup of scalding hot coffee he flopped into the swivel chair contemplatively, wearily, as if he had scarcely slept a wink all night. Lighting a cigarette in the process of sifting through the self same file he had been browsing the previous night. Re-opening old cases! Old wounds! This very case which had helped, if only marginally, to commence the downward slide of his failing marriage.

Four and a half years ago Vic Simmons had had little else on his mind than capturing the armed gang who had raided a Security Express van. In particular the bandit who had so brutally gunned down one of the guards. At the time Ivan Tyler’s widow had been beside herself with grief. Now one of the gangsters receives preferential treatment, is released after serving only four years of the eight to which she was sentenced.

So Morelli might well have been a clever enough bastard remaining undetected for so long, during which time he had pulled numerous armed blags throughout the British Isles, quite successfully as it turned out. But it was the O’Donnell girl, Simmons mused with gritted teeth, who was by far the cleverest when it came to it. Two hunger strikes, a miscarriage and an attempted suicide by slitting her wrists with a razor blade smuggled in to prison. She refused to say by whom. Enough therefore to excuse the remaining four of the eight years sentence she had so deservedly received.

It was obvious the money would be her prime objective now that she was out. Twenty-five grand so far not recovered from the Security Express hold up, three gang members still inside. Morelli was dead. That only left the O’Donnell girl free to claim her prize. Whilst she had been detained in Holloway there had to have been someone on the outside left holding either a key to the cash or the money itself. All Simmons had to do was discover just who that person could possibly be. His initial suspect then? Her brother Barry O’Donnell? No criminal record. Manager of his own landscape gardening business. Married. No children.

Simmons lifted the walkie-talkie from his desk top and slid the aerial into position.

Slipping behind the wheel of the battered Herald, Barry switched on the ignition, the car’s engine roaring into immediate life. Barry was instinctively aware of the black Merc crawling smoothly to a halt adjacent to the kerb, visible in his rear view mirror. There were two men inside the car, one of them lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth. Alarm flooded Barry’s guts, his initial reaction that it had to be Alex Chadwell or one of his hired thugs he discreetly referred to as bouncers, surveying both the house and himself.

Behind the wheel, Barry lit a cigarette calmly enough. He waited patiently, heart thumping, for the Merc to move away. It didn’t appear to be doing so but remained stationary now, predacious. Waiting for him to leave perhaps. The girls were alone in the house. Barry partially glimpsed the man behind the wheel of the Merc. He judged the driver to be about his own age and wearing a lightish grey coloured jacket, blue striped shirt and nondescript tie. The sun glinted in Barry’s eyes and he reached for his shades, stomach crawling. If it was a couple of Chadwell’s hirelings observing the house then it meant the girls, as vulnerable as they were, could be in trouble. He didn’t trust the bastard.

Barry hazarded a glance at the digital watch on his left wrist. It was already a little after eight. He was late for work but he conjectured that another five minutes wasn’t going to hurt when it meant his choice of either abandoning them to whatever unhealthy fate Chadwell had in store for them or hanging around until the Merc pulled away. If it ever did of course.

Since he decided on the latter as being the sensible choice he slowly, deliberately, eased himself away from the wheel of the Herald. He made sure the two punks in the Merc obtained an adequate enough look at him before moving back inside his house.

Still clad in her dressing gown, Christy was slouched lazily at the pine table in the kitchen, elbows planted firmly thereon, sipping a cup of tea. The long hair spilling to her waist was matted and uncombed. Linda was dressed, naturally, in a sensible cream linen skirt and peach silk blouse, over which she wore a small plain blue apron. She was busily piling breakfast dishes and cups into the sink and looking extremely vexed over Christy’s lack of help. Both girls stared in surprise when Barry appeared.

“What’s up love? Forgotten something?” Linda asked. Barry encompassed the two women with eye contact. When he spoke finally, the stutter was back. “Th… there’s a car p… p… parked outside the house. A Mer… Mercedes.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “It cou… could be Alex Chadwell or a couple of his th… thugs, I don’t know, I…”

Christy was on her feet at once. “You what?” she almost screamed at him, all traces of tiredness disappearing now. “Chadwell here? He can’t be!” Only alarm registered predominantly on her ashen face. Linda merely continued looking vexed, tight lipped. Christy rushed into the lounge where the large bay window afforded a better view of the street.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous Barry” Linda admonished. “But if it is Chadwell it’ll only be because you brought that girl into this house. You know she has a reputation for mixing with criminals. What was stopping you from putting some money down and renting a little bedsit or something, like I suggested? You could have gone round there when you wanted to, made sure she had a job and paid you back. While she was in prison everything was pretty well all right for us, Barry. Now she has to go and disrupt everything!” she added peevishly.

Barry’s face hardened. “She is my sister. I’d rather have her living here where I can keep an eye on her.”

“Oh yes,” she sneered. “God knows what type of villainous criminal she’ll attract once they know she’s out and after that money!”

Thankfully Christy raced back into the room and he was saved from answering Linda. Her face was no less white, however. Small fists clawing at the seam of her dressing gown. “It isn’t any of Chadwell’s men. I know most of them.” She ignored Linda’s sarcastic “you would,” muttered under her breath. “That’s the Old Bill out there!” Christy declared angrily.