Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘It’s going to be all right,’ said Max, rubbing her back.

‘I made friends with her,’ said Layla shakily. ‘And now she’s in bits.’

‘Someone must have seen you together,’ said Max.

‘We were together a lot,’ said Layla. ‘Anyone could have seen us. Oh shit, I’ve been so stupid.’

‘You shouldn’t have come here on your own,’ said Annie.

‘There was a mix-up over whose shift it was,’ said Max grimly. Someone was going to get their arse kicked over that.

‘I just didn’t have time to think about it,’ said Layla.

Alberto appeared in the doorway.

Layla took a halting breath, tried to stop the flood of tears. Annie gave her a handkerchief.

‘I’ve had a word with one of the nurses,’ said Alberto, glancing between Annie and Max. ‘They’re taking her up to surgery.’

‘They say what the damage is?’ queried Max.

‘A lot. That guy had himself a real bang-shoot with her. Broke some ribs, her nose and her jaw, and there’s a head wound – they’re worried about internal bleeding.’ His eyes met Layla’s, and slid away.

Layla wiped her eyes, pulled free of Annie’s embrace.

‘I was in the monitor room when it happened,’ she said, struggling to regain control. ‘I saw him. It was him, Mum – Rufus Malone. We have to get him. ’

At three o’clock next morning, Annie, Max and Alberto were at the Holland Park house. They’d brought Layla home from the hospital, after a lot of protesting on her part.

‘I can’t go. I want to be there when she comes round from the surgery,’ said Layla.

‘She won’t come round until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Get some rest, and we’ll come back then,’ Annie insisted.

So they’d returned to the house, and Annie had put Layla to bed.

Layla had been convinced she wouldn’t – couldn’t – sleep. But she did. She was beyond exhaustion, and Annie had only to sit with her for ten minutes before she was dead to the world. Then she’d crept from the room, and joined Max and Alberto downstairs.

‘Malone can’t be doing all this on his own,’ said Max.

Annie rubbed her eyes. She was tired out, deeply upset by Layla’s distress. She wanted this bastard found, and found fast. But it was like chasing a shadow. Somehow he was constantly evading them. Max had a point. He must be getting help. Help from close quarters.

‘Who though?’ she asked. ‘One of the girls?’ She thought of Layla, the way she’d – much to her mother’s surprise – fitted in at the club, even made friends. It made her skin creep to think that someone could have been in there, assisting Malone.

‘She made any enemies at the club?’ asked Alberto. ‘Someone there dislike her enough to help this guy?’

Annie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Apart from those two significant lapses, she thought that on the whole Layla had been following her instructions and keeping a low profile. And she wasn’t the type to get into catfights.

Then she thought of Ellie. There’d been trouble with her in the past. Once, she had been a Delaney insider. But that was a long time ago. Since then Ellie had become her friend, she couldn’t even begin to believe that Ellie would have helped bring all this down upon them.

‘What about the guy who was supposed to be watching the monitors. What was his name, Kyle? Where did Chris and Ellie find him? Did they check his references?’

‘Kyle was on his break. Eleven to eleven fifteen. And of course he was checked.’

‘Don’t they have someone covering?’

‘Junior was standing in for him.’

‘ Junior? ’

‘Your cousin’s boy?’ said Alberto.

‘And he was meant to be in there watching the monitors?’ Max stared at her face. ‘So where the fuck was he? It was Layla who saw what was happening, raised the alarm – not him.’

‘He went to the loo,’ said Annie irritably.

‘What, he couldn’t go before his watch, or wait fifteen minutes?’

‘Layla said he looked sick as a dog when he came back to the monitor room and realized what had happened,’ said Annie.

‘Oh yeah?’ Max said, fixing her with a hard stare.

‘Meaning?’ she snapped.

‘Meaning, come on. Junior works there. He knew Precious was friends with Layla, and we all know this was a warning to Layla, to us, a little demonstration how easy it was for him to break through our security, that next time it would be-’

‘Max…’Annie didn’t want to go down this route, to start doubting everyone.

‘Don’t “Max” me. Layla’s minders told me Junior showed up outside her office, the day of the fire. You know what I think?’

‘I don’t want to know what you think.’

‘I think that little fucker’s helping Rufus Malone. Remember when you went to Kath’s, to warn them there was trouble? His mum and sister took off, but he insisted on staying. Why d’you suppose that was? Because he had a job to do.’

‘No.’ Annie was shaking her head. She liked Junior, she trusted him. ‘He’s one of our own, he wouldn’t do this.’

‘Annie, Kath hates your guts, she always has. She’s probably been poisoning the kid against you since he was out of nappies.’

‘Is that true?’ Alberto asked her.

Annie took a breath. Looked at Max, at Alberto. Then she nodded. Her heart was heavy. She was praying this wasn’t true. That their suspicions were wrong. She’d nurtured that boy. Given him money, gifts, even found him the job at the Shalimar. No, there was no way he’d do a thing like this.

Max stood up. ‘I’m off to bed. Early start tomorrow. Going to pay Junior a visit.’

‘We’ve had an order from on high,’ said the super, putting aside his Sun newspaper.

DCI Hunter was wondering why he’d been summoned to Cyril Armitage’s office first thing. Had to be something big, to get the guvnor into work this early.

On high had him worried. But Hunter said nothing, just took a seat and waited.

The day before, he’d laid it out for Cyril. Told him about the gunshot vic in the hospital, a leftover from the old Delaney mob, who’d had a visit from someone claiming to be his brother. Though the victim was still refusing to cooperate with inquiries, Staff Nurse Susan Challis had given Hunter a description that closely resembled Max Carter. Whose ex-wife Annie had recently had her car blown up with Semtex – an explosive favoured by Irish extremists – planted in her car by a red-headed man.

‘They’re saying we should step back from this whole Carter thing,’ said Cyril.

Hunter stared at the Detective Chief Superintendent, a big corpulent Yorkshire man, with thin greyish hair scraped back from his brow and a face like a hatchet. The two men had worked together for years. Whether things were going well or badly, Cyril always appeared the same. But today… something was different.

‘Step back?’ Hunter looked stunned. He was stunned. He’d been planning to haul Carter in for questioning later today, and now they were trying to yank him off it. ‘Who’s “they” anyway?’

‘The people who pay our fucking wages,’ said Cyril.

‘If they pay our wages, they should realize that we have to dig around in things. We can’t just “step back” when there are car bombs going off and people getting shot.’

Cyril leaned forward, two meaty fists planted on the desk. His man boobs, clad in tight white cotton, leaned forward too.

‘This isn’t a request, David. These are orders. Let the Max Carter thing go. Stand down.’

Hunter crossed his arms, shaking his head.