Jacqui Rose 2 Book Bundle

That’d been at half past six. It was now nearly half past eight. She wasn’t sure Gina was even going to turn up at the walk-up, but watching Soho life go by was better than going back home and worrying.

In the two hours she’d been sitting on the stone steps, she’d only had to shuffle over to make way for three punters, eager to make their way up the bare wooden staircase and along the unpainted corridor to be ‘serviced’ for twenty quid by Joanie. Business was clearly down.

As Maggie saw it, Soho was divided into three different levels and it was down to the individual to see what they wanted to see. The first level was for the tourists, who gazed about with excitement, soaking up the sounds and the smells of the cramped one square mile. Feeling a part of the magic but not getting close enough for it to cast a deadly spell on them.

The second level was the mix of communities; real people trying to live in harmony amongst different cultural and social backgrounds, all attempting to be sympathetic to one another’s beliefs. Most of the time everybody managed to be tolerant, but occasionally it kicked off. Then the air would be heavy with tension until the community leaders sorted it out.

And finally there was the deepest level of Soho. The darker level which Maggie had been born into, and doubted she’d ever escape from. The protection rackets, the drugs, the sex trade, and the gangsters. The faces of Soho who ran the areas weren’t seen until they wanted or needed to be. That was the part Maggie felt she belonged to. She knew everyone; knew who to avoid and who to take the time to speak to. Soho was in her blood as strong as being a Donaldson was. Whenever she left it she missed it; and whenever she was in it she wanted to get as far away from the place as possible.

‘Touting for business, love? I’ll give you a quid and even then I’m being generous.’

Maggie looked up and saw the grinning face of Lola Harding who owned and ran a cafe round the corner in Bateman Street. Lola was a good ’un; she’d been a brass most of her life and lived in the area for all of it.

Maggie remembered Lola’s kids from when they were little. They’d all played together, though they’d been slightly older than her. One Christmas Eve Lola’s kids had been taken into care by social services, and Maggie could still hear the desperate screams as Lola and her kids physically hung onto each other in the street as she tried to stop them being carted off.

When Maggie had seen what’d happened to Lola’s kids, she’d envied them. Wishing someone could swoop down and take her away from her childhood. She would’ve happily traded a place in the Donaldson household for a place in care on any given day.

‘Whatever’s troubling you babe, it won’t help any sitting with your bum jammed to the floor. When you’ve got an arse full of piles from sitting on that cold step, let me tell you, you’ll really have something to cry about. Come on love, why don’t you come and have a cup of Rosie Lee with me?’

‘No thanks, Lola. I’m waiting for Gina.’

‘Well I reckon you’ll be waiting a long time. She’s probably got her knickers off somewhere.’

Maggie scrunched her forehead into a scowl.

‘I thought she only worked as a maid now, thought she was off the game.’

‘She says she is, but nobody ever really is.’

‘You are.’

‘That’s because no one will have me. I’d end up having to pay the bleeding punters.’ Lola roared out a cackling laugh, making the passing Chinese couple huddle together and quickly cross over to the other side of the street in fright.

‘Sure you don’t want that brew, Maggie?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Okay love, but you know where I am if you change your mind and want a chat. Say hello to your mum won’t you, and ask her why she hasn’t left that rotten bleeder yet.’

Another roar of laughter left Lola’s mouth and Maggie watched her walk away towards Soho Square. She wondered how after such a hard life Lola could still always find a joke; still see the bright side in the darkest of situations.

Maggie sighed, closing her eyes when she lost sight of Lola to the throng of the crowds. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she’d been back in Soho, yet sitting waiting in the filthy doorway, surrounded by the smell of piss, made it feel like she’d been back a lifetime. But however bad the homecoming, she was still glad to be home. A year away had been a year away too long.

It’d been her own fault she’d been sent down. When the police had raided the house as they often did, hoping to find something they could pin on her father, she should have let them just get on with it.It was nothing new. Since she could remember the house had been raided. Every six months or so there’d be a hammering on the door, before it was booted in by a dozen or more boys in blue who charged through the house like elephants on crack.

The law knew who Max Donaldson was and he knew the law. He had his fingers in lots of businesses but first and foremost her father was a loan shark and a bag man. He extorted payments off landlords and shop owners. Charging a thousand per cent interest to old ladies who hadn’t been able to pay their winter fuel bills. With no strong credit history to take out a loan from a bank, they turned to her father for a hundred pound loan, only to find themselves paying back thousands of pounds from the interest on the interest on the interest. And if they couldn’t pay, her father would happily pay someone to break a bone as a warning. A taste of what was to come if they messed him about.

Her brother Tommy had been recruited by her father to join the family business. He hadn’t had a choice. And he hadn’t been able to drop out of it like Nicky had by default.

Nicky was soft like freshly picked cotton but his drug habit was out of control. It had been since he was twelve. It was this, not his soft kind nature which made him unreliable. Their father had eventually given up with him, giving him only the odd job to do now and again. Therefore it was poor Tommy who took the brunt, forced to work day in day out with their father.

Even though Maggie didn’t work for her father, she might as well have done. Everything came from him, whether she liked it or not. Her father owned their house, paid the bills, paid for food, for clothes, for the lot. Everything which was bought had to be run by him before he decided to put his hand in his wallet. She had nothing he didn’t own or possess. Including her.

Maggie had never had a job. She’d never been allowed to – a daughter of a face couldn’t be seen working outside the family business. Her father however didn’t want her working with or by him. Though she wasn’t complaining; she’d no desire to be involved in a business which thrived on exploiting the vulnerable.

Consequently, she should have been of use to the police coming into her room, turning it upside down and leaving it a mess. But for some reason, on that day it’d irritated her more than usual. When she’d objected, the copper had just sneered at her.She’d felt her temper swimming through her veins and she’d wanted to clout him, just to take the smug sound out of his voice. But she hadn’t, well not until they’d found the bag of pills which she didn’t know anything about.‘I’ve never seen them before.’

‘Well then whose are they, Maggie?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what they are either and neither do you. They could be Smarties for all you know.’

‘I’ll need you to come down to the station whilst we check.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve got no choice.’

‘You don’t understand; I can’t.’

Maggie remembered she’d looked over to see her father coming to stand at her bedroom door. There would’ve been no way she could’ve talked to the coppers in front of him. To tell them what she needed to say and explain why she couldn’t get banged up then. ‘Listen, give me an hour and I’ll come. I promise.’

They’d grinned at each other, bursting out into laughter. ‘This isn’t a social engagement. You know the routine, Maggie; you and your family have certainly had enough practice. You’ll probably be bailed by tomorrow.’

Tomorrow. Her mind had raced. Wondering where her mother was. ThenMaggie had looked over again to her father, and by the look in his eyes she knew he knew something about the pills. She’d stared at him harder, and out of view of the sergeant her father shrugged his shoulders, mouthing a mocking apology.

It was then she’d acted like a fool. And once again he’d managed to wind her up to the point of her behaving stupidly and rashly.

It’d actually been her father she’d flown at, not the Sergeant at the door standing next to him. But her fist didn’t differentiate between the two of them. It was a genuine mistake. But a mistake which had made all hell break loose.

A wall of blue uniforms had rushed towards her. For the next ten minutes Maggie Donaldson had kicked and struggled, pushing the men away, surprising them with her force. Then she’d felt a heavy weight on her back as she was forced to the ground by a knee. She’d slammed to the ground, banging her chin on the corner of the open drawer. The blood had sprayed everyone and Maggie had felt a burning pain as her chin split open. She’d howled a deep stomach churning cry, not for the pain, but for what she knew she was about to leave behind.

Maggie stood up from the cold step, rubbing her chin to feel the small scar. A reminder of her stupidity. She should’ve known better. But her father’s mocking scorn had hurt and made her feel humiliated, which always turned into anger.

At the time it’d crossed Maggie’s mind her father had deliberately put the pills – which turned out to be ecstasy tablets – in her drawer. But when she found out the truth, she’d seen it for what it was; a series of unfortunate events which had cost her dearly.

The pills had been confiscated from one of her father’s clients, who hadn’t been able to pay his weekly instalment.

Nicky had been given the task of picking them up to sell at the clubs. Their father, counting on Nicky to come within the hour hadn’t bothered being cautious and had left the pills in the house, which he never usually would’ve done, putting them in her drawer for an hour’s safekeeping. What he hadn’t counted on was Nicky’s insatiable appetite for drugs, his need for a hit being greater than the fear of the brutal consequences of disobeying their father’s orders.

Waiting for Nicky to turn up, Max had snorted some lines of coke, cracked open a bottle of whiskey and drank himself into a stupor. He was oblivious to the fact that Nicky hadn’t turned up until he was woken the next morning by the sound of the front door being broken down.

They didn’t charge her with possession. Her father had made the pill owner claim he’d left them in her room. The police didn’t believe the story, neither did anyone else, but the judge had given the man thirteen months, and Maggie suspected the terrified man had seen being behind bars as a preferable option to owing Max Donaldson money.

Nicky had been inconsolable at playing, as he saw it, a monumental role in putting her behind bars. But when Maggie had seen him in the prison visiting room she hadn’t been angry. She’d just hugged him until the prison officers had come over, warning her if there was any more physical contact the visit would be over.

Maggie’s heart had gone out to Nicky. Not just because of the engorged black eye and the cuts and bruises he’d received from their father, but because he was a Donaldson and how Maggie saw it, being born into her family was simply part of the series of unfortunate events.

It wasn’t in the name of love her father had helped get her off the charges. She’d no doubt if it was purely down to him he’d have let her take the rap for the pills and left her to rot in the cells. The reason her father had done what he did was because it was the thing to do; the thing expected of him. Max Donaldson couldn’t have been seen not to do the right thing.