The Runaway

by Martina Cole

  He grinned at his own thoughts. ‘So how’s everything back home?’ he enquired.

  Tommy shrugged. ‘Same as ever.’

  ‘How’s the wife and kid?’

  Tommy sat down and said happily, ‘They’re both fine. Kitty gets more like her mother every day. Although she’s dark like me, she has the blue eyes and the temper of her mum. ’Course, if Cathy knew about Carla, my life wouldn’t be worth living! But it’s like anything else, you know, Eamonn. I need things - things she doesn’t give me.’

  Eamonn nodded, but for the life of him could think of nothing better than having Cathy there day and night to make love to, talk to, be with. But, unlike Tommy, he wasn’t married to her.

  ‘What doesn’t the delectable Cathy give you, eh?’ he asked curiously.

  Tommy sat back in his chair and Eamonn was startled to realise that his visitor was already high.

  ‘For a start, she doesn’t ever give herself - Cathy. She has never given herself to me. From the day we married there’s been something standing between us, I don’t know what it is . . .’ He was quiet for a moment before he said in a slurred voice: ‘Yes, I do know. I’m lying. She hates me working for the IRA, no matter how far from the violence I am. That’s why she won’t ever have anything to do with you.’ His voice trailed off.

  Eamonn had never expected to hear such frankness from Tommy, even though he suspected the reason for it had more to do with drugs than true confession.

  ‘Have you had a bit of coke?’

  Tommy laughed then, a high-pitched, stoned laugh. ‘Just a bit, plus some grass and a few ludes. I mean, might as well make a party of it, eh?’

  Eamonn nodded.

  There was no work being discussed here, that much was evident. Carla, six foot two and twelve stone of Puerto Rican womanhood, came out of the shower and smiled at him. She would happily take the two of them to bed but even Eamonn balked at that.

  Getting up, he peeled five hundred-dollar bills from the roll in his pocket and told Carla to make herself scarce for a few hours. Tommy, stoned out of his brain, was unaware she had left for a while. He just wanted to talk about himself.

  ‘The thing with Cathy is, I love her but she has such high expectations, you know? She holds herself up like some kind of icon, and everyone has to live up to her. Every time there’s something on the news about Ireland, I get the silent treatment. She drives me mad. If she said something, something concrete, I’d have a handle, you know, something to come back at her with. But I don’t. She doesn’t even use my money because thanks to the clubs she has more than enough of her own. I don’t know why she stays married to me, and that’s the truth. But then, in fairness, she has never once done the dirty on me with another man, that much I do know. Sometimes I wish she would, I really do. But then I look at her and I’m undone. I could never be without her. I’d kill first, kill her even, before I let anyone else possess her. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I would see her dead rather than see her with someone she could love, who could get a reaction from her. Because I sure as hell can’t.’

  Eamonn was shocked to the core. Never, in the twelve years they had worked together, had Tommy ever voiced anything but praise for his wife. Never had he given an inkling that things were as bad between them as this. His words now were a revelation, the shocking testimony of a man’s wasted life.

  As Eamonn had wasted his.

  Tommy needed the devotion of a Deirdra, while Eamonn needed a woman like Cathy because only she was strong enough for him. He knew Tommy was drinking, had noticed that over the years. He should have realised why. Part of him was sorry for the man before him, and part of him was glad because he knew at last that Cathy wasn’t happy, wasn’t in love with another man. Which meant there was still hope for him.

  As he listened to Tommy rambling on, Eamonn realised just how sad a man he himself really was. For all he had, as much as he had achieved, deep inside he was still the same spiteful boy who had clawed his way out of Bethnal Green, East London.

  He wasn’t proud of that fact. But Eamonn, being Eamonn, he wasn’t ashamed of it either.

  Later that night he took Tommy to a private club in Brooklyn Heights. Eamonn had bought the club five years previously with Petey and they used it sometimes when they wanted to entertain particular clients. It was a hostess club, except the women in it were high-class and were also specialists in their chosen profession. It looked like a dungeon inside and a tall woman in her forties, wearing a long red wig and high leather boots, was the resident dominatrix.

  Barbarella catered for everyone and anyone, charging them astronomical prices to live out their most lurid and degrading fantasies. She had movie stars and even an ex-president or two on her books, and joked she could whip for America if it was an Olympic sport.

  Barbarella dealt in humiliation and pain, and she knew her clientele well. In the dimness of her small dungeon rooms she beat everyone’s secret out of them.

  She also catered for people who liked inflicting pain, and the recipients were paid well in good old-fashioned dollar bills. She had women on her books who took a beating twice-nightly and loved it, their only stipulation being they didn’t get hit on the face or arms, where it might show.

  Even Barbarella had been amazed at the number of men who wanted to inflict pain, who enjoyed hearing women beg and plead for mercy. Over the years she had got to know Tommy well; he preferred to be dominant, she knew, but was no serious threat to her slaves. Tonight she gave him a woman called Fenella. She was a fellatio expert who boasted she had sucked over a thousand cocks and loved them all. While she performed, she liked the men to pull her hair and attempt to choke her. It gave her performance an added edge.

  As Tommy, coked up and full of drink, made his way into one of the smaller rooms with Fenella, Eamonn went through to the bar and ordered himself a drink. This had never really been his scene but he had perceived a gap in the market for such an establishment - an upmarket gap. There were plenty of these places that were like doss houses, but he had given this one sophistication and social acceptability.

  He was proud of it in a way. When he saw the famous names and faces there it gave him a feeling of acute glee, because he knew every time he looked at these people that he was better than them. He provided them with their sick entertainment, took serious amounts of money from them, and could still look down his nose at them.

  He had had two drinks and sorted out a few minor problems with Barbarella when a young man with long hair and a leather vest came over to them.

  ‘You’d better see to your friend, Mr Docherty, I think it’s time he went home,’ he said in urgent tones.

  Raising his eyebrows at Barbarella, Eamonn made his way to Tommy’s room. He walked through the door, the young man close on his heels. What he saw then made him think he was caught in a bad dream.

  He had never seen so much blood. It was everywhere: all over the bed, the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Tommy was covered in it, and for a split second Eamonn thought that he had been the victim of a hit. It was only when he saw the girl with her throat gaping open that he realised it was her blood everywhere.

  She was soaked with it, all over her hair, her clothes, her body. Big fat red clots lay beside her on the floor, like pieces of liver.

  Eamonn felt the bile rise inside his chest, and heard himself gagging. He shook his head in denial of what his eyes were witnessing.

  He heard a voice coming through the haze of redness.

  ‘We’ll have to move her, Mr Docherty. We can’t have the police in here, it’d be the end of us. I warned her time and again about winding up the punters.’

  The boy’s voice was oddly calm and reasonable. Eamonn turned to look at him, feeling as though he was caught up in some surreal nightmare.

  Tommy was crying brokenly. Tears and snot vied for possession of his face. He wiped at his eyes like a small child. He was naked from the waist down, and standing in a pool of the girl’s blood. It was oozing up between his t
oes like a luxuriant carpet.

  ‘Thankfully, like most of the girls who work here, she has no family - not close anyway. She was from Kansas, a runaway. She can just disappear. Her type often do.’

  The boy’s matter-of-fact voice was more chilling than the scene before Eamonn because in fact he was no longer seeing it. Instead it was Caroline’s battered body that had returned to haunt him. He was back in the East End, a scared boy again. In Tommy’s distraught face he could see and hear himself.

  ‘What happened?’ he forced himself to ask.

  ‘From what I can gather off your friend here, she kept on taunting him. Fenella was like that. She was a submissive, but at times she liked to liven the games up, you know? She liked to make them really hurt her, because some of them just play-act. I heard her scream - I mean, you get used to screams in an establishment such as this, but I’m personally trained by Barbarella and I know the difference between a cry of delight and a scream of fear. I hold the pass keys, it’s my job to monitor everyone. I came in and saw he’d slashed her with his glass. It’s down on the floor there.’

  The young man paused and said sympathetically, ‘But she was a troublesome girl, so I wouldn’t be too hard on your friend. Someone was going to do it to her sooner or later. Fenella had a death wish, you see.’

  Eamonn nodded mutely.

  ‘I’ll call Barbarella in and we’ll get this fixed,’ continued the boy. ‘There’s a shower through that door. Get your friend under it and I’ll find him some clothes, OK?’

  Tommy was still crying and shivering from shock. Eamonn tried to move him but the other man was totally rigid and refused to go with him to the shower. A few minutes passed then Barbarella came in, minus her wig and boots, together with two large women. All carried black refuse bags and cleaning materials.

  Eamonn stood and watched as Tommy cried and cried. Big bubbles of snot blew from his nose, and endless tears rained down his cheeks. Eamonn just watched him, fascinated.

  ‘God, I’d have laid money on your friend. Who’d have thought he was wacko? Seemed a regular guy to me,’ said Barbarella, shaken for once. Then: ‘I’ll have her taken to Mario’s - they’ll dispose of her body in the next cremation. Trust me, tomorrow she’ll be blowing in the wind.’

  Eamonn listened with a feeling of acute sickness inside him. When had everybody stopped caring? When had the world come to this? On top of everything else, he felt responsible. He had brought Tommy here, told him the score.

  Cathy had been right years ago, but it had taken Eamonn this long to see himself clearly: he was scum.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was forty-eight hours since the girl’s death and Tommy still had not spoken one word. He just sat in a chair in the Manhattan apartment and stared into space. Eamonn had tried talking to him, getting him to drink a cup of tea, to eat. All to no avail.

  He knew that Tommy was in shock but he didn’t know what to do about it. Jack and Petey had both told him to get in touch with one of the more amenable doctors. In other words, pay someone to treat him and keep it quiet. Eamonn had quickly found the right place. The discreet ambulance and three specially trained paramedics were coming for Tommy soon. There was just one thing more Eamonn had to do.

  He dialled Cathy’s number and recited the first prayer he could remember saying for years. He wasn’t sure if it was a prayer for forgiveness or a plea to God to bring his Cathy back to him at last.

  When Cathy walked through Customs at JFK, Eamonn was waiting. He wanted to kiss her but one glance at her set pale face told him it would not be a good idea. He had to content himself with squeezing her hand then keeping an arm casually around her shoulders as he guided her to the waiting stretch limo.

  As they travelled on the expressway, she stared silently out of the window.

  And Eamonn stared at her. Twelve years on she still looked like the girl he had left in England. She didn’t look like a grown woman, the mother of an adolescent daughter. He had half expected to meet a screaming harridan, demanding to know what had happened to her husband. He should have known better. This was Cathy at her iciest.

  She had come in on the night plane after he’d called to say that Tommy was in trouble, ill, and had been taken to a private sanatorium. She should look tired, red-eyed. Instead she looked crisp and fresh, but her utter coldness put Eamonn off his stroke. How could he tell this severe, unforgiving stranger the truth about her husband?

  As if reading his mind she snapped at him, ‘For Christ’s sake, Eamonn, you’ve dragged me all the way across the Atlantic. I hope it wasn’t on a fucking whim! Is Tommy OK or what? Will you please explain!’

  She saw the confusion in his eyes and watched as he nervously adjusted his cuffs with hands that shook. Her swearing, her calmness, her utter contempt, had thrown him.

  She laughed mockingly. ‘Have the IRA put the word out on him, is that it? Oh, I know he’s dipped into the Cause money because he told me. My dear husband is a gambler, a serious one. He owes money all over the Smoke. Spends his nights with hostesses after he’s taken them to the casinos. Oh yes, my Tommy who really loves me and his daughter has got the gambling bug. He’s always had it, only he could control it once upon a time. Not any more, though. So what’s the score? I haven’t much time - I need to get back to England and pick up the pieces of my life.’

  The bitterness in her voice spurred him into action. Her life was laid bare to him with those few words. He felt he wanted to protect her, take care of her . . . even though she would probably rather be bitten by a poisonous snake.

  Briefly, he told her what had happened.

  Cathy’s face tightened imperceptibly but she didn’t show any other emotion and even that was gone in the blink of an eye. She stared out of the car window once more. He lit her cigarette.

  It was another glorious New York day. The sun was high, the traffic thick, and the pollution could knock you to the ground. Inside the air-conditioned car he watched as she smoked her cigarette, hands steady, breathing shallow.

  ‘What is it with men and death, eh?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I killed, and you know why. Now I live with it all the time; it’s blighted my life. I stayed with Tommy because of what happened to me as a child. I married him to escape you, and then I found out he was in as deep as you were with death. Everyone I have ever loved has been involved in death.

  ‘I fall asleep,’ she whispered, ‘and I dream and then I see Ron and the blood everywhere. And do you know what’s the worst thing? For all he was, he didn’t deserve to die like that. Poor old Madge was on a losing streak all her life. It was inevitable that something like that would happen one day. Only as a child I didn’t know that, did I? I loved my mum despite the squalor and the neglect. I loved her, I really did. Now I love my child, and she knows I do. I tell her so every day of her life.’

  He heard the bitterness and loneliness in her voice and his heart went out to her.

  ‘I have to look out for her, you see. I can’t risk her ending up like we have, you, me and Tommy . . . poor Tommy who just wants to be happy. Kitty can’t bear him, she sees through him, knows that he’s weak. I never loved Tommy but I stayed with him. It was easier to be Mrs Pasquale with the perks of the position than it was to go and make a proper life for myself. Besides, I’m incapable of ever loving a man. The closest I ever came to it was with you.’

  Eamonn felt poleaxed. Of all the things he’d thought she’d say, this was the most unexpected. Yet it was music to his ears.

  ‘Where is Kitty?’ he asked. ‘Who’s taking care of her?’

  Cathy put out her cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘She’s at boarding school, and Desrae will have her if I need to stay on out of term-time. So, Tommy . . . the sanatorium, are they taking good care of him?’

  Eamonn nodded, happier now he could tell her something concrete. ‘It’s the best, a privately owned establishment in the suburbs. The doctors are sound . . .’

  She interrupted him. ‘You mean, they
can be bought off, paid to forget what their patient has done?’ Then she stared at him through slitted eyes. ‘Are they going to let him come home?’

  Eamonn shook his head. ‘He needs specialist care. They say he’s had a breakdown of some sort. According to the doctor it had been coming on for a long time. The incident in the club, brought it all to a head.’

  Cathy gave a chilly little smile. ‘Every time a bomb goes off, I reproach him with my eyes, can’t bear him near me. And he can’t stand it either. But he can’t get out. He explained that to me years ago.’ She leant forward and he could see the swell of her breasts through the thin material of her blouse.

  ‘You’re all owned and you can’t see it. For all this wealth, you’re not your own men any more and you never will be. I asked you once, many years ago, if you could sleep. Well, maybe you can but Tommy couldn’t, and neither could I. Do you know, I almost envy him. At least this way he’ll be out of it now. Even the IRA won’t want to deal with a fucking madman, surely?’

  They didn’t talk any more after that. She was right about one thing - Eamonn was no longer his own man. But as far as Tommy went she was wrong. He wasn’t out of it. Not yet.

  Tommy sat in the luxurious room, dressed in silk pyjamas, staring vacantly at nothing. Cathy sat beside him and looked into his eyes. She knew that wherever he was now, he was a world away from this hospital and the life he had led in the past.

  She sighed. ‘How much is all this costing?’

  Eamonn was quick to reassure her. ‘I’m paying, don’t worry about it.’

  She looked at him, her blue eyes flat and hard as she answered. ‘I had no intention of paying. I just wondered how much it cost to turn your back on murder in a discreet private bin. No, carry on, you be the Good Samaritan, it suits you. There’s a twisted morality here. You caused this, and now you can rectify it.’