The suspicions.
Had his wife betrayed him?
Everything had been fine until the woman called the Blue Parrot club in London and talked to Gary Tooley. Gary had relayed the news to him. Max hadn’t asked for any of this. But he had it. And ever since Gary had passed on the woman’s words, he’d been having sleepless nights, tormented days. He thought that it couldn’t be true, could not be possible. But… what if it was?
That nagged at him, wouldn’t let him rest. If it was true and not the ramblings of a drunkard or a fool or a crazed cow off her head on nose candy, then there would be big trouble and he was going to kill some cunt. But he could handle trouble. It was uncertainty that sent him mental.
He drove, trying to clear his mind, determined not to let the fury take hold again, not to let it all pile in on him and fog his brain. He drove past the lines of olive trees heavy with fruit, past thin goats and their kids, past plodding donkeys laden with hay coming back with their owners from the parched yellow fields.
Finally he reached the place she had chosen.
It was a disused amphitheatre, a crumbling old wreck well off the tourist trails, built by the Greeks or the Romans – he didn’t know which and he didn’t care. He got out of the car, hearing nothing but the silence of the hills and the mad chirruping of the crickets, seeing nothing but dust and heat-haze and the purple-sloped hugeness of Etna lowering over the scene. No car here, not yet.
He wasn’t early.
He looked at his watch.
He was on time.
A hard sigh escaped him. She wasn’t going to show today, either. He knew it. Swearing, the dust-swirling wind buffeting him, he strolled off toward the remains of the theatre, entering the sheltered boiler-room heat of the big sand-covered circular arena where once life and death had been played out for real. Max walked out to the centre, under the full super-heated blaze of the Sicilian sun, and looked around.
In the echoing silence he could imagine the ancient crowds up on the stands, howling for blood; huge lions imported from Africa and starved to make them even more ferocious running loose; gladiators in body armour and fearsomely crafted helmets and shields wielding maces and swords, battling it out with the big cats and each other.
That world was gone, but close your eyes and you could see it, taste it, almost hear it. He could still feel danger in this place, and bloodshed, and tragedy. It was so quiet here; eerie.
Good place to get rid of someone, he thought. No one ever came up here. It was the perfect spot to dispose of an enemy, leave them for the crows to dine out on.
Then he heard the car. He looked in the direction of the entrance where he’d come into the arena and saw the plume of dust as a motor climbed the hill toward it.
At last.
She was coming.
Game on, he thought, and his heart started to beat more quickly.
10
Across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Annie’s heart was beating quickly too. She grabbed her robe, threw it on. Ran through to the living room and snatched up the phone. ‘Yes?’ she said.
It couldn’t be good news. Not at this hour. Or maybe she was just panicking over nothing, coming out of that stupid damned recurring Constantine dream all hyped-up with worry when there was no reason to be. Maybe it was Max phoning home, forgetting the time differential. Time was a flexible thing in Max’s world. He was late for everything. It was a standing joke between them.
Her husband was powerful, tough, independent. He was still essentially the man he had been back in the sixties, when he had run a lucrative protection racket around the East End. He’d made a fortune, and he’d been bright enough to never get caught doing it.
That was it. This was Max, calling home. Suddenly she felt hopeful.
‘Max?’ she asked. She could hear breathing on the line. ‘That you?’
‘Mrs C?’ asked a male voice.
Not Max then. Annie felt her spirits droop. ‘Who’s this?’
‘It’s Tony.’
She clutched a hand to her brow and closed her eyes. She had hoped it would be Max, even if he had ballsed up the times. When he’d left, he’d been… well, so odd. Removed from her. She didn’t like that. It made her very anxious.
‘Tone?’ Into Annie’s mind flashed an image: big eighteen-stone bruiser Tony, bald, besuited and with two gold crucifixes, one in each cauliflower ear.
Tony had driven Max around the London streets for a long time, and then her; he was a dedicated member of the Carter team, which had evolved over the years so that now it was almost entirely legitimate. Once, things had been different: in the sixties, Max Carter and his boys had rivalled the Krays for sheer honest-to-God fear factor. Back then, big gangs had owned the streets – the Frasers and the Richardsons from South London, the Regans from the west, the Foremans from Battersea, the Nashes from the Angel, while the Krays held Bethnal Green and the Carter boys had Bow and a bit of Limehouse.
Slowly, things had changed, though; now the Carter operation was clubs and security, and nearly 100 per cent straight. Nearly. But Max was still the boss, and Max was always a wild card; unpredictable. This latest departure was a classic example; she didn’t know what the hell he was up to.
He’s having an affair, you silly bitch. Because he knows. He’s found you out and he’s having a revenge fuck. He’s sticking it to someone new and – oh yeah – someone younger.
‘What you phoning for at this hour? It’s two o’clock here,’ she asked Tony.
‘Mrs C…’ Tony started, then hesitated. ‘Is Mr Carter there?’
‘No, he’s not.’ Annie frowned. ‘What’s up, Tone? What is it?’
‘I got bad news for you, I’m sorry.’
Annie slumped down on to the sofa. Outside, she could hear the faint dull rhythmic roar of the ocean, pounding up on to the warm white sands of the beach below the villa. Her heart clenched with fear. Max? she thought.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘It’s Dolly, Mrs C.’
‘Doll? What about her?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘She’s dead.’
11
Max watched as the man – who was short but powerful-looking, dark-skinned and wearing a cream Panama hat – unloaded the woman from the car.
Unload was the word. Max had expected that she might be frail, but there was this whole business going on, the man taking the wheelchair out of the back of the car, bringing it to the front passenger door, nearly hauling the woman into it. Then he backed the chair up, closed the door, fussed over her, settled her comfortably, draped a pale-blue blanket over her lap to cover her bony knees and her bright red pleated skirt; then he pushed the wheelchair containing the bent old woman toward the arena where Max stood waiting.
Max watched them coming, watched the dust-devils whirl around them, the man and the woman in the wheelchair. They vanished into the deep shade of the entrance, then reappeared into the vivid sunlight in the centre of this decrepit old place. The woman was wearing a huge broad-brimmed straw hat, pulled low over her face. Her hands were tucked in under the blanket, and her feet were big, clad in sparkling white trainers.
They approached slowly, and man and chair came to a halt six feet from where Max stood waiting.
The man gave a grin and said: ‘Mr Carter?’
Max nodded slowly.
‘I am Antonio, I will interpret for Miss Barolli,’ said the man, and he reached inside his shirt.
Max dived to one side and a spring-loaded knife concealed in his shirt sleeve dropped into his hand. He threw it as Antonio pulled the gun out, and the knife hit the man’s wrist with a hollow thunk. Antonio let out a high shriek of pain and shock and the gun fell into the dust. He collapsed to his knees on the ground, clutching at his bleeding wrist with the knife deeply embedded there. Max moved forward quickly and kicked Antonio under the chin, sending him flying backward. Max was on him in an instant, but he was out of it, unconscious. Max yanked his knife loose, ignoring the sudden arterial spurt of bright crimson blood, and turned to the wheelchair. Its occupant was struggling upward, tossing aside the blanket.