‘We sacked him off as soon as we knew. We told him that we couldn’t be associated with him. That it wasn’t what we were about. We don’t work that way…’ As soon as the words left Sam’s mouth and he saw the thunderous expression flash across Pete’s face, Sam Boland knew that he’d said the wrong thing.
‘So, he was working for you?’ Pete asked.
The room fell silent once more as Sam realised he’d called the wrong shot.
‘You sent that fucking animal to collect your debt from Ashley, didn’t you? And what? When he saw that my Shelby was fair game, he decided to rough her up instead. You stupid fucking bastards!’
Tucking the butt of the gun tightly into his shoulder, Pete’s finger pressed against the trigger, just as an almighty bang sounded from the front of the house.
Thinking fast on his feet, Carl Rangers ran at Pete, forcing him to drop his gun on the floor between them all.
Just seconds before DC Holder’s voice and a horde of police officers filled the room.
‘POLICE! Put your hands in the air where I can see them.’
42
Eyeing the broken fragments of glass hanging in front of the partially boarded up windows, Ashley figured that Sam must have been taking the piss. This house looked abandoned. The windows and doors all shuttered up, and the front garden full of weeds and bags of overflowing rubbish scattered everywhere.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Ashley muttered, guessing that he’d been purposely sent on a wild goose chase. The two brothers were probably both pissing themselves laughing at him right now, while they both counted their money. The two of them taking great delight in Ashley’s misfortune, and neither of them giving two shits that his son had been kidnapped.
Narrowing his eyes, Ashley checked the piece of paper once more, in case he had made the mistake. Only Sam’s scrawled writing matched the number printed on the plaque next to the front door: this was the place.
‘Fuckers!’
Turning to leave, he stopped, hearing a noise coming from inside the house. A loud bang. Something falling? There was someone inside.
Making his way around the side of the building, Ashley held his breath as the sharp acrid stench of piss burned the back of his throat. Further down, he saw an opening. A large piece of jagged boarding had been prised open and pulled away, to reveal a half-open doorway. Getting his phone out as he peered inside through the pitch-black darkness, Ashley shone his torch. The light bounced off crumbling, graffitied walls. The concrete floors were bare of carpets, covered in rubbish instead.
He wondered if Jay-Jay Andrews was inside. Scanning the garden, he spotted an old broken chair lying on its side. Standing with his foot on the main body of the seat, he held on to the metal chair leg and twisted with all his strength, pulling backwards with everything he had until it finally snapped off.
He stepped inside, armed with only a metal bar and the element of surprise. His eyes cut through the darkness as he followed the torch’s steady beam of light, peering into the far corners of each room that he passed for signs of life.
The only noise was his shallow breathing and the crunch of God knows what beneath his feet as he made his way along the damp, moulding hallway. Looking down, he grimaced at the trail of used needles and discarded food and rubbish strewn over every inch of the floor. He was still trying to hold his breath, breathing only through his mouth, because the smell was so much stronger in here. Like a stinking, overflowing bin. Pungent and rotten. Everything inside the building was encrusted with a thick film of dirt and grime.
Finally, he reached the last room. At the front of the house, where the large window was boarded up. He guessed this would have been the lounge once. As he shone his torch around, he saw the occupied mattress in the corner of the room.
A huddled figure was sleeping in the middle of the mattress, cocooned beneath what looked like a thick green blanket and a blue sleeping bag. Ashley shone the light briefly on the sleeping figure’s face. It was him. Jay-Jay Andrews.
Ashley had only seen his E-fit, but Shelby had described him perfectly to the police. Shining the torch back around the room, Ashley searched for any signs that Riley had been here. A box used as a crib. A ball of blankets twisted into a makeshift bed. There was nothing. No sign of him. It was just Jay-Jay here, all alone.
Bang. A noise again, this time from upstairs. Jay-Jay wasn’t alone after all. Though Ashley guessed that this place was full of people like Jay-Jay. Down-and-outs, druggies and addicts, all using the derelict squat as somewhere to stay.
Standing inside the doorway of the room, Ashley gripped the bar tightly with both hands. Creeping towards the sleeping bag, ready to batter Andrews; to cave the bastard’s head in for what he’d done to Shelby. Only as much as he wanted to murder the man, he had to let him live because he had to find Riley. Ashley brought the bar down hard on the man’s stomach instead.
The sudden fury of the impact abruptly woke the man, though the padding of his coat and bedding protected him from the worst. Within seconds, Jay-Jay Andrews was up on his feet. Towering above Ashley, his frame might have been slim and undernourished looking, but the evil look on his face made Ashley instantly regret thinking that he could take this man on. He was no match for him. But Ashley had made the first move; now he had no choice but to hit out again.
Swiping again, the bar clanged against Jay-Jay’s skull, knocking the man backwards, unbalanced, off his feet as the pain erupted through him.
‘Where’s
