The Locksmith Linda Calvey (phonics readers .txt) 📖

She realised as never before that people like her and Bobby, from poverty, from rough backgrounds, had no other choice but to find other ways to survive. She saw the gulf between her people and these, the unbridgeable gap, and she felt a new sensation sweep her body. She had money. She had plenty of money, more than most of the people in that room, yet she realised it wasn’t enough. For her to carry on and protect those she loved, she had to have power to wield, the power to make choices, the power to stop these bastards and the system crushing her. She felt a focusing of her desires to one single concept like the sharp point of a knife; she would never be weak again. She couldn’t help Bobby. The system had swallowed him up – for now. But she could learn to think differently.

As she held Archie’s arm and walked out into the winter sunlight, Ruby knew she was a changed woman; ruthless where once she was merely hardened, determined to be a major player in the underworld, where once she hovered on the edge of it. Now she would make her presence felt, she would learn everything she could from Archie and his family, and one day, one beautiful day, she would be so powerful even the law couldn’t touch her.

Nothing and no one would stand in her way ever again. The past was gone. The future was for seeking power, whatever price she had to pay.

PART THREE

POWERFUL FRIENDS

Marbella, Spain, 2006

CHAPTER 30

‘Bobby! Belle!’ shouted the young girl as she ran to Archie’s Porsche. Ruby stood at the doorway of the palatial villa she’d inherited from her beloved friends Charlie and Maureen, watching her daughter Cathy run to meet her uncle and his wife.

The years had been both kind and cruel to them. Bobby had done ten long years. He’d missed the birth of his only niece, and most of little George’s life. They’d visited him in prison as much as they could, but it wasn’t the same. It had taken months for George to stop asking for Bobby, and the bond that had once been so strong between them was but a thin thread now. It still pained Ruby to know she’d played a part in Bobby going to prison, but she took a small amount of comfort from the fact that Bobby had met the love of his life there. Belle had been his art teacher, and Bobby had courted her ceaselessly, then married her as soon as he got out of prison. The two were blissfully happy now.

In the intervening years Ruby and Archie had built their business into a small empire. Archie’s father Lloyd still headed the family, but it was clear where Archie had gotten his respect for women. From the moment she’d married Archie, she’d been one of the family. Lloyd valued Ruby’s opinion and negotiation skills, and wasn’t one to waste such assets. He’d taken Ruby under his wing, teaching her the ins and outs of running a drug empire. One day he hoped to retire and pass the business on to Ruby and Archie. Meanwhile, Alfie spent much of his time in South America building their connections there.

As Ruby watched Cathy hugging and practically dancing around Belle and Bobby, she felt a huge sense of contentment. Though Bobby had been out of prison for three years, he’d been on parole and unable to leave England. Instead of joining the family in Spain, Bobby and Belle had taken up their old house in Chigwell. Now, with their arrival, she felt her family was finally coming back together. And she had the type of power that the Freddie Harrises of the world would never dare mess with.

She turned her attention to her daughter, enjoying the happiness that emanated from her. Cathy was a slim girl of twelve. She had her father’s dark blonde hair, but her eyes were as green as her mother’s.

Bobby managed to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs that was his niece and walked straight up to Ruby. ‘Sis, it’s good to see ya,’ he said, wrapping Ruby’s petite frame in his big arms.

‘Bobby, ya know if I could turn back that clock and do things differently, I would’ve done—’

‘What’s done is done. We’re ’ere now and the past is gone. New start?’

‘New start,’ Ruby nodded before breaking into a smile. ‘Come inside, I’ve got so much to show ya.’

Cathy skipped ahead of them, filled with excitement and childish glee. Ruby had done everything she could to shelter their daughter from the realities of their world; the deals, the danger, but sometimes she wondered if she’d done too good a job. Cathy was one of life’s innocents. She was without guile, a generous soul who loved her family and wanted nothing more than to spend time with them. Ruby’s musings were broken by Archie who, looking round, suddenly said, ‘Where’s George?’

Ruby sighed. It wasn’t the first time she’d sighed over her little brother. ‘I don’t know, darlin’. I called him, told him everyone had arrived, but he just grunted and carried on with playin’ his video game.’

Archie frowned. ‘I’ll drag him down ’ere myself if I ’ave to,’ he said as he marched inside to look for him.

The contrast between Cathy and George was never more stark than at moments like this. Cathy was excited to see her family. She adored Belle and Bobby, and wanted everyone to be happy together. George, on the other hand, had turned from a delightful little boy into a troubled teenager. He sneered. He swore. He wouldn’t do anything Ruby or Archie asked of him. He’d been expelled from two schools already and there seemed to be no way to get through to him. Ruby worried about him constantly.

‘Look who I found sulkin’ in his room,’ Archie announced as he marched a scowling George, who was fifteen years old, onto the vast