Jessie Running

By Chris Lewando

"A dark and deadly story, one to keep your attention, page after page."

 

An opportunist act throws a disturbed teenager into conflict with the police and local drug dealers, and headlong into a covert drugs operation. Something happened to trigger her self-destructive descent, but what? Can DC Redwall discover her secret in time to save her, or is it already too late? Jessie is damaged; a girl who no longer fears death because she knows it's not the worst thing that can happen. And she's learned to protect herself. A  gritty, noir novel set in the UK.

 

"Another spine-tingling, roller-coaster ride. The well-developed characters and tight, fast-paced plotting is typical Lewando; the ending will blow you away."

"I loved it. Chris has a real talent."

"Fast moving, imaginative, fun to read, thought provoking."

"Impossible to put down."

"I opened it and read 28 pages just standing there…"

"Far better than a Superwoman comic book or movie."

"Chris Lewando has a knack of telling a story you can really get into."

"Dark and deadly story, one to keep your attention, page after page."

"This book keeps you on the edge of your seat, with lots of twists and turns."

 

 

Annie sat on the side of Lizzie's bed, stroking her sleeping daughter's forehead. At five-years-old Lizzie was precocious, loud, and full of joie de vivre. She just loved life; running, riding, and rescuing small animals, and was forever tumbling into scrapes, tearing her clothes, and seeking plasters for grazes. If she cried, it was from frustration; if she fell from her pony, she'd clamber back up again, wiping tears and snot onto her sleeve. Not understanding that she was more sensitive than her older sister, Edward, said she had a wild streak that needed taming, but what did he know? His own sense of adventure had long ago been curtailed by the unwritten rules that governed the sly world of politics, and he'd done that to himself. Lizzie stirred slightly in sleep, eyelids fluttering, perhaps sensing her mother's presence. Poor Lizzie would be hurt, but Annie would phone, explain why she had gone ahead. She had to first make sure that Georgiou wasn't another mistake, an excuse for rescue, when she was so unhappy. She didn't want to uproot the girls from their stable lives and then let them down. Annie loved both her daughters; how could she not? Her precious girls. But it was Lizzie she'd miss the most. Lizzie with her clenched fists, her fearless sense of adventure, and sudden spurts of laughter. Tears sprang and couldn't be contained. She wanted to tell them why she had to go away, and why she had to do it in secret, but little girls couldn't keep secrets. Catherine would be telling tales to her Papa in an instant, and if Edward knew, he'd somehow stop her from going, of that she was sure. Annie kissed Lizzie softly and, as she left the children's bedroom, with its pretty sky-blue walls, hand-quilted bedspreads and childish clutter, she wiped her face with her sleeve, as she'd seen Lizzie do so often, but the tears wouldn't stop leaking. 'Keep well, my sweets,' she whispered. 'I'm coming back for you, as soon as I can.'

• Language: English
• Publisher: chris lewando
• Release date: Dec 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393292395

Book preview

Chris Lewando

Night Shadows

Jessie Running

Stations of the Soul

Legend of the Selkie

The Silence of Children

Daemon Spawn

Dark Seer

Death of a Dream

Waymarks for Authors

Mendip Moon

Table of Contents

T.O.C.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Epilogue

End Matter

Prologue

Annie Stowleigh met Georgiou in an art exhibition based on an abstract mother-and-child theme. Her husband, Edward, had no time for all that pretentious, modern nonsense. He had inherited a few traditional masters from his parents, along with a huge sense of self-importance, but his love of art rested solely in its commercial value. Annie can’t quite recall how she and Georgiou had started to talk. Only that they had both been admiring the same piece, and he’d decided to buy it, there and then. That was how she knew he was wealthy. That wasn’t the reason she fell for him, but it was a relief. Love might conquer all, but it would have been really difficult to be happy without a comfortable income, no matter what everyone said. At first, she didn’t intend to leave Edward, but the more she spoke to Georgiou, the more she realised how utterly sterile her marriage was. She reached out tentatively for that state of contentment, portrayed in books, but never experienced. Hers might have been a marriage of convenience, wholeheartedly advocated by her mother, but she had the right to leave him.

She and Georgiou had subsequently met by accident, as it were, at public places, then more secretly at secluded venues, where they had finally consummated their love, and discussed how she could best leave Edward. She had stayed at Georgiou’s house twice now, in Greece, while ostensibly on a break with a girlfriend, and was eager to be there, out of the political rat race, in fact, away from pretty much everything. The house was secluded, as one would expect from a reclusive billionaire, and his yacht lay bobbing against the private jetty at the foot of the long garden. The fact that he grew prize roses and was happy to be father to her children was the final nail in Edward’s coffin.

She simply wasn’t the social animal her husband wanted her to be, and the home she was about to move to was the epitome of her dreams. As was Georgiou. Kind, camera shy, and considerate, he was everything Edward was not.

Edward wouldn’t make it easy for her to leave, of course. He didn’t love her, she knew that now, and probably had known it before they married, but he’d been handsome, persuasive and attentive, and the impressive society wedding had lifted her from beneath her mother’s stifling presence. With the naiveté of youth, she had supposed they would grow closer with time, that she would grow to love him, but the opposite had happened. It hadn’t taken her long to realise she provided the breeding, the status, and the image he required. Annie didn’t fit into his world of social functions, with its diet of fashion, current affairs, and snide backbiting. But by then she was pregnant with Catherine, and had the ideal excuse to cry off various engagements; the thought of which had her biting her nails with anxiety. She was, after all, an item on Edward’s personal tick list to success, as was the house and the two children, all designed to make him seem like the loving family man he truly wasn’t; and the perfect electoral candidate. Of course, he wanted her to try again, for a boy, but the two girls were family enough, so Annie took precautions. If Edward guessed, he’d be furious, of course.

When she admitted to Georgiou that she was scared of Edward, he said, pack your bags and just leave; go back for the girls when Edward has calmed down, got used to the idea. So that’s what she was doing. She had learned to be wary of Edward’s driving ambition, and her leaving would impact on his public persona, give the rag-hounds food for gossip. It would come as a shock, especially as she was leaving for love of another man. He was far too conceited to entertain the notion that was even possible.

Edward was at one of his interminable late meetings with his advisors, and Annie sat on the side of Lizzie’s bed, stroking her sleeping daughter’s forehead. She had already said goodbye to Catherine, in a similar manner, though the child had no idea. Catherine, two years older than Lizzie, was her father’s pet, too precious for words. She had already formed a little clique in school, of girls she deemed suitable to her station. She minded her manners, and got upset if her dresses got grubby, her shoes muddy. She was learning to ride, but as a matter of principle. No fool, she had already determined which skills were necessary in order to successfully inhabit the world her father walked in.

At five years old Lizzie was precocious, loud, and full of joie de vivre. She just loved life; running, riding, and rescuing small animals, and was forever tumbling into scrapes, tearing her clothes, and seeking plasters for grazes. If she cried, it was from frustration; if she fell from her pony, she’d clamber back up again, wiping tears and snot onto her sleeve. Not understanding that she was more sensitive than Catherine, Edward said she had a wild streak that needed taming, but what did he know? His own sense of adventure had long ago been curtailed by the unwritten rules that governed the sly world of politics, and he’d done that to himself.

Annie’s own childhood had been privileged, her mother having inherited a gradually depleting fortune, and as little ability to manage it as the previous generations. But despite the string of nannies, private schools, and candlelit parties in the big house that was eventually sold to pay for her Mama’s social life, Annie retained an inbuilt sense of integrity. Truly, she was neither like her mother, who had been a debutante in her time, nor her husband, to whom status was king. She loved nice clothes and her comfort, but mostly she enjoyed pottering in her rose garden, snipping off dead blooms; and being a mother to her children.

Edward’s peers had welcomed her in their ranks mostly because she had the right accent, and her father had been titled, courtesy of his father, who’d had the decency to die before he could quite work his way through the remains of a once-enviable fortune. That connection was precisely why Edward had chosen Annie; though, blinded by his charisma, she’d been too naïve to see it as the calculated career move it was. It turned out that nothing in his life was less than calculated. Their marriage was little more than a year old, when she discovered that it was his secretary who provided all the small gifts she had taken to be tokens of affection. And not long after that, came the realisation that his secretary provided other services too – before and after his marriage to Annie.

Lizzie stirred slightly in sleep, eyelids fluttering, perhaps sensing her mother’s presence. Poor Lizzie would be hurt, but Annie would phone, explain why she had gone ahead. She had to first make sure that Georgiou wasn’t another mistake, an excuse for rescue, when she was so unhappy. She didn’t want to uproot the girls from their stable lives and then let them down. Annie loved both her daughters; how could she not? Her precious girls. But it was Lizzie she’d miss the most. Lizzie with her clenched fists, her fearless sense of adventure, and sudden spurts of laughter. Tears sprang and couldn't be contained. She wanted to tell them why she had to go away, and why she had to do it in secret, but little girls couldn’t keep secrets. Catherine would be telling tales to her Papa in an instant, and if Edward knew, he’d somehow stop her from going, of that she was sure.

Annie kissed Lizzie softly and, as she left the children’s bedroom, with its pretty sky-blue walls, hand-quilted bedspreads and childish clutter, she wiped her face with her sleeve, as she’d seen Lizzie do so often, but the tears wouldn’t stop leaking. ‘Keep well, my sweets,’ she whispered. ‘I’m coming back for you, as soon as I can.’

Chapter 1

Stealing the drug syndicate’s cash was a reaction, not a decision. If Jessie had considered the future, even for a second, she wouldn’t have done it. She would have told herself that it provided only the illusion of freedom, that the faceless people who couriered it in anonymous army-green kitbags weren’t the sort of people you’d steal from without factoring-in a really horrible death. Because they’d find you in the end. Even the avaricious Vince treated it with reverent fear. She heard him tell Hans: no one steals from the syndicate and gets away with it.

But Jessie wasn’t in her right mind.

She hadn’t been for so many years, confused, internal rage was her norm. Behind the passive exterior she presented to the world, she fluctuated between wanting to kill herself or kill someone else. She thought she had been desperate before, but the situation she was in now was one step away from the end of the line.

She’d been on the streets for a while when Vince picked her up, dirty, exhausted, hungry as she’d never been hungry before. He was no saviour, just another one of life’s sharks. She’d accepted his food, listened to his spiel with cynical comprehension, and gone with him. He thought he’d brought her to heel, but his working girls avoided her with the wary suspicion of those who had developed an instinct for self-preservation. They’d seen the dark side of human nature, and saw it shining from her eyes.

She knew she should leave. She didn’t kid herself. Leaving would be hard. Already she was craving the hit Vince would throw her way, later. And where would she go? She had experienced life on the streets, and didn’t want to end up there again. Unlike some of Vince’s girls, she had a home to go back to, if she wanted. If she returned publicly, she’d leave her father no option but to draw her back into his loving arms, tears of thanks in his eyes. He’d throw a wobbly in private, of course, and pack her off to a private rehab unit. At the minimum, he’d use it as a publicity stunt, presenting himself as the despairing father, herself the ungrateful, spoilt daughter, and everyone’s sympathy would lean towards him. Her charismatic, good looking and successful father displayed at his best on TV. No, she didn’t want to go back to living that lie, but her choices were slim. She truly needed to get out of this dive, but with no intention of going home, some kind of plan would be useful, and ideas were as absent as means.

Vince was a small-minded pimp with aspirations above his intelligence grade, too self-impressed, and too dumb to see that he was just a minnow in a pond of sharks. But it didn’t pay to rile him. He was an addict himself, with a short fuse and an unpredictable temper. Jessie heard him yelling instructions to Hans, then the door slammed, and the house breathed with silence.

She waited a moment before shrugging into her coat, and slipping quietly down the steep stairs of the Victorian Terraced house, her sneakered feet making no sound. Vince was doing the rounds, checking that his girls were strutting their stuff, and relieving them of their cash, which would give her an hour’s freedom, at least. At the moment she was his prettiest asset, possibly his youngest, and some of his clients had made interested noises. He was curious about where she’d come from, with her posh accent and all, and was afraid she’d leave. She was Vince’s girl at the moment, but she sensed he was tiring of her. Right now, she craved space, the silence of the night streets, time to be alone, to think.

She leaned over the worn bannister. Hans, Vince’s grunt, was nowhere in sight. He was a brainless hulk, but if he saw her, he’d simply pick her up and dump her back upstairs rather than argue. Then everything would come unstuck.

Hans was nowhere in sight. She stopped short on the bottom step. Her breath caught. The green bag lay there, unattended. It contained a fortune, no, a future. She knew that the shipment had been delayed, and had been amused by the fear in Vince’s voice as he pacified Porter on the phone. It would be fine. The exchange would take place as usual. The drugs were in the country. No-one knew the money was there. He’d have Hans guard it with his life. Yes, yes, of course – his own life.

So, Jessie didn’t think. She bent, grabbed the strap, and heaved it over her shoulder. She was out in the street, closing the door quietly behind her, almost before the thought hit her mind. Out of the gate, she turned left, and ran, away from Vince’s patch. She knew the London streets as well as a cabbie. She’d go where no one would find her, lie low for a bit while she decided what to do.

At the end of the street, she swerved around the corner, and glanced back just as Vince turned into Victoria Road.

There was a shocked moment when their eyes met.

Then Vince pulled his gun.

Jessie ran.

She was running for her life, but it wasn’t fast enough. She was unfit, and the hefty bag dragged against her thigh. Her heart pounded; her chest heaved. Vince’s expensive shoes urgently slapped the wet paving behind her. She bolted through a narrow section of older terraces and hit the shopping mall. Here, tall buildings closed out the sky. A line of dirty orange street lights reflected in shop windows and puddles. As she splashed through an alley which stank of piss and trash bins, a figure, maybe sensing trouble, slunk back into the darkness.

Vince was gaining, his laboured breath rasping loudly behind her. He would be burning to pull the trigger but afraid of damaging the contents of the kitbag. Even he was afraid of the dealers. He didn’t yell after Jessie, promising that if she would just hand it over, they’d forget it had happened. They both knew the score. The man who hid behind a false name and shaded windows in his chauffeur-driven limo, would want her alive. They’d want to make her suffer, set an example that would echo through the underworld: no one steals from the syndicate.

Jessie was wasted from a year of near starvation and drug abuse. Pain knifed through her side. Her lungs fought for breath. She hiccupped a raw sob of frustration. She’d been clinging to a dying dream. Vince was close enough, now, for his malice to sear her back. She wanted to turn and knock the greasy pimp off his Armani shoes, but wasn’t stupid enough to think she had the strength. Black spots danced before her eyes. Her legs were giving out. She stumbled. Vince’s hand grabbed at the strap of the bag.

‘You’re dead, bitch!’ he gasped, stonewalling her at the curb of a wide road. Her dry throat emitted a feral howl of fury as she pivoted on the balls of her feet, trying to heave the bag from his grasp. The whites of his eyes flashed as he spun off balance and ricocheted backward into the road, dragging her after him. Headlights filled her vision. She heard the scream of brakes, then the vehicle slammed into her.

Gary was leaving London in the early hours of a wet Sunday morning. He was driving towards the outskirts of London’s sprawl. The remains of the Chablis pressed on his temples, and last night’s white expanse of illicit flesh stroked his drowsy memories. His headlights cut through a fine drizzle on a strangely empty road. The windscreen wiper blades squeaked. Irritably, he flipped them to intermittent and relaxed as they sporadically exposed a wedge of shining tarmac.

He was heading towards a house that was no longer a home. Touted as an enviable four-bed show-piece, it had become a millstone. The same went for his wife. Sought, reeled in and landed, but not so easily dispatched. His hands tightened on the wheel.   He’d hoped she would up and leave with one of the men that sneaked into his house when he was away – did she think he hadn’t smelled them on her? – but she knew which side her bread was buttered. She was hanging onto her meal ticket by her glossy red fingernails. He shuddered. Lying awake at night, staring at her back, he would envisage the ways he would carve it with a knife, and then slice off those gruesome talons.

When a figure shot across the road in front of him, his foot slammed on the brake. The tyres thudded in a sickening series of lurches and the car slewed in a barely-controlled emergency stop. In a daze, he pulled on the handbrake, knocked the gear-change out of drive, and switched off the engine. He climbed slowly from the car to stand bemused in the drizzle. It had happened so quickly, he couldn’t take it in. Had he run someone over?

He sidled toward the girl lying in an unnatural sprawl over the curb. She moved and groaned. Regretting the impulse that had made him stop, a vivid image of blue lights and sirens hit him. But it wasn’t his fault, she’d run out in front of him.

Her eyes flicked open, focussed.

He was relieved. She wasn’t dead. But seeing him looming above her, she lifted an arm as if to ward him off, and cried out with pain.

‘Oh, God, shush!’

Gary made flapping motions with his hands as the fear in her face drained to a flat, almost inhuman expression that repulsed him. Reason clunked into place. She was a woman of the night. What normal person would have been out at this time? Who had she been running from, and why? He sensed the presence of witnesses, eyes peering from windows high above the shuttered shops. He’d been drinking. Someone would have made a call by now. His career depended on retaining his driving licence. He took one step back.

As if guessing he was going to run, her fist clenched around a handful of his trouser leg.

‘Get me up,’ she said hoarsely.

Startled into obeying, he hauled her to her feet. Her face paled. She swayed against him for a moment before finding her balance, and looked behind the car. Gary’s eyes followed her line of sight. His stomach lurched. There was a crumpled lump on the road behind them, lying in a widening stain on the dark tarmac. He knew he’d gone over something, but his relief at finding the girl alive had shunted reality, made him believe for a second that it hadn’t happened.

The girl clutched at his sleeve, pulling him along, using him as a crutch. He avoided looking directly at what had once been a human being. The girl bent over, trying to pull the body onto its back.

‘Jesus, don’t!’ He touched her shoulder, adding more softly, ‘You can’t do anything.’

She moved awkwardly, not using her right arm. ‘I can see he’s dead. If he wasn’t, I’d finish the job, the bastard! Help me!’

Gary took hold of the shoulder of the body, and pulled. As the body flopped onto its back, he turned away and was violently sick. Most of the face was gone and blood was seeping from gaps in the man’s clothing. When he had nothing more to bring up, his eyes sidled back to the girl. With disbelief he realised that while he’d been puking-up, she’d been rifling the dead man’s pockets. She rummaged in a wallet then threw it aside to join a small scatter of personal items: keys, a knife, a pile of screwed-up receipts.

Shocked, he asked, ‘What the hell are you doing?’

She froze on a small intake of breath. She’d found whatever she was hunting for, and slipped it into her pocket. In the glare of the street light her uplifted face was a sullen yellow mask, painted with a hatred that seared him into silence.

He thought, maybe the dead man and the girl had been having a lovers’ tiff, or maybe the man had been a jealous boyfriend, a rapist, a mugger. Now he wondered if she’d been the aggressor. Maybe the dead man had been her trick, her mark. Maybe she’d already stolen from him and he’d responded with justifiable aggression.

He took a step back.

Lifting a gun, pointing it at him, she grinned, but there was no humour in that baring of teeth. It was an animal reaction, one of survival. ‘Get me out of here. Now.’

He’d never seen a real gun before. The tiny black hole that stared at him was more menacing than he would have guessed. He was sure he should do something clever, take the gun from her or just walk away, daring her to shoot, but he was frightened and confused. And where were the people, the cars? London roads were never this empty. As if in response to his thought, there was rapid pattering of feet on damp tarmac. The girl lifted the gun, fired it into the air, then pointed it back towards him. The report echoed loudly against the shuttered shop-fronts. The running figures doubled back and disappeared. There was a loaded gun pointed at him, and still the police didn’t arrive. The girl levered herself to her feet. He hoped she would pass out or something, but she wavered then took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Your car,’ she said. ‘And get my bag.’

He followed her line of sight to a bulky bag that lay between them and his car. He must have gone over that, too. He grabbed it and walked toward the Volvo, horror at the dead man now taking second place to his own, more immediate danger.

The girl limped to the passenger side. For a moment the car was between them. He could get in and drive off. She leaned against the car, obviously needing something to support her, but the muzzle pointing straight at the passenger window didn’t waver. ‘I can shoot you through the glass,’ she said.

He’d never been threatened with anything other than words, and was unsure of a gun’s true capabilities. He threw the bag into the back and climbed in, while she slid in the other side.

‘Now drive!’

He rammed the car angrily into drive and gunned away, as fast as the automatic would let him, slamming the girl back into the seat. She grunted with pain. Now that he was back in his car, his own space, he regained some measure of self-respect. No one argued against the threat of a loaded gun. No one would blame him; it wasn’t a sign of weakness.

‘Left here,’ she said.

He squealed the car too fast around the corner.

She drew breath sharply. ‘Slow down. Drive carefully.’

He slowed. Next left, a few blocks, then right. For a while she directed him through a maze of smaller roads. She knew her way around, all right. Then they were in suburbia; miles of faceless homes, parks, and small shopping malls shot by. He was completely lost. In the distance, police sirens blossomed and faded.

Then there was just the night, the open road, and the rain. Eventually he came to a wide junction he recognised. His glance sidled towards her. Although she was still conscious, her skin was grey and speckled with sweat, her mouth compressed to a thin slit. He hesitated for just a moment, then turned left, automatically heading for home. Every so often he glanced at her, but she didn’t move, just sat there, back to the door, the injured arm resting on her lap, and the gun still pointing towards him. When she spoke, he almost jumped.

‘Where are we headed?’

‘Towards Southampton.’

‘Is that where you live?’

He nodded.

‘That’ll do, then.’

His voice rose fractionally. ‘You want me to take you home?’

Hard, dirty and, judging by her actions, from the seamier side of London, he’d never seen a girl he disliked more. He didn’t want anything to do with her. Besides, what the hell would he say to his wife? Except it was more about what she’d say to him.

She gave a harsh laugh, as if she could read his mind. ‘Just keep driving. I’ll tell you where to drop me off, and then we can both keep quiet, can’t we?’

‘You’re not going to shoot me when I’m driving.’

‘Trust me, I will. I haven’t got a lot to lose. If they find me now, they’ll kill me.’

‘Who will? What did you do to that poor bastard?’

His eyes flicked towards her again. She was a lot younger than he’d first supposed. Christ, he’d get done for child-molesting, too. Barely clothed under a grimy three-quarter length coat, she was certainly not something he’d make a pass at, but who would believe him? Her dark blonde hair was lank and greasy. He didn’t know whether the rank smell was coming from her or the coat she wore. Whichever, it