Deadline (3 page)

'Half a million quid. It looks beautiful.'

Jimmy Galante had always loved money. He
just hadn't liked the part where you had to work
for it, which was why he'd chosen armed robbery
and major drug dealing as his means of making a
living.

The ransom was in a large Adidas holdall that
Andrea had dug out from the loft, which was now
sitting open on the coffee table in her living room.
Jimmy was sitting on one of the leather armchairs
with a large wad of fifties secured by a rubber
band in his hand. His dark eyes moved from the
wad to the contents of the holdall, then back
again. The expression on his face was pure,
unadulterated excitement.

'It's not all there yet,' she told him. 'I'm still
sixty short. I need to pick up the rest at the bank
tomorrow.'

'Where did all this lot come from, then?'

'Never you mind.'

He grinned. 'Been hiding it from the taxman,
have you?'

'It's none of your business, Jimmy. The lucky
thing is I've got it. It means our daughter can
come home.'

The grin disappeared, and he nodded soberly,
returning the wad of fifties to the holdall.

Initially, Andrea had been reluctant to bring
Jimmy back here. She knew the kidnappers had
been watching her and was afraid they might
have bugged the house, so on Jimmy's advice
they'd driven to a shop in Kensington which sold
surveillance products and Andrea had bought a
bug finder for a hundred pounds.

When they'd got back it was already dark, and
after checking there was no one watching from the
street, she and Jimmy had hurried inside, and
he'd gone to work with the bug finder. It had
taken him only seconds to locate a tiny electronic
trip switch attached to the bottom of the skirting
on the front door which would have alerted the
kidnappers remotely as soon as the front door was
opened, and was clearly how they'd known to
phone her as soon as she'd got home the previous
night.

Inside the house, though, the bug finder hadn't
picked up anything, but this didn't stop Andrea
feeling that the place had been violated by the
kidnappers. It was now twenty-four hours since
she'd found out about Emma's disappearance.

She watched Jimmy carefully as she sat
smoking what was probably her fortieth cigarette
of the day and drinking her third glass of red
wine, and wondered if she could trust him. She'd
hoped that telling him that Emma was his
daughter would stir his parental instinct, but now
she wasn't so sure it even existed. In the four
hours since she'd picked him up from the airport,
he'd hardly asked about Emma at all, seeming far
more concerned about filling his stomach. He'd
insisted on ordering an Indian takeaway, at the
same time bemoaning the quality of them in his
little corner of the Costa del Sol. Andrea had
hardly been able to touch hers, but Jimmy had
fallen upon his food ravenously. He'd eaten
enough for two men, and washed it all down with
four cans of Stella.

When Andrea had shown him a picture of
Emma she'd brought with her to the airport, she'd
said quietly, and with a sense of awe in her voice,
'This is your daughter, Jimmy. This is Emma.' His
reaction had been a vague half-smile and a
murmured, 'She's pretty.' Nothing else. Just those
two words. She's pretty. For Andrea, this hadn't
been enough. She'd wanted more. In truth, Emma
didn't look much like Jimmy, but then again she
didn't look much like either of them. Andrea was
a natural brunette, with features that were sharp
and well defined – a very attractive woman, but
one with a hard edge to her. Emma, meanwhile,
was a natural blonde, with small, delicate
features, a round snub nose, and lively blue eyes.
She was pretty in a sweet, cherubic way, and
looked young for her age. The photo Andrea had
shown Jimmy was a head-and-shoulders shot
taken on Hampstead Heath the previous summer.
Emma was grinning at the camera, showing a neat
row of white teeth courtesy of the brace she'd
been wearing for the previous six months, and
which had been taken out the week before that
shot. It was a celebration smile, and to Andrea the
most beautiful smile in the world. It killed her to
look at it. But not Jimmy. All he could manage
was, 'She's pretty.'

She wondered if he genuinely believed he was
the father or whether he'd concluded she was
bullshitting in order to get his help. It was difficult
to tell. That was the thing with Jimmy. He rarely
let on what he was thinking, preferring to play
mind games and keep people guessing.

As she sat there watching him, she realized
she'd never really known him. On the one hand
he was a ruthless bastard capable of terrible
violence. On the other, he was also capable of
great shows of affection. She remembered how
once, not long after she'd first started seeing him,
she arrived at his flat for a prearranged visit only
to find that he wasn't there. Even though it was
the early days of mobile phones, both of them had
one, and she called him. He didn't answer so she
took a walk round his neighbourhood before
trying his number again. This time he answered,
and he sounded breathless. Apologizing for the
delay but not going into any detail as to what had
caused it, he told her that he'd be back at the flat
in fifteen minutes, although it was actually nearer
half an hour before he finally pulled up in his
Jaguar XJ6.

As he stepped out, Andrea could tell that something
wasn't right. He was looking worn out, and
his hair, usually so immaculately styled, was
unkempt. His shirt was partly untucked, and as
he jogged across the road towards her she saw a
handkerchief tied tightly round his left hand.

'What happened to you?' she asked with a
smile, looking towards the hand.

'Nothing for you to worry about,' he answered
with a smile of his own, kissing her on the lips
before ushering her inside the building. 'Sorry I'm
late.'

Andrea knew better than to ask too many questions.
She was aware that Jimmy operated outside
the law. That much was obvious. He didn't appear
to have a proper job but always had plenty of
money. He'd told her he owned a construction
business but was suitably vague, and tended to
keep very odd hours for someone running his
own company, often staying in bed with her until
mid-afternoon on a weekday. Andrea was no fool.
She knew. And the truth was that at the time it
didn't bother her unduly. In fact, she found the
whole thing very exciting. Jimmy was handsome
and mysterious, a fantastic lover, and possessed
the kind of wild streak a young woman like her
couldn't help but find attractive.

Once they were inside the flat, Jimmy showed
that wild streak by pulling her close and kissing
her hard, then lifting her in his arms and taking
her through to the bedroom, where he flung her
on the bed and tore off her clothes. They made
intense, passionate love, several times in quick
succession, and when they were lying, sated, in
each other's arms, his free hand – the one with the
handkerchief wrapped round it – gently stroking
her belly, he said he had something for her.

'What?' she asked, intrigued, trying to ignore
the tiny flecks of blood on his fingers, just visible
beneath the fabric.

He clambered off the bed and walked over to
where his jeans lay on the floor. She watched as he
leaned down to pick them up, admiring his naked
body, thinking about the orgasm she'd just had,
thinking about how happy Jimmy made her,
wondering how she was ever going to tell her
husband.

When he returned to the bed he had a small
black box in the palm of his good hand.

'For you, my lady,' he said with a mock bow.

She smiled. 'What is it?'

'Open it and find out.'

So she did. And let out a little gasp. It was a
gold necklace, eighteen carat at least, with a goldlined
emerald heart roughly the size of a
five-pence piece on the end.

'Oh, Jimmy,' she whispered. 'It's beautiful.'

'I bought it this morning,' he told her.

She reached up and kissed him tenderly on the
lips, feeling for that moment like the happiest
woman in the world.

'I love it. Thank you.'

They spent the rest of the afternoon and much
of the evening in bed. The lovemaking was some
of the best Andrea had ever experienced. She
could remember what they'd done together even
now. The following morning, wearing that beautiful
necklace and thinking that she'd really
landed on her feet, she cooked Jimmy breakfast in
bed, then went out to get the papers.

Glancing through the
Sun
on the way back to
the flat, a photo caught her eye. It was of an
ordinary-looking middle-aged man with a beard
and a side-parting, and the headline beside him
read 'Hundred K Robbery: Security Guard Fights
for Life'. Even before she read the article, Andrea
knew instinctively that Jimmy was involved.
What followed simply confirmed her suspicions.
It seemed that a gang of four robbers armed with
a variety of firearms had held up a security van as
it made a cash pick-up from a branch of Barclays
Bank in Wembley. The security guard carrying the
case containing the money, whom the paper identified
as forty-seven-year-old father of two Alan
Jones – the man in the photograph – had tried to
resist when one of the gang had grabbed the case.
In the ensuing mêlée he was punched savagely in
the face several times and knocked unconscious,
having struck his head on the concrete as he fell.
An eyewitness was quoted as saying that the
robber had then kicked him several times, even
though it was obvious he was no longer any
threat. He was now in intensive care where his
condition was described as 'poorly but stable'.

Andrea saw that the time of the robbery was
2.10 the previous afternoon, barely an hour before
Jimmy had turned up back at the flat looking
dishevelled and wearing a makeshift bandage on
his left hand. Jimmy had told her that at one time
he'd been an amateur middleweight boxer and
had won eleven of his twelve bouts, six by
knockout. Not exactly overwhelming proof of
guilt, but it didn't need to be. Andrea just knew.

Stupidly, she didn't say anything. Instead,
trying to be as casual as possible, she watched him
out of the corner of her eye as he lay in bed, casually
perusing the paper, a cigarette in his mouth,
as calm as you like. He went straight to the
robbery story – she counted the pages – and read
it twice before running through the sports pages
at the back. Then, with a predatory half-smile, he
chucked the paper aside and patted the sheets.

'Why don't you come back to bed, love? We've
got some unfinished business to attend to.'

And she had, too, something which when she
thought about it now made her cringe with
shame. They'd made love again twice, and all the
time she couldn't stop thinking about the security
guard lying in a hospital bed connected to a load
of tubes while his family sat round him, waiting
for news. But Jimmy . . . Jimmy had forgotten him
already. The whole thing was simply business to
him, nothing more and nothing less.

After they'd finished, he got a call on his mobile
and went out of the room, talking quietly. He
returned a few minutes later, saying he had to go
out. He was still acting casually, but she could tell
he was tense.

And that's when she came out with it.

'You didn't have anything to do with yesterday,
did you, Jimmy? You know, that robbery where
the guard got hurt?'

'Course I didn't,' he answered, but she could
tell that she'd rattled him. It was something in his
eyes.

She looked at his hand. The handkerchief was
gone now, but the knuckles were dark with
bruises. He glanced down at them as well, then
back at her. This time his expression had changed.
There was a darkness in it.

'Why'd you think that?'

She immediately regretted asking. What, after
all, was the point? He was always going to
deny it.

'I don't know. I . . .' She stopped, not sure how
to finish the sentence.

'I told you, I work in the building trade.'

She nodded. 'Sure, Jimmy.'

He came over to the side of the bed.

'Don't I treat you right or something?'

'Course you do,' she answered, feeling a little
uneasy, not liking the way he was looking at her.

He crouched down so they were level, the smile
he was giving her devoid of any warmth, his dark
eyes boring into her.

'You know, I like you a lot, Andrea. I think we
could do real well together. That's why I bought
you the necklace.' He paused, touching the
emerald heart. 'But don't go asking silly questions,
all right? About stuff that doesn't concern
you.' The fingers of his good hand stroked her
cheek tenderly but she felt herself tensing under
the touch. The truth was, she was scared. 'Because
otherwise . . .' He wrapped a lock of her hair
round his middle finger. 'Otherwise we're going
to fall out. Understand?'

She nodded.

'And I don't want that to happen. Because I like
you. I really do.'

She felt a sharp pang of pain as he yanked the
lock of hair, and she cried out. Immediately he let
go, his lips parted in a pleasant, loving smile that
almost made her think she'd imagined what had
just happened. He leaned forward and kissed her
gently on the lips, before pulling back.

'I've really got to go, luv. I'll call you later. Let
yourself out, OK?'

And that was that. Chucking on some clothes,
he'd left her there alone, wondering what on earth
she'd got herself into.

She should have finished it there and then, of
course. Someone who could beat and kick an
innocent man to within an inch of his life and
then, an hour later, come back home as if nothing
had happened and make love to his girlfriend
clearly had no conscience. And already he was
exerting his dominance over her. If he could pull
her hair like that, it wouldn't be much of a jump to
hitting her. She didn't need this. She had a
husband, a man who looked after and cared for
her. It wasn't as if she was one of those women
who put up with abusive partners because they
had no self-esteem. Andrea knew she was a good looking
woman. She'd always been able to attract
men.