‘I fall asleep,’ she whispered, ‘and I dream and then I see Ron and the blood everywhere. And do you know what’s the worst thing? For all he was, he didn’t deserve to die like that. Poor old Madge was on a losing streak all her life. It was inevitable that something like that would happen one day. Only as a child I didn’t know that, did I? I loved my mum despite the squalor and the neglect. I loved her, I really did. Now I love my child, and she knows I do. I tell her so every day of her life.’
He heard the bitterness and loneliness in her voice and his heart went out to her.
‘I have to look out for her, you see. I can’t risk her ending up like we have, you, me and Tommy . . . poor Tommy who just wants to be happy. Kitty can’t bear him, she sees through him, knows that he’s weak. I never loved Tommy but I stayed with him. It was easier to be Mrs Pasquale with the perks of the position than it was to go and make a proper life for myself. Besides, I’m incapable of ever loving a man. The closest I ever came to it was with you.’
Eamonn felt poleaxed. Of all the things he’d thought she’d say, this was the most unexpected. Yet it was music to his ears.
‘Where is Kitty?’ he asked. ‘Who’s taking care of her?’
Cathy put out her cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘She’s at boarding school, and Desrae will have her if I need to stay on out of term-time. So, Tommy . . . the sanatorium, are they taking good care of him?’
Eamonn nodded, happier now he could tell her something concrete. ‘It’s the best, a privately owned establishment in the suburbs. The doctors are sound . . .’
She interrupted him. ‘You mean, they can be bought off, paid to forget what their patient has done?’ Then she stared at him through slitted eyes. ‘Are they going to let him come home?’
Eamonn shook his head. ‘He needs specialist care. They say he’s had a breakdown of some sort. According to the doctor it had been coming on for a long time. The incident in the club, brought it all to a head.’
Cathy gave a chilly little smile. ‘Every time a bomb goes off, I reproach him with my eyes, can’t bear him near me. And he can’t stand it either. But he can’t get out. He explained that to me years ago.’ She leant forward and he could see the swell of her breasts through the thin material of her blouse.
‘You’re all owned and you can’t see it. For all this wealth, you’re not your own men any more and you never will be. I asked you once, many years ago, if you could sleep. Well, maybe you can but Tommy couldn’t, and neither could I. Do you know, I almost envy him. At least this way he’ll be out of it now. Even the IRA won’t want to deal with a fucking madman, surely?’
They didn’t talk any more after that. She was right about one thing - Eamonn was no longer his own man. But as far as Tommy went she was wrong. He wasn’t out of it. Not yet.
Tommy sat in the luxurious room, dressed in silk pyjamas, staring vacantly at nothing. Cathy sat beside him and looked into his eyes. She knew that wherever he was now, he was a world away from this hospital and the life he had led in the past.
She sighed. ‘How much is all this costing?’
Eamonn was quick to reassure her. ‘I’m paying, don’t worry about it.’
She looked at him, her blue eyes flat and hard as she answered. ‘I had no intention of paying. I just wondered how much it cost to turn your back on murder in a discreet private bin. No, carry on, you be the Good Samaritan, it suits you. There’s a twisted morality here. You caused this, and now you can rectify it.’
She stood up. ‘I’d like to go and book into a hotel, if you don’t mind.’ She was so cold, so distant, he felt she was a stranger. That he had never really known her.
‘I have an apartment you can use while you’re here,’ he suggested. ‘A hotel is no place on your own.’
She nodded. ‘Whatever. So long as you don’t think you can come and go as you please.’
He bit his lip to prevent a retort. ‘I’ll take you now. Would you like to speak to the doctor before you go?’
‘What for? You’ve told me all I need to know.’
Cathy sat in Eamonn’s apartment and stared at the city of Manhattan, lit up with coloured lights and stars. It was a beautiful, breathtaking sight and she enjoyed looking at it. Somehow it brought her peace.
Eamonn had filled the fridge with food, and there was a full bar with anything a person could desire. She had poured herself a generous measure of Napoleon brandy which she sipped as she sat in the dark and looked out over the city.
One entire wall of the apartment was made of glass and it was so stunning she forgot her worries for a while as she looked at the view. It was a huge apartment and despite herself she’d been impressed. This annoyed her, because she knew it was what Eamonn had intended.
He wanted her to know how well he was doing, how much money he had. She settled back in her seat, still staring out at the view but seeing only Eamonn now.
Every time she looked at her daughter she saw him. He was Kitty’s father though Tommy had never once cottoned on. All those years and Cathy had not conceived again. At times she had wanted another child so much it had made her ache inside. It would have been something to offer her husband. They had come together as man and wife many times but Tommy had always known that she didn’t really want sex with him. Didn’t want the contact.
Afterwards, they would lie together in silence, both feeling that something dreadfully wrong had happened, which of course it had. They had taken something beautiful, something wonderful, and destroyed each other with it. He had given her his love, and she had thrown it back in his face.
Cathy swallowed down tears and poured herself more brandy. She needed to anaesthetise herself tonight, because if she didn’t she would ring Eamonn and ask him to come to her in her loneliness. For all her fighting talk, she would still go to bed with him because she wanted him, God help her, she had always wanted him. He was like a part of her, like her second self.
She had loved him all her life and couldn’t stop herself now. But she must never let him know that because then he would take advantage of her. He wouldn’t be able to help himself: it was how he was made.
Eamonn was in a sports bar off Madison Square Gardens, eating a rib-eye steak and deep in conversation with a large man called Igor Travenovich. Igor was a Chechen who had fled to America five years before and was now the head of a Russian family similar to the Mahoneys.
The two men got on well. They were both hard-nosed and business-minded before anything else. Their similarities made them good friends. Both egoists, they couldn’t help but like what they saw in each other.
‘You understand the stuff must reach London before seven days? I hear the carrier is ill. Has had many troubles,’ Igor told Eamonn.
‘It’s sorted, everything will run to schedule, I promise.’
Igor nodded. ‘You understand I must make sure that everything is fine, yes?’
Eamonn laughed through a mouthful of steak. ‘I would do the same, mate. So don’t worry. No offence meant and definitely none taken.’
Igor nodded. He had the bearing of a military man, the squared shoulders and steady-eyed look.
Eamonn knew that the Russians and the Chechens and all the other breakaway states were going to mean trouble at some point. In New York there was such a variety of criminals it made you dizzy to contemplate their number. Eamonn had dealt with many different nationalities over the years, from Cubans to Jamaicans, South Americans to Chinese.
Each had their own speciality, and each their own way of doing things. Eamonn, never averse to learning new tricks or taking on new business, had enjoyed his forays into their worlds. The Mafia and the Irish were now dealing with people who resembled themselves fifty years before - new races who came to the US with the express intention of making money.
Eamonn could identify with that, because he had felt the same way. America was a cultural melting pot and he knew that England these days was not far behind. With England, though, the size of the country curtailed much of the criminal activity. America was so vast, there was more than enough room for everyone. Now that the Irish and the Italians were practically legal, the new rich - the Russians and all the Eastern Europeans - were coming in and making New York their own with their violence and black market money.
‘I hear the London man has had a very bad time of it,’ Igor commented.
Eamonn smiled, showing his expensive teeth. He always vowed that one of his sons would become a dentist. It was one of his jokes that in America it was a sure road to riches without ever needing to use a gun.
He wasn’t joking now. ‘Look, Igor, as long as I deliver my end of the bargain, I don’t see why you should stoop so low as to listen to gossip. The man has problems. We all have problems at some time. It’s in hand, it’s sorted. Your merchandise will arrive on time. Let me worry about Tommy and drop this conversation - now.’
Igor fell silent, eating his ribs and shrimp. Eamonn clicked his fingers for the bill, even though they had not finished their meal, and ten minutes later they left the restaurant.
Igor shook hands before getting into a yellow cab. Eamonn walked past the Gardens, watching the comings and goings of the people for the game.
He felt deflated. Igor had dared to query the way he was handling Tommy. It showed the consensus was the Irish were losing ground. He had noticed some alarming new developments over the last few years. The Russians were now banking everywhere; they were the new Mafia. They were jumping into bed with everyone, and then jumping out again after administering a right royal fucking.
Tommy’s mistake was known to them now and that wasn’t good at all. Tommy Pasquale had become a liability. It was Eamonn’s job to take him out. But in his heart he knew there was another reason why Tommy had to die.
Eamonn wanted for himself what Tommy had been given but had never really possessed: Cathy.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Cathy had fallen asleep on the sofa. Even though she was in a strange city, and on a strange mission, her sleep was untroubled. She lay there, her face at peace, her breathing regular and shallow. Her sleep was deep enough for her to avoid dreams.
Eamonn stared down at her: at her soft skin, her long eyelashes, visible in the breaking dawn, and her breasts, spilling from her robe. He felt himself hardening. Never had he wanted a woman more. Never had he gazed upon anyone with such longing.
Her arms were above her head, the pose childlike. It was how she had slept as a little girl, with him beside her in the bed, his cold feet always on her back.
The thought made him smile.
He knew that he should not have let himself in, even if he did own the apartment. She was entitled to her privacy, entitled to be alone and to use the place as her home. But he had sneaked in just to look at her, just to see her in repose.
He stared at her body hungrily. He could just see her pubic hair through the thin material of her negligee. It was still thick, blonde and luxuriant.
He put his hand up to his face, covering his mouth. He suddenly felt a great urge to cry. To weep over their wasted lives.
‘Make the most of it, Eamonn, this is the nearest you’ll ever get to me.’
Her voice was low, husky, and it made him start. Looking at his face, Cathy smiled lazily. Then, sitting up, she readjusted her clothing. As she covered her breasts he felt a great sadness, a sense of loss inside him. For him she represented safety and love; had done since they were children. It was this that attracted him to her still.
He sat beside her and said brokenly, ‘I just wanted to look at you, that’s all. Just look at you like I used to when we were children.’
She heard the plea in his voice and knew that it was answered inside her; she wanted what he wanted. She wanted to pull him on to her, wanted to take his hand and place it on her breasts. She wanted him to ride her hard, to use her roughly. She had dreamed of it often enough over the years.
Instead she sighed gently.
‘We’re not children any more, you know, we’re all grown up and we’ve both made complete shite of our lives. I have my club - it’s one of the best known places in London now, the
La Cage
of Soho. It’s a tourist place, a good night out. And I have Kitty. If I didn’t have her, I don’t know what I would have done over the years.’
She was silent then, filled with thoughts of her daughter. Eamonn watched her profile. She had not changed since a girl. She was the one person he had ever really loved, he knew that now, unequivocally.
‘I love you, Cathy. Always did, always will.’
She turned to face him, her eyes pained. ‘That’s not fair, Eamonn, and you know it.’ Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. He knew then that she still loved him; deep inside she had never stopped loving him.
People like Cathy loved one hundred per cent. They were loyal to their lovers, wanting only them. She would forgive her lover anything. The bond forged as children was still strong and he sensed that she would let him take her now with no more protests.
He pulled her to him then, opening her mouth with his own, forcing her lips apart with his tongue. He tasted of cigarettes and Grappa, smelt of smoke and Paco Rabanne, always his aftershave.
She felt the touch of him as if it was burning through her clothes, felt the heat spread over her body, into her breasts and between her legs.
She was pulling his clothes from him, ripping at his shirt, the buttons flying everywhere, dragging at his body. Forcing him down between her legs, making him eat her, taste her. Arching her back to meet him as he gently kneaded her breasts and feasted on her.
As she felt the beginnings of her orgasm, she held his face to her body, wanting to drown him in her juices. He was hard, ready for her, and as he rose above her she watched him enter her, his thickness making her want him more. Never had she felt like this before, never in her life had she wanted anyone more.