Maura's Game (24 page)

Maura looked at them all again as if it was the first time she had seen them in her life, so deep was her amazement at what they were telling her.

“I don’t believe this. Are you telling me Jamie just upped and died without a word?”

Abul nodded, all business now.

“I think he died of fright me self He said it as if he was an authority. For some reason this made her even angrier.

“And who are you, Abul? Dr. fucking Bronowski? Any fool can see what he died of. One look at his boat should alert even you lot of fucking stiffs as to what he died of.”

“What do you want, Maws? A fucking autopsy or what? So he is fucking dead. Big deal. Best thing for him, he was a cunt.”

Benny’s voice sent her into a frenzy and seeing her face harden he was once more reminded of what she was. What she was capable of.

“Well, Mr. fucking Clever Bollocks, he is a dead cunt now, isn’t he? And we are still none the wiser as to what he fucking knew about Joliff. So what do you recommend we do now then? Hire a fucking medium? Or better still, have you got a direct line to Doris Stokes?”

They were saved from answering by the arrival of Garry. He took one look at the scene before him and said in a loud voice, “Oh, for fuck’s sake…”

He was standing on the stairs in utter disbelief, staring at the dead body of Jamie Hicks. Their passport to Vic Joliff. She could see annoyance in every bone of his body. Even his hair looked angry. Someone was going to pay for this fuck up, and she was glad about that. Really pleased.

Maura laughed bitterly as she said, “You ain’t heard the best bit yet, Gal. It gets better. He died before they had found out anything. Benny here, Mr. Airfix King, fucking frightened him to death.”

Garry was quiet for what seemed an age before he said gently, “You are joking?”

Lee and Maura knew when Garry was going to go ballistic, they had seen him like it enough times, and both moved back quickly as he descended the steps at a fast pace and launched himself at Benny, knocking Abul flying in his quest to grab his nephew’s throat.

It would do Benny good to be on the receiving end of this loony bastard’s fury, make him realise that there was someone madder than him walking around pretending to be normal.

“You lairy little fucker! Look what you fucking done now.”

Garry’s voice was controlled but the anger was in his eyes, in his body language.

“You just won’t listen, will you? Mr. fucking Big Shot. He was our way to Joliff and you whacked him without a second’s thought. You little bastard!”

As he began giving Benny a kicking Maura walked from the cellar. She had had enough of it all. Tony Dooley held the car door open for her and she sat down inside the Mercedes and lit herself a cigarette.

She didn’t need to see Benny getting punished, though in her heart she was glad it was happening. After all, it was not before time. He needed to be reined in and Garry was the right man to do it. Garry frightened everyone, he always had, and she had a feeling that even at eighty he would still command fear. He was in his early-sixties now and he still terrified people. It was something about him, something in his make up, that seemed to make itself known to people even when he was being nice and friendly. In fact, he was scarier when he was being nice and friendly.

It occurred to her then that she could be doing far more interesting things with her life than mopping up after her brothers. This latest debacle made her more determined than ever to get out of all this shit as soon as she possibly could.

She might even go and live in Liverpool. Leave them to get on with it. Go and live with Tommy Rifkind. Suddenly that seemed like a really good idea. Tommy was small potatoes really, though she would never say so to him, of course. She, for her part, had had more than enough of the upper echelons of crime.

“Everything all right, Maura?”

Tony Dooley Junior was just being polite and she knew it.

“Oh, yeah, Tony, everything is fucking wonderful, mate. Couldn’t be better in fact. Nothing like somebody dying of fright to make my fucking day.”

He decided that he’d best leave her alone with her thoughts. She looked angry and he had no intention of being on the wrong side of Maura Ryan when she had the hump. He had learned that very early on.

Maura ended up at her mother’s. Sarah had rung her and literally begged her to come by. Inside her childhood home, with a slice of home-made cake and a cup of tea in her hand, she marvelled at how healthy her mother was looking for her age. She also enjoyed the relative tranquillity. The house even smelled the same. The only thing missing was the underlying odour of damp boys, which had always prevailed when she was small. But the smell of baking, her mother’s lavender water and the mustiness of the carpets was the same.

“So what can I do for you, Mum?”

Maura’s words were stilted. Together they had tried to build a few bridges but it was hard. Too much water had already passed under them.

“It’s Carla. I am at me wit’s end with her.”

Maura was surprised; Carla was Sarah’s blue-eyed girl usually. But she had heard about the big row between them, though she did not mention it.

“What about her?”

She kept her voice as neutral as she could.

“She’s not right, and that Joey… Do you think he might be … a bit … you know?”

Maura was smiling at her mother’s obvious distress.

“Gay?”

Sarah nodded.

“I think we can safely assume that, Mum. If he ain’t I’d be surprised, the way he carries on.”

“That is so terrible…”

Maura grinned, enjoying her mother’s discomfort.

“Won’t be the first one in this family if he is, will he?”

Sarah’s eyes were slits now at what she saw as an insult, a slur on her children and their offspring. Maura was suddenly sorry for her; she was from another era, another fucking dimension in fact.

“Look, Mum, things like that don’t matter any more. And that is how it should be. What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their business. As long as he is happy inside himself, what harm is there in it really?”

Sarah was getting annoyed now and it showed. Her skinny body bristled with annoyance.

“It’s a sin against God for a start.”

“Everything is a sin if you want it to be. Look, in the Bible it tells you that soothsayers, meaning mediums and people like that, are wicked, right? That they will tell you nine true things and the tenth thing will be a lie? It will be that one thing that will cause you all the trouble of your life. Remember that? Well, it doesn’t stop you and Pat Johnston going to the Spiritualist Church, does it? You still want to contact Michael and Dad and Anthony and Benny and Uncle Tom Cobbley as well for all I know! Joey is what he is, and neither you nor no one else can change him. The Bible is two thousand years old, Mum. Things are different now and you have to change with the times.”

“I don’t.”

The words were said the arrogant Ryan way, meaning that they were different from anyone else. Maura sighed.

“Well, that is all I can say on the subject, Mum. Good luck to him is what I think. I hope he is happy, that’s the most important thing in life.”

Sarah heard the underlying sadness in her daughter’s words and instinctively hugged her tightly. Maura’s perfectly styled hair was crushed against her mother’s skinny chest and she loved it. She hugged her back, feeling the prickle of tears.

Sarah pushed her away in a jokey way and said, “I’ll make another cup of tea.”

Maura nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“I suppose you’re right enough about your man, Joey. I am a dinosaur really. I still want it all as it was. I want you all back small to when I was your world and this was your universe.”

Sarah held out her hands to indicate the kitchen.

“When I could walk along the road with you all dressed for Mass and looking gorgeous and hold me head up to the world and say, “Look at my babies, aren’t they wonderful?” ‘ “That was a long time ago, Mum.”

Sarah looked sad.

“I know that, love. But what happened to us? That is what I try and work out every night as I lie in me bed. I say me rosary and then I lie there and think of you all. You and Michael mostly. My lovely son and daughter, my first-born and my last, the two I wanted more than any of my other children. I wonder if it was a punishment because, God forgive me, the others I loved but you and him I adored. I absolutely adored you both.”

Maura knew she was telling the truth.

“I’m still here, Mum, and I can’t believe Michael is far away from you. He loved you more than anyone else, you know that. Worshipped the ground you walked on.”

Sarah smiled smugly. Her eyes were sad and her voice strong as she said, “I know. I feel him at times, beside me. He wants me to be friends with you again. Wants us to be like we were, and I want it too. I miss you, Maura; I miss you like you would never believe. Even when I hated you, I loved you too. My last-born, my only girl.”

Maura could not help wondering cynically if this turnaround had anything to do with the fact her mother had fallen out with Carla big time, and with Janine dead and Sheila a long way away she needed a female to control. Because that was what her mother did. With the best will in the world, she controlled people.

As she watched Sarah bustle around making the tea in her large expensive kitchen Maura felt a spark of the old affection for her nevertheless. She had buried too many of her children, and Maura had to remind herself how terrible that must feel. And she had lost them violently through a job they had all decided to make their own. A job of which Maura was now the prime exponent. The Queen of the London Underworld, the tabloids had called her, until the best lawyer money could buy had put a stop to it.

This sad little old woman had brought up her children and then buried half of them. How hard that must be. That was why she would never move from this house. It still echoed with all their voices and laughter. Maura once more felt the urge to cry. She saw her own baby in the bright orange washing-up bowl and closed her eyes to try and blot out the sight. But it was still there. On some level it was always there. All day, every day. So how must her mother have felt, burying children she had nursed against her breast, had fed, clothed and fought over? She’d taken them to school, helped them with Communion and Confirmation. And then, when her job was done and it was time for her to sit back and enjoy her offspring’s company, they had been violently murdered. Killed like rabid dogs by uncaring people who saw it as nothing personal, just a job that needed to be done.

She smiled wryly to herself. You are getting old, Ryan, old and sentimental. But was that really such a bad thing?

“Gis’ another bit of your cake, Muwer. That was handsome.”

It was a childhood saying they’d all used and Sarah, hearing it, turned from the old butler’s sink and dissolved into tears. Those words told her that her daughter was finally home.

An hour later Maura left the house, her step lighter than it had been for years. The Mercedes was outside but Tony was nowhere to be seen. She rang his mobile. It was turned off. She felt the first prickle of fear then. Tony was a very trustworthy man; he would never voluntarily have left the car. Never. He knew his job and took pride in it.

She noticed the boot was slightly open and approached it with trepidation. As she pulled it up she saw Tony.

He was definitely dead.

She closed the boot gently and tried to gather her thoughts together. The rock star neighbour smiled and waved as he jogged past with his minder and she absentmindedly waved back. Then she phoned Garry and hastily explained the situation before going back into her mother’s house. No way was she driving through London with a dead body in her boot.

All thoughts of getting out were gone. Maura was hell-bent on revenge and that was all she cared about now.

Jack Stern was tired but he was happy tired as it had been a very lucrative day. As he lay down on the bed with his girlfriend of the moment, Leonie, he was a very happy man indeed. A happy and extraordinarily rich man.

In fact, he was so happy he was going to relax and let his little Leonie do her famed Hoover act. It was the only reason he was with her. A friend had mentioned her speciality and he had deliberately sought her out. She didn’t know that, of course, she thought it was her glittering personality. He didn’t like to tell her that she didn’t actually have one.

Leonie was only twenty-two but stacked like a porn queen. Every inch was real and every inch was his. As he lay on his seven-foot bed and waited to be transported to Wonderland his mobile rang.

He pushed her head away and picked up the phone. He answered it with a curt “What?” and then he was jumping off the bed and getting dressed. On his way out of the bedroom he heard Leonie say in her best little girl voice, “What about me?”

He glanced at her as if he had never seen her before in his life and carried on out of the room.

Leonie, all dark brown curls and almond eyes, shouted: “Fuck you, Jack,” at his retreating back.

Then it occurred to her that she could watch Ens tEnders and Bad Girls in peace. Smiling, she settled back in the bed, remote in hand and tits pointing at the ceiling. She stretched like a tawny cat and decided she was going to send out for pizza and drink herself into oblivion.

Wherever Jack had gone she just hoped it was for the night. She could do with a rest. And at the end of the day he might have the quids but Leonardo DiCaprio he wasn’t. He was old, old and wrinkly, and she wanted youth. Most women did. She guessed it was probably something to do with natural selection.

Jack drove three miles down the road and parked outside a derelict barn. Inside he saw his partner in crime and his sidekick. He looked at their miserable faces and said quickly, “Tell me it’s not true, for Jesus’ sake.”

“It’s true all right, Jack. True as I’m standing here anyway. Maura’s minder was topped right under her nose. Has to be Vic, don’t it?”

“Has he gone fucking mad? Doesn’t he realise he can jeopardise everything we have worked for?”