The Business (29 page)

He smiled then, and Imelda saw how good-looking he actually was when he wasn’t scowling. ‘I’m all right, and yourself ?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m always all right. I am lucky really, I take every day as it comes. I just go with the flow.’

She was laughing at her own wit. ‘What you drinking, Jimmy? I’m buying.’

Jimmy watched her as she got the drinks in, saw her natural femininity at work. She had been graced with a poise and a dignity that was somehow all her own. Providing she didn’t open her big trap, of course, then the whole illusion disappeared in seconds.

But as she was now, he saw only perfection. Her long, slender hands, her wonderful bone structure, her lightness of movement, the fluidity of her limbs as she walked back towards him. Placing the whisky down on the table, she raised her own glass at him as if in a toast. ‘I knocked the Jack Daniels on the head. I drink vodka these days.’

He nodded at her, unsure how he was supposed to answer, like her he was remembering their last encounter. Which was why she had felt the need to bring up about the Jacky D.

‘I feel awful about that time, you know, when we went to your flat.’

Jimmy shrugged dismissively. ‘It’s in the past, forget about it. I have.’

She grinned then. ‘I wish I had forgotten it. Fucking hell, you aimed me out that door so fast it’s a wonder I never burnt a hole in your carpets.’

‘Look, Mel, I was out of order that night, I was rude and a bully, but it had been a bad day all round, you know. And you fucking skagging in me toilet didn’t help.’

Jimmy gulped at his drink, feeling the burn as it went down his throat, wishing he was meeting her for the first time ever, wishing that she was just a girl, a normal girl.

Imelda was laughing now. Her nasty side was always there, underneath the surface, waiting to come out. ‘Your face! It was a fucking picture. But I was so nervous I needed something to calm me down. You know, I actually believed, right, that
we
were on a date or something. How fucking mad is
that
? I went into the john to sort me head out. Because in your car, as we drove to your place, it all went quiet, do you remember? And I felt as if we were, I don’t know how to explain it, I felt as if we were, you know, like a proper couple or something. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, but I just wanted you to know that I understand why you lost the plot with me. And of course, if you remember properly, that was the night Lance died, wasn’t it?’

Suddenly Jimmy had the distinct impression that what Imelda was saying to him was somehow loaded, like she was accusing him of something. She was still smiling at him with that wide open smile of hers, the smile that made her look like a normal person. Like a nice girl. A girl you would be proud to bring home to meet your mum and dad. But he knew that the smile was like everything else about her, a sham. The smile was not even real, she used it for her own ends. He was heart-sorry for her then, sorry that her life consisted of sly digs, innuendos and the constant pursuit of drugs. He was wondering why he had made the mistake of talking to her, why couldn’t he just be content with looking at her? It was so much easier if she didn’t get the opportunity to actually open her mouth, or air her opinions.

‘I can’t help wondering at times, you know what I mean, Jimmy? I wonder sometimes, especially late at night when I’m on me own, that if you had not lost it like you did, and if you hadn’t dinged me out on to the street like you did, I wonder if maybe, just
maybe
, poor Lance might still be alive.’

Jimmy felt his face freeze, felt the controlled hatred that was the real Imelda, and he knew that she had enjoyed every second of his attention, and was revelling in the obvious discomfort that her words had caused him.

Pulling himself together, he smiled lazily and, picking up his drink once more, he said with as much revulsion in his voice as he could muster, ‘Correct me if I am wrong, but are you saying it was you who topped him then, and not your little girl? That if I hadn’t slung you out like I did, but decided to go
slumming
for the first and only time in me life, are you saying you would not have gone home and, ergo, Lance would still be in the land of the living instead of being well planted?’

Jimmy could see how the pupils of her eyes had widened, and he knew that was caused by fear this time, he saw the way her jaw tightened as she gritted her teeth. He knew that he had struck a chord somewhere inside her, and he also knew that whatever thoughts he might have harboured towards this woman, they were gone now. Were over with. Finished.

Imelda Dooley was fucking poison, and a dangerous poison at that. But he was well able for her, and she knew that now almost as well as he did.

‘I knew you were fucking lying all along, knew that only you would have been cunt enough to blame your baby, a little child for crying out loud, for your mistakes. Even the Filth had their suspicions, didn’t they? Your mother told me that herself.’

Jimmy shook his head dramatically, laughing at her with a mixture of derision and disgust. ‘You are scum, and even though I’ve always known that, until now I had always tried to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

He leant forward in his chair until his face was inches from hers. ‘Now, fuck off. You’re a fucking slag, and if you ever approach me again in a public place, I’ll break your fucking neck, lady.’

Imelda knew that she had done a wrong one, knew that Jimmy was not as soft as she had believed, that he did not have a secret crush on her any more and, worst of all, she knew that he was capable of doing exactly what he had promised.

She saw the naked hatred in his eyes and knew that he saw the truth of the situation with Lance as if he had been present in the room with them. It wasn’t often that her instincts were wrong, but it seemed that this time they had been seriously wide of the mark.

As she was attempting to rise from her seat Jimmy grabbed her arm roughly. ‘And, by the way, you are out of the business. If all my girls came down with fucking galloping crutch rot overnight, I still wouldn’t give you the time of fucking day. You treacherous fucking whore.’ He slammed her back into her chair with as much force as he could muster, then standing up, he looked her over once more as if she was so much dirt.

Then he walked out of the pub, his back straight and his head finally clear. She was like a fucking disease, and he had cured himself of her at last. He felt a lightness come over him as if he had just been let out of prison.

And it felt good.

Really good.

Chapter Thirteen

‘I used to worry about you at one time, did you know that?’

Jimmy Bailey laughed at Mary’s seriousness. ‘What on earth for?’

Mary felt embarrassed suddenly, but she knew she had to finish what she had started. So, taking a deep breath she said quietly, ‘I honestly believed that you had a soft spot for my Mel. I know it sounds mad but I really did believe that for a long time. I hoped you might have been the man to sort her out, even while I worried that she would destroy you.’

Jimmy felt himself starting to flush, knew that Mary was more than aware that she had guessed rightly and he also knew that she was aware that somewhere along the line, Imelda had fucked it up for herself as usual.

‘Me and Imelda? Are you fucking sure?’ He was laughing, was pleased that the laughter sounded genuine. Wondered at who else might have sussed out his secret. ‘No disrespect, Mary, but I ain’t that fucking hard up.’

Mary didn’t answer him. She just looked at him with those deep-blue eyes that seemed to have been passed down to all her children, and her grandchildren. He wondered briefly if she ever saw her own eyes looking back at her, if she noticed that she had given them all her finest feature.

‘I don’t know where you get some of your stories from, girl. But I can tell you this much, Imelda and me have more chance of getting a dose of clap off the fucking Pope than even sitting in the same room together without fighting.’

Mary smiled, but she was sad at his vitriol and she could not disguise that fact. She also knew that it was pointless trying to make anything even remotely sensible come from this conversation. So she took a mental step back, and sighed knowingly; still, she knew that she had to let him realise that she knew the score, no matter what he might say to the contrary. ‘Well, I’m glad we got that sorted out anyway.’

He didn’t laugh as she had intended him to, and she didn’t laugh about it either. In fact, they were both left out on a limb. They were both embarrassed by her words, and even more so by the truth that lay behind them.

Jimmy wished he knew how to make everything better for Mary. He wished he could take her in his arms and comfort her for all the losses she had endured, and for all the sadness she had been forced to confront. She had started swearing like a merchant seaman these days, curses speckled even her most mundane of conversations and he knew her bad language was nothing more than a form of self-preservation. She used the foul language that she hated as a way of keeping people at arm’s length. She had a cross to bear that Jesus himself would have been hard put to carry for as long as she had been forced to.

He admired her, he really did admire her. She was just an old dear to most people, and to the majority of men he knew that meant she was beneath their radar. Once a woman reached a certain age they became invisible to the male population. What they didn’t know was that Mary Dooley had the knack for finding people who did not want to be found. She was fucking phenomenal, she had a network of old dears who she had known for years. She knew the mothers of every major Face in the Smoke and beyond and she would find out from them where their sons were, who they were working for, and then she would casually sneak in the name of interest to him or his associates and, if the name was someone they knew, she would be given the full SP on them. She never wrote anything down either, kept it all in her head, even the phone numbers that she procured for him. She knew she could be raided at any time, and she made sure that the Filth would find nothing at all, not a fucking brass razoo. So when Jimmy saw some of the newer, younger Faces unwilling to even give her the courtesy of a nod, he would feel his blood boil, and he would then take it upon himself to give the little bastards a lesson in criminal etiquette. Namely, that she was not only the widow of a man who they would all aspire to be, but she was also one of their most respected and distinguished collectors of interesting information. He would then ram home how she was respected by the hardest of men and that she was on an earn of Olympian standards. He loved to see the looks on their faces when he revealed that to them. He would watch the recipient of his wrath as they digested his information, and if they were shrewd enough to listen carefully, and change their attitude, he knew he would keep them on. If, on the other hand, they looked at him as if he had just shagged a fence panel in broad daylight, he knew they were not worth a wank. Then he knew that they were just biding their time till they saw what they would eventually perceive as the big time. That consisted of either drug-dealing or bank-robbing, neither of which they would go into with any kind of finesse at all, therefore guaranteeing that their eventual capture would be sooner rather than later. He was sorry to see a good lad go to the bad because they were too stupid to see that respect had to be earned and that the game they were in would not be learnt overnight. But a lot of lads were susceptible to quick earners.

Jimmy hated to point out that the really good drug-dealers had been at it from their teens, and good bank-robbers, who were rarely caught, were only so good because, like doctors, teachers and nuns, real bank-robbing was almost a fucking vocation. It was something that was inherent in the person concerned from their childhood, was almost like a talent. It was something they had inherited and understood as their future, their only real interest in life. Anyone who was willing to spend months casing a joint, watching its daily grind, and planning how to exploit its many weaknesses, was capable of getting away with it. Unlike the robbers who went into their local post office with a sawn-off and the unfortunate belief that the gun alone would ensure the cooperation of the people involved and who, through bad planning and bad timing, were captured within hours or days, and who were suddenly looking at a twelve-stretch.

The real bank-robbers, who were naturally good at it, were well able for the trials and tribulations that being on the rob often ensured. They kept a low profile and didn’t even attempt to use the money they had amassed for at least eighteen months. By that time they had made a point of distributing it to as many different locations as possible. Real robbers enjoyed the chase, enjoyed the planning, and knew that the outcome would be to their advantage.

The other side of this coin though, were the young men he tried to mould, who if they had been of the real robbing persuasion, would have already knocked off their first bank job long before they came to his notice. He was given their names and their CVs by their fathers, who all saw him as someone who might just be able to mould their boys into half-decent debt collectors, and with that in mind hoped he would then turn them off the rob. The men saw him as someone who would at least give their sons a grounding of sorts, and the opportunity to make themselves a living that was not going to get them an eighteen-year sentence. A sentence that they were ill equipped to cope with, as they had not even been on holiday without their parents, let alone banged up in a nick.

When Jimmy sent the majority of these boys packing, they didn’t even have the brains to realise that, from their fathers’ point of view, he was the last-chance saloon. They were the ones who would mention their fathers’ names at every available opportunity, and that always grieved him, because they were so fucking dense they didn’t even have the nous to get on in life by their own ticket. They saw their fathers’ names as enough for them to get what they wanted from life. How sad was that?