Chapter 8

The bundled figure of George was tied to the chair and a sack was removed from his head. "Ya know who I am?" Tony asked him, standing akimbo in front of him.

George nodded. "Tony Ratcliff," he muttered.

"Good. Where's Annabel?" George didn't respond, just looked at the angry London gangster.

"I dunno."

Tony laughed and picked up a knife inspecting the blade in front of the terrified man. "Pigs know a lot 'bout what I do," he told him. "And night she fucked off, she went t'ya flat." Tony walked away and then snorted. "Heard ya been arrested and let go, no charges. I reckon ya did a deal."

George gulped. "I dain't know..."

Tony clicked his fingers and a shower of blows rained down on the immobile man, who cried out in pain as his face, ears, chest, legs and groin were pummelled. "Where the fuck is she?"

"I was asked," George finally confessed, groaning as he spoke. "P'lice said. If I get Annabel to them and talk I go free. But I dain't ask and she ran away. I didn't wanna be tied up and beaten up for grassin' ya up."

"Where is she?"

"I dunno," George told them honestly as rivers of blood streaked across his face, but Tony smashed his fist into his bloody mess, causing him to cry out in pain.

"I said, where?"

"I dunno," George repeated with blood dripping from his nose. "I just dunno. She said she'd write, but she ain't done."

Tony shook his head and picked up a gun from the table and pointed at him. "I wanna know," he yelled. "Or I'll kill ya." He gulped and looked around the deserted warehouse. He heard a car engine outside and he nodded towards an armed henchmen on the door. "Kill 'em or get rid of 'em," he ordered and turned his attention back towards the tied up man in the chair. "I wanna know where the little cunt is with my baby?"

"She ain't yours," George shouted and watched as Tony lowered his weapon struck him on the mouth with it.

"Ya fuckin' liar," Tony spat and took a deep breath, aiming the gun at Annabel's lover. George closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable bang that would signify the end of his life.

A big bang echoed throughout the warehouse, not from Tony's gun but the shutters over the warehouse garaged door. The gangster spun around to see a JCB draw thirty feet away and a handful of armed policemen move in behind it. Tony fired towards the onrushing coppers, hitting one of them, before running away from the Police and towards the back of the warehouse.

He reached the metal stairs to go up to the office and the roof and fired a volley of bullets towards the advancing officers, hitting George in his lap and scampering up the iron staircase.

It was clear from the view that it was a big operation; there were blue flashing lights making their way towards his warehouse and he had twenty seconds – at most – to get off the roof. Tony felt himself being blown about by the wind, but he ran headlong into it, to reach the edge, and as the first officer poked his head out of the staircase and onto the roof, Tony leapt the twenty feet from the corrugated iron and into a skip of cardboard and papers before scampering clear.

Annabel was with the Police, and she would die for her treachery.

Dear Georgie,