Old Friends and New Enemies by Owen Mullen

Author:Owen Mullen [Mullen, Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

Twenty-One

She’d seen their faces. They hadn’t bothered to hide them. They didn’t care. As soon as they got what they needed, they’d kill her. Ian had stolen from dangerous people. Not these people and not their money, but they wanted it and assumed he’d told her where it was hidden. While they believed that, she had a chance.

Fiona opened her eyes to nothing. No sight, no sound. She was on the floor, in the dark, with her back against an uneven wall. Something scurrying nearby startled her. Mice she could handle, rats were...better not to think about rats.

What seemed like hours later, heavy footsteps brought her awake; paralysed with fear her body had closed down and she had fallen asleep. A door opened and two men pulled her upright. She blabbered. ‘Please. Where are you taking me? This is a mistake.’

Iron fingers gripped her arm; a rough voice said, ‘Shut it.’

At the top of a narrow flight of stairs, she stumbled and felt it sting where the skin had broken. The thugs dragged her into a lift that travelled from the basement to the fifth floor; the smell of stale cigarette smoke and piss was overpowering. The doors slid open. An elderly couple waiting to go down held on to each other and stood aside as Fiona was manhandled across the landing.

She pleaded with them. ‘Help me. Please. These men are going to kill me.’

Their eyes stayed on the ground; whatever was happening was no business of theirs. This was the high flats, a place the police considered a no go area, dope dealers and junkies, shooting up yards from their home. The old people witnessed violence every day and knew better than to get involved. They wouldn’t be calling for help. Nobody would. Not if they valued their legs.

Those who know don’t speak.

The room was not unlike her mother’s lounge; patterned wallpaper, a solid coffee table and a floral three piece suite. Kidnapped and held against her will, the very ordinariness of it shocked her.

A man leaned on a stick. He looked frail and unwell. Two younger men flanked him, one with a scar marring an otherwise handsome face. The old man spoke. ‘So at last, this is her, Kevin.’

‘This is her, Jimmy’

Jimmy Rafferty pointed a trembling finger at Fiona. ‘Don’t go with hurting women. ‘Course if I have to, if there’s nothing else for it, then...’ The shrug absolved him from responsibility. ‘You’ve brought this on yourself. We can do it three ways, the easy way, the hard way,’ he paused for effect, ‘or Kevin’s way. Your choice.’

Fiona Ramsay had been told about the east end gangster family, Jimmy and his psycho sons. Paul, the one who died, was supposed to have been mental, a maniac even by Glasgow standards. Christ! Of them all, Sean was the only Rafferty who was even half sane.

She’d seen him before.

Sean took control. He said, ‘Tell us what Selkirk did with the money and I’ll ask them to go easy on you.’

Words poured from Fiona.

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