‘Let’s wrap this up,’ said the American.
60
When Annie woke again, Dolly was standing beside the bed. She started to crack a smile, and then she realized that this was in fact impossible because Dolly was stone-cold dead on a slab somewhere. She blinked, shoved herself up against the ghastly hospital pillows.
Ellie.
It was Ellie, not Dolly. How could she have confused the two? Ellie was standing there wearing a powder-blue skirt suit, clutching the metal end of the bed and biting her lip as she looked at Annie.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ said Ellie.
Annie cleared her throat. Ellie was wrestling with some big internal problem, so she gave her a moment.
‘I really bloody shouldn’t,’ said Ellie. ‘But the police, that Hunter person, he told me you were in here. What the hell’s happened to you? He said someone worked you over, I couldn’t bloody believe it, and fuck it, I shouldn’t be here.’
‘But you are,’ Annie pointed out.
‘Is it true, what he said?’
‘Yeah, Doll, it is.’
‘Doll? What you calling me Doll for? I’m Ellie. Did you take a knock to the fucking brain or something?’
Annie shook her head. For a moment, she truly had thought it was Dolly standing there. Stupid. Her head was fuddled with painkilling drugs, that was all.
‘No, I… I dreamed Dolly was standing there. And I’m drugged up to the hilt. Sorry, Ellie.’
Ellie glanced around as if expecting a ghost to appear; she looked genuinely spooked.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Two blokes decided to give me a kicking.’
‘But why?’
‘No idea.’
‘Chris would be spitting blood if he knew I’d come here,’ fretted Ellie, looking left and right like her husband was going to appear out of thin air and give her a bollocking.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Annie.
Ellie was back to biting her lip again. ‘I can’t say.’
Annie gazed at her, hard-eyed. ‘Can’t or won’t? Look. You’re here. So it’s time to shit or get off the pot, Ellie. Tell me what you’ve heard about me.’
‘I can’t,’ she said, desperately shaking her head. ‘I’m really sorry, but I can’t.’
Annie sat up straighter. ‘Draw the curtains, Ell. Give us some privacy.’
Her face unhappy, Ellie drew the curtains around the bed. Annie eased the covers back, winced, and swung her legs to the floor. ‘Get my stuff out of that locker, will you?’ she asked.
‘Why… what are you doing? You can’t just do that, you can’t just walk out of here – you have to be signed out, the doctors have to see you, they won’t-’
‘Oh, shut the fuck up,’ snapped Annie. ‘And pass me my clothes.’
Ellie hesitated, then did as she was told. As she turned to the bed, Annie grabbed her wrist. It was a hard clench, startling Ellie. She’d come in here thinking Annie looked weak as a kitten but she should have known better. Annie Carter was strong at the core, and that was where it mattered.
‘Tell me,’ said Annie.
Ellie shook her head dumbly.
‘Tell me, or I’ll tell Chris you came here.’
‘You wouldn’t!’
‘I would. You know it.’
‘It’s none of my business… ’
‘You got that right. It’s my business though, isn’t it? If people start beating me up and targeting my friends and treating me like dirt, it’s very much my business.’
All the colour left Ellie’s face suddenly. ‘Oh Jesus, you don’t think Dolly…? God, could it be that? Because of you, because of what you’ve done?’
‘I don’t know. Because you won’t tell me what’s happening, and I think you know.’
‘It’s all over town,’ said Ellie, hopelessly shaking her head.
‘What is?’
‘Oh God…’
‘Ellie!’ Annie tightened her grip.
‘They’re saying that you’ve been making a fool out of Mr Carter.’
‘What?’
Ellie nodded. ‘They’re saying – and this is crazy, right? This is mad – they’re saying that Constantine Barolli didn’t die. That he’s alive. And that you’ve been seeing him behind Mr Carter’s back.’
Annie froze.
‘But it ain’t true,’ said Ellie with a little disbelieving laugh, ‘is it? It can’t be true.’
Annie just sat there, staring at the floor.
‘Is it?’ asked Ellie again.
Annie didn’t answer.
Ellie’s smile died on her lips. Now her mouth was hanging open. She shut it slowly as she stared at Annie. ‘Oh. Dear. God,’ she said.
Annie looked up at her friend’s face. ‘Ellie…’ she started.
Ellie began to shake her head wildly. She waved her hands in front of her face, making no, no, no gestures, as if warding off something evil.
‘Don’t you dare say it! Don’t tell me a damned thing, because if it’s true, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to get involved. What, you think I’m out of my tree or something?’
‘You’re the only friend I’ve got left, Ellie,’ said Annie.
Ellie was still shaking her head. ‘No! Count me out on this one. Count me right out. You think I’d cross Max Carter? You’re off your bloody head.’
‘Ellie-’
‘No!’ shouted Ellie, and she twitched the curtain to one side and was gone.
61
‘All right, Boss?’ asked Gary as Max Carter came out of the arrivals gate at Gatwick and strode over to where he stood waiting.
All around them, families were hugging, mothers greeting daughters, couples embracing, throngs of taxi drivers holding up boards with names of travellers. The tannoy droned on in the background, and the noise of voices and incoming aircraft was deafening.
Gary took a look at Max’s angrily set face and thought, Shit. Better tread careful here.
‘Do I look fucking all right?’ snapped Max, shoving his hand luggage at Gary.
Gary put his face straight, twisted it into a fake look of sympathy. Inside, he was triumphant. That cow Annie. He’d been waiting years to get the knife in on that bitch, and now he’d succeeded.
‘I know it’s bloody rough. And I didn’t want to tell you. But shit, what could I do? You had to know.’
‘Yeah,’ Max said.
‘I would have spared you this if I could,’ said Gary. ‘You know that.’
‘Yeah. I do.’
‘So no shooting the messenger, OK, mate?’ said Gary with a sad, sorry smile.
‘No,’ said Max, slapping Gary’s shoulder. ‘None of that. You’ve seen her then? She’s still here?’
‘Too right. She came back when Dolly Farrell got done. I told you about that.’
‘Yeah. Fucking tragic. Right.’ Max sighed and straightened. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here, shall we? We got places to go, things to do.’
62
Annie left the hospital, hailed a cab and made her way back to the hotel in Kensington, ignoring the odd looks from the driver as he took in her mud-spattered clothing. As she paid him from the back of the taxi, the usual red-uniformed hotel doorman opened the cab door for her, his smile freezing for an instant when he saw the state she was in; then it was back in place. Stupidly, he asked if she’d had a good day. But it was his job to be pleasant to the guests, she knew that, even in the face of disaster.
‘Fine,’ she smiled, and walked into reception, pausing there to talk to the familiar receptionist, who also did a double-take as she saw the yellow mud stains on Annie’s clothing.
‘Any messages for me?’ Annie asked, still smiling but in anguish. She wanted to lie down, really quickly, because her middle was throbbing hard and she felt sick. She clutched at the reception desk to hold herself upright.