by Nigel May
‘Yes, darling, I’m back and she’s fine,’ she lied. She’d not seen her sister Lolly for six months, but she was a fabulous cover for Caitlyn’s affair with Jona. ‘Which is more than can be said for you. You have an expression painted across that aging face of yours that could curdle the thickest crème fraîche. Did you miss me, darling?’ There was more than a spoonful of irony in Caitlyn’s tone. She didn’t actually believe Adam had missed her since the late nineties. He certainly showed no interest in where she was most of the time. If he’d looked at her passport lately he would have seen the visas proving that she and Jona had taken a bite of the Big Apple no less than four times in the last twelve months and also two trips to LA, where Jona was attending a cosmetic surgery show as an international speaker.
‘Miss you?’ grunted Adam. ‘The only bloody thing I miss is the masses of cash you keep spunking up the wall while you’re away. How much did you spend this time?’ And what the fuck is that?’ he said, pointing at the swan being carried by the two workmen. ‘Haven’t we got enough of those bloody things around here now? It’s looking like some bloody Arab palace in here.’
As had become customary, Caitlyn ignored him. ‘Check our credit cards, darling, I withdrew a few hundred and used it wisely.’ Caitlyn had learnt long ago that Adam never really paid much attention to the money she spent. He moaned about it, that was for sure, but he had bigger fish to fry than sitting down and balancing the pounds and pennies. And Caitlyn always used the joint accounts wisely and only in the UK. For her ‘lay-cations’ as she liked to call them with Jona she would only ever use cash or transfer money from a joint account into her own solo one. She and Adam may have had complete understanding that each of them had their ‘own interests’ when it came to their marriage but a sassy lady like Caitlyn knew that the last thing a woman should do to a man, especially one who waved a weapon at people as a profession, is rub the fact she had a lover in his face. Did he know? Maybe? Did he care? Definitely not. As long as it was out of sight, it was out of mind, and as long as Caitlyn was still happy to play the trophy wife when required, then Adam was content with his marital life.
‘What have you bought this sodding flamingo for?’ he snapped, pointing to the statue again. He tilted his head in an attempt to try and see it from a different vantage point. ‘It looks deformed. Bloody rubbish.’
Caitlyn watched as Adam marched across the hall and into his office. ‘Yes, dear, I missed you too,’ she said between gritted teeth as he disappeared out of sight.
But for once, maybe Caitlyn was in agreement with Adam. She tilted her head too to look at the statue. He was right, it did still look like a deformed flamingo.
Turning to the workmen, Caitlyn clapped her hands twice and placed her fingertips to her lips in consternation. ‘Right, you two, put this thing back onto your van and hotfoot it back down to London tout de suite. I shall be phoning Jean-Paul immediately to tell him that his swan will not be swimming its way into my luxury abode until it’s had a complete makeover.’
As the two workmen picked up the statue and shuffled their way back to the front door, one of them turned to Caitlyn and said. ‘For what it’s worth, I thought it was a flamingo as well.’
Caitlyn shooed them out and shut the door behind them.
‘Dear man, your opinion is worth nothing,’ she snipped, before rushing off to phone Jean-Paul. It may have been Adam who used guns for a living but the Belgian sculptor would be getting a verbal ‘Force Caitlyn’ with both barrels.
* * *
‘You’ve bought a swan for the entrance hall as well?’ asked Lily. ‘How many statues does that make now? We’ve already got David and his mirrored cock in there, Immodesty Blaize’s rack in the greenhouse and enough shiny skulls, French bulldogs, doves and glitterballs to give Europe a mirror shortage. You’re becoming obsessed, Mother.’
‘Well, excuse me for wanting to make our home a little more glamorous,’ answers Caitlyn. ‘And do you have to be so coarse? The statue of David has a penis, not a cock, and the greenhouse, as you call it, is a conservatoire, Lily.’
‘Tom-ay-to, tom-ar-to’ smiled Lily. ‘So I’m a little rough around the edges, it must be the way you and Dad have raised me.’
‘Well, dear girl,’ said Caitlyn, taking her daughter’s face in her hands and staring deep into her eyes. ‘You do a look a little rough, it has to be said. What have you been doing to yourself?’ Lily had only just surfaced from her bed where she had spent most of the day and had come to join her mother in the Rich sitting room. ‘I turn my back for two seconds …’
‘Two seconds,’ scoffed Lily. ‘You’re hardly ever here these days. You talk about making it a home. It’s hardly yours anymore. You’re always down at your sister’s.’ Lily stuck her fingers in the air and double-quote-marked the words ‘your sister’s’ to make her meaning clear.
Caitlyn shifted awkwardly in her seat. ‘Your auntie likes company, what can I say?’
‘And you must love looking after her because you always come back with a spring in your step and a smile across your face.’
‘When did you get so smart?’ asked Caitlyn.
‘When I grew up. I’ve been around long enough to know exactly what goes on underneath this roof and more to the point, outside of it. You and Dad aren’t the cosiest of couples at the best of times and I can understand why, especially now I know what Dad does for a job.’
Lily explained to her mother about the conversation she had had with Adam and also about her recent catch-up with Amy Hart.
‘Amy Hart is back in town, is she? Well I never. I bet that pleased your father hugely.’ The sarcasm was clear. As was the reason that Adam had possessed a face of thunder when he’d arrived home earlier.
‘I know what Daddy does. He’s a gangster, isn’t he?’
Caitlyn stayed silent, unsure what to say.
‘I’m fine with it. None of us are virginal pure, are we?’ stated Lily.
‘Your father is a good provider, Lily. That is all you need to worry about.’
‘Believe you me, I know that, and I’m more than happy to lap up the maids, personal chefs, posh cars and riches of the Rich household when need be. Why do you think I still live here? I’m lazy and can’t be arsed to move out. Who needs responsibility? But are you okay with what Daddy does? Have you always known?’
Caitlyn took hold of Lily’s hand. ‘I have known what your father does ever since we first met each other and I fell in love. I gave my heart to the man I wanted to be with, and it just so happened that he doesn’t have the most honourable of jobs. Not everyone can marry a charity worker or a Nobel Prize winner, darling. But your father’s job has bought this house and everything in it. It’s put clothes on our back and food on our table. Given us a lifestyle that is pretty darned good. You are definitely my daughter, Lily Rich. You love the finer things as much as I do. My feelings for your father may have changed over the years and maybe we’re not as cosy – as you put it – as we once were, but I will always be grateful for the opportunities he has put my way. If I hadn’t have met him I might have ended up a secretary or a hairdresser or something, but really, darling, you know me. I don’t have a perfect manicure just to go chipping it on a PC keyboard and I certainly don’t want to go around smelling of bleach and perming solution. That’s not very me, is it?’
‘So you turn a blind eye to it all?’
‘Your father and I turn a blind eye to a lot of things. But the one thing that we both truly care about is you. So tell me, what’s been going on in your life to make you look like you should still be celebrating Halloween, when in reality we’re skidding towards Christmas? Those dark circles under your eyes are not an attractive look for one so young.’
Lily knew she looked rough. Her drug taking had been getting a little too out of hand and she had begun to question everything in her life. When she worked at The Kitty Kat Club she possessed a raison d’être but now she was without purpose. She sold the drugs to make some money, bu
t that wasn’t why she did it. She could have blagged money from her parents, but after the independence of working the club so well she did not want to revert to handouts. The drug-dealing gave her something that was hers, but what it also gave her was the opportunity to take more herself, and that was spiralling out of control, especially now that it was Riley Hart who was filling her thoughts.
‘I’m just tired,’ lied Lily. The last thing she wanted to confess to her mother was her increasing reliance on narcotics. ‘It’s just that Amy Hart coming back has given me a lot to think about. She thinks Riley might still be alive and that it wasn’t him who was killed at the club.’
‘Now there’s a stupid bombshell if ever I heard one. Don’t the police do all sorts of records and checks, dentistry and things like that, to make sure a corpse is who they say it is? Who the hell did she bury or cremate or whatever she did, for God’s sake?’ A streak of major panic flashed across Caitlyn’s face. If Riley was alive, not that she could see how he could be, then Adam could be in serious danger. She was fully aware of the Weston Smith business. Blind eye and all that.
‘I thought the same, but apparently the police have washed their hands of the whole thing. But Amy thinks Riley still might be hiding somewhere.’
‘Has she tried his mobile?’
‘Er, yeah … I think she’s tried most things, Mother. He seems to be incommunicado.’
‘So why is all this giving you something to think about and turning your beautiful face into something from a zombie comic? I need to get you some pampering, dear girl. Freshen up that skin a little.’
‘It’s the talk of Riley being alive. I’m hoping it’s true. When he was alive …’ She hesitated, wondering if she should carry on, but doubtless Adam would tell her mother if she didn’t. ‘We were having an affair. It ended because he dumped me, but I loved him, Mum. I think I still do.’
Caitlyn’s mouth dropped open. ‘You were having an affair with Riley Hart? You stupid girl, how could you?’
‘Er, hello? Kettle, pot, black. You just said you can’t choose the profession of the man you fall in love with. And as for affairs, isn’t your hypocrisy a bit rich coming from someone who spends half their time at their sister’s?’ Again Lily double-quote-marked the air as she said the word.
Caitlyn knew she was right. Lily was a smart cookie. She pulled her close and hugged her. ‘Oh you poor girl, you really are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?’
46
Now, 2015
* * *
The first ever photograph of people was Boulevard Du Temple, taken by Louis Daguerre back in the 1830s. It was an image of a busy street but because the exposure time was over ten minutes, the city traffic was moving too much to appear.
It was one of the strange facts that Jemima Hearn could remember from her school days. Along with the largest volcano in space being on the surface of Mars and US President George Washington not possessing a middle name. She found it odd the things you remembered in life. But at least these were things that would always be documented in history. They would eternally be talked about. Not like her love for Winston Curtis. That was something that had died the moment his life was extinguished that night at The Kitty Kat.
Jemima was sitting in the driving seat of one of the Hearns’ collection of motors, a beautiful Aston Martin V8 Vantage. It was her favourite to take out on the road and she had spent the last two hours driving herself to a peaceful lakeside spot in the Peak District, south of Manchester from their home in Wilmslow. It was a place she often came when she needed to clear her head and escape the tedium her life had become.
The reason Jemima had been thinking about the first ever photograph was that she was staring down at the one photo she had of her and Winston together. Lily Rich had been taking Polaroids at the club one night, as part of some kind of retro promotion to drum up publicity for the Kitty Kat, taking pictures of the various models and actresses and dreadful people off the TV who seemed to migrate there and giving them out. As ever, Jemima had been there to play loyal ‘plus one’ to Tommy, who was there to keep his eye on Riley, who was keeping his eye on everyone. The same old monotonous story. The only ray of light had come from Winston being there supporting his employer and unbeknown to anyone else, supporting Jemima. Allowing some love to finally shine brightly in her heart.
Lily had been running around with her camera, aiming it at everyone. Every time she even so much as pointed it in Jemima’s direction, the sneer of disdain Jemima had given had been enough to send Lily scurrying off in search of some insipid glamour girl with a vacuous grin wider than her breasts. Jemima hated having her photo taken, she always had. It was a confidence thing. Even if she was looking pretty good after a makeover at the hands of Caitlyn Rich. But there was one moment when she’d been talking to Winston. He’d made time to find her, to melt her heart with that exquisitely cheeky, full-lipped smile of his, as he always did, and plan for their next rendezvous. Planning moments when she could get away from Tommy, from his constant absorption of the world he lived in. His world alongside Riley. His one before that, alongside Cazwell. Neither of them seemed to feature Jemima anymore. She was more like his employee than his wife.
There had been that moment when the madcap Lily had shoved the camera in her face yet again and she had been talking to Winston. Happy to seize the opportunity, Winston had wrapped his arm around her and pulled her towards him, his bear grip making it impossible for her to resist, not that she’d wanted to. Unable to stop herself, she smiled, a smile that lit up her entire face. Jemima had what people called ‘one of those faces that never looked happy’, but the beam on both her and the face of her delicious ebony lover as they stared out of the photo was immeasurable.
It was one of the last times she remembered being truly joyous. She couldn’t even begin to think of the last time Tommy had made her feel like that.
No, staring at the picture of Winston, the man who could no longer light up her world, she knew that her one chance of true happiness had passed her by and that she desperately needed to do something about it.
* * *
Jarrett Smith had carried a photo of Weston in his wallet ever since his only son had first gone missing. Okay, so the lad could be a waste of space but he was still his lad, part of the Smith dynasty who had been ruling the grimy streets of London for the best part of forty years. His name, and his father’s before him, had become one of the most feared within the confines of a London postcode. If you messed with Jarrett Smith, then there was only one possible outcome and that was game over. The three strike rule never applied. You fucked Jarrett over once, then it was always a case of taking the fast route to six feet under.
But Jarrett’s notoriety was spreading. He’d been aware of that ever since he’d made his first ‘business trip’ to Manchester following Weston’s disappearance a few years earlier. The entire city had clammed up, people were afraid to talk to him, word reached him that even the so-called big players in Manchester were running scared. Every avenue of exploration had become a dead end, a cul-de-sac of nothingness. Nobody knew what had happened to his son, Weston. He’d been seen, he’d been doing his usual ducking and diving, trying to avoid the law, but nobody seemed to know who with and why. Lips had been sealed as if by superglue. Mouths tighter than oysters, petrified of spilling a pearl of knowledge that could land somebody in Jarrett’s blood-splattered bad books.
But as the months and years went by, people would become careless. Jarrett knew that. This was a marathon, not a sprint. The truth about Weston’s disappearance would come to light sooner or later and Jarrett would be there to deal with those to blame.
His first suspect had been Riley Hart, the newest upstart on the northern block, pussy-assed son of Cazwell. Manchester’s number one? Tell that to his widow. He’d obviously been slack. Barrel-load of bullets straight into his skull. No, if he was to blame, then he’d already paid the price.
But what if it wasn’t him? Jarrett still needed
revenge. If his son was as dead as Jarrett reckoned he was deep inside – he’d have been back sponging for money if he still had breath in his body no doubt – then someone would have to pay. And it was an eye for an eye, a death for a death. Revenge would come, it always did in the end.
It was being served right now for someone else. Another person who had dared to cross Jarrett. Three months after being swindled out of £300K by his apparent friend and co-owner of his prize racehorse, Jarrett was finally getting payback. With a gun lodged tightly against his back, Jarrett roughly pushed the son of his former mate out of the back of his own Mercedes. The car smelt of piss where the terrified teenager had wet himself with fear as one of Jarrett’s men had driven the Mercedes to their current destination, a construction site in south east London.
It was just before midnight and the place was clear of workmen. He’d have to get the car valeted tomorrow now. Fucking little prick. Still, what was a bit of piss on your leather upholstery when revenge was about to be dished up?
The construction site was being used during the day to build an extension onto one of London’s exit roads. The site was a mass of cranes, machinery and deep, half-dug holes ready for the insertion of huge concrete pillars to act as foundations for the new road. Well, Jarrett was about to add a unique insertion of his own.
‘So, where’s your fucking dad gone with my money, then? Why would he fuck off with Jarrett Smith’s hard earned dosh, sunshine?’ He rammed the weapon into the lad’s spine, forcing him to let out a pathetic whimper between pitiful sobs.
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know. Please Mr Smith. I’ve not seen him since he ran off. Please just let me go ... please ...’
Mr Smith ... a nice touch, Jarrett liked that. A bit of respect. He had an idea his former mate had fled to the other side of the world. Australia or New Zealand. No matter. Wherever he was word would reach him. Word that you don’t fuck with Jarrett Smith. Not even friendship bought you that liberty. No-one was worthy of absolution. No-one.
