Mother's Little Helper Part Two
If you missed part one, click here...
C’mon in,” said the smiling man, “Join us.”
Gwyneth did as she was told. Behind her, on either side, were two of what they called ‘heavies’ on the television detective dramas – one black and one white, like chess pieces – the ones who had grabbed her when she’d opened the front door. She sat down on the sofa, and the two men then sat on either side of her, squeezing her in. The smiling man, who was clearly their boss, leaned forward in his chair.
“I been telling yer mum, we’re friends o’ yours, Gwyneff.”
The man smiled wide – a gold tooth, or perhaps two, glinted in the electric light. He was dressed in a sharp suit – as were the heavies – and had closely cropped greying hair. He also had a lightning-shaped scar that stretched from the top of his lip to his left ear.
“Would you care for some more tea?” Gwyneth’s mother asked the smiling man. It was only then that Gwyneth noticed the delicate china cup and saucer on the table next to him, plus an arrangement of biscuits on a small plate – from her mother’s best tea service, she knew.
How long had he been there, with her mother? The home-help would have left just over an hour before. Had these thugs been there all that time?
“Fankin’ you,” said the smiling man. “But I’m gonna ‘ave to say no. Ain’t nuffink quite like a cuppa chah though, eh?”
“That’s what my Arthur used to say,” said Gwyneth’s mother – though he certainly had never said it in quite the same Bill-Sykes-style Cockney accent.
“Right,” said Gwyneth to her mother, trying to seem calm. “I just have something to discuss with...my friends...”
She stood up. The two heavies either side of her and the smiling man stood up too.
“Lovely to ‘ave met you,” he said to Gwyneth’s mother, much to her delight: she was always a stickler for good manners.
He followed Gwyneth out to the hall, and they stood looking at each other, like cats.
“We been watchin’ yer, Gwyneff,” said the smiling man.
“But I...I didn’t see...”
“Nah, see, that’d be ‘cause we’re, like, professionals, an’ we don’t like bein’ seen.”
Just how long had these men had been stalking her? Days? Weeks?
“Course, we coulda stopped yer any time, but when we sees yer doing what we sees yer doin’, well...” he turned and smiled at the two heavies, “we di’n’t ‘ave the ‘eart.”
The smiling man’s gold-toothed grin glinted at Gwyneth in the dimness of the hallway.
“Where’s the money?” he said.
Gwyneth was aware that she was standing next to three men who had probably done some horribly violent things in their time, but she just couldn’t help herself, not after all her hard work:
“The money’s mine,” she said, “I earned it by selling the...charlie...so it’s mine – some of it, at least.”
Silence. Gwyneth had no idea where she got the nerve, but if these men wanted to hurt her then they would, and there was nothing she could do about it.
The two heavies turned to their boss for instruction, but he was so stunned that his face bore the startled rigor mortis expression of a day-old corpse. He was not used to being challenged. Gwyneth just hoped they’d leave her mother alone. Oddly, she felt absolutely calm.
Suddenly, a huge roar bellowed into the air and the boss was laughing so hard he was wiping the tears from his eyes.
“The charlie!” he chortled, “She knows the lingo, don’t she!”
Soon, both of the heavies were emitting bass-tone laughs so deep they could make window panes rattle. But Gwyneth did not much care for being laughed at in her own home, no matter who it was:
“Well, I did, didn’t I? Sell the... charlie, I mean – all over Swansea and Cardiff too?”
The smiling man, who was recovering from his laughing fit, nodded in agreement.
“Oh yeah, yer did – can’t take nuffink ‘way from yer, girl,” he said.
Gwyneth did not much like being called ‘girl’ either, but decided not to make an issue of it.
“We want our dosh – just what we would’ve got off Davo.”
He saw Gwyneth’s recognition of the name.
“Davo’s...err...busy...at the moment,” he said.
“How much?” said Gwyneth.
“Forty grand,” said the smiling man.
“Wait here.” The heavies’ boss nodded approval and Gwyneth ran upstairs. Within seconds she was handing a wad of cash to the gangland boss.
“It’s all there,” she said.
“Fankin’ you,” said the smiling man, weighing its heft in his hands, “Sorted,” and he turned to leave.
“No,” said Gwyneth.
This was not a word much heard by any of the men present, but the heavies didn’t want to do a woman unless their boss ordered it personally.
“I mean...I want some more.”
There, she said it. Well, what was the worst that could happen? They could just say no, so there was no harm in asking, was there?
“More?” said the gangland boss, astonished.
“Yes,” said Gwyneth, “More.”
“This ain’t Oliver Twist’s din-dins, darlin’ – this is hard drugs. Coke.”
“I know.”
“You’d end up doin’ time if yer nicked.”
“I won’t get...nicked – I’m good at it. Drug dealing, I mean.”
“Yeah, s’pose you are – better than Davo, the snotty little toe-rag.”
The smiling man shook his head, then his scarred face twisted into a grin.
“If we gives yer more, on a reg’lar basis, you’s gonna be needin’ our services. You can’t just be spendin that kind o’ cash – people got such suspicious minds these days.”
“Alright,” said Gwyneth: she knew she’d need the money laundered before she could spend it – on care home fees, or anything else.
“We’ll open a little account for yer down in Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?”
“Yeah, y’know: big mountains, cuckoo clocks, an’ cheese wiv ‘oles in it.”
Gwyneth nodded: she knew.
The smiling man smiled. They shook hands. The deal was done.
It is highly likely that Gwyneth would not usually have agreed to such a thing, but in the past three weeks she had found out all about cocaine on the internet at the library. One website said:
Cocaine benzoylmethylecgonine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant (Erythroxylon coca). It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and an anaesthetic.
All very interesting, as was the fact that cocaine was available freely in chemists in the early part of the 20th century, and was used often by students at Oxford: so no change there then. It was even available in Harrods until 1916 and was also an early ingredient of Coca-cola.
Another website warned:
Although its free commercialization is illegal and has been severely penalized in virtually all countries, its worldwide use remains widespread in many social, cultural and personal settings.
So, illegal but popular, like speeding on the M4 – but Gwyneth knew that about drugs already, from watching TV detective dramas.
Other websites went on to say that coca leaves had been part of Inca culture for centuries before Europeans arrived in the Americas, with traces dating back millennia.
But who exactly profited from the cultivation of cocaine? It seemed that most of the crop was grown in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia by peasant farmers, who processed it too. For this, they’d earn twice the average monthly wage to support their families, though that was still a pittance. Here, then, was the first link in the chain – the start of the journey which ended when Gwyneth found that holdall in the woods and started selling its contents.
She knew it would be the big criminals – in South America and here – who would make most of the money from the cocaine trade, so she resolved there and then that she would donate half of her profits to help those poverty-stricken peasant farmers who actually grew the crop. The morality of what she was doing was questionable, she knew, but if it wasn’t her supplying cocaine to the drug-hungry masses, then it’d be somebody else – and they wouldn’t be donating anything to anybody.
However, there was one incident that made Gwyneth realise the seriousness of what she was doing, and led to her decision to leave the day-to-day dealing to others:
“Excuse me,” said the policeman.
Gwyneth had just collected another holdall containing two hundred packets of cocaine and had lifted it out of the boot of her car and onto the pavement in readiness for carrying into the house.
When she turned around, she was so horrified to see the bag firmly in the hands of a policeman that she almost fainted. He carried the holdall into the hall, then left with a cheery wave, happy at the help he had given a member of the local community. Gwyneth’s heart drummed like dance music as she closed the front door behind her.
At first, she thought it unusual that the policeman hadn’t asked any questions, but then, she thought: who would suspect her of anything criminal? She looked more like a librarian than a drug dealer. The incident did give her a fright, though, so she resolved to work hard to ensure she was not so exposed in future: she would have to make direct links with dealers in South America, with the full knowledge of the gangland boss, of course – so that is what she started to do.
The sea was beautiful. Gwyneth had always wanted to travel, but had never had the time or money. Now she had plenty of both.
So here she was, six months after finding that holdall at Caswell, a woman of means strolling on the deck of a cruise liner, watching dolphins dance in the blue waves as they neared the coast of South America. She was so looking forward to exploring the region and meeting up with some of the people she’d been talking to by email. There were several charitable projects in Colombia that Gwyneth wanted to go and have a look at: it would be nice to see where her donations were going, especially the new school she was funding.
She was surprised at the attention of several eligible gentlemen on the cruise, and was perhaps even more surprised that she found one of them rather attractive too. He was a retired lecturer in ancient civilisations at Oxford and was simply fascinating to talk to – though he did seem rather surprised at Gwyneth’s extensive knowledge of Inca coca production. Better still – though sadly, of course – he was a widower, and was considering retiring to the Gower Peninsula. For the first time in decades, Gwyneth felt her heart flutter when talking to a man - for reasons other than indigestion.
Gwyneth’s mother loved her new life in The Glades, and had made some firm friends with whom she watched detective dramas on television, betting biscuits on every unfortunate victim’s demise.
Gwyneth, too, looked happier than she had for years, as though she had managed to access a long-hidden well of energy from deep within herself. Soon she found that she no longer needed her regular cups of gin and tonic ‘tea’ at all, though she still enjoyed the occasional tipple – but that was to enhance her life, not to blot it out.
As for how long she’d keep doing this, she didn’t know; but at least now she wasn’t supplying drugs directly to the public but dealing direct with producers, which just felt less grubby somehow. And the money just kept on rolling in: thousands and thousands of pounds of it, all clean and sparkling in her bank accounts in Switzerland, with the mountains, the cuckoo clocks and the holey cheese.
“Shall we?” asked the gentleman.
“Yes, let’s,” said Gwyneth, a soft smile on her face, and the couple strolled off together arm in arm to dinner – at the Captain’s table, no less.
How different Gwyneth’s life was now from before.
And it all came down to money in the end.
