The Girl Who Broke the Rules (30 page)

‘Luigi, mate,’ Derek began, holding his quaking hands up. Where the hell was Sharon when you needed her?

‘Mr frigging Gera, to you,
pigliainculo
!’

Eyes darting to and fro with tiny pupils said this loon was speeding like a choo-choo train, Derek assessed. He turned around slowly and looked down at the gun. Wondered if getting shot dead would actually hurt. Flick, flick to the left with the barrel, in the direction of some big, posh car or other. Not the four-wheel drive, this time. A Jag, maybe. Or one of those big Beemers. No, an Audi. Maybe. In any case, he was going to die in the back of a fucking nice car at the hands of Psycho di Roma, aka Mr Gera. Looked like a shiny-shoed accountant in a Crombie overcoat who had been shrunk on a fucking hot wash. Great. Would he get Harvey Keitel to come and clean up the mess, like Keitel did when John Travolta shot Marvin in the fucking face in
Pulp Fiction
? Is that how this was going to roll?

‘Don’t shoot me, Mr Gera,’ Derek said, trying to connect with the loon. Trying to remember some Italian phrase from Nonna, although, given she’d left the old country before the war, she was about as Italian as Dolmio. A proverb sprang to mind. ‘
A chi dai il dito, si prende anche il braccio
.’ Shit. What did that even mean?

‘You want I take your arm as well as your finger?’ Gera asked, grinning. ‘Good. I like this idea.’

Fuck it if he hadn’t landed himself straight in a damned Tarantino film.
Che cazzo
. Sharon had always said he was prize knob.
Check everything out
, he counselled himself.
Remember the details to tell the coppers
.
Black saloon. Check the registration plate on the car.
But Derek’s brain was in overdrive, denying him the ability to absorb detail. And what did it matter anyhow, if he was being taken somewhere with this crazy bastard?

Sitting together on the back seat, Derek looked longingly through the tinted window at the club. His club. ‘They’re going to notice I’m gone,’ he said, pointing, as one of the girls, still wearing her jeans and fun-fur civvies, pulled open the front door and disappeared inside. ‘We open up in an hour. If you kill me, you’re going to have Dermot Robinson on your case.’

Gera patted his hand. ‘Dermot Robinson is no interest to me. Drive, Tony,’ he told a brick shithouse at the wheel, who merely nodded in the rear view mirror.

Tony had the biggest head Derek had ever seen on a man. Tony’s head was on steroids. The car pulled away.

‘Where we going?’ Derek asked, trying to take the lock off his phone. Maybe if he could ring Sharon and leave it ringing, they’d be able to track him with GPS or some shit. Find him before Gera got medieval on his arse.

‘You’re going to do a job for me,’ Gera said, sniffing hard and wiping a dribble of clear snot on the silk handkerchief in the top pocket of his overcoat. Put his arm around Derek. Where was the gun? Still pointing at his ribs. ‘My man, Rocco, he’s busy in Germany. I am…How you say? Short-staffed. You are…How you say? My
puttana
. My beach.’

‘Bitch.’

‘
Chiudi il culo
, Giuseppe!’ He pressed the barrel of the gun up against his lips. ‘Shh! You do the job, I pay you a thousand pounds. You don’t do the job, I think you know what will happen.’

Derek touched the bruising around his eyes. Still fresh. Still livid purple from the beating he had taken outside the farmhouse.

Gera threw his head back and laughed. ‘Hey Tony,’ he said to the driver. ‘Giuseppe, here thinks I gonna beat him up if he fucks with me.’

Tony peered at Derek through the rear view mirror. Raised an eyebrow. ‘You be fucking wishing at the end I’d beaten you up, mate.’

He hadn’t intended to cry, of course. Men didn’t cry. But Derek could not stem the salty flow from his tender, stinging eyes. He shook his head. Tried to speak clearly but could only stutter. ‘I- j-just want to go h-home, Mr Gera. I ain’t n-no gangster. I a-ain’t cut out for this, man. Promise I w-won’t tell no-one. Swear on m-my baby’s life.’

‘Ah,
si
. Tinesha, yes?
Bellissima.
Lovely girl. You must be very proud she’s at university in Cardiff, no?’

His tears dried almost immediately. Derek felt the blood drain from his face, turning his lips to ice. In petrified silence, he stared at the Italian. ‘What I got to do?’

CHAPTER 57

Ramsgate, later

In the semi-darkness of his hotel room, with the brown blackout curtains pulled – the only illumination coming from the bathroom light – van den Bergen wept.

‘Come here to me, bwoy! Why you cry for?’ George said in the same reassuring Jamaican patois Letitia had used on her when she had been a small child, waking from a bad dream. Rocking him back and forth on the bed, encircling him in her arms. Kissing his hair, so he’d know she was there for him and everything would be all right. Reassuring. ‘You’re fine. You’ve got to believe me. You’ve got to believe the doctors.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I won’t be.’

‘Ah, gi mi sponge fi go dry up sea. Letitia used to say that to me too. You know what that means?’

He buried his head deeper into her chest.

‘Means you’re hard work, man. Come on, now. You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.’

His lean body quaked against her chest as he sobbed silently. Presently, he spoke. ‘I thought it was over,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for death for so long.’

Holding his face between her hands, George looked directly into his grey eyes. ‘It was a panic attack, Paul. Not a stroke. Not a brain haemorrhage.’

‘They don’t know that,’ he said, chest heaving unevenly.

She relinquished the grip on his face. Clasped his hands instead. ‘They do,’ she said. ‘The CT scan was clear. Your blood tests were normal. Your ECG was normal. We spent three hours in A&E to be told you’ve got bloody anxiety. Come on, Paul. Tell me why.’

Van den Bergen blew his nose noisily on the tissues she handed to him. Downcast eyes focussed on her belly. ‘I’ve been depressed for months.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Work. Tamara. But mainly, the anniversary of my dad’s death…’

George took his chin between her finger and thumb. Made him look at her. ‘That what set you off? The fact one of the victims had lung cancer?’

He nodded. Tears welled afresh and poured silently onto his cheeks, following the course of the grooves either side of his mouth. ‘My dad was an arsehole but I loved him. I’m scared I’m going to turn into him. Every week, it’s been getting worse.’

‘When’s the anniversary?’

‘Today.’

George sucked her teeth. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘Why would I? Who the hell wants to hear a middle-aged divorcé; a hypochondriac whingeing old bastard like me drone on about death? And spending night after night, unable to sleep and yet, barely being able to get out of bed in the morning when the alarm finally goes off. I’m just not myself. I’ve been doing mad things. I don’t know…’

Running her fingertips over his knuckles, she clicked her tongue above the roof of her mouth. ‘Did you get into a fight?’

He nodded.

‘Is what Marie said true?’

In the dim light, he looked over towards the curtains. It was hard to see his expression clearly, but George felt sure it was one of weary resignation.

‘Yes.’

‘You beat up on a man in custody? Seriously?’

Nodded. His lip started to buckle out of shape. The sharp line of his jaw was suddenly uncertain. ‘I’m a monster, George. A violent monster.’ Those melancholy grey eyes met hers, holding her gaze steadily for a minute or more, as if he were challenging her to find the good in him.

How did she feel about his act of police brutality? Had it even been an uncharacteristic display, as she was inclined to believe? How much did she really know about this cop, twenty years her senior, who was addicted to prescription painkillers and whose self-esteem was clearly so low that he seemed deliberately to provoke everyone he met, apart from her, into disliking him intensely?

‘Why did you do it?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer.

‘You’re not the type to go around, swinging punches for no reason. The guy must have provoked you in some way. Why, Paul?’

‘He looked like Karelse. I don’t know what came over me. Jealousy… I—’

Van den Bergen stared into her eyes, unmoving, unblinking. George leaned forwards and kissed him on the lips. His mouth was unyielding. His body, as still as stone, though a raised eyebrow betrayed his surprise. She kissed him again. This time, his lips parted. His eyes closed. He started to kiss her back, tenderly at first. Blood rushed in her ears and she was aware of her own pulse racing. Felt his eyelashes flutter against her cheek. Then, his tongue seeking out hers, hungrily, like a starving man enjoying his first meal in a long, long time. Her fingers found the buttons on his shirt. She started to undo them, touching the hairs that curled above his collar bone with inquisitive fingers. Probing the hard sheet of muscle that covered his chest and the ridges of his sternum. His hands slid down to caress the sides of her breasts.

Abruptly, he broke away. Panting. All trace of sadness in his face now gone.

‘Why d’you stop?’ She glanced down. Saw through his trousers that he was aroused. Felt the burn of anticipation between her own legs.

‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked.‘Fuck, yes,’ she said, throwing herself on top of him. Straddling his hips, feeling his hardness through her jeans. Pulling her T-shirt over her head and casting it onto the hotel room floor.

He reached up behind her and unfastened her bra. Ran his fingers along the contours of her full breasts. Stroked the dark brown skin of her nipples.

‘Christ, you’re beautiful,’ he said.

She caressed the hair on his navel, flicking open the button of his trousers in one smooth manoeuvre. ‘Get them off.’

With their clothes abandoned, as his long, practised fingers pleasured her, George appraised van den Bergen’s wiry naked body between her legs. Broad shoulders and strong-looking athletic arms. Taut abdominal muscles. The grey-white body hair the only real sign of his age.

‘You’re a fine-looking man, Paul van den Bergen.’ She was drunk on desire. ‘I’m going to fucking ruin you.’

‘Good. I’m going to make you come like you’ve never come before, Georgina McKenzie.’

CHAPTER 58

Soho, London, later

Groaning, Sharon tried again to pull a pint of bitter. Flicked the switch back and forth, but only honey-coloured froth came out of the tap.

‘Derek!’ she shouted through the cavernous club, empty but for a couple of girls doing their nails and drinking coffee in the back. ‘I need you to change the barrel!’

No response. Sharon put the spent glass down and wiped her sticky hands on a bar towel.

‘Where’s that pain in the arse got to?’ she asked her reflection in the mirrored wall that marked out her domain.

She adjusted her elaborate head attire until it sat perfectly balanced above her face. ‘I’m a better artist than that Tracey Ermine with her skanky bed. Eat your heart out, skinny white gyal,’ she told herself. Though, not yet made-up, she looked tired, she knew. ‘Too much washing and ironing and cleaning for that lickle rarseclart, Patrice. Always bringing his dutty batty crease friends home, making a mess.’ Checked out her new dress – a crossover leopard print number from Primark. Turn this way. Turn that way. Suck her belly in. Stick her chest out. Made her tits and bum look great. She slapped her own behind. ‘Me gat plenty gravy on dem pork chop.’ Laughed at the thought. A slick of lipstick and some eyeliner and she’d be fine.

‘Derek!’ she bellowed.

No Derek. She left her bar and ventured into the foyer.

The two girls who had been getting ready in the back came out of their dressing room, strutting past her in their heels towards one of the stages. A rangy tattooed blonde and a Chinese girl who had the tiny, muscular body of a ballet dancer. Ready to twist and gyrate the night away in underwear trimmed with feathers and spangles.

‘All right, Shaz?’ the Chinese girl asked.

‘All right, Mae Ling? Cindy? You two seen Uncle Giuseppe on your travels?’

Mae Ling shrugged. Cindy shook her head. ‘Nah. He was out front earlier with some short-arsed geezer in a fancy car. Nattering, like.’

Sharon frowned. ‘Ta, girls,’ she said.

Made her way down to the basement to check the barrel for herself. She hated the basement. It was creepy down there. Clickety clack in her Betty Boop heels on the old wooden stairs. Her feet were killing her. She needed to get those corns done. Only problem with carrying weight and doing a job that involved standing for hours was her knees and her feet were knackered.

In the shitty glare of the basement light, she looked around and found the empty bitter barrel. Unhooked it and got splattered by the remnants of booze still lurking in the pipes. Cursed several times. Located the new barrel. Tried to move it. It wouldn’t budge, and her efforts were rewarded by a false nail flicking off and disappearing like a scuttling green cockroach behind the strong lager barrel.

‘I’m gonna swing for you when I find you, Derek de Falco, you selfish dick. Leaving a woman to do all the dirty work, as usual.’

When the loud ring of a mobile phone broke the unsettling silence down there, Sharon jumped. Dionne Warwick, asking if she knew the way to San Jose. Automatically patted herself down, though her own phone was upstairs by the ice bucket. Moving closer to where the song resonated from. She knew that naff ringtone anywhere. It was Derek’s. She picked up the small white lozenge. Saw that there was an incoming call from Dermot Robinson. The Porn King.

‘Hello, Mr Robinson,’ Sharon said, holding Derek’s greasy phone close to her ear but not against her skin. Dirty bugger never washed his hands enough. Thumb prints on the screen made her skin prickle with distaste. ‘Sharon. Yes. Behind the bar. That’s right. I’m good, thanks. No, I ain’t seen him for about half an hour,’ she told the Porn King, who sounded disgruntled that his minion had not picked up. ‘Yeah, he was here when I arrived. No idea, love. Yes, this is his phone. He never normally goes nowhere without his phone, though. He can’t be far. He’ll turn up like a bad penny.’ She affected a friendly laugh, though Derek’s absence was anything but amusing. ‘He always does.’