Fearless

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Oh? What is it?’

  ‘Clearing gardens.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘No – pay’s handsome. Big houses, people with more money than sense. Old dears left in bloody great mansions when their husbands have fallen off the twig, they got cash to burn.’

  ‘Fucking hard work, that,’ said Joey.

  ‘Nah, not really. You can doss off as much as you like, take it nice and slow and easy. Longer the better, really. Charge by the hour, not the job. Ups the pay.’

  Joey went off down the club that night and – sure enough – he got himself a job. He was still signing on the dole, of course. But so what? Big bloody deal.

  102

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ said Claire.

  She was snuggled in against Josh’s big naked hard-muscled body in the hotel bed and she felt like she must just die of pleasure. He was here. He was back. Then the doubts set in and again she stiffened. He would leave her again. He had to. He had family back there. Kids. And a wife. Christ – Shauna!

  ‘What?’ asked Josh, his eyes on her face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re going to leave me.’

  ‘I’m right here.’

  ‘Part of you’s always over there, though.’

  ‘Claire,’ said Josh, stroking a big hand down over her face. ‘I love you. And I meant what I said. I’m getting a divorce.’

  Josh lay back with a sigh. His marriage had been one long dry desert but this was an oasis of calm happiness. Shauna was a fucking monster, he could see that now. She’d battened on him like a leech and sucked him dry. He’d never felt this good, not for years. Not since he’d last been with this same woman.

  ‘God, this is so scary,’ said Claire.

  ‘What’s scary? We’re happy and we’re together,’ he said. God, his poor girl. She’d had such horrors done to her, and yet here she was, still strong, still coping with life. He admired her so much for that. She was a true Romany. A survivor. And she was whole and well, and with him at last.

  Claire was thinking that she’d had a fearsome enemy in Shauna, and she had escaped her by the skin of her teeth. If Shauna ever found out about this, they would suffer. She would suffer. And she had a family of her own to protect. Her mum and dad. Misery-guts Trace her sister, who she loved and missed every day. And now she had Suki, too.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Josh, feeling the shiver run through her. Her body, pressed so close against his, was making him grow hard again.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, and sighed and pushed the whole thing aside. ‘Kiss me,’ she murmured against his mouth, and he did, and she reminded herself she was happy right now, and that would have to be enough.

  103

  Joey was on the dole but Job Seeking, which was a laugh. He turned up at one or two interviews, slouched in the chair, made himself look unemployable, and then went on his way. What paid better and suited him best were the occasional under-the-counter jobs his mates down the club could pass his way, all undeclared, cash in hand, and topped up by the steady trickle of benefits from the DSS, courtesy of the great British taxpayer.

  He got a job clearing an old lady’s garden. She was a sweet thing, brought him out lemonade when it got hot and ushered him into her vast barnlike kitchen when she had to pay him. Cash in hand, of course. He charged her twenty quid an hour, but slipped in an extra half hour here or there to see if she’d complain. She didn’t, so he slipped in a few more.

  He chatted to her, found out her background. She had no kids except for a daughter in New Zealand, and that was great because there would be no one poking their noses in and keeping an eye on what he was doing around the house. The old lady was vague, emptying her purse on the worktop and asking how much did she owe him today? And he saw the bundles of twenties in there. Shit, she really did have cash to burn. So he added on a bit, and again – she didn’t notice.

  He suspected the old dear was losing her marbles, and that was confirmed to him when one day she took off to see a specialist with a hospital volunteer and forgot to lock the doors or set the house alarm. He was there in the garden, just pottering around, no need to exert himself . . . and then she went out, and would be gone some while, so he went indoors and had a look around.

  It proved well worth the bother. There was a large bundle of cash upstairs in a wardrobe, hidden under a pile of mothballed clothes. He pocketed about a third of that, left the rest. And on the ground floor, tucked under the stairs, was a safe. Her husband had been an industrialist, he’d owned a factory, so there must be a good pile of wedge sitting in there, Joey was sure of it. But he couldn’t crack safes. Wouldn’t have a clue where to even begin.

  So he went back to the club and talked it over with a couple of his mates.

  ‘She must know the combination,’ said one of them, ordering a whisky chaser to go with his beer.

  ‘Yeah, she must,’ said the other. ‘Just get it out of her, that’s all.’

  Joey looked at the pair of them. Suddenly he wasn’t sure about this. ‘What, beat it out of her?’ he asked.

  ‘You say the poor old cunt’s doolally, she’d probably just tell you it if you slapped her around a bit.’

  Joey eyed them dubiously. This was getting a bit heavy, and he didn’t like it. Nicking the old girl’s cash was one thing, but beating the crap out of her?

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll leave it.’

  ‘Up to you,’ said his mate.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the other one.

  104

  Days passed in a contented haze, blending one into another. Josh and Claire took a leisurely lunch together and then strolled over to Turtle Pond in Central Park. After that, they went back to the hotel and made love all afternoon. They lay there as evening drew in, wrapped in each other’s arms until Josh stirred himself enough to ring down for room service. Then they showered together, kissing and caressing all the time, and emerged to eat. They drank wine, then fell into bed. Josh had never slept so well in his entire life. All the torment he’d felt, all the doubts and suspicions over Shauna, fell away from him and he was happy, spent, exhausted.

  When he awoke in the morning to make love to Claire all over again, he knew that this was something beyond special. He watched her lying there dozing, her mouth open a little, her breathing gentle, her hair spread out silky and corn-gold on the pillow.

  Claire, he thought, and got a flashback of her running, young and untroubled, ahead of him through the wild-flower meadows, her hair flying, her eyes teasing as she glanced back at him.

  Catch me, Josh.

  He’d never caught her then, but now – at last – he had. His heart lurched in his chest every time he caught sight of her. When she was away from him, he felt bereft. Lonely. This was deep, enduring love and now he’d rediscovered it he was never going to let it go.

  She stirred, her eyes flickering open. They gazed up at him and her arm came up, her fingers brushing through the hair at the nape of his neck. He bent his head and kissed her. Thought of her mother, Eva, the funeral pyre . . . I have to tell her. But Claire was so happy, so content, that he couldn’t bear to ruin it for her.

  Soon though, he thought. Soon, I will have to tell her.

  ‘Wake up, sleepy head,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘We’ve got a busy day ahead.’

  ‘Doing what?’ She yawned.

  ‘Let’s rent a place together,’ said Josh.

  ‘What?’ Claire shot up in the bed and stared at him, blinking in surprise.

  Josh shrugged. ‘We can’t be spending all our time in hotel rooms or at your place at the club. I could rent us a really nice place. Bigger. Better. In your name, not mine, I don’t want you worrying that I’m going to fucking well abandon you or some crap like that. I’ll set up a standing order paying the rent into it every month. So come on. Let’s go shopping for what this lot call real estate. What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘Believe it. It’s true.’

&nbs
p; Claire let out a squeal and threw her arms around him. ‘I love you!’ she shouted.

  ‘I know,’ he said, laughing.

  105

  Shauna nearly threw a fit when two uniformed police came knocking at the door. Her first thought was Josh. Something’s happened to Josh. Her second was that somehow they’d found out about her killing the two Cleaver brothers all those years ago. Or the other things. There were other things, bad things, and the police on the doorstep brought them all crashing to the front of her mind.

  ‘What the hell?’ she asked them.

  She was alone in the house except for Aysha, who came lumbering, large with the baby, into the hall and stared at the two coppers on the doorstep.

  ‘Is Mr Minghella in? Mr Joey Minghella?’ asked one of them.

  Aysha went white as a sheet. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What’s going on?’

  Shauna put a comforting arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ she said, giving them her most penetrating stare. ‘Why do you want him?’ she asked.

  ‘We want to talk to Mr Minghella in connection with a serious incident. Is he in?’

  ‘No, he’s not. He’s gone over to see his father,’ said Aysha. ‘He’s my husband.’

  ‘Can we have his father’s address please?’

  Aysha reeled it off. ‘What’s all this about?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing to concern yourself with, Mrs Minghella. We need his help with our inquiries.’

  It was only later, when they’d pulled Joey in, that Connor drove Shauna and Aysha down to the police station and the true facts of the case came out. A Mrs Rothstein’s neighbours had told them she had a gardener called Joey Minghella so the police needed to speak to him as soon as they could because something awful had happened. Poor Mrs Rothstein had been the subject of a robbery, in the course of which she had suffered a stroke and died.

  That evening, Shauna phoned Josh at his New York hotel, but they said he was out. Could she leave a message, they would make sure that Mr Flynn got it.

  ‘Tell him to phone me back, it’s his wife, it’s urgent,’ said Shauna.

  ‘Your number?’ asked the receptionist, who had seen Josh going through the lobby many times with an attractive middle-aged blonde woman.

  Shauna told her. Then she sat down in the living room with Aysha, who was in tears, and wished to God she had a normal husband like any other woman – a stockbroker, a lawyer or even a fucking road sweeper – and not one who kept disappearing off the face of the earth when he was bloody needed here.

  Josh and Claire had a lovely day together, hunting for the perfect apartment.

  ‘So I’m going to be your mistress,’ said Claire.

  ‘Don’t say that. That’s not how I think of you. You’re what you’ve always been: the woman I love.’

  They found the perfect apartment at East 76th Street, on the Upper East Side – a vast place lit by vivid sunlight and with a panoramic view of the park and the New York City skyline beyond it. Josh put down a retainer, and they went back to the hotel to celebrate over dinner. When they got there, the receptionist discreetly said to Josh:

  ‘Mr Flynn, your wife called.’ The woman did not so much as glance at Claire, but Claire felt her cheeks burning all the same.

  Josh felt his happy mood evaporate. Aysha? he thought. The baby? ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said you were to phone her, that it was urgent.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Thank you,’ said Josh, and in silence he went with Claire over to the lift and up to the room. He sat at the desk in the window, and dialled out. Claire went into the bathroom. He knew she couldn’t bear to listen to him talking to Shauna.

  Claire sat on the edge of the bath while Josh’s voice droned on in the sitting room. When he stopped speaking, she came out. Josh was sitting there at the desk, staring out of the window.

  ‘Josh? What is it?’ she asked.

  He half-turned in the chair, held out a hand. Claire went to him and he pulled her down on to his lap with a sigh. He looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and she felt suddenly afraid.

  ‘Josh?’ she queried, linking her arms around his neck and gazing into his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, babe. I have to go back,’ he said. ‘Family trouble.’

  ‘Bad?’ she asked. She felt crushed. He was about to abandon her. Once again.

  ‘Pretty bad. I have to be there.’ His grey eyes held hers. ‘You do understand?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure,’ she said with forced lightness, thinking of her, his wife, Shauna.

  He’d said he was going to get a divorce, but she couldn’t dare believe that. Was this the way it was going to be for them, like, forever? Snatched moments of happiness, and then he’d go and she’d have to wait and wonder if his guilt was so bad about his family over there that he might not come back this time, or the next, or the time after that?

  ‘Go,’ she said firmly, and kissed him, keeping the worry out of her face, smiling, trying not to let any of it show. ‘You have to go. Sort it out. Then come back to me.’

  106

  ‘Where is the little arsehole?’ asked Josh when he and Connor got indoors. Connor had picked him up from the airport as always, and said little on the way back except that the shit had hit the fan, and why had his sister been so stupid as to marry such a low-life creep?

  How do we know who we’re going to fall in love with? thought Josh. Once, he might have called Aysha stupid too, but that was before he’d met up with Claire again. He felt a wash of shame sweep over him at the situation. He hated it here now and he wanted to be back in the States, with Claire. Not here, sorting out yet another mess. Seeing Shauna again, bringing back all the doubts, all the unanswered questions, all the bone-deep loathing he felt for her and which he could now barely conceal.

  Shauna was there, sitting in the living room next to a pale-looking Aysha.

  ‘I’ll take your bag upstairs,’ said Connor.

  ‘Thanks.’ It struck Josh then that he was going to have to sleep in the master suite, in the same bed as Shauna. If he took the spare room, there’d be hell to pay and she’d never stop pecking his head over it. Christ, he’d become so far removed from her that it filled him with horror, the thought that she might reach for him in the night.

  Shauna stood up, came over to him, kissed his cheek. He forced himself to kiss her back, without warmth. Then Aysha levered herself to her feet and came over. ‘Daddy!’ she said, and hugged him; but she didn’t cry. She seemed too shocked for that.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Josh. ‘We’ll work this out. Where is Joey?’ he asked as Connor came back downstairs and stood beside him. ‘They let him out, didn’t they? He was just helping with inquiries?’

  ‘He’s over at his dad’s place, but I had a word with him before he went,’ said Connor. ‘The thick little fucker. He set it up then got cold feet. He was doing garden clearance at this old lady’s house. Talked about it with two of his mates down the club, told them the old woman had a safe under the stairs and money all over the place in the house. They broke in and started slapping her about to get the combo out of her, and then she goes and drops dead with fright. One of the neighbours mentioned the gardener Joey Minghella and bob’s your uncle, here we are.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have hurt the old woman,’ said Aysha.

  Josh shook his head. ‘Aysha. He killed the poor old tart, doing what he did.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘You still defending that tosser?’ asked Connor. He twirled a finger around on his brow. ‘You’re mental.’

  ‘None of this would have happened if you’d given him some work,’ said Aysha.

  Connor eyed her with disbelief. ‘Oh, so this is my fault? Jesus, Aysh. That bloke’s a liability. Face it.’

  ‘So what’s happening now?’ asked Josh.

  ‘Joey mugged his two mates off to the police,’ said Shauna. ‘Said he was the innocent party, that he’d only mentioned he wa
s working there to them, nothing else. They’ll go down for manslaughter at least, no doubt about that. The muskras . . .’ Shauna paused, a brief look of disgust crossing her face. She corrected herself. ‘I mean, the police pulled them in. They’re nicked – and they never did crack that safe open.’

  ‘So Joey’s out,’ said Josh.

  ‘He’s out on bail. Cost us a fucking fortune,’ said Connor.

  ‘I’d better get over there,’ said Aysha, awkwardly bending to snatch up her cardigan and handbag. She felt ill with the baby, this was all she needed. Her family were right. Joey was a fool. But she loved him. ‘He’ll be upset.’

  ‘You want me to drive you?’ asked Connor, concerned.

  ‘What I want, Connor, is for you to leave me alone,’ she said, brushing past him and vanishing into the hall. ‘This is all on you,’ she added, and the front door slammed behind her.

  107

  Aysha went outside and started up her BMW. ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion roared out of the speakers and irritably she flicked the thing off. Fuck romantic songs and fuck romance. She could barely get behind the ruddy steering wheel; she was massive, she felt sick and fearful, and bloody Joey was playing them all up. She was starting to feel that the whole bloody marriage thing was just too much fucking trouble.

  She drove over to the estate and parked the car outside the house, behind Joey’s old beat-up Ford with its boom box in the back. Joey loved music, the louder the better. He was still like a teenager in that respect.

  In a lot of respects.

  She got out. There were kids zipping up and down the street on skateboards, and they eyed her car with interest.

  ‘Anything goes missing on this bloody thing and you’ll pay for it,’ she snapped at them, and they grinned.

  ‘Keep an eye on it for you for a tenner,’ said one, a carrot-topped porky kid with eyes like a riverboat gambler.

  ‘Five,’ said Aysha.