The Make

caught on a choked sob. ‘Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him Em sends her love.’

Alfie stood up. ‘Getting another drink,’ he mumbled, and went off to join the queue.

‘Look, we mustn’t do anything stupid,’ said Gracie, looking at Lorcan. She knew how impetuous he could be.

‘What, we got to sit around while that gobshite runs rings around us?’ he challenged her.

‘No, but—’

‘No,’ snapped Lorcan. ‘Fuck that for a plan. If Drax had that fire started—’

‘What fire?’ butted in Suze.

‘There was a fire at Gracie’s casino,’ he told her. ‘She could have been killed.’

‘Yeah, but I wasn’t,’ said Gracie firmly, not wanting Lorcan to go off on one and put himself at risk. ‘Jesus, will you calm down? I wasn’t even there. Drax knew I wasn’t. He had someone watching me, he knew I lived elsewhere.’

Lorcan looked unconvinced. ‘So he set light to your property instead,’ he said angrily. ‘Look, we know he hurt George. He nearly killed him. We’re near as dammit sure he’s got Harry somewhere. He’s attacked you. He’s tried to attack Suze. That bastard wants stopping.’

Sandy was looking round with disparaging eyes. ‘Where’s that cheeky little sod gone?’ she asked of no one in particular.

Gracie tore her eyes away from Lorcan. ‘What?’

‘You don’t think he knows more than he’s saying?’ said Suze.

‘Who, Alfie? Like what?’ queried Gracie. Lorcan’s hot words had unsettled and distracted her. She had to drag her attention back to Suze.

‘Like . . . oh, I don’t know. I just think he’s hiding something, that’s all. I could be totally wrong.’ Suze was staring at the queue now. ‘He’s not in the queue,’ she said. ‘Where is he . . .?’

Now they were all looking at the queue of customers at the kiosk. Alfie wasn’t among them.

Lorcan stood up. ‘Shit. I’ll go look for him.’

Gracie watched him go anxiously. Within five minutes, he was back.

‘He’s not in the loos or anywhere,’ said Lorcan. ‘Looks like he’s taken off.’

‘Huh! Didn’t like the company, I suppose,’ said Sandy acidly.

Alfie couldn’t stand another moment in the hospital. His mind was in a whirl. He’d been knocked sideways by the sight of George reviving; hopeful and horrified and just wishing the George he loved would come back to him again. But what would come back? A shell? His stomach was churning with the worry of it all. And that girl, Sandy what’sher-face, saying she and George were engaged – what sort of shit was that? Had George been lying to him, was George in fact cheating on him with that dumb bitch?

No, he had to get out of there. Had to take his mind off it all or start screaming and be unable to stop. He caught the tube and then walked through the dark icy streets, all strung with Christmas lights and full of last-minute shoppers, to the casino. He went to the back entrance, where all the staff clocked in every day, hoping for a sight of one of his many workmates to chat to, and it was then, right then, that he was grabbed from behind. Something noxious was slapped over his nose and mouth. There was a strong chemical scent and a feeling of falling, tumbling end over end into darkness. And then – nothing.

Chapter 57

‘For fuck’s sake, what you done to him?’ Mona wailed, shivering and shuddering behind the wheel of her little car, which was now a vehicle involved in criminal activities, in murder, in moving bodies to their grave. And the nightmare wasn’t over yet. After he’d buried the body, he’d had her drive across town. They’d parked up. Lefty got out and she thought, Drive away, I’ll just drive away, but she couldn’t, she didn’t have the nerve.

When Lefty came back to the car with something slung over his shoulder, she thought: No, please God no, not again, not another body.

‘I ain’t done nothing to him,’ said Lefty, grunting with effort as he dropped Alfie into the passenger seat. ‘Shit, how can anyone as small as that weigh so much?’ he complained, grimacing and straightening. He’d pulled a muscle in his back or something, it was painful. He took a quick toke of the butane and felt better, anaesthetized. Anaesthetized, just like Alfie.

Mona was looking with fear-filled eyes at the blond teenager slumped beside her in the car. His head was down on his chest; he was out of it. Was he dead? She didn’t trust Lefty not to have killed again. Killing was what this sick bastard did. And how the hell had she got herself involved in this? She was up to her neck in it now and, oh sweet Jesus, she wanted out.

She peered at the boy while Lefty walked around outside the car, massaging his back and swearing constantly. The boy was breathing. She could see that, and it steadied her, made her feel just a fraction better. But only a fraction.

The boy was alive.

But with Lefty involved, how long before he wound up dead like the others?

Lefty, lit by the headlights, was strolling around in front of the car. Cursing. Pulling the can out, taking another whiff. Rubbing his back. And while he was doing that, she could . . . she could slam the passenger door shut and lock the doors, close the electric window on her side because she’d driven with it open, it was freezing, her whole body was cold, but the fresh air was better than the Lefty-induced fug inside the car.

But now the moment when she could have acted, could have stopped this, had passed. Lefty was coming back to the car, pushing in beside the boy, Christ, she could hardly reach the gear stick or the handbrake. Now she wondered what she could have been thinking. Give the mad bastard half a reason to, and he’d do her too.

But you’d be saving the boy’s life, whispered in her brain.

Oh yeah. And what about hers? Were there any medals being dished out here for heroes? She didn’t think so.

‘Drive,’ said Lefty, tense and fidgety with blind purpose. ‘Go on. Back to the club.’

So she drove.

* * *

And now here they were, back in the alley beside the club, where it still thrummed with music like the heartbeat of an animal. Mona stopped the car at the side door and Lefty got out. The boy was still unconscious, his head slumped forward. She tried not to look at him. Tried not to think about what was going to happen to him.

The door into the back of the club was opening. Caught in the bright glare of Mona’s headlights, Lefty walked around the front of the car again. A big figure loomed in the club doorway.

Deano, she thought, and shuddered.

Lefty was talking to him, his movements both placatory and entreating.

Horrible little worm.

She saw Deano’s big bowling-ball head turn and felt his dark cold eyes resting on the car. Mona shrank down in her seat, feeling her guts shrivel with disgust and fear. She knew he must see Alfie in there; the interior light was on because the passenger door was open, and Alfie was completely exposed – and so was she.

How the fuck did I get into any of this? Mona wondered again, and cursed the day she’d been roped into Lefty’s twisted little world.

But she could get out of it.

She could get the boy out of it too.

Again that little voice was whispering in her mind, telling her she could do it, she could do it.

Crazy.

It was a mad idea, and she had to forget it. Just let them take the boy inside and she’d go home, home to her baby and her mother, home to normality and goodness, or at least to the illusion of it, because she knew this was going to haunt her. She would see forever this young blond boy in her mind, being dragged and dumped and brought back to Deano to do with as he would. She would look out from her cosy little