Liverpool Loyalty

by Caz Finlay

  ‘Sorry, Nipper,’ Connor said as he guided Jake out of the door. ‘Gary Mac will be in touch.’

  ‘No problem, Connor,’ Nipper replied shakily.

  Jake shrugged Connor’s arm off him and tried to run back into the kitchen but Connor stopped him. He was bigger and stronger than Jake, and even a coked-up Jake was no match for him. ‘Get the fuck out of here and into the car,’ Connor hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Before I knock you the fuck out.’

  Jake backed off and stormed out of the house towards the car, rambling incoherently to himself as he did.

  Connor drove Jake home in silence. Jake had made a complete tit of himself at Nipper’s house. Nipper was a good soldier and he was discreet too, but if word started getting out that Jake was unhinged, then it was only a matter of time before someone tried to take advantage of that. It was at times like these that Connor missed Paul more than ever. He would give anything to have his twin back by his side.

  As they pulled up outside Jake’s apartment block on the waterfront, Jake opened the door and almost fell out of the car. Connor pressed the button to lower the passenger window and leaned over so that Jake could hear him. ‘Pull yourself together, Jake. Paul would be fucking ashamed of you,’ he said before driving off and leaving Jake standing alone in the car park.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Michael was reviewing the CCTV from The Blue Rooms when his office door opened. Looking up from his laptop, he was surprised to see Lena standing in the open doorway.

  ‘Lena? What are you doing here? I thought there was only me and Nick left,’ he said as she walked into the room, closing the door behind her.

  Lena continued towards him, crossing the room and walking around the desk. She stopped a few steps away from him. ‘I wanted to make sure there was nothing else you needed, Boss,’ she said softly.

  Michael sat up straighter in his chair. ‘I think I’ve got everything I need,’ he replied as he watched her toying with the belt on her coat.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ she said with a smile.

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m pretty sure. What do you want, Lena?’

  She took one step closer, so she was only a few feet from him. ‘I wanted to let you know that I can give you anything you need,’ she said as she began to undo the belt on her long coat. ‘I’ve been flirting with you for weeks, but you don’t seem to have taken the hint, so I thought I’d spell it out for you. Just to make sure you’re absolutely clear.’

  ‘Clear about what?’

  ‘That you can have this,’ she purred as she opened her coat fully, revealing that she was wearing only underwear beneath, ‘anywhere, and anytime you want.’

  Michael stared at her for a few seconds and waited for the punchline. Surely this was a set-up? But she continued to stand there, waiting for him to make his move. Waiting for him to claim her for his own.

  He stood up. In one stride, he was standing before her, his face only inches from hers. She tilted her head to look at him and blinked, her long eyelashes fluttering across her cheeks.

  Michael bent his head lower. He wanted to make sure she heard every word he said. ‘I know you’ve been flirting with me,’ he growled. ‘I’m not fucking stupid. But I’ve been ignoring you and hoping that you’ll get the message that I’m not interested.’

  At this, she took a step back from him, her mouth open in surprise, and he realised she probably wasn’t used to being turned down. There was no denying she was a beautiful young woman and she could have almost any man she set her sights on. Almost.

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m married,’ Michael went on. ‘And I happen to love my wife. You know her – Grace. She gave you this job. I suspect I’m not the first married man you’ve made a pass at, and I expect you’ve heard most of them say that they love their wives. But when I tell you that I love her, I mean, I fucking adore her. She is the only woman I have any interest in seeing, in or out of her underwear. So, as for how I want you, that would be fully clothed and out of my fucking restaurant.’

  Lena pulled her coat protectively around her and, to Michael’s relief, walked quickly out of his office.

  Michael sat down with a sigh, and ran a hand through his thick dark hair. He should have put a stop to Lena’s flirting weeks ago, but he’d hoped that just ignoring it would be enough to give her the message that he wasn’t even remotely interested. He hoped that this was the end of it, and she didn’t go trying to cause him any further trouble.

  Michael slid into the driver’s seat of his brand new Jaguar FX and took a deep breath, inhaling the car’s still new smell. He loved cars. He always had done. He’d wanted to buy himself a Maserati, but Grace had talked him out of it, reminding him that they really shouldn’t be drawing so much attention to themselves. Michael had reluctantly agreed and bought the Jag instead, but on the understanding that one day, before he was too old to enjoy it, he’d buy that Maserati. He had it all planned out. After he and Grace had got married, they’d sold her place in Formby and moved back to Mossley Hill in the south of the city, to be closer to the rest of their family. But that was when everything had been okay, before Paul had been murdered. Now, Michael wanted out. He didn’t want to have to bury another of his children – or his wife. As soon as they could, he wanted to move out of the city again. Not too far. They’d buy a big house in Southport or Lydiate. Then he’d get his Maserati and he wouldn’t care who saw him driving it.

  As he put the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb, Michael remembered his earlier encounter with Lena, and sighed when he thought about how he’d tell Grace that their newest waitress had ended up almost naked in his office. Grace trusted him, he knew that, but if it had been the other way around, he’d have been furious, his first instinct being to smash the cheeky bastard’s head in. Although that wasn’t Grace’s style, it still wasn’t a conversation he felt like having, especially after he’d have to tell her about what happened at The Blue Rooms too. There was no postponing it until morning either. He knew she’d be waiting up for him, even though he would be getting home later than he’d planned. The kids were with their grandparents for the night, so she’d wait up until any hour, knowing that she had the promise of an uninterrupted night’s sleep and a lie in.

  Belle and Oscar stayed at their grandparents’ every Wednesday night, and sometimes on a Friday or Saturday too, if there was something going on that needed his and Grace’s attention. It worked well. Michael’s dad, Patrick, and his wife, Sue, adored all of their grandchildren, and played a big part in the kids’ lives. Michael had already spoken to his dad about his plan to relocate to the suburbs, and he and Sue were keen to make the move with them. Michael loved Sue. She was a warm and good-natured woman, and, most importantly, she made his dad happy. Michael’s mum had died when he was just eighteen years old. Marie O’Malley had been a force of nature. Everyone had been surprised when lung cancer had taken her at the age of thirty-eight. She’d gone from the most energetic woman he’d ever known to being bed-ridden within a matter of weeks, her body ravaged by the cruel disease. In those final days, it was Michael who barely left her side. Sean had been newly married with a new baby, and although he saw their mum every day, he had other priorities. Their dad had buried himself in his work, unable to comprehend that his vibrant young wife was slipping away before his eyes. He’d tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Every night he’d come home to her and would hold her in his arms until she fell asleep, but he just couldn’t take the endless days sitting there with her. Michael’s parents had adored each other. And not spending those final days with Marie was something Patrick Carter had regretted ever since, something for which he had never forgiven himself.

  Michael had always loved to listen to his mum’s stories about her childhood in Ireland and their large and eccentric family. He would listen to her talking for hours in her soft Irish lilt as she taught him all about his heritage. She knew all about the history of his dad’s side of the family too, and the
Carters’ colourful past. One afternoon shortly before her death, they had been sitting in their lounge, which had become her bedroom, with the sun streaming through the windows, when she’d removed her engagement ring and pressed it into his hand.

  ‘You’ve always been my favourite, you know?’ she said with a wink.

  Michael smiled and placed his other hand over hers. ‘I know,’ he replied even though he knew she was lying. She loved both of her boys equally and had never shown them anything other than that. He knew she would have told Sean the same thing at some point.

  ‘I want you to have this ring,’ she said softly. ‘And give it to the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with.’

  ‘Mum, I can’t—’ he’d started to protest, but she had cut him off with a wave of her hand.

  ‘I want you to have it,’ she insisted before breaking into a fit of coughing.

  Michael had given her a drink of water, and then she’d recounted, for what he thought must have been the millionth time, the story behind her engagement ring and how it had belonged to his great-grandmother Elizabeth. It was a beautiful platinum band, set with three small but exquisitely cut diamonds. His great-grandfather, Albert Carter, had been a rag and bone man who had come from nothing. He had acquired the ring from a Romany woman whose life he had saved on one cold, rainy night in Liverpool. The circumstances of their encounter had become the stuff of Carter family legend, and there were numerous versions of the tale, but one thing that was universally agreed was that the ring was blessed – or cursed, depending on which way you looked at it.

  The Romany woman had told Albert that the ring was so powerful, it would grant him any woman he wanted. All he had to do was give her the ring in a proposal of marriage, and she would be tied to him for ever, with only death able to part them. Albert had tested his good fortune on Elizabeth Campbell – the girl he’d adored since they’d become clandestine playmates at the age of eleven. Elizabeth was from a well-to-do family, the likes of whom would never allow their daughter to marry a humble rag and bone man. But the power of the ring had been proved when Elizabeth had immediately said yes to Albert’s proposal, leaving her family’s large detached house in Aigburth and moving to the tiny terraced house in Anfield that Albert shared with his mother. It had sent shockwaves around the local community. While Elizabeth wore her beautiful ring with pride, she dismissed any rumours about Romany magic, and swore that she’d been in love with Albert Carter since she’d first met him crawling through the hole in the fence of her family’s back garden to steal apples.

  Elizabeth had passed the ring on to her grandson, Patrick, before she died, and despite her insistence that she didn’t believe in such folly as curses, she told him to be careful who he chose to give it to, as he would be tied to that person for life – and so it had been since he’d first set eyes on Marie O’Malley.

  Michael had taken the ring with a smile, paying no heed to his mother’s talk of Romany curses either. He’d been seeing Cheryl, the woman who became his first wife, at the time, and while he’d loved her, he knew that the understated beauty of his mother’s ring would be lost on her. Cheryl would need a diamond as big as a pebble, set in 24-carat gold, to agree to marry him – a fact which was borne out when he allowed her to choose her own engagement ring six months later. When Michael had proposed to his second wife, Hannah, many years later, after a whirlwind romance, he hadn’t even considered giving her his mother’s engagement ring, and wondered in hindsight whether that should have been a warning that their marriage was doomed from the outset.

  He’d been packing up some of his house, after agreeing to move in with Grace, when he’d come across it in his safe. He and Grace had only been seeing each other properly for a month. They had got together just after she’d been kidnapped and almost murdered, and had spent almost every moment together since. Although they’d only been officially a couple for a month, their long history together, including the fact that they had a one-year-old daughter, meant that proposing marriage seemed like the most natural next step. Michael knew that after Nathan Conlon, Grace had sworn off ever marrying again, and he couldn’t blame her, but he wondered whether there was any truth to the legend of the ring. If there was anyone it was worth testing on, it was Grace. That same evening, he’d cooked Grace her favourite meal, plied her with a few glasses of rosé and then asked her to marry him. He’d been as shocked as she was when she’d said yes. They’d married in their local church three months later. Maybe the ring was magical after all?

  Grace was making herself a cup of herbal tea when she heard Michael closing the front door behind him.

  ‘In here,’ she shouted to him.

  He walked into the kitchen and made his way towards her before wrapping his arms around her waist and giving her a long, deep kiss.

  ‘Is that an apology for being late?’ she said with a grin when they came up for air.

  ‘Nope. Just because I love you.’ He returned her smile. ‘But about me being late? Something happened tonight.’

  ‘What? Is everyone okay?’ she replied, wondering what fresh hell might be in store for them now.

  Michael nodded. ‘Everyone is fine. There was some trouble at The Blue Rooms. A couple of lads turned up there, all tooled up, and started causing bother. Murf and the lads sent them on their way, and no one was badly injured, but the doors and some of the mirrors were smashed up.’

  ‘Do we know who these lads were?’ Grace asked.

  ‘No. Murf said he’d never seen any of them before. But they weren’t from round here. He thinks they were from down south by the sound of them.’

  ‘Down south?’

  Michael nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What the hell’s that about then?’

  ‘No idea. But we’ll find out,’ he assured her.

  ‘I know. But it’s a worry we could do without.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he replied with a sigh.

  Grace took his face in her hands. He’d been working so hard lately and he looked tired. ‘I was going to suggest a nice herbal tea, but why don’t we head straight to bed instead,’ she said as she pressed her body into his.

  Michael smiled at her. ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,’ he said as he pulled her tighter to him. ‘But there’s something else I need to tell you.’

  Grace frowned at him, fearful of what else he was about to say. ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t even know how to tell you this.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ she insisted. ‘You’re scaring me, Michael. What?’

  He tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he said. ‘You know that new waitress, Lena?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, she came on to me tonight.’

  Grace laughed, mostly out of relief. ‘I bet she’s not the first woman to come on to you?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m a catch, aren’t I?’ he replied with a grin.

  ‘You certainly are,’ she said as she pulled him towards her again for a kiss. The truth was, Grace had seen many women taking more than a second glance at her handsome, powerful husband, and she could hardly blame them. Michael, however, usually seemed oblivious to their attention.

  ‘But this was different. She basically stripped to her underwear in our office and told me I could have her any time I wanted.’

  ‘What?’ Grace shouted in surprise and shock at the barefaced cheek of the woman. ‘She stripped in our office?’

  ‘Well, she was about to take her coat off, and she was only wearing her knickers and bra underneath.’

  ‘Really?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ! What a fucking cliché. Don’t tell me she was wearing a mac? Stockings and suspenders?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘I don’t know, love. I didn’t pay that much attention. I was too busy telling to her to get the fuck out of our restaurant.’

  Grace frowned at him. ‘Oh, you didn’t fire her, did you?’ />
  Michael stared at her. ‘I didn’t not fire her. Don’t you think we should?’

  Grace considered his question. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You suppose?’

  ‘It’s just that she’s a great waitress. And the customers adore her,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But what a cheeky mare!’

  ‘I can’t believe you think this is funny,’ Michael said incredulously. ‘I’ve been worrying about how to tell you all the way home, and you don’t seem to care that another woman offered herself to me on a plate.’

  ‘Oh, behave yourself.’ Grace wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Of course I care. But I trust you,’ she said before kissing him on the lips.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ he responded. ‘But you could at least pretend to be a bit jealous.’

  ‘Would it make you feel better if I threatened to scratch her eyes out?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Much,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Now, what were you saying about going straight to bed?’ he asked with a glint in his eye as he took her hand and led her out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Grace walked down the carpeted hallway of the upstairs landing towards the spare room she and Michael used as an office sometimes. She heard him on the phone.

  ‘I want to know who they were, Murf. I watched the CCTV. They were too good to be just a pair of drunks looking for a scrap. And why come all tooled up? It was obviously planned. Get me the names by the end of the day.’

  Michael was ending the call as Grace walked into the room. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve been thinking about last night. The hit on The Blue Rooms. It had to have been planned. Why else would they have had machetes and baseball bats with them?’