Dead Pretty (30 page)

‘You're really into him, Mam.'

‘I s'pose I am. That all right?'

‘More than all right. Come on, let him get his rest.'

‘Will you come back to my place with me, Mark? I want to get a bit more stuff. I didn't want to go back there on my own.'

‘Of course I will.'

They took a train to Cardiff and a bus out to Julie's flat. It was a nice evening, the sun falling below the sea line in a yellow haze.

‘Look at that,' Julie said, ‘everything so calm. Normal.'

‘I'm not sure we're ready to do that word, Mam.'

‘Mark, we
will
be safe now?'

‘I'm as sure as I can be that only those guys who burned in the car knew about you, and they only found out about Carl when they followed me down here. That knowledge burnt with them.'

Julie accepted this hesitantly and Mark wished he could have total belief himself that it was over. Time would tell.

Julie shuddered as she opened her door.

‘I wouldn't want to stay here too long,' she said, ‘not now.'

‘Have they said when Carl will be out?'

‘'Bout another week. They can't believe how he's come on.'

‘As I said, he's tough. How much money have you got, Mam?'

‘Only about ten quid of yours left, but I'll be paid from the factory tomorrow. How about you?'

Mark fumbled in his pockets.

‘About three-sixty.'

‘Three hundred and sixty?'

‘No, three pounds bloody sixty pence.'

‘Nothing changes, eh?'

‘Oh it does, Mam. It has.'

He thought she was going to cry again but Julie sat quietly in a chair.

‘Gimme your money,' Mark said, ‘I'll pop out and get us something to eat.'

He returned with two fish suppers and two cans of beer. Julie was standing by the gas fire. She had Lena's doll in her hand.

‘Did you put this here?'

‘Yes. It was Lena's. I took it from our flat in London. The doll, and this photo.'

Mark found the Paris photograph and handed it to Julie.

‘Well, she was a looker, all right.'

Julie moved to hold the photograph closer to the light. She should have put the doll down first but as she fumbled with the photograph she dropped the doll onto the laminated floor. It was china, and broke easily.

‘Oh God, I'm sorry, love.'

Mark wasn't listening. He was looking at the black felt bag that had been exposed, and the cluster of diamonds that spilled from it. A white line of them that rolled to a halt and caught fire in the hard overhead light.

‘Jesus Christ,' Julie whispered, ‘are they what I think they are?'

Mark picked up the bag and the loose gems. He lined them up in the palm of his hand.

‘They're not from Ratner's,' he murmured.

Mark took them to the table and counted them out. There were twelve, none of them small.

‘Hold out your hand,' Mark said.

He placed the largest on Julie's open palm, she was shaking so much she had to close it quickly, to stop the diamond from falling. She kept it closed.

‘That one should be worth fifty grand, at least.'

‘This gets more unreal all the time.'

‘It's real all right, and it will change everything. 'Specially for you and Carl.'

‘I don' know, it's more trouble.'

‘This isn't trouble. Not after what we've been through.'

‘These are dirty, though.'

‘No, they're not. They are clean, Mam, and they are ours. Lena died for these. The way I'm looking at it now she died for us and I think we've paid for them, don't you?'

Julie put her face close to the diamond, it made her eyes shine like a young girl's.

Mark realised his head was free of pain. Nothing was crushing it any more, and the nerve no longer flexed against the side of his head.

‘I can't fucking believe it,' Julie whispered again.

‘Mam, don't swear.'

THE END

Also by Roger Granelli

Risk

“Roger Granelli vividly conveys the squalid and sometimes violent realities of the life of a man who has hit rock bottom.”
Triple
BAFTA-winning writer Elaine Morgan.

“Genuinely gritty stuff. Risk quickly becomes as addictive as the addictions it is portraying...”
Suzy Ceulan Hughes,
www.gwales.com
.

James Read is a troubled man in his forties. A gambling addiction has destroyed his life, career and marriage. After a period living on the streets he ends up in a hostel, where he meets Colin, a Falklands war veteran with schizophrenia.

The novel is played out against the backdrop of Colin's crazed mind and insane plans. As James's life begins to recover, so the danger that Colin represents begins to escalate. Colin becomes James's nemesis and pushes him toward the limit of endurance.

www.accentpress.co.uk