PANDORA'S DIARY

PANDORA’S DIARY

It was her fault I found the bloody thing in the first place so she only had herself to blame. I hated that stupid rug chest at the bottom of our bed because I kept stubbing my toe on it when I got up in the middle of the night to pee. But she insisted that it was chic, so, when I bashed my foot one morning and bent down to push the trunk back into position, you can hardly blame me for opening and reading the diary I found fallen between the baseboard and the chest. I mean, I didn’t actually know it was a diary, did I? How could I? It wasn’t as though I was prying. It didn’t even look like a diary; you know, big, thick and black. It was tiny and green, for f**k’s sake.

It was a diary though - a daily record that she had kept of all the times she’d shagged those closest to me; my inner circle. It cut me to the core. It wasn’t exactly death by a thousand cuts but it was death by three cuts; the three people that my wife, my so devoted wife had been screwing behind my back.

First there was Paulie, my cousin and best friend. We’d gone to the same school, sat next to each other in the same classrooms for fifteen years, played on the same school football team, supported the same Premier League team, committed our first crime together.

Then there was Joe, my twin brother. We’d had our moments, sure. But we’d also stood back to back in so many fights that we’d forged an unbreakable bond -until now.

The biggest shock though was Uncle George. He’d been my mentor, my father figure -taking me under his wing when our father had died when we were only seven, in a gang fight that George was lucky to survive himself. He was my advisor; the man I trusted most in the world and he was pushing 60 for f**k’s sake.

How could she? I’d given her everything; the best that money could buy. She had carte blanche to decorate the house as she wanted, even with shit ike that f***ing rug chest that was now her downfall. If Uncle George was the man I trusted most in the world, she, my wife, was the woman I’d believed in the most and she knew every facet of my organisation.

I replaced her diary exactly where I had found it. Three days later, it was gone. I can only imagine the relief she must have felt on locating this lost record of her infidelities. As for me, it wasn’t even the fact that they had all been shagging my wife that really sickened me; it was the thought of them all laughing at me behind my back. All of them thinking that they had gotten one over on me, the undisputed head of our firm and there was only one course of action -revenge.

First to go was Paulie. I made him accompany me on a drive outside of London, ostensibly to negotiate a deal with a new supplier. I got out of the Range Rover, which he was driving, and shot him in the head as he wound down his side window. A few more shots to pepper the car, wipe off the gun, dispose of it, then fire off my own at an imaginary fleeing assassin before calling my brother on my mobile to report the ambush.

Joe and three others to the rescue but too late to save Paulie. Naturally, there was the usual police investigation. I gave my version of how we’d been attacked which the media lapped up and, after a few days, things started to die down again.

I should have mentioned, I suppose, that my name is Billy Mitchell and I am the head of a very large gang of villains and we specialise in dealing drugs.

I’m successful because I have a code, one that everybody working for us has to abide by. Firstly, I am hands-off. That is to say, I never handle anything myself. I leave that to my inner circle. I am the ringleader but without a whip. Nothing is written down, no record to incriminate us. I am very, very strict about that. I am the brain that organises everything to a T. Nothing left to chance.

Secondly, anybody caught using is out. We don’t shit on our own doorstep. Simple as that. Uncle George, brother Joe and cousin, Paulie, were the men out on the street overseeing our daily operation and it has made us all rich; extremely rich.

Next to go was Joe. I put out feelers to an associate of mine in Liverpool; someone for whom I had done a number of similar favours over the years. Time to do one for me. My brother simply disappeared. There was a void and a gut-wrenching ache inside of me but nobody has a stronger will than me and I told myself that they deserved to go; they had betrayed me.

If the ambush had caused concern, Joe’s vanishing act really put the cat among the pigeons. Uncle George called a crisis meeting, convinced that we were under threat of annihilation by a rival gang. My wife, bless her, was a quivering wreck. I agreed with George’s suggestion that a few heavily armed men should keep watch on our house day and night but, inside, I got a real kick out of watching these two squirm.

I waited a week or so for things to die down. Naturally, the police had come up empty in their search for my brother and my wife was on some type of tranquilliser to calm her fraying nerves. I called George on a burner phone and told him I had a lead on Joe’s whereabouts. He needed to meet me at Granary Point and was to come alone -which he did. Granary Point is the highest cliff in Surrey and a place where Joe and I had often played with Uncle George as kids, taking picnics but steering well clear of the edge as, way down below, were jagged rocks that would crush a falling body.

I had parked my car way back in the car park but George, being George, drove straight across the grass to where I was standing. Perfect. I think he thought I was joking when I pulled a gun on him and that’s why he backed up so close to the edge, grinning quizzically. Just as he started to realise that this wasn’t a prank, I kicked out straight to his chest and over he went.

Bloody Surrey police-useless. Took them three days, after we’d reported Uncle George’s disappearance, for them to find his shattered corpse. Only one verdict -suicide. Though the police kept questioning me, obviously knowing that something didn’t quite add up, they had to admit that it made no sense for me to have had anything to do with the strange deaths or disappearance of those closest to me. Of course, I needed to do a bit of re-organising, a couple of well deserved promotions but, within a few days, things on the streets were back to normal.

Indoors, though, it was a different matter. My wife was totally convinced that we would be the next victims; that a rival gang was hell bent on doing away with us. It got so she’d jump at the slightest sound and I was enjoying watching her suffer. My crowning glory was when I observed her go out to her car, one morning, and, before getting in, she knelt down and checked underneath for any sign of a bomb. She was a miserable, trembling mess as she drove away and I revelled in it. F**k her, her diary and her f***ing blanket chest.

Several hours later, she came home and said she needed to talk to me. I was the picture of innocence as we sat across from each other at the dining table and she prepared herself to make a speech. Here it comes, I thought, the confession.

“Billy, I’ve got something to tell you. I know you’re going to be shocked...”

Not as shocked as you think, I thought.

“I know it goes against your...your code...”

Too f**king right, you cheating bitch.

“I know you loved and trusted Paulie, Joe and George, they are...were...your family after all”.

Yeah, until you got your claws into them. Go on, spit out the rest. I want to see you writhe.

“But they weren’t my family. I know how things can turn rotten when you’re dealing with drugs. People can be corrupted and I was scared that you might get ripped off”.

What?

“So I kept a written account of how much coke they were given to distribute every day and I checked it against the money that was returned each week. I’m sorry, Billy, I know the code says nothing’s to be written down but I did it for you, love”.

What the f**k?

“Now, your life is in danger. There’s someone out there killing our guys and you don’t seem too bothered about it. I’m so convinced that you’ll be next, Billy”.

Just then, there was a mighty banging on our front door.

“I couldn’t bear that. You’re my life, Billy. My one true love. I couldn’t go on if you were killed. So I took the book, the little green book that I had recorded everything in and I...I took it to the police this morning”.

Shocked, I stood as my front door came crashing in and several men in blue rushed towards me, slamming me to the floor and handcuffing my hands behind my back.

“You’ll get twenty years, Billy. That’s what they told me but, at least, you won’t be dead, you’ll be alive. And I’ll be waiting for you when you get out”.