Max came up behind the chair and rammed the bloody knife against its occupant’s throat.
‘Hold it,’ he said, pressing hard, and the woman in the chair froze, held her hands up. Max pulled off the hat to reveal a man’s haircut, and threw it aside. There was a gun in the ‘old woman’s’ lap, which had been hidden beneath the blanket.
‘Gina Barolli don’t need an interpreter,’ said Max. ‘She speaks perfect English. I know that because I’ve met her before. And you, my friend, are not Gina Barolli. And you’ve got bloody big feet for a woman, haven’t you.’ Max pressed harder with the knife. ‘In fact, you’re a bloke. Enough of this fucking around. Tell me where she is, or I’m going to cut you a new arsehole.’
The man started babbling in a thick Sicilian dialect. This one maybe did need an interpreter.
‘Shut up,’ snapped Max. ‘Speak English.’
More Sicilian.
‘Mate, you’re going to lose a lot of bits if this goes on,’ said Max. ‘Now come on. It’s an easy question. Where is Gina Barolli?’
And then the man did a surprising thing; he lifted the gun in his lap…
‘Don’t,’ said Max, pressing harder with the knife. A thick thread of wet red trickled down on to the baby-blue blanket.
The man ignored Max. He raised the gun to his temple, crossed himself, and blew his own brains out.
12
‘What did you just say?’ Annie Carter slumped down into an armchair, still clutching the phone in her hand.
‘Dolly’s dead, Mrs C. I’m sorry,’ said Tony’s voice.
For a second Annie had a wild hope that maybe this was all part of a damned dream – that she was still asleep, that this wasn’t real. But the sound of the waves on the shore was real enough. The sadness in Tony’s voice was real, too. Terribly, horribly real.
Annie gulped. Her mouth was dry and she had trouble getting the words out. ‘What happened?’ she asked faintly.
She thought he would say heart attack. Something sudden, something unexpected like that. Dolly was a fit middle-aged woman. But shit happened; Annie knew it.
Instead, he said: ‘She was shot. Killed. In the flat over the Palermo.’
Annie stared numbly at the phone. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Dolly, shot?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tony again when Annie said nothing.
‘What…?’ Annie croaked. She coughed, cleared her throat, tried again. ‘What the hell do you mean, she was shot? Who shot her?’
‘We don’t know. Pete on the bar came into work and she hadn’t opened up. He thought that was strange – you know what she’s like, always up and at ’em…’
Annie knew. Dolly was a morning person; she was not. Back in the day when they’d both lived at Aunt Celia’s place in Limehouse, there Dolly would be, irritating as hell, whistling at seven o’clock in the morning while everyone else nursed sore heads and growled at each other.
‘… He used his own main door key, went up to the flat and there she was. Dead.’
Annie still couldn’t take it in. Dolly. For God’s sake. She thought of her friend – her oldest, dearest friend – full of life and coarse jokes. Once the roughest of rough brasses, Dolly Farrell had evolved over the years into a very efficient club manager, a pivotal member of the Carter workforce.
And now Tony was telling her that she was dead? That someone had killed her?
‘Why would anyone want to hurt Doll?’ she asked, pulling a shaking hand through her hair. Across the room she could see herself reflected in a big driftwood-edged mirror that she’d picked up on a trip to the market with Max – a lone woman in a red silk robe, slumped in the seat as though she’d just been knocked sideways. Her hair was mussed up from sleep, her tanned face was grey-tinged as the shock set in, her dark green eyes were shadowed with pain.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t,’ he said.
‘The police…?’ she asked.
‘They’ve been. Done their stuff. Dabs. Pictures. The usual.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Thursday night.’
‘It’s Saturday. Why the fuck didn’t you call me sooner?’ Now anger was overriding the anguish.
‘What could you have done?’ Tony was silent for a beat. Then he said: ‘Mr Carter’s not there with you?’
‘No. He’s not.’ But she was used to coping without help, even without hope. Dig deep and stand alone, that was her motto in life. So far, it had served her well. She had come through storms before, had soaked it all up and she was still standing. But this… this was the bitterest of blows.
‘Have the Bill got any leads?’ she asked, thinking, Not Dolly, no, make this be a bad dream, please…
‘That’s what I’m asking our tame coppers, right now. Not getting any answers yet, but I’ll keep asking.’
‘Who the hell would do this?’ said Annie, suddenly springing to her feet, clutching at her head. ‘What had she- I mean, what’s been happening with her? Was there a man involved with her, anything like that?’
Even as she said it, Annie thought that it was a stupid question. Dolly had never, to her knowledge, had much time for men. She had a troubled past, and Annie knew that men had been a large part of that trouble. So far as she knew, her friend had been happiest living a celibate life.
‘I’m asking the questions. I thought of that. But you know Dolly. Don’t seem like her style somehow.’
Annie was pacing around, pulling the phone cord along with her. ‘What the fuck?’ she raged, feeling helpless, thinking that this couldn’t be happening.
‘You want me to do anything?’ asked Tony.
Annie was having flashbacks. Dolly drinking gin and tonic in the bar, laughing at some off-colour joke one of the punters had told. Dolly hauling Annie’s arse out of bed after she’d split from Max back in 1980, pulling her back to her feet with the force of her will, making her carry on even when she didn’t want to. She felt her eyes fill with hot, painful tears – and she never cried. But this was Dolly. Dolly was her best mate. And now… oh fuck, how could this be? – Dolly was dead.
Annie blinked hard, gulping back her tears until all she felt was that cleansing rage again. She kicked the coffee table, hard. Then again. Then again. Shells skidded over the surface and dropped to the floor. Anger rushed through her in an unstoppable tide. Whoever did this, they were finished. She would see to it.
When she spoke again, her voice was harder, steadier. ‘Ask the questions, Tone. Ask as many as you can. See nobody rests. Keep doing what you’re doing.’
There was a silence at the other end of the phone, all those thousands of miles away, in London. Then he said: ‘What you going to do?’
Annie drew in a breath.
Composed herself.
‘I’m coming back,’ she said.
13
For long moments after the man in the wheelchair killed himself, Max stood there in awe. He’d heard of it, but never seen it up close and personal. This was the type of loyalty these people commanded, with their omerta, their code of endless silence. To death and beyond.