by Jessie Keane
‘Yes, that’s right too.’
‘Only my friend Jackie’s turned up stories of an accident on the railway where Dolly’s dad worked. And I just wondered . . . was it an accident?’
‘What does any of that matter now?’
‘It matters because someone might be upset at what happened to the old tosser. They might have gone looking for revenge. They might have targeted Dolly. Did the Delaneys organize that “accident”?’
‘God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, Mrs Carter.’ Redmond gave a chilling smile. ‘Yes, your Aunt Celia brought Dolly Farrell to me, wanting me to do something about her father. She explained the situation – it was quite distressing. A kiddie fiddler. A filthy nonce. Is there anything lower? Anything worse?’
Annie shook her head. No. There wasn’t. ‘So . . . what happened?’ she asked.
‘I said, “Let his co-workers decide his fate. Let’s tell them what he is, what he’s done.” Of course they were in uproar. You can rely on the masses for hysteria, I find. One person on his own? Not so bad. An angry group of people? Lethal.’
‘And so?’ Annie prompted. She could hear Steve upstairs, going from room to room.
Fuck it, Jackie, where are you?
But she kept her focus on Redmond. She had to hear the rest of this.
‘They all agreed, all of Sam Farrell’s railway workmates, that he was scum and must go. Arthur Biggs was the train driver, but he was reluctant. He said the guilt would be on his shoulders, he was the one who would back the engine on to Sam Farrell; even if all the others swore it was an accident, he was the one who would do it.’
‘He objected?’ said Max.
‘Strenuously,’ said Redmond. ‘But his co-workers rounded on him and said he had to. So . . . he did.’
Christ, thought Annie.
‘And so,’ said Redmond with a sigh, ‘the people who had once been Sam Farrell’s friends attacked him, and the locomotive backed into him. Crushed his chest and stomach as flat as a pancake. Killed him.’
‘And then Arthur Biggs was so tormented with guilt that he hung himself,’ said Annie, thinking of what Sandy had told her, and that she had to find the Biggs family and speak to them.
‘Did he? I didn’t know that.’
Steve was coming back down the stairs in his size elevens, the treads creaking under his weight as he did so. He caught Max’s eye, shook his head, and then went off further along the hall and started looking in the downstairs rooms. Mitchell sent a look at Max; Max stared him down. Mitchell left the room, went along the hall toward the kitchen.
‘Tea, anyone?’ asked Redmond, and he stood up.
‘No thanks,’ said Annie and Max together.
Then all the lights went out.
92
Utter blackness descended. Annie froze in her chair. Something brushed by her leg, there was a scrabble of movement, and then someone grabbed her arm. She let out a shriek.
‘It’s me,’ said Max, and then Steve was in the room and the wavering light of the torch was blinding Annie. Steve cast the beam around. ‘That other geezer shot past me out the back door,’ he said.
So – no Mitchell.
Steve cast the torch’s beam around the room.
And no Redmond, either. He was gone.
‘That bastard makes my skin crawl,’ said Max as he started the car and drove them back to Holland Park.
‘Me too,’ said Annie. She wasn’t convinced that Redmond had told them the complete truth about what had happened to Sam Farrell. Redmond was a game player. You couldn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth.
Steve had searched everywhere in the house and the grounds, but Jackie wasn’t there. So where the hell was he? And what had made him scream that way? Annie shivered to think of it, what could have happened to him. All right, he was a walking disaster, drunk and disgusting most of the time, but he’d been making an effort to shape up over this last week or so, and he’d been on her side when no one else seemed to be.
She thought of Redmond, sitting there like butter wouldn’t melt. But she knew that bastard of old, just like Max did. That cool polished exterior hid a squirming worm-fest of nastiness that could be unleashed at a moment’s notice. Priest, pervert or crook, Redmond’s basic personality never changed. He was disturbed, and disturbing, and there was history between them. Bad history. Annie could never forget that it had been Constantine who had tried to kill both Redmond and his twin sister Orla back in the seventies. And it had been Annie’s own daughter, Layla, who had finally put a stop to Orla’s sad, twisted life.
‘Are you going to come in?’ asked Annie when Max pulled up outside her house.
‘What, to hear more tall tales?’ Max sighed.
Annie looked at him in exasperation. Before Jackie’s phone call, Max had been about to make love to her. She knew it. Now he was cold again.
‘We can talk,’ she said. ‘Can’t we?’
Truthfully, she didn’t want to be alone, not after this evening, not after hearing that godawful scream and staring into Redmond’s expressionless eyes.
He shrugged. ‘If you want,’ he said, and got out of the car.
Annie got out too, shutting the door after her, crossing the pavement, starting up the steps. There was something, a bundle of rags, something like that, near the door, lit by the carriage light over it.
‘What the f—’ she started, coming to a halt as her feet met a puddle of dark oil.
They had found Jackie.
93
Jackie could almost have been asleep. He was sitting, legs sprawled open, his back to the navy-blue double doors of the house, his head slumped forward on his chest.
He’s asleep, she told herself. Or drugged? She was hoping against hope that this could be true.
Max passed her where she stood frozen on the steps. And then she realized. It wasn’t oil at her feet, it was blood, and it had flowed down the steps from Jackie’s body. Unable to move, too shocked to move, she watched as Max crouched down by Jackie, lifted his head and then . . .
‘Oh, holy shit!’ said Annie, her hand flying to her mouth and bile surging into her throat. Jackie’s neck had been slashed open and his shirtfront was soaked through with blood. She could smell the coppery stench of it now; it hit her in a wave.
Max let Jackie’s head fall back down on to his chest. It was like releasing a puppet’s strings, Annie thought. There was no life left in Jackie; he was dead.
‘Stay there a minute,’ said Max, and got out his key and opened the door.
Jackie fell back across the threshold and lay there, inert. With Annie’s body blocking anyone’s view from the road, Max dragged Jackie into the hall, then motioned for Annie to come on in. She did, stepping around the dark waterfall of blood, gagging, her feet leaden, her heart pounding dully in her chest.
She closed the door behind her, flicked on the hall lights and looked down at Jackie. The brilliance of the chandeliers only served to highlight the awful pallor of his face, the deep wound across his neck, the half-open lids showing filmed-over eyes that saw nothing.
‘Shit,’ she moaned.
Max was crossing to the hall table, snatching up the telephone. She didn’t even listen to what he said, her mind was spinning out of control and all she could think was that this was down to her. All evening, she’d been afraid of something like this, and now here it was. Jackie had helped her – and he’d died for it.
Max returned to her side, took her arm. There was blood all down his shirt and on his jacket. ‘Come on, let’s go in here,’ he said, and guided her across the hall and into the study, shutting the door firmly after them, turning on the lights.
‘Chris and Tone are on their way,’ he said.
Annie nodded. This had happened before here, this procedure. A clean-up. A dead body shipped discreetly out and disposed of. Which meant no Christian burial for Jackie Tulliver, just a trip out into the depths of the English Channel or down into the concrete foundations of
a new building or a motorway bridge.
‘Oh God,’ said Annie, sitting down behind the desk and sinking her head into her hands. She looked up at Max. ‘Do you think Redmond . . . ?’
‘Dunno. Would he have had the time? What about his creep of a mate, that Mitchell sort. He’d been up to something, before he came in the back door. Could be that this is his handiwork.’
‘I can’t believe this.’
‘Shit happens,’ said Max.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say? Jackie’s dead, and you say “shit happens”? That poor little bastard, he was mourning his mum and drinking to numb the pain, and all your lot, all you rotten fuckers, you turned your backs on him because you thought he was a loose cannon and not to be trusted.’
Max gave her a long look. ‘He wasn’t to be trusted. He turned into a drunk. You can’t ever trust drunks.’
‘I think he would have got himself back on track, with some help.’
‘Well, that ain’t going to happen now.’
‘Christ, you’re a bastard.’
‘Just stating the obvious.’ Max came over, leaned on the desk, stared down at her. ‘For what it’s worth, Jackie Tulliver was a good friend to me back in the day. I’m sorry he’s dead, and sorry it was this way and not peacefully in his own home. But shit does happen, and we’re going to deal with it.’
There was a heavy knock at the front door then; Max straightened and went to answer it.
‘You can stay in here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You don’t have to see this.’
‘No.’ Annie shoved herself upright on shaky legs. ‘I got him into this. So whatever there is to see, I’ll see it. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Max, and opened the door into the hall, where Jackie lay dead.
Annie braced herself, and followed.
94
Chris and Tony came into the house wearing rubber gloves and old clothes that would later be burned. Gently they cleared Jackie away, wrapping his corpse in a tarpaulin sheet then carefully wiping the hall floor clean afterwards. With that sorted, Chris switched off the porch light and Max doused those in the hall while they cleared up the steps outside. When they were done, Tony stepped out, leaving the door open, looking up and down the street. Then he came back in, nodding.
All clear.
Together Chris and Tony hoisted Jackie outside, and Max closed the door behind them, locked it, and came back across the darkened hall to where Annie stood in the doorway of the study, light spilling out behind her.
‘Been a hell of a fucking day,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’ Annie felt both sick and numb, still unable to take it in. Jackie was dead.
‘Come on. Bedtime,’ he said, and took her arm and led her upstairs to the master suite.
Annie didn’t think it was possible, but she took a couple of painkillers and then she managed to fall asleep after an hour or so of lying awake, staring at the ceiling. Max had gone off to the next room, the one with the connecting door into the master suite. He wouldn’t have any trouble getting to sleep, she knew it. The whole world could be coming off its axis, and Max Carter would never panic.
Her mind kept replaying it: Jackie sitting there dead, propped against her front door like a discarded rag doll. And the blood. The smell.
Jackie had been watching Redmond, and Redmond could kill or give the order for it just for sheer pleasure, she knew that. Her mind kept churning it all over: Dolly dying and now Jackie, and those two grey little souls standing by Dolly’s burial plot, her brother, her sister. And Sandy, all that he had told her. And Dick, in New Zealand. Or – was he?
Ellie, who didn’t want to know her any more . . .
The mob by the lychgate at the funeral, who would have done her serious damage if Max and his boys hadn’t been there . . .
She drifted into a light, restless sleep, and only woke when she knew he was in the room. She sat up, reached for the light. Max was there, in the chair again. Fully dressed. Watching her. She pulled the sheets up to her chin and stared at him.
Max’s eyes were on the sheets. ‘Yeah, let’s talk about that,’ he said. ‘The strapping. The bruises. You said a fall.’
Annie let out a tired sigh and said, ‘All right. I lied.’
‘Oh? Well, there’s a bloody novelty. So what really happened?’
‘Gary had a couple of his boys give me a going-over. All thanks to you.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard. They grabbed me, took me dockside and gave me a kicking.’
‘Gary OK’d this?’
‘He hates me. Always has. It must have made his day, this story that I’d been fooling around with Constantine. Probably thought I’d run away, never to be seen again. But instead I read his tart Caroline the riot act. So he arranged for me to be taught a lesson. I guess he thought you’d be pleased.’
Max’s face was grim. ‘I’m going to have a fucking word with him. And these two goons of his, do you know them? Can you describe them?’
‘No need,’ said Annie.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because it’s been taken care of.’
‘By who?’
‘By Constantine. Well, by Alberto really. I expect they’re sleeping with the fishes now – ain’t that what they say? Something like that.’
‘So . . . you’re being watched by the Mafia. Watched over.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So he really is your friend.’
‘He really is. In his way.’
‘You don’t sound too sure about that.’
‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘But Alberto keeps an eye on me.’
Max stood up, stretched, came over to the bed and sat down on it. ‘So Alberto’s giving the orders now?’
‘I told you. Things have changed. Constantine’s not the man he was.’
‘It all sounds very cosy. You and Constantine, playing cards.’
‘Yeah, it was OK – until he’d start asking after Nico, or thinking I was his sister, or his first wife.’ Annie shook her head. ‘Oh God, what a night it’s been. What a fucking day, come to that. Poor bloody Jackie. What are we going to do?’
Max stared steadily at her face. ‘You know this Dolly thing? You could be fooling yourself with all this bad-past bollocks. It could have been random, it could have been something stupid, something right here and now.’
‘Like what, for instance?’
‘A punter she turned out. A supplier who tried to short-change her. Who knows?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Annie, looking doubtful. ‘I’m still thinking about Dolly’s brother, the one who gave me the name of the train driver. Arthur Biggs. He killed himself.’
‘I heard the police gave you a warning.’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘So perhaps this would be a good time to back off, let them handle it.’
Annie was shaking her head. ‘No. No way. If I did that, what’s it all been for? Jackie’s dead, it’s my fault, and what’s more he died for no reason – because I quit? You’re joking. I started this, and I’m damned well going to finish it.’
‘You’re such an obstinate cow.’
‘Hey – you always knew that.’ Annie felt sick, weary, stressed to hell. ‘Max, I’m dog-tired. Let me sleep.’
Max’s eyes locked with hers. ‘Alone?’
Just say you want to stay with me, she thought. She wanted him so much, but if he still doubted her, if he still thought she was lying over her visits to Constantine, then what was the point?
‘I’m getting used to it,’ she said, and he didn’t argue. He went through the door that led into the adjoining twin suite and closed it behind him, leaving her alone once again.
95
Late next morning she found Max down in the kitchen, in jeans and rolled-up shirtsleeves, staring into the empty fridge. He turned his head as she wandered in, yawning, rubbing her head, wearing an old short pink silk nightshirt. Sleep had made her feel better, even if it had been pat
chy. She was still devastated over Jackie’s horrible death and still shaky after the trauma of it, but she felt a little stronger now.
‘Have I said this before?’ said Max. ‘You’re not very domesticated.’
Annie leaned against the kitchen table and looked at him. ‘Have I said this before? Neither are you.’
‘I’m starving.’
Jesus! Just last night he’d been clearing an old mate’s remains away, now all he could think of was his stomach!
‘There’s a deli down the road.’ Annie went to the built-in espresso coffee machine, part of a big kitchen revamp that had been done years ago. ‘Shit, I never did learn how to use this thing. Rosa knew how, I don’t.’
‘So no coffee and nothing to eat.’ Max shut the fridge door. ‘Perfect. You sleep OK?’
‘Fine.’
She hadn’t. Dreams of Jackie had haunted her, all night. Poor bloody Jackie. She’d woken up often during the night, panicking, half-vomiting with shock and dismay as it all came back to her. More than anything, she had wanted to go into the adjoining room, to climb into Max’s bed and feel his warmth, his strength, envelop her. But he was still angry, and she could see his point. She felt bad about the whole Constantine thing; how could she climb into bed with him when she’d done that, deceived him that way?
‘What?’ she asked, when he continued to stand there, staring at her.
‘Nothing.’ Max came over and stood in front of her. For a long moment he just stared at her silently. It was unnerving. Then his hand went to the front of the nightshirt and popped open a button.
Annie put up a hand in surprise. ‘Wait. Just wait. What the fuck happened to the divorce?’
‘It’s on hold,’ said Max.
‘For how long? Until you get the fact that I’m telling the truth through your thick head?’
Max wasn’t listening. ‘How long have you had this? It’s nice. Have I seen this before?’
‘Stop that. I said, what about the divorce?’
‘And I said, it’s on hold. For the moment,’ he said, and popped open another button.