Shafted Read online

  ‘You could be right,’ Jane agreed, pursing her lips as she mulled it over. ‘But it doesn’t make sense that she’d go for him, though. I mean, she must have known who he was and what he did to your dad, so wouldn’t she have told him to sling it?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have thought she was the kind to go with his enemies behind his back,’ Nora said. She gave Jane a pointed look as she added, ‘That’s more your line, that,’ letting her know that she’d neither forgotten nor forgiven her for shagging Dex’s mate behind his back that time.

  Eyes glinting with irritation, Jane said,‘He knows why I did that, and so do you, so get off your high horse. It was revenge for what he did to me.’

  ‘And this might be her revenge,’ Molly chipped in, giving her mother a defiant look. ‘She must have found out about you and me dad, eh?’

  Looking from Molly to Jane, Nora said, ‘Oh, don’t tell me you and him have been at it again?’

  ‘Never stopped, according to her,’ Molly said.

  ‘Well, how come I never heard nowt about it?’ Nora demanded. ‘Dex tells me everything.’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Molly muttered smugly.

  ‘All right, pack it in,’ Jane snapped. ‘Me and Dex have been seeing each other, Nora, yeah . . . and there’s nowt you can do about it, so you might as well quit worrying. You know I never stopped loving the idiot, so I don’t see why you’re so surprised. And even you’ve got to admit I’m better for him that that treacherous slag.’

  Nora wasn’t happy about this latest revelation at all – but, as Jane had said, there was nothing she could do about it. Not right now, anyway. But she’d have a damn good go when she got her hands on that bloody son of hers!

  ‘So, are we agreed?’ Molly said now. ‘We’re gonna get the bitch and give her a kicking?’

  Sighing heavily, Nora nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s what she deserves, I suppose.’

  ‘No “suppose” about it,’ Jane muttered. ‘She’s gone too far this time, and the Lewises have got to show her what’s what.’

  Gaynor was still sleeping when Molly used her key to let herself, her nan, and her mother into the flat an hour later. Georgie had dropped her at Larry’s place straight from the prison yesterday, but she’d had no intention of staying there. Waiting until the nosy bitch had gone, she’d called a cab and had it bring her home, where she had spent the entire night sobbing into Dex’s pillow.

  Exhausted now, having finally cried herself to sleep just a couple of hours earlier, she thought she was dreaming when she felt a violent punch in her stomach. But then the pain hit, and she knew it was real. Opening her eyes to find the three Lewis women standing over her, their faces wreathed in hatred as they smashed their fists down on her head and body, Gaynor could do nothing but try to protect her face as the blows rained down on her. Afraid that they were going to carry on until she was dead, she closed her eyes and prayed to God to make it quick.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and Nora yelled, ‘Look at me, you bitch!’

  Afraid that they would start hitting her again if she didn’t, Gaynor forced her eyes open and looked up at them fearfully.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ Nora demanded, pulling the by now tatty newspaper out of her pocket and flapping it open to show Gaynor the proof of her betrayal.

  Groaning, Gaynor opened her mouth to explain, but coughed instead as blood trickled down her throat.

  ‘Don’t you try and get out of this by fucking choking yourself!’ Jane snarled, grabbing her by the front of her pyjama top and hauling her into a sitting position. Tossing her back against the headboard then, she wiped her hands on her jeans as if they were dirty, and said,‘You’ve got a fucking cheek lying here in my Dex’s bed after what you’ve done to him!’

  ‘I’m not trying to get out of anything,’ Gaynor croaked, slurring over her words as her lip swelled painfully. ‘And Dex knows about it. It was his idea.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ Nora snorted disbelievingly. ‘My Derek would never put up with something disgusting like this! You know what he did to her when she did him over like that,’ she said, jerking a thumb in Jane’s direction. ‘Anyhow, he’s banged up, so how the hell’s he gonna know about you and your bloody fancy man?’

  ‘I swear!’ Gaynor yelped, wincing as Molly raised a hand to hit her again. ‘He planned it from the start. Almost as soon as he got banged up, he started thinking up ways to get back at Logan—’

  ‘Isn’t that Larry, baby to you?’ Molly mocked.

  ‘I’ve never had any feelings for him,’ Gaynor muttered, resenting Dex for putting her in the position of having to explain herself to his bitch brat of a daughter. ‘And I didn’t want to do it, but Dex begged me to.’

  ‘Why?’ Nora peered down at her questioningly. ‘It doesn’t make sense. What could he possibly gain out of doing something like this?’

  Careful not to mention the money, because she knew they’d be all over her in a flash if they thought they could get their hands on it, Gaynor said, ‘Revenge. If I could get Logan to trust me, I’d have access to his flat, and that made it easy to do all that stuff with his computer.’

  Slapping Molly out of the way when she leaned forward to ask how long it had been going on, Nora frowned as she struggled to put the pieces in place.

  ‘So, he sent you to get off with Logan? And then encouraged you to sleep with him, just so’s you could get at his computer?’ Nora murmured, wondering how all of this could have happened without Dex telling her a single thing. ‘And what about that girl?’ she asked now. ‘Was that all his doing from the start, an’ all?’

  ‘No.’ Gaynor shook her head, wondering how Nora could be so stupid as to ask something like that when she already knew that Tania had met Larry way before he met Dex. ‘She just popped back up and started trying to get to Logan,’ she explained now. ‘But he didn’t remember her, so she must have got mad and tried to make him look bad by saying she’d been under age when it started. But it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, and how would you know?’ Molly spat.

  ‘I just do,’ Gaynor replied coolly, not wanting to appear to be defending Larry by explaining how she’d seen him tear himself up about it. And not wanting to let them think that she had had feelings for him by telling them that she knew him well enough by now to know that he simply wasn’t capable of what he’d been accused of.

  ‘So, when he had me and Molly batter that girl,’ Jane chipped in – not noticing the glint in Gaynor’s eye at the mention of Dex having spoken to her recently – ‘he’d already had you working on the kiddie-porn shit at Logan’s place?’

  Hissing ‘No’ between her teeth, Gaynor made a determined effort to keep a lid on the rage which was flaring in her bruised gut.

  ‘So how did he manage it, then?’ Nora asked confusedly.

  ‘He had Mark break in when Logan was out,’ Gaynor told her. ‘But Dex didn’t tell me how he was going to do it, because he didn’t want me involved in that bit so I couldn’t get dragged into it if it went wrong.’

  ‘More like he knew you’d fuck it up,’ Jane sneered. ‘That’s why he came to me to sort the girl out.’

  ‘And me,’ Molly reminded her, refusing to let her mother take all the credit.

  ‘Okay, I get all that,’ Nora said quietly, still mulling it over. ‘But I totally don’t get why he wanted you to marry the bastard. Surely it was enough to get him banged up, so he’d be able to get at him?’

  ‘Probably wanted to get her married off so he’d be free of the silly bitch when he got out,’ Jane said, smiling down at Gaynor nastily as she saw her words hit home like poisoned darts. ‘We all know how bleedin’ clingy she is, don’t we, Mam? He was only saying it the last time we went on a visit, wasn’t he – how he can’t stand the way she talks like she’s posher than the rest of us, and can’t stand to see her preening herself like she’s something special.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Gaynor croaked, tears spilli
ng down her cheeks now. ‘Dex loves me.’

  ‘Sure he does, darlin’,’ Jane spat back. ‘That’s why he’s still been coming round to my place the whole time he’s been with you, eh? God, it must kill you to know he still prefers me.’

  Listening to her mother gloating, Molly began to feel uneasy. It might well be true what her mum was saying, but her dad must have had his reasons for keeping it from Gaynor, and she guessed that it had something to do with this plan of his. Gaynor was obviously crucial to its success, so it would be disastrous if her mum ruined it all now by making Gaynor pull out.

  That in mind, she gave her mother a sharp dig in the ribs with her elbow and said, ‘Right, shut it, Mam! You know I can’t stand this bitch, but I’m not having you lie about me dad like that.’

  ‘You what?’ Jane spluttered.

  ‘You heard,’ Molly said, jutting her chin out and flashing her eyes at her mother, trying to warn her to go with her on this. ‘He got shut of you years ago and told me himself that he’d never go back to you,’ she went on,‘so quit making out like you’ve got something going with him, ’cos you haven’t, and it’s pissing me off. I lived with you for long enough, so I think I’d know if he was coming round or not, and he wasn’t – not once!’

  Nostrils flaring with fury, Jane glared at her daughter. But she didn’t retaliate as she’d have liked to. Molly must have her reasons for saying what she was saying in front of the bitch but, by God, she was going to get a slap round the face for it when they got out of here.

  ‘I’m going home,’ Nora said suddenly, feeling faint from her exertions. Age was no longer creeping up on her, it was hitching a lift on her back and riding her like a mule, kicking the shit out of her every step of the way. Looking down at Gaynor again now, she said, ‘You got a visit coming up?’

  Nodding, Gaynor said, ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Right. Well, don’t you say a bleedin’ word about none of this, or you’ll get more of the same. Understood?’

  ‘Be a bit hard to hide, won’t it?’ Gaynor said cynically, all too aware that she must look a mess, because she could already feel how big her lip was, and one of her eyes was slowly closing.

  ‘You can tell him one of your new hubby’s fans jumped you,’ Molly said sarcastically.

  Telling her to button it, Nora said, ‘Dex has been working on this for too long for us to wade in and screw it up now. He’ll tell me what he’s up to in his own good time, but till then I don’t want no one saying nothing to him. Everyone got that?’ Jerking her head at Jane and Molly when everyone agreed, she said, ‘Come on, you two. I need to get home and make sure our Lyla’s all right.’

  Waiting until she’d heard the front door close behind them, Gaynor gingerly eased the quilt back and hobbled into the bathroom to survey the damage. Standing in front of the mirror, she groaned. She looked a mess, all right, although it wasn’t quite as bad as she’d imagined. Her lip would probably go down a fair bit overnight, but her eyes would be badly bruised for a while. Fortunately, most of the bruising was on her body, so it would be hidden by her clothes. But it was going to hurt like hell to move around for a week or so.

  But the physical pain was nothing compared with the emotional pain she was suffering right now. She’d excused Dex’s lack of sensitivity for so long, putting it down to him being a man – and one dragged up by the emotionally void witch that was Nora, at that. But if Jane was telling the truth he’d been lying to her all along, and she just couldn’t bear that. Although it would certainly explain why he’d been so blasé about her marrying Larry.

  But why should she believe Jane, when all of the Lewises from the time Dex first took her home to meet them had done nothing but slag the woman off? And Molly had actually called her mother a liar to her face, and she certainly wouldn’t have done that to defend Gaynor because she’d never made any secret of the fact that she hated her guts. But had she only done that to cover for Dex? Because he obviously didn’t want Gaynor to know, or he’d have told her by now. And Molly would defend her dad no matter what, even if she had to humiliate her own mother in the process.

  There was something not quite right about all of this, but Gaynor just couldn’t put her finger on it. And there was no way she could ask Dex, because then he’d know that his mother and the other two had been hassling her. And Nora had already warned her what would happen if she did that.

  It was going to be really hard to face Dex tomorrow with all of this going through her mind. But she couldn’t not go, because he’d go crazy. Gaynor desperately didn’t want to think that he’d been using her all along, but she would have to wait and see what her instincts told her tomorrow.

  ‘What the bloody hell was all that about?’ Jane demanded, crunching Patrick’s car into gear and pulling away from the kerb with a squeal of tyres. ‘Me own fucking daughter, talking to me like that in front of that stuck-up bitch!’

  ‘Are you thick?’ the girl retorted, knowing that she could say what she liked because her mum couldn’t reach her while Molly was sat in the back. ‘That stupid cow is doing something for me dad, and you could have messed it up with your bleedin’ bragging.’

  ‘It’s time she knew the score,’ Jane muttered, still bristling. ‘She’ll know soon enough when he gets out and runs to me instead of her.’

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Nora interjected, lighting a cigarette without offering them round. ‘He’ll be coming to his mam before he comes to either of you two, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘He might come to you for your cooking, Nora,’ Jane sniped. ‘But you’re no use to him in the other department, are you? And I’ll kill that bitch with my bare hands if I have to, because I’m sick of her lording it up in his flat, splashing his money around like the queen bloody bee. I’ve given Dex chance after chance, but if he doesn’t make up his mind once and for all when he gets out I’ll make it up for him and get rid of her.’

  ‘Oh, behave,’ Molly snorted. ‘If you start scrapping over him, he’ll just sack the pair of you off and find some other tart. He’s probably already got someone lined up waiting, knowing him.’

  ‘You don’t know your dad like I do,’ Jane said unconcernedly. ‘He’ll be stringing Frosty Knickers along till she’s done what needs doing, then it’ll be “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” time.’

  ‘And you and him will head off into the sunset and live happy ever after?’ Molly sneered. ‘Yeah, right!’

  ‘You two are giving me a flaming migraine,’ Nora grumbled, wishing she’d thought to pick up her painkillers on the way out. ‘I just want to get home and have a brew, and think this out.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll tell me dad what we did?’ Molly asked, sounding a bit worried now.

  ‘Not if she’s got any sense,’ Nora replied. ‘Whatever my Dex is up to, he’s given her a job to do and she ain’t gonna want to admit she screwed it up, is she?’

  ‘He’ll know soon enough when he sees that picture in the paper,’ Jane reminded them.

  ‘Weren’t you listening, you thick bitch?’ Nora snapped. ‘That was his idea. He already knows.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that,’ Jane snapped back. ‘I mean, if he’s kept this from us lot for a reason he’ll realise that we know, ’cos we’re bound to have seen it.’

  Shaking her head, Nora said, ‘Not necessarily. Not if we don’t mention it. He’ll assume we didn’t recognise her. It didn’t mention her name, did it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, there you go, then. We all keep schtum, and it’ll be old news by tomorrow. Soon as Dex is ready, he’ll tell us what he’s up to. But till then, I reckon we should back off from the funny one, ’cos I’ve got a feeling we nearly messed it all up back there.’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Molly piped up indignantly. ‘So how come I got told to button it?’

  ‘’Cos you’re a kid, and should know better than to interfere when the grown-ups are talking,’ Nora told her, sucking on her cigarette and going into an immedi
ate coughing fit – tutting when she’d eventually recovered, because neither Jane nor Molly had lifted a hand to pat her on the back.

  25

  ‘Jeezus, what happened to you?’ Dex asked, peering at Gaynor’s face with concern as she sat down carefully in the chair across the table from him the next day.

  ‘I got jumped,’ she told him, glancing nervously around to see if anyone was looking at her. Fortunately, nobody was, because they were all too busy chatting to their own loved ones.

  ‘By who?’ Dex growled, thinking she was going to tell him that it was one of the guys she was dealing to in his absence. If it was, there would be no warnings for the cunt, just instant death as soon as Dex got back to his cell to arrange it over the mobile.

  ‘One of Larry’s fans,’ Gaynor told him quietly, mentally thanking Molly for giving her a perfectly feasible explanation. ‘I take it you saw yesterday’s paper?’

  ‘Yeah, but you can’t tell it’s you in the picture. I wouldn’t have recognised you in a million years, and you’re my bird.’

  ‘Well, someone obviously did. And she wasn’t very pleased about it, as you can see.’

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ Dex muttered angrily. Then, ‘My mam didn’t recognise you an’ all, did she?’

  ‘Obviously not, or she’d have probably beaten the girl off to get at me herself,’ Gaynor lied. Pausing then, she tapped her nails on the table top before saying, ‘Can I ask why you’re so desperate for her not to know about this, Dex? I thought you told her everything, so why all the secrecy?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ he replied irritably. ‘’Cos I don’t want them sticking their noses in and messing it up. You know what me mam’s like for gossiping. All she’d have to do is let it slip to that Hilda, and the next thing you know the police will be all over us for setting Logan up. Soon as we’re in the clear with the money, I’ll tell them – if that’s what you want,’ he said then, grinning as he added, ‘Who knows, it might even make them respect you a bit more if they see what you were willing to do to help me get revenge.’