Well, he should be, thought Redmond. Gary Tooley ought to remember that the Delaney gang had shoved hard at the Carter territories, had been almost more trouble than could be handled. The Carter boys had been tough; but the Delaneys had given them a run for their money.
‘So?’ said Redmond, when Gary didn’t speak.
‘I’ve been getting calls,’ said Gary.
‘From who?’
‘Whoa.’ Gary sat back in his chair, sprawled, tried to reestablish just whose office this was, who was in control here. There was something about Redmond that chilled and intimidated him. But they were here to do business. That was all. Redmond had been out of the hard game for years. Even so, he still looked like a cold son of a bitch who’d pull your throat out through your ears if you upset him.
‘Whoa?’ echoed Redmond. His thin lips tilted in a lopsided smile. ‘Would you like to explain just what you mean by that?’
‘I mean let’s not rush this. There’s the question of payment first.’
‘Payment?’ Redmond’s smile broadened but it didn’t touch his eyes. ‘For what?’
‘For the information. It’s pretty hot stuff, I can tell you.’
‘But you can’t tell me. Apparently. Until I pay you money.’ Redmond stared at Gary and thought of old enemies. ‘Has Max Carter told you to do this?’
‘No. No way. This is all my own work.’
‘Mr Tooley, I need a suggestion of what you’re talking about.’
‘All right.’ Gary sat back, hooked one long leg over the other. Considered for a moment. ‘Suppose I shared with you some information I’ve held for a long, long time. About you. And about your sister, Orla.’
Redmond went very still. He had no idea where his twin was, or what had happened to her. They had parted ways back in the seventies, and so far he’d felt no driving urge to hook up with her again. He hoped she was well, and happy, wherever she was, but being Orla, tormented soul that she’d always been, he doubted it.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Someone’s been in touch with me and has told me things that concern you, and her.’
‘Like what?’
‘Can we negotiate first? Agree a price?’
‘No. I need more.’
‘It concerns an accident. A crash. Back in the seventies.’
Redmond stared at Gary but he wasn’t seeing him. Suddenly he was back there. The plane plummeting from the sky. The icy waters closing over his head, the panic, the pilot strapped dead, drowned, in his seat at the controls…
‘What about it?’ asked Redmond.
Gary smirked. ‘That got your attention.’
‘I said, what about it?’
Gary took a breath and said, very slowly, leaning forward in his chair: ‘It wasn’t an accident.’
He saw the impact his words had on Redmond. Saw the pale face blanch even whiter as the words sank in. Gary leaned back again in his chair and said: ‘Now can we talk money?’
42
They talked money, lots of it. Five thousand for information, five thousand to discover that there had been no fuel leak; five thousand to find that Constantine Barolli the Mafia don had ordered sabotage, had wanted both Redmond and Orla dead.
‘And there’s more,’ said Gary Tooley, clearly gloating now. ‘This old cunt keeps phoning here, talking about past times, and she’s hinting at something more. Something incredible.’
‘And what is that?’ demanded Redmond.
Gary spread his long-fingered hands. ‘That I don’t know yet,’ he lied. ‘But I will. I’ll worm it out of the crazy old bitch and then we’ll talk again, yeah? Agree another price for the additional information?’
Redmond smiled. It was the smile of an alligator before it snaps its jaws shut on its prey.
‘Of course,’ he said.
After the meeting, Redmond went home to his new rented house.
‘Good day?’ asked Mitchell, who had replaced the old housekeeper after his troubles with the church. Mitchell had worked for Redmond years ago, he could cook – after a fashion – and he was handy in any sort of fight, however nasty, so he was always useful to have around. Redmond had been booted out of his grace and favour home, although that didn’t concern him much. Years ago he had salted money away all over the place, the proceeds of lorry hijacks and shop robberies; he was minted. He could do as he pleased. He did miss all those willing little acolytes from the church, but what could you do? There were always women, if you wanted them. Right now, he didn’t.
‘Yeah, good,’ he said, and doggedly ate the meal Mitchell had prepared to keep his strength up, although he felt sick with excitement and his insides were churning.
Constantine Barolli had planned to kill him, and his twin.
And for what? Because Barolli had the hots for Annie Carter, of course. And who wouldn’t? She was – had always been – magnificent. Strong, ferocious – a lioness. You had to admire that.
It was a miracle that they had survived that crash.
The Mafia boss had wanted them dead.
And Gary Tooley had said there was more information to come.
Redmond wanted that information now.
He finished the meal, hardly even registering what he was eating, and went upstairs to his bedroom. There he sat on the bed for a while, then he stood up, stripped off his jacket and his shirt, and went to the mirrored wardrobe. Turning slightly, he saw the marks on his back, the freshly healed scars there. He opened the wardrobe door and took out a brown cardboard box, three feet long by four inches wide, removed the lid, and lifted out the kidney-shaped piece of rubber and the cat o’ nine tails hidden there.
He was wicked and he knew it.
He’d disgraced the church.
Disgraced himself.
Self-flagellation was the only cure, the only thing that cleansed him and made him feel better. So he lifted the woven-leather handle, marked brown with dried blood – his blood, and the blood of some of those women before Sally Westover, those poor little acolytes of his with their puny soft backs striped with the marks of the whip, the way he liked them, whimpering in pain and fear and adoration.
He put the rubber between his teeth. Then he lifted the whip out, and swung it back, and struck, hard.
The pain was exquisite, cleansing him, scouring his troubled soul.
43
Limehouse, 1960
Dolly became a fixture around Celia’s knocking shop. She cleaned, she ironed, she chatted to the girls, and what little remained of any childlike innocence quickly fell away. It became her task to keep the bedrooms tidy and the bedding fresh, to make sure every room was ready for action.
It was her job to make sure there were plenty of tissues and packets of French letters beside each bed, and that there was always a full bottle of baby oil and a tub of Crowe’s Cremine, which was a theatrical make-up remover and perfect for lubrication. In Aretha’s room she also made sure there was a stock of rope and leather straps – and she regularly whopped the Dettol over a couple of old tasselled camel whips that someone had brought back from a Moroccan trip.
It always astonished Dolly, the diversity of the men who came through the door of the knocking shop. Cavalry officers, dustmen, bowler-hatted civil servants – the search for sexual satisfaction knew no social boundaries. And mostly they were well-behaved. But one night they weren’t, and what happened then stuck in Dolly’s memory and just wouldn’t budge.
‘I told you I don’t do that,’ Ellie was shouting.