The Make

careless.

But she was glad he hadn’t. A woman’s voice with a posh accent was saying ‘Welcome. You have email.’ Gracie clicked on ‘Read’. There were thirty-two emails waiting there. She sighed and went to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and came back with it. Then, methodically, feeling like a sneak thief, she started reading through her brother’s mail. It was a revelation.

There was junk among the mail, of course; there always was. Spam and offers to ‘expand your member’ – yeah, even she got those. But there were other things, lots of other things, all intriguing, all bewildering. She glanced over at the window. The light was starting to go. It was nearly three fifteen and already the winter’s night was closing in, and with it were coming great, yellow-grey clouds. There was a dusting of snow coming down out there again. She clicked on the Anglepoise lamp beside the computer, and read on.

What puzzled her most were the emails from all these women. Saying things like ‘fabulous service, can’t thank you enough’ and ‘will use you again, very pleased’.

Use him again for what?

And Harry wasn’t exempt from this roll call either. The women mentioned both Harry and George by name. Fascinating. And these obviously weren’t girlfriends. These were people who had clearly paid for a service.

She drank her tea, sitting back, staring at the screen, her mind whirling. Then she got up, went to the window. The snow was coming down harder and it was starting to settle. She could see bigger flakes in the car headlights passing on the road, could see a pristine carpet of white on the feeble stretch of lawn at the front of the block. Shivering a little, although it was warm in here, she flicked the blinds down and went back to the computer. Stared at the screen.

They’d been providing a service.

To women.

Gracie was drawing the only, the obvious, conclusion. On impulse she Googled George Doyle. Google came up with a maths professor; a chain of gents’ outfitters; an estate agency in Pembrokeshire . . . and George Doyle who ran the ‘hottest male escort agency in the whole of London’.

George, she thought. You little bastard. What you been up to this time?

She left George’s room and went through to Harry’s. Started throwing open cupboards, yanking out drawers. It didn’t take her long to find Harry’s stash, which looked to her highly trained, casino-boss’s eye to be at least equal in amount to George’s.

She went back into George’s room, looked at the screen-saver of her happy, healthy-looking brothers, mucking about with their little blond pal. What’s been going on here? she wondered. She clicked on and the screensaver vanished; there were the emails again. She selected the gushing-with-praise ones from the women. Then she looked in ‘Recently deleted emails’ and found a whole stack of them in there, too. There were so many. She picked a few at random. Jackie Sullivan. Laura Dixon. Jemma Houghton. Melissa Whitehead. Oh . . . and this was interesting. Sandy Cole was here. Gracie sat and thought about that. Sandy had been a client . . . and now she was engaged to George.

She printed them all, and turned off the computer. Her mobile started to ring. She picked up.

‘Hello?’

‘Gracie, can you come over?’ said her mother’s voice.

Gracie looked at the phone. Then she said: ‘What the hell for? So you can have another go about me coming on to your boyfriend? I don’t think so.’

‘Shut up, Gracie, this is serious. Get over here, will you?’ said Suze, sounding fraught.

Gracie heard the tension in Suze’s voice. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Just get over here, for the love of God. Just for once in your life, will you do what I ask you to?’

‘It’s snowing,’ said Gracie.

‘Please!’ howled Suze, and then she started to cry.

Despite herself, Gracie felt alarm shoot up her spine. She stood up. ‘What’s going on? Is Claude there with you? You’re not on your own, are you?’

‘Please just come over,’ sobbed Suze.

‘I’m coming, all right? I’m coming. Don’t worry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Chapter 31

23 December

Gracie got a taxi over to her mum’s place. It was a long, hard journey and the driver moaned copiously throughout the trip. The traffic was a nightmare and the wheels spun and slipped on the blanket of snow.

‘This lot’s gonna freeze overnight,’ he told her. ‘You seen a gritter out here? I ain’t. It’ll be a bastard tomorrow.’

Inching through the traffic, he told her all about how mass immigration was ruining the country, how the Labour Party hadn’t turned out to be New Labour at all, just old Labour repackaged. And look at the fucking mess they were in now.

Gracie kept her opinions to herself. She was worried about Suze. She phoned Suze’s number on the way over there, but now Suze wasn’t picking up. Anxiety ate at her. All right, she and her mother had never been the best of pals, but she hadn’t liked the frantic edge to Suze’s voice. Something bad had happened. Suze was scared. And, much to her surprise, Gracie found that she wanted to be there, quickly, if only to reassure.

She thought of seeing Claude again. Well, fuck him. He gave her the dry heaves, but she had met a great many creeps in her life and she hadn’t backed away from any of them, not yet. Let them back away. She was fucking-well coming through.

At last she was there. She paid off the driver and crunched through the snow along the pavement and up the little front path leading to Suze’s door. Once there she stopped and stared at it in disbelief.

Suze’s front door looked like some gigantic cat had attacked it. Huge gullies had been cut into the wood, as if a tiger had scraped its massive claws down it. The wood was scored so deeply that in places she could see right through to the hall. Suze’s pathetically cheerful little red-berried Christmas wreath was on the ground, and looked like it had been trampled underfoot by an invading army.

Gracie drew a startled breath, lunged forward and hammered at the door.

‘Mum!’ she yelled. ‘Mum, it’s me. Open up.’

She heard movement from the other side of the door, saw shapes shifting through the vicious score- marks.

‘Who is it?’ came Suze’s tremulous voice.

‘It’s me, it’s Gracie. Come on. Let me in.’

She heard the chain come off, the bolts go back. The door swung open. Suze was standing there, her mascara streaked all to hell, her face sheet-white, her mouth trembling.

‘Oh my God, what’s happened?’ asked Gracie, hurrying forward, taking Suze in her arms.

She hadn’t intended to, but if someone looked this shot away, what else could a person do?

She pushed in, hugging her mother, looking back at the door.

‘What happened to the damned door?’ she asked.

‘Ch-ch-chainsaw,’ said Suze, shuddering.

Gracie’s jaw dropped. Chainsaw?

A hideous chill stole over her. Someone wanted the whole Doyle family to suffer, it was clear. But for what? That was what she couldn’t figure out. All she could think of was George in intensive care, and Harry fuck-knew- where.

‘The damned thing ran out of petrol,’ said Suze, and she gave a semi-hysterical laugh against Gracie’s shoulder. ‘I heard them talking. I was sitting on the stairs. It ran out of petrol, and if it hadn’t . . . if it hadn’t . . .’

Suze was crying again.

Jesus, thought Gracie, horrified.