Kimberley Chambers 3-Book Collection: The Schemer, The Trap, Payback. Kimberley Chambers

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СКАЧАТЬ saga once and for all. Steph had made a pact to herself that if Wayne wasn’t home for their wedding day, she would snap out of her trauma for the sake of her children, and that’s exactly what she intended to do. She snarled as she ripped off her wedding dress and then grabbed the pair of scissors she kept in her bedside drawer.

      ‘No Mummy. No,’ Dannielle screamed, as Stephanie hacked at the beautiful dress with the scissors, like a woman possessed.

      ‘Daddy isn’t coming home, Dannielle. It’s just me, you and Tyler from now on, OK?’ Steph screamed.

      ‘What are you doing, love?’ Pam asked, horrified, as she opened Steph’s bedroom door.

      ‘Well, I’m hardly going to be needing it now, am I?’ Stephanie yelled, before bursting into tears.

      Dannielle was petrified. ‘I want my daddy,’ she cried, clinging to Pam’s midriff.

      Pam had tears in her own eyes as she urged Stephanie to move away from the dress.

      Steph couldn’t. Instead, she lay face down on top of it. ‘I miss Wayne so much, Mum. Where is he?’ she sobbed.

      Pam sat on the bed and held Stephanie tightly to her chest. Her daughter was so vulnerable at the moment, it reminded Pam of when she was a little girl all over again. ‘The police will find out what’s happened to him, love. They are so clever these days, so dry them eyes and get yourself ready for their visit. They might even have some news for you.’

      ‘If I ask you something, Mum, will you tell me the truth?’

      ‘Of course I will,’ Pam said, moving a strand of her daughter’s hair away from her wet eyes.

      ‘Do you think Wayne’s dead?’

      It was an impossible question to answer, so Pam had no choice other than to sit on the fence. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart, I really don’t know.’

      Barry Franklin was seated at a table in the Bishop Bonner pub in Bethnal Green. His father, Smasher, had only recently come out of prison, and Barry was enjoying listening to him and his old cronies reminiscing about the good old days.

      ‘It’s proper changed in this boozer. Do you remember when we used to get all the old boxers in ’ere? I bet Henry Cooper wouldn’t set foot in the shithole now,’ Smasher said, gloomily. The pub had really altered since he had gone inside and he didn’t like the atmosphere of it now one little bit.

      ‘It ain’t been the same since Freddie and Rita had it, if you ask me. Those were the good old days – when we used to have Chas and Dave down here on a Thursday night and everybody got up and sang. Do you remember the old boy who had the fish stall down the Roman? He used to bring the house down, and you certainly don’t get characters like him in here any more,’ Smasher’s pal, Charlie, told Barry.

      Barry raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t had a beer with his father for Christ knows how long and had been expecting a jovial piss-up, not a melancholy look back in time. ‘Yeah, I do remember Chas and Dave singing in ’ere when I was a kid, but now they’re famous I doubt they’d wanna be slumming it round ’ere again. Times have changed, lads, and we have to move with ’em, unfortunately.’

      ‘Gonna have a little chat with me, boy. We need a bit of a one-to-one,’ Smasher said to Barry.

      Barry followed his father outside. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Nothing, lad, unless you wanna include your whore of a mother spreading rumours. She’s been going around telling people that you killed Jake the Snake.’

      ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. She sprang that one on me in the motor on the way home from the brief’s office. I thought she was just talking drunken bollocks, I didn’t actually think she would start telling people. Who did she tell? Do you know?’

      ‘It’s Fat Carol who’s been mouthing it off round ’ere. I went and knocked on her door yesterday and, apparently, Lairy Mary, who now lives in Dagenham, had told her. I’ve warned Fat Carol that she better keep her gob shut else she’ll have me to deal with. You didn’t have anything at all to do with the old boy’s death, did you, Bal?’

      ‘What do you take me for, Dad? I’ve told you many a time that I quite liked the geezer, so course I never. Anyway, I’ve got bigger fish to fry than poor old Jake, ain’t I?’

      Smasher smirked. He was well aware of Barry’s quest for revenge against the two people who had betrayed him in the worst way possible. ‘Has Jacko been found yet?’

      ‘No sign of him,’ Barry replied, grinning.

      ‘And how’s it going with the bird?’ Smasher asked, referring to Steph.

      ‘Sweet! I’ve got her and the mother eating out the palm of me hand and it won’t be long before I strike. What goes around comes around, eh, Dad?’

      Smasher laughed. ‘That’s my boy.’

      Stephanie felt her heart pounding nineteen to the dozen as the two coppers sat down on the sofa opposite her. They seemed much more important than the two who had visited her the other day. These were plain clothed and had an air of power about them. One of them introduced himself as DI Jobson and told Steph that his colleague was DC Moore, then Jobson spoke directly to her.

      ‘I’m afraid we have had little success in tracing Mr Jackman’s movements after he left the club that he was drinking in. One of the doormen gave us a statement saying that he saw Mr Jackman leave and cross the road, but from there the trail goes cold. We do have some other news for you, though. We have conducted a thorough search of Mr Jackman’s business activities and we now know that he had recently sold most of his assets. Were you aware that the money your fiancé received from the sale of your house in Collier Row had been taken out of his account and was supposedly used to pay off debts?’

      ‘No, I wasn’t aware of that – and what do you mean by “supposedly”?’ Stephanie asked, anxiously. She had ordered her mum to take the children to the park and now wished she hadn’t.

      ‘I say “supposedly” as we cannot find any proof of Mr Jackman actually paying off these debts. It’s all very much hearsay at the moment. We have taken statements from quite a few of Mr Jackman’s friends and work colleagues, and apparently he had spoken quite openly of the financial difficulties he had found himself in. Did you know that he had recently sold a part of his gym, and had also taken out a massive loan against it?’

      ‘No, I didn’t, and I just can’t believe all this is true. Wayne never showed any sign of being in debt to me, although he did say a couple of strange things to me just before his stag night.’

      ‘What did he say?’ DI Jobson asked.

      ‘I can’t remember to be exact, but he did drop a hint that he had a cashflow problem. Actually, I do remember it now. As Wayne was about to leave for his stag do, he made a comment about how he’d only invited a few people to it because he was footing the bill.’

      DI Jobson pulled out a notebook and jotted something down. ‘Anything else you can remember about that conversation?’

      ‘I think I said to Wayne that it was unusual for him to worry about money; then he said something about everybody having to pull their horns in sometimes. I didn’t take much notice of what he said, to be honest. I just thought СКАЧАТЬ