Ruthless (15 page)

‘Be careful.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘’Night then, honey.’

‘’Night.’

32

‘You know what, Rufus? You can be
such
a fucking fool sometimes.’

‘I thought . . .’ Rufus was floundering under this onslaught. She was pacing back and forth in front of him, spitting with rage. News of his failed attempt to snatch Layla Carter had not gone down well.

‘I told you I’d see to this. That I would be in charge here, that
I
would decide what was to happen, when it was to happen.’

‘But—’

‘You’ve tipped them off! How could you be so bloody stupid?’

‘I haven’t tipped them off,’ he objected. He felt wounded, through and through. His eye was smarting, he was aching all over from where he’d struck the pavement. The girl had run rings round him and now his Orla was giving out about it, like he was a moron.

Rufus the DOOFUS
.

But he’d been trying to
help,
that was all.

She stopped her pacing and, breathing hard, came to a halt in front of his chair.

‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ she said, her eyes wild with anger and determination. ‘
I’m
going to do it.’

‘I’ll come with—’

‘No
. You won’t come with me. I go in alone. And I do it, OK? I do it.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

33

Annie Carter awoke in darkness. Pitch-black, all-enveloping. She was completely disorientated for a split second, before she got her bearings. She was in the master suite in the Holland Park house in London. And she was – of course – alone.

Into her brain came tumbling a multitude of alone-related thoughts, Alberto, Layla, Max.

She flinched.

Max
.

Eight years, and it could still cut like a knife, how he’d hurt her. She threw back the covers, sat up, shutting off that train of thought. No good going there, none at all.

Something had awakened her. She pressed the button on top of the alarm clock and the dim light illuminated the dial. Two twenty-five a.m. She sat there and groaned. She’d only got home a couple of hours ago; jetlagged and exhausted, she was desperate for sleep but her brain was in overdrive, turning over problems instead of letting her relax.

Alberto
.

She put her head in her hands, thinking about everything he’d told her as they’d stood together at the graveside. Was he going to vanish from her life one day soon, never to be seen again?

Give my love to Layla,
he’d said when she left him.

Dammit, Annie couldn’t even give Layla
her
love, let alone his. She’d flown home and there’d been no hugs, no kisses from her daughter. There never had been. Only Max got those, she guessed. It was only a guess – while Layla visited Max several times a year in Barbados, and he came to London occasionally to meet up with their daughter, Annie hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of him since the divorce.

She knew Layla blamed her. It had hurt Layla terribly, being parted from Max, but Annie had got custody and so it was a done deal. And now there was this great yawning
gulf
between mother and daughter. Annie seemed incapable of reaching across it, to touch Layla as she wished she could, to see her daughter smile at her with unguarded love instead of sullen wariness, to be vulnerable and sweet as she had been when she was a little girl.

At the moment, Layla was in the adjoining room, asleep. Or so Annie had assumed. But maybe it was Layla who’d woken her up. Maybe she couldn’t sleep either. Annie felt a surge of maternal pride as she thought of how hard Layla worked, how conscientious she was. Who’d have thought a kid of hers would end up a trainee accountant? Wherever Layla had got that weird gift for figures, it certainly wasn’t from her.

From Max, must be,
thought Annie.

Again she felt that stab of pain. No, she wasn’t going to think about him. She was
over
that. She had even dated other men since the divorce. Well, two. Just two. Disasters, both of them, and best forgotten. Her mind spun away from that and back to Layla. Her terribly strait-laced and difficult-to-know daughter, who poured all her energy into her job. Maybe Layla couldn’t sleep because something work-related was bothering her? Not that she would ever confide in her mother. Her father? Yes. Her mother, forget it.

Annie thumped the pillows and lay down. Her relationship with her own mother had been unhappy. Maybe there was a pattern there? Connie Bailey had been a single mum. Her husband had taken off for pastures new, leaving her with two young daughters – Annie and her older sister Ruthie – and bills to pay. And the drink.

Oh God yes, the drink.

People were always saying,
The best years of your life, growing up, aren’t they? Happy childhood years
.

Annie’s childhood had been far from happy. Her mother had detested her, preferring gentle, quiet, well-behaved Ruthie.

Maybe I reminded her of Dad,
thought Annie.

It was too late to ask her mum about any of that. Mum was gone.

Her memories of her mother were not fond. They were of Connie lying on the sofa, drunk out of her skull, and the rent man or the milkman or the baker or
some
fucker banging on the front door demanding to be paid.

Her and Ruthie would be cowering behind the sofa pretending they were out. There was always fear, a constant endless nagging fear, that one day they would come home and Connie would finally have downed one drink too many and seen herself off to that great ever-open bar in the sky.

Annie sighed heavily. No wonder she’d no taste or tolerance for alcohol. She had hoped for better from her relationship with Layla. But – oh, and this was hard to admit, even to herself – they didn’t get on. Unable to break down the wall Layla had put up between them, Annie had lashed out in frustration, saying hurtful things – things that she didn’t mean and wished she could take back.

You’re always working, don’t you know how to have
fun?

That colour doesn’t suit you
.

Can’t you do something with your hair?

Annie turned on to her side, berating herself.

Stupid
.

She
knew
that her criticism would only make Layla withdraw further behind that big, invisible,
fucking
wall.

Clunk
.

She stiffened, every sense alert.

There! Somebody was definitely moving about downstairs.

Probably it was Layla. But Layla was such a deep sleeper, usually. Even as a child, she would lay immobile all night, her bed as neat in the morning as it had been the night before. And Rosa, their ancient housekeeper, was never downstairs at night; she had her own little self-contained apartment at the side of the house.

What if it’s neither of them? What if someone’s broken in?
suggested a tiny voice in her brain.

Her heartbeat was deafening. She wanted to put the light on, to drive back the darkness. But that might alert whoever was downstairs if they glanced up and saw the strip of light under her door. No lights then. Instead, she reached for the bedside drawer.

Max’s side
.

Banishing the thought, she slid open the drawer, groped inside, felt the cold hard outline of the Smith & Wesson revolver there. It was loaded. It was an old, old gun, but effective. Scary to see, scary to shoot too. It kicked like a mule. But she wasn’t going to be firing it, she just wanted to frighten the shit out of any intruder and send them running for the hills.

She sat up, mouth dry, pulse accelerating, felt in the darkness for her robe and slipped it on, belted it. Then she took hold of the gun. Barefoot, she crept to the door that connected her room to Layla’s, and turned the key to open it.

She grasped the doorknob, twisted it. Pushed the door open and passed inside. She could hear more noises coming from downstairs. She knew this house, every creak, every moan it made while the wind howled around the eaves, every protest the old floorboards uttered when someone stepped upon them.

Someone was moving down there, quietly. But not quietly enough.

Still in darkness, Annie crossed to the bed. ‘Layla!’ she hissed, and shook her daughter’s shoulder. Layla turned and Annie could see her eyes in the dimness of the moonlight opening wide, her mouth opening too. Annie clamped a hand over it. ‘Hush,’ she said urgently. ‘There’s somebody downstairs.’

Layla’s whole body stiffened. Annie took her hand away.

‘What
?’ Layla whispered, scrambling up on the bed, getting into her dressing gown.

They both heard it then.

Someone was moving.

Someone was coming up the stairs.

‘What should we do?’ hissed Layla.

‘Give them a surprise,’ said Annie with more boldness than she felt.

Layla was staring at the outline of the gun in her mother’s hand. She shook her head. ‘No! I’ll call the police.’ She started to reach for the phone on the bedside table.

Annie grabbed her hand. ‘We don’t have time for that. They could hear one of the extensions pick up. And if they hear you speaking, they’ll know we’re awake. Come on.’

Keeping hold of Layla’s arm, Annie steered her to the connecting door to the master suite. They passed inside, then Annie locked that door. Which left only the main door into the hallway for anyone to come through. And they were going to be ready for that.

Annie took Layla across to the door into the hall. She tucked herself in behind it, and placed Layla behind her. She squeezed Layla’s hand. And then focused all her attention on the door.

Don’t come in here,
she thought.
Please, please don’t
.

But the footsteps were coming closer. She froze into stillness, raised the gun – and watched the doorknob start to turn.

34

Layla gave a frightened gasp. Annie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Whoever it was, they were coming in here.

Hit him with the gun or fire it?

Fire it and get herself banged up on a murder charge? No. Hit him. Hit him
hard
. She wished she had the kiyoga, the martial arts weapon Tony had given her years ago, but it was long-forgotten, in a cupboard somewhere.

Now the door was swinging inward.

The two women froze, held their breath.

A tall dark outline appeared, moving cat-footed on the floor of the master suite. As his head came into view, Annie struck out with the gun. But the intruder had fast reactions and must have sensed it coming. He turned his head away so that the weapon caught him only a glancing blow. Then, knowing they were there, he jammed his shoulder into the door, driving Annie back into Layla.

Caught off balance, Annie staggered, fell to her knees, dropped the gun.

Layla screamed as the intruder flung himself upon them. Annie, unable to reach the gun, resorted to kicking out at him as hard as she could, her face a mask of terror and fury. He stumbled, crashing into Layla and sending her sprawling to the floor. When she looked up, her mother was grappling with the intruder. Wild-eyed with horror, Layla thought she saw the flash of moonlight on a knife.

The gun was lying on the floor where Annie had dropped it. As the man knocked her mother down again, looming over them both, Layla didn’t hesistate: she snatched it up, and fired.

The shot was deafening in the enclosed space of the bedroom. The intruder cannoned backwards, hitting the wall and then sliding down to the floor. Layla, caught off guard by the weapon’s recoil, staggered backwards, tripping over Annie’s legs. Practically gibbering with fear, she groped her way upward and threw the switch.

Light flooded the master suite.

‘Oh my God,’ she gasped out as she stared at the man lying half in and half out of the doorway. He was dressed all in black, his head covered by a hood with slits for the eyes and mouth. There was a rip in the hood and blood was showing through where Annie had hit him with the gun. And there was a lot more blood, trickling thickly down the wall where he had collided with it when he was shot. A wet stain was spreading across his chest.

‘Oh no,’ said Layla, staring down at him. ‘My
God,
I shot him,’ she wailed.

Annie was coming to her feet, half-supporting herself against the wall. She felt horribly unsteady. She too was staring at the fallen man, wondering what to do next.

Not a man,
she thought.
More like a boy
.

The body was tall, but now she could see it was slender, too.

Her eyes were caught by the wicked-looking knife lying on the floor near one of the man’s gloved hands.

She swallowed hard, feeling the dry heaves start at the back of her throat. Shakily, she kicked the knife away, in case he should reach out, get hold of it again. He’d come here to kill one or both of them.
Her,
of course. Layla hadn’t done a thing wrong in her entire life. Whereas she . . . well, she . . .

‘Wait,’ she said suddenly.

She was staring at the man.

‘Wait? What do you mean, wait?’ Layla was babbling in panic. ‘For God’s sake, Mum – I’ve
shot
him.’ Her eyes went down to the gun, still in her hand, and she dropped it with a grimace of disgust.

Annie snatched the gun up and approached the fallen boy. She glanced at Layla, who was deathly pale, her skin coated with a sheen of sweat. She wanted to embrace her daughter, hug her, reassure her, but she stopped herself. Even now she was afraid Layla would only shrug her off, the way she always did.

She knelt at the boy’s shoulder and pressed the muzzle of the gun firmly against the side of his head. Then she reached down with trembling fingers and felt his neck, searching for a pulse.

‘Is he . . .?’ asked Layla, looking like a ghost, she was so white.

‘No pulse,’ said Annie, feeling her stomach clench and churn.