Trust (5 page)

The old man would look out for all of them until his last breath, but that was about as far as it went these days.

Dean gave her all the time she needed, sitting in the kitchen of this house he’d let her believe was his.

As if he’d have brought her to his own place when he still didn’t know who she was!

This place was a safe house, barely used, but always handy. When you had as many properties as the Bailey Boys had, it made sense to keep one or two aside for those occasions when you might need somewhere neutral.

He took a couple of calls out in the front room, nothing of any consequence, and then when he came back in again she smiled and straightened.

“Ready for the world?”

She nodded. She was putting on a brave face, he knew, and again he found himself leaning towards believing her story.

For a second or two he flashed back to that moment when he’d shut the front door and she’d fallen into his embrace. The feel of her in his arms.

It would have been so easy to just
push
. He knew how she’d have responded – she’d have been a pushover. She’d laughed at him when he said her reaction was an instinctive reaction to danger, but it was true: he’d seen it so many times before.

He’d stopped himself, though. Another instinctive thing, perhaps. He’d done some iffy things in his time. Things that could have put him behind bars for as long as his old man. And it wasn’t beyond him to be a complete shit if he chose to do so.

But at heart he was an old-fashioned boy. He had a code.

Another thing she’d laughed at: when he said the Russians didn’t have class.

Dean Bailey had class.

He had class engraved on his heart.

§

He wasn’t quite sure why he’d asked her out for food, and maybe even for Lee’s fight this evening if she was still around.

Oh, he could come up with plenty of justifications. There would be all kinds of people there tonight. Lots of undercurrents, lots of edge. Maybe he wanted to scare her. Maybe he thought he could confront her with a few truths she might not know how to handle:
this
was his world, the world she’d stumbled into, the one she was asking all sorts of questions about... these were the people that populated this world – go back to your handlers in the police or the Russian mob or wherever and tell them
that
, if you want to.

The truth was a lot simpler than that.

Dean Bailey was enjoying himself.

Sure, Jess was easy on the eye in all kinds of ways, and the thought of that moment by the front door being taken further was a nice one to entertain. More than that, though, she was easy company. There was something about the way that, even when she was in shock and trembling she had balls enough to take the piss when most people who knew Dean wouldn’t dare.

But when it came down to it, Dean was enjoying the game. The give and take of the questions, the steady unraveling of who she was and what she really wanted.

So he would take her to Yiamas where they would be sure to roll out the special treatment, because after what happened to Dougie Flowers people like Kostas Nikolaidis had really come to appreciate the protection of the Bailey Boys again. And by the end of the meal he’d have made his mind up about her.

Outside, there was a chill to the early evening air, although it was still light, the sun hanging low over the rooftops. A short way down the street one of Ronnie’s boys was just finishing taping something over the empty drivers’ side window of the Beamer, a tow-truck blocking the road.

Dean went over and tossed his cousin the keys, then turned to Jess. “We can walk,” he said. “Greek do you okay? There’s a place I know called Yiamas, not far from here.”

“Greek’s good, thanks,” she said. She seemed subdued now. Another stage in the immediate aftermath of shock. Maybe just feeling exposed stepping outside again for the first time after Putin’s clumsy posturing. Get a few drinks in her and she’d be all right soon enough. Some Agiorgitiko, a drop of ouzo, maybe some Metaxa.

He offered her his arm, deliberately over-doing the gallantry and winning a smile. Then he reminded himself he had ulterior motives, and they weren’t
those
ulterior motives for once.

“So,” he said, as they started to walk, “you going to tell me about yourself? About your family? You’ve already told me your gran was engaged to my granddad once upon a time. What about your parents? What do they think of you coming down here on a wild goose chase?”

He didn’t make it obvious that he was studying her closely for a reaction. Just corner of the eye stuff, but he was watching.

And she reacted.

Her lower lip twitched, her jaw clenched, and she looked him full on as she said, “They don’t think anything. They’re dead. Killed in a car crash a year and a half ago when some meth-head joyrider drove them off the road. Now will you stop pretending you don’t know shit like that and stop fucking
testing
me?”

“Fair enough,” he said, nodding. He marked that one up in favor of her being the genuine article, and reminded himself to be more subtle in his testing of her from now on.

§

The food turned out to be a good idea. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d just sat there and pushed it around a plate, but they ordered a seafood mezze and after a moment’s hesitation she reached for a piece of calamari, smiled, and it was as if he could see the weight lifting from her shoulders.

“You don’t trust me,” she said. “That’s fair enough. I don’t trust you either. I don’t mean that in a bad way, in a way that I think you’re going to hurt me or anything, but just... I don’t know
what
you are. Does that make sense?”

Dean took a prawn and snapped it against the curve of its back, then started to peel it.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “If you’re what you say you are then I reckon Phil and Stella would have kept you protected from the reality of people like me.” He noted her flinch when he spoke her parents’ names, revealing that he knew exactly who she claimed to be. “They made that choice, turned their back on this life and trust me, nobody ever held that against them.”

He reached across and touched the back of her hand. Waited for her to meet his look, then said, “I’m sorry. Dragging that up. Your parents and all. I shouldn’t have used that. I was just trying to rattle you, but it was out of order.”

Jess shrugged. She was out of her leather jacket and hoodie combo now, just a flimsy vest top that revealed the tattoos across her shoulders. Twisting vines and roses, a blackbird peering out from behind the foliage. It was hard not to stare, not to wonder what else she might have concealed, particularly when she moved like that: the slight shrug of the shoulders, the tossing of the blond hair which was a few shades darker at the roots.

She was staring at him. At first he thought she must have caught his eyes roaming, then he realized she’d said something he’d missed.

“I said, ‘So why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?’ Do you remember me now, from when we used to come and visit?”

He shrugged, lifting his hands, then reaching for a piece of flatbread. Buying time, while he worked out how much to concede, how hard to push. He didn’t know what he was really digging for any more... the game seemed to have shifted.

“I knew of Phil and Stella,” he said carefully. “They were names that were bandied about. Can’t say I really knew them, or remember them that well, let alone any kids they might have had. Sorry!” Hands raised again, this time apologetically. “Like you say: back in the day, when we had a get-together we did it properly. Lots of people, always a different mix. I loved all that. Shame things aren’t like that any more, you know?”

“So what’s it like now?”

He studied her again, but couldn’t read anything from those innocent features. Couldn’t work out if he was being skillfully interrogated, or if she was just a nosy cow.

“It’s like what you saw earlier,” he said, keeping it simple.

“You telling me that was a typical day at the office?”

Another shrug. “Not far off, actually. Only it’s not usually
my
motor that gets the treatment.” He took a sip of the dark red Agiorgitiko that Kostas always kept aside for him.

“No more big family gatherings?”

“There’s one tonight, if you fancy it?”

He needed to watch this, he realized. This wasn’t like him at all.

He never let anyone get too close – he’d been stung before – and yet now, without even thinking it through, he was doing whatever he could to draw this out, keep her here.

It was a fool’s game, and he made his mind up not to get drawn in any deeper, not to acknowledge how his gut tightened in a most unnerving way when she tipped her head to one side, raised her eyebrows, and said, “I might just do that.”

We lingered over the food as it started to grow dark outside. He left me a couple of times, once to take another phone call, raising his mobile apologetically until I waved him away, and another time when two guys in suits came in and approached nervously.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, when he came back the second time. “Never get a minute’s peace. I
told
them I was entertaining...”

The place itself was unnerving. The way the waiting staff fawned over us the moment we set foot through the door, the way the man who must have been the owner appeared straight away and led us to a table at the back.

The way my mind was working was even more unsettling. The little details that were beginning to make sense to me.

Like how I’d normally choose to sit by a window where I could see the world pass by, but a man who has guns pulled on him in broad daylight would be far better off with a table like this one, tucked away at the back.

Like how I understood that the way these people treated Dean was a mixture I both immediately recognized yet had never encountered before: they seemed to like and respect him, the owner treated him as a friend, they wanted him to be here, and yet... who would ever look upon a friend with that hint of fear in the eye?

Dean Bailey was trouble, and everyone knew it.

I should leave at the first opportunity. This wasn’t my world, and it was quite staggering to hear him talk as if it clearly
had
been the world of my parents and grandparents.

I never wanted to find myself thinking that any of this was
normal
.

And yet when he asked if I fancied coming along to some kind of family gathering after dinner, I didn’t immediately make my excuses and say I was tired or had a long drive to get home. I was intrigued, and probably more than a little drawn to the nostalgic memories of those old family gatherings when I’d come here as a child.

And a part of me was intrigued: about this world, and about my family’s history here, but also by Dean Bailey himself – part gentleman, part cold-blooded gangster.

It was a fascination I’d never known before.

After dinner, we emerged into the cool evening air. I felt strangely relaxed, no doubt helped by that rich, dark wine we’d had, and the shots of some unidentifiable spirit the owner had brought out at the end.

I didn’t miss the way Dean surveyed the street as we stepped out, though, an automatic response for him. I didn’t doubt him at all now: he lived in a world where it was the expected thing to do to check the street for danger.

Almost as soon as we emerged a black Lexus pulled up nearby. Dean reached for the door, swung it open, and gestured for me to get in. Seconds later, he’d come round and was sitting beside me. The seats were deep, soft like a hug. Danger had its compensations, it seemed.

“My cousin, Ronnie, laid on some transport for us while the Beamer’s off the road,” he told me.

“So what kind of gathering is this?” I asked, as the car pulled away.

“One unlike anything you’ll have seen before,” said Dean with a chuckle.

§

It wasn’t a long car ride, taking us somewhere out east by the river, near to the M25.

Dean wasn’t talkative, so I was left to stare out into the night, suddenly aware of the nerves jangling again. How had I ended up in the back of a limo with someone like Dean Bailey, and not even knowing where we were going?

As the car pulled off onto a slip-road that looped back and under the dual carriageway, Dean turned to me and said, “Sorry. Long day. Lost in thought.”

For a moment I wasn’t so sure. Did someone like him ever switch off and get lost in thought? Then I realized that maybe I wasn’t alone in my reactions of earlier, and maybe the shock was finally kicking in for him, too. He’d had a gun pointed right in his face, after all.

Not only that, but his first reaction had been to shield me.

I reached out, found his hand, squeezed. “It’s okay,” I said.

Just then the car pulled up at a tall gate that was topped with barbed wire. We were in some kind of industrial strip by the river, hard to tell whether it was being redeveloped or was merely abandoned.

A guy stepped out of the shadows and spoke to our driver, then went to the gate and swung it wide.

Dean had been right: already this looked totally unlike any kind of family gathering I’d been to before.

What was he taking me to? Suddenly I was very aware of just how suspicious he’d been of me, how he didn’t seem to believe me when I explained who I was and why I was here.

What
was
this?

The car threaded its way through a warren of industrial units, until we were well away from the main road, then when it swung around the corner of another warehouse I saw thirty or more cars parked in an open area.

Not just any cars, these were top of the range, none of them more than a couple of years old apart from a vintage Rolls Royce parked off to one side, and a Daimler pulled up next to it.

I still didn’t understand what was going on, but I felt guilty now for doubting him, for that flash of panic moments before.

Light spilled out from another warehouse by the parking area, and when we stepped out of the car – Dean rushed round to hold the door and take my hand – a steady pulse of bass-line and drums tugged at the evening air.