Jessie Keane - Stay Dead

This time, Annie didn’t have to ask to be let in. This time, Hunter turned, with DS Duggan at his heels, ducked under the tapes and led the way straight into the club, across the club floor where men in white coveralls were hauling bags and bits of electronic equipment. Max and Annie followed.

‘Done?’ Hunter said to one of the SOCO team in passing.

He nodded. ‘Just about.’

Hunter led the way up the stairs and, with a horrible feeling of déjà vu, Annie followed. But he didn’t go into the lounge, he carried on until they reached the flat’s one small bedroom, which was tucked away at the back of the building. A woman was dismantling photographic lights there; a tech was tucking a camera away in a flat aluminium case.

‘Stay at the door,’ said Hunter to Max and Annie, while he stepped into the room, avoiding the markers the tech people had laid out as points of special interest.

Annie caught her breath and held it as the stench of fresh blood hit her nostrils. She felt her stomach contract, felt vomit creep up in a choking wave into her throat. Gary was stretched out on his back on the bed, the sheet pulled up to his waist. Above that, everything was red. His eyes were bulging out of his head, there was livid bruising on his cheekbones and one of his eyes had swollen half-closed. His face was puce and his tongue protruded grossly from between his thin lips.

At his neck, there was a deep cut; and blood – lots of it.

‘Jesus,’ said Annie, appalled. It felt too hot in the little room; she felt sweat pop out of her pores. She was forced to draw in a quick, shaky breath, and got a mocking look from DS Duggan.

The blonde woman in white coveralls who was crouching over Gary’s corpse looked first at Hunter and Duggan, then at the two civilians they’d brought in with them.

‘The owners,’ said Hunter. ‘Max and Annie Carter. You can speak, it’s OK. Estimated time of death?’

‘Round about midnight,’ said the woman. ‘An hour or two either side.’

‘And…?’

‘A knife,’ said the woman. ‘Smooth, not serrated.’ She leaned in, prodded with a gloved finger at the gaping wound that was Gary’s neck. ‘Applied with a lot of force. Probably a man’s work, not a woman’s. Cut right through the windpipe, sliced the carotid artery too. Very nasty. And these bruises on his face? They were administered pre-death. He was beaten quite badly and then slashed.’

This is like what happened to Jackie , thought Annie with a shudder.

‘Where’s the girl?’ she asked.

‘What?’ said Hunter.

‘The girl – Caroline. The one who’s taken over as manager here. I’m assuming that if Gary was here, then he was with her. Unless she was away somewhere and he was keeping an eye on the place?’

‘I’ll talk to the staff,’ said DS Duggan, and left the room.

‘Excuse me,’ said the blonde pathologist, and followed her out.

Hunter, Max and Annie stood there, looking at the dead man. True, she’d never liked Gary, but Christ, he hadn’t deserved this . Yeah, he’d been a bastard, and he’d had her done over, put her in hospital. Annie’s eyes narrowed. But no. This wasn’t the usual style of her Mafia watchers. It was far too public.

Redmond and his sidekick. It had to be one of them , or both . Didn’t it?

But why? She could get Jackie, just about. She could understand that. Jackie had been trying to trace Redmond, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be traced. That was on her, all Jackie’s suffering and his death, it was her fault and she was going to have to soak it up. But why Gary? What possible connection could there be between Redmond and him?

‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said to Hunter.

‘You can ask.’

‘Did Pete the bar manager actually see Dolly Farrell on the night she was killed? You said he spoke to her, but did he see her? Or did she call out through the door?’ Annie was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thought to ask Pete this question when they’d visited him.

Hunter stared at her. ‘He said he spoke to her; that’s all. I’ll check with him. If the two of you have any ideas about who did this, now is the time to share them with me.’

He looked from Max’s face to Annie’s, then back again.

‘Obstruction of the law is an offence,’ said Hunter.

‘We’re aware of that,’ said Max. ‘Look, I’ve known this bloke for Christ knows how long. But how he wound up like this? I’ve no idea.’

‘Then if you’ll excuse me…?’ Hunter nodded to the door.

They took the hint, and went out of the flat and back down the stairs. DS Duggan was talking to two of the white-clad techs there, and she gave Annie a sneering look in passing.

‘That girl don’t like you,’ said Max as they went out into the fresh air.

‘No kidding,’ said Annie.

They got into the car and Max drove them back to Holland Park, stopping off at the Shalimar because he needed a word with Chris.

‘Coming in?’ he asked Annie as he pulled up.

‘OK,’ she said, doubting she’d be made welcome.

But she was surprised. When they got upstairs, Ellie met them out in the hallway.

‘Christ,’ she said when she saw Annie. ‘I’m glad you’ve turned up.’

‘What?’ asked Annie. Max and Chris had vanished into the office.

Ellie lowered her voice. ‘I got someone here wants to talk to you. She’s fucking hysterical and she’s gripping my kitchen table like it’s a life raft, and she won’t let go. All she keeps saying is she wants to talk to you.’

‘Is it Caroline?’ asked Annie.

‘Who?’

‘Caroline. Gary’s girlfriend. The one who took over the Palermo from Dolly.’

‘No. Why would it be? It’s that funny little stick of a woman from the funeral. You know – Dolly’s sister, Sarah.’

‘He did things to Dolly,’ said Sarah.

When she saw Sarah in Ellie’s kitchen, Annie thought that Ellie had been right, she was clutching the table as if letting go could sweep her away, into madness. Ellie and Annie sat opposite her, and they closed the kitchen door firmly.

‘You’re safe,’ said Annie, because she thought it would calm Sarah down.

‘Nowhere’s safe. I thought I was safe at home,’ said Sarah, and her pale blue eyes looked wild. ‘So did Dolly. But she wasn’t, and neither was I.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Ellie, and stood up and went about the business of making tea.

‘Nigel said I should never speak of it. He said it was all in my imagination, and Dolly was bad and going straight to hell. He loved Dad, you see. Worshipped him. But now this…’ Sarah’s voice trailed away. ‘He said it was filthy, disgusting, what she turned into, and then I told him that it had happened to me with Dad, and I said maybe it had happened to her too, and that was why she left. He was so mad when I said that. Furious. He said I ought to shut my dirty mouth. He said it shamed the whole family, me making things up like that.’

‘But now Dolly’s been killed.’

‘Yeah.’ Sarah’s eyes met Annie’s; tears started to roll down her pale face. ‘It haunts me, all this. The bad stuff he did.’

‘Your dad.’

‘Yeah. Him.’

‘Dolly had to leave home because of it,’ said Annie. ‘Did you leave home?’

‘No. I stayed. Looked after Nigel and Dick and Sandy. Helped Mum around the place. Did what Dolly used to do. And then he had the accident on the railway. And it was all sort of OK, after that.’

‘Except I don’t suppose it was, not really,’ said Annie.

‘It was our secret shame, our family. Mum half off her head, and Dad doing that .’ Sarah gulped. Ellie placed a mug of hot sweet tea in front of her, and she let go of the table and fastened her hands around the warmth of that instead. ‘I’ve got the cutting from the paper. I kept it all these years. Like confirmation, I suppose. Like it was in black and white, and that was good, that proved he… he wasn’t coming back.’