Toxic: The addictive new crime thriller from the best selling author that will have you gripped in 2018. Jacqui Rose
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‘Hang on, hang on. Ain’t no one giving them back or staying away from them,’ Janine mumbled, her mouth full of a greasy cheeseburger. ‘We need this, Reenie ain’t going to wait, she’ll sell the business to someone else and we can’t let that happen.’
Lola frowned. ‘Come on Janine, how can just Alfie and Vaughn take on the boys behind this. They’d be stupid to. It could be anyone. Russians. Eastern Europeans. Triads … Mafia.’
Janine scoffed. ‘The Mafia! Do me a favour, Lola. You’re talking out of your bum hole.’
‘No, I bleedin’ ain’t. I don’t trust it and like I say, even Lloyd thought it was one thing but then it turned out to be another. They don’t need to be involved in this. There’ll be another job out there for them.’
‘Not like this there won’t.’
‘For starters, Janine, how are they going to get rid of them?’
Oblivious to the ketchup running down her chin, Janine haughtily said, ‘Lola, they’ve been in the business long enough to know people.’
Lola sighed, irritated at her attitude. ‘And they’ve been away, and people aren’t happy that they’re back. They’ll be watching them, so any move they make will draw attention. One phone call from Vaughnie or Alf trying to sell this lot and every single crime family from here to the Costa will know about it, which means the people who own them will find out too.’
‘When did they make you their bleedin’ keeper?’
‘And when did they make you someone that doesn’t give a shit about her friends … Actually, don’t answer that, Janine. But there’s no way they should be touching them. It’s like playing with fire.’
Vaughn nodded. ‘Unfortunately, as much as it would be sweet and solve all our problems, I have to agree with you, Lola. We’d be mugs to go near them.’
Alfie, who’d been sitting silently, looked across and smiled at Lola. She was a cracking old bird. Fiercely loyal and always looking out for both him and Vaughn. He’d known her for years and they’d never really fallen out, mainly because he always seemed to agree with her. She spoke sense … but not on this. This was different and sometimes, just sometimes, the only thing to do was play with fire.
Janine Jennings was pacing. She was beside herself. In fact, she hadn’t been this agitated since Great Aunt Ethel on her deathbed had bequeathed the Cowdray pearl necklace she’d had her eye on to her sister.
Sighing, she chewed on her nails, tasting the bitter gel polish she’d used earlier. How the hell did Vaughn think he could let this job slip through his fingers? She wasn’t so worried about Alfie. He hadn’t said anything, but she knew him well enough to know he’d want to do the job. He was a greedy bastard when it came to money, plus he was desperate to get back to what he knew best, to get back to the life he loved, so there was no way that Alfie would want to let this one go.
But the problem was Vaughn. If he thought he was going to impress Casey and get her back by being skint and spineless then he was mugging himself off. He didn’t impress anyone. Women wanted real men. Flash cars and a bit of bling not a gutless muppet and a pub lunch with a ten-year-old Ford Focus parked outside. And come to think of it, Lola hadn’t helped. What was she playing at, doing her caring Mary act? She would do well to remember it was her roof that she was living under.
Sighing again and coming to an eventual halt by the end of her pink satin-draped bed, Janine plonked down on the mattress. She understood what Vaughn was saying about there only being the two of them. But there must be a way … there must be.
Staring at herself in the mirrored wardrobe, Janine bit into a Snickers bar. And then a thought came to her. Why not? What could be the harm?
Smiling to herself, Janine picked up her phone. If this didn’t work. Nothing would. And at least it would put the cat among the pigeons.
Janine Jennings wasn’t the only one who was pacing. Eddie Styler was treading the carpet fibres out. He was in trouble. Big time.
‘Eddie! Eddie! Have you seen Barrie?’
Looking down at Barrie, who’d come to wrap his grey fluffy tail around his feet, Eddie quietly picked him up, throwing him out of the back door. ‘No!’
Storming into the kitchen, her face covered in a white clay face mask and her hair tightly done up in rollers, Sandra shouted, ‘Well you better go and find him then.’
Eddie gave a tight smile. He hadn’t been allowed out since he’d been to see Johnny, and Sandra was not only giving him grief, but was watching his every move as well as screening his phone calls.
He stared at his wife, caked in the dried, clay mask, cracking and splitting on her face, and he couldn’t help but think of the Mexican death masks. He shivered and wondered, as he so often did, how the hell he’d ever thought marrying her was a good idea.
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