Dirty Game (13 page)

 Toby Taylor was bricking it with excitement. He had never seen so many faces in one room at the same time. The Delaney twins had come to the opening, and the Regans were in with all their heavy friends. The Foremans of Battersea had already bought up several of Kieron Delaney’s paintings out of respect to their Delaney colleagues. The Nash family were in too, and some of the real hard, heavy boys from New York, the Barolli lot. And the Kray twins. Fucking good job Eddie and Charlie Richardson had been nicked, because they had been mixing it with the Krays, which wasn’t wise.

‘Christ,’ said Toby, mincing around the gallery with his long-term boyfriend Paolo. Vivaldi’s
Four
Seasons
was emanating discreetly from the expensive sound system. ‘You can smell the testosterone in the air, can’t you sweetie?’

Paolo nodded. He didn’t share his older lover’s taste for danger. These people looked like they could cut up rough in an instant. He didn’t like it. Toby was a silly old queen, prancing around arse-licking to these people. Paolo thought that Toby was a joke with his spare tyre straining to get out of his pink floral shirt and his stupid toupee slipping sideways on his billiard ball of a head. Toby was sweating with excitement as the crowds grew thicker. The noise level rose with each bottle of Moët that was opened.

‘Darling, sweetie,’ said Toby as they stumbled across Kieron and Annie. ‘Mwah, mwah.’ Toby air-kissed either side of Annie’s head. ‘Don’t you look absolutely
stunning
, what a wicked dress. Have you seen it? Have you seen it?’

It
was very hard to miss, thought Annie. She’d been gob-smacked when she’d walked through the double doors at the front of the gallery and been instantly confronted by the painting of herself in the nude. It was placed at the centre of the landing above the big, double, open-tread staircase, cunningly lit and impossible to overlook. It made all Kieron’s other work, the beautiful African landscapes and the finely detailed wild-life studies, fade into insignificance.
Everyone
had seen it.

‘I’ve seen it,’ said Annie.

‘And aren’t you
thrilled
with it?’ demanded Toby, clutching clammily at her hand with his beringed and pudgy digits.

‘It’s very impressive,’ said Annie.

‘She hates it,’ said Kieron with a laugh.

‘I don’t hate it,’ said Annie. ‘I just feel a bit, well,
exposed
.’

‘But this is Art,’ said Paolo in his charming Italian-accented English. ‘It is an honour to be the subject of such an artist.’

‘You won’t convince her,’ said Kieron. He chucked Annie under the chin. ‘Cheer up, Annie. I’ll go and get us another drink.’

Toby and Paolo took themselves off to mingle with Ronnie and Reggie. Annie went and looked at a painting of a snarling tiger. Anything rather than look at the painting that was capturing everyone else’s attention.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t she,’ she heard.

‘Fantastic tits.’

Oh Jesus!

Annie moved further out of earshot. She was glad she’d chosen her discreet black dress and pearls to wear this evening. Like camouflage, it enabled her to move a bit more freely among the patrons and their wives and girlfriends. Not many of the women praised her tits, she noticed. They tended to admire the brush strokes and the texture of the paint rather than the jugs on the sitter.

‘There you are.’ Kieron was back with two brimming champagne flutes. ‘What are you doing,
hiding away over here? Why not get behind that cheese plant there and have done with it?’

Annie gave him a whack in the stomach. She wished they’d put something more lively on the sound system. Some Stones or Beatles, she liked them. All these violins wailing away depressed her.

‘Ow,’ complained Kieron.

‘How would you feel, to have a roomful of people admiring your bits?’ asked Annie, glancing around. There was a very polished and strikingly good-looking, silver-haired man in his late thirties across the room, looking at her. He was with two teenage boys, one dark, one fair, and a very handsome middle-aged woman who looked faintly Italian.

‘I’d feel flattered and proud,’ said Kieron. ‘I would probably give them my elephant impression as an encore.’

Annie slapped his stomach again, but she had to smile.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked, curious, indicating the silver-haired man.

Kieron’s gaze followed hers.

‘Constantine Barolli. American mob, New York. They call him the silver fox. Loads of business interests in the West End, it was Redmond’s idea to invite him and his family tonight. Redmond’s trying to woo him but Barolli seems to prefer doing business with the Carters. Those are his sons, I think.
There’s a daughter too, a stunner, I wanted her to sit for me but her father wouldn’t allow it.’

Annie looked back and her eye caught Barolli’s again. She shivered.

Someone just walked over my grave
, she thought.

Toby went hurrying past trailing his chiffon scarf and a worried-looking Paolo. Something about Toby’s manner made Annie look more closely. Toby was a mob tart and at his happiest among bad lads, but now he looked genuinely alarmed.

‘Kieron, I wonder if I could have a word with you about this fine job you’ve done over here,’ said one of the Delaney’s male hangers-on.

Kieron wandered off and Annie found Orla Delaney standing in front of her beside – Jesus! – a man who looked so like her it was incredible. His thick Titian hair was swept back off his pale face and his eyes were luminously green as they looked into hers. He was dressed in black, his turnout immaculate. He was very handsome and had a cool, unfazed demeanour. Orla was in black too, and against her long red hair it looked truly chic.

‘Hello, Miss Bailey, do you remember me?’ asked Orla, holding out a hand.

‘Of course I do,’ said Annie. Once seen, never forgotten – that was Orla Delaney. Celia had been
here then. Annie had been gauche and overwhelmed. Now things were different. She shook Orla’s hand coolly.

‘This is my brother Redmond – Redmond, this is Miss Annie Bailey.’

‘How nice to meet you at last, Miss Bailey,’ said Redmond, shaking her hand too. His hand was cool and dry, his touch light. Just like Orla’s. Annie found herself remembering what Kieron had said about the twins – that they were a pair, entirely independent from everyone except each other.

‘Mr Delaney,’ smiled Annie.

‘We’ve only spoken over the phone,’ Redmond explained to Orla. ‘Miss Bailey has taken over Celia Bailey’s business interests. Celia is her aunt.’

‘Really?’ Orla did her best to look interested. ‘And how is business, Miss Bailey?’

‘Good,’ said Annie. ‘Better than ever.’

A sort of hush was spreading around the room. It was coming from the doorway, where Toby and Paolo were fussing around some new arrivals. Annie looked and her mouth dropped open. It was Max Carter, with two heavies. There was a movement near Orla and Redmond as their minders drew in closer. Toby was glancing nervously back at Redmond and Orla, while Paolo was taking Max’s coat. Redmond and Orla exchanged a look.

‘Jaysus, what’s he doing here?’ asked Kieron, rejoining them.

Redmond paused. He looked across at Max, then at Toby. He nodded. Toby relaxed a bit. Then Redmond said: ‘Mr Carter is very welcome.’

‘Thank God Pat couldn’t be bothered to turn up,’ said Orla.

‘
Very
welcome,’ said Redmond. ‘This is Kieron’s night, and we want no trouble.’

And he walked off to where Max was standing, Orla and two heavies trailing behind him. Kieron edged up to Annie.

‘That’s Max Carter?’ he said.

Annie nodded.

‘That’s the one you had the fling with.’

Annie gave him a look.

‘Only asking,’ said Kieron, and went off to get them something to eat.

Annie followed, anxious not to be anywhere near Max. She didn’t trust herself. And where was Ruthie? If Max was coming to the gallery, couldn’t he have given the poor cow a night out on the town? But then she knew the answer to that question. Max was here to make a big show of doing whatever he wanted, and fuck the Delaneys. If they wanted trouble, he’d provide it. That was the message.

They raided the buffet table, but Annie’s appetite was gone and she gave most of her blinis with caviar and devils on horseback to Kieron, who wolfed them back. The evening wore on, everyone
behaved themselves and Annie wished to God she was home in Celia’s kitchen drinking tea and gossiping with Darren and the girls. Her feet hurt in her new high heels, and her head ached with tension. All she could think was
Max is here
.

Then the inevitable happened. Kieron nipped off to the bathroom and suddenly Max was standing in front of her.

‘How’s things, Annie?’ he said. His minders were standing two paces behind him, looking at her with suspicion.

‘Max,’ she said, feeling almost dizzy because he was standing here, so close to her. ‘I called in to see Ruthie at Mum’s the other day,’ she blurted out.

‘Did you.’ Max nodded.

Jesus, he was so gorgeous, she thought. That strong profile, the dark skin … his hair, so thick, so black. His eyes, blue as blue, bored into hers. She felt she could drown in those eyes.

‘She’s looking well,’ said Annie.

‘She’s too skinny.’

‘That’s the fashion.’

‘Yeah, it is.’

‘It was a terrible thing about Eddie,’ she said.

What the hell was he saying to her, wondered Kieron, watching them from a distance. He’d come out of the loo and was winding his way back to Annie’s side when he’d stopped and looked ahead
for the first time. The ready smile faded from his face. They were talking intensely, looking at each other so closely. He’d seen that kind of look before. Fuck it, Annie Bailey had never looked at him like that. And now he could clearly see why. She was still in love with this Max Carter, this fucking mobster. It would be obvious to a blind man, he thought, and felt a tightening in his guts that he hadn’t experienced before. He had to think about it for a while before he recognized the sensation as jealousy.

If this was what love did to you, thought Annie irritably a few days later as she sat at her dressing table, then you could stuff it. She stared at her face in the mirror, looking for answers and finding none. Was this love? Or just lust? She didn’t know. She’d only felt like this once before, she knew that much. And look at the trouble it had caused. It had been him that time and it was him again. It was
always
him. The bastard.

‘Annie girl, you look like shit,’ she told herself. She snatched up a hairbrush and tried to sort out the haystack which seemed to have landed on top of her head.

Bugger this, she thought, wrenching the brush through, punishing herself with the pain. But her insides were fizzing like she’d eaten a packet of Love Hearts. She was waking up at all hours of the night since the exhibition, lying there in the dark alone,
thinking of him. Of how good he looked, and – oh yes – of how his skin had felt against hers on that one night, that unforgettable night. The heat of him, the hardness, his hands that were so strong they were almost hurtful as they held her.

She had started biting her nails, something she hadn’t done since Dad left home. She was off her grub too, and that wasn’t like her. She’d be as thin as Ruthie soon, and then where the hell would she be?

She was considering taking up smoking fags, if only to relieve the tension. Out of the question to have a drink. She’d sipped some champagne at the exhibition, but she hadn’t really enjoyed the taste. For her, drink was forever linked to her mother and memories of an endlessly miserable childhood. Connie lying on the sofa crying in self-pity, sodden with booze and bellowing orders, Annie or Ruthie having to go to the door to see the rent man, the baker, the milkman, and tell them Mum was out, to call back later, scared of what the tradesmen would say but scared of her even more. They were even frightened to go to school, because they never knew what they would come home to. Would they find her dead on the lounge floor, having choked on her own vomit? Or find an ambulance outside with Connie about to be whisked off to hospital?

Annie shuddered. Enough of all this. She put the brush down. At least her hair was straight now. She
touched up her make-up, checked her black dress was clean, her pearls straight, her shoes gleaming. Showtime, she thought, and stood up and went downstairs to play hostess at yet another party.

Funny how used to all this she was getting. She was no longer shocked by naked arses, exposed breasts or rampant hard-ons. She oversaw it all with the calm discretion of a ringmaster. A leather-clad Aretha passed her at the top of the stairs, leading a blindfolded man dressed only in Y-fronts by a chain around his neck.

‘One step more,’ Aretha lied, because there were two steps and the man went sprawling on to the landing carpet. ‘Stupid clumsy boy!’ Aretha snapped, yanking the chain. The man groaned enjoyably and crawled along the landing into Aretha’s room. Annie paused at the top of the stairs, shaking her head as she watched. There was music and laughter drifting out from the front room. She looked down into the hallway. Chris was there in his usual spot, and there was a bulky, sandy-haired man bending over him, whispering. Chris nodded, and something changed hands between them. Annie got a shock when the man turned and she saw that it was Pat Delaney. What the fuck was
he
doing here?

‘Hello, Mr Delaney,’ she said when she reached the downstairs hall. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m
spiffing
,’ said Pat nastily.

Annie’s smile tightened. ‘Enjoying the party?’ she asked.

‘I told you once before, I wouldn’t touch any of these tarts with someone else’s, let alone my own,’ said Pat with a sneer.

Then why are you here, you arsehole?
she thought. She looked at Chris, but he was looking shifty. Not like Chris.

‘Of course, if
you
were to offer me a shag, I might reconsider,’ said Pat, wrapping his arm crushingly around Annie’s shoulders.

Annie nailed her smile in place and gently but firmly detached herself. God, he was disgusting. Was he drunk? She couldn’t smell booze on his breath, which was sour and unpleasant but not alcohol-induced. His eyes looked weird, his pupils were huge.

Chris was looking concerned and Annie could understand why. He didn’t want to get into a ruck protecting Annie from one of the Delaneys; it was a clear conflict of interests.

‘I told you, Mr Delaney,’ said Annie. ‘I’m a manager, not a worker.’

‘Ah, all women are whores at heart,’ said Pat. He winked at Chris. ‘I’ll catch you later, Chrissie boy,’ he said, and lurched out the door.

There was a tense pause. Then Annie said: ‘What’s he on, Chris?’

Chris shrugged and his eyes slid away from hers.

‘I won’t have any rubbish in this house,’ said Annie, but Chris did not respond. Annie went on into the front room, where Ellie and Darren were hard at work. She fixed her smile back on. Brian handed her the usual orange juice, but her mind was still on Pat Delaney, wondering what the fuck he really wanted.