by Martina Cole
She closed her eyes.
Was her life in danger then? Was that why Paddy was creeping around her grounds in the middle of the night?
She tried to remember what the gun had looked like and failed. All she was sure of was that Paddy had a gun, and he was creeping around her house like Wee Willy Winky at half-past three in the morning.
She stood up and stared out into her garden, the water in the pool making gentle lapping sounds in the darkness. Then, as if making a decision, she opened one of the patio doors, grateful that she had not yet turned on the burglar alarm. Stepping out into the night, she followed the path along the garden towards the tennis court. She saw Paddy and knew instinctively he had sensed her.
‘It’s me, Paddy. You can lower your gun.’
‘Donna?’ It was a question, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
‘Yes, Donna. I think it’s about time you and me had a talk, don’t you?’ Her voice was stronger than she would have believed possible. She put this down to the brandy.
‘Let’s go inside and have a cup of coffee.’
As he followed her back to the house she was amazed that someone so big could make no sound at all as he walked behind her.
Inside the conservatory, she turned on the pool lights. They gave off a red glow that made the conservatory look friendly. She immediately felt more in control.
‘I’d rather a drop of hard, Donna, if you don’t mind.’
She went to the bar and poured him a large Bushmill’s, then she sat down on one of the large settees, and Paddy sat beside her. The gun was gone from view now.
‘What’s going on, Paddy? Why are you sneaking around my house? In the middle of the night, with a gun?’
He gulped at his drink and shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that, Donna love.’
He looked into her deep blue eyes, saw the strain on her face, and felt the pull of her inside him. She didn’t deserve all this; she had never asked for any of it. Not for the first time since Georgio had been nicked, Paddy felt an urge to beat him. To let him know exactly what he had done through his greed.
Donna’s back stiffened and she hissed through clenched teeth, ‘You can’t tell me what you’re doing on my property? You have the gall to sit in my home, drinking my drink, and tell me that you can’t say why you’re here? Wait until Georgio hears this one! Or are you here because of him - is that it? Has Wonderboy decided I need nursing now or is he just worried I might be batting away from home, as Carol Jackson so eloquently puts it? What were you going to do, shoot the man for your boss or just maim him?’
Paddy shook his head, ashamed now. ‘Look, Donna, all we’re here for is to protect you, that’s all.’
Donna’s eyes narrowed. ‘We? How many are there of you? A battalion, a platoon, a gang of you - what?’
Paddy finished his drink. ‘There’s five of us here at any given time. Now listen to me, this is the exact reason why we never told you anything about it. You’d worry. Look how you’re reacting now . . .’
Donna interrupted him. ‘Excuse me, Mr Donovon, but I am incensed because I have been covertly watched for God knows how long. I come home and find you tripping around my garden with a firearm no less, and then you say you didn’t tell me anything about it because I would have been upset. That’s the understatement of the year! I am bloody well livid. If my life is in danger, as this would seem to confirm, I think I am the first person who should have been informed, not the last.’
Paddy reached for her hand but she pulled it from his grasp. ‘Your life is not in danger, at least not that we know of anyway. This is just insurance, Donna. Nothing more. You know that Lewis is up to a lot of tricks? Well, we didn’t want him getting to Georgio through you. We didn’t want anything happening to you, that’s all.’
Donna shook her head again, completely sober now. The shock had done that. She wished she was still half-drunk; maybe it would have numbed the blow.
‘So I’m in danger from this Lewis, am I? He’s not content with wrecking my life and my husband’s, getting him put into prison, but now he wants to harm me as well, does he? This is like a bloody nightmare!’
She bit on her lip. ‘Tell me something truthfully, Paddy.’
He looked into her face. ‘Anything.’
‘Has Georgio done something to this man? Why is Lewis so against him? I want the truth.’
‘Fetch me another drink, Donna love, and get one for yourself. I think you might need it.’
As she refilled his glass and poured a drink for herself, Paddy battled with himself as to whether or not to tell her the truth. One half of him wanted to desperately, but he was frightened of the effect it might have on her. As she walked back towards him, he made a decision. She deserved the truth. At least half of it anyway.
Donna sat beside him and sipped at her Rémy Martin. Her face was open, earnest, and Paddy was undone.
‘Georgio provided motors for villains. He had a ringing business. Ringing a motor is getting two cars, say two Cosworths, one of which is smashed at the back, the other at the front. They’re insurance writeoffs. We’d collect them from different breakers’ yards all over the country. Then we would buy in a new car, a lovely motor, and we’d ring the other two cars. That involves welding the two halves of the cars together. We’d then give it the number plate of the good motor, see? It’s pukka stuff. If it ever came back to us, we bought it sold as seen; the ringing had been done at an earlier date.
‘Well, the original car is now worth a small fortune to a blagger. I mean real blaggers here, not penny-halfpenny robbers. I mean blaggers who are looking at netting anything around a million - like Brink’s-Mat for example. That car is clean, in perfect condition, it can outrun an Old Bill motor without even gunning it, and it can fetch forty-five thousand pounds or above. Bearing in mind the ringer can also fetch eighteen thousand or above, you’re looking at a nice little earner, see.
‘Well, Georgio provided the cars for a robbery in East London earlier this year, the robbery he was given eighteen years for. The security guard died, that’s what caused all the hag. Georgio provided the cars, and through a friend of ours, the guns also, though we thought they wouldn’t be loaded. We never supplied any ammunition with them - they did that off their own bat. Normally a sawn-off shotgun is enough to calm everyone down. You don’t have to fire it, see. People are just plain scared anyway.
‘Well, Wilson’s gun was loaded. He shot the guard. It all went up the wall.’ Paddy shook his head in disgust. ‘Wilson went to one of the sites with the money. It was his job to stash it and the jewellery. Georgio took the stuff and stashed it again. He also hid out Wilson, then the prat went walkabout to his wife and kids and got a capture. If he’d have stayed put for a while we’d all have been home and dry. All he had to do was keep a low profile for a few months. His wife and kids would have been looked after.
‘Now Wilson’s dead - topped himself in nick, so we’re led to believe . . . and Danny Simmonds and Frankie White have both copped it too. Now Donald Lewis was the man behind the blag. He knew everything about the security van down to what it would be carrying, the names of the guards - everything. The guard who got shot was in on it. I think Wilson was maybe told to waste him . . . I’m not sure of that, but it’s an idea I have. So now Georgio is the only one with access to the money. He didn’t want to rip Lewis off, he still doesn’t, but you see how strange it all looks? Wilson’s dead, the other two blaggers both murdered, and once Georgio lets on where the money is, he’s dead meat as well. It’s a big balls-up from start to finish.
‘Georgio should have kept right out of it,’ the big man concluded. ‘Just supplied the cars and nothing else. But he needed cash, his businesses were in trouble. It seemed like a good way out at the time.’
Donna sat very still, staring down at her hands. The last few months had been such a revelation to her; her whole life, it seemed, was based on lies. But not lies exactly, because Georgio had simply never told her anything
.
In a way she felt that was worse. Could she really have lived with, slept with, eaten with, made love with a man she didn’t know?
She was surprised to find she was crying and felt herself being pulled into the large strong arms of Paddy. She lay against him, breathing in the smell of Capstan cigarettes and Old Spice aftershave, and she wept like a baby. This long night had been a time for revelations. First from Alan Cox, about Georgio looking after his family, and now from Paddy.
How could she never have guessed what was going on all these years?
Then a little voice inside her head said gently: Because you didn’t want to know. And somehow she knew that those few words were true.
Her mother used to say, ‘What you don’t know, can’t hurt you.’ Well, that was a lie, as big a lie as Mrs Donna Brunos had been living for twenty years.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Do you know something, Paddy? Georgio has been a bastard to me. I never thought I’d say that, but he has.’
Paddy tried to calm her. ‘Stop your crying, Donna love. Georgio did what he thought was best. This is why he never told you anything. You’d worry. You’d be scared. Can’t you see, little love, that he was protecting you?’
Donna pulled herself from the older man’s arms.
‘He wasn’t protecting me, Paddy, and you know it! He just didn’t think I warranted telling, that’s the truth of it. I saw a man earlier on who told me Georgio had looked after his wife and children while he was in prison for murder. I suppose he didn’t tell me about that either in case I might have worried!’
Paddy sighed, his craggy face soft in the red glow from the pool lights.
‘You’re wrong, Donna. So wrong. Georgio Brunos worshipped the ground you walked on. He thought you were the greatest thing he had ever achieved in his life. To him, Donna, you were class. A bit of class. He bragged about you constantly to everyone. My Donna, he’d say, could cook a meal fit for the Queen. “She graces the table,” was his expression. He thought of you all the time. He didn’t tell you things because he didn’t want you worrying. You’re not of the calibre of, say, Carol Jackson or even Dolly. You’ve never been brought up in this environment.
‘Coming from Canning Town, Georgio knew old lags before he knew how to walk. Pa Brunos was a lad in his day. All the Greeks stick together. Oh, he’s respectable enough now, but in his younger days he was a right tearaway. The Greeks ran the cabbing in Piccadilly for years. That’s how old man Brunos got the money for his restaurant. Admittedly, he wasn’t in the league of Georgio or even Stephen, but he did his share of ducking and diving.
‘For all Georgio’s faults, he never robbed anyone, never hurt anyone. He supplied cars, that’s all, and if he hadn’t then someone else would have. He supplied guns once, and even then they were without ammunition. It’s as simple as that. As for not telling you . . . be fair, Donna. Put yourself in his position. Your brother is a bloody lawyer, you come from a good middle-class home. You couldn’t have coped with it all. I only hope you can cope with it now, because now, you know the lot. Everything.
‘One thing I will say before I shut me mouth. That man couldn’t live without you. Everything he wanted, he wanted for you. Seeing you dressed in the best, driving the best car, living in a beautiful home - it was for you alone. He told me that himself. He felt you deserved it all. He was only sorry you couldn’t have a child. It was the one thing he felt he couldn’t give you - a child. I know you’re not able to have babies, Georgio told me everything, and be fair, Donna, he never stepped away from you because of that, even though a child was what he wanted dearly. He accepted it as he accepted you, wholeheartedly. You were his wife for better or worse. He’s a Catholic, and although he might not be wearing a pathway to the church, he still believes in its values. If he can love you, why can’t you still love him, even knowing what you know now?’
It was the longest speech she had ever heard Paddy Donovon make. It was as if he was her father or an elder brother talking some sense into her. The mention of a child had hurt, it had hurt a lot. It was the one thing she had regretted all her married life, not being able to give Georgio a child. She felt once more that sensation of being second best, as she always did when reminded of her failure to produce a living, breathing child. She saw that Georgio had always tried to protect her, always. Had made a point of never mentioning children in any context. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell her about Alan Cox’s children. Maybe he’d thought it would have broken her, as the knowledge was breaking her now. It was unfair for Paddy to say all this to her. It was grossly unfair, because she had no argument to give him in her own defence. As usual Georgio came out on top. He was the kind considerate man. He was always the kind considerate man. She felt the sting of tears again.
‘Why are you armed, and why are you hanging about my house?’ she shot at him.
Paddy sighed. ‘Because Lewis might try and get to Georgio through you, that’s why. If anything happened to you, I think Georgio would die, Donna. He told me that himself. I’m here as a little bit of insurance, nothing more. The chances are, Lewis wouldn’t dare come near you. But as you must understand, I wouldn’t be Georgio’s friend if I didn’t try and protect you.’
Donna looked at the water in the pool. The small ripples as the heater blew out warm water looked silver in the night-time light.
‘Is that why the car lot was destroyed - as a warning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Am I in danger, Paddy?’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘No way. Not while I’m here.’
Donna felt a sudden peace envelop her. Paddy Donovon was here, so she was safe. If only she could believe that . . .
She glanced at her watch. It was nearly five-thirty. The dawn was breaking slowly, orange jets of light crowding the dark sky. She was aware of birdsong, as if someone had turned on a radio. The night was ending, and the day was beginning.
‘I’m going to bed, Paddy, you can see yourself out.’
He watched her as she walked towards the door that led into the house.
‘Donna.’ She turned around slowly. ‘Are you all right?’
She smiled at him, a lazy smile that enhanced her good looks. ‘What do you think?’
As she walked up the large staircase that led to her bedroom she looked around her home as if for the first time. At the ornate coving, the pale grey walls, the pictures so lovingly placed to their best advantage. She felt her feet sinking into the carpet, saw the sunlight beginning to filter through the set of double doors on the landing that led out to a small sun terrace at the back of the house. How many times had she sat out there drinking wine on hot summer evenings with Georgio? How many times had he picked her up and taken her to bed? She walked along to her bedroom, its splendour meaning nothing to her any more, because the man who had fashioned it with her was gone from her.
But, she reminded herself, she could get him back. She could be the means of bringing him, if not home, at least back into her arms.
He had never lied to her, she accepted that. But what he had done seemed worse.
He didn’t tell her anything because he didn’t trust her . . . and that knowledge hurt her more than a blow could ever have done. He loved her too much was Paddy’s argument. Well, he couldn’t hope to have loved her even half as much as she loved him; she lived and breathed for Georgio Brunos. He was the reason she got up in the morning and the reason she went to bed at night. She had always told him everything. Had assumed he had afforded her the same courtesy, but obviously not.
She stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower. The walls of her bathroom were all mirrored, so she saw herself wherever she looked. The ensuite bathroom was bigger than most people’s bedrooms. It contained a large circular bath, an enclosed shower, toilet, bidet, and twin hand basins. The fittings were all gold. On the floor was a white lambswool carpet. It was pure luxury, and at this moment she felt an urge to smash everything in it. Smash the mirrors that displayed her b
ody from every angle, smash the expensive toiletries that sat on the deep hardwood windowsill. She hated everything about herself, and about this house.
She stood beneath the water, letting it wash over her face, feeling the sting of mascara as it washed from her eyelashes. She felt empty inside, alone and empty. The house seemed far too big for her and Dolly. It was a house made for children, for a large family.
Without Georgio, it was like a tomb, because it had been Georgio who had breathed life into it. As he walked through the door he had made the house happy, had brought it to life. Had brought her to life.
Even knowing what he had done to her, she couldn’t feel anger with him for long. Already, she knew, she was making excuses for him. Because one thing kept her tied to him, the thing that Paddy had used when she was at her lowest ebb.
Georgio loved her.
As long as he never stopped she would put up with anything from him. It had always been the same.
By the time she laid herself down on the big king-sized bed and closed her eyes, she had forgiven him.
Georgio heard the cell door open and jam against the wooden wedge. He looked at his watch. It was seven twenty-five. Five minutes before the usual opening-up time.
He sat up on his bunk, listening to the heavy mumbling of Timmy as he rolled over, hoping for a further few minutes’ sleep.
Georgio got off the bunk and went to the door. ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me, McAllister. Open up, Brunos.’
Georgio removed the wooden wedge. All long-timers kept a wedge on their doors. If another prisoner wanted to smash your brains out, the best time was first thing in the morning. They could steam into a cell, club the person with a weapon, having the physical advantage because their victim was still lying down, and be out again in a few seconds. No one would be any the wiser as to who had done it. In an environment where bumping into someone by accident was enough to merit extreme violence, the wooden wedge was known as a lifesaver.
