Maura's Game (5 page)

She knew deep inside she had never forgiven him for abandoning her then, in favour of his job. His precious police career. But it didn’t stop her from loving him, even while she resented him. Now she had to bury him. Or what was left of him anyway.

Marge and Carla packed for her and talked to one another with their eyes. When Maura went to the bathroom to wash her face, Marge whispered to Carla, “One or other of us needs to stay with her at all times.”

Carla nodded.

“I’ve never seen her like this before.”

Marge shrugged.

“I have. When Michael died. There’s been too much death in her life.”

Carla didn’t answer her. She didn’t know what to say.

Maura walked from the bathroom with full make-up and a smile plastered on her face.

“Come on then, girls, let’s get home, eh?”

Carla watched her aunt acting as if nothing had happened. She was putting it all out of her head as usual and wouldn’t allow herself to grieve properly.

But trouble was on the way, Carla was sure of it.

In more ways than one.

Benny, Garry and Roy met Lee at a lock-up in Camden. As they closed the door behind them Benny checked the road to see if anyone outside was watching them.

“Who moved the car out?” Garry said.

Benny answered.

“Abul. He’s taken it for a jaunt.”

Garry grinned. He loved his nephew Benny, they were of similar temperament.

“Good boy. Now, there’s a few interesting bits under here. A couple of Armalites. A rocket launcher. The spades are in the corner, you’d better get digging!”

Lee laughed.

“What are you going to do then?”

Garry shrugged.

“Get the teas, of course. I’ll let you work up a sweat first, naturally.”

“Naturally!”

Benny, always hands on, started to dig with a vengeance. The others watched him for a while, marvelling at the strength of him.

“How’s Maura?” Garry’s voice was low.

Roy sighed.

“Not good. Reminds me of how she was after Micky went. She’s bottling it all up as usual.”

“Fucking good riddance to bad rubbish if you ask me. That Petherick was a ponce. For a shrewd bird she was blinded there.”

“Ain’t we all where lovers are concerned?”

Garry laughed.

“Not me. I never met anyone I cared about. Wanted to fuck, maybe take out now and again, but people who get too close can own you. They make you stupid, make you do stupid things.”

Lee knew Garry meant him and Sheila and he reacted angrily.

“Not everyone is just after what they can get, Gal. Not all women are slags.”

Garry raised his eyebrows in an expression of disbelief.

“They are. Show them a few quid, a big cock and a nice motor, and they’re yours. Look at Joliff’s old woman, a slag of the first water.”

“Not any more, Uncle Garry.”

“Not so much of the “Uncle” if you don’t mind, young Benny. Garry will do.”

“We’re blamed for that, and you know what it means, don’t you?” Roy sounded worried.

Garry nodded, irritated by his brother’s reaction.

“It means we have to strike first, that’s what it means. So hurry up and dig, boys. Let battle commence.”

“Maura wants us all to go to her flat over the club at lunchtime.”

Roy still sounded unsure and Benny picked up on that fact.

“Do you think she’s up to all this?” He gestured with the spade into the hole.

Garry laughed and Lee joined in.

“Maura would shoot you if you annoyed her enough, boy, remember that. She’ll bounce back. She is the only woman I know who thinks like a bloke. She also has the ability to suppress her feelings. She’ll be all right, I guarantee it.”

Benny nodded, satisfied. But Roy kept his own counsel. He would wait and see. Although they were all pleased Terry was out of the picture, Maura certainly wasn’t. She had thought the sun shone out of Petherick’s arse and nothing any of them said was going to change that fact. This had started out as Maura giving him a hand to sort out a few bits and pieces. Now it was a full-scale war. Watching Benny acting like an extra in The Godfather could have been amusing if it hadn’t all been so deadly serious.

Lana Smith was small and plump with melon-shaped breasts that not only defied gravity, they actually made her look fatter if that was possible. Since her baby had been born a few months previously she had piled on the weight.

As she stepped out of her car to go into her local tanning salon she saw a slightly-built, curly-haired man smiling at her. Never one to be backward at coming forward she noted his brown eyes and cocky smile in a nanosecond. She noticed the knife a few beats later.

It entered her stomach and ripped up through to her breastbone,

leaving a gaping hole. As she stumbled off the kerb she felt the wetness of her blood as it pumped out of her body. The man was already driving away and the wing of his car clipped her shoulder, knocking her back on the pavement with a heavy thud.

Her new baby Alicia slept contentedly in her car seat until the wail of the ambulances and police cars woke her and then she screamed endlessly, her little face red with anger and exertion.

Maura listened in amazement as she was told of the deaths of two of the south east’s most hardened criminals’ women. She screwed up her eyes in disbelief.

“Why would anyone think we would kill them? They’re wives, birds, civilians. What the fuck would hurting them gain us? They both had kids, for fuck’s sake.”

Benny shrugged.

“To gain us aggravation if we’re put in the frame.”

Maura rolled her eyes to the ceiling in annoyance.

“Fucking hell, Benny, that never even occurred to me. Give him a fucking paper hat!”

The words stung and Benny as usual was on his dignity.

“No need to be sarcastic, Maura…”

She interrupted him.

“Shut the fuck up, Benny. This is not the time or place for you and your fucking stupid little boy act, OK? This is serious grown-up shit. Lana’s old man Kenny could pick you up and squeeze you to death in the middle of Romford Market and not one person would admit to seeing a thing. He is heavy, and he is serious, and we have to sort this out soon else all the Armalites in the world won’t keep Smithy off our doorstep.”

Maura’s words sobered everybody. Even Garry agreed they had a problem.

“That is one heavy duty bastard, and now he has a motherless child to add to his annoyance. We’d better arrange a meet as soon as possible.”

Benny was still sceptical. He blew breath from his mouth noisily in a final act of defiance.

“Fuck him, we ain’t done nothing.”

Garry turned on his nephew and said slowly, “Kenny Smith is one of the only people I am wary of. Now that should tell you to treat him with respect. He’s a decent bloke until he gets upset and then he’s a fucking maniac. He’s the guy everyone uses as a go-between for trouble. That’s what he does. He’s respected and liked, and he’s the man we were going to call on to liaise between us and Joliff. Only now we’re on his top ten shit list, at number one, we’ll have to find someone else to do the dirty work for us.”

Maura rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, a sure sign she was upset.

“We have to find out who’s putting our faces in the frame. Maybe Kenny can still help us with that, if I try the softly-softly approach. Garry, Roy and Lee I want you with me for back-up but let me talk to him on me own.”

Garry nodded. Benny was more than aware he was out of the equation but didn’t make a direct protest.

“So what do I do while you lot are gallivanting around tonight then?”

Maura looked at him and said seriously, “You make yourself busy, of course, Benny. You carry on routing out all our minor personnel and you put the fear of Christ up them. See what you can find out. But don’t glue anyone’s eyes shut, please. It’s very bad for business.”

Benny was clearly thrilled at the opportunity for further violence and Maura watched him with distaste.

He was so like her brother Michael, in looks and temperament. But unlike the eldest Ryan who had had an exemplary business sense, Benny as far as Maura could see was strictly a bully boy Like Michael, he would explode into violent rages and now she wanted to tap into that part of him and use it for her own ends. If anyone knew anything they would be most likely to tell Benny Ryan. She loved him but found his wildness hard to deal with, especially when they had so much else to worry them. She knew he was offended by her reaction to him and didn’t care. She had no intention of nursing him through this. He had to learn to deal with life, as they all had. She knew his father agreed with her way of thinking and that was all she cared about.

“I have been in touch with a few faces around town to see if I can get the SP on the latest killing, Maura. I’ll let you know what I hear.”

Garry let Lee speak then asked her: “What about the filth, what have they had to say about Terry?”

Maura had expected the question and had also expected it from Garry. None of the others would have had the front to ask her outright. The tension in the room was almost unbearable as she answered him.

“I’ve batted them off so far. I’ll have a meet with our pal Caldwell obviously before I can even begin to think about talking to anyone else.”

Garry nodded, satisfied.

“Well, he was one of their own so they’ll be as interested as we are, won’t they?”

Benny’s voice was dismissive and Maura felt an urge to throttle her nephew until he passed out. Instead she said coldly, “Do you know something, Benny? One of these days that trap of yours is going to get you into all kinds of trouble, starting with me. Whatever you thought of Terry Petherick, and frankly I don’t give a toss what that was, he was part of this family through me and me only. I am warning you, Benny…” she looked slowly around the room ‘.. . I am warning you all, any personal feelings you may have had about him get left at the door. We have to work together on this and I do not want to have to explain myself to you, the filth or anyone else. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

Her blue eyes were as cold as flint and her perfectly made-up face was hard. For the first time ever Benny saw his aunt as all her brothers saw her and it unnerved him. He knew that in this mood she would order his disappearance without a second’s hesitation if it would make her quest easier. Far from finding this scary he admired her for it. Fear was the key in their business and she was one of the few women who knew how to use it.

That she was under immense pressure never occurred to him. That she was trying to keep them together, show a united front to the criminal fraternity, never occurred to him either. He was still too young and too immature to see what was really going on. It would be his downfall if he wasn’t careful. He had never been in the middle of a gang war before and Maura knew he was going to be properly blooded before the week was out. She would watch him and help if necessary, but she had no intention of babysitting him today. He had to be put in his place sooner rather than later, that much she knew for sure.

One day her nephew’s mouth and attitude were going to get him into trouble big time and he had to be made aware of that fact.

All the men in the room were staring at Benny and he felt uncomfortable. He also realised he was going to have to watch himself. Even his father didn’t come to his defence against Marvellous Maura.

He had never before seen her in this mode and now, as far as he was concerned, everything he had heard about her was true. He felt proud to be a part of this family and to know deep inside that he was just like them. It made him feel he belonged. Made him feel good about himself.

Benny smiled, one of his big heart-warming smiles that drew men and women alike to him. And as Maura looked at her nephew she saw her brother Michael, the first man she had loved, smiling back at her.

Benny grinned around the room and said roguishly, “That put me in me fucking place, didn’t it?”

Maura couldn’t resist him then. Hugging him tight, she said seriously, “You are one cocky little fucker.”

Garry yawned noisily and remarked to no one in particular, “You can say that again, Maws. Now then, let’s get this show on the road. We’re going to have Smithy seeing sense before it’s dark.”

Roy watched his son as he blinded Maura with that smile of his. Inside he was worried. Benny was a loose cannon and Roy knew he was going to have to keep a steely eye on him so he didn’t balls everything up with his temper and youthful arrogance.

He didn’t want to admit that his own son scared him, but he did. Benny frightened the life out of him. Like his uncle before him he was as mad as a hatter, and like his uncle he would not be controlled for long.

Kenny Smith looked at his baby daughter sleeping in her cot and swallowed down the ball of tears bunched in the back of his throat. His scarred face twisted with grief, making him look even uglier. His mother Eileen, an East End harridan with permed hair and a cigarette permanently dangling from her lip, patted his arm.

“Unbelievable, son. Bloody unbelievable.”

He clutched her hand tightly.

“Fucking Ryans! They’re putting themselves about all over the place and now my little Lana’s gone.”

“Hardly little, son, she was the size of a house since she had the kid.”

Kenny rolled his eyes.

“Don’t start, Mum. Whatever you thought of her she was my old woman and little Alicia’s mother.”

“She was an old sort, that’s what she was. But whatever. I’ll sort out the baby, you get this all done and dusted, son.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I intend to cause the Third World fucking War.”

Eileen nodded, not at all fazed by her son’s determination.

“Listen, I’ll take the baby home with me, OK? You work from here. But get it sorted soon, I’m feeling nervous. If they’re after the birds, then life is dangerous for everyone, ain’t it?”

Kenny nodded.

“I’m seeing a few faces roundabout. Very soon the Ryans might just find themselves in more shit than Basildon dump. What with Vic’s old woman and all, people aren’t too happy.”

Eileen lit a Benson & Hedges from the endless supply in her apron pocket.