Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘I’ve done all that,’ she said. ‘And you know what? It’s not worth it.’

‘Quite happy with Golden Boy then,’ said Max.

‘I’m not with Golden Boy,’ she said. There was a cramp in her left shoulder. She could feel her temper starting to take hold. ‘I never have been.’

‘Sure.’

‘Alberto’s my stepson.’

‘Yep.’

‘And that’s all,’ she said. She wanted to scream it. She forced herself not to.

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. And actually – if I wanted to “be” with him, as you so tastefully put it, I could whistle for it. Because he doesn’t see me that way.’

Max’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And how does he see you? Exactly?’

‘As his stepmom. Which is what I am. Nothing more, nothing less.’ Annie took a calming breath. He could do this to her, every time. Make her blind with rage, completely lose it. But she wasn’t going to. Not this time. ‘And you know what? I’ve had this out with you already. About a thousand times. And I am not doing it again. So let’s get down to business, shall we? The man who planted the car bomb. Do you think it was Redmond?’

‘Dunno. Bulky and red-haired, that was the description Layla gave me of that fucker in the park, and it matches what the police are saying about the bomber. But Redmond? Not sure. Could have been.’

Annie’s mouth dropped open. ‘What do you mean, it could have been?’ she snapped. ‘Is that the best you can do? You’ve got people crawling all over this city and you say it could have been?’

‘No other sightings,’ he shrugged.

‘Well, let’s not wait for sightings, ’ said Annie sharply. ‘Let’s go to where the Delaneys are likely to be found. Their old houses, clubs, the places they controlled. What about the scrap yard, is that still operational?’

‘We’ve covered that. The scrap yard’s gone, has been for years. Everywhere’s been checked out,’ he said. ‘No sign of Redmond. The boys have lifted quite a few stones, waited to see what crawls out from underneath. Nothing much has, except-’

‘Then we’re sitting ducks! If he realizes Orla’s been taken care of, he’s going to come in all guns blazing.’

‘You going to let me finish? We’ve found a distant Delaney relation called Dickon. We think there’s a cousin too, but we’re having trouble tracking him down.’

‘For God’s sake, Max, why didn’t you say so?’

Max gave a slow smile. ‘Scared?’

Annie glared at him. ‘Fuck you. Of course I’m scared. I’m scared for Layla. She’s already trying to break out, and it’s dangerous. She has no idea what we’re dealing with here – and I don’t want to tell her just how sick, scary and downright bloody perverted Redmond is.’

‘If he’s alive,’ said Max.

Annie nodded slowly. ‘You know what…?’

‘Go on.’

‘I’ve got a creepy feeling. I think he is. I really do.’

‘Then I guess we’d better get him before he gets us,’ said Max.

‘The IRA use this stuff,’ said the portly male pathologist.

‘What stuff is that?’ asked DCI Hunter. He was trying not to look at the remains laid out on the table. Trying not to inhale, too. Smoke and pork, he thought. Hadn’t he read somewhere that cannibals said human flesh tasted like pig meat? Well, it probably did, and here was the proof. Shit, it was enough to turn a person vegetarian overnight.

‘Semtex. Traces of it all over the clothes.’ The pathologist plucked up a detached finger with his gloved hands. He could have plucked up any other part, easily. A toe, an ear, a fragment of a cock. Lumps of shattered blackened flesh draped in charred scraps of clothing. When you pieced all the bits together, laid them out like the pathology team had, then you could see that this had once been a living, breathing person. Otherwise, you’d be hard put to guess.

‘It’s clever stuff,’ said the pathologist, his eyes alight with interest.

‘How so?’ Hunter thought it was vile.

‘Sniff. See? Not much odour to it.’

All Hunter could smell was scorched flesh.

‘Semtex is easy to use. Very stable, unlike nitro. Gaddafi’s boys out in Libya have been shipping it to the IRA for years. The Irish boys have been using it for landmines, and as a “booster” for homemade bombs. And for little car jobs like this, too.’

‘Right,’ said Hunter.

‘What else can I tell you? He died instantly. Literally blown apart. Not a bad way to go, actually, despite appearances. Oblivion in an instant. You found a name for him yet?’

‘Frank Day,’ said Hunter. DI Duggan had filled him in on the departed.

Frank or ‘Frankie’ Day, as he was known, had been a small-time criminal feeding a voracious dope habit. He’d been trying car doors the day the bomb went off.

He’d tried the Merc.

Boom!

No more Frankie.

Interestingly, the car belonged to Annie Carter. Who apparently had no idea why someone would want to blow her arse to kingdom come. But no smoke without fire, right? He thought of Annie Carter and along with the thought came just one word: trouble. For years she’d been skirting around on the edges of criminal gangs. London overlords like her ex husband. She had connections to the Mafia, for Christ’s sake. But the woman was like Teflon. Nothing ever stuck to her.

So all they had to go on was the red-haired man the girl in the charity shop had mentioned. The one who’d been sitting in Annie Carter’s Merc just before Frankie had gone off to knock on the pearly gates.

DCI Hunter wondered who the hell the red-haired man was.

‘The amygdala controls emotions,’ said Precious. She was curled up on Layla’s bed in jeans and a sky-blue jumper, writing this down as part of her course work. Her pen was scribbling busily across the page. ‘And the emotional reaction to any given situation kicks in before the intellectual…’ She paused, looked up at Layla, who was sitting on the stool at the dressing table, idly staring at her reflection. ‘Which I guess is why people of limited intelligence are quick to lash out.’

Layla was thinking Amygwhat??? Precious didn’t realize that she was sitting doing her homework in a murderess’s bedroom. Was that why she had lashed out, killed Orla Delaney? Because she was dense? Or psychotic.

Precious was staring at her.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but why are you so strung out? You really need to relax.’

‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘OK. But I can teach you something, calm you down if you want.’

‘Go on then.’

‘Do you know the heart-brain has forty thousand neurons?’ asked Precious.

‘What?’

‘Every time your heart beats, it sends information to the head-brain, and that regulates ANS signals.’

‘ANS?’ echoed Layla.

‘Automatic Nervous System.’

‘You lost me back at “relax”.’

‘And you’ve got to relax, Layla. Look, try this. Whenever you feel stressed, put your hand on your heart, breathe slowly, and think of a happy time in your life. Give it a go now.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ said Layla.

‘Try it.’

Layla closed her eyes and put her hand over her heart. She breathed deeply, slowly. Thought of Orla Delaney, lying dead and bloody on the floor.

Her eyes shot open.

‘Close ’em,’ said Precious. ‘Relax. Breathe. Happy times. Think of the happiest time you can remember.’

She was out on the Maria , Alberto’s yacht, on New York Sound. She was ten years old, and he was there, bronzed and godlike, telling her to watch out for the boom, and the sails were luffing, and then they spun about, into the wind, and the Maria shot along like a bird in flight. She’d been so happy, then. So very happy.