Blood Sisters: Part 3 of 3: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?

Certain details in this book, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

HarperElement

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First published by HarperElement 2017

FIRST EDITION

© Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee 2017

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover photographs © Alexander Vinogradov/Trevillion Images (posed by model); Paul Gooney/Arcangel (street scene)

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008142797

Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008142780

Version: 2017-03-06

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

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Gurdy knew something wasn’t right the very second Paddy put his foot to the floor. Why the hell had he agreed to get in his car? Why the hell hadn’t he just said he’d follow him to wherever they were going on his own?

It had been a strange Tuesday morning all told. It had started normally enough – he’d gone to work in the garage, just as Paddy had asked him to the previous evening – but no Paddy himself – he’d simply not showed – even though there was a car they were supposed to be working on and he knew there were things Gurdy couldn’t deal with on his own. He wasn’t a fucking mechanic after all, was he?

And still no sign of Paddy, as the morning wore on, even though he’d said he’d be there around nine, after dropping Vicky off at work. So Gurdy had cracked on – daydreaming about DJ Steve, formulating his grand plans in Leeds – the latter ever more urgent now that brown had been brought into the equation. That was one line he was never going to cross. No way was he getting involved in dealing heroin.

But there was only so much he could do to the car. Paddy knew that. So when, by half eleven, Paddy still hadn’t showed, Gurdy began to get anxious.

Either he’d had to do something unexpected for Mo and couldn’t call, or – worse – the fucking cops had pulled him in again. Which wouldn’t have surprised Gurdy, even though he fervently wished it otherwise – Paddy had been dealing coke so fucking blatantly on Sunday and Monday that it was almost like he was asking to be arrested again. Like they’d have to do it as a public bloody service.

Then the call from him, finally, just after twelve. ‘Meet me at the lock-up at one.’ No ‘Hello’, no ‘How are you?’ No explanation for his absence. Just the order barked at him. To which Gurdy’d obviously said okay. Then locked the garage, got in his Mini and drove there.

He grabbed the door handle, for stability. And now this. Paddy weird. Paddy antsy. Paddy scowling. And straight out of one car and into another. Into Paddy’s Capri, at his insistence, which smelt of some sickly air freshener. One of several swinging from the rear-view mirror. Fruity.

Gurdy felt trapped now. Sweaty. And the smell made him nauseous. And, as the Capri began screaming down the road in what looked like the wrong direction, very frightened as well.

In truth he had always been frightened of Paddy. It had never been one of those relationships where he felt he could be himself. They were thin on the ground anyway – Vic and Luce, his brother Vikram. But he’d always accepted that – after all, he was an odd-ball, everyone knew that. And he’d never had what it took to build a circle of friends. And, besides, he’d always thought that was the way it worked with business. Yes, he was nervous of Paddy and his volatile behaviour, but the same went for Paddy, with Mo. He’d not witnessed it often but the couple of times he’d seen Paddy around the scary Rasta, he saw his own anxiety and fear mirrored in Paddy’s eyes. That was obviously how it worked. That was why it was called a pecking order – with the lowliest in the chain, him, getting pecked the most.

Now, though, he was a million per cent more frightened of Paddy. This new version – knocked into shape during those nine months in prison – was one he no longer felt he knew. He’d been difficult to deal with from the minute he’d been released, as if he had to roll around town like some sort of gangster to prove a point that he was harder than everyone else. No longer just the local baker’s wayward son, but a drug-fuelled not-to-be-messed-with ex-convict.