‘So … what is it?’ sighed Susie. ‘You’ve been biding your time ever since? A fourteen-year wait to get even?’
Karen scoffed. ‘Get over yourself, Lady Muck. Just because I’m pissed off about my arm doesn’t mean I based my entire life around it. There have been other bits of business to attend to, you know. I got married, helped build up the business. All with only one and a half arms. Not bad for a cripple, eh?’
She paused and Susie thought that she was probably supposed to wince at the use of the word ‘cripple’ and lower her eyes apologetically, so that’s what she did, thinking, Fuck you.
‘But, yeah,’ continued Karen, ‘now you come to mention it, I did often think about one day meeting the people responsible for doing this to me.’ She lifted her arm. ‘I wondered how I’d feel.’
‘And then you got to find out,’ prompted Susie.
Karen grinned, that snaggletooth making a reappearance. ‘Yes, then I got to find out.’
Susie leaned forward. Emotions began to shift inside her. She and Guy had reacted so differently to Emma’s death. Susie had resolved to remain stoic; more than anything she wanted not to fall victim to thoughts of anger and revenge the way Guy had done. Not through some misplaced sense of that being The Right Thing To Do, but because she saw the damage it did. Like David, she knew no good could ever come of feeling so wrathful, so driven by a need for revenge.
But she felt it every now and then, of course she did. It rose up like noxious bubbles of swamp gas, and although most of the time she dealt with it, and made sure it stayed submerged, there were times, like now, when she let it sit there, because now she knew one thing for certain: one way or another, she was sitting opposite the woman responsible for her daughter’s death.
She tried not to look at the gun, not wanting to draw Karen’s attention to it. Instead she simply asked, ‘Are you going to tell me about it?’
‘Oh yeah,’ beamed Karen. ‘I’m going to tell you all about it.’
CHAPTER 48
THE TROUBLE WITH Jason was that he thought he was best mate to all the girls, Karen had thought. And what with him thinking that, it was only a matter of time before he let on that Karen was unusually interested in Emma.
When they bumped into one another, while Karen hadn’t been 100 per cent certain, she’d thought she saw that spark of recognition, and she had known that something had to be done. Why? Because she was worried? Because she was concerned about being brought to book for something that had happened a lifetime ago?
No. Because she was Karen Regan, daughter of Malcolm Regan, granddaughter of Dexter, and she had another, much more personal reason for wanting to deal with Emma Drake.
She rang her father.
Later, she would wonder whether she had rung him in the sure knowledge that she’d get the answer she wanted. After all, he’d been in the backup vehicle during their aborted kidnap attempt. He had been driving the Peugeot, and so he’d seen at first hand what had been done to her.
But for the time being she just wanted to hear his voice, wanted to say the words ‘Emma Drake’ and hear his reaction.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’ he’d growled on the phone. It struck her that she missed him. Being among the Chechens was good, treated like a queen the way she was, schmoozed like a foreign ambassador, but there was no substitute for genuine affection.
‘It’s Emma Drake,’ she told him.
From the other end of the line came a sharp intake of breath. ‘Wait a second there,’ he said, and she heard him light a cigarette, exhaling loudly. She thought of him with his Benson & Hedges and his gold Zippo and knew that he’d be regarding the world through a cloud of blue-tinged smoke, thinking of Emma Drake, casting his mind back to the whole sorry episode.
‘Not one of our finest hours, was it, sweetheart?’ he said at last.
You can fucking say that again, she thought sarcastically, but didn’t say. She was in poor-little-girl mode for this call. ‘I think about her all the time, Dad,’ she said, pouring all that pent-up hurt into her voice.
‘I don’t doubt it, sweetheart, after what they did to you.’
It wasn’t just the nerves in her arm. Emma Drake’s bite marks were another permanent reminder. A large patch of scarred and mushed-up skin on her hand. Little cow had bitten her hard.
‘She’s working for us, Dad. She’s got a new name and she’s a junkie, but it’s her.’
There was another sharp intake of breath at the other end. ‘And have you told Dmitry? Or Sergei?’
‘You know what would happen if I did.’
‘Yes, of course.’
There was a pause. He’d be thinking of her, she knew, taking her hurt feelings into account, but there was also the relationship with the Chechens to consider. He had worked hard to broker the union. Merging had created a single, untouchable consortium. Nobody wanted to do anything that might undermine all they had worked towards.
After a while he said, ‘You know, don’t you, that you could have got to her any time over the last – how many years has it been?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Fourteen years you’ve had, Kaz. We could have taken her out if we really wanted to, but we didn’t.’
She sniffed, hoping she wasn’t overplaying the poor-little-princess bit. ‘It was your wishes, Dad. You wanted to leave it. You said the whole thing was a stain on the family name.’
‘Which it was.’
‘I did what you wanted.’ She was being merciless, she knew, preying on his guilt for what happened. On the other hand, what was the bloody point of having feminine wiles if you never got to use them?
‘I never realised you felt that strongly about it, sweetheart,’ he said with an almost crestfallen tone in his voice.
‘The thing is, Dad, neither did I. Not until I saw her again. Having her right under my nose has brought it all back. I don’t want to make a big fuss about it. I don’t want to dig up bad memories of our failure that day. I just want … I just want …’
There was another pause. When her dad next spoke it was in the comforting fatherly tones she knew so well: ‘What do you want, sweetheart?’
‘I just want to kill the fucking bitch who crippled me, Dad. I just want to fucking kill her and watch her bleed.’
‘And God has brought her to you,’ said her dad. He wasn’t especially religious but would occasionally invoke a higher power in order to justify a certain course of action. That was a good sign, she knew.
‘That’s right – that’s right, Dad, it feels like that. God has brought her to us.’
‘All right,’ he said, and she let out a silent sigh of relief. ‘The Chechens can’t find out. It wouldn’t be good for business. It would be bad news for the union if they discover that we passed up the chance to earn so much easy dosh. Wait – you don’t think you could ransom her and then kill her?’
‘I thought of that. I don’t think so, because of Dmitry. Besides, it’s not what I want, Dad. I want this just between me and her. I want it so that right at the end she knows that her money couldn’t save her. She can’t hire a bodyguard and buy her way out of this one.’
‘I gotcha, babe,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your back, I understand. Just as long as you know that anything you do, you need to do without them lot knowing. Is there any way I can help you? Do you need a couple of men?’
‘It’s all right, thanks, Dad. I’ve got men here that are loyal to me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ he said, suddenly suspicious. ‘Not up to anything, are you, Kaz? I mean, anything else?’
She’d avoided answering that question, asking after his health instead. He had a new girlfriend, a woman called Sheridan who Karen had only met once and loathed on sight, so she asked him about her, and forced him to say that nobody could ever replace her mother, God rest her soul, and they’d finished the call.
Then, ten minutes later, he’d rung back. ‘You want them all to suffer, though, don’t you?’ he said. ‘The whole of them Drakes.’
>
‘I don’t care, Dad. I just want to watch her die.’
‘But wouldn’t it be good, princess?’
‘I don’t see how, without the Chechens getting suspicious.’
He chuckled. ‘Well, sweetheart, there are ways and there are ways …’
CHAPTER 49
SUSIE FELT STRANGE, surreal, as though her mind and spirit had lifted outside of her body and she was looking down on events with an almost dispassionate air, as though what was being discussed was nothing to do with her. How else was it possible to process the fact that this woman was sitting there calmly, smiling almost sweetly, presentable and reasonable, talking about the time she made plans to kill Emma?
On the table lay the gun. Watching over them was the CCTV camera. Susie had dredged up those lessons Shelley had given her. Safety catch. Cocking the weapon. Don’t snatch the shot.
At school she had been a gymnast and a good sprinter. She knew she was fast – or used to be, at least – and maybe she could be fast again, now, when it counted. Could she make it to the gun before Karen? Would she be able to use the gun if she got there? How long would it be before more men came rushing to the bitch’s aid?
‘You’re telling me,’ she heard herself say – again, there was that detached part of her that registered the disbelief in her own voice – ‘you’re telling me how you killed my daughter?’
‘From one mother to another,’ said Karen. She pronounced ‘mother’ like ‘muvva’. From one muvva to anuvva. ‘I think it’s only right that you know the truth. I know I’d want to if I were in your shoes. I’d want to know everything.
‘It’s out of respect that I’m telling you this, Susie. Because we’re women, aren’t we? We know that we’re stronger than the other lot. We suffer.’ She patted her stomach. ‘We know suffering that they’ll never know, and we know that we can take it, because we’re tough, ain’t we? That’s why you’re not sitting there shitting yourself, blubbing like a baby. That’s what your husband would be doing in your position, ain’t it? How did he react when darling daughter died?’
Darling daughter. Susie felt her hatred increase by a couple of notches.
‘I bet he started ranting and raving, didn’t he? The chequebook came out. Because they’re all like that, aren’t they? Worse combination is a bloke and a bit of money – it turns them into big babies. Is that how your hubby was, Susie? Did he throw a tantrum while you watched calmly on? Now I bet that’s right, ain’t it? I bet he did. Come on, answer me.’
Susie found herself nodding despite herself. Why not? It was true. Guy had not been there for her; he had nurtured his hatred instead. The way she felt now. Was that what it was like inside Guy’s head all the time?
‘You see? And is it him who has been taken? Is it him sitting in some grotty cell in a garage with only Dirty Dancing on DVD to watch? No, of course it ain’t. It’s you who has to carry the can. You who has to suffer. Always you, Susie.’
‘And Emma,’ Susie heard herself say.
‘Oh yes, and Emma,’ said Karen. ‘You see? I knew you were strong enough to carry on.’
It was as if the whole world was in this cell. As though the planet had shrunk to consist of just Susie and Karen, facing each other across a grubby room, with a glass of water, a sandwich and a gun on the table between them.
‘Then carry on,’ said Susie.
Karen nodded, satisfied her little speech had done the trick. When she looked away, Susie found her eyes going to the gun once more. She had attended a course once, the sort of thing that bored housewives like her did when the kids left home, ‘mindfulness’ or something like that, and one of the techniques they’d taught was visualisation. You had to picture yourself doing what you wanted to do. You had to imagine yourself succeeding at it.
‘So we went in to see her that day.’
The day she died. ‘How did she look?’ Susie found herself saying.
‘Did you not see the video?’ said Karen, surprised. ‘You must be about the only person who hasn’t.’
Susie shook her head. ‘In any case, I want to know how she looked when she arrived for work, not how she was when she was all dolled up to do a job.’
Karen threw her head back, snorting with laughter. Her earrings danced. ‘It’s not fucking Hollywood, you know. She just came in with the same slut clothes she normally wore. She was a gorgeous girl, no doubt about it. They all are at Foxy Kittenz, it’s our stock-in-trade. But between you, me and the gatepost, she looked zonked out. She looked like somebody who did too many drugs, you know, too much heroin.’ Karen stopped, looking sharply at Susie. ‘Did you know that about her, Susie? Did you know that little Emma was using the spike?’
Susie shook her head slowly. ‘Not at the time.’
Karen smiled her strange grin again, making her look almost vampiric. ‘Of course not. Of course you didn’t. There’s a song, ain’t there? About a posh girl with a rich daddy who decides to slum it just for the hell of it, to see how the other half lives. “Common People”. You know the one?’
Susie didn’t bother to answer, just stared at Karen as though observing an alien life form, aware now that there was nothing remotely truth-telling about this session; it was simply an exercise in mental torture.
‘“Common People” by Pulp, that’s the one. That’s what I think of when I think of Emma. She started to mix with the likes of us, then it all got a bit too much for her, didn’t it? In the song, the girl can ring Daddy and Daddy can stop it all, but your Emma didn’t do that, or couldn’t do that. Why was that, Susie?’
‘We’re not posh,’ said Susie, dimly wondering why she even bothered making that point. ‘Guy was an engineer. Up north. He was made redundant. He used his redundancy pay to—’
‘I googled him,’ spat Karen. ‘I googled him fourteen years ago. Fuck, it was so long ago, I probably didn’t even use Google. It was probably Ask Jeeves or some shit like that. It’s not him I’m accusing of being posh, Lady Muck, it’s you.’
Karen’s colour was rising and Susie wondered if she should be afraid, but with a dim sense of triumph she realised that she wasn’t.
‘Because you certainly didn’t live in the north or get made redundant from any engineering job, did you? Privately educated, that’s you. Met Guy Drake at a charity function.
‘Poor old Emma, she probably didn’t know where the roots lay. On the one hand she’s got all this wealth, public-school friends of her own, privileged money; on the other hand, there’s Daddy, giving it the big “when I were a lad” speech. Working-class hero, all that malarkey. Am I right? No wonder she ended up so fucking confused.
‘Here, I wonder if she ever thought that Daddy might secretly approve of what she was doing. What do you think? What do you think a psychiatrist might have to say about that? Like, was there something deep inside? Was she trying to win her daddy’s favour? They say that’s what all little girls do.’
‘Like you, you mean,’ said Susie.
‘Very good, missus.’
‘You wanted to win your father’s love by murdering my daughter.’
Karen sneered. ‘I didn’t need to win my dad’s love by murdering your daughter. This is the whole fucking trouble with you, you have such a high opinion of yourself, you think the whole world revolves around the Drake surname. I already had my dad’s approval, I gained it years and years ago and I gained it by not being a pussy. And I gained it by being clever, which is why I offered Emma a choice.’
A damp stillness seemed to settle in the room. Susie knew that they’d arrived at the part of the story where Emma dies, and she wasn’t sure she was ready. Just as she’d never wanted to watch the film, she didn’t want to hear it from her killer’s lips.
‘But you didn’t kill her,’ she said weakly, ‘she killed herself.’
Karen nodded sagely, as though expecting credit for her wisdom. ‘I gave her a choice. I laid it out for her. I introduced myself, I told her who I was and what she’d done to me. I told her that if s
he’d just come along with me that day and we’d have got our money, she would have been returned safely and then maybe none of this would ever have happened. Her whole life might have taken a different course.
‘I told her that she was going to die because some bodyguard told her to bite me and then broke my arm. That this was the reason she had to die; that honour had to be satisfied. I told her that my need to satisfy that honour was as real to me as the need for heroin was to her. A good comparison, don’t you think?
‘And then I told her that she had a choice: either she come with me, and I would take her somewhere, to one of my dad’s lock-ups, and I’d let the lads have their fun with her before I’d kill her. Or she could take her own life, there and then, on camera.’
Susie swallowed. All she could find to say was ‘It wasn’t much of a choice.’
‘I wanted to do it myself,’ said Karen. Her voice was bright, but her eyes were dead. ‘I really wanted to do it myself. I would have had fun in the lock-up. But it was better the way it happened. It put me in the clear. Plus I got to put it all online.
‘I told her that I’d be uploading the footage, you know. I told her that her death would stand as a warning to others. Like, look what happens when pretty little rich girls mess with drugs. I told her that she might even prevent another girl from getting into the same predicament. And if she did that, then wasn’t that a good thing?’
‘You bitch,’ said Susie. The words escaped her like air from a balloon.
Karen nodded, smiling. ‘Yeah, I was very convincing. And she was so zonked out that she bought into it, without really thinking what it might do to Mummy and Daddy. Or maybe … maybe she did actually stop to consider the effect it would have on you. What about that? What if she thought that with her death she could land one final blow to her mummy and daddy? Or what if she thought that with her death she could make you proud? Christ, that’s an even more twisted thought, isn’t it?
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