A beefy fist stops me from slamming it shut. “Well, that isn’t very polite, Tutti Frutti. Any ideas where I can findher?”
Tutti Frutti? I roll my eyes. Tutti Frutti, beauty, not the most inventive Cockney rhyming slang. Is this brute trying to flirt with me? I shudder at the thought. Time to end this conversation and send him on his way. Whatever my mum had been up to with this man, I want no part ofit.
“Sorry, you are?” Iask.
“My name’s Sam, but you can call me Smithy. Everyone else does. Now, answer my question. Where can I find Lorna? Me and her need a littlechat.”
“St Augustine’scemetery.”
“Well, that’s fucking unfortunate,” he says, the smile, if you can call it that, sliding from hisface.
“Yes, death generally is,” I saysarcastically.
He raises an eyebrow at me. “So, who might yoube?”
“That is none of your business. Now, if you don’t mind I’ve got things to do. My boyfriend will be here any minute and he’s a little territorial,” Ilie.
“Boyfriend? Funny, Lorna always told me her daughter was a bit of a prissy bitch. Louisa, isn’tit?”
Fuck. Who is this guy, and more importantly, why is he here? Pretending not to know who I am is one thing but talking about me like he’s had in-depth conversations with my mum is quiteanother.
“What do you want?” I ask, my voice sounding stronger than I feel. Wherever this conversation is going, it isn’t to a goodplace.
“What’s owed,” he says, leaning against the door frame. His heavy, black boot is now positioned in such a way that I can’t shut the door. Panic starts to creep up myspine.
“Owed?”
“Your ma has run up quite a debt with me. At the last knockings she owed me fivegrand.”
“What? She told me it was five hundred. She paid it back.” Either this arsehole is lying, or Mum hadbeen.
“She borrowed more, she owes more. So, now we have a little problem. Your mum can’t pay, considering she’s six feet under…” He looks at me as though I should be offering up a solution. This is her debt, notmine.
“So?”
“So, the debt carries over to her nearest and dearest… You, TuttiFrutti.”
My mouth pops open in shock. “What? That’s crazy, I had nothing to do with it. Why the hell should I payanything?”
Smithy slams his fist against the door and steps into my flat. I back away from him. Any signs of amiability are gone, not that they were there in the firstplace.
“You can’t just barge into my flat. Get out!” I shout, bravado about the only thing keeping me from quaking infear.
“Tutti Frutti, I can do just about anything I want. Your mother signed an agreement. If she’d bothered to read the small print she would have seen that in the event of her death, the debt would be passed on to her next of kin. That, my sweet, isyou.”
“Agreement? Loan sharks don’t have fucking agreements. This is bullshit. GET OUT OF MY FLAT.” The words fall from my mouth before I can stop them. It probably isn’t the best decision I’ve made. This guy looks capable of doinganything.
Heis.
I feel the sting of his slap before my brain has even caught up with the movement of his hand. He hits me so hard that I stumble backwards, only managing to right myself on the closed kitchen door. The handle slams into my back, I know I’ll have a bruise there later. I can taste blood in my mouth from the split lip he has given me. Even though I want to, I don’t cry. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. Instead, I glare at him,defiant.
“Get out,” I say as forcefully as Ican.
“Well, aren’t you the feisty one. This will make for quite an entertaining afternoon,” Smithy says, pinning me against the wall. One hand is squeezing my upper arm tightly, the other is holding onto my jaw. My only option at this point is to knee him in the balls and hope he’s taken out long enough so that I can getaway.
“Get your fucking hands off Louisa,prick.”