Jacqui Rose 2 Book Bundle

His words sent Maggie into an angry hissing rant.

‘Okay? No she ain’t okay. How could she be with Gina? Would you want to be stuck with her? Jesus, a fart can’t escape from Gina Daniels quick enough. But if you mean, is she alive? Well yeah she is, but okay she ain’t. I needed you to help her. She needed you to. I will never forgive you for this.’

‘Listen, I don’t want to talk here.’

Johnny looked round nervously but Maggie was beyond caring at that point. ‘What are you afraid of, Johnny? Someone seeing us together and they rumble your secret life? Then your perfect world comes crashing in on you?’

‘It’s not just my neck on the block if anyone finds out is it Maggie? It’s Harley’s too.’

‘Don’t you dare, Johnny. Don’t you dare pretend you’re concerned about her.’

Johnny’s face darkened and he grabbed her arm as she turned to walk away. ‘Think you’re so flipping perfect don’t you Maggie? Like butter wouldn’t melt, the way you look down your nose at me. Well if you’re so much better than the rest of us, why didn’t you keep that big mouth of yours closed? Keep that temper of yours in check. But oh no, you couldn’t do that could you? You had to prove a point and lay one out on a copper. So stop judging me, Maggie. Ask yourself instead why you didn’t have more self-control. If you love our daughter as much as you say you do, why did you find yourself doing bird for a year?’

His words cut. She knew what Johnny was saying was true. Here she was going round being all high and mighty but she was to blame for all this. When Maggie had been in Highpoint she’d opened her eyes every morning, seeing the metal bars on the windows and she’d asked herself the same question: why?

‘I hate you Johnny Taylor, you know that?’

He pulled her then, towards Whispers nightclub, looking around anxiously as he did so. Wanting to make sure nobody saw them.

Johnny took her down by the side of the club and firmly – but without hurting her – pushed Maggie against the cold red brick of the wall. Leaning on it with his hands on either side of her he stood inches away, looking down at her, her eye level only coming up to his chest.

Maggie smelt his expensive cologne and felt the heat of his body. He stared at her intently with his beautiful eyes and his raven hair flopping handsomely over his forehead.

‘Don’t say that to me Maggie. Never say you hate me.’

‘I’ll say what I want Johnny, especially if I mean it.’

‘You don’t mean it; it’s just that flipping temper of yours talking.’

‘Well that’s where you’re wrong. I do.’

‘Then look me in the eyes Maggie and tell me.’

She stared at him and he leaned in to kiss her. For a moment she let him and she forgot. Forgot her anger, her problems, her life – only remembering her love for the man she’d been taught to despise. Then the moment, like the clouds in the sky, passed and everything came flooding back. Maggie pushed him away, locking eyes with him. She spoke angrily.

‘Yes Johnny, I do. I do hate you.’

The pain was obvious in his eyes but so was the pain in Harley’s when she’d told her she had to stay with Gina for a little bit longer until she worked something out. Thinking about her daughter made Maggie reject any pleading from Johnny. He was a grown man and he’d soon get over it. Harley was a child who needed her. Trusted her.

Harley came first above and beyond anyone else.

‘You can’t hate me, Maggie.’

‘Why can’t I, Johnny?’

He gently touched her face again, but this time Maggie pulled away from his touch. She walked away as Johnny continued to talk. ‘I’ll tell you why you can’t hate me, Maggie – because I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. And secondly … secondly, because you’re my wife.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#ulink_2cd01e33-78b2-5205-9905-db8e6eed72e4)

Tommy had felt agitated after the confrontation with Johnny. What he’d said about Max had completely thrown him. Maggie had caught him off guard as well. Seeing her had given him a shock. He’d known she was coming home, but to see her standing behind him, glaring defiantly at Johnny Taylor with her huge blue eyes had taken him back to when they were kids. When it was Maggie, but should’ve been him, trying to protect them all from their father.

Tommy hadn’t wanted to see her. She brought up too many memories, made the noise in his head seem louder. She’d smiled at him, reaching out to put her hand on his arm but as always, he hadn’t known how to react. She made him feel confused, so he’d ignored her, giving Johnny a warning look and disappearing into the night-time streets as his head began to spin.

It’d been the second time in less than twenty-four hours a Taylor had made him retreat back to his private space.

Tommy listened and waited. He saw the flickering movements of the woman through the crack as she lay naked on the bed. From the dark of the closet he called her name. He didn’t hear her stir so he called again in a whisper. He couldn’t see her face but he could imagine the fear on it as he heard her anxious breathing. A moment later he flung open the doors and watched as she screamed.

Tommy heard the muffled tortured screams through her gag as her mouth was taped and her hands bound behind her back. Slow tears trickled down her face, stuffing up her nose, making it harder to breathe as the tape pulled back on her mouth and her eyes bulged with panic. He could see the torturous look on her face and in her eyes, and felt the fear resonating from her as he started to take off his belt.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#ulink_3ecfdb46-d1e4-5b97-8c2e-8a406092e730)

It was Friday morning and Maggie stood in the doorway observing the refurbished ceiling of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Soho Square. A church she’d been coming to since she was a child and where she’d had her first Holy Communion, watched by her father who’d sat scowling at her with a hangover, with her mother nervously sitting next to him on the front wooden pew, nursing a fresh black eye.

The domed ceiling had been painted and the walls whitewashed. The high arched windows sparkled, letting the sunlight beam through the coloured glass, bouncing its rays towards the altar where a large painting of the Virgin Mary stood ten feet tall in judgement and framed in gold.

The refurbishments of St. Patrick’s had finished last May and Maggie hadn’t seen it since it had been re-opened.

‘Maggie Donaldson, why it’s good to see you. The sheep returning to its fold.’

Father Maloney greeted her at the church door. She’d never warmed to him, always getting the sense that if it wasn’t for her father’s large donations of laundered money given to the church in exchange for ten Hail Marys and all his sins forgiven, Father Maloney would never let them near the church – let alone in the continually reserved front row pew.

The other reason why Maggie had no time for Father Maloney was because she felt he’d let her down as a child. And though it might’ve been petty of her, she could never quite find it in her to forgive him.

Growing up, she and her siblings had been taught never to talk about what went on at home. She’d unbendingly kept to the rule until the day of her eleventh birthday when she’d bunked off school to go to church to ask God for help. Not for herself, but for her mother who, instead of making her a cake, was laid up in bed after having the shit beaten out of her the night before by her enraged father.

She’d sat at the back of the freezing church with her eyes scrunched up, trying to concentrate hard on remembering her prayers. Trying to stop the tears rolling down her face. Father Maloney had come to sit next to her and asked what was wrong. Like a naive fool she’d trusted him, needing to talk. Thinking maybe God had sent the priest to come and sit next to her, Maggie had broken her own family’s sacred vow; she’d opened her mouth.

After she’d told him, Maggie had pleaded her concern. ‘But Father, you won’t tell my Dad I’ve told you will you? If he ever found out I think he’d kill me.’

He hadn’t killed her, but when she’d seen Father Maloney standing in her kitchen with her father that same afternoon laughing and joking about life back in Ireland, Maggie had wishedshe was dead. She stood rooted to the red tiled floor as her whole body started to tremble; once more the fear of what was to come had almost made her vomit. Her father had spoken to her. ‘I understand you paid Father Maloney a visit today Maggie. Gave him a tale.’

Father Maloney had scowled at her then, looking over his glasses as he spoke. ‘You know what they say about liars, Margaret?’

Maggie had looked at her father, then at the priest and had known she was going to get the beating of her life that night. Even at her young age she’d felt her temper rising, incensed by the injustice of the situation. Standing humiliated in the kitchen Maggie had decided she’d nothing to lose. She wanted to make it clear to Father Maloney exactly what she thought of him for breaking her trust. A trust she’d never given to anyone before. ‘And you know what they say about cunts like you.’

She’d flown across the room along with a mouthful of blood and landed on a pile of shopping bags. She’d presumed it’d been her father who’d hit her with such almighty force that her front tooth was loose. But when she’d looked up, half dazed, her father was still standing in the same spot. It was Father Maloney who’d stood red-faced, his hand raised in the air. She’d touched her swollen lip and glared at the priest, calmly speaking to him and sounding much older than her eleven years. ‘And Father, by the way, it’s Maggie – not Margaret.’

The church bells began to ring, bringing Maggie back from her thoughts. She looked at Father Maloney and smiled. ‘I’ve been away, detained as it were Father.’

The priest looked at Maggie, puzzled, and then continued to question her, his strong Irish accent carrying over the ringing church bells as they stood at the door of the church.

‘Pastures new, Margaret?’

‘I’ve heard them call it a lot of things but I’ve never heard them call a year banged up in Highpoint Prison pastures new. Oh and Father, perhaps you’re forgetting the discussion we once had. It’s Maggie, not Margaret, remember?’

Father Maloney blushed and Maggie saw he’d at least had the decency to look ashamed. With that, she turned on her heel and marched down the aisle into the cool of the church, catching the grin from Nicky and the angry glower from her father.

The regular congregation at St. Patrick’s church was an odd sight; made up of locals and tourists, sex workers, gays and lesbians, drunks and the homeless from the melting pot of Soho’s community. Then of course there was her own family; the Donaldsons.