Playing Dead

by Jessie Keane

  The first person she saw was Steve Taylor; dark-haired, muddy-eyed, he was looking up at her in surprise. The other people at the table were talking, but soon Steve’s silence infected them as they saw what he was looking at, who he was looking at. Steve had a woman with him, but Annie didn’t recognize her.

  Gary was there too, with another girl; his blond hair was catching the light of the whirling strobes, his pale eyes were pinning her where she stood. Beside the girl who was with Gary was another woman: a small, succulent blonde in a sugar-pink Dusty Springfield get-up, who was draping herself over a dangerous-looking dark-haired man sitting right in the corner, his back to the wall.

  Annie stepped forward until she was standing right in front of their table.

  Her eyes were fixed on the dark-haired man, the one who seemed to be the centre point of the group. He had a deeply tanned complexion, a predatory hook of a nose under black brows, and thick black curling hair. His face was sharp, sharper than she remembered, hardened in some fiery crucible she knew nothing about, but his eyes were the same – a dense, dark navy blue – and they were staring at her right now, sweeping up over her body and then back down again, with a chillingly cold disdain.

  ‘Who the fuck’s this?’ the little blonde was asking.

  ‘That’s his wife, dingbat,’ said Gary, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray but not taking his eyes off Annie for a minute.

  ‘His . . .?’ The blonde was looking between the dark-haired man and the dark-haired woman now, her expression thunderous.

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Annie. ‘It’s true. You’re alive.’

  Now there could be no more doubt. She was looking at Max Carter.

  Chapter 44

  Annie stood frozen to the spot. She didn’t feel that she could have moved, even if she’d wanted to. The last time she had seen him he had been diving into the pool in Majorca over two years ago – and then the nightmare had really begun. The kidnappers had told her he was dead, that they’d thrown him down a mountain.

  Yet here he was. Alive.

  Now Steve and the girl beside him were moving out of the way. Max was shrugging off the embracing arm of the Dusty Springfield lookalike; he was coming off the banquette and walking towards her with that same fluid, panther-like way of moving he’d always had.

  He stopped walking two paces away. It was him. More compact and more powerfully muscular than Constantine. Shorter, but only by a couple of inches. It was him.

  ‘Jesus . . .’ said Annie.

  ‘You fucking slut,’ said Max.

  Annie recoiled as if he’d slapped her. ‘What?’ she could only whisper, blinking with surprise.

  ‘What? What do you mean, what?’ he went on angrily. He was staring at her as if she was filthy. ‘My God, I should have known. Getting into bed with your own sister’s fiancé? That should have told me all I needed to know about you.’

  ‘What the . . .?’ Annie was trying to gather herself. He was attacking her, wading into her, and – for God’s sake – he’d been a part of that too, every bit as guilty as she was. She felt a stirring of fury deep in the pit of her stomach. She’d done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. He had no right to slag her off like this.

  But now he was grabbing her left hand, staring at it. She was still wearing the wedding ring Constantine had slipped onto her finger, and the big vulgar diamond engagement ring he’d bought for her at Tiffany’s in New York.

  Max stared at the evidence for long moments, then dropped her hand with a disdainful flick of the wrist.

  ‘You know what?’ he said, and now his eyes were boring into hers. ‘Constantine Barolli’s fucking well welcome to you. Of all the cheap tricks!’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ said Annie numbly, aware of Dusty back there sneering at her and enjoying this put-down, aware of the others watching, taking it all in. ‘I was told you were dead.’

  ‘Yeah? And instead of going into mourning, what did you do? You shagged Barolli and left the country with him. That’s how grief-stricken you were.’

  ‘That ain’t true,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah it is. You couldn’t wait to get another man in your bed, could you?’

  Annie could only stare at him, overcome.

  ‘Could you?’ he demanded.

  She took a deep breath, steadied herself. She felt on the verge of collapse, on the verge of shrieking and being unable to stop. But she wouldn’t let him and his cronies see her fall apart. She drew herself up to her full height and looked him dead in the eye.

  ‘You know what, Max Carter?’ she said, and her voice was firmer now, louder. ‘You can just fuck. Right. Off. You got that?’

  And she turned on her heel and walked away from him, pushing back through the crowds until she reached Nico, who was still standing at the bar with Dolly.

  ‘You see him?’ asked Dolly, her face worried.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Annie on a trembling laugh, breathing hard with the effort of maintaining a calm front. ‘I saw him. Come on, Nico, let’s go.’

  Chapter 45

  Outside, Annie breathed in the fresh night air and felt that she wanted to just get in the car and tell Nico to drive to the ends of the earth; she just wanted to get away from the torment of it all, the confusion in her brain, the hideous images that kept flashing through it, the nightmares that would not let her rest.

  ‘You okay?’ Nico asked her as she hurried along, hands in pockets, trying not to even think any more.

  ‘Fine,’ she lied. The car was up ahead; she just wanted refuge, she wanted it all to stop.

  They reached the car, and Nico was now fumbling with the key on the passenger side of the car to let her in out of the misty rain, while she waited. There was a loud noise, stunningly loud, a car backfiring. Annie jumped and looked around, up and down the street. She could see nothing, only shadows, only the wet gleam of the tarmac after the evening’s early rain, the lines of cars, the cold yellow glare of the streetlights.

  Nico was leaning in against her, heavier and heavier.

  She looked at him, actually focused on him for the first time since they’d rushed out of the club. In the dim light she could see he wasn’t trying to open the car door any more; his eyes were closed and he was slowly keeling over onto her.

  ‘Nico!’ she screamed.

  But he didn’t seem to hear her. He was toppling like a tree. She was falling beneath him, trying to support his weight and failing. She sagged to the pavement with Nico’s huge bulk pinning her there. She felt the hard, cold surface hit her shoulder, then her knee. Oh Christ, he was so heavy!

  ‘Nico,’ she gasped out. He was smothering her, crushing her ribs; she could barely get her breath. ‘Nico.’

  He’d had a heart attack. She was certain of it. All that they had endured together over the last months had finally proved too much for the old soldier. She lay there, pinioned. She tried to move, tried to shift him even an inch or two, and she couldn’t. She slumped back. Tried not to panic. Help would come. There were other cars here; someone would sooner or later come and free her, get Nico the help he needed.

  Someone was coming now. She heard footsteps, saw a dark shape standing over them.

  ‘Thank God,’ she wheezed. ‘He . . .’ And then she stopped talking as she saw the gun.

  That wasn’t a backfiring car.

  Nico hadn’t had a heart attack. He’d been shot.

  ‘Holy shit,’ she muttered, pushing desperately at Nico’s bulk, trying to move him, desperate to get free, to run, while all the time her eyes were fastened upon that dark shadowy figure above her – she couldn’t see its face – and the icy glint of the muzzle as the figure raised the gun and pointed it with slow, easy deliberation, straight at her head.

  Oh shit, was this Max? Was this Max, disgusted with her, wanting her dead?

  It would be quick, anyway. An end to all the pain.

  But still she pushed at Nico’s body, tried to get free. She wasn’t succeeding. She was going to die.
She slumped back onto the pavement and the figure took aim.

  Here it comes.

  She was almost glad.

  Then there was a shout; the figure stopped, the gun lifted. The shadowy figure stepped back, started to run, was gone. Suddenly there were men surrounding her where she lay, people tugging at Nico, heaving his senseless body off her. Someone pulled her roughly to her feet. She staggered, feeling the swell of sickness, the aftermath of terror – and then realized that she was leaning against the hard, reassuring body of her ‘dead’ first husband, Max Carter. Horrified, she pulled herself quickly away and sagged instead against the side of the car. Gary Tooley was there, squatting over Nico, Steve Taylor looking on.

  ‘Any good?’ asked Steve, glancing down at Nico and then skipping around to scan the streets all around them.

  Annie looked where they were all looking now – at the dark spreading stain on the left of Nico’s chest. The sickness swelled up into her throat. She swallowed hard, turned away.

  Gary shook his head. ‘Clean shot. Straight through the heart.’

  ‘Take care of it,’ said Max to the two men, and grabbed Annie by the arm.

  ‘What the f . . .?’ she asked, as he dragged her off along the road. She peered back over her shoulder. They were manhandling Nico. Hefting him about as if he were no more than a piece of meat. ‘No. Nico!’ she wailed.

  ‘He’s had it,’ said Max roughly, hurrying away and taking her with him.

  But that’s Nico, she thought desperately. That’s not just any thick-headed thug lying there, that’s Nico. Constantine’s friend for all of his life. Her last true link to the man she’d loved.

  ‘Another few seconds and you’d have joined him,’ said Max, stopping by a black Jag, opening the passenger door and pushing her inside.

  ‘You bastard, that’s Nico,’ she told him as he got in the driver’s seat. She was furious, devastated, shaking. She sagged back into the seat and buried her face in her hands. Nico was dead. Oh God. Not Nico, she couldn’t stand it.

  ‘One of Barolli’s boys, right?’ he sneered, and started the engine and pulled out. ‘Holland Park, yeah?’

  Annie dropped her hands and stared at him. She wasn’t going to cry. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, she wouldn’t cry in front of him. Just a few moments ago she had been afraid that he intended to kill her. She wasn’t about to show weakness. Not over Nico, not even over Constantine. She was determined to do any crying in private. ‘Well you should bloody well know,’ she told him. ‘You’ve had someone watching the house, watching Gerda and Layla when they walk in the park.’

  He glanced at her as he steered the Jag through the traffic. ‘I haven’t,’ he said.

  ‘Oh please,’ said Annie wearily, ‘don’t lie.’

  After that, he was silent and she was glad of that, all the way back to Holland Park.

  Chapter 46

  Back at the house she went into the study and straight over to Constantine’s desk. She sat down in the place where he’d always sat and crouched there, shivering. Nico was dead. She couldn’t take it in. And he wasn’t even going to get a Christian burial. She knew how the boys dealt with things like this. Nico’s body would vanish; bold, loyal, brave Nico, to who she owed so much, would end up in the concrete foundations of a motorway, or deep in the English Channel.

  ‘Here, get this down you,’ said a voice.

  She looked up, startled, thinking that Constantine would be there, blackened, charred, dead, reaching out his ruined arms to her. But it was Max. She thought she’d left him at the front door, but he must have followed her in. She hadn’t even noticed. He was holding out a glass of brandy.

  ‘Take it.’

  ‘I can’t . . .’ she said numbly. Talking was hard. Thinking straight was almost impossible.

  ‘You’re in shock. Drink it.’

  Annie reluctantly took the glass and sipped the stuff. It burned her all the way down, and she started to choke.

  ‘Shit, you never could take a drink,’ he said, and poured himself one from the tray and threw it back in one hit. He turned and stared at her. ‘Unlike your pissy-arsed mother.’

  ‘Leave my mother out of it,’ she said, eyes watering, although he was right. Connie had died of the drink. Once, she had been frightened her sister Ruthie would go the same way, but thank God she’d pulled herself back from the brink in time.

  Ruthie.

  Suddenly she had a desperate need to hear Layla’s voice.

  Annie reached out shakily and picked up the phone. Max was wandering around the study, eyeing the books, the couches, taking it all in. Annie watched him in disbelief. It was really him. She couldn’t believe it, but it was. Her husband. She told herself that. Her husband. But she couldn’t feel a thing; all she felt was numb.

  ‘You’ve done well for yourself,’ he was saying. ‘From a crappy little East End two-up-two-down, to a fucking great mansion.’

  She longed to say that it wasn’t her mansion, Lucco had seen to that, but the words stuck in her throat.

  ‘But then you always were the ambitious type. Trust you to aim straight for the top.’

  ‘Hello?’ said a female voice on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Ruthie? It’s Annie, I just wanted to check that Layla’s okay.’ Max turned and stared at her as she said his daughter’s name.

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘But . . . I thought you’d changed your mind . . .’

  ‘What? What are you on about?’

  ‘Well . . . she’s not here. When we spoke on the phone I got her room ready, but when you didn’t show up with her, I thought you must have changed your mind.’

  ‘What?’Annie gulped down a breath. For a moment, the whole room spun. Her head felt as if it was about to implode. ‘You mean . . . she’s really not there?’

  Ruthie gave a slight laugh, but then her voice grew tight with concern. ‘Of course she’s not. Isn’t she . . . isn’t she with you?’

  ‘No,’ said Annie weakly. ‘She’s not.’

  Now she was remembering Nico’s words. He hadn’t been happy about her choice of Ruthie to care for Layla. And he had tried to tell her that, earlier today. But she had cut him off. He had been trying to tell her where he’d put Layla.

  But Gerda was with her. And Nico wouldn’t have put either of them anywhere he wasn’t completely sure they were rock-solid safe. But Nico was dead. And there was no way she could ask him the question now, no way he could tell her the answer.

  Fuck it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Max was asking.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Ruthie.

  Shit, did she recognize his voice, after all this time? And how was she going to break this particular bit of news to Ruthie?

  She couldn’t face that conversation, not now.

  ‘Nobody. It’s okay, Ruthie. Just a mix-up. I’ll phone again later.’ She put the phone down.

  Max was staring at her. ‘Where’s Layla?’ he asked.

  Annie swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know.’

  He moved before she even had time to blink. Suddenly he was across the room. He grabbed the front of her coat and hauled her bodily to her feet. ‘You don’t fucking well know?’ he snarled at her from inches away.

  ‘I told Nico to take her and Gerda to Ruthie’s. I thought there was cause for alarm. Stop shaking me, will you?’ Annie tried to draw breath. ‘The man in the park. I told you about the man in the park.’

  ‘And I told you that it wasn’t me. It could have been one of the boys. Or someone else, who the fuck knows?’

  ‘And Nico was trying to tell me earlier today, he was trying to tell me that he didn’t think Ruthie’s place was a good idea and so he’d taken them somewhere else, but I wasn’t listening . . .’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve lost my kid?’ said Max through gritted teeth.

  ‘She’s my kid too. And I’m telling you that Nico’s put her somewhere safe, but I don’t know where. But Gerda’s
with her. Gerda will get in touch.’

  Gerda had to get in touch. But what if she didn’t? What if she couldn’t?

  ‘Jesus, this is a nightmare,’ said Annie, shutting her eyes, trying to blank it all out.

  ‘This Gerda – she trustworthy?’

  Annie’s eyes opened. Oh God, he was still there, it was Max, it really was. Looking at her with such angry disdain; looking at her like she was shit on his shoe.

  ‘She’s trustworthy,’ she managed to get out. Her mouth was dry, and the brandy had given her heartburn.

  She was afraid she was going to vomit. She was sick to her stomach of all this – sick of constantly having to be apart from her little girl because the life she led was too fraught with dangers. She knew that sometimes it was the only possible option, the only sensible thing to do. But she hated it; it ripped the heart out of her, every time she had to do it.

  ‘Then this Gerda will get in touch.’

  ‘Yeah. She will.’

  ‘And then I’m taking Layla.’

  Annie stared at him, open-mouthed. She couldn’t believe her own ears. ‘You what?’

  ‘You heard. Better with her own father than with a sorry excuse for a mother who can’t keep her legs together for two minutes at a time.’

  ‘You bastard,’ hissed Annie, wild-eyed. ‘You’re not taking Layla away from me.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘I’ll fight you in every court in the land,’ she spat.

  ‘Really? Try it. See how it goes down with the legal system. You’ve committed bigamy, after all. You seriously think they’ll overlook that?’

  ‘Bastard!’ Annie was struggling against him, trying to get free, but his grip was like iron. ‘My God, I can’t believe I loved you once. I can’t believe I actually wasted tears over a cruel, despicable piece of nothing like you.’

  ‘Yeah? Now I suppose you’re going to tell me Constantine Barolli is twice the man I was? And where is he, exactly? I’d like a fucking word with him.’