Dirty Game

Queenie died. At that point Max had taken it off the market. He refused to discuss getting rid of the old mausoleum now. It gave Jonjo the creeps to come here. He kept expecting his mum to appear at the door.

They were all here. Him and Max. Jimmy Bond and Gary Tooley and Steven Taylor. Several other staunch men, all trusted lieutenants. Deaf Derek was down the bottom there, looking sullen since Jonjo had to give him a slapping over the Eddie business. Derek should have looked after Eddie better, thought Jonjo, watching the little bastard with distaste. If it hadn’t been for Max’s intervention, the little fucker would have had a lot more than a slap. Jackie Tulliver was there too, smoking his bloody horrible cigars. All the boys were neatly dressed and wearing black armbands. It was nice that they were showing respect, but Jonjo would have expected no less of them at a time like this.

But Max. Max was as always immaculately turned out, in a black Savile Row suit, white shirt and black tie. His black vicuna coat, lined with purple silk, was laid over the back of his chair. Max’s eyes looked blank. Granted, Max had taken the brunt of Eddie’s death, he’d been on the spot when it happened. Jonjo felt bad about that, but he’d been carrying on with business while Max stayed down there in Surrey. Someone had to mind the fucking shop, didn’t they?

And Jonjo knew he’d been doing good. The parlours were all running smoothly, the clubs were fine, all the halls and shops and arcades who paid protection to the Carters were behaving themselves and paying up promptly. There had been no insurrections, no lack of respect that would have had to be instantly cracked down on; no trouble at all. Well, some. The Maltese were always acting heavy and needing a sharp slap, but so what? Same old shit, easily dealt with.

The dummy fiver and tenner plates he’d bought off Kyle Fox in The Grapes had been sold on to one of the Manchester mobs at a good profit. There were lots of new opportunities opening up in the West End and all the gangs were eager to get their slice of the action. The Barolli family from America had come over recently and there’d been a satisfactory meet. Constantine Barolli’s mob now paid the Carter firm three thousand sovs a quarter to keep any rough elements out of their Knightsbridge businesses.

Rough elements like the Delaneys, for instance.

The American mob had been very courteous to Max and Jonjo. The brothers had wined and dined Constantine Barolli and his family, and the Barollis had in turn introduced Max and Jonjo to George Raft and Judy Garland. Big stars. They were mixing with the best these days. Eddie had loved meeting all the stars, he’d been in his element. It pained Jonjo badly to know that Eddie wouldn’t get to do any of that any more.

Jonjo watched his older brother sitting there, blank-faced. Eddie’s death had hit Max like a fucking pick handle. Max seemed to have lost his hunger for the business, maybe even for life itself. Jonjo hated to see him this way. He’d tried to brace the poor sod up, but no go.

Now Jonjo knew he had to say something. He wasn’t the type to mess-ass about. Better to spit it out, say what he felt.

‘We should do something about what happened to Eddie,’ he said, broaching the subject that everyone else in the room was afraid to bring up. There was a murmur of assent from most of the other boys. Silence, of course, from Deaf Derek. Jonjo shook out one of his Player’s, lit up and kicked back in his chair to look at Max.

‘If we don’t, it’ll be seen as weakness,’ he said.

Max was silent. He was staring at his clasped hands on the tabletop as if he might find answers there.

‘Torch the place where it happened,’ suggested Gary.

‘Do a few of their shop-owners,’ said Steven.

Jimmy Bond, Max’s most trusted lieutenant, said nothing.

Everyone in the room knew that ‘they’ were the Delaneys. Every one of them believed that this had been Delaney work. Even Max.

‘Well fucking say something,’ said Jonjo angrily.

Abruptly Max stood up. He put his coat on and looked around at them all.

‘There’s nothing to say,’ he said quietly. ‘Not until after we’ve laid Eddie to rest, then we’ll see. Until then, shut it the lot of you.’

‘What about the heist, Max?’ asked Jimmy.

Max paused. Over the past few weeks they had been discussing a planned heist on a department store that paid protection to the Delaneys; they’d been going to hit it in January, after the Christmas rush and the January sales, but all this shit had hit the fan over Eddie and now it looked like it was going to have to be next year instead.

‘It’ll keep,’ said Max.

And he left the room. They all listened, gob-smacked, as he went down the stairs and out the front door. There was an uneasy silence. Then Deaf Derek once again lived up to his reputation of being a prat.

‘Word on the street is that Mr Carter’s losing it,’ he said.

Stupid fucker, thought the others, although each of them had entertained the same thought over the past few months. Jonjo moved fast, launching himself down the table at Derek. In an instant Jonjo had the squirming idiot pinned to the wall and was banging his stupid head against it.

‘What did you say, you ponce?’ roared Jonjo.

‘Nothing!’ bleated Derek. ‘I didn’t say nothing, Jonjo.’

Jonjo gave his head another knock and then nutted him. Derek sank dazed to the floor, where Jonjo put the boot in.

‘Watch your mouth, you cunt,’ said Jonjo, brick-red and bulging-eyed with rage. Then he was following Max out the door and down the stairs. The others sat there shaking their heads and looking at each other. Only Derek would be thick enough to disrespect Max in front of his brother Jonjo.

‘Tosser,’ said Steven, as he passed Derek by.

Gary and Jimmy and the others followed too. Derek sat hugging his guts. All he’d said was the truth. He knew it. And so did they.

20

 Like most, Annie Bailey hated funerals. It was bad enough when a person was old and frail, death wasn’t so hard then. A bit of a mercy, really. But when it was the death of a young man, and a death so bloody and vicious, then you started to say to yourself: if there’s a God, why did he let something like this happen?

When she got up on Friday morning and took a bath and styled her hair, she thought of Eddie. Eddie as she had last seen him, bloody and broken on the bed in Darren’s room. As she dressed she tried to get a grip. Think of happier times, she told herself.

She thought of dancing with Eddie at Max’s and Ruthie’s wedding. It was no good. She remembered not Eddie’s tipsy laughter but the tight misery gripping her throat and chest on that day. Max ignoring her. Ruthie, who should have been so happy, looking distraught and confused. When she’d got home that night, it had been a mercy to lock herself up in her room, alone. Even then there had been no real relief. All she could think about was Max and Ruthie in bed together. All she could feel in her bruised, aching heart was it should have been me.

She put on her neat black suit with the cream piping and gold buttons. It was a Chanel rip-off, elegant and understated, one of Celia’s selections.

‘A Madam may have to mix with whores but she doesn’t have to look like one,’ Celia had always told her. ‘The right clothes give a woman authority.’

Annie looked in the mirror and knew that Celia was correct. She put on the black pillbox hat she’d bought specially, and black stockings, black court shoes. Her dark hair she tucked up in a neat chignon. She picked up her bag and went downstairs. Darren was making tea and toast.

‘Want some?’ he asked as she came into the kitchen.

Annie shook her head. ‘I’d throw it straight back up.’

Darren looked her up and down. ‘You look great. I’ll come with you if you want, you know that.’

‘No, I’m best on my own,’ said Annie.