Maura's Game (17 page)

Benny said with concern, “This looks really nasty. Fancy a cup of tea? I’m parched. Abul, switch the kettle on…”

“AH right! I’ll tell you all I know but it might be nothing. A routine surveillance logged a possible sighting of Vic with a face called Stern…”

Benny smiled widely.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Always a pleasure doing business with you. And you take care of yourself, won’t you, Mr. Billings. I don’t know where we’d be without men like you in the Force.”

Joe the Jew was an old man. He had a bald head covered in liver spots, arthritic hands, and a girlfriend of nineteen. She was a sweet little thing called Camilla and he had been nicknamed Charles because of it. The name made him smile every time he heard it.

His sunny nature was part of Joe’s rep. He came across as the definitive mensch but anyone who believed that was in for a shock.

Joe owned just about every spieler and gambling joint in the East End. He also, because of the times we live in, owned two lap dancing clubs, in one of which he’d met Camilla, and a portfolio of development properties. And then there was the debt-collecting agency and a scrap yard He had tally men who worked the council estates for him, and he had been banking the proceeds since the Second World War. Joe was as rich as Croesus and he loved it. He always said Camilla was his third childhood sweetheart to date, but she was the best lay of them all. Sign of the times again. Young girls these days would fuck a corpse if it had a few quid. This always raised a laugh, as he knew it would.

When he saw Maura Ryan he smiled warmly. He had always liked her, ever since she had taken on the Milano brothers, a pair of Italian ponces, ice-cream traders whom he had hated with a vengeance for over half his life. In fact, he liked Maura Ryan more than he liked a lot of people. He had also been close friends with Michael and missed him, just like he missed Joe the Fish and all the old crowd.

“Maura Ryan! You look wonderful. Take a seat. Let me get you a drink. More importantly, what can I do for you?”

He was smiling and Maura smiled back. She was in his scrap yard where he was always to be found during the day. He had started it in the war and it had been a gold mine ever since. Joe loved the scrap, it was his forte, and of course an ideal way of disposing of anyone who dared to stray on to his turf.

“You’re looking good, boy.”

He laughed out loud, displaying teeth that were old and yellow but, as he proudly told anyone who asked, still his own.

“What can I say? I have regular sex and can highly recommend it.”

Maura was really laughing now and Joe was pleased.

“You look like you need to smile more, Maura. I see the laughter lines are fading from around your eyes.”

“At least some good has come from all that hag then!”

Her quip made him laugh again.

“You women, always chasing after youth.”

“From what I’ve heard about Camilla you ain’t doing too badly in that direction yourself!”

They laughed together again like old friends before he looked at her and said honestly, “I would need Arnold Schwarzenegger himself to lift it these days, Maura, to be truthful, but I like everyone thinking I’m still at it. Men are envious of me, women laugh at me. But I’m old and it’s the pleasure on other people’s faces that I live for now.”

Maura understood what he meant. He was at an age where all he had left was the respect of other people. How he was perceived was important to him and always had been.

“What can I do for you? Trouble again?”

She nodded, the smile gone from her voice now and from her eyes. Joe the Jew had always thought Maura had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen on a woman. Deep-set and a glorious blue, they were eyes any woman would crave. Now they were a steely shade, a deep sadness reflected in them. That sadness had been there for years. He wondered if she realised that when she looked at herself?

“Trouble with a capital T, Joe. Vic Joliff is walking around and threatening me.”

Joe the Jew sighed.

“Vic is heavy duty, Maura. But he’s old news, surely?”

“He still thinks I know who killed his wife.”

“Don’t you?”

Those simple words told Maura all she needed to know. Despite all her family’s efforts to broadcast word of Tommy B’s murderous spree, the old adage ‘no smoke without fire’ was clearly still alive and kicking in the criminal underworld.

“Do you really think I would have anything to do with the killing of a fucking civilian, Joe? Give me some credit after all the years we’ve been friends.”

He said delicately, “Maybe not you personally but someone close to you, Maura?”

She frowned.

“Such as?”

The hard edge to her voice reminded him exactly who he was dealing with here and he forced an uneasy smile. He had always thought it a shame the way she had hardened at such an early age. He remembered when her brother Michael would take her round collecting rents, such a beautiful, gentle child. Now she was a villain through and through.

He shrugged.

“How would I know? It was just a rhetorical question.”

“And my brother Garry would give you a rhetorical clump round the ear hole if he heard you, wouldn’t he?”

He took the threat gratefully. There was nothing else for it. He looked saddened though that he and Maura could be talking like this after all the years they’d known each other.

She smiled coldly.

“What about Rebekka Kowolski? Remember her, Joe? She really gave someone the hump, didn’t she?”

He threw up his hands.

“Rebekka, Rebekka… always you are asking me about her. I told you before, she was just a greedy woman wanted to live like a princess when her husband was earning bubches. Got in too deep with Russian loan sharks. It was a terrible tragedy. What more can I say? She had nothing to do with that trouble of yours. On my life, I swear it.”

She looked into his eyes and said the words she knew would destroy their friendship forever. Whether he was lying or not, it had to be done. She daren’t risk looking like an easy touch or they’d all be finished.

“If I ever find out different I’ll come for you, Joe.”

His old face sagged and he had difficulty meeting her eyes.

“That it should come to this… I’ll bear it in mind, believe me. And Maura… watch your back, won’t you, my dear?”

Vic Joliff walked into Le Marais with his new best friend and ally Jamie Hicks. There was a furore when people realised who he was, some of them being quicker on the uptake than others since they were in the same line of business. This dock lands restaurant was where the City boys met the criminal underworld of Essex and London. Chandlery Wharf was a favoured meeting place for many an armed robber or drugs supplier who did their deals in much the same way as the money brokers and accountants did theirs: over a nice meal and a good bottle of wine. It was a different world these days and life for the ready-cash merchants was sweet. Most would get a lump and a half if caught in the course of their nefarious activities, so they made the proverbial hay while the sun shone.

Vic knew it was the criminal equivalent of being on the Nine O’clock News and savoured the covert looks and ensuing gossip. The Ryans would know within seconds that he was here, but after one drink and a cigarette he and Jamie were gone.

Garry got there twenty minutes after Vic had left. The fact Garry Ryan had come in personally told everyone who was anyone what they needed to know. Vic was playing games, and with him and the Ryans involved it could lead to a very dangerous scenario indeed. Two books were set up that afternoon alone. In both, the Ryans came out ahead. But only just. Vic Joliff was a force to be reckoned with and everyone who knew him kept that in mind.

Jamie was just along for the ride was the general consensus, snatched from the Ryans to get up their noses, though some of the shrewder clientele privately thought he was to be the fall guy. Vic would need one, any fool could see that much.

“Jamie Hicks? Are you sure?”

Maura was astounded at what she was hearing.

Garry was incensed.

“Of course I am fucking sure! The slimy little cunt! All I done for him when he was banged up an’ all! I made sure he had a few quid, a cell of his own and a drink regular as clockwork. I weighed out a small fortune getting him an easy sleep and that ponce has the fucking nerve to be seen with Vic Joliff. Well, Maura, this is it. We have tried the softly-softly approach. Now it’s all guns fucking blazing and serious aggravation for anyone who might even know their dates of bastard birth!”

Maura, normally the voice of reason, nodded in acquiescence. For once Garry was right. Vic was out in the open now and they had to make a stand, a public stand. It occurred to her that she was getting too old for all this, and the knowledge depressed her slightly. All she wanted to do was go home and get laid, but the way Tommy was acting she had a feeling that was the last thing on his agenda today. He was miffed and she couldn’t blame him.

But what could she do really? Once more she had to watch out for her brothers. They were all too lairy to be left to their own devices.

Garry was shrewd enough, but too short-tempered ever to be the real boss. He didn’t have a cool enough head to think things through properly. Benny, well, he was Benny, enough said. Lee, God love him, didn’t have the brain capacity of a retarded gnat, Roy was on more pills than a Welsh crack dealer, and the workforce was just that, a workforce. No budding Machiavellis among that lot. So as usual it was all left to her, and it was getting a bit wearing to say the least.

Times like today she wondered why she bothered with any of it.

Carla and Joey were walking down the Portobello Road. It had changed so much since she was young but unlike Maura she liked the changes. Carla liked star fucking and being in the company of famous people. As they walked she drew more than a few admiring glances herself. She ignored them. There was only one man on her mind and even though she knew it was wrong, that it could only lead to trouble, Tommy Rifkind had filled her thoughts now for months. He was Maura’s and she knew it. All was fair in love and war, though, surely? But the thought failed to cheer her. Maura would not take kindly to Carla’s making a play for her man. It would be war all right.

Maura came across all sweetness and light but inside she was a hard fucker and Carla had always known that. But just to look at Tommy set her pulses racing, and knowing Maura like she did, Carla believed her rival was past all that. Had been since she was seventeen years old. How many times had she heard the story of Maura’s abortion and subsequent joining of the family firm? Her granny had regaled her with the story so many times it was practically engraved on Carla’s heart.

Maura herself never discussed it. They had talked about everything else over the years, and she acknowledged that Maura had been good to her ever since she had been a baby and Maura and her grandmother had taken her from Janine after a serious beating. Carla knew she should be grateful. But how long could gratitude be expected to last, for fuck’s sake? She was a grown woman now with a son of her own and she was not getting any younger. She knew Tommy watched her. The sensible part of her told her that any man would watch her, the way she carried on around him, but still she was sure he felt a connection as well.

But even if he did, what could become of it?

She was playing with fire and she knew it, but it was years since a man had affected her like this and she was determined to make the most of it.

Joey, seeing a beautiful white dress in a shop window, drew her attention to it.

“Oh, Mum, look. That is so you!”

She looked. It was indeed a beautiful dress and might have been made for her.

“That would knock Tommy’s eyes out!”

Her son’s voice was effeminate and high-pitched. For once it didn’t annoy her. She hugged him.

“Naughty, naughty.”

Joey grinned.

“You, Mother, are the naughty one and good luck to you, I say. But watch yourself. Marvellous Maura won’t like you going after what she sees as hers, you know.”

Carla laughed nervously.

“Shall I try it on?”

“Be a crime not to, woman.”

She followed him into the shop like a schoolgirl. They were giggling and laughing together as she tried on the dress. He was more like a daughter than a son and Carla found herself enjoying the fact.

The dress was perfect for her and she bought it there and then.

Inside, that small warning voice nagged away but she shut it out. Surely she was as entitled to a bit of happiness as Maura was? And, she told herself, it was only a little bit of flirting, nothing more.

She pushed down the voice that screamed against her disloyalty and walked out into the street with her son, the carrier bag clutched safely in her hot little hand. It didn’t occur to her that she had paid for the dress with money that Maura had provided. She never thought of her allowance as money given to her. To Carla it was money that was hers by right. She was a Ryan as well, after all. She deserved a slice of the family fortune. And if it was up to her she would be getting a much bigger piece of the pie. She felt that what Maura gave her wasn’t half enough money to keep up her expensive new lifestyle.

Such were the thoughts of Carla Ryan as she walked to her brand-new Mercedes SLK and made the journey home.

Chapter Nine

Maura drove into the council estate in Essex where she knew Jamie Hicks’s wife lived. It was the first time she had been to the house for months. When Jamie had got a seven for possession of firearms he had been working for the Ryans at the time and she had obviously made sure that Danielle was taken care of. Garry himself had looked after Jamie.

Maura had always got on well with Danielle, and liked her. Married far too young she had shunted out kids at an alarming rate. The once pretty girl with the natural blonde hair and smiling carefree manner had soon been replaced by a screaming harridan who was not only overweight but overworked as well. Consequently Jamie had been on the scene less and less.