Playing Dead (21 page)

‘Fuck me,’ said dark, squat, powerful Steve, stopping dead in the doorway, thinking he was seeing a phantom. Max had been his friend forever, both his boss and his mate; maybe he just
wanted
to see the old bugger sitting there and his eyes were playing tricks.

Gary shoved him aside and he too stared in disbelief.

‘Oh, you’re having a bloody
laugh
,’ said Gary, six feet seven inches tall, blond and whip-thin.

‘You greasy old bastard, how’d you pull
this
one off?’ asked rat-faced little Jackie Tulliver, chomping on his usual massive cigar, finding a gap in the crowded doorway to shove his ugly little beak through.

Max stood up. Steve came forward and hugged him hard. Then Gary. Then Jackie. Then all the other boys. For a while the room was full of shouts and laughs and general excitement, then they all settled down and Max told them what had happened to him.

They listened attentively.

‘Shit a
brick.
We thought you were brown bread for sure. When we offed Jimmy we thought that was the last of you, too,’ said Gary.

‘Your old lady took over for a while,’ said Steve.

‘She’s a tough girl,’ said Jackie.

‘Yeah.’ Max sat back in his chair and they thought they had never seen him look better, fitter. ‘That was before she pissed off with the Barolli boss.’

The room was silent.

Then Steve said: ‘Dolly Farrell said she’s back in town. Got some trouble over there in the States.’

‘She’s got some fucking trouble
here
too,’ said Max, frowning. ‘What d’you mean, Dolly said that? She wouldn’t grass up her mate – they’re tight together. And that whore-house is on the Delaney patch.’

‘Ah yeah,’ said Steve. ‘About that . . .’ And he explained all that had happened, and that Dolly’s establishment now paid protection – as did the rest of Limehouse – to the Carters, not the Delaneys.

Silence again.

‘So . . . you want us to bring her in?’ asked Steve.

Max shook his head slowly. ‘No. I’ll catch up with her when I’m ready. Tell me more about Jimmy.’

Jimmy had been Max’s right-hand man; he still couldn’t believe what they were telling him about Jim. But Jimmy was gone, and Steve and Gary had taken over the running of the firm.

‘Fill me in on the business. How’s everything going?’

‘Pretty fair,’ said Gary. ‘We got a lot of security work going now, right out to Essex. Christ! You wouldn’t know, I suppose, but back in April there was a big police raid. Didn’t touch us, but a few faces went down. The Bill grabbed a shit-load of arms from around the East End.’

‘None of ours copped it?’ asked Max.

‘Nah. See, we’re
legit
, more or less. All the arcades, shops and restaurants are coughing up on time, no problems.’

‘Billy still doing the milk run?’ asked Max. The milk run was gang slang for collecting the protection money.

Gary broke the news about Billy.

‘Fuck,’ breathed Max, taking it all in.

He’d lost Jonjo, Jimmy, and even poor bloody Billy. He’d been laid up in a hospital bed with busted ankles and his head shot in all directions, not even knowing who the hell he was, while his ever-loving
wife
, who should have been prostrated with grief at his loss, had been busy doing a bunk with his daughter and committing bigamy with a Mafia Don. Making him look like yesterday’s news; like a fucking fool. He was spitting mad about it all; too mad to trust himself to be within a mile of her just yet.

‘What about the clubs?’ he asked.

‘Paying good,’ said Jackie. ‘Mrs Carter turned ’em around, put that Dolly woman in charge . . .’ His voice tailed away.

And then fucked off for pastures new
, Max finished in his head.

‘We can bring her in if you want. Just say the word,’ Steve reminded him delicately. He couldn’t imagine how Max must be feeling. But he knew that if
he’d
been declared dead he’d want his old lady to be so grief-stricken that she’d chuck herself into the hole after him, at the very least – not just fuck off with some other man.

But Max shook his head again.

‘Or the kid? We seen your kid with a blonde woman, a nanny; they’ve been out walking near the Barolli place in Holland Park.’

‘Nah. I’ll sort this out myself. In my own time.’

Chapter 42

‘That man’s still loitering around in the park, with his collar turned up’, said Gerda. ‘I saw him, watching from a distance. But when Nico went to have a word, he vanished.’

Now why should anyone be watching Gerda and Layla in the park? Annie wondered. Of course, someone had already told the Carter boys that she was back. She sat in Constantine’s study and phoned her sister Ruthie, who had a place over in Richmond; then she called Dolly.

‘Have you told the Carters that I’m back?’ she demanded.

‘Course I bloody well have,’ said Dolly. ‘What you think I am, barking mad? I’m sitting here running a Carter club. Ellie’s paying them for protection. We’re both up to our necks in Carter business – of
course
we had to tell them you’re back, with Max Carter showing up alive instead of dead as toast.’

Annie still couldn’t believe that was true. She thought of the man, trailing Gerda and Layla. It made her deeply uneasy, even if Nico
was
with them wherever they went now. Maybe a Carter foot soldier, maybe not. She thought of how she had nearly lost Layla once before, how Layla still bore the scars of that ordeal. She couldn’t let that happen again. No way.

‘Fuck’s sake, did you really have to tell them?’ she asked.

‘You know I did. That’s how it works, Annie. You know the score.’

Yeah, she did. In the days when the Delaney family had been running Limehouse, Dolly had answered to them, tipping them off to anything happening on their turf. Now she answered to the Carters: it was a simple fact of life.

‘What the hell are you going to do?’ asked Dolly.

Annie had no idea. If it was true that Max was still alive, they would have to talk. But so far she hadn’t even encountered him. She thought of Ellie’s kitchen door, knocked in – Ellie claimed – by Max in a rage when he had heard she’d left for the States with Constantine.
Had
it been Max, her Max, who had done that? She couldn’t believe it. She had to see him to know that it was, and so far she hadn’t. She was chasing ghosts, demons and dead men around town, and finding no evidence of their existence at all.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Doll,’ said Annie with a heavy sigh. ‘If everything you and Ellie have told me is true—’

‘It
is
.’

‘Then the ball’s in his court. If he wants to find me, he can. Meanwhile, I . . . I just have to try and get over what’s been happening.’

That man trailing Layla and Gerda. If Max was as mad about what she’d done as she imagined he
would
be, might he not have Layla snatched and brought to him? She thought he might do that, to spite her.

The idea made her go cold with fear.

The notion of him being somewhere here in London, somewhere close by, with his men watching her movements, was weird beyond belief. But he could do it. She knew he could. He could take Layla, declaring her an unfit mother out of revenge for her having defected to the Barolli camp. And how would she ever get her daughter back then?

While Gerda and Layla went off upstairs to play, Annie called Nico into the study. They sat down on opposite sides of the desk and Annie got straight to the point.

‘I’m worried about this man in the park,’ she said.

Nico sat back and stared at her face. ‘You got any ideas who it might be?’

She shook her head. ‘Nico, I’ve been hearing some really strange things.’

‘What things?’

Annie dragged her hands through her hair. ‘My friends are saying that my first husband ain’t dead. That he’s alive and he’s in London.’

Nico’s eyes widened. ‘No way.’

‘They’re saying it’s true. They’re also saying that he’s furious with me for clearing off with Constantine. And . . . I think maybe the man in the park is one of the Carter boys. And maybe Max thinks Layla would be better off with him, and he’s planning to snatch her away from me.’

‘We can’t let that happen,’ said Nico.

Thank God for Nico. He understood instantly where she was coming from; he was a clever man with a quick brain. Also, he was her last link – her only link – to Constantine. Just having him around was a comfort.

‘We won’t,’ said Annie. ‘Nico, I’ve spoken to my sister. She’s got room for Gerda and Layla for a while, until all this is sorted out. I want you to take them over there.’

Annie’s heart ached even as she said it. Once again, she had to be separated from Layla because being with her, being
near
her, could be putting Layla at risk. And yet, who would care for Layla better than Max? He wasn’t a danger to Layla; he had doted on his little girl.

Maybe she was being overcautious.

Or maybe the follower in the park wasn’t one of Max’s boys at all?

But then – who else could it be?

If it
was
Max behind this, then she wouldn’t give up her daughter without a fight. She was determined on that. All right, he was seeing her marriage to Constantine as a betrayal. But it wasn’t. For God’s sake, her only crime had been to believe that her husband was dead, to mourn him bitterly and then to fall in love again. What had he expected – that she would withdraw from life altogether simply because he was no longer a part of it?

If she had sinned at all – and she didn’t believe she had – then she had been roundly punished anyway. Constantine was dead now. Max might have come back, like Lazarus rising from the tomb, but Constantine would not. Constantine was lost to her forever.

‘I’ll talk to Gerda and Layla, get some stuff packed,’ said Annie, pushing her chair back and standing up.

‘You’re sure about this?’ asked Nico, his brows drawn together in a ferocious frown.

‘I’m not sure about anything,’ said Annie. ‘But I know that Layla will be fine with Ruthie. All this . . . I can’t have her here, in the middle of it all. It’s not fair.’

‘Maybe all she needs is to be close to you,’ said Nico.

‘No.’ Annie shook her head firmly. ‘That’s not an option. I want her somewhere safe, so I want you to take her and Gerda over there this afternoon.’

‘Wouldn’t that be the first place he’d look for her? With your sister?’

‘With our history?’ Annie raised a grim smile. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You think he’s gonna cut up rough? Really?’

Annie put her fists on the desk and gave it some thought.

‘Max Carter? Oh yeah. I think so.’

When Gerda and Layla had gone with Nico that afternoon, Annie phoned Kath, her cousin.

‘Holy fuck, this is all so
interesting
,’ Kath said the minute Annie said hello. Annie could picture her beaming smile all down the line. If Annie was getting shit, Kath was always pleased about it. The kids – little Jim and Molly – were shouting and wailing in the background as usual. Annie could imagine the scene round at Kath’s. Unwashed crocks in the sink, dirty floors, kiddies’ toys strewn everywhere, and Kath sitting, hugely fat, in the middle of it all in a mucky T-shirt and elastic-waisted skirt, puffing on a scraggy roll-up and laughing her arse off at Annie’s woes.

‘What’s interesting?’ asked Annie.

‘What I been
hearing.
They’re saying Max Carter ain’t dead; that he’s back here and he’s gunning for you.’

‘News travels fast.’

‘Fuck
me
, girl, you’re in big trouble now. I mean, let’s face it, he was barely cold before you were getting the old pork sword off that fancy Mafia bloke. Gawd, I should think
any
man would want to lynch his wife if she did that.’

‘And how are you, Kath?’ asked Annie, gritting her teeth to choke back the angry words that wanted to come out of her mouth.

‘Bloody marvellous. Kids are a nightmare, as always. Really cheered me up, hearing that Lady Muck’s got troubles too.’ Kath was actually laughing now.

‘Kath.’

‘Hm?’

‘You’re a cow, you know that?’

But Kath only laughed.

Annie slammed the phone down. That
bitch.

Her stomach was clenched up in a knot of unease. Layla was out of the way now; it was safer, far safer, that she should be with Ruthie. But already, Annie missed her so much. She felt weak tears prickle behind her eyes as she sat there alone and painfully bereft in the big grand house.

The show had to go on – didn’t it? Broken and devastated though she might be, she had to keep going, keep things normal if she could – and then maybe, one day, they would start to
feel
normal again too.

Tonight, she was going to pay Dolly another visit, get a proper look at how the club was running when it was open and packed with punters. Maybe on the way there she’d stop off at Queenie’s and see if Max was there. She doubted he would be. She thought that this was all one long nightmare, and that at any moment she’d wake up, and Constantine would be there with her, saying hey, what’s up? Think you’ve been dreaming.

But Constantine was dead,
truly
dead.

Not like Max, who had just been playing at it.

He’s gunning for you
, she thought. Kath’s words. Well, Layla was out of the way now.
So just bring it on
, she thought. She’d done nothing wrong. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

But would he believe that? She didn’t think so.

Chapter 43

Max wasn’t at Queenie’s when she called in there that evening. She still had a key, so she opened the front door and walked around the echoing, musty-smelling rooms. Nothing much in there except a few sticks of tatty Utility furniture and the big table upstairs where the boys met. There was a faint odour of cigar smoke hanging in the air.
Jackie Tulliver
, she thought.

She left the old terraced house and got back into the hire car, with Nico sitting there patiently at the wheel.