Jessie Keane - Ruthless

His eyes swept over her and then away. He seemed to not even see her.

‘Hi, Layla,’ he said, and turned straight to Max. ‘We might have another lead on this Rufus Malone,’ he said.

Annie was watching Layla’s face. She saw the way her cheeks flushed, the hurt in her eyes.

Oh, so that flame’s still burning, she thought.

‘Where?’ asked Max.

‘Essex.’

Max’s attention sharpened. ‘Out on the marshes?’

‘You know about it?’

‘Something O’Connor said. You get an actual address?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then what the fuck are we waiting for?’

Leaving Tony and Bri on guard, Max, Alberto and Annie – despite Max’s protests – shot off out the front door, leaving Layla standing there alone in the empty, echoing hall.

All that effort, all that work. And he hadn’t paid the slightest attention.

‘Welcome home,’ she said glumly to herself. Alberto hadn’t even noticed what she looked like.

That bastard.

She angrily kicked off her heels, snatched them up, and trudged up the stairs.

It had become a daily ritual for Rufus, phoning the farm. He’d let it ring and ring until he couldn’t stand it any longer, then he’d hang up.

But today, after two rings, someone answered. His heart leapt with hope.

‘Yes?’ It was Orla’s mother, her voice quavering. She gave a thick-sounding cough.

‘Mrs Delaney? It’s Rufus – put Orla on, will you?’

‘She isn’t here. She hasn’t been back since the pair of you left… oh, when was it now? I can’t think straight at the moment – I’ve been in bed with the flu all week. I still don’t feel right. I tell you, I’ve been laid low, Rufus. Really bad.’

‘She hasn’t come back then?’ he asked, his stomach twisting in sickening dread.

‘Back from where…?’ Another hard cough; this one rattled on. When she finally recovered her voice, Orla’s mum said: ‘Where’d the pair of you go to in such a hurry, anyway?’

‘No matter,’ he said, and put the phone down.

So she wasn’t at the farm, waiting for him.

He didn’t think the Carters would hold her, locked up in a basement somewhere. Hold her for what? To what end?

Which left only one other option. The worst one, the one he couldn’t bear to face.

Orla, dead? Truly gone from him forever?

Rage surged through him at the thought, rage against the Carter bitch and all her kin. He knocked over the table, scattering cups and plates, smashing them on the floor. Then he stood, panting, remembering that last night in Islington, Orla’s excitement as she’d set off on her mission to kill Annie Carter. How much it had meant to her, making that bitch pay for the hurt she’d caused.

Part of his mind still flinched from accepting that she was dead. How could she be? He’d thought her dead once before, only to discover that she’d survived, against all the odds.

Drawing comfort from the thought, he began putting the final stages of his plan into action. He’d already set things in motion, ensuring that a nugget of information was dropped into the right ear. All he needed to do now was prepare a little gift to welcome his guests on their arrival.

The place was way out in the marshes. There was nothing for miles except endless mudflats, the salty stink of washed-up seaweed, and the eerie cry of curlews. It was a dilapidated old shack, long abandoned by the look of it, and there was a rusted hulk of a barn at the side. Once a farmer might have lived here, tilled a meagre field or two, grazed his sheep on sea grass and samphire. Now, there was nothing. Not even a car.

‘Looks empty,’ said Max, getting out of the driver’s side. Alberto got out of the front passenger seat and stood there, surveying the area. Two of his men including Sandor clambered out of the back. Two of Max’s boys were up ahead, in another car. They piled out, and Annie got out with them. They closed around her. They were mob-handed. They were all armed. She looked at Max, at Alberto. Looked at the house.

‘Let’s see,’ said Alberto.

They approached the house. There was no cover, which was worrying. Any moment, Annie expected to hear the crack of a pistol-shot as they were fired on from the building, but nothing happened.

A marksman in there could finish off the lot of us, she thought.

It wasn’t a comforting notion.

She watched Max go round the back of the place with his boys, watched Alberto and Sandor go to the front. Max went to the door, standing to one side of it to offer no target for anyone inside. She felt her skin crawl as her brain offered up possible outcomes to this. Someone could be crouching in there, hiding, waiting for them to try to come in.

Annoyingly, Max’s boys were crowding around her, keeping her at a distance, keeping her protected. She was trying to see past a ton of muscle, and not managing very well. But she was on the corner of the building so she could just see Max at the back door, and Alberto, about to launch himself and Sandor into the front.

Max paused at the back door. It was hanging loose on rusted hinges. As the breeze sighed, it made a noise like something freshly dead coming back to life and crawling out of a grave. There was a window beside it, filmed with dirt and caked from the salty breeze. He could just about see through it into the room beyond. There was an old table, a few chairs. It was habitable, almost. Then he glanced down, his eye drawn by something on the ground at his feet. Something green.

A paper shamrock.

His eyes flicked up. The shack appeared to be empty. He strained, trying to see more clearly – and then he saw it. On the interior handle of the front door, there was something hanging, with wires embedded in what looked like putty.

Max turned, shouting to the group of men around Annie. ‘Bomb! It’s booby-trapped, don’t touch the front door.’

Annie turned and shrieked: ‘Alberto! Don’t!’

Alberto’s hand was outstretched, about to open the front door. He froze.

They drove back to the Holland Park house, passing the watchers in the car outside. There were other cars parked up in the square, vans, too. Annie moved anxiously into the hall, calling Layla’s name.

It had been a trap. A lure. And maybe, Annie had been saying all the way home from Essex, maybe it had been a diversion, too.

‘They’ve already tried to grab Layla. This could have been a set-up to get us out of the way, so that they could take another crack at her.’

‘Tony’s with her. And Bri’s on the door. And others, out in the road. They’d need a fucking army to get through that lot,’ said Max.

Annie wasn’t convinced. She was deeply shaken by how close they’d come to disaster today. Maybe Rufus and Redmond had an army.

‘Where is she? Layla!’ yelled Annie.

Layla didn’t answer.

The big house was silent.

No Rosa.

No Tony.

And no Layla…

‘Mum?’ She came out of the drawing room, frowning at Annie, who was wild-eyed with panic, at her dad, at Alberto, Sandor and the others. They all stared back at her, speechless.

‘Fuck’s sake, why didn’t you answer me?’ said Annie sharply, but she rushed forward and grabbed Layla in a hug, taking the sting out of the words. For once, Layla allowed the embrace.

‘I was on the phone,’ she said.

‘Who to?’

‘What is this, twenty questions?’ Layla pushed free of her mother in exasperation.

‘Don’t dick me around, Layla. Who were you talking to?’

‘A friend, that’s all.’ Annie kept staring at her. Layla threw back her head. ‘All right, I was talking to Precious, one of the girls at the club. And before that I spoke to Junior.’