He spotted Billy pulling up a stool at the bar and decided to go and join him; he could do with a drink and five minutes off.

              “It’s on the house, and I’ll have a Jack and Coke,” Paul interrupted, as he caught the end of Billy’s drinks order to the bartender.

              “Cheers Paul, nice one; thought you didn’t drink while you were working, though?” Billy smiled.

              “Well, that was the original plan, but every now and then won’t hurt, huh?” Paul could see all was not well with Billy; the bloke had worry etched on his forehead.

              “How’s my little sister doing?” Billy tried to make conversation to take his mind off the shitty day he had had. Following Jay seemed to have opened up a whole can of worms, Billy had seen a few things today, and to say he was annoyed was a massive understatement; he didn’t know how to play things, the rules had all changed today.

              “Kate’s a little diamond, Billy; she has the punters eating out of her hands.”

Billy smiled, nodding in agreement. Kate had a way of being liked by everyone, he just hoped that no-one took that the wrong way and overstepped the mark.

              “She’s no pushover though; she can shoot a man down with a stare if he crosses the line you know.” Laughing now, Paul said, “I should know, I’ve had the pleasure of watching the poor wounded guys’ faces that have been on the receiving end.” As if he had read Billy’s mind, he continued. “She won’t get any trouble in here, Billy, I’ll personally make sure of it mate, besides she is actually a lot stronger-minded than she looks.”

Paul looked over to the bar where Kate was working; he could see her smiling and chatting away to Lucy, the other barmaid on duty. They were both laughing and joking as they poured drinks; being careful to include the punters in their banter, they had everyone smiling. Turning back, he asked,

              “So how are things with you, Billy? You look like you have the weight of the world on those shoulders of yours, everything okay?”

He nodded to the barman to top up their glasses, as Billy sighed; he did have the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had been following Jay for a few more days now and had been to more hovels than the average rat; the guy had fingers in many pies, each and every one of them as cheap and nasty as the next. Billy had just seen him go into Kate’s friend’s Emma’s flat; God knew what the guy was playing at. He had decided he would lie low here for a bit and then go back and pay Emma a little visit when Jay had gone, see what the girl was playing at.

              “Nothing that can’t be sorted out,” Billy replied; he had every intention of doing so later on.

              “Anything I can help with?” Paul was intrigued.

              “Nah, this is something that I should have settled a long time ago… something long overdue, besides, I think you’ve already had a bash at “it”, so to speak, a while back.”

Suddenly realising who Billy was hinting at, Paul could instantly feel his hackles rise; he felt his body tensing just at the thought of Jay’s name. He could handle that the guy had taken the piss and used the club to deal his crap from; it went on, it wasn’t such a huge deal, Jay had been given a hiding: job done. But more and more, as Paul had got to know Kate, he had grown more and more to physically hate Jay. Kate never said anything outright about Jay’s behaviour, or not the bad side of it, but he could sense that the whole thing just wasn’t right. Jay wasn’t capable of seeing how amazing Kate was, he certainly wouldn’t be capable of doing right by her. By the sounds of it, Kate knew he was generally up to no good, but she couldn’t have the slightest inkling of what he was actually up to, or there would be no way she would be with him: he was sure of that. Paul had decided when she had first mentioned being Jay’s girlfriend that he would keep quiet about what he knew. He would let Kate work it out in her own time; he had hoped that would be sooner rather than later.

              “I’m sure that whatever needs doing, Billy, you’re more than capable of sorting it out, but if you need me, you just say the word,” Paul said.

              “Cheers mate.” Downing his drink, Billy gave Kate a nod and indicated that he was going upstairs; he had just come to see her, but she was busy, and he hadn’t wanted her to feel like he was keeping tabs on her.

              “See you later, mate, cheers for the drink.”

Billy made his way to the gentlemen’s lounge. Paul watched as he walked upstairs, he was a big bloke, as broad as he was tall. He felt that he had witnessed the calm before the storm. Billy was never a man of many words, but Paul could tell that he was troubled. He liked Billy, he always had. Since Kate had started working for him, she had done nothing but sing Billy’s praises, the only negative thing she had ever hinted at about Billy was that he was very over-protective but that she knew he had her best interests at heart. Paul couldn’t help wondering about that, though, how could Billy stand back and watch his sister be with such a lowlife? He imagined that it must take a lot for him to remain calm and controlled. It just didn’t make sense, surely he wasn’t happy about the relationship. Paul had heard that Billy had even let Jay have a small hand in his business dealings. Maybe it wasn’t as simple as that, though, he knew the theory behind the old saying “keep your friends close…” and all that. Something was definitely up, he was convinced that it involved Jay, and if he was right he had no pity for Jay, the guy had a lot coming to him. Paul could see there was something unhinged in Billy, something in his eyes, he was not a man to be crossed.

28

She pulled the thick blue rope up and reached up on her toes to make it tie around the light fitting on the ceiling; it was a big wrought-iron light fitting so it had seemed strong enough. She had already made a big loop on one end of the rope. She had only ever seen this sort of thing in films, and had up until now thought that attempting suicide was done by somebody using it as a pathetic cry for help, to gain attention. Well, that wasn’t an option for her anymore, she had no-one who could help her and attention was the last thing she needed, she had had enough attention to last a lifetime: all of the wrong kind.

She stood on a chair and pulled down hard on the rope, she could feel a rope burn on her right palm as she tugged tightly and knew it was strong enough to hold her.

She looked at the brown wooden chair she was standing on, at her pale, grubby feet, her scuffed toenail-varnish; her feet were as neglected as the rest of her. She didn’t care about herself anymore, she had let herself go. She wasn’t sure whether she should have written a note, but looking over at the dining room table she was glad she had now. There were two envelopes, one addressed to her parents, letting them know that it wasn’t their fault and that she loved them and was sorry. Her mum would be devastated, but she wasn’t sure if she would be more upset that the illusion of her successful daughter was shattered more than finding out the truth of what her daughter had actually become. Her dad would be disgusted and very disappointed, he had bought and paid for her to have the best throughout her childhood and he would not have understood how she had come to this at all. They lived in another world, most of the time, they had bridge afternoons and dinner parties; they had no idea of how everyone else lived, struggling to get by and doing whatever was needed to pay the bills. There was a time that she had been tempted to call and tell them everything, sure deep down that they would help her and take her away from it all. Something had stopped her, though: a combination of shame and fear, as over the months she had sunk lower and lower. Even the punters knew it. She was a mess, a down-and-out, there to be used and abused, and for practically pennies now as she was so far out of it these days she would just mainly lay there in her own little dream world, hardly even acknowledging whoever was grinding and panting away on top of her.