Until Death

by Knight, Ali

  Georgie saw, across the lawn, the natural boundary she was talking about. Three great trunks lay on their sides on the grass like fallen giants.

  Georgie was incredulous. ‘Do you know where this wood comes from?’

  Mrs Woronzow frowned, and a pair of tiny, delicate lines appeared on her forehead. ‘My husband imports it. His family are beef farmers, landowners. When he was a child growing up on the farm they used to burn rosewood. The trees remind him of home. Wood is a natural material, my clients are very green aware and it’s important to have an emotional connection to the objects we have around us.’

  ‘You’ve got no more emotional connection to those trees than I have to one of your husband’s hamburgers.’ Mo’s voice was flat and hard. He’d had enough of her philosophy.

  Mrs Woronzow pulled her cashmere closer to her, as if protecting herself from Mo’s sarcasm. ‘We’ve been very lucky. My husband’s very successful, we can indulge where perhaps others can’t.’ She sounded defensive. ‘We’ve been in this house twelve years now. We’ve worked very hard to get where we are. I want the best; this is the best. Money doesn’t really come into it.’ She paused, realising she needed to adjust what she had said for her audience. ‘I mean, for us it’s beautiful. We love beautiful things.’ She looked like she was waiting for Georgie to nod.

  ‘How much have you burned?’ Georgie asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the pile of logs stacked in the barn.

  Mrs Woronzow looked perplexed. ‘This winter, or since we moved in?’

  66

  Kelly took a cab home and raced up to the flat. She grabbed a set of keys for another of the cars in the underground car park and piled what she needed into the boot. Her mind was feverish, working at a pace she hadn’t needed for years. She set off for the docks and roared down Casson Street to the play centre. Her route was blocked by the catering vans and prop vans and delivery trucks overflowing on to the mud and grit of the vacant space that Georgie had been so interested in. Eventually someone reversed and she could inch into the car park. She looked around. She wouldn’t have much time.

  She parked in the last bay near a low wall and reversed in so that she could take off later without having to turn. She watched young women carrying large cardboard boxes of glasses in through the doors.

  She got out and walked into the building. A small stage was being erected by a wall, with tables for champagne and children’s party food nearby. The play structure had been draped and decorated with cobwebs and large ghouls’ faces, and a witch that Kelly had made over the past month was being hung from the overhead rope walkway. It looked impressive; many hours of planning and work had been put into today’s Halloween extravaganza.

  Kelly saw none of it. She was checking doors for alarms, seeing whether windows opened, hunting for a back exit through the kitchen, where caterers were lining up canapés on gold trays.

  The dignitaries arrived first, drawing up in chauffeur-driven cars and taxis, picking their way in high heels and cashmere coats over the grit and gravel site and into the play centre. The children and parents came after, drifting in in groups. Many of the children were already dressed up, and Kelly helped those without costumes into the masks and cloaks she had already prepared.

  Jason, who Kelly made props and masks for, arrived with his two kids and came over to her.

  ‘Glad you could come,’ Kelly said, managing a smile.

  ‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Look at these.’ His children took the masks and put them on, pulling them up on their foreheads and waving their arms. ‘It’s a real production you’ve got here. So many people.’

  ‘Yes. The charity’s grown and grown. It was started to support the wives and children of merchant seamen lost at sea, now it mainly helps single mothers. Their men don’t die now, they never return because they’ve got a better offer in Thailand or Cambodia or who knows where. It’s easy to walk away now.’ Jason was nodding. ‘But for those left behind, it can be devastating.’

  ‘Half the world is trying to escape their relationship, the other half trying to keep a hold.’

  Kelly nodded, distracted. How trite he sounded. He had no idea. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. She wondered again at spending her life being attracted to the bad men instead of mild and gentle Jason. What makes us love the people we do?

  ‘Did you decorate it too? It’s amazing.’

  She looked behind her as if seeing the decorations for the first time. ‘No, a prop company did that, but I made the masks and some of the costumes.’ She hunted for her children with her eyes, scanned the room for Christos and Sylvie.

  ‘You OK, Kelly?’

  Kelly dragged herself back to her conversation with Jason. ‘Sorry. Have a drink. There’s champagne and then a tour of the docks—’

  He waved her away. ‘I’m fine. Where are your kids?’

  Her senses were on heightened alert, she felt every squeak of skin against plastic, every squeal as a child disappeared down a tube. She fancied she heard the water burbling through the pipes in the taps in the toilet, the hiss of the tea urn in the kitchen reaching boiling point.

  ‘They’re not here yet.’ As she said it she saw Yannis pulling at the door to the play centre, Florence tumbling in after him, Medea bringing up the rear. ‘Excuse me,’ she just managed to blurt as she ran to them.

  ‘Get off me, Mum,’ said Yannis, excited and squirming free. Florence stared up at her and she was struck anew by how much she looked like her father. Kelly’s hands were shaking as she handed over their costumes. She velcroed Yannis into a ghoul suit and Florence became a woodland sprite. She saw Christos and Sylvie walk across the car park towards the door. Her mouth went dry. He was carrying a black rucksack. She ushered the children away to the play structure.

  Medea sat down on a chair by the door. Guard number one. She saw Christos and Sylvie, acting as if they were a couple, talking to the head of the charity and some other people, but their heads turned constantly to the doors. It was as if the whole building was waiting, holding its breath, for the explosion that was to come.

  The people round Sylvie were just so much noise. Mosquitoes buzzing outside a net. Her eyes were fixed on the doors, waiting for him to arrive. She watched a taxi pull up and two people get out, the skinny runt from the arrivals hall and a tall, broad man. She knocked Christos’s arm with her own. She made an excuse to the mosquitoes, and she and Christos walked over to the entrance.

  ‘Somewhere private,’ the Wolf said. He was younger than Christos, fitter and stronger, with big arms and hams for hands.

  Sylvie wondered how much comparing Kelly had done between husbands number one and two. Christos gestured towards a doorway.

  ‘Get your mother in here too.’

  Christos called Medea over. They walked into a side room and closed the door.

  ‘Have you got the money?’

  Christos held up the black rucksack in his hand, but didn’t move. ‘Where’s Isabella?’

  ‘She’s in the hospital you chose for her. With my friend.’

  Sylvie took her mobile from her pocket, stepped outside the room and dialled the hospital. She asked to be put through, and spoke to Isabella herself, asking her questions only the real Isabella would have the answers to. Confirming she was safe and in good hands, she rang off and came back into the room.

  ‘You’ve seen Kelly,’ Christos was saying.

  The Wolf smiled, making Christos snort.

  ‘A tearful reunion, no doubt. Women love that shit. If she knew what an arsehole you really were, what a poor choice she made, she’d not have shed them. I protected her from the real you, I never told on you, Michael.’

  ‘I hear she doesn’t sing any more. You don’t make her want to sing.’

  ‘You killed your own child. I don’t know how you live with yourself.’

  ‘You don’t deserve her, you never did.’

  ‘Neither did you.’

  ‘If we could hurry this along …
’ Sylvie’s anger was mushrooming as the men bickered over their emotional baggage. She wanted out of here, she wanted to get to Isabella and her child. The runt accompanying the Wolf came across the room for the rucksack.

  ‘Remember, Florence is my kid,’ said the Wolf. ‘I can make trouble if you don’t hand over the money right now.’

  Christos snarled. ‘If I ever see you within a mile of any of my family again, in the same country even, I’ll kill you. This is a one-time offer,’ he said.

  The runt reached out his arm for the bag in Christos’s hand. He was sweaty and nervous. He fumbled with the zip and looked in. Sylvie took a step towards him.

  ‘Is the money in there?’ the Wolf shouted.

  The runt licked his lips and nodded.

  My money, thought Sylvie, that’s my money. I’ve worked fucking hard for that, keeping Christos happy, keeping him wanting more. Yeah, it’s his business, his choices, his wealth, but that money has my sweat all over it. And you think you can take it from me.

  The runt backed away, bag in hand. He glanced at her and she recognised a primitive instinct for self-preservation in him. He had sensed she was about to do something. She watched the Wolf step towards the door as the runt, as if looking into the eyes of a more brutal and aggressive animal, turned and ran for the door.

  Sylvie pulled out the gun.

  Kelly was crouched in a series of brightly coloured twisting tubes in the middle of the play structure. Yannis was wading through a pit filled waist-high with plastic balls, a level beneath her. She stared out, counting the number of Christos’s men she could see. The centre was crowded with children screaming and adults drinking and laughing.

  She watched Michael and the guy with the bad skin walk in, and all of them, with Medea, move into a side room. The door closed. Three guards down, just as he’d promised he’d do at the Savoy. He would give her an opportunity to get away. She set to work: she pulled a hair tie from her pocket and twisted her hair quickly into a high and tight ponytail. She knelt and pulled the waistband of her skirt over itself, shortening it by three inches. She took off her tights and shoved them into a gap in the plastic ceiling above her, pulled a differently coloured pair from her pocket and scrabbled about pulling them on. She took off her witch’s mask and swapped it for another one she’d found abandoned in the ball pit.

  As Florence crawled past her towards a slide, she grabbed her arm. ‘Listen to me. This is very important. Go down and get Yannis to come up here. Now.’ Her daughter stared at her, sensing the urgency. She slipped away down the slide and Kelly watched her as she found Yannis. A moment later the three of them climbed under a low obstacle and were together at the top of the slide. Kelly pulled off her children’s masks and replaced them with two others she had in her pocket and removed Florence’s wings. She held their hands and squeezed. ‘Listen. You need to follow me and move very fast. This is no time for questions, this is no time for hesitation, this is time to move when I say move.’ She peered out at the door behind which were both of her husbands: closed. She watched Christos’s guard leaning against the large window by the fire exit door at the bottom of the slide. She could see the tarmac of the dock beyond and then the Thames. They all shuffled towards the slide.

  A yell made her instinctively turn her head. The closed door was thrown open and Jonas shot through it, a black rucksack in his arms as he dodged adults and tables. Michael was hard on his heels, knocking a man out of the way, and Christos was a beat behind him. She glimpsed the flash of Sylvie’s blonde hair before a hard zing rebounded off the metal of the play frame just above her head and a loud bang followed, then another, deafening in the enclosed metal space. It was gunfire.

  She shoved her children’s heads to the plastic floor, crouching low as the screams of mothers separated from their children began to ricochet off the ceiling. The guard by the door pushed on the fire exit and began to crawl out, setting off the door alarm. Women were charging towards the play equipment, desperately calling for their children. Champagne flutes crashed to the floor as people dived under tables and shoved each other out of the way. Jonas seemed to crumple and fell over a table, the rucksack sliding away under another. She saw Christos and Michael lunge for it as another table was overturned.

  Michael had said he would provide a diversion that would allow her to get away with the kids, but she had not anticipated anything as terrifying or high risk as this. She yanked on her children’s hands, trying to keep them low, and fell down the slide, her children a tangle of limbs around her. They hit the blue mats and half rolled out of the fire door.

  67

  Men sprinted past them as they ran with the crowd along the dock. A sobbing woman cradled a child, then Jonas ran past, limping badly until he tripped and landed heavily on the ground. Kelly tried to hug the wall that ran parallel to the water’s edge. If Sylvie came out of that door she would have a clean shot at her. They were fifty metres from a corner; they had to get round that corner. Florence was ahead of her, Yannis dragging on her hand behind her. She risked a glimpse backward but couldn’t see Christos. Her uneven gait with Yannis almost made her stumble. She heard the hard, urgent sounds of a heavy man sprinting behind her, then Michael came past at speed, the black rucksack on his shoulder. He overtook Florence. Ten metres. She redoubled her efforts, dragging Yannis with her. They were round the corner.

  A high brick wall abutted the play centre at one end, the other end meeting a low, Victorian redbrick warehouse, ripe for demolition as the docks were redeveloped. The flats on Casson Street rose up behind the wall. To her right, a wide expanse of dock led to the Malamatos offices, warehouses and the ships. It would be a dangerous sprint in the open to safety.

  Michael paused for just a moment, searching the dock for options, judging the height of the wall. He took but a moment before he ran at the wall, jumping and reaching for a pipe that ran under a ledge on the warehouse and swinging his leg on to the wall. The pipe made a groaning sound and gave way, pulling out of the weathered brick as he struggled to the top of the wall.

  She ran towards him. ‘Help them over!’ She lifted Yannis up as high as she could and Michael grabbed his hand, dragging him in an ungainly bundle up and over the wall. Florence was easier, her light frame and trainers helping her over in a moment. Kelly heard incoherent shouts behind her as a huddle of people ran past.

  Her former husband’s hand was warm as she grabbed it and tried to get a foothold on the brick. She was two steps up the wall, his face straining with the effort of pulling up an adult. She saw him glance towards the river, his face betraying something. She heard the sound of heavy feet, a shout from Christos. One of her hands was on top of the wall, she had one leg nearly over.

  Behind her Christos and two men were racing for the wall. ‘Pull her down!’

  Her eyes locked on Michael’s. She had to get her knee over the wall and then she was safe. She couldn’t talk, concentrating all her effort into getting over. She used to talk to him with only her eyes, or so she had thought, when they were young and in love. He frowned slightly, she could feel his hand loosening on hers, his legs tensing as he prepared to fall away on the other side. ‘No!’ He shook his head as if trying to free something that had snagged on his memory, and let go. He jumped down on the other side of the wall and was gone. Kelly half fell back down the bricks, Christos catching her and slamming her into the wall as he did so. Her knees gave way as she landed, a howl of pain that wasn’t physical coming from deep inside her.

  Christos was panting, sweating from running hard. He pulled out his phone, ordering Medea to collect the children from Casson Street. She heard the distant wail of police sirens and saw him smile.

  68

  Georgie, Mo and Mrs Woronzow returned to the elegant living room and the beautiful-smelling fire, the ash from the perfectly chopped logs crumbling elegantly to the bottom of the grate.

  By now, Mrs Woronzow was protesting as Georgie outlined the charges against the couple. Her voice, which on
ly moments ago had been so confident and urbane, was now high and reedy in the large room.

  ‘I think we should have that tea now, Mrs Woronzow.’

  Georgie phoned the office. There was still a lot to do, a team needed to come out here, photos needed to be taken, evidence and statements collected: all the processes that allowed a case to go to court. There was no answer on Angus’s extension. She tried his mobile. Nothing. She rang the switchboard. No reply. She tried Preston. She couldn’t understand why no one was answering.

  Five minutes later Preston rang her back.

  ‘Where is everyone? Why can’t I get through?’

  Preston sounded ill. ‘There has been a shit show like you wouldn’t believe. There’s just been a shootout at that play centre further down the dock, where Malamatos was having his charity fundraiser—’

  ‘A shootout? Has anyone been hurt?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Armed police have had to evacuate half the port, including our offices.’

  Georgie had to sit down on the inviting sofa in the hallway. ‘Where’s Kelly?’

  ‘Kelly?’ Preston sounded confused. ‘She’s the least of our worries. Who was that guy you brought up from Southampton? He was left to wander about, wasn’t he? Because he’s the one the police think might be responsible. You’d better get back here right now, Georgie.’

  Georgie didn’t even think to tell him that they’d found the wood.