Free The Driver by Mandasue Heller

with, she said, ‘It’s not funny, you dickhead. The vicious little bastard’s got me trapped in the bedroom!’
    ‘Give it a kick,’ Eddie suggested, still chuckling.
    ‘The only one who’ll be getting a kick is you if you don’t get home and sort it out,’ Chrissie snarled, deciding not to mention that kicking it was what had got her into this mess in the first place. ‘And you’d best be quick, ’cos I’ve already had to deal with your tarts. And I don’t see why I should have to lose sleep over them when I didn’t even want them here in the first place.’
    ‘Thought you said you hadn’t been to bed,’ Eddie reminded her.
    ‘Don’t take the piss,’ Chrissie retorted icily. ‘I don’t have to do your dirty work, you know.’
    ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Eddie said dismissively. Then, ‘How much?’
    It was a random-sounding question and most people wouldn’t have had a clue what he meant by it. But Chrissie did, and it infuriated her that, after everything she’d said, that was all he was bothered about.
    ‘Six-forty,’ she lied, her voice thick with resentment.
    ‘Take fifty,’ he said, his tone giving nothing away so she didn’t know if he thought it was an acceptable amount or not. ‘And go get some girl stuff.’
    Making a strangled screaming sound when he disconnected the call without another word, Chrissie threw the phone down onto the bed and herself down after it. No doubt whoever he was with would assume that he’d just told her to go out and treat herself, but he’d actually been telling her to go shopping for the whores – as if she didn’t hate them enough already. But he certainly wouldn’t waste his precious time shopping, and he refused to let them do it, because he reckoned they would take the piss and spend his money on crap. So it was left to Chrissie. And after the hiding he’d given her for threatening to grass them up to the immigration people that time she’d learned that it was easier to do as she was told where they were concerned.
    She just wished they would hurry up and pay Eddie back. They were the ones who’d been desperate to come over here and they couldn’t have thought he was paying their fares out of the goodness of his heart. It was a business arrangement and he’d upheld his side of it. But they weren’t even trying to uphold theirs; always making excuses about why they hadn’t made as much as they should have, and lying that there weren’t enough punters when everyone knew that town was crawling with the bastards at night.
    Still, like everything else he toyed with Eddie would tire of them eventually. And when that day came Chrissie would take great delight in turfing their skanky arses out. Until then, she would carry on taking her revenge where she could get it.
    She only ever did little, sly things, because there was a very fine line with Eddie and if you crossed it you usually regretted it. The bitches were so terrified of him that they’d never dared complain about the times when she’d ‘forgotten’ to buy them sanitary towels or toilet roll, or when she’d given them nothing but beans and Spam for a whole week. But then, they had come from a country where she imagined they probably picked shit off the rubbish dump for dinner, so what did they care?
    Today she’d held back eighty quid from their money. She didn’t usually get a chance to get her hands on it, because this was the one area that Eddie maintained complete control over. But it was his own fault for staying out and giving her the opportunity. And if the bitches tried to say that they’d brought back more, it would be their word against hers – and Eddie would believe her every time.
    Cheered by the thought of a nice new dress, or maybe a pair of shoes to compensate for her disturbed sleep, she got up off the bed now and, braving the dog, went to take a shower.
    Eddie switched his phone off after the call. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Clive said, ‘Missus after