Stay Dead (27 page)

‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .’ intoned the priest.

Annie didn’t pay attention to the words. She focused on the coffin. She’d known her friend for years, but she hadn’t been aware that Dolly was Catholic. Not that it mattered.
Annie’s opinion was, so long as you didn’t scare the horses, you could worship however and whoever you liked. What difference did it make?

Her eyes scanned the crowds huddled around the grave. That woman again . . . pale, blue-eyed . . . she had to be a sister, a niece, something. And the man. Definitely a relative. And Dolly had
never ever mentioned her relatives. Yet here they were, at least two of them, attending her funeral.

Annie’s heart seemed to freeze as she met Max’s cold, accusing gaze. He was standing away from her now, among his boys: Chris, Gary, Steve, Tony. The sight of them there in black
coats, all of them big and very intimidating, gave her a deep, visceral shudder so hard that her bruised and strapped-up middle throbbed. And it wasn’t just them giving her evils: when she
looked around at the crowds, she could see people staring, pointing, whispering.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel safe. She felt like these people might turn on her like an angry mob, because she’d crossed the line; they believed she’d done the dirty on Max
Carter, and he had more clout in this town than she would ever have. These were
his
people, not hers.

She was relieved when the whole damned thing was over and the crowds began to disperse. She kept her head down and got back on to the gravel path and headed for the lychgate. She walked straight
into DCI Hunter.

‘Hello, Mrs Carter,’ he said.

‘Hi, Hunter. Here looking for murderers?’

‘Something like that. You?’

‘Just getting my friend buried.’ Annie thought it was coming to something when you started bumping into a copper and felt pleased to see a friendly face. Once, she’d ruled
these streets and everyone had respected her. Now, she knew she could fall down dead on the pavement and they’d just step over her body. Or piss on it.

Hunter gave a sigh. ‘It’s tough.’

‘It’s worse than that,’ said Annie sharply. ‘It’s bloody awful. Listen, did you check out the CCTV in the club?’

‘I did. The stairs aren’t covered by the cameras inside. Why would they be? If anyone misbehaves, it’ll be in the main body of the club, not up the stairs.’

‘The outside ones then?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all.’

‘The club closed at one in the morning. Someone must have called after that, to kill Dolly.’

‘Really? What if they arrived earlier, while the club was open? Blended with the crowds going in, snuck up the stairs, kept her there until everyone else had left, then did the
deed?’

‘Do the staff say she was upstairs? Not down in the bar?’

‘They confirm that she was upstairs from ten o’clock onward. The bar manager Peter Jones knocked on the flat door just after one to say he was cashing up, and Dolly said OK. Next
morning he found her dead.’

Annie was frowning at the ground. Then she looked up at Hunter’s face. ‘Thanks for that. It helps, you know. Hearing the details. Thinking that maybe we can solve this.’

‘Mrs Carter,’ he said flatly, ‘
I
can solve this. Not you.’

‘You really think so?’

‘Yes, Mrs Carter. Never doubt it. Can we talk about your Edinburgh trips?’

‘What?’

‘The trips to Edinburgh from the heliport?’ Hunter pulled out a notebook and thumbed through. ‘Yes, here we are. The taxi service from Edinburgh airport confirmed that on a few
of your trips you were going to a house not far outside the city, and the house is owned by a company that trades through a series of tax havens.’

‘I just stayed there sometimes, that’s all.’ Annie kept her face blank.

‘And sometimes you flew direct to the Highlands. To a place called the Mouth of Hades, I believe.’

‘It’s just a place I like to stay at.’

‘I see.’ Hunter snapped the notebook closed. Then he looked around. ‘Is it my imagination, or are you getting some disapproving looks?’

Annie knew she was. People were staring at her with angry faces. Again she felt that spasm of insecurity; that sensation of no longer being safe on these streets, the streets where she used to
stride around like a queen.

She nodded to indicate the woman who looked like Dolly, the man who seemed to share the same genetic profile. They were lingering beside the grave. ‘You seen those two? You know who they
are?’

‘I do. That’s Sarah Foster, nee Farrell. And that’s her brother, Nigel.’

‘Dolly’s brother and sister?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I never knew she had close relatives. She never mentioned them.’

‘Have you spoken to them?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘Yes, briefly.’

‘And?’

He shook his head with a smile. ‘Police business, Mrs Carter,’ he said, and turned and walked away. Then he paused. His eyes swept over the milling crowds and then resettled on her
face. ‘You don’t seem to be flavour of the month around here right now. So be careful.’

Annie watched him go, then turned back toward the graveside. Over to the left, she saw Max still there, in a tight huddle with Steve, Chris and Tony. Gary was gone. Ignoring
them all, she went toward Sarah and Nigel. On the way there, a group of eight people, men and women, approached her, their faces grim, their eyes accusing. She was jostled, and she heard the words
traitor bitch
hissed at her. Someone spat at her feet, spattering her legs with phlegm. Shocked, she shoved and pushed her way through them and emerged shakily on the other side.

Gathering herself, she took a breath and then walked on to meet up with Dolly’s relatives. She held out a hand that wasn’t entirely steady and said: ‘Hello? I believe
you’re Dolly’s brother and sister? I’m Annie Carter. I was a friend of hers.’

Up close, Sarah’s resemblance to Dolly was even more pronounced. She did have the same posture, the same sloping well-padded shoulders, the same tough stockiness of frame. But this woman
had never hit the dye bottle like Dolly had, crisping her hair to the texture of straw; this woman’s was a soft mousy brown fashioned into an old-style set-and-shampoo which did nothing for
her pallid features. Her eyes were light blue, reddened with tears. She wore an unflattering and overlong black coat with a silver spider brooch high up on the lapel. Her mouth was thin, her lips
trembling. She looked at Annie’s hand and seemed to debate as to whether or not she was going to shake it. Then she made her mind up, and did. Her grip was limp, and damp.

‘Did she ever mention me?’ asked Annie.

The woman shook her head. Annie was staring at her, thinking it was weird, to see Dolly’s features on this woman’s pale, set face – and yet it was obvious this woman was no
Dolly. She looked timid, introverted, and Dolly had never been either of those things. Annie found herself wanting to shake the woman, to say, Come on, Dolly, show yourself, I know you’re in
there.

Stupid.

‘We never saw Dolly,’ said Sarah in a low lisping voice.

Annie watched her curiously, waiting for explanation. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to get any, she turned her attention to the man standing there. Dark brown eyes on this one, but
again – Dolly’s features. That hot surge of exasperation was overwhelming now, the need to shake some life into them. The man looked no more animated than the woman. He had the look of
someone permanently undernourished, with a thin mouth, sunken cheeks . . . and yet, there it was, in the stance, in the build, sometimes even in the expression of the face, fleeting, there one
moment, gone the next; an echo of Dolly Farrell, her friend.

‘Dolly left home when she was thirteen. She never kept in touch,’ said Nigel. His mouth thinned into a prudish line. ‘We heard she became a prostitute.’

Maybe that had something to do with her own father fucking her in the first place
, thought Annie, feeling an upsurge of anger at Nigel’s disapproving tone.

Perhaps these two dour little creatures didn’t know anything about what the father had done. And was now really the right time to bring it up? She didn’t think so.

‘She was the salt of the earth, Dolly,’ she said. ‘The best friend I ever had.’

‘Well, we wouldn’t know about that,’ said Nigel with a sniff of disapproval.

I don’t like you
, thought Annie.

Ah, but that was unfair. She’d only just met these two; it was too soon to decide that they had no balls, no guts, no drive and no feeling; Dolly had had all that and more. Once again it
crashed in on her: the realization, the terrible knowledge of what she had lost. She swallowed hard and said, ‘She never talked about her family. Is it . . . are there more brothers and
sisters?’

‘We have a younger brother, Sandy.’

Then why isn’t he here too?
wondered Annie. It was like drawing teeth, trying to get a word out of them. ‘Couldn’t he come?’

‘He’s in a home,’ said Sarah. ‘And Dick’s in New Zealand.’

‘And your parents . . . ?’ asked Annie, thinking of the father – that bastard.

‘Mum passed last year. Dad died years ago. An accident on the railway.’

‘He worked on the railways? I never knew that.’

‘Oh yes. Started out in the signal boxes but then he went on to be a wheeltapper, and a shunter.’

That meant precisely nothing to Annie. ‘Shunter? What’s that?’

‘They connect the engines to the carriages. Dad’s accident was about five years after Dolly left home,’ said Nigel accusingly, as if Dolly being there could have prevented
it.

‘What happened?’ asked Annie.

They looked at her in dual disapproval. They didn’t like giving out personal information, or any damned information at all, she could see that; but fuck it and fuck
them
, she wanted
to know.

‘He was crushed,’ said Nigel. ‘By one of the engines. It was a terrible accident. People don’t realize how dangerous it can be, working on the railways. Accidents happen
all the time.’

Or more likely it was an act of God
, thought Annie, thinking of the dirty old goat mauling Dolly about.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she lied. People were still passing by, staring at
her
. Hunter was right. She had to be careful.

Nigel and Sarah both nodded morosely, and stood there looking at the grave.

‘Now Dolly’s with Dad,’ said Nigel after a pause. ‘In heaven. If she repented of her sins before she died.’

A shiver went through Sarah, so intense that Annie stared, wondering if the woman was going to collapse, fall right into the open grave and land,
thunk
, on her sister’s coffin.

‘Yeah,’ she said, thinking that Dolly was bound for heaven for sure.

But the father . . . ?

That old bastard was cooking over a low light in hell, with Satan turning the spit. And a fucking good job, too.

They told Annie there would be a wake – cake and sandwiches and cups of tea, nothing fancy – back at Sarah’s place, and she would be welcome to come if she
wanted. She didn’t think she wanted to spend one more second in this joyless pair’s company, but she took the address anyway.

Then she went back along the gravel walkway toward the lychgate. A large crowd of mourners had gathered there. She looked around for Ellie, but she seemed to have gone. She felt a shudder,
thinking of Dolly lying in the cold earth, alone. Soon the gravediggers would come and fill in the hole and that would be it; Dolly would be gone forever.

Feeling apprehensive after that little tussle with the group near the grave, she walked on, head held high, but at the back of her mind was the kicking she’d got off Gary’s thugs,
the unrelenting soreness of her broken rib, and she thought,
I don’t want any more of that
. She had thought Max and his boys had it in for her, for sure; but the fact that the bad news
about her had already reached the wider population was chilling. She made a mental note to dig out her can of Mace when she got home. It wasn’t much, but it was something, at least.

Maybe she wouldn’t have the chance to
get
home and do that, though. The mob by the gate turned and watched her coming, their eyes unfriendly.

Christ, I could be in real trouble here.

Her footsteps slowed and finally she stopped walking. Then there was movement closer to her, all around her, and she turned, startled. She had been so focused on a possible threat at the
lychgate that she’d missed another. Tony had appeared on one side of her, and Steve came up in front of her. Her head whipped round and she started to turn further, but there was Chris,
grim-faced, right behind her. No Gary. There was that to be thankful for, she supposed.

Oh fuck . . .

Her heart lodging in her throat, she spun back round to the front and there was Max, standing right beside her like a brick wall and looking at her blank-faced.

She was closed in.

She was
trapped
.

Please no, not again, please, please . . .

‘Just keep walking,’ said Max.

What else could she do? She had four big men surrounding her and an angry mob waiting for her at the gate. Her stomach clenched with terror, she did as he said. No good making a break for it,
they’d catch her easily. And frightened though she was, she wasn’t about to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing
that
.

She kept her head up, and somehow got her trembling legs to move forward. As she moved, so did the four men surrounding her. As one body, they walked to the lychgate, and the now silent,
watchful crowd parted in silence to let them pass.

The four of them walked her right to the car, a black Jag. It gave her a pang, just to see it. This had once been her car, the car Tony had chauffeured her about in, but it had passed to Dolly.
Now Dolly wouldn’t use it any more. Tony got behind the wheel. Once, back in the day, Tony had been the jockey, the wheelman on heists pulled by the Carter gang; he could do things with a car
that would make your eyes water. Turn the damned thing on a sixpence. Chris slid into the front passenger seat. Steve got in the back, and Annie was pushed in after him; then Max got in. And it was
then it hit Annie, the truth; that her husband had just rescued her, put a steel wall around her to get her out of the church grounds and away.