Close by Martina Cole Read Free Book Online

with Lil was everything to him, as it was to her.
    Although Lil tried to make excuses for her parents, well her mother anyway, he had no such illusions about his beginnings; all he knew was that he wanted to make a good life for his family and he wanted to make his wife feel needed, loved and respected for what she was.
    He still took the occasional flier of course, but he was as faithful to her as he was ever going to be. It had been a voyage of discovery for both of them. But the bottom line was that they worked well together and they needed each other.
    As he stamped out his cigarette, he looked around the warehouse and wondered at this cannabis that everyone seemed so mad about. He was a Scotch man himself, but if this was what would add to his fortunes, then he was happy enough to supply it. Times were changing and if you had any savvy at all, you changed with them.
    He heard the low drone of an expensive car as it pulled up outside and he smiled once more. This was what life was all about, not just the skulduggery, but also the feeling of control skulduggery conferred on the likes of him. Money was everything, and anyone who pretended otherwise was either rich by birth or afflicted by a mental ague. Too stupid to see what was around them.
    Dicky Williams walked into the warehouse, as always surrounded by his brothers. They were like clones of one another, all short, stocky and with crew cuts. They all favoured tonic suits, shirt and ties. This was one of the reasons Pat liked doing business with them; they were smart, both in their minds and their appearance.
    They were funny as well and this went a long way in their world. A sense of humour could be the deciding factor in many aspects of their business. Especially the debts; a first call with a smiling face and a few quips could garner more money than all the baseball bats and tyre irons in the vicinity. It was more about getting your point across to begin with; if no one took that on board then anything that might happen after the initial warning was just classed as gravy. A warning was, after all, a warning.
    Why borrow money if you had no intentions of paying it back? The people who approached them knew they were not the fucking bank. If they had been welcome there in the first place they would not be asking them as an alternative, would they? So, ergo, they had to understand that, unlike dealing with the banks, they would be expected to pay the amount back not only quickly and expensively, but with a cheery smile and a promise to pass on their good fortune to friends and associates.
    They were the last resort for the people who borrowed from them and they provided the money when no one else would take the chance. Shame this was what gave them a bad name in society.
    Dicky came in, rubbing his hands together like Uriah Heep on Dexedrine. 'Froze me cods off, Pat. How the fuck do you stand it?'
    Pat laughed.
    Dicky had been to see the man they were dealing with for some clothes that had mysteriously disappeared from a large storage depot in Whitechapel. The man rummaged from a huge old house, and even if there was six feet of snow on the ground, the place was never heated and the guy never wore a coat. Consequently, he was known as Freezing Freddie Dwyer or Fucking Freezing Freddie Dwyer.
    'He is off his fucking nut. You should have seen him, Pat. He was popping pills like there was no tomorrow.'
    The Williams brothers all nodded in unison and this made Pat want to laugh at them now. He had more sense than to give in to the
    urge though.
    'It's the purple hearts, see, he can't get on without them.'
    Pat nodded sagely as they lit cigarettes, and then he poured them out large Scotches. This had become a ritual.
    The smell of whisky and cigarette smoke still couldn't cover the stench of dirt and blood that seemed to permeate the place. The warehouses had witnessed many deaths over the years and the bodies thrown into the Thames had either made their way to Tilbury or out