Rotten to the Core (5 page)

He switched it off and shoved it into his coat pocket. He wasn’t in the mood for Kate and her clinginess. He had had a long old evening and what he was in the mood for now was a nice bit of light relief. Getting into his new Beamer, his pride and joy, he knew just where to get it from.

Jay enjoyed working the door
:
Goldie
’
s was the only place to be these days and he really felt part of
it all.
 
He got on well with the
other men
and despite a little bit of trouble here and there, the place certainly had its perks. In the year he’d been working there
,
he had taken advantage of as many of those perks as he could physically manage. It was like a meat market, and he could have his pickings, his phone was over-flowing with wom
e
n’s numbers.

Jay
was a typical player
; he had
an
attitude of treat them mean, keep them keen, and it worked a treat in his book. There were two types of woman as far as Jay could see. The cheap tarts who thought that they were something special
:
able to
tame any man and stop
any
wandering eye. They were the ones who thought that their drunken one
-
night
stand was the start of a beautiful relationship and that they could suddenly have a say in his life.
The other
s
were the more desperate type. The ones
who were grateful for any attention you threw
in
their direction, always eager to please, and then counted themselves lucky that Jay had even so much as looked at them in the first place, when he decided it was time to walk away after he got what he wanted. Both types
,
as far as he was concerned
,
were more trouble than they were worth in the long run. Women
,
generally
,
were all grief.
             
Kate had blown both those theories out of the water
;
at first
,
anyway. When Jay first spotted Kate, he just couldn’t resist, he had known that she was Billy O’Connell’s sister, and because of that the thought of
having sex with
Kate had a lot more than the obvious appeal.

He hated Billy with a passion, especially after everything that had happened with
Jay’s
dad. The police may have come up with nothing when they investigated his father’s murder, but Jay knew it had been Billy
who
killed him. He missed his old man every
day. Saying that his
dad hadn’t been
a popular bloke was an understatement, and Jay had been witness to why on many occasions. His old man would literally rob old grannies if he had to and Jay had often been made to play decoy for him.

Driving along h
e remembered when his dad had actually made him fleece some old bird one night in town. He had only been a boy. H
is dad
had made him sit down on the pavement and pretend to cry
;
it was getting dark so the chances of
a
passer
-
by not stopping w
ere
slim. The woman
had
bent down to comfort him and sounded quite concerned as she asked him if he was
okay
. Jay had stood up quickly, pushing her backwards with
 
all his might onto the pavement, just like his dad had told
him
–
“
C
atch her unaware
s,
boy”
–
then grabbing her handbag from her wrinkly
,
frail grasp. He
had then
fled
to where
his dad had been lurking somewhere nearby
. “C
hip off the old block
,”
he got called that time
,
and
he was
given a fiver for his “help”. Jay had been ten, and even then he knew that he had done wrong, but he also knew that his old man would give him a hiding if he refused to help out and eventually the guilt wore off.

Jay had been pushed into more and more muggings and
then
burglaries, and as he got older and stronger he started acting as one of his dad’s heavies, pulling in any outstanding debts that were owed. Jay got use
d
to it as the norm. He accepted his dad for what he was and started to become like him.

He remembered sitting in the pub one night with his dad, he must have been twelve or so, both of them sitting there thick as thieves putting together their latest scam
,
when
some guy stumbled over to them a little the worse for wear. He didn’t say anything but glared at Den,
Jay’s dad,
and then to Jay’s horror the man
had
brought a glass bottle down on
Den’s
head with a loud thump.
B
lood
 
had
pour
ed
out of a gaping cut,
and
Jay’s dad had
f
a
ll
en
to the floor
.
T
he pub went silent as the man spat in Den’s face and said simply “
s
cum
”
before
calmly walk
ing
out.

Not one person in the pub that night had helped, in fact
many of
them looked in disgust at Den,
 
and they had probably thought that
he
had deserved that and
then
some. Jay had seen everyone get back to their chatting and drinking and
 
carrying
 
on as if nothing had happened. That
had been more shocking to Jay than the attack on his dad, the fact that no-one came to his aid.
His dad had been
treated like he was nothing. He remembered watching his dad trying to pick himself up off the dirty floor, with blood trickling down his forehead. That night, Jay
had
felt for the first time an overwhelming urge to protect Den,
 
realising that he was all his father had.

Jay
thought back to when the police had turned up at his house the morning that his dad had been found murdered
.
Jay
knew
,
straight away
,
who was to blame.
Although
it could have been dozens of men who had done it, h
is dad
had pissed
many
people off and had an awful lot of enemies, Jay knew exactly who it was. Billy may have
had
a lot of faces as back-up, but not all of them were as loyal as he would have liked to have thought. People talk
ed
. Of course the police couldn’t prove it, but Jay knew.
Oh yeah, he hated Billy with a passion alright, but he would bide his time
.
Billy’s time would come.
             
In the beginning
,
Jay made Kate promise to keep their ’relationship’ a secret from everyone, and Kate had been more than happy to do so, as it was in her favour too, she knew her brother would have put a stop to it otherwise. Jay was a
looker
, he knew that
;
he had a toned body and money in his pocket, so he wasn’t used to having to chase women. Most girls would be gagging to have a bit of him
,
so Kate had proved a bit of a challenge, which was new to him.
Being
really shy
, she
had made him wait longer than any other bird he
ha
d ever been with to get inside her knickers.
The f
our long months had driven him wild
.
S
he
had
told him that she was a virgin and by the time he finally got her into bed he was aching for her.

Jay had enjoyed the challenge, and for months knowing that he was her first had given him the horn each time he fucked her. But the novelty had soon worn off, and it wasn’t long until he was back to his old self, wanting a less innocent
and
needy girl and craving easier, dirtier ones. He was bored with Kate, and he had been secretly disappointed
 
too that Billy hadn’t found out about their relationship. He had been waiting for the fireworks to start for months. The relationship had now run its course, and he
had been
happy to let it fizzle out
before
she had dropped the bombshell.
             
A baby
…
his baby
:
w
hat a shock.
             
He had always fancied being a dad; he thought he
woul
d make a good one. He could see himself with a son
;
a
little boy of his own.
It
was not an ideal situation, and he certainly didn’t believe in settling down, but the more he thought about it the more the whole thing was growing on him. Kate would
be
a good mum to the kid,
 
even he could see that. She was nothing like most of the lazy slappers around here, and she was completely oblivious to his goings on, really naive. Maybe he would stand by her after all
;
have his cake and eat it
. He
smil
ed
to himself as he parked the car.
M
aybe it would all work out. Oh
,
and he couldn’t wait until Uncle Billy found out, he chuckled to himself.
             
He walked to the next street, making sure his car wasn’t anywhere near the flat
that he was going to
. He didn’t want to be seen. He was on a
promise
:
t
his girl had been throwing herself at him, and had made it blatantly clear the last time he had seen her that she was up for it. Not really his type, a bit podgy and not as great looking as he was used to,
but
he knew that her shortcomings
would work in his favour
.
She would get
a good seeing to and be grateful to him for giving it to her.

5
 

It was late morning, and Kate had been ringing Jay’s phone all night. She paced the house, worried sick that
her brother had caught up w
ith him.
There was no point thinking about going to bed as until she knew Jay was ok
ay
she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She picked up the phone to call Emma and started dialling her number,
before
chucking the phone back down on the table
.
S
he
decided to
go around there
;
she
would
go mad if she stayed in this house for much longer anyway.

Grabbing her jacket and keys
,
she started walking. Emma only lived a couple of streets away, that’s how they
ha
d met when they were young. She and Emma had spent countless summers hanging a
round
the estate with the other kids.
 
Emma was always getting them into mischief
;
it
had been
part of her charm
,
at first. Kate had always been a shy girl and Emma
had
seemed to be everything she was not. Kate was not afraid to speak up for herself, even against some of the older rougher boys on the estate, but many times Emma had gone too far and caused trouble for them both and Kate had always been the one who tried to get them out of it.
Mind you
,
that probably had a lot to do with the fact that Kate’s brother was the toughest boy around, and no-one wanted to mess with him. Emma didn’t really care if she caused trouble, she knew that Kate would always be her back
-
up and even if things did ever get out of hand, she had no reason to be bothered, she knew her parents wouldn’t
say anything
to her.