Toxic: The addictive new crime thriller from the best selling author that will have you gripped in 2018. Jacqui Rose

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      ‘What is this?’

      Accusingly, Sandra stood in the hallway as Eddie opened the front door. Her tall, skinny body wrapped up in double layer of cream knitwear and jeans.

      ‘Well go on then Eddie, I’m waiting. What have you got to say for yourself? What you playing at?’

      Carefully, Eddie eased off his Gucci loafers attempting to avoid aggravating the painful blisters any more than he had to. He stared at Sandra, hating her as she held up the budget brand tin of cat food in her hand.

      ‘They didn’t have any Kitty-Kat, so I thought he’d like that.’

      ‘How many bleedin’ times have I told you, Barrie don’t eat this. If I told you that you were having a bit of steak for tea and instead I put a turd on your plate, how would you like it?’

      ‘It ain’t quite the same, Sandra, and besides, he’s only a cat.’

      With an overhead shot, Sandra threw the tin of cat food at Eddie. ‘Oh, is that how it is now.’

      The tin, narrowly missing Eddie’s head, smashed into the wall, leaving a large dent in the newly painted porch. He scrambled up, attempting a smile.

      ‘Pumpkin I’m sorry, I’ll go and get Barrie some food …’

      The sound of smashing glass stopped Eddie finishing off his sentence. A loud voice came from outside.

       ‘Eddie! Eddie! We know you’re in there. We just want a word. Come on Eddie, open up!’

      Eddie’s face paled. He whispered to Sandra, ‘Don’t open the door. Come on, hurry up, let’s go out the back.’

      Not waiting for Sandra’s reply, Eddie grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her along with him towards the kitchen.

      He froze. His stomach lurching.

      ‘Hello, Eddie. Going somewhere?’

      Jason Robinson, one of the Costa del Sol’s biggest faces stood in front of him, all six foot ten of muscle. His tanned, highly polished head shone proudly under the ceiling spots. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Eddie. You don’t come and see me. You don’t answer me calls. So what am I to think, eh? Especially as you owe me some money.’

      Sandra shot Eddie a look.

      Jason walked forward, grinning a set of perfectly veneered teeth at her. ‘Oh, hasn’t he told you darlin’? Your old man owes one hell of a lot of money. You see, he liked to run up large tabs at my casinos, he also liked not to pay his bills, giving it large about Reginald Reynolds and what Reggie’s men would do to us. He even got Reginald’s men to put a couple of my employees in hospital to show that he meant business, didn’t you Eddie? The thing is, there aren’t any apron skirts to hide under anymore. Reginald’s pushing up the daisies and his men don’t give a fuck about you Ed, which leaves you with a major problem – me.’

      Eddie stuttered his words. ‘Okay … okay, listen, Jason, I’m good for it, or I will be. Just give me a couple of days and you’ll see your money and then some.’

      ‘Thing is, I don’t believe you. And I did a bit of digging, seems like it ain’t just me you owe money to. Seems like you ran up hundreds of thousands in Reggie’s name, so it makes me think I won’t get me money back.’

      Eddie suddenly made a dash for the back door, but not before he felt a hot pain at the back of his head followed by the warmth of his own blood trickling down his neck as one of Jason’s men struck him with a small steel baton.

      The punches ensued, raining down on Eddie, pummelling him hard in the stomach, until he collapsed on the floor and noisily began to cough up blood, watched emotionlessly by Sandra.

      Bending over Eddie, Jason pulled out his lighter. Flicking it on and off. ‘A little bit of a reminder Eddie, don’t fuck with me, son. You’re on your own now and I’ll be back very soon, and you better have me money, otherwise you and this house, along with your missus, will be going up in a ball of flames.’

       11

      ‘What’s wrong with you? Can you just shut the hell up?’ Johnny Dwyer snarled at his brother as he sat on the couch in the living room of Ma’s mobile home. He rubbed his head.

      ‘Come on Ryan, what’s with the tears? You’re doing me head in.’

      Sobbing noisily into his hands, Ryan’s whole body shook. ‘Can’t find them. Can’t find them.’

      ‘What can’t you find?’

      ‘Can’t find them.’

      Leaping up, Johnny roughly pulled his brother’s hands away from his face. ‘Jesus Christ, Ryan, stop crying and just tell me.’

      Ryan looked up, blinking away his tears. ‘Yeah? Tell Johnny?’

      ‘Yeah. I’m your brother, ain’t I? You don’t keep secrets from Johnny, unless you want to be in trouble. You wanna be in trouble?’

      Panicked, Ryan shook his head. ‘… the kittens. Kittens have gone.’

      ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘My kittens ain’t there.’

      Pressing his temples to try to stop his headache, Johnny snapped. ‘Then I’ll get you some more, just stop fucking crying.’

      ‘Don’t want more. Want my kittens.’

      Ryan burst into tears again, which sent Johnny rushing back over to where his brother sat. He grabbed Ryan by his tracksuit top, dragging him up off the sofa and pulling him across to the mirror. He yelled, the veins on his temples, bulging out. ‘Look! Look! Look at you, Ryan! What do you see?’

      Johnny and Ryan both stared into the mirror. Where one stopped the other one began. Even Johnny couldn’t see any differences. So startlingly similar. The same piercing blue eyes. The same thick, dark hair and the same handsome, chiselled face. But as Ryan cried, Johnny snarled and suddenly the difference appeared; the cold, hard cruelty in Johnny’s eyes.

      ‘I’ll tell you, shall I, Ryan? I’ll tell you what I see. I see a baby and not a grown man! That’s what you are Ryan, a baby!’

      Ryan continued to sob as Johnny held and shook the back of his brother’s neck as he talked.

      ‘What did Ma always say to us? What did she say?’

      ‘No crying. No crying.’

      ‘That’s right, because we’re the Dwyer boys. We should never cry, and if one cries, Ma will make sure both of us cry, and after what you were going to do to me, I ain’t never going to cry for you no more.’

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