Dangerous Lady (55 page)

Roy burst out laughing.

‘You’re bloody mad!’

‘I know … I know. I’m happy mad, though, that makes a difference!’

‘I hope this Isaacs bloke ain’t going to waffle all day. Front wheels never seem to know when to shut up. Sammy Goldbaum used to chew my ears off!’

At the mention of Sammy’s name Maura felt herself go cold. She hadn’t thought about him for a long time,

‘Here! You all right, girl? You’ve gone pale.’ Maura lit a cigarette. U

‘Yes, I’m OK Just felt a bit funny for a second.’

Roy realised that he shouldn’t have mentioned Sammy Goldbaum. He could have kicked himself.

‘I tell you what, Maws, before we go on this meet, what! do you say we find a nice little pub and have a bite to eat and a drink?’

Maura knew Roy was trying to make amends and smiled at him. ‘That would be great.’ . Terry Petherick was called in to see Marsh. He took the seat offered to him and waited silently for his boss to tell him what was going down.

Marsh lit himself a cigar, his only extravagance. Blowing smoke across his desk, he began: ‘Have you thought over what we were talking about?’

Terry nodded. .;”:-

‘I take it you are more amenable today?’

Terry nodded again.

‘Good … good. We’ve decided that the collaring of the Ryans will be given to you. I’m sure you already know that

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whoever gets them has his career made. Unless, of course, you get knobbled by them first.’

Terry stared at him. He could see nothing to laugh about.

‘We know that you’re as straight as a die, and in view of all the information you’ve gathered we feel it is only fair…’

Terry interrupted him. ‘All right. Cut the crap. What exactly’s going down?’

Marsh had an overwhelming urge to put his cigar out in Petherick’s face. Who the hell did this little shit think he was? Instead he took a deep breath and tried to control his temper.

‘Yesterday Maura and Roy Ryan had a meet with a goldsmith … Lenny Isaacs. I had her tailed. Obviously they’re going to be shirting the bullion soon. That’s when we’re going to pounce. Once she’s nicked for that we can pile on the other charges as and when we feel like it. As I told you the other night, we have her bang to rights. We swoop when they make the exchange. It’s as simple as that. ‘

‘About the other business … the Complaints Investigation Bureau are dealing with it internally. We’re not going to approach anyone until the Ryans have been collared. That way they won’t get any warnings. You and I will be working together closely on this one. You mustn’t mention it to anyone. I’ll see you in a few days when I have more to tell you.’

‘Sarah Ryan asked me if it was possible to get the boys lighter sentences?’

Marsh smiled nastily. ‘Well, there’s no harm in asking, I suppose.’

When Terry had left the office Marsh sat for a while smoking his cigar. It would not do to tell Petherick that

none of the Ryans could be allowed to go to prison. The Ryans were going to be wiped out. They had bought themselves too many friends in the force to be allowed to live. They had to be shut up, and shut up permanently. As Petherick would be finding out all too soon …

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Sarah was making Benjamin’s dinner. He had come in from the pub and gone straight up to bed. Said he felt tired today. Sarah was annoyed. Felt drunk more like. As she was peeling the potatoes she heard a crash from above her head and looked up at the ceiling. Nothing. She listened again. Then putting down the potato peeler, made her way up the stairs to their bedroom.

Benjamin Ryan was lying on the floor clutching his chest. One look at his face, grey and drawn, told Sarah he was very ill. She went to him and tried to lift his head from the floor. ‘m

‘Benjamin!’ “

He opened his eyes. Sarah noticed the blue tinge around his lips.

‘It’s me chest, Sar. Get me a doctor. I’ve gotta pain in me chest…’

Sarah ran down the stairs and phoned an ambulance. Then she rang Janine and told her to tell the boys what had happened. Slamming down the phone, she went back upstairs and sat on the floor with her husband until the ambulance arrived. Sarah sat in the Cardiac Care Unit with her husband until he lost consciousness. She was praying over him all day. At seven in the evening Maura and Roy turned up, both pale and worried. Janine had not thought to try to contact the other boys. Roy took his tiny mother into his arms. ‘What happened, Mum?’ His voice was gentle.

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‘It was terrible. He collapsed in the bedroom. I found him on the floor.’

‘Do they know what caused it?’

‘Yes. He had a coronary. He’s never been ill in his life.’ ‘We would have been here sooner but we was out all day. You should have rung one of the other boys, not Janine. They’ll be here soon.’

He was going to murder that drunken bitch when he got home. His father ill in hospital and she’d left a message at the club for him to call! Not even telling Gerry Jackson what it was all about.

‘I was too scared to call anyone. I didn’t want to leave your father. Look at him. He looks terrible.’

She sounded so old that Maura and Roy were suddenly reminded of the fact that their parents could die soon. That their father could be dying now.

Roy sat his mother in the chair by the bed then looked at his father’s wasted body.

‘I’m going to find a doctor. Maws. Look after Muwer. I’ll find out what’s going on.’

Maura automatically put her arm around the woman she had hardly spoken to for years. Both forgot their animosity in the light of Benjamin’s illness. They were just a mother and daughter, united in their grief.

‘Everything will be all right, Mum … I promise you.’

Sarah held Maura’s hand in her own.

‘Oh, Maws, he’s so ill. What will I do without him?’

‘Don’t you worry, Mum, he’ll be all right.’ laura’s voice sounded much more confident than she felt.

Leslie, Garry and Lee turned up a little while later. All were sober, looking worried about their father.

Maura and Sarah stood by Benjamin’s bed, the two Women supporting each other as best they could. It was too soon after Michael’s and Geoffrey’s deaths to face

another one. Though they had all treated Benjamin with scant respect and only haphazard affection over the years, now he lay ill they were all reminded of the fact that he was their father. Even a bad parent was entitled to respect on his death bed.

Carla rushed into the hospital at ten-thirty. Her long red-brown hair was blown all over the place and she had on an old coat. Even untidy, she looked lovely. She went straight to Roy. Her father held her while she cried. She was the living image of Janine, and for a second he remembered the vital woman he had married.

‘How’s Grandad Ryan? I was out all day with Joey. I only got the message when I came home.’

‘He’s very ill, Carla. But they think he could pull through.’

‘Come on, Carla. Sit here beside me.’

Garry’s voice was soft. Carla was like the family mascot. She sat down in the chair and he gave her a cup of coffee. Inside the room Maura and Sarah stood either side of Benjamin’s bed. At ten-forty-two he opened his eyes and looked at them.

The two best girls. I suppose I’ve missed the pub?’ ,”

Looking at their anxious faces, he tried to grin.

Sarah and Maura laughed through their tears.

‘Yes, Dad, you missed the pub.’

‘Remember what I’ve always said … when I die, I want me ashes put in the Bramley Arms.’ He closed his eyes.

Maura and Sarah finished the sentence for him: ‘So you’ll always be there for opening time.’ U

It was a saying of his they had heard all their lives.

‘That’s it, girls. I think I’ll have another sleep now.’

He closed his eyes. When he was asleep the two women hugged one another.

‘I reckon he’ll be all right now, Mum.’

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I The nurse who was in the room and heard the exchange smiled at them.

‘Why don’t you all get home and get some rest? He’s stable now.’

‘Come on, Mum. I’ll run you home.’

‘No, I can’t stay in that house on me own. I’ve never spent a night there alone since before the war.’

Maura could hear the fear in her mother’s voice. Til stay there with you. Don’t worry. Come on, let’s get you home.’

Both women kissed Benjamin and left the room.

Maura drove Sarah home a little later, amazed at the way events had brought them together as Michael had wanted, ‘Sleep in my bed with me, Maws.’

‘All right then, Mum.’ They went up to the bedroom, both quiet and sad.

As they undressed they were both aware of the truce that had been drawn up between them. Maura knew that for the first time in years her mother needed her. She was sorry that it had taken her father’s near death to achieve it.

Sarah got into her bed and watched Maura folding her clothes. She looked at her daughter’s unblemished body and beautiful profile. She would have been a fit mate for that Terry Petherick. He was one of the few men she had seen who towered over her daughter. Maura took off her bra and Sarah looked at her large firm breasts and pulled her eyes away quickly, feeling that spark of jealousy many Women feel when they see their daughters’ strong, taut bodies. Maura slipped into the bed beside her mother, feeling strange at the turn of events. She had rung William earlier and told him what had happened, and that she was staying the night with her mother. She knew he was miffed as he wanted her with him. They were now a real couple, making plans with each other. She had decided to give herself to him as he wanted her too. Seriously and for always.

‘I’m frightened, Maws.’ Sarah’s voice sounded hopelessly old and tired. Maura patted her hand.

‘He’ll be fine, Mum.’

‘I was eighteen when I married your father. My father, God rest him, had gone around to Ben’s house and given him the hiding of his life. Then he had arranged the wedding. That was over fifty years ago now. And Michael had been that child. My first born son. 1935 that was. Then I had child after child. Your father. He used to joke that he only had to walk past me to get pregnant. You were me last one. Me daughter for me old age. I never really loved your father, you know, but when you spend all that time with someone, it’s hard to imagine being without them. Even when they’re a waster, like your father.’

‘I can understand that, Mum, It’s a long time.’

‘It’s good of you to stay with me, Maws. I know we haven’t exactly seen eye to eye.’

‘Look, forget that, Mum,’ Maura interrupted her mother. ‘We’re together now. That’s all that matters. That’s what families are all about. Pulling together in the bad times and sharing the good.’ m

Not that we ever did that, Maura thought to herself.

Sarah stared into Maura’s face. In the light of the bedside lamps, she looked very young and Sarah was reminded that she was the tool that was going to destroy her daughter. Whatever happened she was going to have to do that. Maura smiled at her sadly.

‘Do you remember when I was a kid and I used to sleep with you when the old man was in prison? We used to have chats. That’s what you always used to call them … chats

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i

I wish we could turn the clock back to those days. Be like we were then.’

‘So do I. But nothing can ever be the same as it was.’ Sarah sounded as if she was holding back tears and Maura assumed they were for her father. She never dreamt they could be for her.

‘I wish I had kept my baby, Mum. I still think about it sometimes.’ Maura’s voice was wistful.

‘I wish you’d kept it and all. I wish I’d never taken you to that flat in Peckham.’

‘That’s all water under the bridge now, Mum. I went of my own accord.’

‘No, Maws, it was me. I was scared that you’d be tied to someone you didn’t love, like I was. Then, when I met Terry …’

‘You met him? When?’ Maura’s voice was sharp, and Sarah realised her mistake.

‘Oh, it was at the funeral. Michael’s funeral. I spoke to him there.’

Maura relaxed. ‘Oh, then. Yeah, our Garry had a go at him.’

Sarah swallowed deeply.

‘I know. I was watching. Along with many other people.’

They were quiet for a while, both occupied with their own thoughts. Then Maura spoke softly.

‘Look, Mum, let’s just concentrate on getting me dad °ut of hospital and back home. Everything else is done. Over with.’

She nearly told her mother about William Templeton out stopped herself. She knew that her mother didn’t really like him.

‘Mum?’ Maura’s voice was quiet. ‘Yes.’

‘You don’t regret having all us kids, do you?’ Suddenly

i it was important that she knew the answer. Sarah was silent for a while before answering. ‘Of course not, Maws.’ As she spoke, she asked God to forgive her for lying. M

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Chapter Thirty-three

February 1987

Leslie and Garry were collecting the protection money. As they pulled up outside a Greek restaurant in Ilford, Garry noticed a blue Granada parked a few cars away from them.

‘Les … see that blue Granny? I’m sure it’s been following us.’

Leslie looked at the car.

‘I haven’t noticed it.’

Garry got out and walked to the Granada. He tapped on the window. As it opened he leant down and looked into the car.

‘What you doin’ here?’

The blond man inside looked puzzled.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said … what you doin’ here?’

‘I’ve come to have a meal in the restaurant. Why?’

‘Nothing.’

Garry walked away from the car, still not sure what was going on. He got back in his own car beside Leslie. J;

‘Let’s sit here a minute and see if that bloke goes in the Restaurant.’ Sure enough, the man got out of his car and °cked it up. Then he went into the restaurant.

‘You wait here, Les.’

‘OK.’ Garry went into the restaurant. The man from the Granada was studying a menu. Leslie walked through to the kitchen, picked up the envelope with the ‘rent’ in and walked back out again. As he passed the man’s table he said, ‘Have a nice meal.’