Simon Kernick: Deadline

He clambered off the bed and walked over to where his jeans lay on the floor. She watched as he leaned down to pick them up, admiring his naked body, thinking about the orgasm she'd just had, thinking about how happy Jimmy made her, wondering how she was ever going to tell her husband.

When he returned to the bed he had a small black box in the palm of his good hand.

'For you, my lady,' he said with a mock bow.

She smiled. 'What is it?'

'Open it and find out.'

So she did. And let out a little gasp. It was a gold necklace, eighteen carat at least, with a goldlined emerald heart roughly the size of a five-pence piece on the end.

'Oh, Jimmy,' she whispered. 'It's beautiful.'

'I bought it this morning,' he told her.

She reached up and kissed him tenderly on the lips, feeling for that moment like the happiest woman in the world.

'I love it. Thank you.'

They spent the rest of the afternoon and much of the evening in bed. The lovemaking was some of the best Andrea had ever experienced. She could remember what they'd done together even now. The following morning, wearing that beautiful necklace and thinking that she'd really landed on her feet, she cooked Jimmy breakfast in bed, then went out to get the papers.

Glancing through the Sun on the way back to the flat, a photo caught her eye. It was of an ordinary-looking middle-aged man with a beard and a side-parting, and the headline beside him read 'Hundred K Robbery: Security Guard Fights for Life'. Even before she read the article, Andrea knew instinctively that Jimmy was involved. What followed simply confirmed her suspicions. It seemed that a gang of four robbers armed with a variety of firearms had held up a security van as it made a cash pick-up from a branch of Barclays Bank in Wembley. The security guard carrying the case containing the money, whom the paper identified as forty-seven-year-old father of two Alan Jones – the man in the photograph – had tried to resist when one of the gang had grabbed the case. In the ensuing mêlée he was punched savagely in the face several times and knocked unconscious, having struck his head on the concrete as he fell. An eyewitness was quoted as saying that the robber had then kicked him several times, even though it was obvious he was no longer any threat. He was now in intensive care where his condition was described as 'poorly but stable'.

Andrea saw that the time of the robbery was 2.10 the previous afternoon, barely an hour before Jimmy had turned up back at the flat looking dishevelled and wearing a makeshift bandage on his left hand. Jimmy had told her that at one time he'd been an amateur middleweight boxer and had won eleven of his twelve bouts, six by knockout. Not exactly overwhelming proof of guilt, but it didn't need to be. Andrea just knew.

Stupidly, she didn't say anything. Instead, trying to be as casual as possible, she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he lay in bed, casually perusing the paper, a cigarette in his mouth, as calm as you like. He went straight to the robbery story – she counted the pages – and read it twice before running through the sports pages at the back. Then, with a predatory half-smile, he chucked the paper aside and patted the sheets.

'Why don't you come back to bed, love? We've got some unfinished business to attend to.'

And she had, too, something which when she thought about it now made her cringe with shame. They'd made love again twice, and all the time she couldn't stop thinking about the security guard lying in a hospital bed connected to a load of tubes while his family sat round him, waiting for news. But Jimmy… Jimmy had forgotten him already. The whole thing was simply business to him, nothing more and nothing less.

After they'd finished, he got a call on his mobile and went out of the room, talking quietly. He returned a few minutes later, saying he had to go out. He was still acting casually, but she could tell he was tense.

And that's when she came out with it.

'You didn't have anything to do with yesterday, did you, Jimmy? You know, that robbery where the guard got hurt?'

'Course I didn't,' he answered, but she could tell that she'd rattled him. It was something in his eyes.

She looked at his hand. The handkerchief was gone now, but the knuckles were dark with bruises. He glanced down at them as well, then back at her. This time his expression had changed. There was a darkness in it.

'Why'd you think that?'

She immediately regretted asking. What, after all, was the point? He was always going to deny it.

'I don't know. I…' She stopped, not sure how to finish the sentence.

'I told you, I work in the building trade.'

She nodded. 'Sure, Jimmy.'

He came over to the side of the bed.

'Don't I treat you right or something?'

'Course you do,' she answered, feeling a little uneasy, not liking the way he was looking at her.

He crouched down so they were level, the smile he was giving her devoid of any warmth, his dark eyes boring into her.

'You know, I like you a lot, Andrea. I think we could do real well together. That's why I bought you the necklace.' He paused, touching the emerald heart. 'But don't go asking silly questions, all right? About stuff that doesn't concern you.' The fingers of his good hand stroked her cheek tenderly but she felt herself tensing under the touch. The truth was, she was scared. 'Because otherwise…' He wrapped a lock of her hair round his middle finger. 'Otherwise we're going to fall out. Understand?'

She nodded.

'And I don't want that to happen. Because I like you. I really do.'

She felt a sharp pang of pain as he yanked the lock of hair, and she cried out. Immediately he let go, his lips parted in a pleasant, loving smile that almost made her think she'd imagined what had just happened. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips, before pulling back.

'I've really got to go, luv. I'll call you later. Let yourself out, OK?'

And that was that. Chucking on some clothes, he'd left her there alone, wondering what on earth she'd got herself into.

She should have finished it there and then, of course. Someone who could beat and kick an innocent man to within an inch of his life and then, an hour later, come back home as if nothing had happened and make love to his girlfriend clearly had no conscience. And already he was exerting his dominance over her. If he could pull her hair like that, it wouldn't be much of a jump to hitting her. She didn't need this. She had a husband, a man who looked after and cared for her. It wasn't as if she was one of those women who put up with abusive partners because they had no self-esteem. Andrea knew she was a good looking woman. She'd always been able to attract men.

But she hadn't finished it. To her eternal regret. And now, years later, Jimmy Galante was back, staring at money that she, Andrea, had worked so hard to earn. And she still feared him, although in her current situation she feared not having him around even more.

He drank from the tumbler of whisky she'd poured for him and looked over with one of his mocking smiles.

'Half a million quid, eh, Andrea? Who'd have thought you'd ever have that kind of money.'

'I always did,' she answered firmly.

'You know,' he said, watching her over the rim of the glass, 'I've been following your progress over the years. I'm impressed by how far you've come, living in a nice, big, flash pad like this.' He gestured vaguely with an arm.

'Money isn't everything, Jimmy.'

'It is when you ain't got none.'

'I'm sure you manage. You don't look like you're starving.'

'You think there's money out in Spain? There's fuck all. I get by, that's all.'

He sounded bitter, which was Jimmy all over. Andrea had no sympathy. No one had ever given her anything. She'd had to go out and graft for it and had proved that you could be successful if you were willing to put in the sweat and the tears. No one had ever given Jimmy anything, either. He'd grown up in a Hackney council flat, with damp on the walls and cockroaches in the grime encrusted spaces behind the cheap, flimsy kitchen units. The difference was that he hadn't wanted to work, and had taken what wasn't his, and by any means necessary. His fly-by-night lifestyle might have been exciting to her once, but she was young then. Now it simply depressed her that she'd ever fallen for his charms.