Ruthless (12 page)

He buried Rory, filled in the grave, stood there and mumbled a few words of blessing over the poor bastard. Then he went to Rory’s Land Rover, which was parked up in one of the outside lean-to spaces, and moved it into the far barn, locking the door behind him so that no one could just wander in and see it there.

As he walked back to the house, he wondered what would happen to Rory’s kid.

He’ll kill him for spite
, Rory had said.

And he might. Don was hell-bent on taking revenge on Rufus, and he’d been thwarted yet again. There was every likelihood he’d kill the boy to punish Rory. And that would be another death on Rufus’s conscience.

Bone-weary in body and spirit, Rufus went back into the house. While he’d been busy at the grave, Orla had been clearing up in Rory’s room. The metallic stink of blood had been replaced by the smell of pine disinfectant. Everything was clean, and tidy. It was, he thought, as if Rory had never been there at all.

They sat up the rest of the night. Rufus felt as if he would never sleep again. Orla had changed her nightdress for a clean one, and the blood-spattered winceyette gown was soaking in the washing machine. She seemed almost chatty, sharing a glass of whisky with him.

‘I told you, you see? You wouldn’t listen. I’ll tell Ma tomorrow that he’s moved on, don’t worry about it. I was right, you see. All along, I was right.’

‘Yes. You were right.’

But you’re not right in the head, are you?

He’d never seen a woman kill before – let alone kill so dispassionately, as if she hadn’t a feeling in her entire body. His instincts had been telling him all along that something was wrong with Orla. She seemed devoid of emotion. She killed in cold blood. She painted mad pictures. She found sex repellent. She hated babies. She had no time for anyone, and seemed constantly to anticipate attack from any direction. When he looked at her face, he no longer saw her beautiful green eyes. All he saw was the chilling taint of madness.

‘I’m sad that Redmond died,’ said Rufus, draining his glass and refilling it. ‘Because I can see what it’s done to you.’

‘I’m sad about that too,’ said Orla. ‘I’ll be sad until my dying day over the loss of him.’

‘Orla . . . is that all it is? Is that what’s made you this way?’

Orla took the bottle from him and topped up her own glass. ‘What way is that?’ she asked, smiling.

‘Cold,’ he said.
Frigid. Frigid and fucking dangerous
.

‘Cold?’

‘You . . . don’t want to make love,’ he said by way of explanation.
And that’s the least of it
.

Orla let loose a heavy sigh. ‘Ah, are you
still
going on about that? I can’t help it. I just don’t like it very much, that’s all.’

‘Yes, but why? Have you never looked into it, asked a doctor maybe?’

‘No. Because I don’t have to.’

‘Why is that?’ He wanted to hear the truth of it. A voice inside him warned that prodding her into some sort of confession might be dangerous, but he was past caring. He’d been staying all this time, living with the constant fear that Don would show up, thinking that was the worst thing that could happen. Little did he know. Nothing could have been worse than the horror he’d witnessed tonight, the loss of Rory, the sheer God-awful weirdness of Orla.

She shrugged. ‘Ah, you know. Old things.’

‘What old things?’

A shrug. Her eyes were fastened on the table. One finger was tracing the grain of it, over and over again.

‘Can you tell me about it?’ he asked, keeping his voice gentle. ‘This is me, Orla. How long have we been friends? For ever. So why not tell me what’s been going on with you?’

Orla’s fingernail dug into the grain, leaving a half-moon mark there. Her eyes flickered up to his face, then back to the wood.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Old stuff.’

‘Such as . . .?’

Again, a shrug. ‘Nothing that matters any more.’

This was driving him mad. He
had
to know. ‘Come on, Orla, tell me.’

Now her eyes met his. She picked up the dregs of the whisky, drank it down in one.

‘Tory used to come into our room – mine and Redmond’s. Pat too. He liked to watch.’

Rufus sat back with a frown. Of all the things she could have told him, he hadn’t expected that.

‘Come into your room . . .?’ he queried.

‘To have sex with us,’ she said, and gave a tight little smile.

Rufus sat there feeling as if the marrow in his bones had been turned to ice.

‘You
what
?’

‘That’s why I don’t like it much. Sorry.’

‘Orla . . . for the love of God, what are you telling me? You’re saying your two elder brothers abused you? Both you and Redmond?’

She nodded. And then she smiled.

‘But Tory’s dead, and Pat went missing long ago, so I suppose he’s dead too.’

‘Jesus . . . Orla. . .’ He couldn’t get his head round it. Her elder brothers, who should have been protecting her, loving their sister as any brother should, had been doing
that
to her? And to Redmond as well!

‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ she said. ‘It happened years ago, it’s all forgotten.’

No it isn’t
, thought Rufus.
You’re scarred right through from it, but you think you’re normal. You poor bitch
.

‘I had no idea.’ He was thinking of the lock on her bedroom door, the clenching when he tried to make love to her, the dislike of babies. ‘There wasn’t . . . I mean, did anything happen after they’d . . .’ He couldn’t even say it. It was too monstrous, too awful.

She took another gulp of whisky. ‘I thought I was pregnant at eleven years old,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t. Which was lucky.’

‘Oh Jesus. Orla . . .’ He thanked God that Tory was dead. He wanted to dig up that bastard’s bones and beat them against a wall, he felt so choked.

‘You can’t imagine how it was. I was so confused. This was Tory, this was Pat. They played football with us, with Redmond and me and baby Kieron, out on the lawn. Like a normal family would do, with Mum and Dad looking on. And then at night, nothing was normal. Nothing at all.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rufus, shaken. That she had been through such a hell appalled him. He wished he had known. Wished there could have been something he could have done to help her. But the façade of family life had been so smooth, so polished. And beneath it – chaos.

‘Ah.’ She shrugged again, poured more whisky. ‘It doesn’t matter. All gone. All done and dusted.’

‘I want to kill him,’ said Rufus.

‘Too late,’ said Orla.

‘Maybe I could catch up with Pat.’

She shook her head. ‘No. I think he’s gone too.’

So they had escaped their punishment. Meanwhile Orla was having to live with their crimes every day of her life. It must have been such a comfort to her, to have Redmond at her side, understanding, knowing the hell they’d both lived through. And now she’d lost him. No wonder she kept painting those mad pictures of him in her studio.

‘You must miss Redmond an awful lot,’ he said.

‘I do. Every day. We had a good life in London for a while,’ she said, her eyes misty with remembrance. ‘We ran the manor, the two of us. After Tory was gone.’

‘I know.’

‘Still, there’s one thing that gives me comfort.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Knowing that we finished off that bitch Annie Carter. Too bad we didn’t kill her sooner, before her Mafia friends organized the plane crash, and I lost Redmond.’

Rufus frowned. What was she
talking
about? ‘When was this – what year?’

‘Nineteen seventy,’ said Orla. ‘I’ll never forget it.’

But he’d seen Annie Carter long after that, when he’d been working in London’s East End.

‘Orla,’ he said, dry-mouthed.

‘Don’t worry, Rufus. I’m still alive, aren’t I? Feck them all. I’m alive, and they’re gone, Annie Carter included.’

‘She’s not.’

Orla’s hand paused halfway through bringing the glass to her lips. Her eyes met his.

‘What?’ she said.

‘She’s not dead, Orla. Annie Carter’s alive.’

27

Orla could only stare at him.

‘What
did you say?’ she asked at last. All the colour had drained from her face, leaving it sickly pale. Her green eyes were huge as they stared into his.

‘I said she’s alive. I swear it, Orla. She’s alive.’

Orla was shaking her head. ‘No! That’s not possible . . .’

‘Possible or impossible, it’s the truth. She was in London and she was alive. I saw her myself at one of the clubs there. It must have been back in seventy-three or four.’ Rufus looked at Orla. ‘How could you not know this? Surely you have contacts . . .?’

Orla sat a long time in silence, trying to absorb this shattering news. Annie Carter, alive?
Alive
, while Redmond was dead?

She was clutching at her head, shaking it. ‘No, no . . .’ she moaned.

‘Orla . . .’ Rufus stretched a hand out, seeing her pain, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

She twitched away from his touch. ‘No!’ she shouted, jumping to her feet. She started to pace around the room, swigging whisky from her glass, eyes feverish with confusion and seething hatred. ‘We left the scrapyard and we got Fergal out and he flew the plane. We had to run, London was finished for us. But first I wanted to make
sure
we’d got rid of her.’

‘Orla – you didn’t. Last I saw, she was alive and well.’

Orla rushed to the table and slammed her glass down, hard. Whisky slopped over the rim.

‘But Redmond’s
dead
,’ she hissed, leaning into him, her jaw clenched with fury. ‘And she was behind it, I
know
she was. She was having an affair with that Mafia man, Barolli – he must have taken out a contract on us to avenge her death. The fuel dial was low, that’s what Fergal said. And he’d only just refuelled. Someone must have cut the fuel line. We were
meant
to die that night.’

Rufus chewed his lip. He was startled by the intensity of her anger. The news of Annie Carter’s survival had made her incandescent with rage. ‘Look, Barolli might well have arranged it, but it wasn’t to avenge her. To please her, perhaps? She married him. Moved to the States with him.’

‘
No!
She should have
died
,’ Orla howled in his face, spittle flying. ‘She was meant to
die
.’

‘Orla,’ he said gently, ‘she didn’t die. She’s alive.’

Now Orla’s eyes grew distant. She slumped into her seat, drained the whisky in one gulp.

‘I’ll kill her,’ she said with flat, bitter venom.

Rufus felt a chill creep up his spine. His thoughts flew to poor Rory, lying in the grave outside. If only he could have brought himself to
believe
that she would use the knife, he would have stepped in, snatched it off her. But the truth was, he hadn’t wanted to think her capable of such an act. And his reluctance to see the truth had cost Rory his life. Rory’s betrayal had been motivated not by greed but by the need to protect his son. At heart he was a good and true man, undeserving of the cruel end she had inflicted on him.

‘I
have
to kill her,’ said Orla, her lips drawn back, baring her teeth so that she seemed almost to snarl. In that moment, she seemed more animal than human. ‘She took Redmond away from me,’ she spat. ‘It’s
her
fault he’s not with me now. I want to do to her what she’s done to me: snatch her family from her, hurt her so that she wishes she were dead.’

Rufus said nothing. He knew now how much she had lost when Redmond was taken from her, how deep and damaging that hurt must be. He couldn’t punish the other hurt she’d suffered; Pat and Tory were beyond his revenge. But he
could
see to it that the Carter bitch got what she deserved.

‘Let me help you,’ he said, his eyes burning into hers. ‘I swear I’ll do whatever it takes.’

Orla gazed at him, her eyes mad with the hunger for vengeance. Finally, she nodded. ‘Good. I’m going to destroy Annie Carter, I’ll make her pay for what she’s done – and then I’m going to kill her. And this time she won’t get away.’

28

New York, 1988

Annie Carter was standing among the gravestones in St John’s Cemetery in Queens, New York. She was holding a wreath. She came here every time she crossed the Pond, to visit the grave of Constantine Barolli. It was a hot day, New York was sweltering, baking in summer heat. Oblivious, she was staring at the elaborately carved headstone.

Here lies Constantine Barolli

Despite the heat of the day, she shivered. She could still see him in her mind’s eye, so clearly – the silver hair, the dark tan, the brilliant blue eyes, a collection of sharp suits worn with elegance and panache. He’d loved her. Constantine had steadied her, made her calmer. Whereas Max . . .

Ah God, what was the point of thinking about
that?
She laid the wreath of red roses and green laurel upon the grave, then straightened with a sigh. She was tired and feeling low. She’d spent much of the past week at Annie’s, the club in Times Square, making sure that everything was running smoothly. Which of course it was. She needn’t have bothered really. She knew she was only killing time.

Her marriage to Max had been over for eight years and her relationship with their now adult daughter was still not good. She was just wondering what to do next with her life. Pestering Sonny Gilbert was unnecessary. For the past fifteen years, gay exuberant Sonny had been in charge of operations at her New York club, and with him at the helm all her concerns were rendered superfluous.

Maybe she ought to stop coming to the cemetery. It always depressed her. It had been a long time ago, so long ago and so far away. Constantine was gone. He wasn’t here.

‘Hey,’ said a soft male voice, breaking into her thoughts.

She turned. And there was Constantine standing there, in the flesh.

Only of course it wasn’t. Miracles didn’t happen.
Shit
happened. Still, her heart gave a lurch as she saw the man standing a couple of paces away, tall and handsome as ever. He was wearing a thousand-dollar suit. His fair hair was lifting slightly in the hot breeze. His laser-blue eyes were smiling into hers.