As Patrick smiled at her with his smug face and enveloped her once more in his strong arms, she was more convinced of that fact than ever before.
Chapter Fourteen
Spider was feeling the heat and he was not a happy bunny. Cain was starting to irritate him on an hourly basis. The boy was somehow under the mistaken impression that he was more on the ball than his older brother; he was at the stage in life where a few quid and someone else's hard work seemed to make him feel he was the winner of Mastermind: chosen subject, villainy and drug dealing. He was now of the inflated opinion that he could run everything from a bar stool and that his brother, who had been kind enough to pave his way into the world of riches and money, had suddenly acquired the intellect of a Millwall supporter. It was laughable, but worse than that, it was also making Spider very frightened. And that was making him even more frightened.
Life was hard enough as it was without his little brother suddenly developing a death wish. It was as if Cain really thought that he was the brains of the outfit. The young man he himself had schooled and who he had grafted for suddenly seemed to think that he was the alpha male, the dog's gonads.
Cain really thought that he was a fool who would not suss out what was going on right under his nose and that his treachery would go unnoticed and, more to the point, unpunished. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
The Williams brothers were pariahs in their community and what did Cain decide to do? Make them his bosom buddies at the expense of all he had worked for, all he had tried to achieve. Cain was suddenly prepared to overlook him, was prepared to forget everything in a heartbeat. He had no thought for anyone except himself and the shite he had decided to hang around with. Jasper the Rasta was bad enough, he had been hanging with him for a while now but, coupled with the Williams boys, it was a catastrophe of fucking Olympian proportions.
And Cain was so dense that he actually thought that he, Spider, his older brother, the man who had taught him everything he knew, had no idea where his brother's nights were spent and, worse still, what he was doing while on the missing list.
Spider had the unenviable task of telling Patrick the full story, although he had a feeling he already knew all about it. There wasn't much Patrick didn't know about, and what there was didn't merit his attention.
The Williams brothers had offered Cain the earth on a plate, convinced him they were what he needed to succeed and Cain had swallowed it all like the fucking useless no-neck he had become. It was this that was annoying Spider the most: that his Cain, his brother, could be that fucking stupid. Like he could trust white boys. White boys who were now lower down the food chain than the whores they were attempting to pimp and weaker than the drugs they were attempting to peddle in his name, and more treacherous than Judas Iscariot himself.
Cain had always been vain and that must have been how the Williams boys had got into him; it was the only thing he could think of to blame. They must have mug-bunnied for England to get him on their side.
The Williams brothers thought they were the new rude boys and, with Cain onside, they seemed to think they were getting away with it. Except that Cain was only accepted because of his association with Brodie and that, of course, was only because he himself had been onside with Patrick Brodie since day one.
Cain was using his largesse and his goodwill with Patrick to further his own ends. The Williams lot must think that they would be protected because of his connections and that he would make sure his brother would get away with his stupidity. The Williams brothers had taken him for a ponce as well as Cain; they had assumed he would look out for his brother and, to an extent, they had been right about that. But now they had stepped over the line; they had made him out for a fool and that he would not accept.
As much as Spider loved Cain, he had a reputation to uphold and that rep had never included whores or bores, a saying of his father's that had been proved true over and over again. The Williams boys were already starting to bore him and he had never really had much time for them anyway. Cain had finally pushed him too far and he had to retaliate to make him see what he had done. Spider needed to try to salvage something from the mess that had dropped into his lap.
Spider was determined to see that the accident the Williams brothers were going to have came sooner rather than later but did not include his brother in any way, shape or form. Cain was a fool; something he had never believed would have been a possibility until now. But he would save Cain's arse for no other reason than how his behaviour affected him; how he was perceived and how people judged him personally and professionally. Cain was not going to nause up all his hard work by making him look as if he had no fucking idea about what was going on in his own backyard.
In a short time, Cain had gone from someone he would trust with his life to someone he would not trust with his car keys. Quite a leap for two brothers who were proud of their filial affection and who had once believed that together they could rule the world. Their world at least. Spider was having to rethink everything about their relationship and their dealings and work out how best to limit any damage that might occur if Cain was cunt enough to completely disregard him and his teachings.
On top of everything else, his brother had broken the cardinal rule that he had drummed into him over and over again: never take your own products whether it was the women or the drugs. And, if what he had heard was true, ketamine and amphetamines were rife where the Williams brothers were concerned, and the brown was always on the table. They were complete wasters and, like all wasters, they had a habit of taking other people down with them. Cain was slipping further away from him with every day that passed by.
Spider would scrub his brother out in a heartbeat if he ever became a liability; he had always told Cain that. Spider had explained to him that the world they lived in did not allow for sentiment of any kind. Once you blotted your copybook you were out, even if you were family. Trust was all they had to rely on, the only thing that stood between them and jail. Once that trust was broken, no one was safe and that included baby brothers who had been lucky to have family who looked out for them and employed them in the first place; even if they were too stupid to understand that. It meant that even blood would be wiped out without hesitation for the greater good, for the guarantee of equilibrium once more. It was nothing personal as such, it was just the way that their world worked.
The big picture had always been the only picture as far as Spider was concerned and if that meant taking out family then so be it.
'What are you on about?'
Lil came out into the hallway; her mother's voice was loud enough to alert her to trouble and she knew, without asking, that whatever it was, it had been caused by her second son. It was strange but she had been expecting something like this, someone on her doorstep with hate in their heart and profanities on their lips.
It was almost a relief, as if her wicked thoughts needed to be proved true once and for all by an innocent bystander so she could admit the feelings she had towards her son had some kind of basis, some kind of concrete foundation.
Lil knew Lance was trouble and she knew that because she always let her mother sort it out; she was colluding with him, letting him get away with it. By turning a blind eye she had brought this woman to her door and she knew it had to be really serious for her to come here in the first place. Most people wouldn't have had the guts.