‘People in this town expect me to discipline you,’ he said. ‘Severely.’
‘For what?’
‘For what? You serious? You been sneaking off to see another man for years. A man you were married to. A man you jumped into bed with when I was off the scene.’
‘Are we really going to have that conversation again? It happened years ago, Max, and I thought you were dead.’
‘Everyone expects me to make you suffer.’
‘As I already said – for what?’
‘You seriously expect me to believe that you saw him again, met up with him – and you didn’t sleep with him? Why else would you carry on seeing him, and not tell me?’
‘I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone.’ Annie sighed heavily and swiped a hand over her face. ‘Those are the Cosa Nostra rules. I don’t know how you found out about him. You never would have, from me. I swore a blood oath, Max, and that means something.’
Annie held out her hand, showed him the white scar on her palm.
‘You see this?’ she said.
‘What about it?’
‘That’s where Constantine cut me. When I married him, I married into the Mafia way of life too. It’s a serious commitment. He cut my hand and burned a picture of the saint and let the ashes fall into my cupped hands, and he said that if I ever betrayed that oath, then I would burn in hell, just like the saint was burning.’
‘And you believed that shit?’
‘It was an oath, Max. A blood oath. I would have thought that you, with all the people who work for you, would understand that.’ Annie stared at him. ‘So who gave him away?’
‘It was his sister,’ said Max.
Annie’s attention sharpened. She’d suspected it, but she found it hard to believe that Gina would betray her brother. ‘What, Gina? Really? You’re joking.’
‘That’s the only sister he had. Yeah, Gina.’ Max started pacing again, shooting her hostile looks as he did so. ‘She lost her marbles and started making phone calls. They went to Gary at the Blue Parrot. From then on I knew.’
‘God, I bet he was pleased when that happened,’ said Annie. ‘He’s moving his girlfriend into the Palermo to take over management there, did you know that?’
‘I knew it. And why not? Dolly Farrell’s gone.’
‘Gone? Someone killed her.’
‘I know that too. Your mate Hunter’s been on to me, asking what I know.’
‘And do you know anything?’
‘Should I?’
‘She was shot, Max. Someone shot her dead.’
‘Not me.’
‘Did I mention you?’
Max shrugged. ‘Maybe she was keeping bad company.’
‘Everyone loved Dolly.’
‘Not everyone. Case in point – she’s dead.’
Annie closed her eyes tight, rubbing at them with her fists. ‘Look, can we go on with this in the morning? I’m tired, I need to sleep.’
‘No, we fucking can’t. It couldn’t have been just one visit. How many times did you see him behind my back?’
‘There was more than one visit,’ admitted Annie. ‘There were quite a few.’
‘You cow,’ said Max, and came to the bed, very sudden.
He moves fast, she thought. Don’t I know that, better than anyone?
Suddenly he was leaning over her, and his hand was on her throat. It wasn’t squeezing, she took some comfort from that. His eyes might be blazing mad as they glared into hers, but his hand wasn’t squeezing and it could, easily.
‘Max…’ she tried to get out, but she couldn’t speak. It came out a groaning wheeze.
‘Shut up,’ he snapped.
Their eyes locked. Then, as suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. Annie’s hand flew to her throat. Max started pacing the room again, his movements tense with anger. Suddenly he stopped and turned to her. He paused. Seemed about to say something. Then he went out of the door, slamming it shut behind him. She heard him go off down the stairs, cross the entrance hall. The front door closed with a bang.
He was gone.
74
‘You sure you’re up to this? You look fucked,’ said Max.
The day of the funeral had dawned bright and clear. Annie turned as she and Max stood momentarily alone beside the hearse outside the Catholic church. She stared at him. Last night he’d been ready to throttle the life out of her; her throat was bruised. Yet today he was asking if she was up to playing her part in this, carrying her oldest friend to her final resting place.
‘I’m surprised you care,’ she said.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he said coldly. ‘I just don’t want you dropping the fucking thing, that’s all, and making a cunting spectacle out of the lot of us.’
Annie glared at him. ‘She carried me plenty of times. And I’m going to carry her now. I won’t drop her.’
Tony joined them, ignoring Annie, nodding to Max.
‘If we’re ready…?’ asked the undertaker, and his two co-workers slid Dolly’s coffin out of the hearse.
Max, Tony and Annie joined the other three black-suited men and lifted the coffin on to their shoulders. Pain clamped down on Annie’s rib, but she could do this: she had to do this one last thing for Dolly, who had helped her so much in life. Steadily, moving together, the six of them walked the coffin along the gravel path and into the church.
Inside, it was full of people, there wasn’t a spare pew to be found. There were white lilies all around the altar and when they brought in Dolly’s coffin everyone rose to their feet and watched as they carried it up to the front of the church and placed it carefully on the dais.
Drawing to one side between Max and Tony, Annie saw Ellie and Chris up near the front, and glancing back she saw Hunter, without his accompanying DS today, standing near the back; he was watching the crowds, just as she was. Their eyes met, and he nodded a faint greeting.
Then she turned her attention to the mourners right at the front of the church on the right; there was a woman there who, from the back, could almost pass for Dolly. She had the same rounded shoulders, the same puffball of blonde hair, the same firmly planted way of standing.
Doll?
No, it wasn’t Dolly. Dolly was in that box, about to be consigned to the earth. As the ceremony began and the first hymn was sung, Annie kept her eyes on that little group up the front of the church. The woman’s head kept bending as she dabbed at her eyes. Beside her, there was a man, not very tall, his build similar to the woman’s. He squeezed the woman’s arm a couple of times, tried to comfort her.
Dolly’s brother? Dolly’s sister?
The hymns went on, and the prayers, and then – at last – it was over. They carried the coffin outside, and as the organ music played on, everyone left the church to assemble at the edge of the newly dug plot, the earth decorously covered with Astroturf so that no one would see what lay beneath.
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…’ intoned the priest.
Annie didn’t pay attention to the words. She focused on the coffin. She’d known her friend for years, but she hadn’t been aware that Dolly was Catholic. Not that it mattered. Annie’s opinion was, so long as you didn’t scare the horses, you could worship however and whoever you liked. What difference did it make?
Her eyes scanned the crowds huddled around the grave. That woman again… pale, blue-eyed… she had to be a sister, a niece, something. And the man. Definitely a relative. And Dolly had never ever mentioned her relatives. Yet here they were, at least two of them, attending her funeral.
Annie’s heart seemed to freeze as she met Max’s cold, accusing gaze. He was standing away from her now, among his boys: Chris, Gary, Steve, Tony. The sight of them there in black coats, all of them big and very intimidating, gave her a deep, visceral shudder so hard that her bruised and strapped-up middle throbbed. And it wasn’t just them giving her evils: when she looked around at the crowds, she could see people staring, pointing, whispering.