Rotten to the Core (16 page)

Kate fidget
ed
in her chair
.
She
had decided against telling him that she was pregnant, she
thought that
if she could get her foot in the door, she
woul
d tell him then, and hopefully by then he would have seen what a great worker she was and
would
let her keep her job. She really needed a break, and she wasn’t sure how the man sitting opposite
her now
would respond to her situation
;
most employers would rather do without the hassle, and then there was health and safety,
etc.
             
Paul wasn’t convinced that it was all about the money for Kate
;
there was something not quite right here
;
she seemed like an intelligent girl, why was she aiming so low
?
She was so young, didn’t she have
greater
ambitions?
             
“So, do I have the job
,
Mr Goldie?” Kate interrupted his thoughts
.
             
Paul made up his mind. The girl intrigued him.
“
I’m sorry
,
Kate
,
I’m afraid that the cleaning position has already been taken
.
”
             
“
O
h!”
S
ecretly
,
she was a little relieved, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
             
“But
,
Kate, there is something else I could offer
.
” Paul grinned at
her, and she could see
his
laughter lines
,
which
made
him
more handsome.
             
“Oh
?”
Kate was more
 
than a little surprised
,
and
she was starting to regret coming for the interview now
.
S
he hated lying and felt
that
Paul knew her secret.
             
“I need someone to do some of the paperwork
…
make calls, help organise stuff a little better
.
I need
an assistant.”
T
he more
Paul
spoke
,
the more he realised that he could do with things being a bit more organised
.
There were
piles of paperwork and contacts scribbled on bits of paper
lying
around the
office, so
many things that he
didn’t
get round to doing himself.
T
here was just something about Kate that made him want to help
;
something in her tone
that was
more
determined
than desperate
. She sounded
as if
she could do with good luck.
             
Kate
’
s eyes lit up
.
T
his was so much more than she could ha
ve
expected
.
             
“
T
here is one condition though
,
Kate, and it is quite an important one
,
” Paul said seriously
.
             
Go on
,
thought Kate
;
what’s the catch?
             
“You must call me Paul
;
all this Mr Goldie is making me feel really old
.
”
H
e laughed now
,
and relieved, Kate laugh
ed
too.
             
She left shortly afterwards, and Paul
was
surprised at how grateful Kate had been, she had seemed over the moon at getting
the
job.

Paul smiled, feeling very happy all of a sudden. Kate was starting on Monday, so he could leave all his paperwork
until then
, seeing as he was
going to have to find things for her to do.
He was s
till smiling
,
as he locked up
as he left, thinking
:
if
this is
how
it feels to do a good deed, I should do
one
more often.
 

18
 

Jay lost his grip o
n
the sill and fell back down onto the muddy verge beneath him
.
I
t was dark now,
particularly
around the warehouse where there were no street lamps. He got to his feet once more
,
pulling himself up again to the window
.
H
e swung his leg up and this time he was in
:
fancy having electric gates and fancy alarm systems set up and then going and leaving a window open
.
Jay
tutted
;
he’s almost invited me in, he laughed
, although it was
more of a nervous giggle. He knew he had to get in and out quickly, because if Billy or one of his lads turn
ed
up he would be dead
this time
.
             
Looking around, he didn’t know where to start
.
H
e hadn’t really had a plan
;
he
had been
getting high with a couple of mates at one of their flats
,
and on his way home h
ad
kind of just stumbled this way. The open window
had seemed
a sign, enticing him in
;
too easy
,
he thought.
             
The warehouse was huge
.
L
ooking at all the boxes and containers
,
he could see that the men must be busy. He knew the lads did run a legit business, shipping goods overseas
and providing a
courier service
and
storage. But Jay also knew that if he looked hard enough he
woul
d find out the not
-
so legit goings on, then he could play Billy boy at his own game.

Billy had put the word out on Jay,
he
had been collecting information on him, but unfortunately for
him
he had pissed a few people off himself along the way, and not everyone was as loyal as
he
would have liked to think. Lifting up
the
lid of a big box, Jay whistled
.
I
t was
full of
what
looked like very expensive jewellery
.
D
ipping into the box
,
he picked up a long gold chain with a butterfly pendant embedded with crystals
.
Jay
put
it in his pocket, hoping to get cash for it later. He put the lid back on and then made his way to the office. Jay looked about
,
impressed. The office was every guy
’
s dream workplace, decked out with the state of the art gadgets,
a
big plasma
screen
on the wall, leather sofas, expensive Macs.

Jay was env
ious
. There were days when he would be rolling in dough and other days when he had to trawl through shit to get what was owed to him
.
He had cash stashed away, but nothing that could set him up like this.
T
his
was
what he wanted. Billy must be rolling in it
;
his legit business alone must be bringing him and his lads
in
a fortune. There was a lot about Billy that Jay envied, not that
he
would admit that to a living soul.

Billy had had a proper family growing up
;
he had his
lads
to back him up, ones that he’d been friends with since he was a boy
.
Y
ou
couldn’t
buy that kind of loyalty
.
H
e had all of this
, too.
Jay
looked out to the warehouse floor once again
.
I
t was filled from floor to ceiling with all sorts
of things
. But most of all, what Jay envied the most was that
people
feared Billy
;
respected him. Jay could scare people,
he could
bribe and blackmail them, threaten and rob them
,
but that was as far as it went
.
H
e was a dealer,
and
no-one respects a low
-
life dealer, they feared him but they had no respect for him. People were only nice to Jay when they wanted something, and if he was honest with himself he
woul
d admit that he used them
too
. Even his dad had used him, teaching him all sorts of corrupt stuff, putting him in dangerous situations as a child
.
H
is dad
hadn
’
t
encouraged him
to do well at school, or have a better chance at life
in any way
, but to act as his own accomplice, and now he was dutifully following in his old man’s footsteps.

Jay sat down on
an
office chair and booted up the Mac
.
H
e spent the next half an hour going through files, looking for something that Billy had not
hidden
, but the boy was good
and
he couldn’t find anything. Billy had what
appeared to be
a lucrative warehouse. Whistling to himself
,
as he switched everything off and made sure that everything was exactly as he left it
,
he made his way back to the
window
, which was ajar
. He would
have to
come back another time.
Jay would stop at nothing until he had it. Let them all think what they like
,
he thought, because that would be the
ir
downfall.

Reaching up for the window
pane above him
,
Jay was startled as the warehouse lights flickered on, blindingly bright
.

Shit!

He was too scared to move, physically frozen to the spot
.

             
“You think you’re so fucking smart
,
don’t you
?
” a voice bellowed
.

Startled
,
and feeling his heart beat ten to the dozen in his chest
,
Jay turned to see who had caught him. Not believing his bad luck
,
Jay
saw
Ryan
: he was
one of Billy’s boys,
and
the worst one of the lot.

Then, he
realised Ryan had his back to him and was shouting down his phone
rather than
at
Jay
.

S
lowly drop
ping
down, Jay cow
ered
behind a box and listened to Ryan bellowing down the phone
:

             
“Well
,
let me tell you now
,
you
cunt
, if you don’t deliver it to me in the next half
an
hour, I’m go
ing to
pay your wife a little visit
,
mate, you got that
?
Bet
she likes a bit of cock
,
huh, your missus? If you’re not here in thirty minutes
I’
ll go round to yours and find out for myself
.
”
L
aughing then
,
he hung up the phone
and
he stumbled towards the office.