Maura's Game (34 page)

She was hysterical once more and Maura held her and tried to calm her.

“Dean was such a nice bloke, a really inoffensive bloke, Maura. A regular person, you know? Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“So when did Benny see this Dean then?”

Maura’s voice was puzzled.

“I don’t know. If Dean ever came back, I never heard about it.” Carol wiped her face with her hands once more and then said, “But Benny went to Spain a while ago, on a chartered boat with some blokes from Amsterdam, remember?”

Maura nodded and closed her eyes as what the girl was saying sank in.

“He must have done it then, mustn’t he? He had it in the cupboard and I never knew that poor Dean was…”

Carol was crying again, her voice too choked with emotion for her to continue.

Benny had gone to Spain deliberately to hunt down some poor young fellow, and all because he had been this girl’s first serious boyfriend. Maura sat on the bed and put her face in her hands. She felt the anger building up inside her then. It was so strong she wanted to explode with the force of it. He had broken a cardinal rule and taken out a civilian, and all because the other man had once been close to the girl Benny fancied himself in love with. Now because of his stupidity and rank badness the whole family found themselves under the media spotlight, and the Met might just be embarrassed enough to go after them all. Just what they needed with a turf war on their hands.

“Listen, Carol, you must never, ever tell anyone what you just told me, right?” Maura insisted, straight into damage limitation mode.

She nodded.

“Course I wouldn’t. I ain’t that stupid.”

“Not even your mum, Carol, promise me?”

She nodded her head sadly. It occurred to Maura that even after all this she was still looking out for her nephew. Old habits were hard to break.

“I’ll sort this, OK? You just concentrate on getting better.”

Carol looked as though she would never feel better again as long as she lived but Maura didn’t say that. Instead she arranged for a private doctor and a secluded nursing home. The policewoman stationed outside the door was helpful and Maura was very polite to her. Inside she was seething.

Benny and Abul were in a restaurant off Ilford High Street. They were stoned and they were rowdy. Abul’s uncle was not on the premises and his sons were unsure what to do with their cousin and his drunken friend.

Abul was trying his hardest to calm Benny down but he was nine vodkas up and with all the dope and the Es he had dropped he was not easy to placate. When Maura and Garry walked into the restaurant with four large black men, Abul didn’t know whether to applaud with relief or be worried.

When he saw Maura drag Benny, swearing, shouting and protesting, from the restaurant by his hair, he began to worry. Especially when the heavies, at a nod from her, dragged him into the back of a large white transit. Maura followed the van in her Mercedes sports.

Abul stood and watched the scene in consternation. Benny had finally gone too far and, as mad as he was, his family were still a force to be reckoned with.

Benny got away with murder because his last name was Ryan. Well, now it seemed even the Ryans had had enough of him.

Chapter Eighteen

Tommy Rifkind was sitting in a pub in Toxteth, Black George’s, and feeling seriously out of place. He was meeting one of his son’s old cronies and realised he had forgotten what this part of Liverpool could be like. He had grown up here, and even though he had made serious money had still come back here from time to time for women. He had long had a penchant for the locals and Tommy B’s mother had been Toxteth born and bred.

Now as he sat in the old dilapidated pub in Matthew Street he realised he had finally outgrown his roots. From his handmade suit to his diamond-encrusted watch, he felt overdressed and out of place. He knew he was being stared at by everyone, but he also knew that they were more than aware of who, and more importantly what, he was.

Jonas Crush, a young man with a very unfortunate name and an even more unfortunate heroin habit, walked into the pub twenty minutes late and as always looking as if he had just stepped out of a skip in the middle of Beirut. He walked unsteadily towards Tommy who closed his eyes in distress. Jonas, already whacked out of his box, was smiling widely, his brown teeth and furry tongue horribly in evidence.

“Tommy! Tommy Rifkind! Long time no see!”

Everyone in the pub was staring at them both now and Jonas saw the look levelled at him by Tommy and felt his heart sink.

“Why don’t you phone the local filth, Jonas, in case they can’t hear your big fucking mouth?”

He spoke quietly but everyone in the pub heard what Tommy had said and looked away accordingly. He knew he had been clocked as soon as he had walked into the place. His clothes were expensive and did not have any logos on them. Instead of tracksuit bottoms and a baggy T-shirt he had on one of his usual Savile Row suits and his ten-grand watch on his wrist. When Tommy B had been alive he had often met him here for a drink. Now he just wanted to get away fast, but first he had to see this disgusting piece of humanity.

Tommy looked at a table full of young men, all clocking him with interest.

“Had your fucking look, sonny?”

The biggest of the men looked away and the others followed suit. Tommy was still heavy duty in Liverpool. For the moment at least.

Benny was in the back of the transit with Garry, Lee, and Tony Dooley Junior’s brother Bing. He was lying on the floor and with Bing’s large foot planted on his chest. The van was moving at speed and as he looked up at his uncles and Bing he knew he was in deep trouble.

“Get off me, Bing.”

“No fucking way.”

Bing’s voice was disinterested. He was following orders. Benny turned his head so he could see his uncles who stared down at him, looking bored.

“Is this some kind of fucking joke?”

Garry said quietly, “Shut the fuck up, Benny.”

Benny knew he should shut up. He had a feeling it was the wisest thing to do. But he tried once more.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out.”

Garry lit a cigarette and Benny could smell the smoke. The combination of it with vodka, skunk and Es was suddenly too much in this enclosed space and his curry and rice left his stomach without a second’s grace. As it pumped out of his mouth all over the floor of the van Bing started laughing.

“Scared, Benny?”

Even Garry and Lee laughed at the expression on their nephew’s face.

Tommy looked up into Lizzie Braden’s eyes. Even though he had not expected to see her tonight he was glad he had.

“Hello, Tommy boy.”

It was what she had always called him, and it was what she had called his son.

“Hello, Lizzie, you look well, love.”

It was a kindly lie and they both knew it.

“You do, you mean. I look like shit.”

She signalled to the bar for a drink.

“What brings you here, as if I didn’t know?”

He was ashamed and it showed.

A young barmaid with green hair and a nose ring brought a large Bacardi and Coke to their table. Lizzie downed the drink in three gulps and immediately signalled for another.

“You want to lay off that, Liz.”

She laughed nastily.

“Like you ever gave a fuck about me … or your son, come to that.”

He saw she was already well out of it and swallowed down his annoyance.

“That’s not fair, Lizzie, and you know it.”

Her drink arrived with miraculous speed and she downed it once more. Jonas watched them warily. He could feel the antagonism and wished he were back in his flat with a nice hot spoonful of H and a can of Tennants.

She laughed again. Her teeth, always one of her best features, were yellow now and Tommy watched her with a feeling of sadness. Lizzie had been a beautiful girl in her day and now she looked old before her years. She had been seventeen when she had given birth to Tommy B so she was only just forty now but seemed much older. When he compared her to Maura Ryan, or even his Gina at that age, she was a non-starter. He knew he had ruined her life; she had spent it waiting for him to come back to her though she had known as well as he did that it would never happen.

But every now and then he had sought her out, whispered tender words, then after he had made love to her he would disappear again for months, even years. Consequently he had kept her on the boil, and he knew that had been wrong. He knew now how very wrong it had been. He could have taken her and young Tommy B away from here at any time but he hadn’t. He didn’t fully know why he had left them to rot but he had. Tommy B had worshipped him when in reality Tommy had never really seen him as his own child even though he undoubtedly was. Maybe it was because he was illegitimate; maybe it was because he had always felt guilty about Gina knowing about the boy, he wasn’t sure why. All he knew was he had only pretended love and care, and now the boy was dead he had to deal with that. The fact he had been murdered smarted, though. Tommy B was still his flesh and blood after all.

“He hasn’t got a headstone, Tommy. There’s nothing to say he was ever ours.”

Lizzie’s eyes bored into him as she said the words and he looked at Jonas, still watching warily, and sighed.

“Not now, Lizzie.”

“I saw Gina’s stone by the way beautiful.

“Loving wife and mother…” It fair made my heart sing. When we all know it should have read, “Gina Rifkind: turned a fucking blind eye for years and brought up a snob who will get all his father’s money even though he hates him”.”

She was signalling for more alcohol and Tommy sat there wondering why the fuck he was even listening to this shit. But he knew she needed to get it out of her system and the sooner she cunted him, the sooner she could start feeling better about herself. His legitimate son had not even contacted him since his mother’s death; Tommy had not seen the grandchildren he adored in two years.

“Shut up, Lizzie,” he hissed.

She snorted noisily and leant forward in her seat.

“Can you imagine how I am feeling, Tommy? Can you imagine what I go through every day? They cut him up, for fuck’s sake. They took my beautiful boy and butchered him.”

She grabbed at her replenished glass and took another deep drink before continuing.

“You didn’t see him, Tommy. I couldn’t locate you. But that’s nothing fucking new, is it? I had to identify him from his body parts. I see his little face every day of my life. Every night as I try to sleep, I see my boy butchered on a mortuary slab. And it was because of you, Tommy. You used him and you didn’t care what happened to him.”

She drained her glass again.

“You are a piece of shit and I never realised that until I saw my boy dead. You were everything to me, Tommy, you and my baby. You were the only people I ever wanted in my life.”

He took out his wallet. Removing a wad of fifty-pound notes, he placed them on the table.

“There’s nearly a grand there, Lizzie get him whatever he needs.”

She looked at the money for a few moments before she started to laugh.

“Stick your money up your fucking arse, Tommy Rifkind, it’s too late. Twenty years too fucking late. I don’t want your money now -I want you to tell me I never wasted my life bringing up our son. I need someone to tell me he was a good kid. That he was loved by someone other than me. But you never cared about him, not really. And he knew that. He tried to be like you so you would love him like you loved your other son. The way he talked about you … as if you were a god or something

.. .”

He could hear the hurt and desperation in her voice.

“I loved him, Lizzie, you know I did.”

The words sounded feeble even to him.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and he saw the marks on her wrist from where she had attempted suicide. He grabbed her arm and, turning it over, looked at the red scars.

“Oh, Lizzie She smiled and once more he caught a glimpse of the girl she once was. Twenty years earlier she had been a stunner, and many men had gone after her. But there had never been anyone else for her but him and they both knew that. He had stopped her having any kind of real life because no one else would touch what was Tommy Rifkind’s and she had had to live in that shadow always. Even when they had split up permanently, she had still had to live in that shadow with his child. No one was going to take on his ex-bird and kid; it would be too much like hard work. Once more he wondered why he had never moved them out of here, never given her or the boy a chance of a real life.

At last he recognised his own selfishness. He had always been that way. It was what had got him where he was today. A little voice reminded him then that where he was at the moment was up shit creek without the proverbial paddle, but he forced that thought away. He would sort it, he would sort it all, it was what he was good at.

Lizzie pulled her arm away and another drink appeared as if by magic. She sipped it this time and sighed.

“Keep your money, Tommy. You can’t buy peace of mind, mate.”

She stood up unsteadily and, looking at Jonas, said quietly, “You got me wrap?”

Jonas looked at Tommy and then at the floor. Tommy looked at the two of them for a few moments before saying incredulously, “Wrap? Did you ask for a fucking wrap?”

His voice was angry and Jonas closed his eyes and sighed. Tommy B’s mum was a pain at the best of times and at this moment he could cheerfully strangle her. He had given her a wrap after Tommy’s funeral to calm her down and now she was hassling him for it all the time. It was the perfect cop out. He should know that better than anyone. He had been copping out all his young life.

Lizzie looked into Tommy’s eyes and suddenly he saw that she wasn’t out of it on drink, she was out of it on smack. The full enormity of what had happened to her hit him then and he felt disgust welling up inside. For himself as well as for her. His brain was saying, Not Lizzie. Lizzie was strong.

Someone had put the jukebox on and he heard the first strains of Simply Red and “Holding Back the Years’. Lizzie smiled at him as she swayed to the music. He looked around the pub, at the people and the environment, and wanted to run. He wanted to run as far away as possible. It had just occurred to him that he had wrecked two lives, his son’s and the boy’s mother’s.