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.
67
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.
68
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.