by Jessie Keane
‘Nick O’Rourke.’
‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘Who hasn’t? He’s a face. Maybe they were after him. Not you.’
Lily shook her head, unsnapped her seat belt. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘And what makes you say that?’
‘The King brothers. They’ve threatened me. They want to even the score over Leo. They won’t believe I didn’t do it.’
Jack sat back, ran a hand through his dirty-blond hair. Looked at her with bright, inquisitive blue eyes. ‘Now come on, girl. This is shit or bust now. Having told me all that, are you really sure you want to go on with all this? See this Julia bird, and these two others? Are you sure?’
‘What else can I do? Once I find out who did it…’
Jack was shaking his head. ‘Fuck me,’ he said suddenly, ‘listen to yourself! What else can you do? I’ll tell you what else. You can fuck off out of here, go far, far away, sit on a sunny beach and sip pina bloody coladas. You can go and keep pedigree chickens down on the farm. You can do whatever the hell you like, enjoy your freedom, forget about all this shit. If the Kings are serious, they won’t let up.’
‘Neither will I,’ said Lily.
‘No, maybe not – until they finally stick a bullet in your stupid brain. Lily – don’t be a fool. Give it up. Pay me off and say goodbye.’
‘You want paying off?’ Lily threw open the passenger door and got out. She looked back in at Jack sitting there behind the steering wheel. ‘Okay, I’ll pay you off. Job done. You can bail out of this; you don’t have to keep going. You can fuck off back to your office, go back to your normal line of work peering in bedroom windows or filming someone nicking paperclips – nice, safe, normal things like that. Get back in sweet with Monica, you know you want to.’
‘I told you. I’ll deal with Monica when this is sorted.’
‘Sure you will.’
‘I will’
. ‘Fine. But listen up, Jack. I’m not stopping. I’m seeing this through to the finish.’
‘Lily – it could be the finish of you.’.
‘What do you care?’ asked Lily, slamming the door closed and walking around the car. She opened the gate and went up the black-and-white chequer-tiled pathway before knocking on the door of the little Victorian villa, one of a huge long road of identical houses.
‘Hey!’ Jack had come up behind her. ‘Now don’t go getting in a strop with me. I’m just telling you like it is, that’s all.’
‘I know how it is, Jack. I know it’s stupid and I know it’s dangerous. But it’s just something I have to do.’
‘No,’ said Jack, catching her shoulder, squeezing it hard. ‘You don’t. I’ve told you the options. There are options.’
‘Not for me.’
Jack let out a sigh. ‘Jesus, I knew you were trouble from the first moment I clapped eyes on you.’
Lily knocked harder at the door. Why was nobody answering the damned door?
‘As I told you, Jack,’ she said, ‘you can bail out.’
Jack looked at her. Crazy tart. But admirable, too. She had a focus and a determination he’d encountered in very few women, as well as being tall and blonde and pretty fucking good-looking. He’d start fancying the daft bint if he wasn’t very careful. And usually he was very careful. He knew of the King brothers. Knew of Nick O’Rourke. He believed it would be a really, really bad idea to get mixed up in anything involving them. But still…there was Lily. Her name sounded soft and pliable. But she wasn’t like that. She had the strongest will, she was like iron. She was so bloody stubborn. And struggling through all this shit alone, if he backed away.
He really, really wanted to back away.
But the truth was, she needed his help, and he’d feel like shit if he didn’t give it. So he stepped forward and hammered hard on the door.
‘She expecting you?’ he asked, peering into the window beside the door. It hadn’t been cleaned in some time. The turquoise paint on the door was peeling, and down at the base of the door were deep scratch marks, exposing the wood completely.
Lily was shaking her head. ‘I phoned her, but she said she didn’t want to talk to me. I have to speak to her.’
‘This is another one of those things you just have to do,’ said Jack, sighing.
‘It is.’
‘All right then. Let’s try round the back.’
They went down the alleyway at the side of the house and looked at the ramshackle back garden. There was a clothesline in the centre of a stretch of unmown grass. A cheap white plastic chair and a small table. Two cats were sitting on the step in front of a scruffy-looking back door with a cat-flap set in it. Jack went and looked in through the window. There was a sink in there, from what he could see – though that wasn’t much: the windows at the back were as filthy as those at the front. Lily joined him, looking in. And then something loomed into view inside, something like a Halloween mask. Jack fell back.
‘Shit!’ he blurted, stumbling over a white cat that yelled in protest and scooted away.
Lily looked aghast at the face hovering there. Oh hell, she thought. She raised a hand and tapped softly on the glass.
‘Julia?’ she called out. ‘Come on, Julia. Let me in.’ And they heard the bolt shoot back on the door.
The shock of Julia’s face was even greater because she’d once been so beautiful. Hell, on one side of her face she still was. The sunlight caught her as she opened the door and peered out at them. From this side, the side she was now being so careful to present to her unwanted callers, she was still the beauteous Julia. There was a finely arched brow, a stunning, almond-shaped violet-blue eye, silken white skin, a mouth that would give Angelina Jolie’s a run for its money.
Julia kept the right-hand side of her face turned away from them as she let them in. She was walking ahead of them into a small, scruffy living room that stank of cat piss. Slinking shapes moved about in the semi-darkness, brushing up against Lily’s legs. There was purring, arching of backs, sinuous movement, the hot silky brush of fur.
‘Fuck me,’ muttered Jack under his breath.
Lily wasn’t breathing, not much. She was trying not to. The place was filthy, and the stench was eye-watering. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom – the curtains were half pulled over the window – she was able actually to see outlines in the room. There were eight or nine cats in here. Old Berber rugs thrown over sofas. Dusty African masks on the walls. A tired-looking aspidistra in a bowl on a table that was strewn with cups and plates. A tabby cat sat in the middle of the dirty crockery, licking one paw with dainty precision.
‘I don’t know what you want,’ said Julia, moving ahead of them. She slumped down on one of the sofas. Dust plumed and danced in a shaft of faint sunlight that had managed to creep in through the window. She pulled a ginger cat onto her knee and held it there like a comforter, her hand smoothing quickly over its fur. It started to purr loudly.
The noise on the phone, thought Lily. Like a motor.
Lily sat down opposite Julia. The trick was to breathe through your mouth and not even to consider what you might be sitting on. Jack sat down too, making a face.
‘I don’t want anything,’ said Lily. ‘Just to talk to you about things.’
Does Nick know she lives this way? wondered Lily.
But then – Nick hadn’t wanted her to contact Julia. To spare her the pain of seeing this? Or to hide away a dirty secret?
Julia was eyeing Jack with cold suspicion.
‘This is Jack Rackland,’ said Lily. ‘He’s a friend of mine. A private investigator.’
‘Yeah? What’s he investigating then? Me?’ Julia shot back.
Lily looked at her with pity. The hair was almost the same – a thick, wheat-coloured mane, lustrous, wonderful – but now rendered paler by strands of grey. Julia had been one of the few pure natural blondes in their group. Lily had been born mouse-coloured. Hell, she’d been a mouse in every way in her younger years. Blonding her look up had given
her a bit of confidence. She’d gone in for streaks, highlights, whatever – they all had, except Mary who had always been and probably always would be relentlessly brunette. Only Julia hadn’t needed to resort to the dye bottle.
But her face. Her poor face. Even with Julia’s best efforts to keep her head turned to one side, still the damage to the right side of her face was shocking, repellent.
‘Jack’s helping me look into what happened with Leo,’ said Lily.
Julia nodded slowly. Her poor face, thought Lily again, seeing the angry red weals and…oh fuck, it looked as if that whole half of her face had melted. It was hideous. The eyebrow was gone on that side, the eye was half closed. Even the corner of the mouth was deformed, making Julia’s speech slurry.
‘Everyone said back in the day that you reckoned you didn’t do it,’ said Julia, looking down at the cat purring away there in her lap.
‘That’s true. I didn’t.’
Julia glanced up, a hank of hair throwing a concealing shadow over the ruined side of her face. ‘Yeah, right. Then who did?’ she asked.
‘That’s what we want to find out,’ said Jack.
‘We know about you and Leo,’ said Lily.
‘Oh?’ Julia gave them that careful, sideways look.
‘We know you weren’t the only one, either.’
Julia was silent for a moment. ‘Well, he wouldn’t want me now, would he?’ she laughed mirthlessly.
Jack said nothing.
Lily said: ‘What happened to your face, Julia?’
‘Oh, so you’ve decided to talk about the elephant in the room,’ said Julia, half smirking. ‘So…what happened?’ Lily asked again.
‘Someone threw acid in my face.’
Lily took a breath. Wished she hadn’t. But for fuck’s sake, this was horrible. That someone could have done this to beautiful Julia. She’d been the best-looking girl in their crowd. They’d all admired her looks, would have killed for her looks. And now…here she was. Disfigured for life. Wearing shapeless clothes, because what was the point of doing otherwise? No one would look at her now. Not Leo. Not Nick. No one.
‘Who did it, Julia?’
‘I never knew.’ She shook her head. Her lovely long white hands were exactly as they had always been, smoothing over the cat’s back. Its eyes were closed in bliss. A deep purring was emanating from it. ‘I came in one night after I’d been at a party. Got out of the cab, and someone rushed up to me – I couldn’t see who, it was just a dark shape…and flung this liquid. They ran off. And after a little while, it started to sting. And then to burn. And I…I got my key out somehow, came in, splashed water all over my face, but it was burning, I was screaming, it was agony…’ Julia gulped, caught her breath, the stress of remembering that awful night causing her to falter. ‘I…my neighbour heard me. Came running round, phoned the ambulance, I think I passed out with the pain. They got me to hospital…but the damage was done.’
‘Is there…is there nothing they can do?’ asked Lily. ‘Reconstruction?’
‘Oh.’ Julia forced a smile, shook her head. ‘They wanted to. But I couldn’t face it. They couldn’t promise the end result was going to be worth a damn anyway, so why put yourself through all that? Anyway.’ Her mouth set in a grim, twisted line. ‘I’m happy here. I’ve got my cats. Animals don’t care what you look like, you know. You love them and you feed them; they don’t judge you. They don’t turn away if they see you in the street.’
‘But you must go out sometimes,’ said Lily hopefully.
‘Internet shopping. It’s great.’ Julia was smiling again, but it was wearing thin. She glanced towards the window. ‘It’s dangerous out there.’
Yeah, thought Lily. Tell me about it.
She thought of her own situation, of the Kings and what they would love to do to her, and suddenly she could see how a person could end up this way – shut in, imprisoned. She couldn’t let that happen to her. She wouldn’t.
‘Does Nick know what happened?’ she asked.
‘About my face? Yeah, he knows. I suppose he thinks it serves me right. After the Leo thing.’ One bright and beautiful eye stared straight at Lily. ‘I’m sorry about Leo. Our fling, I mean.’
‘Yesterday’s news,’ said Lily. So Nick had been trying to spare her this.
‘Yeah, only it ain’t,’ said Julia. ‘You didn’t do it. So who the fuck did?’
‘That’s what we want to know,’ said Lily.
‘You know what I’d do, if I was in your shoes?’
‘No. What?’
‘I’d leave it. Go far, far away. That’s what I’d do.’
‘I told her,’ said Jack.
Julia looked at him briefly, then turned her attention back to Lily. ‘And you didn’t listen, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You always were the stubborn one. Quiet and stubborn, that was you in a nutshell. Look…can you go now? Please? I’ve got things to do.’
Yeah, like what? thought Lily. Order in twenty tins of cat food and a microwave meal or two – anything rather than set foot out there again?
Lily felt a stab of anger. That someone could have reduced the poor cow to this, living in fear behind closed doors, only her cats for company. Did Nick look out for her, help her? She supposed not. Julia had cheated on him. And Nick really wasn’t the forgiving type.
So is he the type to throw acid in the face of a deceiving woman? she wondered. She didn’t know. Not for certain. That bothered her. Shit, everything about Nick bothered her.
‘Do you see Nick at all?’ asked Lily as they stood up to leave. ‘These days?’
‘Nick?’ Julia stood up too, scooping the ginger cat up into her arms and somehow contriving to keep the right side of her face concealed beneath the long fall of her hair and the bulky body of the cat. ‘God, no. Why should I?’
‘Well, you were married. Once.’
‘Not for long,’ said Julia, ushering them towards the front door, where she stooped awkwardly, cat still clutched to her, and unbolted, unlocked, unlatched.
It’s like Fort Knox, thought Lily. And again, she was reminded of her own set-up. Living at The Fort, which was rigged out like a high-security outpost – or a prison.
Maybe Julia was right to feel under threat from the outside world. In here, she felt safe. Out there, monsters lurked.
Poor bitch.
‘And anyway,’ said Julia, as she opened the door and the sunlight fell upon her ruined face, ‘it wasn’t much of a marriage.’
Lily and Jack stepped out onto the pavement. Julia moved back, into the deeper shadows of the hall, her hand already on the door to shut the world out.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Lily, curious.
‘Because he married me on the rebound, didn’t he?’ she said with a dry crackle of laughter. ‘After you took off with Leo. It was you Nick really wanted. It was always you.’
Jack and Lily got back in the car outside Julia’s. Lily fastened her seat belt, but Jack just sat there behind the steering wheel, his face blank, his eyes thoughtful as he stared straight ahead at the car parked in front.
‘Jack?’ said Lily. Why wasn’t he starting the damned car?
After a moment he turned his head and stared at her for so long that she began to feel more than a bit uncomfortable. Then he said: ‘What’s going on, Lily?’
Lily looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
Jack was silent, still staring. It was starting to worry her.
‘I mean, what the fuck’s happening here?’ he said, and he was looking at her like she was a total stranger.
‘No, you’ve lost me,’ said Lily. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh, well let me just find you again,’ he said. ‘Alice drowned. Julia scarred. What’s going to happen next, Lily? What’s going to happen to the others, the others you’ve just insisted you have to track down and confront?’
Lily’s mouth dropped open in shock at what he was saying.
‘What – you think I had something to do with Alice’s death?’
Lily let out a wild laugh of disbelief. ‘Oh come on. Alice was unhinged. She committed suicide.’
‘That’s just a supposition. No one knows that for sure yet.’
Lily was shaking her head at him, her face disbelieving. ‘You can’t be flaming serious. And what about Julia? I don’t know when that maniac decided to have a go at her, but you know I was inside when it happened. Banged up. No way could I have done it.’
Jack sat back, his expression dubious.
‘Come off it, Lily. You were married to Leo bloody King. One of the biggest crooks in the East End, one of the best-known faces in the whole of Essex. One thing he had – and one thing I guess you’d have too – was connections. Inside or out, he could have ordered anything done. And so…’
‘And so you think I could too?’ Lily really was laughing now: it was too ridiculous for words. ‘Wrong, Jack. I never had that sort of clout. I was just the little woman indoors; the one who everyone thinks finally flipped and planted a bullet in her cheating husband’s brain. I didn’t have the contacts; I didn’t have the connections. Leo had it all. Not me.’
‘Yeah? Because I’m sort of puzzled by something.’
‘Go on,’ said Lily, feeling hurt and confused by this sudden and unexpected attack. ‘Let’s have this out in the open.’
‘Si King and Freddy want to do you damage, so you say.’
‘I say it, Jack. Because it’s true.’
‘Then why didn’t they get to you while you were inside? Perfect alibi for them: you in stir and them out in the open. If they wanted your arse so badly.’
Lily slumped back in the passenger seat. He had a point. She knew he did.
She passed a weary hand over her face. ‘I don’t have the answer to that, Jack.’
‘No, neither do I, and that sort of bothers me. And what bothers me even more is that I might be helping you with some crazy sort of vendetta. What bothers me is what’s going to happen to those other poor cows who’ve crossed you.’
‘Jack…’ started Lily desperately.
‘No, listen. You told me you wanted revenge. Is this it, Lily?’ Now he was staring at her face as if looking for the truth there. ‘Is this all you, Lily? Julia scarred. Alice drowned. What are you doing here, picking them off one by one?’