Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

‘He shot me,’ she said weakly. ‘She ran at him . . . oh shit . . . the bloody thing just went off. It should have been her.’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ said Alberto. He turned and shouted: ‘Send for an ambulance! Hurry!’

  Annie saw one of the heavies run for the house.

  And where were the police?

  ‘Take him,’ said Max, pulling Frances roughly to his feet and shoving him towards Steve and Gary. They hauled him away, bleating about he’d done nothing, it was all her, it was her who was crazy, not him.

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth,’ said Steve, dragging him off.

  Then Frances was pulling a grenade from his pocket, holding it aloft. Steve and Gary stepped quickly back.

  ‘Keep away!’ yelled Frances, his eyes mad with fear and excitement. ‘Keep back or I’ll pull the pin.’

  Annie stared at him, feeling sick. Grenades. It had been grenades that had killed Constantine, killed her child. She moved towards the door, but Max yanked her back.

  Frances was backing away, heading for the drive.

  ‘Let him go!’ shouted Max to Steve as Frances retreated, still holding the grenade up.

  When he was further down the drive, he turned and started to run.

  Gary exchanged a look with Max, then he followed Frances.

  Max looked at Annie. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  She nodded, barely able to speak. ‘How the hell . . .?’ she whispered.

  ‘I was just coming into the end of the road with Steve and Gary in the car when we saw you and Chris bombing off in the Zephyr. We stopped at the knocking-shop and Rosie told us Alberto had called, she heard you on the phone to him talking about the Parsons’ yard and then you left in a panic.’ He paused, drew breath. ‘I phoned Alberto at the Holland Park place but he said he hadn’t called you. He gave me directions to the yard, and he followed on with some of his boys.’

  Suddenly Annie felt so choked with emotion that she couldn’t speak.

  ‘You going to pass out?’ asked Max, watching her.

  She could only shake her head.

  She looked down at Alberto, whose tears were falling on Cara’s paper-white face.

  ‘Hurts,’ she moaned.

  ‘I know, sweetheart. But help’s coming,’ he said, squeezing her hand hard in his. ‘Hold on.’

  Hold on for what? Annie wondered.

  Cara was a cold-blooded killer. If she survived this, Alberto would have to learn even more harsh truths about her. Annie thought of those times Cara had come to talk to her – first after she’d spotted her with Fredo, the second time at Ellie’s – and wondered what had been going on in that febrile little mind of hers. Had she been trying in some way to justify her actions to her stepmother? Annie didn’t know.

  One thing was certain: Cara had instigated Constantine’s death, driven by jealousy and rage. And she hadn’t cared who else perished along with her father; she hadn’t even given it a thought so long as it wasn’t her.

  Cara would have made sure she was well out of the way of any fallout later in the evening when the explosion happened. Maybe the crazy cow had even hoped that Lucco and Alberto would perish, so that she could have tried to take over as head of the family.

  Cara let out a wheezing breath, seemed to hold it in for a moment, and then her body relaxed and her eyes stared beyond Alberto’s face with no expression at all. The life went out of them.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ he moaned, crouching over her and sobbing convulsively. ‘Christ, no . . .’

  Max and Annie exchanged a look. They went outside, left him to his grief. It was early evening, the yard was still, night was drawing in. For Cara, the night would be without end.

  Steve was over by the car, staring in at Chris’s supine body.

  ‘Shit,’ he said sadly. ‘Poor bastard.’

  He was holding a hand to Chris’s neck. Max went closer to the car, taking Annie with him. Annie turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to look at Chris’s dead body again; she was racked with guilt, in agony over what to say to Ellie about this. She’d be heartbroken.

  ‘Think there’s a pulse here,’ said Steve.

  ‘What?’ Annie’s head whipped round. She dashed forward and craned in. So did Max.

  ‘You sure?’ Max snapped.

  ‘Feel.’

  Max put his hand to Chris’s neck – and felt a very faint but unmistakable pulse thudding beneath his fingers. It was fluttering, faltering – but it was there.

  ‘Chris!’ Annie said urgently. ‘Can you hear me?’

  There was no response.

  ‘He’s got a neck like a sodding bull,’ said Steve. ‘It might’ve saved him.’

  The ambulance’s siren was the most welcome sound Annie had ever heard. Max and Steve drew back while Annie stayed there, holding Chris’s hand, willing him to stay alive.

  ‘Come on, you bastard, don’t make me have to explain this to Ellie, will you?’ she muttered to him. ‘Come on.’

  And then the ambulance men were there, pushing her back, away from him, and she could only watch, and hope.

  Chapter 77

  With Chris gone and Cara’s body taken away, Annie started to walk up towards the house. Now she had something almost equally bad to face. Somehow, she had to get Layla out of here without Max seeing her.

  ‘Sneaking off?’ asked Max, catching up with her, tucking the gun away out of sight in his coat.

  ‘Just going to check on Jenny,’ she said. Shit. Now what was she going to do?

  ‘And Layla?’ he asked.

  Annie stopped walking as they reached the little picket gate in front of the elegant red-brick Georgian building. The wisteria that clothed the front of the lovely place in a sea of drooping lavender-coloured racemes was scenting the dusky air.

  Annie braced herself and stared into his eyes.

  ‘You’re not taking her away from me,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Oh?’ He put his hands on his hips and stared right back at her. ‘How d’you think you’d stop me, if I wanted to do that?’

  ‘Mummy!’

  Too late.

  The front door under the fanlight was open and Layla came rushing out down the pathway towards her. Gerda and Jenny and the kids were clustered in the open doorway.

  Annie snatched up her daughter and held her squirming little body close. Her eyes met Max’s over Layla’s silky, sweet-smelling head. She pulled her in close, hugged her hard.

  ‘Ow! Too tight, Mommy!’ Layla complained.

  Max was silent, watching the little girl, drinking in the sight of her. His Layla, his little star. She had a slight American accent, but otherwise she seemed so much the same. Grown, yes – but the same. His Layla. He’d thought he would never see her again. Now, here she was. But . . .

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ he asked, as he saw that the small finger on Layla’s hand was missing.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ lied Annie, just wanting to get Layla away from him, away to safety.

  She saw Layla’s head turn, saw her big, dark-green eyes light upon Max’s face, saw her eyes widen, her gaze sharpen.

  Shit, does she still know him? She last saw him when she was three years old, can she still recognize him . . .?

  Slowly, Layla stretched out towards him.

  ‘Layla? Baby?’ said Max softly, moving in closer.

  He took hold of her hand, brought it to his lips, kissed it gently.

  ‘Layla?’ he said again.

  ‘Da . . .’ Layla started.

  It’s true. She knows him still. I’ve lost her.

  Layla was stretching her open arms out towards Max now, away from Annie. He took his daughter into his arms and held her tight, too overcome to speak. Annie stood there and watched them, father and daughter, a perfect scene – but one that did not include her.

  This was it.

  He’d won.

  He always did.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Jenny called out nervously ‘I didn’t call the police.’
/>   ‘Fine,’ said Max, kissing Layla’s head and hugging her tight. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  Defeated, heartbroken, Annie walked away.

  Chapter 78

  She found Alberto sitting on a low wall at the end of the drive, his head in his hands. She sat down beside him, saying nothing. He glanced up, saw her there. His face was wet with tears, she saw, feeling a tug of deep compassion.

  How was it possible, she wondered, that Alberto could have a brother like weak, oily, grasping Lucco, and a sister like Cara, who would have done anything, even murder, to satisfy her lust for vengeance? Oh, he was no saint. He could be tough and, if necessary, he could be vicious. He had to be: he was Constantine’s child.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said at last.

  He swallowed, swiped a hand across his eyes.

  ‘Just tell me. Tell me what the hell was going on in there.’

  Annie told him about Frances, and about Cara, and about all that she had done.

  By the end of it, Alberto was off the wall and walking nervily back and forth in front of her.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said over and over.

  ‘Believe it. It’s true,’ said Annie wearily, feeling so tired, so heart-sore that she barely had the strength to speak now.

  She could understand Alberto’s pain. She’d loathed Cara, but she wouldn’t ever have wished her dead. And she had her own griefs to deal with. What she couldn’t get out of her head was the way Layla had looked at Max, the way she had been so eager to get into his arms. Now he had her, and he would keep her. She knew that. God knew he’d threatened it; and what Max Carter threatened, he usually delivered.

  ‘I don’t know what to do any more,’ said Alberto miserably.

  Same here, thought Annie.

  ‘We have to go to the hospital,’ said Annie. ‘There’ll be forms, things like that . . .’ We’ll have to register the death, she thought, but couldn’t say out loud. He should have gone in the ambulance, but she thought he was too stunned to know what he was doing right now.

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,’ he told her simply.

  Me neither. ‘One step at a time,’ she said out loud.

  No matter what crap life chucked at you, was there anything else to it but that? You had to go on. There was nothing else you could do.

  Chapter 79

  ‘The whole world’s going fucking crazy,’ Lucco was ranting.

  Annie was sitting in the drawing room of the Holland Park house. Max was standing behind her chair, arms folded. She really didn’t know why he hadn’t taken off already with Layla, but he hadn’t. It was only a matter of time. But for now, Layla was upstairs being tucked into bed by Gerda.

  Soon, he’d take her. So somehow she still had the chance to do it, to snatch her away.

  But . . . she thought of Layla’s face lighting up with such sweet delight as she saw him there at the stables. Her daughter would be devastated if she was parted from him again. She knew it. So what should she be truly considering here? Her own happiness – or Layla’s?

  It had been a hell of an evening. She’d phoned Ellie to tell her about Chris, and Ellie was far from pleased with her.

  ‘You know what, Annie Carter or Barolli or whatever the fuck you’re called? You’re a nutter. If Chris hadn’t been with you, this wouldn’t have happened.’

  Which was nothing more than the truth.

  Ellie had taken the hospital details from Annie and then slammed the phone down in disgust.

  ‘What the hell were you doing there, what was going on?’ Lucco was now raging, standing in front of her. He looked almost deranged.

  Annie snapped back to the present. She looked at Daniella, sitting beside the fire, and Alberto standing there leaning against the mantelpiece, looking crushed, and Aunt Gina, her face a mask of silent sorrow, huddled in a low chair near the hearth.

  ‘I—’ Annie started.

  ‘You know what?’ Lucco interrupted. ‘This family was fine until you showed up.’

  ‘Now hold on—’

  ‘It’s the truth! But you came along and everything went sour.’

  Annie shook her head. She wasn’t about to be intimidated by this little creep.

  ‘That’s not true. I didn’t make Cara do what she did.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ Lucco’s black eyes widened and his mouth twisted in a sneer.

  ‘You think I wanted your father dead?’ she snapped. ‘I loved him.’

  ‘And don’t you think it was because he was so obsessed with you that she became desperate, became crazy?’

  ‘I think craziness runs through this family like a disease,’ said Annie, standing up.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Hey,’ said Max, stepping forward when Lucco lunged towards Annie. ‘You want to calm down?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to calm down. My sister’s just died. And she’, he glared at Annie, ‘is telling me nothing but rotten stinking lies about her.’

  Annie heaved a sigh. ‘She admitted it, Lucco. She admitted everything. She started off wanting to get a little revenge on Rocco for embarrassing her, and it just snowballed. It got beyond her control. And finally it killed her.’

  ‘Don’t you think I have troubles enough, uh?’ he was raging on, pacing around now, shooting her angry looks. ‘The Mancinis are furious about Rocco. I’m having to move heaven and earth to placate them.’ He sent a venomous glance at Alberto. ‘And you didn’t help, calling them without my permission, you fucking fool.’

  Alberto looked hurt. ‘I was trying to lessen your load,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all? Well, you didn’t. Now the streets are full of punks wanting to take me on, break the family’s hold, now they think Papa’s out of the way and I’ll be a softer target.’

  They got that right, thought Annie. You are.

  ‘Lucco,’ said Daniella tremblingly, ‘none of this is Annie’s fault. Or Alberto’s. He’s right, he was trying to help . . .’

  ‘And what the fuck do you know?’ he demanded, rounding on her.

  Daniella shrank back in her chair.

  ‘Lucco,’ said Alberto softly, disgustedly. ‘For Christ’s sake. For all that she was, for all that she did . . .’ He paused, his eyes full of pain as he remembered how Constantine, his beloved father, had perished at his own daughter’s hands. He swallowed hard and went on: ‘Our sister died today. Our sister.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that? My heart bleeds for it; don’t you think I’m aware that Cara’s gone, and Papa’s gone . . .’ His voice trailed away.

  For a moment, he just stood there, clutching his brow, all control deserting him.

  He can’t hold it together, thought Annie. No way. He’s too weak, too volatile. That oily charm’s a veneer, and it’s pretty thin.

  ‘I’m going up to my room,’ said Aunt Gina, rising stiffly. She shot a basilisk stare at Lucco. ‘This can’t go on. You do know that?’ she said.

  He said nothing.

  Aunt Gina stalked from the room.

  There was a silence. It was Alberto who broke it.

  ‘There are things we have to arrange,’ he said firmly but gently to his elder brother.

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ yelled Lucco.

  ‘Well someone has to think straight around here,’ said Alberto.

  ‘And you think I don’t?’

  Lucco asked him. ‘Lucco,’ said Alberto. ‘You have to show strength now, show everyone that you can hold the family steady. It’s a sad day, an awful day, but you have to be strong. You have to conduct yourself like a Don. Like Papa would. We have to go home, and you have to bring order to those bastards who want to chance their arm. Calm the Mancinis down, make everything right.’

  ‘But I’m not him,’ said Lucco, and, for a moment, Annie thought he was going to burst into tears and throw a tantrum like a petulant child. ‘I can never be him.’

  Daniella stood up, disturbed by all this. ‘I’m goin
g up to bed,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Alberto.

  ‘Of course she’s all right,’ shouted Lucco. ‘She’s my goddamned wife, not yours. Will you kindly remember that?’

  Now Annie saw that Alberto’s face was set with anger. For a moment it was truly as if Constantine was standing there.

  ‘I can remember whose wife she is,’ he said. ‘Can you? And can you be man enough to treat her with the respect she deserves?’

  Now Lucco looked beyond furious. He looked as if he was about to launch himself at Alberto. Quickly, Daniella stepped between them. ‘Don’t,’ she said, putting her hands to her face in distress. ‘Don’t.’

  Both men subsided.

  Annie sat there and thought: My God, what’s going on here?

  Suddenly she could see it. Alberto playing with Daniella in the pool, fussing over her at the races, leaving the room white-faced with rage when Lucco hit her.

  ‘We should just calm down,’ said Max to all of them. ‘It’s been a pig of a day and we’re all fucked. Let’s get to bed.’

  This time, Lucco didn’t argue. He left the room first, looking as if all the fight had gone out of him. Alberto and Daniella followed. The door closed. Annie and Max were left alone in the drawing room.

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Max.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Alberto and Daniella.’

  ‘You noticed.’

  ‘Hard not to.’

  ‘Nothing can come of it,’ said Annie, thinking of Max’s own disastrous marriage to her sister Ruthie.

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Max. ‘Come on, let’s get over to the hospital. See how Chris is doing.’

  They went out of the drawing room and across the vast hall. Alberto and Aunt Gina were at the top of the stairs, talking quietly. They saw Annie and Max down below, and Alberto quickly said goodnight to his aunt and went along the landing to his own room.

  Chapter 80

  ‘I don’t fucking well believe you,’ said Ellie, charging at Annie like an enraged animal when they showed up outside Chris’s ward. ‘You know what? Trouble follows you around, Annie Carter. Chris was damned near killed today, and all because he was with you.’