Maura's Game (28 page)

He was good-looking and he was not a scrim per so a good night was guaranteed for whoever nabbed him for the evening.

Two blondes, one with silicone and one without, fought over him in a friendly way. Billy, always going for the natural look, chose the blonde with the nice little tits that wouldn’t move about too much when he handled them. There was nothing worse than cheap implants as far as he was concerned, put him right off his stroke.

He ordered himself a large Remy Martin and sipped it while he quietly copped a feel of the favoured blonde, Stella, real name Gloria Stennings. She was twenty-eight and lived with a lazy Rasta called Ever ton. She was a coke head like most of the girls and her eyes were bright as she told him a complete load of old cobblers about who she was and where she lived.

Billy couldn’t give a toss; he knew it was all a load of old fanny but he had always liked a girl with a bit of imagination.

Roy was sent down to ask him to go up and see Maura. He didn’t really want to go, but he was not about to refuse. So with one final squeeze of Gloria’s tit he said, “Keep it warm for me!” and was gone.

She basked in the kudos of being Billy’s chosen girl for the night. He was a nice man and he paid well. What more could a girl want?

Leonie was back in her small flat in Woodford Green. After Jack’s bad afternoon she’d decided that the time had come to make herself scarce for a while. She had been frightened when she saw what those people had done to him but she guessed he had asked for it. Jack had an inflated opinion of himself, in bed and out of it. Though she kept that gem of wisdom to herself. She would wait for a few weeks, see if he contacted her. But he looked bad enough when he wasn’t stitched up like Frankenstein’s fucking monster.

What she needed now was readies. She spent like water and always needed money. Leonie was high-maintenance and proud of that fact. So she had rung round a few mates and scored herself a bit of whiz and a job dancing at the Spearmint Rhino. Life had to go on, after all.

The knock at her door startled her and she opened it with a frown on her face. She jumped back as something was thrown at her. Then when she saw all the ten-pound notes flying around her little hall she screamed with laughter.

“You nutter! What you doin’?”

Her voice was full of the honey only money could put there.

Garry Ryan took out another stack of notes and started to trickle them over her head. She was practically purring with happiness now. She was wearing a short dressing gown from Victoria’s Secrets and remembered her legs needed shaving. But, hey, she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“So are we on then?”

She nodded. He might be getting on a bit but he was one good-looking old fucker for all that.

“Of course.”

“Search me. Go on, do it.”

He opened his jacket and his pockets were stuffed with money. Down the front of his trousers was a rather large bulge which she half-hoped wasn’t just more money. Jack was a cheapskate in comparison and there was nothing like money to get her juices flowing.

She squealed with delight and Garry laughed with her. He hoped she was worth ten grand, but by the look on her boa trace even if she wasn’t she was going to have a damn good try.

He linked his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

“Lead the way, my little darling’. You are on for the time of your life.”

Leonie was not about to argue with him. She had always prided herself on knowing exactly how to play the game.

Vic was in another safe house. This time it was a flat in Dolphin Square. An Asian girl of about twenty-five was already resident and smiled at him. Vic smiled back and then ignored her. She would be gone by the morning, he would see to that. Never liked the dark birds personally.

Vic preferred what he liked to think of as his English Roses. But then Vic knew he was not only racist, he was also British Bulldog. He hated everyone who wasn’t English, including the Irish and Welsh, so he didn’t see himself as racist as such, more a man who knew right from wrong.

He looked in the well-stocked fridge, finding smoked salmon and champagne. He sighed. He wanted bacon and eggs and loads of fried bread, none of this poncey fucking stuff. He made himself some toast and then checked out the new mobiles he was using. He changed them daily. Even though they were cloned and impossible to trace he was taking no chances.

The flat was owned by an old associate of his with whom Vic had been banged up many years ago in Durham for an armed robbery.

Georgie Baxter was an old lag, but he had had the sense to sort himself out before he went away for the duration. He had set up a few porn sites with the help of another old lag who’d found out in Wandsworth that he had a penchant for computers and was now coming it in legally. He loved it, they both loved it, and neither of them needed Vic Joliff round their necks like the proverbial albatross.

Vic rang his old mum and chatted to her for a while, blissfully unaware that he was about to be turned over.

Billy listened to Maura with bright eyes and a nervous tic on his face.

“You sure about this, Maura?”

She nodded.

“Course I’m sure. You find Vic and I’ll give you a cool three million in cash. What’s the matter, you think I ain’t good for it?”

As she spoke she opened a leather briefcase and he stared at more money than he had ever seen in his life.

“Get on to all your contacts and find that ponce for me. I have had enough of the runaround. I need to know who is protecting him. I swear I will never, ever divulge who told me, not even to me brothers,

OK?”

Billy nodded, weighing up the pros and cons.

“I hear… and this is only a rumour, remember, not to be repeated… but I hear he is good friends with an old Irish associate of yours. Kelly, I think the name is.”

Maura closed her eyes.

It was Kelly who had killed Michael, believing him to have grassed up some valuable associates in the eighties at the height of the bombing campaign in mainland Britain.

“The IRA? What the fuck would they be involved with Vic for?”

He could hear the incredulity in her voice.

“They’re also involved with someone close to you, Maura.”

He was clearly uneasy and suddenly she felt as if she had been punched in the solar plexus.

“Is it Tommy Rifkind by any chance?”

He nodded.

She sat back down in the chair, her face a white mask, just as Roy walked in with the drinks.

Maura sighed.

Vic and the Irish? It made sense. She knew Vic had been in Belmarsh at the same time as Kelly’s old associate Patrick O’Loughlin. Maura and Garry had been the ones who’d fixed it for them to get anything they needed there. More fucking fool them! And Tommy had a score to settle over his boy. But the question was, how long had he been working against her? Since the off was he just using her, getting her confidence to set her up? The thought upset her far more than she’d thought possible.

But that was obviously it. All his words of love and all his devotion had been an act, and a good act as well. She had lapped it up. He must be laughing up his fucking sleeve. Well, he would be laughing on the other side of his dead fucking face when she finally tracked him down!

She picked up the phone and dialled a number. Billy saw that her hands were shaking. He wasn’t feeling a hundred per cent himself now. He wished he had picked anywhere else in the world to go tonight instead of this fucking place.

Maura’s face was hard as flint and he was reminded once more that she wasn’t like other women. You upset her and you upset a whole family.

Even the IRA wouldn’t faze this little lot.

Garry lay next to Leonie, smiling. She was worth ten grand of anybody’s money as far as he was concerned. He had just spent the best hour of his life, and the funny thing was, so had Leonie. She was amazed to experience her first real orgasm without the aid of her hand or a vibrator. She snuggled into Garry’s arms and he hugged her.

Like Vic Joliff before him, he had met the one woman he really connected with and Leonie likewise had met the man of her dreams. It wasn’t a phoney fuck and they both knew it and basked in the knowledge.

“I know you won’t believe this, Garry, but I have never felt like this before.”

He smiled happily.

“I ain’t either, Leonie.”

They didn’t talk again for a while, just lay together quietly. Then she said, “Fancy a cup of tea?”

He nodded happily.

“Just what I wanted, girl.”

She got up and he admired her neat little bod as she skipped happily from the room. He saw her suitcase open on the floor and smiled again. Jack Stern’s reaction to her now trumping Garry Ryan would be the icing on the cake as far as he was concerned. Then he noticed a scrap of paper among the underwear and smellies. He got off the bed and picked it up, read it quickly and then shoved it into his trouser pocket. She had inadvertently given him exactly what he wanted in more ways than one.

Leonie came back into the room with two mugs of tea and a plate of hot buttered toast. He decided he would move her into his flat within the week. Fuck his other birds, this was practically love. Or as near as Garry Ryan would ever get to it anyway.

Maura met Joss Campion back at her house. She felt sorry for him. She had always liked Joss.

“He don’t mean it, Maura. That’s the worst of it. He just can’t help himself. Gina understood that, see. She knew he was a born womaniser.”

Maura didn’t answer him, just sat and listened and sipped at her glass of Scotch. She knew that Joss felt genuinely bad about what had happened. As they were sitting together she was not surprised to see Patrick O’Loughlin come unannounced into her lounge. But she could tell Joss was.

He shook his head sadly. She knew he was sorry about it all.

“I know, Joss. I know everything now.”

“No, you don’t, Maura.” He looked at Patrick and said in a strong voice, “Are you going to tell her or am I?”

Patrick sighed, a small heavyset man with a shock of dark hair and fathomless eyes.

He was on the Ten Most Wanted list since he had left his cronies and become part of the Real IRA. He had no time for the Good Friday agreement, he wanted the mayhem to carry on. He also carried out arms deals and other nefarious bits of business, which was what had first brought Vic to his attention.

“I’ll tell her, man. But first, isn’t that Tommy the fecking eejit?”

Joss nodded.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Patrick laughed. He liked this funny giant of a man with the rugged countenance.

“You’re a good man, Joss.”

Maura sighed heavily.

“Can we skip the mutual backslapping and get down to business?”

“It’s a hard woman you are, Maura Ryan.”

She laughed dryly.

“Must be the Irish in me, eh?”

Chapter Fifteen

Garry was happy, or as happy as Garry Ryan could ever be. He had a new toy and Leonie would sparkle for him now as other women had in the past. He owned people as opposed to went out with them. Leonie for her part was quite happy to be owned and he sensed this about her. As long as she had readies and kudos she was happy; he knew he could supply her with both on a very grand scale. On top of it all, she had given him an insight into Vic’s whereabouts and for that he would be forever grateful.

He was whistling through his teeth as he drove into Chigwell High Street. If all went well, Vic could be history by the weekend and he could be winging his way to Marbella with Leonie. The possibilities of her lithe little body and sexual acrobatics in the sun were endless. He liked the overweight sort normally, they were grateful for his attention as far as he could see. He liked to be in charge of them, liked making them dependent on him. Now, suddenly, he was in love and it felt good. Leonie was like him, they were kindred spirits, and he’d never dreamed that it could happen to him. At his time of life he had thought romance and love were for other people, and now he had been proved wrong by a little bird from Romford with dreams of the big time and tits that could stop traffic on the M25.

He was smiling as he drove into Verderers Road a short time later.

Abul and Benny were eating a large evening fry up in the Rosina Cafe in Essex on the A13. The road was permanently busy and the cafe was positioned in a prime location that was perfect for lorry drivers. It was also a suitably anonymous place for hand overs and pick-ups. Unlike the Granada services at West Thurrock it didn’t have a reputation for drugs or handguns. This was the perfect place for a low-profile meal and a chat, especially if you needed to meet with a Northerner, Dutchman or German. The truck stop supplied plenty of cover.

So as they ate and chatted they kept an eye out for numerous friends and acquaintances they had made over the years. They were due a pick-up of guns but this was also a fishing expedition. They both hoped they would get a bite before the day was out.

Maura and Patrick were laughing together and Joss marvelled at her powers of resilience. Most women would have been devastated by the events of the last few months, and Tommy’s betrayal on top of it all would have left another woman on the ground. Yet here she was acting as if everything was normal. But then, when you thought of Maura’s life, what would she class as normal? Tommy had said she was hard to get really close to and Joss could believe that, but he also understood why she was like that. His own father had been a Scally, a hard man who had lived his life to the full. Joss had half-brothers and sisters his mother had no knowledge of, to whom he talked but had no real feelings for. He knew what it was like to live your life behind a mask. To have to keep secrets that could cause untold damage to too many people. To shoulder the burden of making a living for your family while trying to have a life of your own. Maura had done all that and more because, though they didn’t acknowledge it, it was she who kept them out of prison and who controlled their every move. Though how much longer she could control Benny Ryan was the question in everyone’s mind.