The Promise Page 29

  ‘Turns out you ain’t so much like your mum as I first thought,’ Delray said nastily. By the state of her, the kid must have put up a good fight. He knew that.

  Georgie didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Biting her lip, she fought back her tears.

  All she could feel was a white hot rage burning inside of her.

  ‘We don’t like you. You’re horrible,’ Marnie said, picking up the tension around her, the fact that Delray was being mean to her sister.

  Delray laughed.

  ‘Well that, Marnie, to you especially, is tough shit.’

  Bored of the melodramatics, Delray needed to get a move on. Hamza’s men were waiting. Tonight could still be salvaged.

  There was unfinished business.

  ‘Get her back in the apartment now and stay put until I say so, do you hear me?’ Pointing at Marnie, Delray instructed Mandy to move.

  Then he looked at Javine and Georgie.

  ‘You two are coming with me. Get your arses in gear.’

  ‘Delray, please. They’re just kids. Leave them be,’ Mandy said, knowing that leaving them be was no longer an option. It had gone way beyond that now.

  She felt genuinely scared for the girls. They were in real danger. They all were. There would be no coming back from this tonight.

  In all her years, Mandy had seen many sides of Delray, but this was far scarier than anything she’d encountered.

  Delray was unhinged.

  ‘I said, fucking move!’ Bellowing now, Delray marched towards Mandy and grabbed a chunk of her hair. Dragging her along the corridor, ignoring her screams of pain, he shoved her inside the doorway of the apartment.

  ‘You,’ he said looking at Marnie. ‘Move it too!’

  Holding the bag with the two dogs in it, still petrified, Marnie ran past Delray seeking comfort in her Auntie Mandy.

  ‘Right, you two. Let’s go.’ Shouting his orders, Delray grabbed hold of Georgie by the arm and led her into the lift. ‘Mr Nagi is waiting. You’ve both got some serious making-up to do.’

  ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Javine said, her voice resolute.

  ‘You what?’ Delray turned to laugh at the girl’s delusional choice of words – only to be stopped in his tracks.

  Javine was standing in front of him, pointing a gun directly at him.

  His gun, he realised.

  The bitch had been in his safe.

  “Oh, have a fucking laugh.” He sneered, hoping the girl was just calling his bluff. The resolute look on her face told him otherwise.

  ‘Calm down, Javine. Let’s not get fucking hasty,’ Delray said, reading the look on Javine’s face. The anger that flashed in her eyes. There was no doubt in Delray’s mind that the girl would shoot him. She was more than capable of causing murders this one; he’d seen the state she’d made of Hamza.

  ‘Let go of her,’ Javine said, keeping her arm steady. Her finger hovering over the trigger, she indicated to Georgie to move away from the man.

  Delray did as he was told, and held his hands up, hoping to buy himself some extra time.

  ‘All right, Javine, for fuck’s sake. Put the gun down, yeah. Before you do something you really regret.’

  ‘Regret?’ Javine spat. ‘I’ll tell you about regret, shall I?’

  ‘Mandy, take the girls downstairs. Wait for me, okay,’ Javine said, her eyes not once leaving Delray’s.

  Mandy nodded, feeling bad for fleeing at the first opportunity, but her only priority was the two girls. Mandy needed to get them out of here to make sure they were safe.

  As the doors opened, Mandy ushered the girls into the lift, then she looked at Javine, her conscience eating her up.

  Javine might be a stuck-up little cow, but she wasn’t much more than a kid herself. Gun or no gun, she was no match for Delray. One wrong move, one slip and Delray would annihilate her for doing all of this tonight. Mandy couldn’t just leave her.

  ‘Are you coming, Javine?’

  Javine shook her head. Resolute.

  ‘I’ll meet you downstairs.’

  As the lift doors closed, Mandy nodded silently, praying that Javine knew what she was doing.

  * * *

  ‘Javine this is stupid,’ Delray said. He was trying to talk the girl down, but going by the determined look on her face he knew that wasn’t going to be an easy task.

  ‘There’s no need for all this bullshit. It’s just got out of hand. How about we cut a deal? How about I let you leave, huh? I’ll tell Hamza that you weren’t here, that you must have got away. He’ll be pissed, but I’m sure he’ll get over it eventually,’ Delray said, hoping that he could appeal to Javine’s softer side.

  He just needed her to lower the gun.

  Just lose her focus for a few seconds and then he would sort this shit out once and for all.

  Only, Javine didn’t look like she was about to lose focus anytime soon.

  ‘It’s win-win. I tell him you got away, and that way you get to leave and I get to not have one of my own bullets lodged in my skull.’

  Javine shook her head again. ‘I don’t want you to tell him that I got away.’

  ‘Why not?’ Delray raised his eyebrows, thinking he must be missing something. He was giving her a get out of jail card here, yet Javine didn’t seem to want it.

  ‘Because I want to stay here and kill you, that’s why,’ she said.

  He could see she meant it too. Every word of it.

  Aware of everything he’d done to the girl, his plans for her tonight. There wasn’t any getting out of this. Unless he could get the gun off her.

  ‘You tried to destroy me, Delray. But you didn’t do it. You couldn’t do it,’ Javine said, her eyes transfixed on Delray. ‘After everything you did to me, you really think that I was stupid enough to stick around? That I’d fall for all your bullshit? Getting engaged? After what you put me through?’

  Delray shrugged.

  ‘Well that’s just it, Javine, you did stick around, didn’t you? You stayed, and do you know why you stayed, because you’re a greedy little whore.’ Delray wanted to rile her up a bit, get her so vexed with him that she’d forget about the fact that she had a gun pointed at his head.

  ‘You just wanted all of this. This place, the kudos, my money!’

  Holding his arms out, gesturing at the wealth all around him, Delray laughed now.

  ‘Only, girls like you don’t deserve any of this, Javine. Girls like you don’t work nearly fucking hard enough for all of this. You think you can just lie on your back and it’s yours, like it’s your God-given right?’ Delray spat. ‘That ain’t how things work. Put the gun down, Javine. This is fucking stupid. If you were going to shoot me, you would have done it by now.’

  ‘Well that’s where you’re wrong, Delray,’ Javine said as she saw his bravado slowly fading. ‘I didn’t shoot you because I didn’t want to put Georgie and Marnie through the trauma of seeing someone have their brains blown out over the wall behind them,’ Javine sneered.

  Delray was scared now. He was hiding it well, but his sudden silence gave him away.

  ‘You might not care about Georgie and Marnie, but I do, and those girls have been through enough these past few days to last them a lifetime. No thanks to you and that mother of theirs.’

  Javine was thinking of her own mother too now.

  All those painful memories that she’d buried so deep.

  The woman hadn’t given two shits about her as a child.

  All she’d cared about was making her fortune. Even if it meant that she had to pimp her own kid out. The woman had been just like Delray: they were two of a kind.

  She didn’t even realise that she’d pulled the trigger until the loud gunshot rang out, making her jump.

  She stared at Delray with pure fascination as his face twisted into a warped look of pain and shock.

  Blood spurted out from the bullet hole in his chest.

  Shooting again, Javine aimed at his stomach.

  Delray flopped to t
he floor then, lifeless, like a rag doll, as Javine stood over him.

  Watching him die.

  Smiling down at him as he took his last strangled breath.

  One bullet for him, and one for her mother.The one that had got away.

  She was done now.

  No one else would ever hurt her again. She’d make sure of that.

  Tucking the gun back inside her pocket, Javine grabbed the holdall containing Delray’s money from the floor behind her, and pressed the button for the lift.

  Delray had underestimated her.

  Granted, she was broken in places, but broken people were the most dangerous of all.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  ‘Do you fancy another slice of toast and chocolate spread, Marnie?’ Tania Moore asked as she sat down at the kitchen table opposite her husband and checked the time.

  Rose would be here soon to pick Marnie up for her counselling session. Both the girls were having EMDR: a type of counselling technique used for treating post-traumatic stress syndrome.

  ‘Oh no, one slice is more than enough, isn’t it, Marnie?’ Carl winked at the child and Marnie giggled. ‘She’s not a little greedy guts, are you, Marnie?’

  Marnie giggled and shook her head.

  ‘I mean, it’s not like we snuck any more toast and chocolate spread while you were upstairs getting ready and ate it up really quickly before you came down and caught us, is it, Marnie?’

  Again Marnie shook her head, trying her hardest not to giggle.

  ‘One slice huh?’ Tania smiled playing along. ‘That’s an awful lot of chocolate around your mouth, madam, for just one slice.’

  Marnie grinned at Carl. Hearing him snigger she couldn’t contain herself any longer, bursting out laughing.

  ‘Okay, we had two slices each. Didn’t we, Carl?’

  Carl held his hands up good-naturedly.

  ‘You caught us!’

  Smiling, Tania poured herself a cup of tea and sipped it while she observed Marnie.

  She was glad that she was settling in. Three weeks ago when she’d arrived here it had been a very different story. Marnie had seemed withdrawn, shy. After everything that Tania and Carl had been told about the child’s circumstances they could see that she was very damaged. Her sister, Georgie, too. Tania had a feeling that they’d turned a corner now though. Marnie hadn’t wet the bed for three days in a row. Her bedding had been bone dry.

  Even this morning, with another counselling session hanging over her, she didn’t seem fractious or agitated at all. In fact, this morning was the happiest Tania had ever seen the child.

  ‘Right, me and Georgie are off now, Mum! See you later, Dad!’

  Stepping around the table, already dressed in her coat and shoes, Hollie gave her mother and father a kiss on the cheek. ‘See you later titch!’ Hollie said, ruffling Marnie’s hair fondly.

  Tania eyed her daughter curiously.

  She was another person the girls seemed to have a positive impact on. Ever since Georgie had moved in, she and Hollie had become inseparable. Constantly locked away inside Hollie’s bedroom, laughing and giggling.

  Tania normally had to treat getting out the door to school like a military operation, forcing her out of the bed and nagging her to eat her breakfast and brush her hair, but lately Hollie had motivated herself. Up and dressed early, Georgie and Hollie couldn’t get out the door quick enough. Tania smiled to herself. It was nice that Hollie and Georgie had become such good friends.

  ‘See you later, Marnie.’ Standing in the doorway behind her, Georgie blew Marnie a kiss.

  Marnie pretended to catch it and put it in her pocket.

  Then Carl pretended to grab it back out. The giggling persisted.

  ‘You’re going to get to school awfully early, girls. You haven’t even had any breakfast,’ Tania said, wondering what the girls were up to that they needed to leave the house an hour before school started when it was only a five-minute walk.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum!’ Hollie rolled her eyes, used to her mum’s constant fretting. ‘We’ll get something at the canteen. We’re meeting our friends there, aren’t we, Georgie?’

  Georgie nodded.

  She hated lying to Tania, especially after the woman was so nice to her. She felt bad.

  ‘Okay, well, make sure you do.’ Tania looked at Georgie. ‘Don’t forget I’m picking you up at lunchtime today for your visit.’

  Tania gave her a wry smile as Georgie nodded again.

  Tania could have kicked herself for her wording. Of course the girl wasn’t going to forget. Today was going to be the first time since her mother had been arrested that Georgie would see her.

  She expected, if anything, the visit would be playing heavily on the girl’s mind, not that she’d ever know with Georgie. Georgie was very closed off, and as Tania knew from experience, these things took time.

  She wasn’t as outgoing as Marnie: she held back a little.

  The only person she really seemed to get along with and trust was Hollie, and for now, that was something at least.

  She’d get there in the end with the rest of it, Tania had no doubt. Between her and Carl looking out for the girls, and Rose Feltham ensuring that they had the best counsellors and support available to them, they were all determined to try and make Georgie and Marnie happy again.

  ‘See you later then, girls.’

  ‘See you later!’ the girls chorused back as they slammed the front door behind them.

  Carl Moore sat back and gave Tania a look. Aware that Marnie was sitting here, they were communicating in their special code. Tania shrugged.

  ‘It’s just friends.’

  Carl pursed his lips not so sure.

  ‘Uh, Uh!’ Marnie said knowingly as she scooped her finger along the chocolate spread that smudged across her plate, and then sucked her finger. Tania and Carl were rubbish at not letting her know what they were really taking about. ‘You do know that “friends” really means “boys”, don’t you?’ Marnie said innocently. Her eyes wide; her face all serious.

  ‘I overheard them last night. They are meeting Freddy and Harry, the twins. Hollie said she’s got a crush on Freddy, but she thinks Freddy likes Georgie. Georgie says she doesn’t want a boyfriend though, so she said Hollie can have him. But Hollie said that she doesn’t want a boyfriend either. They just pretend they do because they like the boys carrying their bags for them all the time, and fetching them their lunch trays. They said it makes all the other girls jealous of them.’

  Tania looked at Carl, both of them stifling their laughs.

  ‘I don’t know how they think that boys make them look really cool, though. Boys are just smelly,’ Marnie said matter-of-factly before pushing her plate aside now that she’d finished licking up the chocolate.

  Tania couldn’t help but laugh at Marnie’s tone. Carl shook his head, unable to keep a straight face either.

  ‘Our regular little spy!’ Then for good measure he screwed up his nose. ‘Er, hang on, does that mean that I’m just a smelly boy then?’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re a man,’ Marnie reasoned, seeing the pretend hurt on Carl’s face. Then she saw Tania wink at her before she wafted her hand in front of her nose, getting in with the fun. ‘So that makes you extra, extra smelly,’ Marnie concluded, before she fell about laughing once again.

  Chapter Fifty

  ‘Face this wall, please. Stand still and don’t pat the dog,’ the prison officer instructed as the passive drug dog carried out its search on Georgie.

  Sniffing at her legs, it quickly circled around her before moving on to Tania who was standing at Georgie’s side.

  Satisfied that the two visitors weren’t concealing anything illegal on their person, the prison officer led them through to the main visitor’s room.

  ‘Place your finger on the scanner pad.’

  Shaking now, Georgie held her hand still. Hearing a bleep, the prison officer nodded curtly at the girl and allowed them through the secure door that
led into the main visitor’s room.

  ‘You can go through now.’

  Georgie was shaking. She knew visiting her mum in prison was going to be a scary experience, but she hadn’t factored in for the fact that she would have to be patted down and searched. That she’d have her fingerprints scanned. A dog sniffing around her. The entire process felt like it had taken ages. The guards hadn’t been overly friendly either. Most of them cold and abrupt.

  By the time Georgie stepped through into the visiting room, with Tania following closely behind her, she felt like she was a criminal herself.

  Georgie spotted her mother straight away. That bright blonde mop of hair. She was sitting half way across the hall, at a table underneath the window.

  ‘Georgie, darling?’ Josie said as Georgie and Tania approached her. Wrapping her arms briefly around her daughter, Josie couldn’t stop her tears from falling as she hugged the girl to her. ‘It feels like I haven’t seen you in for ever, Georgie. I missed you so much.’

  Sitting down opposite her mother, she was overcome with emotion. Georgie couldn’t help but cry then too.

  It had only been a few weeks, yet, already, her mother looked so much older.

  Void of make-up; bags under her eyes.

  She hadn’t lost that sparkle in her eyes though.

  ‘And you must be Tania?’ Josie smiled warmly at the woman. ‘Thank you for taking such good care of my girls.’

  Tania nodded. Unnerved by the woman’s politeness. This wasn’t the Josie she’d been anticipating. In fact, she hadn’t known what to expect at all.

  ‘How you doing, Georgie darling?’ Josie said sitting opposite her child now. Trying to coax her into talking. She knew that this was hard. Coming into prison like this, seeing her locked away.

  ‘How’s your sister doing?’

  Georgie nodded. ‘She’s good, Mum.’ A tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the table between them both.