by Mia Dolan
He told her all about the night he and his mates went drinking with Tony Brooks, her best friend’s father. He also told her about being paid by Paddy Rafferty to leave the incriminating weapon in the office of Michael Jones, the owner of the Blue Genie nightclub.
‘But I don’t want to speak to the police,’ he repeated urgently.
‘But we need to speak to someone,’ Allegra countered.
Marcie was signing some papers Jacob had brought in when she received the telephone call from Allegra.
Her heartbeat went into overdrive as she listened to what her friend had to say.
‘Oh my God!’
‘I’ve promised him that we won’t inform the police,’ said Allegra.
‘Of course we have to!’
‘Marcie! I gave my word.’
‘You’re not a priest, Allegra,’ Marcie snapped angrily.
‘No. But I am about to join a devout order.’
‘You promised him. I didn’t.’
‘Marcie! Surely there’s someone else we can tell? Someone who can deal with Paddy Rafferty?’
Marcie held her breath. She had no wish to compromise Allegra’s promise. On the other hand, she desperately wanted her husband home and, on hearing about the note Charlie Baxter had left, had thought the day was imminent. What a wonderful Christmas present that would be! However, there was still the matter of the gun and nobody – nobody at all – thought Baxter a likely suicide case.
‘He might not admit to anything unless he feels safe. Then where would we be? Can we protect him, Marcie? Can we?’
Although not entirely willing to protect this man from the law, Marcie held her anger in check. Who else could she contact? She decided there was only one person who might know what to do.
First of all Marcie phoned Carla and asked her if she could come round and look after the kids. Carla asked her if there was a problem. Marcie had no choice but to tell her the truth. Time was of the utmost.
‘OK,’ said Carla and made a quick telephone call before rushing over.
Tony Brooks was making love to a very sexy nightclub hostess and exotic dancer named Coco Chocolate. If Desdemona who he lived with when in London was his full-time partner – not counting his wife of course – then Coco was his bit on the side. She reminded him of Ella, a married Jamaican woman whom he’d never quite dismissed from his mind.
He ignored the phone at first, but Coco grabbed it, reaching her long arm over him to take it from its cradle.
‘Hello,’ she said, in her usual gravely voice.
‘I need to speak to my father. It’s urgent.’
Coco waved the phone in front of Tony’s face. ‘One of your kids.’
Tony groaned. He was aching to have Coco under him, bucking like a bronco as he rode her to a topflight orgasm.
‘What’s it about?’ he groaned, his lips closing around the erect nipple that protruded upwards from Coco’s shiny right breast.
She repeated the message to Marcie.
‘Tell him it’s about a bunch of drunks, a gun and the Blue Genie nightclub.’
Coco did as directed.
Tony immediately stopped what he was doing and grabbed the phone. ‘Marcie? Who told you?’ He raised himself up onto one hand and eased his body away from his latest hot bed partner.
‘Never mind that.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At home. I’m going to ask Allegra to bring him here.’
Once the call was ended, Tony swung his legs out of bed. For a moment he just sat there, staring into space.
‘Something wrong, honey?’ asked Coco, a hand draped over his shoulder.
‘Yes. Me,’ he said, feeling like a heel.
Chapter Thirty-seven
AT THE BEGINNING of the week Marcie had phoned the hospital to check on her grandmother’s progress. The doctors weren’t happy that the wound left open following surgery had failed to heal.
‘Doctor would like to keep her a little longer and try a different approach,’ explained the ward sister. ‘I only hope we can keep her here. She keeps telling us that she wants to go home. We can’t allow that. Not just yet.’
Marcie decided that she had no option but to accept whatever they advised. Some staff were off sick at the nightclub. There was no one to cover for her at short notice and it pained her deeply. She was desperate to get down and see her grandmother. Garth also concerned her. She wondered how he was coping at home alone.
When she next got down to Sheppey she would also be paying her stepmother a visit. Marcie bristled at the thought of Babs. Boozy, blousy and brash was the best way to describe her. Any woman worth their salt would have been round seeing that Rosa was all right. As far as Marcie knew, her stepmother hadn’t been near the hospital.
It was now Friday night and Allegra was due to arrive with Gerry Grogan. The phone rang and she answered it, half expecting Allegra to say that Grogan had chickened out. But it wasn’t him. It was Babs, her stepmother, calling with wonderful news.
‘Rosa can come home next week. The doctors weren’t too keen, but she said she’d walk out if they tried to keep her in. Then they said she could but only if the district nurse called in on a regular basis to change the dressing. I’ve said she can come and stay at our place, but she’s being stubborn. But the doctors have insisted that she can’t live alone – and Garth doesn’t count,’ she added as an afterthought.
Marcie felt as though she’d been hit in the face with a tennis racquet. Babs, offering to accommodate her grandmother? Well, that was certainly a first! Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had never seen eye to eye.
Marcie fully understood why her grandmother had no wish to move in with Babs. Like Marcie she was perhaps questioning her intentions. The obvious one was that Rosa was not long for this world and the cottage would be sold. Babs would have no trouble spending the money.
‘I don’t think she’s being stubborn,’ said Marcie. ‘She’s lived in that cottage for years. It’s her home. It was her and Granddad’s home and she feels close to him when she’s there.’
Babs sniffed. ‘That’s as may be, but I still think she’d be best here.’
‘It could be for years, although she is ill. Her family are very long lived. You know what they say, a creaking gate can last for years and years.’
She could easily imagine the look on her stepmother’s face. Babs had been banking on a short-term arrangement, probably a year at the most. What purgatory that would have been for Rosa – as well as for Babs.
‘Anyway, I was going to make arrangements to have her here. There’s also Garth to think about.’
‘He’s not family,’ Babs retorted hotly.
‘That’s not the point. Gran is fond of him.’
Babs sounded deflated when she said goodbye, the fervour with which she’d presented her plan totally absent.
Marcie couldn’t help it. She had to check with the hospital to make sure that Babs was telling the truth. It hurt in a way. She felt obligated to have her grandmother stay with her. A little voice in her head told her to be sensible. She had two kids, a husband in prison who she needed to visit in order to keep his spirits up, a nightclub and Michael’s other business interests to attend to.
For the first time ever she wished that her husband hadn’t been so successful. She wished they could be ordinary, just one big happy family.
But there was no turning the clocks back. What had to be had to be. Besides, Babs mightn’t make too bad a job of looking after her grandmother and Rosa might even exert a positive influence over her stepmother’s chaotic life.
One thing at a time said that little voice in her head.
She made herself a cup of coffee and sat down to await the arrival of Allegra and the man who had caused her husband to be accused of murder.
Tony Brooks staggered from a pub in Bermondsey feeling too cocky for his own good. He’d done a runner from Babs and everything seemed OK on the manor; nobody had apprehended him. Now he was off back to
the crummy flat he shared with Desdemona, but something was troubling him. Grogan. Marcie his daughter was meeting him. Everything would come out and he couldn’t cope with that sober. Not at all!
The road he was walking down was lined with redbrick terraced houses. Most of them were in darkness. Some had an upstairs bedroom light on. One or two showed one downstairs too.
Not a sound broke the silence except for the odd mangy cat fighting with its neighbour.
The first inkling he had of trouble was when he heard the sound of a car, which skidded to a halt beside him.
There was no time to protest. Strong hands threw him into the back seat.
Not exactly a stranger to being picked up and bundled into the back of a car, Tony braced himself for whatever might come.
The woman was a complete surprise. At first it didn’t sink in. She was gorgeous and expensively dressed. He could smell her perfume, saw the sparkle of exquisite diamonds around her throat and in her ears. She was wearing black satin evening gloves and a severe black dress that did wonders for her figure. Diamonds glinted from a bracelet worn over her right glove, an expensive watch over the other. He knew little about furs but guessed the pale blonde stole she was wearing cost a pretty packet.
At first he wondered who it was – and then it hit him.
‘Mary!’ Her name caught in his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was this really the woman who had deserted him all those years ago?
‘I used to be Mary. My name is now Samantha Kendal.’
The words didn’t really sink in. His anger was rising. Where the bloody hell had she been? He’d been through hell. He’d almost been arrested for murder.
His anger burst out. ‘You bitch! You deserted me.’
‘You deserved to be deserted. You’re a waster, Tony Brooks. You were a waster when I was married to you and you’re still one now. I’m not going to go into our history at this moment in time. Marcie needs our help. Now! What do you intend doing about it?’
‘Never mind about Marcie, Mary, where the fuck . . .?’
She slapped his face. ‘Don’t call me that. I’m Sam, remember? Sam Kendal!’
Suddenly it sunk in. In the past Tony would have lashed out and caught her a heavy slap across the chops. But the name she had uttered burned deep into his brain. Sam Kendal. He’d heard rumours about her but, of course, never met her. Now he knew why. He also knew that Leo Kendal’s missus was someone you didn’t mess with.
For her part Sam eyed the man who she’d fallen in love with as a teenager. The best thing he had ever done was fathering Marcie. The worst thing was entrusting his innocent young wife to a man like Alan Taylor. How come grown men got to hero-worshipping other men simply because they threw them a few crumbs from their tables?
Alan had given Tony a job when he was outside prison and was often the cause of Tony ending up in prison.
‘You’re frightened of Rafferty.’
He shook his head then paused. ‘Well, I was.’ He looked up at her. ‘But what’s Marcie going to say? It was my fault for getting drunk, but honestly Ma–’ He stopped himself in time from saying her old name. ‘Sam,’ he corrected. ‘I didn’t realise what they were up to at the time. I didn’t put two and two together.’
Marcie’s mother crossed her slim arms. A trio of gold rings gleamed on the third finger of her left hand: wedding ring, engagement ring, eternity ring. None of them had been given to her by him. They were all from Leo Kendal.
‘You never told Marcie I was still alive. It’s likely she’ll never forgive you for that either.’
‘I didn’t know for sure did I? Does Marcie know?’
Sam nodded. ‘Only because Carla told her. Not you.’
Tony clenched his hands together and looked down at the floor. It was coming home to him that he was far from the best of fathers. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life.
‘You always were a selfish bastard.’
He looked up at her when she said that, surprised at the bitterness in her voice and how it affected him.
‘I did love you,’ he said. ‘There was never anybody else when you were around.’
‘If I’m meant to feel grateful in any way, forget it.’ She heaved her shoulders in a deep sigh. ‘No matter. You’ve come at the right time. It’s time for me to be reunited with my child – and to sort out this mess.’
‘You’re going to tell her?’
It amused Marcie’s mother to see the alarm on his face. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t get slammed up for bigamy though Christ knows you deserve it. I understand we were divorced on the grounds of desertion – me doing the desertion – not that I knew sod all about it at the time.’
The car came to a halt and Sam gestured to Tony that he should get out. ‘You can go.’
He looked her up and down before he did. ‘You always did look good in black.’
A sardonic smile momentarily lifted the corners of her lips. ‘That’s what Leo would say if he could see me now. But he’s gone and unfortunately you’re still here.’
Chapter Thirty-eight
PADDY RAFFERTY HAD the distinct impression that the police were watching him. He’d tried to catch them at it – told his ‘boys’ to keep a lookout, but they hadn’t come up with anything.
‘Just yer age, mate,’ he’d muttered to himself.
It was then that he’d decided to warn Grogan and Co. to keep their mouths shut. He’d been livid when he’d heard that Gerry Grogan had been overheard in the pub boasting about the night he got into the Blue Genie for free. Irish thicko!
The fact that he was of Irish descent himself didn’t come into it. His family had had the good sense to leave the Emerald Isle years ago. Emerald? Shit tip as far as he was concerned.
Everything should have gone relatively smoothly on the building site. He’d made sure to bribe the site foreman to keep the four men he wanted to see on site far later than anyone else.
‘I’ll find something for them to do,’ the foreman had said.
‘Ten quid for your trouble,’ Rafferty had said to him. Everyone had a price and most of them were cheap – that was Paddy’s opinion.
He’d decided that the four of them were up for a slapping; Grogan for a more severe one than the others, the big-mouthed Mick!
In his opinion everything had gone smoothly enough except that he hadn’t expected Grogan to run like a hare on heat. Percy the Perv – so called on account of his sexual inclinations towards anything on four legs – had pursued him for a few streets then finally lost him.
Paddy asked Percy whereabouts he’d lost sight of him.
‘Anywhere near a Catholic church?’
Percy thought about it.
Paddy had his doubts that Percy even knew what any church looked like. He very much doubted he’d ever been inside one. Percy was from Manchester not Ireland.
However, as it turned out his opinion was proved wrong.
‘Yeah. It had big doors and windows.’
It wasn’t difficult to work out which church it was. Paddy recalled there being a church dedicated to the Sacred Heart hereabouts.
‘Let’s go.’
Piling back into the car like a cartload of overweight packages, they set off for the church, then parked outside to watch and to wait.
‘He’s got to be in there,’ said Paddy.
‘Shall we go in?’ asked Percy.
Paddy shook his head. ‘No. He can’t stay in there all night. He’s got to come out some time or another.’
Half an hour later a taxi pulled up. A young woman who looked like a novice nun came rushing out. The young man with her was dressed in black. At first glance he looked like a priest. On second glance – too late for them to stop him getting into the car – they recognised Gerry Grogan.
‘Get after them! But quietly,’ Paddy added. ‘We don’t want to attract attention.’
‘But we want to catch him,’ said his driver in a quizzical voice.
Paddy wanted to b
ash Brian, his driver, around the head. Instead he pointed out his biggest fear. ‘Has it occurred to you that he might be heading for the cop shop?’
‘Point taken, boss.’
Marcie was on an all-time high. She could barely breathe for excitement. Allegra was bringing Grogan here. All she had to do now was plan how to make the best use of his testimony. She’d thought of ringing the police but her father wouldn’t like that. Although he had to bear some guilt in this, he was still her father. She still had affection for him.
He sounded drunk when he eventually phoned her to apologise. ‘I did wrong, Marcie, but it wasn’t me who put him up to it. That’s what you need to find out.’
She agreed to follow his advice.
One after another she allowed cups of coffee to turn cold. How could she drink or eat at a time like this?
A soft knocking at the door preceded Allegra’s entrance. ‘This is Gerry,’ she said.
A man with a face sticky with dried blood came in behind her. The black clothes he was wearing were too small for him and looked as though they had belonged to a priest.
Allegra saw her looking. ‘Father Sullivan won’t notice they’re gone. He was snoring in the confessional when I left.’
The scene she painted was laughable and Marcie would have laughed if the occasion hadn’t been so serious.
Gerry Grogan eyed her cautiously, his body from head to toe as stiff and unyielding as a rock. She guessed he was scared. From what she knew of Paddy Rafferty she too would be scared in his position. But deep down his fear was of no concern to her. All that mattered was proving Michael innocent.
‘Would you like a drink?’
Her voice sounded far away. She didn’t really want to make him a drink. She wanted him to get on with what he had to say.
He shook his head. ‘No. Look. I don’t want to hang around . . .’ He looked over his shoulder at Allegra and the door behind her.
‘I want to know about the gun,’ Marcie blurted. ‘Where did it come from?’
He eyed her warily like a wild animal caught in a car’s headlights and about to leap for cover. ‘You have to know that I won’t testify.’