Chapter 31
Nobody leaves
Clara
“There you go, Mum. Nice cup of tea.” I put the steaming mug in front of my mother. When she glanced up at me, for a moment, the vacant clouds cleared as if she was noticing me there for the first time, and a flash of terror shot through her expression.
“Clara,” she said in an urgent voice, her hand coming up to grip my wrist so tightly I could feel the bones grinding together.
“Mum, what are you doing?”
“Tell me you didn’t do it,” she begged in a hoarse whisper, and I froze.
“Mum, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mum glanced at Pinky who was just outside the kitchen door, then back at me.
“Tell me you didn’t snitch. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
“Of course not, Mum,” I said, shooting Pinky a nervous glance, but he was thankfully facing away from us. “I don’t understand what’s happening to be honest. You know I never get involved in any of Dad’s business.”
Relief had her slumping back in the chair, a shaky hand coming up to push her hair off her face.
“Okay, love,” she whispered. “Okay.”
“Mum, listen,” I said tentatively, hoping that this moment of clarity might mean I could get through to her. “I’m really going to have to go to work. I can’t keep calling in sick like this.” I gave a nervous laugh. “Lily can’t manage all of those sprogs without me in the mix.”
Mum waved her hand before she picked up her tea. “Dad needs you here, love,” she said vaguely, back to her normal checked-out self.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. “Dad doesn’t need me here, Mum. I should get back to the school.”
“You’re not bloody well going anywhere,” my father’s gruff voice cut through the air of the kitchen.
Mum shrank back into herself like she always did, her eyes clouding over and her expression becoming even more vague.
I pushed her tea towards her, took her hand in mine and wrapped it around the handle.
“Drink your tea, Mum,” I whispered.
“Did you hear me, Runt?” Dad shouted.
“Yes, Dad,” I said quietly, knowing better than to make eye contact with him, something my father often saw as a direct challenge.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before I gathered the courage to go on.
“Dad, I c-can’t stay here forever,” I said, my voice trembling as I turned to face him, still keeping my gaze lowered.
It was risky, but I had to get out of this house. We’d been in lockdown since yesterday. I overheard Skinny Pete saying something about a police investigation. There was talk of a snitch. An insider who gave them away.
They knew.
In some ways, I was relieved. I’d been carrying the burden of this secret for months, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I knew what I was doing when I did the Big Terrible Thing.
I knew what I was risking. I had just hoped that I could hide in plain sight, that I could keep my head down like I always did and blend into the background as usual.
But, because of Rafe, the spotlight had fallen on me, and now blending into the background was no longer an option.
“Nobody leaves until we find the snitch,” Dad said slowly, his head tilting to the side.
The steadiness of his words was scarier really.
With my father, controlled violence when he was in his right mind, when he was sober, was actually worse than the spontaneous violence that erupted from his drinking.
“Tell me, Clara, have I not provided a good life for you and your little shit of a brother?”
I cleared my throat and glanced at Mum, who was still staring vacantly into space. Dad took a step closer, and my gaze flew back to him.
“Of course you have, Dad,” I said in a small voice.
“You think you’re better than us, don’t you?” he returned. “You swan off, go to uni, like you’re a big shot, just to earn a fucking pittance as a teacher. No, scrap that, not even a proper teacher, are you? Just an assistant, just a grunt. I pay our cleaner more than you get.”
“Yes, Dad,” I whispered.
“Putting ideas into Zach’s head so that he’s put off joining the family business.”
I nearly snorted at that. Family business? Dad was talking like we owned a chain of department stores or something. Not sold drugs, blackmailed people and terrorised a large portion of East London. Some business.
I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t mean to––”
“Don’t contradict me, you little bitch!” he shouted, slamming his hand down on the table and making both me and Mum jump.
I took a small step back, and his gaze shot to my feet before his lip curled in disgust.
“I’ve had some information today from one of my grasshoppers. Now this guy, he tells me that the snitch is a member of my own family. I says to him, ‘Mate, none of my family are gonna be that bloody stupid,’ but this fucking guy insists. When I press him, the bastard shows me a photo.”
Dad pulled his phone from his back pocket and my heart sank as my blood ran cold. Everything moved very fast then. He advanced on me, and I lurched back. But I came up against the kitchen sideboard and I didn’t duck fast enough. He grabbed me by my hair and held the phone up in front of my face.
“Do you see what I see?” he said in that low, dangerous voice again. My eyes stung with tears as he yanked on my hair. His phone screen blurred in front of me but not before I’d seen an image of me sitting in an interview room, talking to Grant – Superintendent Mitchell.
“It’s not what it looks like, Dad,” I whispered and he barked out a laugh.
“Oh really? Because it looks like a skinny, four-eyed, disloyal runt selling out her entire family to the pigs. That’s what it looks like to me.”
“Dad, I—”
“You’ve fucked up everything. Do you even realise what you’ve done?
They have so much shit on us now it’ll take a fucking miracle to dig our way out.
The whole fucking organisation is going to go down for this, you stupid bitch!
” He screamed the last part, yanking my head even further back until my neck was bent at an unnatural angle.
“Frank, please,” Mum’s voice came from behind Dad. She was standing behind him now, wringing her hands in front of her as she looked between us.
“Sit the fuck down, Marie,” Dad snarled.
“Please, Frank. Clara’s sorry, aren’t you, love? Don’t hurt her anymore. She just—”
Dad dropped my hair as he spun around to face Mum, his face red with fury. His hand was a blur as it went whistling through the air to backhand her. I cried out as she was sent flying onto her hands and knees on the floor.
“Maybe now you’ll shut…” he aimed a kick at Mum which connected with her side and she crumbled in a small heap, “…the fuck…” another kick, “…up.”
He turned back to me, ignoring Mum’s whimpers on the floor as she attempted to crawl away from him. “See what you’ve made me do to your mother?” he asked.
I stared at him, not shying away from eye contact this time. The terror was still there, but after watching him attack Mum there was something else building in my chest, like a small spark of fury had been lit and was gradually catching fire.
So yes, I made eye contact with the bastard, and for once, I didn’t look away.
“You cowardly piece of shit,” I said through my teeth and shock crossed his expression, quickly replaced by anger.
“What the fuck did you say to me?”
“You heard me, old man,” I taunted. “You’re a fucking coward.”
“Why you little––”
He made a grab for me, but I darted around to the other side of the table.
“You know what? I did snitch. I’m glad I snitched. I hope you and your team of violent, disgusting bastards are put away for a good long fucking time.”
His face was nearly purple with rage now as he ran around the table to try and grab me, but I darted away out of his reach to the opposite side.
“I’m going to testify against you for that beating you gave me four months ago, as well as all the others.
I wonder what they do to men in prison who beat women?
You’re the big man out here, beating your wife and daughter who are both half your size, but what happens when you’re up against other hardened criminals who don’t like massive, cowardly bullies much? ”
In the back of my mind, I was aware that this wasn’t the best idea.
If I pushed Dad hard enough, I had no doubt he would kill me.
But years of hatred were spilling out, and weirdly, now that he knew I was a snitch, I felt like I had nothing left to lose.
I glanced behind Dad to the back door, then over at Mum who was huddled in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, trying to make herself as small as possible.
That’s what we did, Mum and I, we tried to make ourselves small.
That’s what this man had done to us, and I’d had enough of it.
Dad feinted left and I saw my chance. I sprinted across the space between me and the back door.
My hand closed over the handle, but just as I was about to pull it open, searing pain went through my scalp again as I was yanked back practically off my feet by my hair.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?
” Dad shouted, throwing me against the side of the table like a rag doll.
I saw stars when my face connected with the wood and I would have fallen to the floor, but Dad grabbed me by my hair again and hauled me upright.
“You won’t be testifying about fucking anything,” he growled before his fist connected with the other side of my face.
He was going to kill me.
I’d pushed him over the edge and now he was going to finish the job he’d started countless times before.
His other fist connected with my stomach, and I bent over, clutching my sides and trying to breathe through the pain.
I could hear Mum sobbing on the floor. I imagined Zach crying at my funeral, all alone, and my vision flooded with red.
How fucking dare he?
How dare he make us live in fear our whole lives?
How dare he force us to be complicit in his life of crime?
How dare he beat me? He had no bloody right.
My body flooded with an unnatural strength as my anger built and my hands balled into tight fists.
I managed to straighten despite the pain in my stomach.
Surprise crossed my dad’s face for a moment, and I used the opportunity to strike.
One of my fists shot out and punched him square in the throat.
His eyes went wide as he started gasping for breath, clutching at his neck.
I brought my knee up and connected with his groin in a sharp blow that took him to his knees.
I knew it wouldn’t take him long to recover, so I hobbled over to the sink and pulled out a frying pan, lugging it back over to where my father was still wheezing.
Holding it with both hands, I lifted it up and brought it down onto the back of his head with a dull thud.
Dad slumped forward face-first onto the floor.
I watched him for a few seconds. When he didn’t move I dropped the pan which clattered at my feet, and I ran over to Mum.
“Mum,” I croaked, glancing up at the door to the corridor then back at her crumpled form on the floor. “Can you walk? Get up and come with me.”
Mum’s head emerged from being buried in her legs, and her wide eyes shot to me, then to my father’s prone form on the floor.
“Clara, what have you done?” she whispered.
I shook my head in disbelief. That motherfucker was going to kill me.
I grabbed her shoulder and gave her a small shake. “We’ve got to go now, Mum,” I hissed. “Get up.”
She shook her head, her eyes flying wide. “I c-c-can’t leave,” she said.
“Yes, you can,” I told her, pulling on her arm now in an attempt to get her moving.
“You’ve killed him.” Her voice was horrified. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dad. I glanced over at him, registering that his chest was still moving.
“No such luck, Mum,” I snapped, pulling on her arm again.
“How can you say that? He’s your father.”
That rage flooded through my system again and I dropped her arm to take a step back.
“Look at my face,” I snapped at her. I knew it was bad, as blood was dripping down into one of my eyes, and the other’s vision was restricted now from the swelling. “That man is not my father.”
She totally ignored me and started crawling over to the man in question.
“Frank?” she called to him when she made it over to sit next to his body, gently shaking his shoulder. “Oh, Frank, love.”
I blinked down at her. This woman genuinely seemed to want her husband to wake up. She must have known he was going to kill me, but she still wanted him. Needed him. The choice she was making had never been so stark. Marie Mason chose Frank Mason over everything, even her own daughter’s life.
And to think I’d done the Big Terrible Thing partly for her, so that she could be free of him and his abuse. To get her back to the happy, loving woman she’d been when I was little.
But the mum I knew then was gone. This woman wasn’t my mother, just like the man lying face down on the floor wasn’t my father.
“Bye, Mum,” I whispered before I spun on my heel and ran for the side door.
I could feel my head spinning and the dark closing in, and I knew I had to escape now before it was too late.
I hesitated after I pulled the door open and looked back at Mum, but she was still fussing over Dad.
So, I decided to make a decision for me for once.
I had to save my own life. In truth, there was nothing left of my mother to save.