“Make us a coffee, would you, Jadey?” Removing her hand, he patted her naked arse, as she got up to wrap her gown round herself before going to the kitchen to make him one. Seeing his phone flash, he noticed he had three missed calls.

              “Alright, Tanya,” he said, picking up the call before it rang out again,

Tanya was crying, and he found it hard to understand what she was saying.

              “What do you mean, he knows? Who knows what?” Jay asked.

              “Billy: he must know about us, Jay, he’s thrown me out; I’ve got nowhere to go.”

              “Alright, where are you now? I’ll come and get you.”

After calming her down and getting her to say where she was, Jay put his clothes on. Jade came in with a mug of coffee.

              “Where are you off to?” She couldn’t help but sound disappointed; she had thought she would have him to herself for a few more hours.

              “I’ve got to go, babe.” He pulled his jeans on and didn’t look her in the eye. He had got what he had come for, and she might be a pretty face but she had nothing interesting to say. He would definitely have a few friends who might be interested in her, though; she seemed to be easily persuaded so she should be easy to convince.

              “I’ll call you in the week, babe. Let you know about that little party I’m organising?”

Glad that he was arranging to see her again, Jade perked up.

              “Okay, babe, you do that; can’t wait.” Waving him off, as he walked down the front path towards his beamer, she felt pleased as punch with herself, already selecting party outfits in her head.

Jay got in his car and drove off to pick up Tanya; he had no idea how Billy had found out, but he knew that if Tanya was in the shit he would be more so. He decided that he would take her back to Emma’s flat and she could stay in the spare room; it wasn’t ideal, but as he had been given little notice, it was all he could sort out, and he was sure Tanya wouldn’t mind if it were just for a few days. Emma wouldn’t know what day of the week it was, let alone who Tanya was, the girl was off her head all the time. He would cancel her punters and keep it low key while Tanya was there. He needed to pop back there, anyway, he hadn’t been there for the best part of the week and Emma owed him her week’s earnings.

Driving faster, his head was spinning; he didn’t know what to do about his job, or Kate. None of it made sense: how could Billy know? Or maybe he didn’t; maybe he had had enough of Tanya? Surely Billy would have had it out with him, too. Jay knew how Billy had had a thing with one of the girls from the lounge at Goldie’s when he used to be there; a little blonde bird, Candy or something. Maybe he didn’t give two shits about Tanya and had just ended it, or maybe he’d just traded her in?

As he pulled up outside the newsagents where Tanya was standing with a Louis Vuitton suitcase, mascara running down her cheeks, he knew he would soon find out.

31

Billy was dreading this, but he knew it would be the only way, once and for all, that Kate would actually listen. He had to make Kate physically see the damage that Jay inflicted on people, and how that scumbag had no qualms about walking over anyone in his way.

Billy had already spoken to Sonia, and she had agreed with everything that he said; Jay had gone too far and needed to be taught a lesson. Billy had got to her house first thing that morning; luckily Sonia always got up at the crack of dawn, at least a few hours before Kate, so they had had the chance to talk things through, and the stuff that he had told her had shocked her to the core. She had been disgusted by what Billy had told her about the poor girl he had found trying to hang herself, how Jay had drugged her and used her to make money for him, and that he had other girls out there in the same state made Sonia ashamed to be his mother. Sonia had been even more disgusted when she had heard what Jay’s father had done all those years ago to Billy and Kate’s mother; it made her sick to her stomach. She had known Den had been capable of vile things, it was one of the reasons she had got out in the first place. She could understand now why Billy hated Jay so much. She wondered if when she had walked out on Den all those years ago, things would have been different if she had taken Jay with her. Maybe he wouldn’t have turned out as repulsive. She couldn’t help feeling guilty, that somehow she was partly to blame for her son’s ways. He was Den all over again, so maybe no matter what she had done differently he would have turned out this way, maybe it was in the genes. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, they said, and in this case the apple was rotten to the core.

Sonia had agreed to change the locks, and decided that as of that moment she would disown Jay. Billy had said that he would send one of his guys round for a few days, just in case Jay returned home and thought he would try his luck, and that way he would know that Sonia meant it: he was no longer welcome here; he wasn’t her son any longer.

Sonia had suggested that Billy should break the news to Kate and hopefully they would be able to comfort the poor girl. Pouring Billy a mug of hot tea, she placed it down on the table, and sat down to join him as he drank it.

“I honestly don’t know where I’m going to start, Sonia, this is going to break Kate’s heart. I don’t know how much more she can take.” Billy had known all along that Jay was no good, but his sister would never hear a bad word said about him. Well, that morning when she finally came downstairs, bad words were all that would be worthy of the bloke.

As Billy and Sonia were starting their second cup of tea, Kate did finally come downstairs, wrapped in her dressing gown and yawning.

              “Billy?” She looked from her brother’s frowning face to Sonia’s worried look. “What’s going on? Has something happened?”

She had been working at the club all evening, and hadn’t got home until after three; she would have still been in bed but she had heard her brother’s voice and had come down to see what this unexpected visit was all about. He had bags under his eyes and a frown so deep across his forehead it looked like a scar. Worried, she looked at Sonia, who was looking into her tea as she stirred it. Billy should be the one to tell the poor girl, she wasn’t getting involved; not until she was needed, that was.

Pulling a chair out for Kate, Billy told her to sit down. At first, he didn’t really know where to start, there was so much filth and dirt and lies. Then it all just came out, everything he knew. He told her about Jay’s dad and what he had seen all those years ago, when he was just a boy. He told Kate how he had caught Jay coming out of his and Tanya’s house and that he had followed him. He had done this for a few days and one flat in particular that he kept being led back to was Emma’s. He told Kate how he gone to Emma’s flat on his own, to find out what was going on, and what he had seen there.

He gave Kate the letter that was addressed to her, which he had taken the night he had found Emma trying to hang herself. He tried to hold himself together, as he watched the tears roll down Kate’s cheeks as she read it.

              “Where is she?” she sobbed, as she put the letter back into the envelope.

              “She’s in hospital, Kate; she’s going to be okay, but she’s in a state right now. She’s been there for ten days now. I would have told you sooner, but she wasn’t strong enough. The doctors wouldn’t have let you in anyway, not until she was over the worst.” He touched her hand across the table.

              “She is asking for you now, though, and she really needs you, Kate.”

              “I just can’t believe that Jay would do this, I don’t get it; I feel like I’m missing something here.” It was all too much to take in, she had had an inkling that Jay was up to no good and she had decided to ignore it rather than question it, but this… this was unforgivable. Getting her priorities straight, Kate added: “Can you take me to see her?”