Читать книгу Toxic - Jacqui Rose - Страница 23

‘So what are you telling me?’ Lloyd Page stood with his henchmen in the well-manicured garden of Janine’s mansion as Alf sat next to Vaughn on the chocolate rattan garden chair.

‘Why don’t you just come and sit down.’

‘No ta, Alf. I prefer to stand. Make you nervous, does it?’

Alfie gave a cold laugh. ‘Why would it? I was just being polite to me elders, age catches up on us all, thought you’d fancy a pew. You know, rest yer bones.’

With his broad Yorkshire accent dangerously icy, Lloyd held Alfie’s stare. ‘I’ll wait till I’m dead and buried for that. Like to keep on me toes personally, Alf. Never know when you might have to do a runner … Anyhows, as nice as this chat is, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? I’m still in the dark here. Why the urgent phone call?’

Vaughn glanced at Alfie. Even though they had the threat of the Peterson brothers to hang over Lloyd’s head, he would’ve felt so much better if Lloyd hadn’t brought his goons. But they’d come up against worse. Much worse. And like Alf had said, when they put their minds to it, they were still a force to be reckoned with.

Alfie was still on a buzz from jacking the lorry, he got that, but what he didn’t get was how he could be so calm about Franny. Even the name wound him up. He could feel the anger towards her running around his body. The woman had turned them over and the truth was, although he was pissed with Alfie, he hadn’t seen it coming either.

He’d known Franny and her father, Patrick Doyle, for many years, and he would’ve put his last pound on the fact that she wouldn’t have ripped him off. Problem was she took his last pound anyway. And it was like a razor blade slicing at his skin. She’d fucked it up big time for them, and they needed to salvage the situation before it was too late.

‘Christ!’ All eyes turned to look at Vaughn, who had without thinking, slammed down his fist on the table, knocking over the milky tea Lola had made him earlier, sending it flying.

Lloyd scanned him darkly. ‘Problem?’

‘No, mate. Just a pesky insect.’

‘You often do that?’

Vaughn glanced around, seeing the broken teacup on the floor. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What can I say? I hate flies.’

Silence fell and the only noise was the distant hum of the cars on the bypass.

Lloyd pushed again. ‘So, come on then? What have you got for me?’

Vaughn, directing his anger at him, snapped, ‘That’s the fucking thing. We ain’t got anything for you. There wasn’t anything in the truck.’

Lloyd twisted round to look at his men, then opened his arms wide to stare at Alfie before crouching down to Vaughn’s eye level and very carefully said, ‘You better be fucking kidding me. I might’ve given you a squeeze by letting you have that job, but I was still going to get my cut, so don’t think you can treat me like a mug.’

Smelling the cologne Lloyd was wearing, Vaughn curled up his nose. ‘Thing is Lloyd, I’m not, and unless this was your idea of a sick joke, I want to know why, when we put our necks on the line, you didn’t check your source properly that his information was correct. You should’ve known the only thing those horses were filled with was shit. Have you any idea how many pieces of fucking crap we went through?’

Lloyd’s eyes darted everywhere. Agitated, he wagged his finger. ‘No, this can’t be right. You’re telling me you found nothing?’

‘Exactly.’

Kicking one of the rattan chairs over, Lloyd raised his voice. ‘That’s bullshit!’

‘No Lloyd, horseshit. Lots and lots of horseshit and not much else.’

Panting, Lloyd eyeballed Vaughn and Alfie. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘What don’t you believe?’

Lloyd bellowed, his voice becoming an octave higher as he screamed, red-faced at Vaughn. ‘That the tooth fairy is real … What the fuck do you think I mean?’

Evenly, Vaughn said, ‘Just checking.’

Lloyd took a swing at Vaughn before diving on him, tipping him backwards on the chair. Both men went down, but it was Vaughn who scrambled up first, wiping the blood off his face.

He raged at Lloyd. ‘I’m telling you the truth! There was no coke! It’s screwed us up as well. We were banking on being able to knock that out and get some money behind us. It ain’t just you who’s agged about it. Think how we feel. You ain’t really lost nothin’, but we have got a lot riding on it.’

Lloyd listened. Watched. And then slowly said, ‘You’re being straight up, aren’t you?’

With his hands resting on his knees, and bending forward, Vaughn turned his head to look at Lloyd. ‘Too right I am.’

‘And what about the horses?’

‘As arranged, dumped off at the sanctuary.’

‘And you checked properly? The sanctuary won’t suddenly find themselves knee-deep in bags of nose candy?’

‘I swear on all that is precious Lloyd, there wasn’t any coke.’

Alfie cut in. ‘But maybe you knew that Lloyd, maybe you thought the lorry was transporting something else.’

As Lloyd stared at Alfie, Vaughn studied him closely, watching the genuine look of curiosity spread across his face. ‘Like what, Alf?’

Alfie shrugged. ‘You tell us.’

Bewilderment furrowed Lloyd’s forehead. ‘What the fuck are you on about?’

Vaughn glanced at Alfie, but spoke to Lloyd. ‘Nothing, mate. We’re all a bit pissed off, but I guess we’ll just have to put this one down as the one that got away.’