‘If there is anything we can do…’ said Annie.
‘There’s nothing,’ said Alberto with an attempt at a smile. He stood up. Looked at them, sitting there. ‘It’s been a tough time. Losing Aunt Gina, and now Papa.’
‘Gina?’ asked Annie. She glanced at Max, who looked blankly back at her. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.’
‘And now I guess you’ve resolved your differences, you two?’ said Alberto.
‘Is there anything you don’t know about?’ groaned Annie.
He smiled. ‘Very little. Stepmom, two abductions in the space of a week! I was scared for you. My people saw to the first two guys, but the second lot… I told them to hang back on that one. Had a feeling they were your people, Max – the ones in the boiler suits?’
‘They were,’ said Max.
‘Thought so.’ Alberto glanced between them. ‘I hope you can resolve this.’
‘I’ve explained everything,’ said Annie.
‘And been believed? I hope so.’
‘I hope so too,’ said Annie, and looked at Max, but his face told her nothing.
‘I’ll get your transportation fixed up, get you back to London.’
‘How’s Layla?’ asked Max.
Alberto relaxed a little. ‘She’s happy and she’s well.’ He walked over to the door and paused there. ‘And she’s pregnant,’ he added, before leaving the room.
117
Next morning Annie awoke in the master suite of the Holland Park house, to find Max sleeping beside her. They’d started off in separate bedrooms, but some time during the night he’d obviously decided he wanted to be in here, with her. As she stared at him, so peaceful, his navy-blue eyes opened and looked into hers.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ said Annie.
After a moment, Max stretched, yawned and then pulled her in against his naked skin.
‘Did all that just happen?’ he murmured against her hair.
‘It did. And it’s over now,’ she said, cuddling in close against him. Her rib protested, but she didn’t care. She’d missed this close contact with him so much.
Yeah, but has he forgiven you? Have you won, or lost?
‘You went to Sicily to see Gina,’ said Annie. ‘You didn’t…?’
‘Oh, come on. She was sick, frail. It was her heart. It just gave out.’
‘Right.’
‘And did Golden Boy really say he’s knocked up my daughter?’
Annie disentangled herself, moved to the edge of the bed and slipped on her robe. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said.
An hour and a half later, DCI Hunter was standing on their doorstep with a new companion at his side. This one was male, tall, and not at all sour-faced like DS Sandra Duggan had always been whenever she was close to Annie Carter.
‘Mrs Carter, I just wanted a word,’ said Hunter. He half-turned to the younger man with him. ‘This is DS Nolan.’
Annie nodded to the handsome, bright-eyed young man and opened the door wide. ‘You’d better come in then,’ she said, and they followed her and Max inside the house. Annie led the way to the drawing room and indicated that they should sit. Max stayed at the back of the room, standing by the door.
‘Where’s DS Duggan then? I miss her smiling face, I really do,’ said Annie.
Hunter gave her a look. ‘On a training course. DS Nolan’s filling in.’
‘What’s this about?’ asked Annie, sitting down.
‘We’ve been checking the telephone records at the Blue Parrot and the Palermo club and the Shalimar. The Blue Parrot received a lot of international calls. Some from Barbados, but others too.’
‘Where did these other calls come from?’ asked Annie, but she knew.
‘Sicily,’ said Hunter.
‘The Palermo had some calls from Barbados to Miss Farrell.’
‘That was me, phoning Doll.’
‘None to the Shalimar at all.’
Annie and Max exchanged a look. Poor old Gina Barolli. Losing her marbles and telling secrets to Gary. Who tried to cash in, like the grasping bastard he was – and found himself in too deep, falling foul of Redmond Delaney.
‘What you were saying, Mrs Carter,’ Hunter went on. ‘What Sandy Farrell told you…’
‘About the train driver,’ said Annie. ‘Arthur Biggs?’
‘Who took his own life,’ said Hunter.
‘He couldn’t live with the guilt,’ said Annie. ‘Sam Farrell’s death was murder. Redmond Delaney told us what happened. It wasn’t an accident. All Sam Farrell’s co-workers were told what he was, what he’d been doing to his daughters, and they ganged together in a mob and killed him. And really? I don’t blame them.’
‘A dirty business,’ said Hunter.
‘Yeah,’ said Annie, thinking that it wasn’t finished, not yet.
When Hunter and his DS left, she phoned Tony and told him what to do.
118
It took Tony about five days to get the information, calling in favours from numerous contacts and then just waiting while they dug around. The records were old, archived, and his contacts told him that some had – mysteriously – gone missing. But there was enough to piece it together. All they needed was an address, really, and they got that, and passed it on to Tony. Tony passed it to Annie, and they got in the Jag and he drove her over there, to a large council estate full of weary-looking identical pebble-dashed cream houses, many of them with old sofas and fridges in the front gardens. The roads around the estate were littered with burned-out cars.
A young woman answered the door to them. She was mousy blonde, anorexic-thin, wearing a pink T-shirt and tight-fitting ripped jeans. Annie put her at about twenty years old, and hard-faced.
‘Yeah?’ she asked, seeing Annie standing there with Tony behind her.
‘The Biggs family live here?’ asked Annie.
‘Nah,’ said the girl, and went to shut the door.
Annie stuck her foot in it.
‘You mean they don’t?’ she asked.
‘Get your fuckin’ foot out my door,’ said the girl.
Annie shoved forward and the girl teetered into the hallway. Annie grabbed her by the throat and pushed her back against the wall. Her rib protested, but she ignored it. Tony came inside too, and stood there watching.
‘The Biggs family. I’ve asked you politely, but there are other ways. They live here?’ said Annie.
The girl squirmed. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? I said no, didn’t I. They used to live here, sure, not any more.’
‘And they moved where?’
‘That was years ago. When my mum and dad moved in here, I was ten.’
‘And they moved where?’ repeated Annie.
‘Gawd, how would I know? There was some sort of family scandal, I know that. They were a bad lot, something happened and they moved away, got out of the area.’
Annie glanced around the hall, wondering if Arthur Biggs had topped himself right here; hung himself from these very stairs.
She let the girl go. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Thanks.’
When they left the house, Tony went to one side of it, Annie to the other, and they started knocking on doors. Did anyone remember the Biggs family that used to live here? No one did. Time had closed over the scandals of the past. Tony went on knocking, and Annie was getting pissed off with the whole thing when he came and fetched her.
‘Got something,’ he said. ‘And by the way, saw your mate Hunter going into the old address just now. His car’s parked up over there, see? Reckon they’re on the same track as us – don’t you?’
Nine doors along from the old Biggs home, a grey-haired woman with large bulging brown eyes was leaning eagerly out of the front door. When they approached, she smiled and ushered them inside, straight into a tiny lounge with chairs and a TV. Most of the room was taken up by a bed, and in it lay a very old woman, sunken-cheeked, white-haired, but beautifully clean and turned out lovely in a mint-green bed jacket tied with ribbons at her wrinkled throat.