by Mia Dolan
Sally’s child had been the result of a relationship with a married man. She’d had no choice but to give him up and was sure he was happy. To some extent Sally had got over the experience. Allegra, she decided, never had.
‘I haven’t seen her for a couple of days. She was performing over the weekend, but I haven’t seen her since.’
‘That’s unusual, isn’t it?’
‘It is. It may be that she’s got a new man in her life and is keeping him under wraps.’
A sudden thought struck her. What if Sally had a new lover, one she might commit herself to long term? Could it be possible that she was about to lose both of her best friends, one to the church to be celibate and one to the altar to become a wife? Sally had often said she’d like to be married.
Suddenly Marcie felt very alone and very worried about all those she loved.
Back in London, Leo Kendal had breathed his last. Sam dressed in black for the funeral. People from all walks of life came to pay their last respects. It was only to be expected. Leo and his business had touched many lives. Some were in his pay, some merely worked for him and some were close.
Sam was the closest.
The wake was held at the Café Royale.
‘Leo would have loved this,’ Sam said wistfully. She raised a glass of champagne to his memory. ‘To Leo. May you rest in peace.’
After the toast, she found Carla and took her to one side. ‘Tell my daughter I want to see her.’
Carla nodded. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’
Chapter Thirty-three
ROSA BROOKS WAS only vaguely aware that her granddaughter had visited. It was as though she were floating above everything, as though she were seeing her life through a book and the characters in it.
Old memories had become as fresh as if they had happened yesterday, but in a strange way not just from her point of view, but from those who participated in her life. She was dreaming, but not in the same way that she had ever dreamed before.
In her dreams, the sun was setting and she was sure he would be there. In her dreams, she was watching him, imagining how it had been for him nervously waiting for a wife who had sworn not to return to England.
She saw him as if in an old Noël Coward film or something by Hemingway. He was wearing a cream suit and matching hat, sitting on the wall outside the main gate to the city of Mdina, that the Maltese sometimes called Rabat.
Fortified to repel invaders, the great stones that formed the city walls changed colour as the day wore on. In the early morning and viewed from a distance, they were soft lavender, by midday pale gold, like undercooked biscuits, but now, bathed by a blood-red sun, they blushed like ripe peaches and were warm to the touch.
He had taken up position around three o’clock, a fact noted by a number of people about their normal business. A farmer passed pushing a handcart stacked with wooden cages containing rabbits, hens and pigeons, a squalling kid trailing behind, old enough to leave its mother and to provide meat rather than milk. A sharp knife hung from his belt.
The same man eyed him curiously on his way back, his load lighter now, the kid no longer trailing behind but sold, killed and skinned ready for the table. Despite the knife at his belt having been wiped on his trousers, a sticky film dimmed the blade.
Cyril narrowed his eyes, unheeding of passers-by or the ginger cat that had chosen to sit a few inches from his heel, perhaps unaware that this was a living man, so still was he, so intent on watching the gate.
If anyone had asked him how he was feeling, he would have found it hard to put so much apprehension, hope and emotion into words. It was rather like overeating, too much to digest. That was why he had arrived early. He couldn’t bear to confront the prospect of no more waiting, no more sunsets. If she did not appear today then he would never return but respect her wishes.
A passer-by, more brazen than his fellow countrymen, eyed him carefully, noting the way he passed his cigarette between his fingers and back again, the oldness of lines marring a young man’s face. Drawing the conclusion that he knew his type if not the man, he made his approach.
‘Excuse me.’
Although he did not exactly welcome the intrusion, Cyril made the effort to look at him.
‘Were you here during the war?’
Cyril nodded. ‘Yes.’
The man jerked his chin in acknowledgement. ‘Men flew through the air in France. Did you do that?’
‘How did you guess?’
A warm smile crossed Rosa’s face as the dream developed further. Cyril had always been prone to elaborate on the truth.
The man grinned. ‘I looked at you and I knew.’
He was still grinning as he sauntered off, hands in his pockets, his eyes seeming to search the ground for old memories, old comrades.
Cyril knew what he meant about knowing with one look that he’d been in combat. They all looked the same: older beyond their years, a haunted look in their eyes as though they had lost their innocence along with their friends. It hadn’t been any different for him and his comrades in the Royal Navy. Whatever the future brought, their lives would never be the same.
But they had to hope, and his greatest hope had kept him going. If she didn’t come today the last chapter would have been written and read, and all his hopes would be dashed.
The sun was now a blood-red ball sinking into a coppery west and turning the flat-roofed houses into silky squares of mauve, blue and purple.
The burning intensity of colour made his eyes water. When he returned his anxious gaze to the city gate a great fear came upon him. He was truly afraid that in one moment of gazing he might have missed her.
Blots of blackness blurred his vision. The city on the other side of the archway appeared darker, more purple than usual; the light was fading fast. Panic stricken, he turned to look at the dying sun, not wanting to believe that with these last rays his waiting would be over. She would not come.
‘No!’ No one in all history could have expelled that tiny word with such despair as he did now. Sweeping his hat from his head, he stood staring, willing it not to set, not to dash his hopes.
The last slim crescent hung on.
Someone touched his arm. ‘Cyril?’
He looked down into her face. In dreams of this moment he’d shot her all the most romantic lines he could think of. Now it had finally happened, he stared at her dumbly, too overcome with emotion to speak, to think, to do anything.
She was wearing a simple dress and carrying a brown suitcase. Her face was as fresh and warm as he remembered it. Her hair was short but glossy. He wanted to run his hand through it; he wanted to touch her cheek, even to kiss her, but he couldn’t.
‘Are you real?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Very.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
He didn’t ask why she’d changed her mind about going to England with him.
‘This place hasn’t changed too much,’ he said as three sailors, obviously on leave, laughed at the antics of a colleague who was walking along the wall, balancing precariously, no doubt as a result of drink. ‘It’s still a boys’ place.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘It isn’t?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s a brave place. One day you’ll see that.’
Her eyes shone. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry, but most of all she wanted to get to know him again but wasn’t quite sure where to start.
‘You were watching me.’ It was Cyril’s voice, though not back then in those years between the wars. It was now and he was waiting for her on the other side. ‘Are you coming now?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Then she frowned. ‘Except that I must see Marcie one last time. I must tell her that she has inherited the gift.’
‘I don’t think you need to tell her,’ he said. ‘I think she already knows.’
Experiences had hardened Marcie Brooks into the Marcie Jones she was now and it hadn’t been long coming about. The teenager who had fallen in love with a boy on a motorbi
ke had been superseded in double-quick time by a determined young woman who had no intention of letting anybody – anybody at all – injure her family in any way.
It had happened at last. She was reunited with her mother but was unsure how to handle things.
They hadn’t kissed. They hadn’t embraced. It was as though neither of them could take the first step.
Marcie was sitting down, handbag on lap, fingers tapping it nervously.
Her mother broke the ice. ‘Under the circumstances, I think it would be a very good idea if I became your partner in the nightclub. You can’t possibly run it without Michael around.’
Marcie’s eyes were drawn to the woman looking out of the window with her back to her. She looked and smelled expensive, but it cut no ice with Marcie.
‘I don’t want a business partner. I can manage by myself. I’ve done it before.’ She said it proudly.
‘I loaned the money to purchase the premises to set up the sewing room,’ said the woman, her voice seductively rich.
‘I paid it back,’ Marcie responded hotly. ‘I can do the same again. I do not need a partner.’
‘I know you did. That’s why I’m offering to back you again.’
Marcie blinked. She’d always assumed that the money Allegra had leant her was her money to lend. Now her mother was implying otherwise. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, surprised at the hoarseness of her own voice.
‘I’m offering to back you again. Let’s just say that I recognise when someone is in trouble. I’ve been there myself. Somebody was there for me. I’d like to be there for you.’
Marcie stared at the woman in the red silk dress who smelled of Chanel and was more elegant and classier even than Gabriella Camilleri, Victor Camilleri’s wife.
This woman was her mother and it appeared she was also her guardian angel.
They hadn’t hugged. She realised that wouldn’t happen. Too many years had passed; too many differences had arisen between them.
‘Carla said you were a judge’s wife.’
‘I had to protect my identity. I didn’t want my husband hurt. He was very ill. I promised myself that nothing would touch him to hurt him, that I would hover in the background for you.’ She sighed. ‘It hurt that I could not acknowledge you, but I contented myself with providing you with protection and money.’
‘So you set me up in my own sewing room. You didn’t protect me from Roberto Camilleri though, did you?’ She stated it sarcastically. It hurt that her mother had not acknowledged her and been there to comfort her.
Then Marcie stared at her mother as the realisation sunk in. ‘You were there on the beach?’
She nodded. ‘Alan wasn’t quite dead – doubtless he would have lived but I made sure he didn’t. I was there for you. I still am now. We have to get Michael out of prison. I’m making enquiries right now. I’m sure we’ll find out exactly what happened.’
Charlie Baxter was found burned to a crisp in his car. A suicide note was found at his flat supposedly owning up to the killing of Linda Bell.
The possibility that he had murdered Linda Bell was believed; the probability of him committing suicide was not.
Chapter Thirty-four
CAREFULLY, SO AS not to snag it with her long, lacquered fingernails, Sally slid her stocking over her painted toes. With slow deliberation, knowing he could see her reflection in the window, she pulled it up over her calf, her knee and then her lower thigh.
Every move she made was designed to tease. Even when she had finally fastened her suspender, she took time to straighten her seam, running her hands over stocking top and bare thigh and noting that nylon and skin were equally silky. She did the same with the second stocking. Her hair fell like a silky curtain hiding half of her face. She watched him without him noticing. Even if he did, he would probably think she was seeking warm appraisal, affection, or merely a faint echo of his earlier passion.
Lenny O’Neill was Paddy Rafferty’s right-hand man. He was good-looking in a rough diamond kind of way and it hadn’t been too sore a mission to lead him on, to get her hooks in him.
She was acting on Sam’s orders. Despite her elegant appearance, Sam was as hard as nails, though with one exception. She was playing guardian angel to the daughter she’d abandoned as a child years before. Sally sensed it was a matter of pride as much as affection. Nobody was going to make her kid’s life a misery if she could help it.
‘We need to find out who planted that gun in Michael’s desk,’ Sam had said to her. ‘Baxter is dead and Rafferty is playing dumb. Not surprising really considering that he’ll do the time if Michael is cleared. We need to get close to someone likely to talk. I’ve heard that Lenny O’Neill is the weak link in the Rafferty outfit. His brain’s located firmly behind his flies. I want you to make whoopee with him. Get close. Get personal and for Christ’s sake, find something out.’
Sally hadn’t been too keen on the idea. OK she used to turn a trick or two when she was short of dancing work and had no bloke in her life. But she didn’t need to do that now. However, it was no good reminding Sam of that fact. She owed a lot to Sam. All the girls did.
‘I’ll do what I can.’
When Sam’s jaw tightened and her eyes blazed, Sally was instantly reminded of her Marcie, the friend who didn’t know that Sally had sometimes been paid money for her sexual favours.
Lenny O’Neill looked away from her reflection and took a cigarette from a packet lying on the window ledge. A flame shot from the ivory-cased lighter that he cupped in his hands.
He offered her the open packet. She took one, bending her head as he offered the flame from the lighter.
The fastenings on her dress weren’t particularly difficult to do up, but she turned her bare back to him anyway. ‘Can you do me up? There’s a love.’
She tensed, waiting for his fingers to brush against her flesh as he buttoned her dress. It didn’t happen. She was grateful for that. Earlier he had almost ripped her dress off in his impatience to get at her. Relieved, she clenched her jaw.
She turned so she was facing him and they were both blowing smoke into each other’s faces.
‘Nice lighter,’ she said.
He glanced at it. ‘Got it cheap, though when I say it was cheap it still cost a few quid, just not shop price – if you know what I mean.’
She knew exactly what he meant. The lighter was stolen. Burglary most likely.
She managed to stretch her lips into a smile. ‘When are you free again, darling?’
Sally strolled to the mirror, slid her lipstick from her bag and reapplied it to her naked lips. Without him noticing, she eyed him via the mirror. She felt overcome with contempt when he looked at his watch and frowned.
‘Damn! I’m late already. Cissy will be waiting for me.’
‘Your wife. I didn’t know you had one.’
‘My sister. I live with my sister. She’s the light of my life and thinks the sun shines out of my backside. Family matters a lot to us Irish.’
Sally hid her contempt beneath an impassive mask, slid her lipstick back into her handbag and scraped a smudge from the corner of her mouth. Inside she simmered.
He put his arms around her, his hands squeezing her breasts. She pretended it didn’t hurt, but it did. This was only her second date with Lenny but already she’d sized him up; the longer their relationship lasted the more brutal he’d become. With a bit of luck she’d find out what she wanted before things got too bad – but there were no guarantees and she’d promised Sam and Sam was her lifeline.
After giving up her baby for adoption, Sally Saunders had fallen apart. She’d got into drink and drugs, her habits paid for by prostitution. Hired as an escort to the Swiss banker who had become her lover, she’d met Sam Kendal. At first she’d understood her to be the wife of a high court judge. Later she found out from her cop boyfriend that Sam was the wife of the most powerful crime godfather in London. It was Pete, the policeman, who had taken her to the party.
She’d
seen Sam angry – really angry – and it was usually over kids. Sally had got drunk at the party. Sam had found her blubbing in the bathroom. Everything had come out about the home for unmarried mothers and giving her baby away. She hadn’t realised why Sam had suddenly hugged her close. Even to this day she couldn’t quite believe that she’d seen a tear squeeze from the corner of one of Sam’s eyes. It was only later that she realised what she’d said. She’d told her about the good friends she’d met there: Allegra and Marcie Brooks, the gutsy little girl from the Isle of Sheppey. She hadn’t realised she was talking about Sam’s daughter.
Sam had been good to her, paying for dance lessons, kitting her out with her first costumes before she’d started earning well and getting her spots in some of the best nightclubs in town.
But there was always a darker side to Sam Kendal. ‘One day it’s gonna be payback time.’
Well, here it was. Get under Lenny O’Neill’s skin to see what she could find out.
Lenny couldn’t possibly know it, but her heart was in her mouth. She’d noted the details of the lighter in double-quick time; show too much interest and he’d be asking her why so bloody nosy.
They talked about his friends and the Irish workers that Paddy brought over from Ireland. ‘They’ll do anything for old Paddy Rafferty,’ he said to her.
It wasn’t unknown for Sam to have the truth beaten out of someone but she was pretty mellow at present what with Leo dying and being reunited with Marcie.
‘I hear that Tony Brooks is back in London,’ said Lenny. ‘You know him don’t you?’
‘My mate’s dad.’
Lenny laughed. ‘An out-and-out boozer. He’s been working for Paddy and didn’t even know it.’ He laughed at that.
‘What you laughing at?’ she asked him.
‘I’m laughing at Charlie Baxter being dead. Couldn’t stand the bloke.’
‘Did he really kill Linda Bell?’
‘’Course he did.’
‘But the gun . . . the police aren’t going to be that convinced, what with Michael’s prints all over it.’
