Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jimmy was nervous, not frightened, but he was nervous, because he knew Freddie was not going to accept his expulsion from the business with easy grace.

Freddie had been given a message to come and see him, and he was psyched up and ready for him. Freddie was a wild card. He had seen some of the stunts he had pulled over the years on people he had seen as doing him down, or, as was more often the case, because he had no further use for them.

He would take this personally because of the blood tie and also because he saw Jimmy as taking what he saw as his by rights. Jimmy was in effect banishing him from what had always been his world, and he was not wavering at all. In fact, he was going to relish telling him.

Jimmy had given him opportunity after opportunity to redeem himself and Freddie, being Freddie, had thrown them all back in his face. Now he was going to find out that he was on the lowest rung of the ladder that denoted their particular food chain, and he was the one calling the shots, not Freddie.

Jimmy had swallowed his knob over the years but that mad bastard he had reared was the final straw. He couldn't tell Maggie what had happened, and he couldn't ever let on to anyone else, but Freddie had known what was expected of him and he had not kept his end of the bargain, so he was out.

Not just out of the business but out of his world completely. He did not want to clap eyes on him ever again. If that meant he had to remove him from the face of the earth, then so be it. Jimmy only wished that he had made a point of taking him out sooner.

How Freddie coped with it was up to him, but anyone who employed him would not be able to deal with Jimmy or his workforce ever again, he would make that known everywhere.

Freddie was going to be a pariah and no one except the two of them would know why, and Freddie would understand that he was not going to let him walk away from his problems any more.

He should have done this when Freddie had done Lenny, but he had given him another pass. Well, he was all out of family loyalty now, so fuck him and fuck his poxy kid. Freddie Junior was his father's son all right, another mad cunt had been unleashed on the world. Well, Freddie Jackson had better take the boy as far away from him and his family as he could, because if he ever saw him he would run him down without a second's thought.

It was only Maggie that was stopping him from blowing Freddie and that mad little bastard wide open. Maggie had enough to contend with without knowing what had really happened to her boy, and he would protect her as long as he had breath in his body.

She must never, ever know.

Freddie was finished in their world, and that would be punishment enough for him because he lived and breathed his reputation. Well, let him try and muscle in on Jimmy after he had delivered the bad news, and Freddie Jackson would find out exactly what he was dealing with.

He couldn't wait for that to happen. He was shaking with anticipation, and he was high with adrenaline. Freddie had the shock of his life coming to him, and Jimmy was getting impatient with the waiting game he had been forced to play because he had not wanted to hurt anyone's feelings.

Family loyalty was a load of old cods. Who in their right mind wanted to be related to those two-faced lying ponces anyway? He had carried them for years, lent them money, sorted out their problems. He was like the Bank of Jimmy.

Well, not any more. Let them stew in their own juices and let them go to their so-called friends in the future.

They were takers, professional takers and they had taken the thing he held most dear to him, and for that alone, he would never forgive, or, more importantly, forget.

This was for his Jimmy, for his own peace of mind. Like Freddie Jackson before him he now held a grudge and that grudge would see him through the dark days ahead.

Jackie was looking at her eldest child but she was not seeing her. She was seeing what she had ignored over the years. Even when she was a young girl Freddie had coveted her sister. He had watched her, and he had wanted her, thought about her, desired her.

These thoughts were not registering on her face. As Kimberley looked at her mother she knew that she was in a state of shock.

Roxanna was also shocked, in fact she'd been almost at fainting point since Jackie had insisted that Maggie must have seduced her father. 'You can't believe what you are saying, Mum. Like Maggie would want him anywhere near her.' The inference being that no woman in her right mind would want her husband, this girl's own father.

Jackie's head snapped towards this beautiful daughter who at this moment she could happily strangle. The truth was screaming inside her skull, but being the personality type she was, she could never admit out loud that Freddie wanted her sister, even though she knew it was the truth. Freddie wanted anyone who came near him and was in the least bit shaggable.

Jackie had laughed about it over the years, she had been forced to. It was how she had saved face. Especially when she had found out about him with her friends, with her neighbours, when she had seen young girls looking at her in the pub, and finding her lacking. She had endured knowing that they had intimate knowledge of her man, and that some of them had produced children for him.

She had accepted so much because she could not in any way envisage her life without him somewhere in the background, no matter what he did or how he treated her. And in his own way he had stood by her. She was the only woman he had ever stood by, even though it was in a callous and often degrading way.

Jackie was going to be Freddie Jackson's wife until the day she died. It afforded her the only kudos she had ever experienced, and it also guaranteed her a level of protection that enabled her to drink and drug with impunity.

Since the turnout with Terry Baker, her confidence, which had never been in abundance, was at rock bottom. Another humiliation was more than she would be able to endure. Freddie was everything to her, he made her a valid person. From the first moment she had been with him, she had felt like she was somebody, and she was, she was Freddie Jackson's bird, his woman, eventually his wife.

The money was only a small part of it all. She loved him with every fibre of her being, and if Maggie thought she was going to change that she would find out how wrong she could be.

He had lived his life hunting out strange and she had accepted everything, but she could not in all conscience accept this.

She knew this ought to be kept quiet, she actually wanted it kept quiet because the thought of anyone knowing made her feel almost suicidal. But she also knew she could not keep this to herself. A few drinks and it would be blurted out in temper, or worse, she would throw it at Freddie and he would turn it back at her, making a terrible situation even worse.

She needed to strike first, make this common knowledge, cause trouble for Maggie. Jackie knew better than anyone how to play the wronged wife – she had had enough practice over the years after all.

Maggie, dead child or no dead child, had betrayed her. Rape be buggered, the truth would be out there in seconds. Her mind was made up.

Freddie had decided to make a short detour on his way to Jimmy's office. He pulled up to the pub, and after standing for a few moments, as if surveying his realm, he decided that Jimmy Jackson could come to him, so he sauntered inside and ordered a large Scotch.

Paul and Liselle were pleased to see him, at least as pleased as anyone who knew him could be. Paul refilled his drink as soon as it was empty and the two men smiled at each other. He could feel the usual animosity off Freddie, but today there was a new feeling, an undercurrent of menace that was not usually so evident.