The Make

world and know that there was sickness out there, and madness, and she wouldn’t be able to rest easy if . . .

If she didn’t do something right now.

Deano was stepping out into the alley beside Lefty. All Deano’s attention was focused on the car. Mona looked at Deano, at the sheer size and bulk of him, at the high-toned way he was dressed – his camel-hair coat expensive, his suit Savile Row, his shoes shone to a high gloss – but inside, inside, she knew he was filthy, stinking, corrupt.

She closed her eyes, breathed deep, suppressed the urge to act. Thought of her baby Josie, sweet little child . . . oh, but what if this ever happened to Josie? What if some sick bastard wanted her, the way Deano wanted this boy here? And what if someone stood by and did nothing when Josie needed help? What would she think of that person? That person would be scum, as bad as any nonce.

The decision was instant, crazy, manic.

Mona reached across the unconscious boy and slammed the door shut. The interior light went out. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Deano and Lefty had stopped moving, startled. Her heart was beating very fast: was she going to have a heart attack? She felt sick, enervated, jumpy. She was going to do it.

Lefty was hurrying forward now. So was Deano.

Holy shit.

Mona scrabbled at the keys in the ignition. Her fingers felt clumsy all of a sudden, they didn’t feel like her own nimble hands at all. She fumbled and gripped the key and turned it. The engine fired straight away. She threw the car into reverse.

But Deano was already there at the passenger door. Mona fumbled again, found the central locking. The lock on the passenger door and on her own clonked down. Thunk.

Then Lefty reached in through the open window beside her and grabbed her by the throat.

Mona let out a half-strangled yell as he shook her. His other hand came in and fastened over the front of her face. He was cursing, spraying her with saliva, shouting, calling her bitch and cunt.

Gotta get this car moving, she thought, but she couldn’t see and he was throttling her. Spots danced in front of her eyes. This was all going horribly wrong. She heard the glass shatter on the passenger window and now she could see to her horror that Deano’s big meaty hands were coming inside the car, knocking in shards of glass that fell in a glittering cascade to the floor, reaching in to pull Alfie out.

Mona felt Lefty’s hand over her mouth. She opened her mouth wide and bit down as hard as she could, tasting blood and feeling the gristly crunch as her teeth almost met in the middle. Lefty shrieked. His hands were suddenly gone.

Whimpering to herself in a paroxysm of fear, Mona found herself staring into the shark eyes of Deano, who was leaning in to get Alfie. Moving automatically now, her throat hurting, crying with terror, Mona slipped off the handbrake and the car shot backwards down the alley.

Deano fell away, his roar of rage coming after her, but he had Alfie half out of the car and the impetus of its movement took Alfie all the way out.

Shit.

She’d wanted so much to save the kid, but it was not to be. She saw Lefty floundering in the headlights, clutching his hand, but he was a junkie, he wasn’t really feeling it, and now he was coming, he was running after her. She hadn’t saved the boy and if she wasn’t damned careful she wasn’t going to save herself either; they would both be fucked.

Oh Christ oh shit oh help.

The car careered back down the alley and hurtled out into the main road. Mona felt a teeth-jarring crash and glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw that she’d struck another car side-on. Lefty was still coming, running around to her side of the car. He was leaning in again. There were horns blaring, people shouting, Lefty right there with her, his curses raining down on her; it was all crazy, she felt that she was crazy, and oh shit she had to get that window shut.

She threw the car into first. Lefty was craning right in now, slapping and punching at her with his bloody hands, trying to get the keys out of the ignition. Mona, screaming and crying in fright and rage, pressed the electric window switch and it slid up.

Lefty was still leaning in as Mona shot forwards along the main road, honking crazily at the other cars to get out of the way. She saw a red light, there was traffic stopping, there was a stationary car right in front of her. She couldn’t stop; she couldn’t ease up for a moment because, if she did, Lefty would get her. She threw the wheel over and smashed down the side of the stationary car.

Metal screamed. So did Mona.

She bounced off that car and hit a bollard.

Then she was hurling the car around a right turn, more red lights, fuck, there were cars shrieking toward her, horns blaring, drivers swerving, the scream of tyres as they tried to avoid her, Lefty still clinging on to the side of her car, his head inside, his arms out, and she saw a huge truck coming toward her, she was too close, she was going to hit it.

Almost in slow motion she saw the huge shape of the thing coming at her. She wrestled with the wheel but it was too late. She hit the truck on one side, felt the crunch and the grind of metal, felt the shuddering, jarring impact of it all through the car.

Jesus, that was close.

She’d nearly killed them both. Shivering and crying with terror, she drove on. Lefty was quiet now, but still hanging on, his head trapped there by the electric window. And now Mona decided what she was going to have to do. She was going to confess, tell them what Lefty had done, burying the body, killing the cab driver, everything, and that Deano had the boy. Frightened as she was of the police, these awful people frightened her even more.

She drove until she found a police station, then she pulled up outside and clambered over and out the hole where the passenger door window used to be. She fell to the hard pavement, jolting every bone in her body. She crouched there a moment, beyond terror, beyond all sense.

She had to get help.

Her head spinning, feeling close to passing out, she stepped out in front of the car and looked at Lefty. She put a hand over her mouth. Then she turned away and, slowly at first, almost drunkenly, staggering and sobbing but then speeding up, driven by panic, Mona started to run away from the police station, towards home, towards safety.

The two PCs were just coming off duty when they saw the battered remains of the car parked haphazardly outside the station. They looked closer.

‘Fuck me,’ said one of them.

Trapped by its neck, by the electric window mechanism on the driver’s side, was a human head. There was blood spattered all down the outside of the car. There was no body; only Lefty’s head remained there, ripped off at the neck, his eyes open and staring blankly at nothing.

Chapter 58

Lorcan took Gracie back to the apartment over the casino, after they’d dropped Suze back at Vera’s.

‘There’s nothing to be gained by staying here,’ he said at the hospital. ‘They’ll phone us if there are any developments.’

And there he was again, taking charge, dominating everyone around him. Including her. She didn’t like it, she had never liked it, but right now it gave her a feeling of safety – and that she was grudgingly willing to accept.

They were inside the apartment, the lights low, music playing. A Christmas tree was lit beside the fire. Gracie looked up at the mistletoe as they came in, and she caught Lorcan’s slight smile.

‘No,’ she said firmly, moving away. ‘When you kiss me, you know I can’t think straight.’

‘Damn, and I thought that was a good thing,’ said Lorcan, pulling her into his arms anyway.