Stay Dead (24 page)

Max’s eyes narrowed to angry slits. He shook his head.

‘Oh, no. That won’t wash with me, you ought to know that. Turning the tables, making out
I’m
the one in the wrong? I don’t think so.’

‘I’m just asking, that’s all. You left Prospect without a word, not even a note. What was I supposed to think?’

Annie saw his eyes flash over her, take in the dried mud on her skirt suit.

‘Am I supposed to give a shit what you think? I had some calls from Gary saying that something was going on, so I went and checked it out.’

Yeah, he knows.

Annie could feel her heart beating very fast. She could hear Max’s boys talking in hushed whispers out on the landing. She felt sick now, really sick and terrified. She swallowed hard and
managed to get the words out.

‘Checked it out where?’

‘Sicily.’

‘What was it all about then?’ she asked.

‘About you,’ said Max. ‘And about Constantine Barolli.’

Annie could only stare at his face. ‘Constantine? What about him?’

Max crossed the room and came and stood in front of her, very close. Annie forced herself not to take a step back. Fury radiated off him like heat from a fire.

‘He’s not dead, is he? He’s alive.’

‘Max—’

‘Don’t “Max” me. You
know
he’s alive.’

‘Look,’ said Annie desperately. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell
anyone
.’

He grabbed her upper arms, bringing her still closer, cutting off her words. She felt the jolt of it all through her abused body; her damaged rib gave a red-hot spasm of protest that made her
wince. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her cheek. This was the man she loved, Max Carter; she had grown so close to him that she hardly knew where she ended and he
began. Now he was glaring at her with total hatred, and it chilled her to the marrow.

His head dipped down and she felt a shiver as he whispered in her ear.

‘Now you have to scream,’ he said. ‘Loudly. Make it good, so they hear it.’

‘Wha—?’ Annie’s eyes met his as his head drew back.

Without warning he shoved her backwards. She hit the wall hard, off-balance, and her broken rib set up a shriek all of its own. The pain was severe, and Annie screamed.

‘Again. Louder,’ said Max.

‘You
bastard
,’ she choked out, realizing what this was for; so that he looked the big man to the men out on the landing. So that they heard her being disciplined, and thought
he was top dog, no question, tough as old boots for giving his lying old lady a thorough going-over.

‘Do it,’ he said, and shoved her against the wall again. It wouldn’t have hurt, not really, but her already beaten body felt it all and she screamed again in real anguish.

‘
Shit
, you
bastard
,’ she panted as he let her go. She sagged there, feeling bile rising in her throat, feeling sick with the pain. She felt a prickling of cold sweat
break out on her brow and wondered if she was going to pass out cold.

‘You utter fucking . . .’ she gasped out, her voice trailing away to nothing, glad of the wall now because it was all that was holding her up.

He grabbed her chin, turned her face up to his. Out on the landing, all was quiet. They were listening. Just as he’d intended.

‘So he’s alive?’ Max’s voice was a low, angry hiss. ‘Well, not for very fucking long – and that’s a promise. I’m going to
finish
that cunt.
And you know what? Then I’m going to finish you. But right now, there’s just one thing I want off of you.’

‘What?
Ow!
’ said Annie as the pain lanced through her mid-section again.

‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ he muttered by her ear. ‘I barely touched you. Don’t milk it.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Annie, gasping the words out, thinking that yes, she was going to faint, she felt that rough now, that shaken up.

‘A divorce,’ he snapped. ‘We’re through, you hear me? This fucking marriage is over.’

Then he let her go and surged past her, out the door, slamming it hard shut behind him.

Annie staggered away from the wall and slumped down into one of the chairs at the table. Her head was humming, her heart was crashing around in her chest, and she thought,
That’s it, I’m going to pass out now
. She heaved in air and put her head between her legs, which set up a fresh surge of agony in her middle. She stopped like that for a long
time. Wincing, hurt, shocked, she straightened up again, feeling a little steadier.

Jesus, he knows, he knows . . .

The panicky phrase kept boomeranging around her head. Max knew about Constantine, and he wanted to divorce her. Of course he did. That was why she had made sure he would never know. But somehow
it had all gone wrong. Now he was thinking all sorts, and accusing her of things, and this was where they’d landed up. Scuppered. Finished. Max wasn’t the type to make empty promises,
either. He
would
kill Constantine. And then he would kill
her
.

‘Oh, Christ,’ she wailed, and slapped a hand over her mouth because she wasn’t going to give those clowns on the landing any more satisfaction.

She could hear them out there, talking in low voices. She thought that Max had gone straight out and down the stairs and away, she’d heard the front door slam after him; but Gary, Tony and
Steve were still there.

Front it out
, she thought. That was all she ever did.

Dolly was gone.

Ellie had washed her hands of her.

Chris, Tony, Steve, all once her friends, were now judging her, hating her.

And worse, far worse than any of that, Max. Max had turned against her, caught her out in this monumental deception. And he was going to destroy both Constantine and her. She totally believed
that.

She stood up, steadying herself with a hand on the table. She tottered over to the closed door and took another breath.

Steady
, she thought.
You ran these streets once. You were a Mafia queen
.

Yeah, once . . .

Annie opened the door. The three men, all of them massive and scary, turned and stared at her. She stepped out on to the landing, closing the door behind her. She moved past Tony, past Steve,
and there was Gary, barring her way to the stairs.

‘You got something to say to me?’ she asked him.

‘Yeah. What was that bollocks about my boys?’

Annie shrugged, very cool. ‘I said it to them and I meant it. They shouldn’t have done what they did. I warned them.’

‘You’re in no position to warn anybody about anything,’ he sneered. ‘The boss is spitting mad at you. You’re
finished
, girl.’

‘Oh, shut the fuck up and mind out the way,’ said Annie, shoving past him.

Gary lunged at her, arm raised. Annie teetered on the top stair, clutched at the banister, thinking
This is it, he’s going to knock me arse-backwards down those stairs, all the way to
the bottom
. Then Steve stepped forward and grabbed Gary’s upraised hand, forced it down.

‘This fucking bitch, I
told
him what she was like, but would he listen?’ burst out Gary, his face puce and his eyes fastened on Annie.

‘Calm down, you cunt,’ said Steve. ‘This ain’t our fight. Let
him
put it right, any way he wants.’ Then he turned to Annie. ‘You’d better
go.’

Annie didn’t need a second telling. Feeling like she’d escaped by the skin of her teeth, she turned and went down the stairs and out the door.

Because she couldn’t think what else to do, she went to the Holland Park house and opened it up. Outside the front door, on the top step, were her bags and suitcase,
dumped there.

Yeah, like I’m about to be dumped
, she thought miserably.

Hunter was there too, just getting out of his car.

‘Mrs Carter,’ he said. ‘Feeling better then? I went to the hotel and they said you’d checked out, so I wondered if you might come here.’

‘Right,’ said Annie, uncaring. Her world had crashed around her, she didn’t give a shit about anything right now.

‘In fact they said Mr Carter checked you out.’

‘He did. Yes.’

‘I take it he’s here with you?’

‘Yeah. That’s right,’ lied Annie. She didn’t want to start explaining the perilous state of her marriage to anyone. It hurt too much.

‘That’s good,’ said Hunter as she climbed up the steps to the house. ‘I’m questioning Dolly Farrell’s brothers and sister at the moment, if you’re
interested.’

Right now, Annie wasn’t. She didn’t answer.

Hunter stared at her curiously, then said: ‘I’m glad Mr Carter’s with you, anyway. You might need a little moral support.’

Annie paused and looked at him. ‘Why?’

‘We’re releasing Miss Farrell’s body. Mrs Brown is arranging the funeral for this Friday.’

Oh shit
, she thought.

Inside the house, it was deathly quiet. Having said goodbye to Hunter at the door, she crossed the big, empty, echoing hall with its black-and-white chequered marble floor
tiles, passing beneath the vast chandelier. All the tables and chairs in the hallway were shrouded in white dust sheets. She dropped her ruined bags and her suitcase, then opened the study door and
went inside, tossing more sheets aside and sitting tiredly down in the gold leather captain’s chair behind the desk. Her heart was racing, her mouth dry. She wished she drank, because if ever
drink was called for, it was now.

Max knew, and he wanted a divorce.

A divorce.

She slumped there behind the big Moroccan leather-topped desk and let her head sink into her hands. Her rib twinged painfully as she leaned forward, and in frustration and irritation she picked
up the bone-handled paper knife that had once been Constantine’s, and flung it to the floor.

Christ, what a mess.

Her brain flashed back to the fury in Max’s eyes, the way he’d spat the D word at her. She shuddered as if caught in a blast of cold air. He meant it, too. She knew that.

But he don’t know it all. He only knows part of it.

Would he give her a chance to tell the rest? She doubted it.

She was still sitting there an hour later when the doorbell rang. She heaved herself to her feet and went and answered it. Jackie Tulliver was standing there.

‘Now where the fuck you been? You keep vanishin’ like you do, how am I supposed to stay in touch?’ he asked, his voice indignant as he bustled inside.

Didn’t I tell him to sod off?

Annie let out a weary sigh and closed the door behind him. ‘What the hell do you want now?’

‘Hey, I’m workin’ hard here, on your behalf. Findin’ out things. Doin’ some business, greasin’ some palms.’

‘Did I ask you to?’

‘I’m not the sort of person who quits on a job,’ said Jackie.

No, not when there’s some beer money in it
, thought Annie.

‘Y’see, the way I see it
is
, my job is to take a load offa your shoulders, help you out, smooth your path through life.’

‘Right,’ said Annie. ‘So start doing that. Ellie told me that, years ago, Dolly asked the Delaney boys to knock off her dear old dad.’

‘She what?’

Annie clutched her head. It hurt to think. Her brain ached. She felt like her head was almost coming off.

Dolly wanted her father killed.

Well, had Ellie’s words really been such a big surprise? After what he’d done to her, it was only what he’d deserved, the dirty old bastard. She thought of the Delaney clan,
arch-enemies of the Carters, who had ruled the Lime-house streets back in the fifties and sixties. Tory, the eldest, and Pat his second-in-command. Then, later, the twins: Orla and Redmond.

Tory was dead, shot in Stoke Newington.

Pat? He was dead too, his bones mouldering somewhere out in the depths of the English Channel.

The youngest of the family, Kieron, was long gone. And Orla, she was gone too.

The only living member of the family was Redmond. Annie had seen him five years ago, on the Essex marshes. Had thought almost that she’d dreamed him, but no, he’d been real,
he’d been there in the flesh and he’d claimed to have put aside his evil ways – but had he?

Redmond would know exactly what had happened, all those years ago, to Dolly’s father, and that might even lead them to the person who’d killed her.

‘Jackie?’ she said.

‘Yeah, what?’

‘You’ve got to find Redmond Delaney.’

‘Fuckin’
hell
,’ said Jackie.

‘Do it,’ she said, and went to sluice some of the mud, sweat and hospital stench off her skin, dig out some clean clothes and stuff another load of painkillers down her throat.

Next day Annie took a cab over to the Shalimar, passing the Palermo on the way and getting the driver to stop there.

Things were being unloaded from the back of a large van; Caroline was moving into the flat over the club, obliterating all memory of the woman who had once lived there.

Isn’t she worried by the thought of a murder having been done there?
wondered Annie.

Obviously Caroline wasn’t. Maybe Caroline was so ambitious that she would even consider murder to clear a path for herself. Who knew?

‘OK, drive on,’ she said, and the driver took her on over to the Shalimar.

One of the cleaners let her in; no bouncers in yet, it was too early for that. She went through the nearly empty club and up the stairs to Ellie and Chris’s flat.

‘Hello?’ she called ahead, not wanting to surprise anyone. Chris was already pissed off with her, and Ellie too.

Down below, the Hoover started up just as she reached the kitchen door. Chris was sitting at the table, reading a paper. The front page showed French troops pouring into Rwanda.

‘Hi, Chris,’ she said.

He looked at her with a mixture of embarrassment and surly dislike.

‘Now what the fuck?’ he asked.

‘It’s OK, Chris, I’ll take it from here,’ said Ellie, appearing at her shoulder.

Chris stood up, folding his newspaper. He brushed past Annie, then she and Ellie went into the kitchen. Ellie closed the door while Annie sat down at the table.