Suddenly, a couple of weighted-down envelopes and doggie bags came flying down the chute into a box nestled amongst the rubbish bags in the skip. Instantly, Luke put his hand in the well-buried black box and took them out and opened them, handing Alex one. ‘Go on,’ he urged. Pensively Alex opened the envelope. Inside was money. ‘You see Alex, they all pay to enter and use the stuff in safety. But no one really gets it for free, we just don’t handle cash.’ Luke winked and standing on tiptoes, he reached into the box and took out a host of envelopes, stuffing them in his jacket.

Amazed, Alex looked on at the pile of doggy bags and envelopes containing cash. ‘Don’t people steal them?’

‘No, these people like to come here, so they aren’t going to fuck it up for themselves. Honour amongst druggies eh. They would rather steal the drugs than the money Alex. They are addicts; money is only a means to an end. And it’s emptied regularly, just in case the bin men come early.’ Laughing, Luke walked to the van. ‘Come on, slow coach. All that inhaling has made you look spaced out!’

While dropping Luke back off at home, he was surprised at his next question. ‘By the way Alex, how is your daughter? Diana, is it?’

‘Deana, and she’s okay. Why?’ Suddenly Alex’s fatherly instincts kicked in.

Casting a sideways glance at Alex, Luke carried on. ‘Just wondering. She was a good mate to help me that night you found me.’ Luke blushed. ‘Her boyfriend is a really lucky guy.’

Frowning, Alex looked at him. ‘Did she tell you she had a boyfriend?’ Once he saw Luke shake his head, he carried on, ‘Anyway she’s fine and too young for you by all accounts.’

‘I was only asking Alex; no need to jump down my throat,’ Luke snapped.

‘You know Luke, I wasn’t always in my thirties. I was your age once. But my advice about Deana is I would steer clear; she would eat you for dinner and spit out the bones.’

Luke followed his kindly lecture by getting out of the van. Alex couldn’t help laughing. Boys will be boys, he mused to himself and smiled.

It had been one hell of a night, Alex thought as he drove home, and he had bloody enjoyed it!

19 DARK ENTITIES

Mark hadn’t even noticed when Alex had dropped the van keys back before making his way into the back entrance of the pub. Since Maggie knew about his absence, he didn’t feel the need to hide his return.

But storming into the hallway the minute he shut the door, Maggie strode towards him. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Maggie shouted. ‘You’ve been gone nearly four hours!’ Red faced and angry, Maggie’s blonde hair seemed to fly around her head like a banshee’s. Alex was used to thinking on his feet, and so he knew the closer to the truth, the better the lie would be. He hadn’t realised how long he had been out; he had been so engrossed with Luke. Looking up, he saw Dante coming downstairs. ‘Are you okay Dad? Mum was worried.’

Shamefully, he looked past Maggie towards his son. ‘I’m fine, Dante.’ Alex smiled although inside he felt like shit. He had made his family worried about his safety while he was running around having fun with a couple of druggies. ‘It was supposed to be a half-hour job, but Mark’s van broke down!’ he lied. Instantly Dante burst out laughing and with that Maggie stopped shouting and burst out laughing, too.

‘Well, that serves you right. I bet you looked like a real prick! But you’re safe and that’s all that matters.’ Walking towards him, Maggie hugged him. ‘Four hours with no contact is a long time, Alex. No more favours, okay?’

‘Are you kidding me? That was my first and last favour. I had to stand in the rain trying to get his van fixed – I couldn’t exactly ring a mobile mechanic, could I?’ He grinned and hugged her back, looking up the stairs and winking at Dante, who walked back towards his bedroom. ‘Come on Maggie, I’ll help you clear away for the night. God knows, I need a distraction and an early night. Never again,’ he muttered convincingly enough to satisfy her.

Alex realised tonight wasn’t the night to discuss Percy’s suspicions with her. He had totally fucked up and there was no way he could tell Maggie that they’d potentially been found given how worried she’d been about his absence.

While tidying up, he took some empty crates down to the cellar. Seeing that no one was behind him, he went to the old beer barrel that he had put the golf bag full of guns in. Quickly he searched around for two automatics and their ammunition and took them out.

If someone was going to enter his house upstairs, he needed something to hand. He knew Deana already had hers firmly stashed away somewhere. He had taught them all, including Maggie, to shoot. At first it had been a game, just messing around in the garden with an air rifle and some old tin cans. But as time had gone on their lessons had become more serious. Even when gangsters were your friends, there was always someone who wanted you dead.

Now this was his insurance, he thought to himself. He couldn’t always be there to protect them, but it made him feel better knowing there were guns in the house and that his wife and children knew how to use them.

He would also make some kind of booby trap to stop anyone in their tracks on entering. Alex realised he was being paranoid, but with Percy’s news he knew they had to be on their guard. Maggie may have slipped into normal suburban life, with her friends and customers, but they weren’t from normal suburbia. Their lives were in danger. Alex hadn’t spent hours and hours in police stations, identifying photos of mafia members and their connections just to fail now.

Alex placed the guns in the back waistband of his trousers and pulled his shirt out to cover them. With the rifle in its black leather cover, he thought it looked like a walking stick or an umbrella even. He decided he would put it in the back hallway near the entrance. There were so many coats hanging there, no one would notice it. After hiding the rifle, he walked into the bar, where Maggie was still polishing glasses and putting them away. There were still some glasses to be put in the dishwasher.

‘Why don’t you go up Maggie? You look washed out. Go on, I’ll finish up here. Go and have a soak or something. Sorry I made you worry, love. It’s a shame we can’t have mobile phones of our own.’ They both looked at each other. Maggie presumably still had the one he had got her to speak to her mother with. As they stared at each other, the same thought passed through their minds.

‘It’s a shame you don’t have one, and after a couple of hours I could have seen if there was a message, just letting me know you were okay.’

His brows crossed, and he lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. ‘We’re not allowed them, you know that. The police have even tampered with Deana’s laptop, much to her annoyance. She can’t even be on Instagram like her friends. Christ, people must think we’re weirdos or something,’ he snapped, shaking his head. He felt angry, but couldn’t do anything about it. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. And at this moment in time, he was glad that the police did their surveillance checks. God knows who was watching his kids going to school. Maggie was an easy target behind the bar, but at least she was always surrounded by people which made an attack on her less likely, he thought to himself. He didn’t care about himself, but his family meant everything to him.

‘Go and have your bath, Maggie. You’ve had a long day on your feet and your blood pressure must be through the roof because of me. Try not to worry, I’ll sort something out. My family come before anything else in life.’ Walking forward, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.

‘I think I will have a bath and soak my feet. Thank you.’ Blowing a kiss, she left.

Pouring himself a brandy, Alex looked around the empty pub, with beer-stained glasses waiting to be stacked in the dishwasher. What a night, he thought to himself. Gulping back the brandy and feeling it warm his throat, he felt better. ‘Right Silva,’ he said out loud, while rolling up his sleeves, ‘time to earn some brownie points and clean up.’

Although investigations had gone on into Barrow’s terrible fall, no one in the prison had seen anything. Of course they hadn’t, and the other guards hadn’t expected anyone to come forward and point the finger. The prisoner with the badly burnt face had been taken to the burn’s unit at the hospital, although his plight had been overshadowed by Barrow’s death. All enquiries had led nowhere, and the police had faced a stony silence. Everyone was busy saving their own skin. Barrow’s death had been signed off as a tragic accident and more strategic safety measures had been put into place.

Paul Pereira stood outside his cell on the balcony, grinning to himself. He inhaled his cigar and leaned on the railings in front of him, watching everyone milling around. So far his plan was going well, but he needed to make sure Alex’s death didn’t raise any questions in the same way Barrow’s had. His mind was in turmoil; perhaps he could make it look like an intruder or as though someone had tried to burgle this pub of his. Secretly he wanted Alex to know he had finally caught up with him and that he was behind his murder. He smiled. It was just a damn shame he wouldn’t be there in person to see it happen.

Going back into his cell, he shut the door and knelt down behind it. He had got one of his henchmen to chip out a brick from the wall. With a little force, the brick came loose to reveal Paul’s mobile phone that he had smuggled in. He used the prison’s public phones regularly for calls to dismiss any suspicions of him owning his own phone that he used for only his most important conversations.

‘Leon, it’s time to act. I need out of this hell hole. I’m an old man and I don’t intend dying in here. Make it look like an accident – a bungled robbery or something. Set the bloody place on fire if you have to, but kill Alex. I want to lie on my bed and imagine his tortured screams.’ Ending the call, Paul grinned. Revenge was nearly his.

All night long, Alex had tossed and turned. What if his suspicions were wrong and it was just some nosey bugger asking about him? He knew it wasn’t Percy’s Liverpudlian contacts because then Percy wouldn’t have mentioned it to him in the first place – that he was sure of.

He didn’t want to alarm his family unless he had to, but it was time he brought them all back to earth and reminded them why they were all here in the first place. During the early hours he had got up and checked the pub, making a mental note to buy some extra bolts for the back door.

Sitting at the kitchen table in darkness, Alex rehearsed how he would tell his family about his fears, and that they had to be on alert. He couldn’t remember how long he had been sitting there while nursing a cup of cold coffee, but one by one, yawning and bleary eyed, his children slowly wandered into the kitchen.

‘Oh my God Dad, you made me jump. How long have you been up?’ Deana jumped back with a start and wrapped her thick towelling robe around her tightly. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t put the bloody heating on, it’s freezing in here!’ she moaned and switched on the kettle, while turning on the radio.

Dante sat down at the table next. ‘Make me some toast Deana please, I’m starving and Mum’s in the shower.’

‘Make your own bloody toast, you lazy twat!’ Throwing the loaf of bread at him, Deana laughed and then noticed her dad seemed rooted to the spot, not saying anything as they bantered between them. ‘You okay Dad?’ she asked, knowing he wasn’t. It was pretty clear he had something on his mind.

Before he could answer, Maggie walked in with a towel wrapped around her wet hair and her robe on. ‘Blimey, didn’t anyone think to make me a cup of tea?’

‘Sit down,’ Alex commanded. ‘All of you sit down. I have something to say.’

Maggie, Deana and Dante cast furtive glances at each other, but knew by the look on Alex’s face that this was no laughing matter. The air seemed tense as they all sat at the kitchen table and Maggie made a pot of tea.

‘It seems someone has been asking about me. Not a regular in the pub. It could just be some nosey passerby; after all, anyone can come in here and ask questions, but I think we have been found. And so we need to be on our guard.’

Wide eyed, Maggie stared at him. ‘And just how long have you known this piece of information and kept it to yourself?’

‘Not long. I was going to tell you last night, but with one thing and another I left it. It was someone Percy didn’t know, which surprises me, because he knows everyone, asking questions about me and about how long I have lived here.’

Downheartedly, Deana looked down at the table and put her head in her hands. ‘So, what do we do now Dad? What are you saying, we pack up this morning and move on?’ she asked.

Raising her voice, Maggie looked at them all. ‘I’ll tell you what we do Deana. We tell the people who are bloody supposed to be protecting us – the police! It’s only a suspicion at this stage, isn’t it Alex? How do you know we’ve been found for definite?’

‘The only way to know for definite Maggie is when I have a bullet in the back of my head. Then, and only then, will we know for certain we’ve been found.’