Jail Bird

She had other things she had to be doing. She was going to have a long shower, dress in someone else’s clothes and go and have another chat with her late husband’s mistress. One of them, anyway.

16

‘You know what? That ain’t enough,’ said Tiger Wu.

Freddy King stared at the man. ‘You what?’ he asked. ‘You’re having a laugh.’

They were standing in a clearing in Epping Forest, way off the beaten track, both of them dressed as ramblers in dark green hoodies and walking boots. Freddy felt a cunt but it was important that they weren’t seen to be out of place here. They had to blend right in to the background in case anyone was about. There was stillness all around, and summer greenery and birdsong, all that nature shit. Freddy hated it. He liked the Smoke. Plenty of action, noise, people. Silence always made him jittery.

Duncan ‘Tiger’ Wu shook his head. He was half-Chinese, half-Scot. He had the sallow skin and exotic eyes of his mother, and his dad’s height and strong Glaswegian accent. He wore his blue-black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was much feared and revered around the East End, known as a good refuse collector–in other words, he got rid of people, for a hefty fee.

The fee was getting heftier by the minute.

Tiger prided himself on keeping his ear to the ground, knowing who was inside or out, who would have need of his services, who were the movers and shakers among the East End mobs and the Essex boys. He knew that Lily King had done her husband over, and that Si and Freddy King had been chomping at the bit ever since, wanting to do the cow a bit of harm in return. Freddy more than Si. Si was a reasonable man, within limits. Freddy was a headcase. Tiger knew that. But he was a rich headcase, and that made this whole conversation really interesting as far as Tiger was concerned.

‘Five up front and five when the job’s done; that’s not a bad day’s pay,’ said Freddy.

‘Does Si want this?’ asked Tiger.

Freddy puffed himself up, his face reddening angrily. ‘Si ain’t doing this deal, I am.’

‘Only I wouldn’t want to tread on Si’s toes,’ said Tiger.

‘Understood. Si’s agreeable, okay?’ lied Freddy. Fuck Si and his let’s-wait-until- doomsday speeches. He wanted this bitch sorted, soonest. He would have done her right after the wedding, but Si had said, no, wait. That was all Si ever said–no, wait. Freddy was sick of waiting.

‘Okay. So seven, yes? Seven thou up front, seven when it’s done.’

‘Go and piss up your kilt,’ said Freddy with a snort of disdain. He had ten in his pocket, but if Wu stopped at six and a half, he’d be pleased with the deal. Wu had a reputation of being keen on the money and was the butt of a lot of Scots jokes around the manor because of it. Rumour was he’d skin a turd for tuppence. ‘Six. That’s all I’m prepared to go to, we either shake on it now or I walk,’ Freddy relented, spitting in his hand and holding it out to seal the deal.

Wu was hesitating. ‘Six and a half,’ he said.

‘Done. And don’t forget. No comebacks, no way to trace it back to me. You got that?’ Si would have his guts if any mud came flying their way, Freddy knew that. He didn’t want to go upsetting Si.

They shook hands; the contract was agreed. Tiger Wu was going to get rid of Lily King.

And not a fucking minute too soon, thought Freddy, paying Tiger his wedge and tramping back through the mud to where they’d parked up. He was smiling. He felt better already.

17

‘So what you got?’ asked Jack Rackland from behind his desk, stretching and running his hands through his dirty-blond hair, when she pitched up at his modest little office in a quiet road off the busy High Street later that same day.

‘All sorts,’ said Lily, sitting down gratefully. Her feet throbbed and she was getting a headache in the summer heat. Pink or rainbow-coloured, suddenly she missed Becks’s horrible motor. Bloody buses. Packed full, airless, never on time; you had to wait fucking hours for the things, then walk a mile to get to where you really wanted to go. She’d dressed in a borrowed pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, dug out her old trainers. Heels were great, but sometimes you had to move, sometimes you had to walk.

‘And the payment, how’s that coming along?’ He was looking at her with his keen blue eyes, anticipating deception. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Strong, well-muscled forearms. Altogether a good-looking man, and she had been a sucker for attractive men in the past. She had a fine appreciation of beauty in all things but in men in particular, and look where that had ended; so she wasn’t going to start all that old crap over again.

‘It’s coming along,’ lied Lily. He was right to look at her like that, but it galled her. She’d pay him when she could; she wasn’t a rogue like Leo with his dodgy deals and his crooked ways. She didn’t screw people over, particularly not people who were trying to help her.

‘I said a week, then you pay up,’ he reminded her.

‘I know that’s what you said,’ Lily replied evenly.

‘Just so long as we’re clear.’

‘Crystal.’

His expression was amused. ‘No good looking at me like that, Mrs King. We have to be honest with each other.’

‘Yeah,’ said Lily, and put the list that Adrienne Thomson had reluctantly given her two hours ago on the desk.

Adrienne hadn’t been keen to hand the list over. Had said she’d have to hunt around for it, she didn’t know where it would be, could Lily come back later? Lily had said that she could. Maybe when Matt was in, then they could talk it over, all three of them, together. And miraculously Adrienne had turned up the list in five minutes flat.

‘Oh Jesus, Lily, you ain’t going to start raking over all this rubbish again, are you?’ Adrienne had said, looking worried as she handed it over.

‘It may be rubbish to you, Adrienne, but it’s important to me,’ Lily had told her.

Now Jack Rackland was pulling the list over towards him, looking it over.

‘That’s their names, and their last known addresses,’ said Lily. ‘I don’t know why she kept the list, but she did. She’s an odd sort, Adrienne. Didn’t think a thing about going behind my back. But when Leo started cheating on her–I suppose that’s how she saw it, the twisted mare–she went off her flipping head. But I have to say–her filing system’s a lot better than yours.’

He glanced up at her with a glint of humour in his eyes. ‘Have a heart, girl. I don’t know of any company that keeps records on file for over twelve years. Jesus, even the bleedin’ taxman only goes back six.’

She knew he had a point. But she was hot, tired, still upset over her unsatisfactory early morning meeting with Oli, still shaken by Nick’s boys snatching her last night–and yes, she was irritated that Jack had reminded her again about the money, and she was now wondering just how the hell she was going to get her hands on it. She had to. She had to.

‘Call me Lily,’ she said. ‘Mrs King don’t sound right any more somehow.’

‘Not after you killed off Mr King?’

Lily stood up, her chair crashing over on its side. ‘That’s it. That’s enough. I told you I didn’t do it, but you don’t believe me. I told you you’d get your money, but you don’t believe that either. So this is just a fucking waste of time, Mr Rackland. Give me back that bloody list, I’m going to sort this out on my own.’

‘Whoa, whoa.’ He held up his hands, half laughing. ‘Don’t fly off the deep end, I was only winding you up.’

‘Well don’t fucking well wind me up,’ yelled Lily. ‘None of this is funny. I’ve got the King brothers loitering around, my daughters are like strangers to me, I’m fresh out of stir and, you know what?