Authors: Martina Cole
The Graft (60 page)
The hot tub was not hot, it was not bubbling and the lights beneath it were not turned on. Billy and Siddy grinned at each other as Colin looked on. He had been having a nice evening with Soraya, and was miffed that it had been cut short by the call from Laurie.
As he started to dismantle the hot tub they were all sweating with nerves. ‘I feel really bad, don’t you?’
Billy shrugged. ‘ ’Course, but would you tell your old woman what was going down?’
‘Would I fuck!’
‘Well, there you go then. What she don’t know won’t hurt her, will it? We can hardly bring her into the frame can we?’
‘She would get a percentage of the price though, wouldn’t she?’
‘Does she look like she needs it then?’
Laurie watched his friends on the CCTV cameras that were located in the thirty-foot kitchen. Tammy was sitting on a high stool at one of the breakfast bars sipping a drink and watching with him, her face showed no interest whatsoever. He admired her even more for her calmness. She looked at him as he poured himself a stiff drink. He needed one now he had put these men in the frame, but he would take the consequences. She had had enough to contend with and he had no interest in adding to her disillusionment.
‘I appreciate your honesty, you know, you won’t go away empty handed,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘Have this one on me, Tammy. When it came to the crunch I couldn’t do it. You’re a nice lady.’
She grinned but her heart wasn’t in it. ‘Want to stay here and watch while I put them out of their misery, eh?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t feel the urge to rub it in, if that’s what you mean, Tams.’
She was still smiling. As she left the kitchen he drank down his drink. After all this shit he would need to be anaesthetised when Billy realised what had gone down. But it was worth the pain. Tammy was all right, he couldn’t tuck her up for no one. He must be getting soft in his old age.
‘You looking for these?’
Billy was convinced he was hallucinating as he saw Tammy Leary standing in the doorway with a pile of papers in her hand.
Siddy and Colin were struck dumb. Colin had a screwdriver in his hand and his jaw was on the floor.
Tammy was wearing a black silk dressing gown and carrying a large drink. Her blond hair was almost on end with the anger coursing through her veins. ‘You taking the piss out of me, Billy boy?’
He was bang to rights and he knew it, consequently he didn’t bother to answer.
Siddy was on the verge of fainting.
‘Why didn’t you ask me for what you wanted, eh? I would have been more than happy to oblige, I mean, why wouldn’t I?’
The men were still staring at her in shock and trepidation. ‘You went through all this rigmarole to get a few names and addresses? Where the fuck do you think the numbers came from in the first place, eh?’
She shook the papers out in front of her. ‘You think Nick did it all then? You think he was the one who talked round the local councillors? The local planning officers?’
She looked at them all as she said disdainfully, ‘You fools! Nick couldn’t be arsed with any of that.
I
was the one who put all this in place. I was the one who got involved with them, not Nick. I was the one who made sure they had a few quid, a nice holiday. I bought off everyone, I found out their weaknesses and I exploited them. It was me, not Nick.’
She walked towards them shaking her head in disgust and bewilderment. ‘Nick always took the credit, it was how we worked. I was the one who ferreted out the information, he was the one who
used
it.’
The men watched her in fascination as she flicked a switch and flooded the place with light.
‘I
grafted
and all, you know, over the years. I was the one who dealt with the architects and the planning officers. It was me who started it in the first place, now I can get planning permission
anywhere
in the country mate. From local councillors I made my way through Great Britain. Remember cool Britannia and all that? Well I took a leaf out of the Blairs’ book and brought my property portfolio up to date. It now encompasses the whole country.’
She smiled at the absolute embarrassment of the men before her, especially Billy Clarke.
‘You see, Nick was useless at that part of it all, he couldn’t be bothered to do the groundwork, he was like you, he wanted it all on a plate. But we were a good team. I knew when to button me mutton, and let him take the applause, and he appreciated that fact. Now I find you lot want to skank my hard work, when you know fortunes are charged for these numbers and these introductions. I just charged the money in my old man’s name. It was how we worked you see. And Nick and me were a good team. Be fair, thanks to your snooping you know that he shagged his boys and I shagged mine. Now you are trying to fuck me and it just ain’t going to happen.’ She was letting Billy know she was aware he knew the score, but letting him know that she also knew the score. She was fronting him out.
‘How dare you break into my home, try and skank
my
livelihood. Take the food out of my kids’ mouths.’
‘It is not like that, Tammy, and you know it.’ Billy was trying to justify himself, it sounded lame even to his own ears. They were going to take the lot and forget they had ever been here. This was worth fortunes and they had believed that Tammy had not known what she was sitting on.
‘Fuck off, Billy Clarke! You took my old man down, and I swallowed that. You were right to do it, he was out of order. But to come here, to send poor Laurie, who I sussed out in minutes by the way, to try to tuck me up!’ She laughed.
‘I thought you had more respect for me, and that goes for you, too, Siddy Haulfryn.’
She threw the papers on the floor and they saw there was nothing written on them. ‘I was also the one who got into the local filth both here and back in Blighty, and I knew you two were in Spain within minutes of you landing. I knew Alan was snooping around here and I knew what for. I know
everything
that goes on in
my
world. It took years before Nick realised that but when he did he left me to it. He was too busy covering up his other life, see.’ She waited for one of them to answer her, challenge her even, but they were all quiet and subdued.
‘Now, if you want
any
of these numbers then I suggest you fucking pay me what you
would
have paid him. No penalties this time, I’m in a good mood, so how lucky are you cretins, eh?’
‘Look, Tammy, it’s nothing personal . . .’
‘Come off it Billy, ’
course
it’s personal. You was going to take the lot from me and assume I would have been none the wiser.’ She looked the men over like they were so much rubbish. ‘We ain’t hidden anything there for years, mate, in fact we hid stuff there so that it would be known around about. You may be in the conservatory, but even Alan would never have got in the
house
. I brought in another company from Germany to do the final security measures. I can get
anything I want
. Always could. For example, at the moment I have got plates for euros, dollar bills and fifty-pound notes, you interested?’
She was enjoying herself now. ‘It was me who sorted every site that we built on. You see, I
let
Nick take the glory, I just took the money.
‘I think you had better leave, and I think you should do what the Germans and the French do. Ring me up and make an appointment. Now fuck off.’
She shook her head. ‘My address book is worth fortunes, that’s how come I am living here and you two ain’t. But my address book is up here.’ She pointed at her temple. ‘Even Nick didn’t know the numbers, sweetheart. I was the real brains of the outfit. Try and remember that for the future. Not a penny was spent but I knew it was going out. Not a euro was invested without my express say-so.’
She was laughing once more. The sarcasm was evident to all in the room. ‘Have a fucking day off, guys, then come back and we’ll talk business, yeah?’
She turned off the lights. ‘By the way, put that all back as you found it please, and remember, Nick Leary was more slippery than Cherie Blair in a chip pan. So what makes you think I was gonna let you have what was mine and my kids for nix? I had the best teacher in the world, guys, so you lot are fucking amateurs to me.’
She walked back into the house. ‘I’ll look forward to hearing from you, okay.’ She shut the patio doors and locked them noisily.
Billy Clarke saw that the garden around the house was now full of Spanish geezers with large moustaches and even larger weapons.
And there was him thinking he was hard.
All he felt now was mean, embarrassed and stupid. They had tried to have her over, and she had been one step ahead. A capture was a capture and he would hold his hand up to it without a second thought.
Tammy Leary was a girl all right, and he had a feeling he would be working with her a lot in the future. She had never given anything out for nothing, not really, and he, better than anyone, should have realised that much.
Epilogue
Tammy watched her son as he dived into the swimming pool. Since the school had outed him, Nick seemed happier. Maybe her poor mother-in-law had been right all those years when she had said he hated it there. Yet James, he seemed to thrive on it. Didn’t even want to come home for the holidays. Nick Junior was his father’s son though, she knew he had been behind a demanding-money-with menaces scam that had rocked the school, even though he denied it vehemently. But then as his head-master had pointed out, he would deny it, wouldn’t he?
She shrugged the worry off.
Who gave a fuck, anyway? Nick Junior got on well with Laurie, who had never gone home. Well, he had once but that was only to pick up the rest of his clothes. They were a couple, and they were a good couple.
She had found out that he was hung like a horse and he had found out that she
liked
a man who was hung like a horse. He also made her laugh, she made him laugh back so they were even really.
Billy and Siddy had never lived down the fact they tried to have her over. Everyone was now aware that she held the keys to most builders’ riches and she deserved every halfpenny she got. And the truth was, she did. No one worked a site in the South East without her say-so, and no one would for years. She was flexing her considerable muscle in Spain too. She was even a favourite with the Spanish army and had enough work for them till the
next
millennium. Men always underestimated women, and Tammy had had the sense to look like she had no idea what was going on, when in fact she knew more than anyone about what the score was.
Except for Nick’s extracurricular activities. And who would ever have guessed those? She had nothing on her conscience where that was concerned, she was looking out for
her
now, her and her kids.
Most women knew more about their husbands and partners than their mothers. Men were different to women in that men could not resist letting women know they knew their weak points, while emphasising their own strong points at every opportunity.
Women however, only ever showed men their weak points. Any man who had been through a messy divorce could vouch for that one.
And, as her old Dad had told her over and over again, people only know what you
let them
.
So Laurie Metcalf and her own two sons were none the wiser where she was concerned.
And that was how it would stay.
She poured herself a glass of sangria and raised a silent toast to her mother-in-law. Of her old life she was the only person Tammy missed, the only person she cared for. In a funny way she actually loved her. Her own mother had never had time for her, and she had fought off any spark of kindness from Nick’s mother from day one. That was a mistake she would never repeat again; everyone needed someone at some time in their lives. Unfortunately for her, she had learned that lesson too late where her mother-in-law was concerned.
She still missed her old life occasionally, but the new life she was building was proving to be more rewarding in more ways than one.
For now, for this day, the sun was out and life was good.
What more could a woman want?
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