In the rear of the car, Jay was finally sleeping in his car seat, his head lolling onto his shoulder with spittle spooling slowly out of his mouth. His golden curls were plastered to his honey-brown forehead with sweat. Gloria could smell the testosterone on the boy. Reminded her of Lev when he had been sleeping as a baby. He had always sweated like a horse too. She stifled a smile.
‘Run through the plan again,’ she said.
‘I feel sick. I want to turn back.’
Lev’s pallor bore testament to him having lost his nerve. Under the circumstances, she had no time for his cowardice. She said a silent prayer to Jesus for forgiveness, mindful of the fact that what they were about to do could not be rationalised as an act of kindness.
‘There’s no turning back, Leviticus. Not unless you want that boy to die. Now, run through the blasted plan.’
‘I can’t do it!’ Lev shouted. ‘Tariq’s seen us. He’s on my case anyway. I’m dead meat.’
‘Not if you get your money and get on a flight to Baltimore, you’re not. Grow a pair, son. If Tariq Khan suspects you of anything, he’s hardly likely to go to the police, is he?’ She studied his face. He had always been beautiful. Had always had a certain femininity to his bone structure. So much of her in him. But that weakness was all his father’s. ‘We do it here or we wait for her to come out and do it somewhere else. It’s your choice. But this is the only way. The piper calls the tune.’
Switching on the engine, Lev shook his head abruptly. ‘No. This is wrong.’ He drove up to the cul-de-sac’s turning circle.
‘Where you going?’
‘Home.’
‘To watch your son die? Back to your squalid little flat on the estate? Because you’re not coming to my house, young man. How about you toddle off to Tiffany’s to watch her doping herself up to the eyeballs? She could leave your boy in dirty nappies like usual, because I don’t think I’ve seen nappy rash that bad in my life. It’s a wonder Jay has any skin left.’ She faked a smile, all wide-eyed surprise and blistering sarcasm. ‘Hey, maybe Asaf Smolensky will bring you over a nice piece of halibut. Or Degsy might turn up, wanting to get even for you battering his face to a more interesting pulp. You’ve got options, Leviticus. Not many can say that.’
Lev stalled the car. Turned to her with tears in his eyes. Lips pressed so firmly together that the colour had drained from them almost entirely. The flinching muscles in his cheeks told her all she needed to know. Her own son hated her. ‘I can’t do it. I’m not a murderer.’
She gasped. ‘You carry a gun around with you and shove it in people’s mouths if they don’t pay up. You said yourself, you stabbed Paddy O’Brien!’
‘That’s not me! It’s all for show. I backed myself down this blind alley when I was too young to understand what the hell I was doing, what I’d end up having to do just to keep my head above water and keep my nose clean with the likes of Tariq and Jonny. But I don’t think I can do this.’ With a shaking hand, he wiped his eyes. ‘Me and Mia …’ His chin started to dimple as it had done when he was a little boy. His mouth turned downwards. ‘But if I don’t …’ Checked Jay’s reflection in the rear view mirror. Mercifully still sleeping. ‘There must be another way.’
‘How else are you going to kick-start war when everyone else wants to uphold peace? Where else are you going to get a hundred and fifty K? Beggars cannot be choosers, Leviticus.’ She turned around to look at the sleeping child she had not met until a few weeks earlier. A child she had planned to have no feelings for whatsoever. Gloria’s plan had only been to look out for number one and to serve the Lord Almighty, once her son had started down the unrighteous path. She had been doing just fine until …
‘Give me the gun,’ she said, holding her hand out. Knowing that she would face eternal damnation for this. But didn’t Timothy 5:8 say, But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied faith and is worse than an unbeliever? She was sure of it. In which case, her actions could still be interpreted as those of a Christian. Wasn’t Mia the whore’s daughter of a heartless gangster? Vain and self-interested? Spoiled and profligate in her consumption and waste. ‘Now!’ Opening and closing her fingers. ‘Gimme!’
Lev handed her the weapon slowly, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was tacitly agreeing to. Withdrew it. ‘No. No way. I can’t let you do it.’
But she prised the heavy gun from his hand. Held it against his temple with the safety off.
‘What the bloody hell?!’
‘Drive me to the gate. Do it! I can’t have the neighbours seeing more than they already have. And take off your hoody. I need it.’
One last look at the cherubic boy on the back seat was enough to strengthen her determination. Hood up for the entrance. Once she was standing outside the front door, pressing the bell, she pulled the hood off, knowing most women would open the door to someone who looked as respectable as she did.
A dumpy girl with a mass of long dark hair came into view, padding barefoot to the door on the other side of the frosted glass. Soulful but tuneless humming, audible even from outside. The door opened a fraction. Mia looked first at the black skin of Gloria’s chest, then at her face. No flicker of recognition, thankfully.
‘I’m sorry. We’re Jewish,’ she said.
‘I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness.’
The girl’s impassive face was almost dayglo with tan makeup. False eyelashes batted up and down, giving her the look of a fat plastic dolly from the 1970s.
‘Oh, we don’t need a cleaner, thanks,’ she said.
Gloria lifted the gun, enjoying the feel of it in her hand and the God-like power it suddenly bestowed on her. ‘Inside, harlot! Make a sound and I’ll kill you.’
Mia lifted her smooth, pudgy hand to her mouth. Nodding. Backing inside, allowing Gloria over the threshold. Gloria slammed the door behind her.
‘Take whatever you want,’ Mia said. ‘It’s all insured. Just don’t hurt me.’
‘Further in!’ Gloria shouted. ‘And don’t speak. Hands above your head where I can see them.’
The girl started to weep, her hotpant-clad legs clearly buckling. This wasn’t going to be as easy as anticipated, Gloria mused. Employing trafficked labour was one thing. Those women enjoyed a fresh start in a better, safer country, thanks to her. But to kill in cold blood?
‘Where do you want me to go?’ Mia asked, glancing behind. Mascara and eyeliner streamed down her tan cheeks in rivulets.
Gloria knew that the longer she idled, waving the gun in the girl’s face, the less likely she would be to do it. Silently, and as quickly as she could, she said the Lord’s Prayer. Knowing she was about to cross a line from which there would be no return. Realising that this was war and that killing in war was honourable, especially when the salvation of her family was at stake. It was almost self-defence. Wasn’t it?
‘Kneel down,’ she said. ‘Hands on your head.’
‘I don’t know what you want, you mad black junkie bitch, but just take it and get out!’ And there it was. A flash of haughty defiance. The confidence of a rich man’s daughter who had been over-indulged for every year of her young life. The assumptions of a racist.
‘They shall be like mighty men in battle …’ Gloria said, taking aim at the girl’s head. ‘… Trampling the foe in the mud of the streets; they shall fight because the Lord is with them, and they shall put to shame the riders on horses. Zachariah 10:5.’
Mia grimaced. ‘What? I don’t like horses. They smell of shit.’
Two bullets were all it took. Brap, brap, like some small-time gangster cartoon killer. The Lord had steadied her hand, allowing her to make the girl’s death instant and painless. Gloria staggered backwards from the recoil, feeling pain shoot up her ageing arthritic wrists. On the ground, Mia lay with the top of her head and the majority of her brains redistributed all over the cream carpet in dazzling shades of red, grey and salmon.
That was surely enough to guarantee
the money.
Chapter 33
Jonny
Kneeling by Mia’s body, Jonny Margulies felt like a hand had closed tightly around his neck. He reached out to touch her but his fingertips were numb. Shivering. Shuddering on that fine summer’s day, in the grip of his own personal wintry blast.
Barely able to keep his finger steady, he punched 999 into his phone. Felt the sob trying to push its way out of his constricted throat as he asked for an ambulance and the police. When quizzed as to what the problem was, he replied, ‘Somebody killed my princess.’
Beyond that, Jonny didn’t know what to do. Still clutching the phone, his left hand clasped to his mouth, he just knelt on the ground, transfixed by the impossible sight of his daughter’s corpse. Had he fallen and hit his head? He had left the office in a hurry to nip home, pick up the golfing gift for a big customer that he had left on the side in the kitchen, get back before the meeting. Perhaps he had been driving recklessly. Been involved in a car crash and knocked out. Anything but the reality of this.
‘This can’t be happening,’ he said aloud. He slapped himself in the face. ‘Come on, Jonny. Wake up, you silly fat turd.’ But the reflection in the mirror of an overweight man kneeling over a dead girl corroborated his worst fear. This was no bad dream.
‘Ring Sandra,’ he said softly. But hadn’t she gone off to the spa, telling him that under no circumstances must she be disturbed on her girls’ weekend? This would surely count as an allowable exception. But Jonny’s overloaded brain was sputtering. He could not bring himself to dial her number. Had the sudden urge to text Tariq, but it didn’t seem appropriate. He looked up at the spotlights sunken into the ceiling. ‘What should I do, God?’
No answer was forthcoming. The only sound came from his own chattering teeth. The sight of his lifeless daughter made him certain that God had never been further away than at this moment in Jonny Margulies’ cursed life.
‘Wake up, bubbele,’ he said, realising the utter pointlessness of the request.
Mia’s half-open eyes were dull and unseeing. Her skin was pale yellow. How long had she been there? Gingerly, he reached out to touch her arm. Cold. Not daring to look at the coagulating mess of blood, bone and brain matter above her head, he felt her neck. Still warm. Funny that. All the executions that had been carried out at his behest and yet he knew so little about the dead. He hadn’t expected them to stay warm. Was her spirit still within her or had it already gone to heaven, if there was such a place for the daughter of a flagrant sinner? Why was she so yellow? Had Jack O’Brien looked like this when he was found?
Jack O’Brien. Was this a revenge killing sanctioned by Frank? No. Not Frank. He didn’t have it in him. ‘Paddy.’ With sirens wailing in the distance, getting nearer now, Jonny realised who lay behind this travesty of biblical proportions. ‘Paddy O’Brien. You ruthless, lying monster.’
It was as if he had suddenly woken from a medicated, troubled sleep. He shook his head, dispelling the urge to weep. Dialled Tariq, who answered on the third ring.
‘I need your help. Mia’s dead,’ he said. ‘Some bastard shot my baby in the head in my own house. I don’t care how much heat we’re getting off the cops. Tell Smolensky to get in touch.’
Chapter 34
Asaf
‘A nice piece of hake, please, Asaf. My Monty loves a bit of hake. And I’ll have some fish mix, but make sure you give me good weight. Last time, the baitzke served me …’ Mrs Bamberger shot Asaf’s non-Jewish assistant with a disparaging glance ‘… and I only got eight pletzels out of mix for ten. You want to keep an eye on her.’
Asaf Smolensky looked down at the tiny bent-double figure of his oldest customer, trying to suppress the urge to yawn. In her Germanic, clipped accent, she started to talk about the merits of fried plaice, touching her wig with the gnarled fingers and the ridged horn-like nails of the very elderly. Tattooed numbers just visible on her forearm. He wondered what she would look like if he filleted her. Would a nonagenarian bleed less than a young person? Would they fight for life the same as someone sixty years their junior or receive death with a certain dignity and resignation? Possibly even gratitude. She’d survived worse by decades. He pushed the thought out of his mind, realising that it was disrespectful. He had boundaries, after all.
Slapping a heavy, slippery fish onto the scales, he relayed the weight and price to Mrs Bamberger.
‘This is a good fish,’ he said. ‘Fresh as a daisy from Fleetwood this morning.’
‘Make sure you bone and skin it, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I can’t stand bones. They stick in my throat and choke me. My Monty gets them under his false teeth.’
‘Yes.’ He slid the sharpest of knives beneath the fish flesh, removing the silvery grey skin with ease and plucked out the stubborn bones with pliers. He placed the hake inside some brown paper and showed it to his discerning customer. ‘Well?’
‘You’re an artist!’ she declared.
‘It’s a mitzvah to do my job properly.’
‘Gott sei dank. The whole of Boddlington Park fresses the best, thanks to you.’
When his phone rang and he saw that it was Tariq’s number, he discarded the fish on the counter. Disappeared into the back, ignoring the bewildered complaints of Mrs Bamberger.
‘What is it?’ he asked, relishing his accelerated heartbeat.
‘You’ve got a job.’
Adrenalin coursed through his body, dispelling that horrible feeling that he was being sucked down and down into quicksand. He visualised himself wriggling free. ‘The solicitor told me to keep a low profile. He said they’d lock me up without hesitation if I was caught with so much as a potato peeler on my person outside the shop.’
‘That’s for us to worry about,’ Tariq said. ‘Do this job and we’ll guarantee your safety. Haven’t we always? Do this for Jonny.’
Ending the call, Asaf savoured the feeling of his brain clicking into manoeuvre-mode. Just like old times. Receiving the mission. Planning the campaign. Stealth attack in enemy territory. Perfect execution and home, to celebrate discreetly. Dishonourable discharge may have torn the stripes from Asaf’s uniform but it would never strip out the prize fighter in him, he realised with a grin.
As he packed up his knives in the back, leaving his assistant to deal with the now irate Mrs Bamberger, he probed the inner workings of his mind to see how he felt about the news of the apparent hit on Mia Margulies. Realised sympathy should lurk there for Jonny, a man who always put family first, no matter how morally dubious his methods were. But there was no sensation in Asaf’s body or brain other than the sheer thrill and anticipation of what was to come.
Chapter 35
Frank
‘I want everything perfect,’ Frank told the lighting manager. He looked up at the giant rig over the dancefloor – a geometric mass of criss-cross scaffolding containing projectors, spots and laser units that would transform the place into a visual feast. His homage to the Haçienda. His tribute to his son. ‘Make sure the lasers spell “Jack”. No cock-ups, right?’ He forced a half-hearted smile as he visualised the display. ‘And it’s got to be in blue, ’cos our Jack loved the blues.’
‘Twelve-bar blues?’ the man asked, removing a small screwdriver from his mouth. A southerner, by the sounds.
‘Ha ha. Very fucking funny. This is Manchester, mate.’
Frank cajoled himself into doing a tour of inspection around the club, checking and double-checking every element. Behind the main bar, bottles in jewel shades gleamed in the row of brightly lit fridges. Optics lined up like loaded guns. Shelf after shelf of exotic and esoteric spirits, rising up in tiers. The barrels of draught beers had all been changed, the smell of fresh lager reminding Frank of music festival heydays and better times spent outdoors on blankets in the sun. The toilets, slightly shabby from overuse and due renovation, were at least clean and fully functioning. In the men’s he saw scrawled in silver pen on the back of one of the cubicle doors the words:
‘In the
beginning there was Jack
And Jack had a groove.
Jack is the one that can bring nations and nations of all Jackers together under one house.’
He ran his finger tenderly across the long string of words, penned in his son’s handwriting. Determined to have some sort of art made around those words and have it hanging prominently in one of the bar areas. The dancefloor area where Jack’s blood had seeped into the parquet, staining the wood from golden to a harrowing shade of rust, had been sanded and refinished. He bumped fists with the incoming DJs as they arrived, nodding enthusiastically at their playlists, though he wasn’t really listening or looking at the contents of their DJ boxes. He sat behind the enormous mixing console during the sound check. The show must go on. What Jack had started, he would finish. Frank swallowed down the lump in his throat and retired to the back office to be alone with his crippling emptiness and a baggie of whizz.
When he emerged, everything seemed to be travelling at the speed of light. Young revellers were streaming into the cavernous club, hanging out by the bar to spot the scantily clad or beefed-up talent, depending on their gender. Some were already throwing shapes on the dancefloor as if nobody was watching. But the place was still only half full. Imagining positive energy emanating from the fore-running clubbers like heatwaves rising above a desert road, Frank breathed in their youthful scent of warm air, perfume, sickly booze and hairspray. The smell of fine times. A midsummer’s Saturday night. Finally reopened after the club had been forced to close its doors, following Jack’s death – tonight would be M1 House’s biggest night of the year, stretching the club to the outer limits of its 4,000-strong capacity, streaming the live performances to millions all over the world via social media. Frank saw his son’s handsome face in every lad that turned his way. Even the whizz wasn’t enough to dull that ache.
Summer evening sunlight poured through the corrugated Perspex skylights in the roof of the warehouse, filling the dancefloor with early evening optimism and hope. It was empty enough for there still to be an echo as the music thump-thumped out of the giant sound system. Frank was lost in his own Large Hadron Collider of good memories, racing to embrace the bad in a head-on collision inside his arrhythmic heart and mashed-up head.
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