Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘The police are going to come calling over the car, for sure,’ said Tony when they were sitting in the drawing room.

‘So? I tell them the truth. It’s all legal, as far as I’m concerned,’ said Annie.

‘Yeah, but someone bombed it out. They’re going to wonder.’

‘They can wonder. They’ve been wondering for years. So what?’

Tony was silent for a while. She’d just filled him in on the news about Orla, and about Layla nearly getting herself abducted in the park. Layla was chewing a fingernail, saying nothing.

Annie started ticking off items on her fingers. So long as she kept thinking, trying to reason all this out, then she wasn’t panicking, she wasn’t losing it – and losing it was only a heartbeat, only a single moment of lapsed concentration, away.

‘Three things: Layla in the park. Orla in here last night. The car bomb today.’

‘For God’s sake, how can you be so damned casual about it?’ Layla slammed her hand down on the armrest.

‘What do you want me to do? Run around screaming?’

‘At least that would prove you’re not totally made of wood,’ snapped Layla.

Though obviously uncomfortable about the bickering, Tony kept quiet. It wasn’t his place to interfere in Carter family business.

‘Layla, honey,’ said Annie more reasonably, ‘we have to keep thinking here. Someone’s trying to get to us. The minute we cave in, we’re done for.’

‘Well, I’m caving in,’ Layla cried. ‘I should be in work today, doing VAT returns, and instead I’m sitting here discussing the fact that I’ve murdered someone, and that someone else has just tried to murder you . It’s insane.’

‘Insane or not, hard to take in or not, it’s happening ,’ said Annie. ‘So we have to deal with it.’

‘ We? This isn’t the sort of thing I deal with. I wish I’d gone ahead and called the police last night, like I wanted to. Let them deal with it.’

‘That would be a bad move,’ said Tony.

‘Hear that?’ Annie pointed a finger at Tony while staring at her daughter. ‘Do you hear that? Those are wise words. No police. We don’t ever mention what happened last night to the police, you got that?’

‘But the car-’

‘The car, that’s OK. They’ll trace it to me, and I’ll handle it. No sweat.’

‘Someone died-’

‘The bastard who was planting the bomb! Good riddance!’ Maybe that would be an end to it. Maybe the bomber was Redmond, and it would all be over now? But deep down Annie wasn’t convinced. Bombs didn’t seem like Redmond’s style.

‘They’ll find it odd that you left the scene, won’t they?’

‘I panicked,’ said Annie.

‘You? I don’t think so.’ Layla folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself as if she were cold.

‘Look, here’s what’ll happen: you’ll stay off work-’

‘No, I-’

‘You’re staying off work,’ repeated Annie more firmly. ‘Until we know what we’re dealing with, you’re going to a safer place with secur-’

‘No!’ said Layla.

‘I don’t want any arguments about this.’

Layla was silent a moment, brooding. Her mother was repeating the same old patterns that had dogged her all through childhood. All Annie had ever done was send her away. She was an adult now, but nothing had changed: she was sending her away again .

‘The police will come soon, won’t they?’ said Layla. She doubted her own ability to front this out as her mother could. She was afraid she would crumble and confess everything.

‘You won’t be here when they do. Which is another good reason for placing you elsewhere.’

Annie was right. Layla could see that.

‘Get some stuff together, Tony will drive you, and I’ll get one of the boys to stay with you. And you don’t tell anyone, not even your closest friend, where you’re going. OK?’

‘I don’t know where I’m going.’

‘You know what I mean.’

Layla stood up. She didn’t have any close friends. All she had were work colleagues. When she’d been a child, it hadn’t taken long before the parents of other kids in her class got wind of the fact that the Carters’ wealth came from disreputable sources. Inevitably the rumours would begin circulate as the respectable parents – doctors, lawyers, academics – dug deeper. The gang rumours. The brothel rumours. So they’d steer their children away from Layla. This had gone on, all through school, through college, even into work.

‘OK,’ she sighed.

‘Good.’ Annie and Tony stood up.

Layla went to the door, and paused there.

‘I suppose I ought to tell you…’ she said.

‘Tell me what?’ asked Annie.

‘I phoned Dad.’

‘Hiya, honeybunch,’ said Ellie Brown, throwing her arms wide as Layla came up the stairs to the upper floor of the Shalimar.

‘Hi, Ellie,’ said Layla gloomily, getting to the top stair and being enfolded in Ellie’s cuddlesome perfumed warmth.

She’d seen her cousin Jimmy Junior downstairs behind the bar, where he worked tossing cocktails and flirting with the girls. He’d shot her a puzzled grin, clearly wondering what she was doing here. She was wondering that, herself.

‘Your mum told me to expect you,’ said Ellie, kissing Layla’s cheek.

‘Hi, Layla,’ said Chris, Ellie’s big, ugly but good-hearted husband, taking her overnight bag. ‘Come on in. Hey Tone. Keeping OK?’

‘Fine,’ said Tony, bringing up the rear. ‘You?’

‘Yeah, not bad.’

‘Let me show you your room,’ said Ellie, and Layla followed her with a heavy heart along a plainly decorated hallway. She thought how noticeable it was, the difference between the opulence of the tiger-skin-and-gold club downstairs and the austere magnolia neatness of the upper floor. But Annie was right – this place was thick with muscle, guarding the door, monitoring the safety of the girls who worked here. The club was tight .

‘Here we go,’ said Ellie, opening a door.

They entered a room with a double bed, dressing table, wardrobe and a small TV. Chris placed her bag on the bed, then withdrew.

‘Loo’s just across the hall there,’ said Ellie, flinging back the curtains to let the sun in.

Layla went and peered out of the window. Below, there was a busy road lined with parked cars. Downstairs there was glamour, luxury, champagne on tap. Up here, there were no fancy trimmings. But it was neat and clean. Ellie showed her along the hall to the office, the monitor room, the girls’ dressing room.

‘It’s like bloody Fort Knox, this place,’ said Ellie with a smile. ‘Nice and secure.’

Layla nodded. She knew that Ellie had once run a far more down-market establishment in Limehouse. A knocking-shop, not to put too fine a point on it. Since then she’d gone up in the world.

‘Did Mum tell you what happened?’ asked Layla, when they’d returned from the grand tour and Ellie was bustling around, making sure everything was in order in the bedroom.

Ellie was a big woman, stocky in middle age and comfortable with it. She wore flattering business skirt suits in peacock blue, red and purple, no accessories. It was the red today, and it suited her. She dyed her hair a fetching mid-brown and kept it tucked up neatly in a chignon. Her nails were short and well manicured. Her skin was as clear as a twenty-year-old’s, her manner confident and smiling.

‘Annie told me there’d been a bit of trouble and she wanted you out of it,’ said Ellie. ‘That’s all.’

I am standing in a room over a lap-dancing club, thought Layla morosely. I should be at work filling in tax returns, and instead I am standing in a room over a lap-dancing club .