Dirty Game

by Jessie Keane

  He hadn’t liked her doing dirty things in the Limehouse place. He knew what they did there, his mum had told him often enough about what these sorts of women got up to, what Celia Bailey was, and how doing such things with these women would affect a man. He’d go blind, or catch something that would make his knob rot and drop off.

  It was one of his most vivid memories, his mum bathing him when he was a boy, her rough meaty hand grabbing hold of his todger and her saying: ‘Do dirty things with dirty girls and this will drop right off, son. And you wouldn’t want that, now would you?’

  But what about the dirty things Mum did with his many ‘uncles’? He’d wanted to say that, but he was frightened of his mum’s temper. She had a terrible temper. It was best to just nod, agree, keep quiet. Billy was good at keeping quiet.

  Billy had been relieved when Annie had moved out of Limehouse, but his relief had been short-lived. She had moved into that posh place with Max. That was awful. From doing bad things with bad men, she had progressed to doing bad things with Max. That was even worse.

  Then that had come to an end, and now she was at it again.

  Doing bad things.

  Bad, bad things.

  Now she was in Upper Brook Street, a posh place filled with toffs, and he had seen those toffs, people who should have known better, people who had a position in society and ought to have known how to behave, how to set an example to others, he had seen them going in and out of the building, seen the girls too, fantastically beautiful girls, going in and out, laughing and joking and tossing back their lustrous manes of hair.

  They didn’t look like tarts – or at least not the sort of tarts he was used to seeing around Bow and Limehouse; they were a bit raddled, a bit tired. These were luminous, glowing, but somehow still tarty. They were on a par with Annie for their looks and their elegance. So that was how he knew she was at it again.

  Doing bad things.

  It was awkward.

  ‘You all right here, Billy lad?’ asked Eric, coming to gather up his glass. ‘Want another in there?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Billy.

  Poor bastard, thought Eric, taking Billy’s empty glass back to the bar. Daft as a brush, sitting there staring into space with his mouth open. But no one gave Billy any real aggro. Everyone knew he was on Max Carter’s payroll and that Redmond Delaney had said hands off, and you didn’t piss around with that lot.

  Billy mulled it all over. It was a knotty problem. Which was the trouble with knowing so much, he’d found. If you knew a lot, you tended to worry over it all. So he was worried about the Pat business because he thought Annie was involved. And he was worried about her doing nasty things all over again. And he was worried about the job Max was planning, because it was big, and things might go wrong.

  Oh, he had lots to think about. He had to work out what he thought about it all, because he had trouble getting it all straight in his head sometimes. It was the medication, it made him feel muddled. But he’d take his time and think it all through. Then, and only then, he would decide what he had to do.

  50

  Annie was still in bed one winter morning when she got a call from Dolly.

  ‘I’m coming over to see you at ten. I’m bringing Ellie.’

  Annie sat up, the tension in Dolly’s voice triggering her instantly into a state of alert.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘Not on the phone,’ said Dolly, and hung up.

  Annie stared at the humming receiver. Her heart was thumping. She got up, showered, dressed, fixed herself some tea and toast then stalked around the empty apartment. Another party tomorrow. She’d been thinking of ideas to perk up the business still more, jotting down notes. It was all she had to concentrate on.

  Dolly arrived bang on ten, Ellie trailing pale-faced behind her. Ellie had lost weight, Annie noticed – and it didn’t suit her.

  ‘Come in,’ said Annie, taking their coats. ‘Tea?’

  ‘We need something a fucking sight stronger than that,’ said Dolly, sprawling out on one of the Chesterfields and looking around her in amazement. ‘You’ve got this place well nice, Annie, you’ve made some changes.’

  She noticed that Dolly had a piece of chewing gum stuffed into her missing tooth – the tooth that had been knocked out the night Pat Delaney died. Annie felt almost amused by this. You could take the girl out of Limehouse, but you couldn’t take Limehouse out of the girl. Dolly was terrified of dentists. Any medical procedure filled her with horror. Annie was sure this was because of the abortion she had endured in her youth.

  ‘Take a seat, Ellie,’ said Annie.

  Ellie didn’t look right, she thought. And she was far too quiet.

  Annie went and poured three brandies. She brought them back and put them on the big coffee table between the two Chesterfield sofas. Ellie grabbed hers with a shaking hand and chucked it back in one.

  ‘Ellie’s being a bit silly,’ said Dolly, watching the girl.

  ‘I’m not being silly,’ said Ellie flatly.

  ‘Yes you are,’ snapped Dolly. She looked at Annie. ‘She’s talking about going to the Bill and confessing.’

  Annie’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Look, this has been tormenting me for months now. We killed him,’ said Ellie defensively. ‘I killed him. I can’t go on like this. I’m jumping at everything and anything. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Chris is suspicious.’

  ‘Chris is getting suspicious because you’re acting like a cat on hot bricks,’ said Dolly. ‘Chris knows nothing. If you cool it, he’ll settle down.’

  ‘But I’ll still know I killed him.’

  Annie took a breath. She could sympathize with Ellie’s plight. The flashbacks had gone now, but for some time after that awful night she too had been like Ellie – in a right fucking state.

  ‘Look, Ellie,’ said Annie. ‘We all know what happened that night and it wasn’t our fault. Pat was out of control. He was going to hurt us. We had to get in first, that was all.’

  ‘That’s all.’ Ellie laughed loudly. ‘We killed him. We didn’t just rap him over the knuckles and tell him not to be a bad boy any more. We slit his fucking throat.’

  Dolly gave Annie a look that said: ‘You see?’

  ‘We all know what we did,’ said Annie. ‘We did what we had to do to survive.’

  ‘The Delaneys suspect something,’ said Ellie.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Annie.

  ‘They keep saying when did I last see Pat, have I heard anything about Pat, where is Pat …’

  ‘They’re just fishing,’ said Dolly.

  ‘They know,’ said Ellie.

  ‘They know nothing,’ said Annie firmly.

  ‘I’m telling you, they know we did it,’ shouted Ellie, jumping to her feet. ‘What does it take to make you two see that? We have to go to the police, they’ll protect us!’

  Annie stood up, hauled her arm back and gave Ellie a hefty slap across the face. Ellie recoiled and nearly fell. Annie grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard.

  ‘Listen to me, you daft little bint,’ snarled Annie. ‘Go to the police? Are you off your head? Do that and the police will be the least of your troubles. Do you seriously think that when you’re banged up inside for murder the Delaneys won’t be able to reach you? An eye for an eye, that’s their motto. They’ve got contacts everywhere. They’ll get to you even if you are behind bars. You’ll be found hanging in your cell, so sad, just suicide, these lags commit suicide all the time – or you’ll somehow miraculously get hold of some razor blades and slit your wrists. Tragic! Do you think anyone will care whether or not it was suicide or if someone helped you on your way?’

  Ellie was crying now. The side of her face where Annie had delivered the slap was glowing red. She was staring at Annie with shocked, wounded eyes. Annie felt bad, but she had to harden her heart. Ellie was hysterical and she was going to get them all done for at this rate. She had to be told.

  ‘But what are we
going to do?’ Ellie wailed.

  Annie’s grip on Ellie’s shoulders relaxed.

  ‘What we are going to do is nothing,’ she said. ‘We’re going to sit tight and let the whole thing die down. There was no great affection between Redmond and Pat, everyone knows that. Redmond might look around for his brother, but he won’t look too hard or for too long.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ moaned Ellie.

  Annie’s eyes met Dolly’s over Ellie’s head. This was worrying. They couldn’t have Ellie rattling around like this, threatening all their lives.

  ‘Sit down, Ellie,’ said Annie, and Ellie thumped back on to the Chesterfield beside Dolly. Dolly put a motherly arm around the younger girl and patted her shoulder.

  Annie sat down opposite. She’d made a decision. She knew what to say.

  ‘You don’t know that Dolly and I met Celia at my mum’s funeral, do you Ellie?’

  That got her attention. ‘Celia?’ Ellie stopped dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. ‘Is she … Jesus, did you really? Is she all right?’

  Dolly was silent, watching Annie. She had an idea where this was headed, and she was going to let Annie get on with it. It might even work.

  ‘No, Ellie. She wasn’t all right at all.’

  ‘What … ?’ Ellie glanced feverishly between Annie and Dolly. ‘What do you mean? Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s fucking marvellous, Ellie,’ said Annie, sipping her brandy. She felt like she needed it. ‘Only she had a slight accident, you see.’

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  Annie felt sorry for Ellie, but she ploughed on. This had to be done.

  ‘A serious one. You see, Pat Delaney cut her hand off.’

  Ellie gave an audible gasp.

  Annie went on. ‘He blamed it on Max Carter. He as good as told me on the night we killed him that he’d done it. He did it out of spite, on a whim. That’s what your precious Delaneys are like, Ellie. They’re vicious and they’re violent. And the fact that you’ve been passing information to them won’t help you if they’ve got you in their sights. It didn’t help Celia. She’s been paying them off for years, she must have thought she was well in. Well – she wasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t pass them information,’ said Ellie lamely, her face a picture of shock and dismay.

  ‘Come off it Ellie. It was one of the first things Celia told me about you. You’re a Delaney girl. That’s okay. But be your own girl first, Ellie. Don’t throw your life away and ours with it.’

  Annie paused, letting it all sink in.

  ‘I’ve had bad dreams since it happened, Ellie,’ Annie went on. ‘Waking dreams sometimes. Seeing it all over again. That night.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Ellie in a shaking voice.

  ‘It’s going though, Ellie. It’s passing. Soon it will be gone. Yours will too. It will get better and soon it will be nothing but a memory. Until then, we’re all here to help you and talk to you, day or night. Darren and Aretha, they’ve been good friends to you. So have Dolly and I. We’re friends. We’re tight together, aren’t we? We’re the closest any of us have got to real family. You don’t betray your family, Ellie love, now do you?’

  ‘Thanks, Annie,’ said Dolly quietly when Ellie had gone off to the bathroom to sort out her ruined make-up. ‘I think you’ve done the trick. She was giving me the willies. Climbing the walls.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s the last of it,’ said Annie.

  But she wasn’t convinced.

  51

  The department store safe was ripe for the taking. Jack the gelly man had his pack of three with him. He was pleased with the way things were going, so far.

  So was Jonjo. So was Max, who had the bags at the ready to stow the cash. The telephone chap was sweating up a bit and had taken his hood off. Obvious he’d never done a job before. But he was okay. They were all dressed in gloves and navy boiler suits and thick hoods, in case anyone spotted them. Jimmy had breached the frame-room door for the ex-GPO man to do his bit, and was now outside keeping his eyes peeled. Gary was parked round the corner, ready to go.

  It was midnight. Everything was peaceful, just the way it should be.

  The ex-engineer found the alarm line, got his tools out and started gently stripping back the wire in two places. Then he attached the two crocodile clips to the bared wires and had the diverter wire in place in a second. He turned and nodded to Max.

  The alarm was inactive. They were going to steal away the thirty thousand as quiet as a mouse’s fart. Jonjo went over to the manager’s office and busted the door wide open. The two others were tearing around the store grabbing fur coats, blankets, rugs, all to mask the noise of the explosion.

  The gelly man went over to the safe. It had a steel door built into concrete. He looked it over, then knelt down and unpacked his pack of three and his other bits and pieces. You had to keep gelignite cool and dry. Once it started to run in the heat, you were in trouble.

  ‘I should stand back a bit,’ he said.

  Max, Jonjo and the telephone man moved out of the room. Jonjo went off to pick up whatever he could carry in gemstones and watches. The telephone man took his hood off and mopped his brow. Max watched what the gelly man was doing through the open door.

  Jack had already snipped the ends off the condoms. Now he started to pipe the stuff all around the door, squeezing it into the gap with gentle precision. Then he turned to the lock, the safe’s weakest point, and used up the last of the gelly. Then he got out a spatula and a block of kiddies’ Plasticine and slowly covered the gelignite with it.

  Max looked at his watch. Nearly twelve thirty.

  Jack finished with the Plasticine and started setting up the detonator, a simple battery with a wire attached. All he had to do now was close the circuit and the safe would be cracked open like a crushed nut.

  ‘We’ll pack it now,’ he said.

  Max and the telephone man started passing in the rugs and the coats and the sheets and blankets. The gelly man packed them around the safe until it looked like an igloo.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said, and moved out of the room with the detonator, the cable unravelling between the battery and the safe.

  Jonjo came back with pockets like Squirrel Nutkin. He was beaming from ear to ear, mask still off. Sloppy, thought Max, displeased.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ asked Jack.

  Cool bugger, thought Max as he nodded. He could have been leading a Sunday School prayer meeting for all the concern he registered. They got down out of the way.

  ‘Put your hoods on,’ Max told Jonjo and the telephone man.

  ‘It’s too fucking hot,’ said the ex-engineer while Jonjo complied.

  ‘Put it on, you pineapple.’

  The gelly man closed the circuit. The explosion was nothing more than a soft crack, but the floor shook beneath their feet. All the covers fell off the safe and the door lolled open. There was a heavy cordite smell in the air and a little smoke, but Max was pleased. No one outside the building could have heard that. Not even Jimmy, and he had ears like a bat.

  ‘Come on,’ said Jack, and started throwing all the covers back out the door of the manager’s office. He then neatly packed away his stuff.

  Then Max got to the open safe and saw the huge stash of cash inside. He shook out the bags and started piling it inside and handing it back to Jonjo. God bless the January sales. Where the fuck was Jonjo? This was no time to be off on the rob around the shop.

  ‘Hey!’ someone said from behind him.

  Jonjo was grappling with a man near the door.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Jonjo demanded.

  Max looked at the telephone engineer. His mask still off. The bloke had clocked him. Not good news.

  ‘Get off me!’ The man was squirming in Jonjo’s iron grip.

  ‘Who are you, pal?’ asked Jonjo again.

  ‘I’m the manager,’ the man gasped. ‘I came back for some papers.’

  Now the engineer pulled his hood back on. About a lifetime
too bloody late. Max was seriously annoyed. He was going to have words with Jimmy over this. What was he doing out there, having a wank? He wasn’t keeping watch, that was for sure. This bastard must have come right past him.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said Jonjo.

  ‘Take him into the storage room. Tie him up,’ said Max.

  ‘But he’s seen my …’ yelled the engineer.

  Max gave him and slap and caught the front of his boiler suit.

  ‘Shut it, you.’

  The man fell silent. Christ, spare me from bloody amateurs, thought Max. God knew what this idiot had been about to say. He could have roared one of their names out loud, he was that rattled.

  ‘He saw my face,’ moaned the man.

  Max gave him a little shake.

  ‘So? I hear Scotland’s nice this time of year. Take yourself off up there. Go tonight. And keep it buttoned, my friend, or I might get upset with you.’

  ‘But what if he identifies me?’

  ‘You’ve got no record. No wife. No kids. He’d have to be fucking clever to do that, wouldn’t he? But take no chances. Clear off out of it.’

  ‘My cut! What about my cut?’

  ‘Send a postcard in three months’ time to Eric at The Grapes. I’ll see you right. So long as you remember you say nothing to nobody about this. You get careless, I get upset. Remember that. I hear anything about you mouthing off, I’ll find you. And you’ll be sorry.’

  The man nodded. Max started piling the cash into the bags. A good night’s work, all in all. And on Delaney turf, too – that made it twice as sweet.

  52

  ‘So how was Cliveden this weekend?’ asked Annie absently as she thumbed through one of the copies of The Times newspaper she bought in for the clients. Not much to see, really. The odd scandal. The odd robbery, too. A massive thirty thousand quid had gone walkabout from a department store on the Delaney manor. Ronnie and Reggie Kray had been remanded in custody, charged with demanding money with menaces. Adam Faith had cancelled concerts in Johannesburg after refusing to play to all-white audiences.

  Mira, Jennifer and Thelma were in an ecstatic pre-party huddle on one of the big Chesterfields. Mira, beaming with happiness, tossing her blonde mane, looked up at Annie who was standing over them with an indulgent smile.