Ruthless (18 page)

So, here he was. Mooching around the streets, mugging a granny here, snatching a wallet there, doing a bit of housebreaking, nicking a few cars, selling stuff on and using the proceeds to buy smack. He’d had a decent education. He was even – in the days before drugs and drink had fucked his brains up for good – what you’d call
bright
. He’d picked up a few skills. He could get into a house and have the contents away – jewellery, cash and electrics, all easy to sell on – before you could say knife.

Oh, and he could hot-wire a car.

He
loved
hot-wiring cars.

Whistling under his breath, he was ambling along,
Nothing to see here, officer
, discreetly trying this car door, then that one, then another. One or two in every London street would be unlocked. He knew this from experience.

A group of girls passed by, got a waft of his unwashed body, looked at him in revulsion, and edged away.

Frankie didn’t care.

He was on a mission.

He needed another hit.

As he moved on down the street, trying the next car door, and the next, he saw a bloke up ahead sitting in the driver’s seat of a black Mercedes. The door was wide open, he had one leg out on the pavement as he leaned in, fiddling with something in there, cassette player maybe. The man glanced around.

Frankie had never seen such a long curling mop of fire-engine-red hair, especially on a guy. It was all the more striking because his skin was bleached-out white. Funny-looking fucker. Frankie slowed his pace and watched, fascinated. Finally the man finished whatever he was doing, got out. He was big, Frankie noted, a burly geezer, not someone you’d want to tangle with. Not realizing he was being watched, the guy closed the car door gently. Didn’t lock it.

Frankie smiled.

All his Christmases had come at once.

What could he get from selling on a hot Merc?

A fucking fortune, that’s what.

The man hurried away up the street. Frankie moved in.

41

The office door was open and Dolly was sitting at her desk. She looked up in surprise as Annie appeared.

‘Hello,’ she said, starting to smile. ‘What are—’

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me Layla’d had bother?’ Annie asked, shutting the door behind her.

Taken aback, Dolly sat gawping at her.

‘Well, come on,’ snapped Annie. ‘Why didn’t you
tell
me?’

For a moment, Dolly could only stare at Annie, who’d marched in, all guns blazing, and was now leaning both fists on the desk and glaring at her.

Dolly let out a sharp breath. ‘One,’ she said, counting off on her pink-manicured fingers, ‘Layla didn’t want me to. She insisted. She made me promise not to call Steve, although I wanted to. Two –’ Dolly raised another well-kept digit – ‘I couldn’t tell
you
because you were faffing around en route from the States as per bloody usual. I didn’t think there was any possibility I could reach you.
Also
as usual.’

‘Faffing around?’ snapped Annie. ‘I was in New York on business. That’s not faffing around, that’s doing a job.’

‘You’re a bit touchy, ain’t you?’

Annie’s face tightened with anger. ‘For fuck’s sake, Doll. If I’d known about what happened to Layla, I’d have been forewarned. I’d have been prepared for something
serious
instead of being caught off guard.’

She pulled out a chair and sat down, wiping a weary hand over her brow. She was shattered. After Steve and the boys had taken the body away in the early hours, she’d spent the rest of the night in Layla’s room, neither of them getting any sleep. It had taken a lot of convincing to keep Layla from freaking out and phoning the Bill. Even now, Annie wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing in leaving her, but she couldn’t rest until she had it out with Dolly face-to-face.

The fact is, I could be dead,
she thought.
Layla could have been hurt, taken away, maybe tortured or raped – anything. My whole world could have fallen apart. Again
.

So here she was, exhausted and edgy and anxious, trying not to think about what could have been – and failing. Because disaster could still strike. Yes, Orla was dead. But – oh, and shit she didn’t want to think this, but it had to be faced – Redmond might still be alive.

It had been a
man
chasing Layla in the park. Annie thought it unlikely that it would have been Redmond himself – Layla had described her assailant as thick-set, huge, with a wild mane of hair. Nonetheless Redmond might be the one calling the shots. And if he was, he’d be wondering where his sister had vanished to. It wouldn’t be long before he’d come looking for her.

‘Something serious?’ Dolly was frowning at her. ‘Like what?’

‘Never mind,’ said Annie. Part of her wanted desperately to confide in Dolly, but it was no good flapping the lip to her about this. The less people knew about what had gone on last night, the better. She let out a shaky sigh. ‘How’s tricks, Doll?’

‘Good,’ said Dolly, peering closely at her old mate. Something was up, but Annie had that familiar
keep out
expression on her face. No use pushing. If she wanted to confide, she would. If not, forget it. ‘Full of loaded punters most nights, everything’s fine.’

‘Girls all OK?’

‘One or two niggles, nothing much.’

Annie looked around her. ‘This old place has seen some changes,’ she said wistfully.

This was true. Back in the Sixties, when it was known as the Palermo Lounge, major acts had performed there. Heinz with the white-blond hair, and the chap with the deaf-aid, Johnny Rae, and many others had taken to the stage beneath the arching red curtains with the gold MC over the centre. Then for a while – along with the other two Carter clubs, the Shalimar and the Blue Parrot – it had been a cheap strip joint, one more tasteless haven for the dirty-mac brigade. Annie had soon put that right.

In the seventies she had transformed the three clubs into discos where dolly birds bopped in white-fringed bikinis on strobe-lit podiums while the punters lounged on chocolate-coloured banquettes eating scampi or chicken in the basket with chips.

Now it was the eighties. You moved with the times or you got left behind. The Carters
never
got left behind. So the clubs offered table-dancing. Nothing tacky, not here. The clientele were wealthy City types, jaded executives, TV personalities, sometimes even film stars. Following the stock market crash last year there’d been a sharp decline in trade, but there were still enough high-flying punters to keep the clubs busy. All three venues were packed with yuppie bankers and stockbrokers every night, out for a good time and a wind-down after a frantic day’s trading on the money markets. Max’s clubs were giving Stringfellows a run for their money, and if they were doing
that,
then they were doing just fine.

‘Is anything wrong? Anything else?’ asked Dolly delicately.

Annie shook her head. ‘Listen, in future, Doll, if something happens – regardless what Layla says – don’t keep it to yourself. Tell me or tell Steve, pronto.’

‘What about Mr Carter?’ asked Dolly. ‘Should I tell him too?’

Annie stood up. ‘Dolly,’ she said, ‘shut the fuck up, will you? I’m going to borrow Tone and the car. OK?’

Dolly’s mouth opened. Then she closed it with a snap as she saw the look on Annie’s face.

‘What?’ asked Annie.

Dolly shrugged. ‘I’m wondering why you need a driver, that’s all.
You
drive.’

Annie stifled her irritation. She’d taken her test a couple of years after the split from Max. Maybe she’d been trying to prove she was self-reliant, that Max Carter could go and
fuck
himself.

‘I think I need some muscle around me at the moment,’ she said. ‘If that’s OK with you?’

Dolly curled her lip. ‘I suppose it’ll have to be,’ she said. ‘Won’t it.’

‘You got
that
right,’ said Annie, just as the window exploded inward, showering them with glass and knocking them both to the floor.

42

For long moments all they could do was lie there, the wind completely knocked out of them. They could hear people yelling, out in the street.

‘What the fu—’ said Dolly, crawling to her feet and helping Annie get back to hers. They stared at each other in shock, then looked at the window. It had blown in, but there were still jagged bits of glass clinging to the edges of the frame.

‘You OK?’ asked Annie. She saw that a trickle of blood was winding its way down Dolly’s cheek.

Dolly nodded. ‘Yeah. You?’

‘Doll, you’re bleeding.’ Annie fumbled in her bag, found a tissue, dabbed at Dolly’s face.

Dolly looked in surprise at the blood on the tissue. Then Annie turned and stumbled out of the door, down the stairs. Dolly followed. They threw open the double doors on to a scene of chaos. Smoke, flames, and . . .

‘That’s my car,’ gasped Annie.

Or at least it had been. All that remained of the Mercedes was a blackened, mangled, smoking heap. Cars around it had caught some of the blast, too. All the windows on the opposite side of the street, where she had parked, had shattered. Glass glittered on the pavement like snow after a winter blizzard.

‘Where’s Tone?’ asked Annie, her heart in her mouth. She’d seen him parked up in the company Jag when she’d arrived. He’d waved at her. Huge, bald and wearing twin gold crosses in his ears, he was an old and trusted friend.

Her ears were humming and she was afraid she was about to pass out.

Delight and Marlena crowded into the door behind them.

‘Oh my God, what happened?’ demanded Delight, eyes wide.

Annie barely heard her. She couldn’t see Tony. She couldn’t see the Jag. Bile rose in her throat. This wasn’t the first time she’d survived an explosion. Terrifying memories came flooding back in all their sick-making, ear-shattering horror. The glass, the sirens, the screaming . . .

‘Oh Jesus . . .’ She couldn’t see Tony
anywhere
.

‘There he is!’ said Dolly, pointing.

Tony was climbing out of the Jag. It was parked halfway down the street, on the other side of the road. His expression was shocked as he stared at the remains of Annie’s car. Then he spotted the women in the club doorway. After a long moment, he closed the car door and walked over.

‘I thought you were parked right next to it,’ said Annie, shuddering and clutching at her chest.

Beneath his usual healthy tan, Tony was looking grey.

‘I was,’ he said. ‘I went to fill up. When I got back, someone had nicked that spot, so I parked further away. You OK, Mrs C?’

Christ will he ever stop calling me that?
thought Annie. But she was so very glad to see him, she could have kissed him at that moment. The car that had taken Tony’s slot was a smouldering wreck.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’ve got glass in your hair,’ he said. ‘And fuck it, look! You’re bleeding, Doll.’

‘It’s nothing, just a scratch,’ said Dolly, dabbing at her face.

Annie brushed tiny shards of glass from her hair. ‘Really. I’m fine. We all are.’

They were silent then, gazing around them at the chaos.

‘D’you think anyone’s been hurt?’ asked Dolly.

‘I can’t
see
anyone.’

Other people were emerging from buildings, staring at the wreckage in a dazed fashion. Then they heard the sound of sirens approaching.

‘Shit,’ said Annie. ‘That’s all I need, the old Bill on my case.’

‘I think I see some blood there,’ said Dolly, pointing.

Annie felt her stomach turn over. Dolly was right: there was blood on the pavement. Her car had been blown up, and someone must have been standing alongside it when it happened.

‘Well, now you’re
definitely
going to need Tony and the Jag,’ said Dolly shakily.

Tony turned to Annie. ‘What, you got some bother?’

For a moment Annie felt too overwhelmed to speak.

No, no bother. Turns out this is the deal: someone tried to snatch Layla, then Orla Delaney rose from the dead and tried to knife me in cold blood, and I’m damned sure I was meant to be in my car when that bomb went off. No, Tone, no bother at all
.

‘That motor of yours is never going to be the same again,’ said Dolly. ‘I’ve been seeing stuff like this on the TV, you just never think . . .’ She stopped speaking, shook her head.

‘Stuff like what?’ asked Annie.

‘Like
that
. Car bombs. It’s been on the news, haven’t you seen it? The IRA. Northern Ireland.’

Now Annie really did feel sick. The sirens were getting louder, people were coming out of shops and offices, milling around, staring, fascinated and horrified at the same time. There was a flicker of flames darting from the broken bonnet of her car. Her eyes were drawn back to the pavement, to the splodge of crimson there. She shuddered and looked at Tony.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ she said. ‘Tone, drive me back to Holland Park, will you?’

‘’Course,’ he said.

Dolly was looking at her like she’d flipped.

‘It’s no good going,’ she said. ‘What am I supposed to say when they come in here asking questions? The Bill will trace you through the registration number anyway.’

Annie looked at the Merc’s number plate. The front one was nothing but a piece of blackened metal. The one at the back was probably intact, though, and there’d be the ID on the engine. Plus her prints would be all over it – if they could still find any.

‘Tough,’ she said. ‘Let them. If they ask, you don’t know a thing.’

‘Well, I
don’t,
’ said Dolly in exasperation.

‘That’s fine then, isn’t it? Come on, Tone. Let’s get the fuck out of here.’

43

When Annie got back to Holland Park, Bri was still there on the door.

‘Hiya, Bri,’ said Tony, as he followed her in, eyeing him curiously.

Bri nodded a greeting to them both. He was tall, lean, with a shaven head and a steady gaze. A man of few words but – Annie hoped – direct action.