Ryan had pushed Jay to his limits with the pain, any more burns or cuts and he would pass out again, his heart was pounding so loudly he wondered if Ryan could hear it, so it was perfect timing to see Billy walking to the door. Even though there may be worst to come, he prayed for a break for just a few minutes from the pain inflicted on him.
Pulling out a cigarette, Ryan sat opposite Jay; inflicting pain was a tiring job.
Billy didn’t even look in Jay’s direction when he came in, he saw the state of the kitchen, and could smell that Jay had crapped himself. Ryan, as always, had taken it slowly and caused maximum injury without killing the bastard.
“I need you to help me get him in the boot,” Billy said to Ryan. He nodded towards Jay, but still didn’t fully look at him: he couldn’t, he was feeling so much rage at being in the same room as the horrible fucker.
“No worries, mate, how are we going to get rid of him?” Ryan was up for whatever Billy suggested; he enjoyed this part of it: he had a taste for blood today, especially that of someone as despicable as Jay.
“We’re not,” Billy answered bluntly.
“What do you mean, we’re not; he fucking deserves this, Billy, he has it fucking coming, you can’t be thinking seriously of letting him go?” Ryan couldn’t believe it; Billy must be going fucking soft.
“No, Ryan, you heard me wrong: we’re not getting rid of him, I am. I just need you to help get him into the boot of my car.” Ryan understood; Billy needed to do this himself, it was his fight and he needed to finish it.
After they had placed a bound Jay in the boot of Billy’s motor, Billy told Ryan to get all his shit out of the cottage: the Ellis’s were on their way over. Unfortunately, the cottage was about to have a bit of its own misfortune; Jonny and Lee were going to start a fire and stick around to make sure the whole place went up, just so that nothing that had gone on here in the last week came back to haunt any of them. Billy thought that although the place probably wouldn’t have been booked out in Tanya and Jay’s real names, but he didn’t want to take any chances on anyone looking for either of them, or him. Anyway, Billy figured a nice little insurance pay-out would much more to the owners liking than to come back to find Jay’s shit and blood over the walls of their precious little cottage.
Getting into the motor, Billy wound the window down so he could feel the breeze as he drove. He turned up the stereo and started to feel upbeat, he was back in control. No-one would make a fool out of him: especially not Jay.
He drove for miles, into the middle of nowhere; it was funny because the little place he was heading for he had stumbled across by accident a few years ago. He had done a bit of business for someone and had been ripped off; he and Ryan had taken care of them, in exactly the same place. At the time, he had made a comment to Ryan about the place being fucking creepy. It was an old industrial farmhouse that had been abandoned many moons ago, judging by the state of it; it had been so eerie that the whole place had spooked him out. It had felt as though they were the only people for miles, well, they actually had been, no one came out to those parts. Pulling up next to the old deserted building now, he switched the engine off.
The place hadn’t changed one bit, even at this time of the morning it was scarily isolated.
Lifting up the lid of the boot, Billy looked in at the bloodied mess that was Jay, and smiled at the fear in the eyes that stared back. Billy lent down past the flinching Jay and picked up the shovel that was also in the car. “People are going to be talking about this for years, you know, Jay.”
Jay didn’t have the energy to lift his head; he hoped whatever Billy had planned would be over as quickly as possible, but he had a feeling that he was doing a bit of wishful thinking.
“People are going to be talking, Jay, about you, the little prick who tried to do one over on me and take my hard-earned cash.” Billy poked Jay hard in the ribs with the end of the shovel.
“They’re going to be talking about you, the guy who shagged my missus behind my back.” Billy brought the shovel down on Jay’s stomach. “About you, the little cunt who thought he could kidnap my sister, and do you know what they will be saying about me? Do you?” He bellowed the words, furious at the audacity of the scumbag in front of him.
“They’ll be saying when they hear about your rotting stinking corpse that no-one, but no-one, should fuck with Billy: he won’t fucking stand for it. They’ll be talking about your death for years, mate. Which is just as well, you’d be forgotten in an instant otherwise, a sorry fucker like yourself. No-one cares if you live or die.”
He brought the shovel down with more force, hitting Jay on the head. There was an almighty thump, which sounded worse than it was. Jay was out cold, and Billy set to work again; the next time Jay woke up, Billy wouldn’t be there, it would just be Jay and his demons.
52
Kate’s stomach was full and she felt clean after her long soak. She had closed her eyes the second she laid her head on her pillow and had no trouble falling asleep.
When she awoke she felt safe, and that was a good feeling, one that a few days ago she hadn’t been sure she would have again. She knew Billy had gone to sort out Jay; she was scared about what might be happening, but she didn’t want to know the details, she was just relieved that he wouldn’t be harming her again.
Emma and Sonia’s voices floated up to Kate from downstairs, just the normalness of the moment made her feel happy, she had been so terrified that she wouldn’t see her friends and family again when she had been trapped in that dingy basement.
The phone rang on her dresser and, as she pulled herself up and wrapped the duvet snugly around her, she got that fluttery feeling in her stomach as she looked at the caller ID: Paul.
“Hey, Kate, I just wanted to see how you are?” Paul asked. “We didn’t really get much of chance to talk earlier with everyone around.”
Kate smiled. They had been surrounded by people, yet she had felt that she and Paul were the only two in the room. Had he felt that too?
“Thanks, Paul; I’m feeling a lot better now I’ve had a sleep.”
“Well, in that case, how would you fancy dinner at my place? I can pick you up in a few hours. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet, if you’re up to it.”
“Okay.” Kate felt wary; dinner with just Paul would have been heaven, she just knew he felt the same way she did, surely she hadn't got that wrong. He wouldn’t want her to go to his house for dinner to meet a girlfriend, would he? Whoever it was must be important to him. Not wanting to sound stupid over the phone or question him further in case she heard something that she didn’t want to, she agreed. He then said he would pick her up in two hours.
Putting the phone down, Paul called for Sophia. Running into the lounge, wearing a bright pink Disney princess dress that she had insisted on wearing every day since he had bought her the movie, Sophia threw herself onto her daddy’s lap. He hugged her; it was hard to imagine that this child hadn’t been in his life forever, it had only been four short years, yet he couldn’t remember life before she had come along. She was his world.
“I have a friend coming over to meet you later.” Sophia fiddled with her princess ballet pumps, he could see that she felt shy at the mere thought of someone else coming over. It was his own fault, he knew, Sophia was forever at home with the nanny while he worked. Apart from nursery in the morning, they rarely had visitors. Deciding to play it from a different angle, he whispered: