The Faithless - Martina Cole [30]
It was all that was left to her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Have a guess who I just saw?’
Jack Callahan shook his head, uninterested in his wife’s yammering.
‘Shaw Taylor, that’s who.’
Shaw Taylor was the star of a programme called Police 5 from the early sixties, where he would ask the public nicely to grass up various members of their families or their communities. Shaw Taylor was also the nickname they’d given Cynthia since she had caused all the trouble a year before. If she knew she would be mortified.
‘Was she on her way here?’
‘’Course not, she would have been here by now, stupid. She was going into the train station, so I assume she’s going up west.’
Jack Callahan didn’t answer; they all knew she didn’t shop or go anywhere local any more. Her name was a byword for treachery and so it should be. Every time he thought of what she had done he felt a murderous rage that he had fathered her. If she wasn’t so like his own mother in looks he might have accused his wife of all sorts after his daughter had grassed everyone within her orbit. That she was capable of something so fucking heinous, so disgusting . . . He shook his head once more in absolute disbelief.
‘Poor old Celeste. She still feels guilty about it – after everything she still tries to make excuses for her sister.’
Jack Callahan didn’t even bother to reply; Cynthia had been nothing but trouble since she could open that big painted trap of hers. He didn’t want her anywhere near him now. As long as she left the kids here regular like, he couldn’t give a toss whether he ever saw her again. Good job she didn’t know what was going on now, or they’d all be up shit street. His son-in-law Jonny was coining it in, and sailing a bit too close to the edge, even by his standards. Truth be told, even Jack was getting a bit shirty at the lad’s audacity. But Jonny seemed to know what he was doing. He had a knack for skulduggery, and he had the sense to temper it with legitimate enterprises, so he could at least explain where the houses and cars came from. But sneaking over to South London was a daring little escapade, and it could cause nothing but grief to everyone concerned. Not that anyone involved seemed to be bothered about that. It was as if the old standards had died, and anyone who still believed in them was classed as a dinosaur.
Well, maybe Jack was a dinosaur, but he felt that the old guard, with their boundaries and their guidelines, had it right. You can’t go around taking other people’s earns without a fight, no matter who you were. It was the principle of the thing. He had a bad feeling about these new premises. The men on the receiving end of Jonny’s new enterprises would not take it lightly, he knew that much.
Jonny Parker was a clever boy, and Jack thought the world of him, but he believed he had crossed one too many lines with this latest rigmarole. Bloody drugs, they caused no end of trouble, whether it was for the dealer or the buyer. Look at Jimmy, he was snorting up that white powder like his life depended on it. Although living with that fucking daughter of his, he could feel sorry for him in many ways. But drugs were drugs, and Jack didn’t like them, and he didn’t like the mayhem they caused for all concerned. But he would keep his own counsel for now and see what occurred. The problem was, his Celeste was in the firing line if it went tits up, and that was what was really worrying him.
In Jack’s day, there was honour among thieves, as much as that sounded like a contradiction in terms. Not any more though – now it was every man for themselves. And Jonny Parker wanted it all for himself, every pavement, and every earn.
It was nothing more than a recipe for disaster.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jonny Parker was not as worried as he probably should have been, and that fact pleased him no end. He was taking a big chance and he knew it; he was putting his life on the line. But if he didn’t do this, he knew he would regret it one day. He had always gone with his instincts and they, so far, had