Kerry Barnes - The Hunted

Harry was looking at a stranger: this wasn’t his mother. There was nothing he could do except physically throw her over his shoulder, and he wasn’t about to do that.

Doris was about to shout, ‘And don’t slam the door’, but it was too late. The back door banged shut, and she was left with a ringing sound in her ears and a tightening in her chest.

Harry almost pushed Paris with all her bags into his Mercedes. ‘Hurry up, Paris. We need to get out of ’ere.’

With her brother panicking the way he was, and almost manhandling her, Paris sensed this situation was more serious than she’d previously thought. Usually, she would have been gobbing off, but, for the first time in her life, she remained quiet and allowed Harry to get himself settled and on the road before she opened her mouth. He didn’t pull away gently either; he left rubber on the tarmac. Never would Harry drive like that, not in his precious top-of-the-range car.

‘Harry, what’s happened?’ She kept her voice low-key.

‘Well, princess, I hate to tell ya, babe, but your fella won’t be taking you away for the weekend. He’s dead.’

After being forcibly pushed into the back, Paris was leaning forward, gripping the corners of the two front seats. ‘What?’

Her voice was so loud, it seemed to vibrate in his ear.

‘Sit back and get ya seatbelt on.’

In a sudden daze, Paris sat back and fastened the belt. ‘What happened? Who the hell killed him?’

‘Did I say anyone killed him?’ He knew that question was unfair. This mess wasn’t his little sister’s fault.

‘Well, bruv, we wouldn’t be flying up fucking Wrotham Hill like Lewis Hamilton if he died of natural causes, would we?’

He looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sis, you don’t seem upset. I thought you liked Travis?’

She squirmed in her seat. ‘Well, yeah, ’course I did, but I weren’t gonna marry him or have his babies. He was all right, sweet, really … anyway, what’s ’appened?’

‘He was working for me, an inside job, but the silly bastard got sussed out and …’ He paused, waiting for a reaction.

‘So I ain’t going away this weekend then? Fuck it. I was looking forward to that.’

Harry flicked his eyes to the rear-view mirror again. ‘You’re a heartless cow.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I was taught by the best, Harry.’

The thought circled in his mind: she wasn’t wrong. They had pressured her when she was a kid not to show weakness and indoctrinated her in the belief that only wimps cry, and everyone is out for themselves.

He remembered when she was only thirteen, and all the girls in her class were invited to a party except her. She’d fallen out with this young girl called Amberley Fitzgerald. He shuddered when he thought about it; perhaps, on that occasion, his family had gone too far.

Amberley had made it quite clear that she wouldn’t be friends with Paris because Paris had taken her boyfriend away. Amberley lived in a big house in Wilderness Avenue in Chislehurst. Her parents were bankers, and so she always had the latest clothes that outshone any other girl, plus she had a pretty face with long dark curly hair. She had it all. All the girls wanted to be friends with her, and so when they went against his sister, it was a racing certainty that all hell would break loose, no matter what.

When Paris came home in tears and told them that she’d been victimized and bullied, Harry and Vinnie went mental. They told her to stop crying and stand up for herself; no one must ever bully her, and, more to the point, get away with it. There was no such thing as having a friend; everyone has their own agenda in life. The only people in the world you could depend on were family. ‘Tears are for weaklings,’ Harry told her. In response, she wiped her cheeks with a tissue.

The very next day, outside the school grounds, backed by her brothers, Paris stood ready for the fight of her life. Her fingers loaded with cheap rings, she launched an attack the minute Amberley appeared. With no sense of control, Paris punched the girl relentlessly, gruesomely tearing shreds from the girl’s face. Harry and Vinnie watched with pride as their little sister showed her worth, rucking as violently as any lad. The fight was eventually broken up by the head teacher, who was given a fierce verbal attack by Harry. All the way home they patted her back, showering her with praise.

Harry remembered his father’s words when they arrived home: ‘Now then, you start showing people who’s the fucking boss. That little larruping will give a warning to all those silly little girls that no one messes with a Harman.’

* * *

In the rear-view mirror Harry witnessed the same expression as the day she’d sniffed back those tears and fallen into a world of callousness. Since then, she hadn’t changed; she still had that sneering look to this day. Nothing ever fazed her. It was as if he and their father had ripped out her soul and left a void. Still, he loved his sister; she was loyal to them, regardless.

‘So, tell me, Harry, what’s going on? You look like you’re shitting a brick.’

‘Travis was tortured, the poor bastard …’ He swallowed hard as he recalled the images of Travis on that chair with his eye scooped out and with his flesh ripped from his cheek; he could only guess it had been done with a claw hammer. ‘I need to get you away, princess, because the bastards that killed Travis will be coming for us.’

Paris gasped, ‘Oh my God, Harry. It’s the Regans!’ Her mouth remained open, digesting his silent acknowledgement. ‘Are you fucking nuts? Seriously? Why would you get involved? This ain’t our vendetta.’ She paused, waiting for an answer, but then she noticed in the mirror her brother’s shifty eyes and knew that he hadn’t done it for the family honour.

It was always about the money with her family. Planning and scheming to ruin the Regan family was a continual source of conversation, from father to sons, like some hereditary disease.

His silence irritated her. ‘I just hope it was worth it, Harry, because the Regans are legendary. And you may have kept me out of the business, but I ain’t blind or deaf. And our flaming uncle and our ol’ man should have cut their losses years ago.’ She huffed. ‘What I don’t get is, if they have killed Travis, why are they coming for us, now they’ve had their pound of flesh?’

With a sharp intake of breath, Harry shook his head. ‘All right! Paris, leave it, will you? Just let me think!’

The realization hit Paris like a horse’s hoof in the teeth. ‘Leave it, Harry? How can I? I’m now mixed up in it. I just don’t get why they’re after us now though, if they’ve already killed Travis …’ Her jaw tightened. ‘Harry, what else have you done?’

With her words ringing in his ears, he snapped. ‘For fuck’s sake, Paris, Vinnie has murdered Ted Stafford’s dog and thrown its butchered body back in the garden. Now shut up and let me think.’

‘Why would he do that?’ she softened her voice.

‘Because, Paris, he has shit for brains, he’s taken too many drugs, and he thought that stupid stunt would have our ol’ man singing his praises.’

They drove in silence for twenty minutes, both contemplating the reality of the situation.

For a moment, Paris felt sorry for her brother. They were close, and she looked up to him; yet, as much as she acted the needy little sister, she wasn’t as oblivious to what her family’s firm did as she made out. The years of brainwashing and inciting hatred towards the Regans hadn’t worked on her, but, obviously, it had done the trick on Harry. Time would tell if the family would have their backs, now the shit had hit the fan. Or would they be hung out to dry?