The Jump (63 page)

Donna bridled in her chair. ‘Don’t call him that! He’s not my husband any more. I spent the best part of twenty years with that man, and the truth is I know you better than I ever knew him. Physically and mentally.’

Alan placed his hand on hers, leaning towards her. She could smell the cigar on his breath as he said gently, ‘Donna …’

She pulled her hand from his and said quickly, ‘I want the jump stopped, Alan, and this time I will not take no for an answer. Tomorrow Georgio Brunos is once more let loose on to the world, and I can’t allow that. I will not allow that to happen. I want him locked up for so long, his brain, his cock and his legs will have long been useless to him.’

Alan’s eyes widened at her terminology and she smiled, a hard, brittle smile.

‘Have I shocked you, Alan? It’s a pity I didn’t spend more of my life saying what I really thought, doing what I wanted to do, instead of saying and doing what Georgio wanted. Well, that’s all over now. One good thing has come out of all this. I am a person in my own right, and I’ve found out that I am a fighter. I’ll fight anyone who tries to stand in my way over this. Anyone at all.’

Alan looked at her, really looked at her, and what he saw was a woman of potential. The woman she would have been, had she been married to anyone but Georgio. Her whole world had disintegrated around her, and like the phoenix, she was rising from the ashes - and rising with a vengeance. He felt privileged to know this woman. Felt the pull of her, the want of her. Georgio Brunos must have been stark staring mad ever to have looked at another woman with her waiting in his bed.

‘I can’t stop the jump, Donna …’

She made a deep guttural sighing noise in the back of her throat and Alan held up his hand to stop her from talking. ‘Hear me out, darling, just hear me out. I can’t stop the jump - but I can make sure that Georgio is on his own. That’s the best I can do. Make sure he doesn’t make it to Ireland.’

Donna frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Alan stood up and poured them both a cup of coffee before he answered her.

‘What I mean is this. Eric will only stop the jump on the say-so of Georgio now. If I go to him and try to call it off he’ll need Georgio’s confirmation. That would come through Anthony Calder or someone closer. That’s the law of the criminal world. I mean - think about it. I could be setting Georgio up for a number of reasons. The worst thing of all is this: Stephen Brunos is dead, and that shit hasn’t hit the fan yet. When it does Georgio will suspect a lot more than he does now. He’ll know we’ve tumbled him. As it stands now, Stephen’s death will be a holiday accident. It happens all the time: it nearly happened to you, love. But Georgio, unlike the authorities, will know it’s more of a hit. If we fuck Georgio now, he’ll come after us with everything he’s got. Because he will put two and two together. No, the jump has to go ahead. We have to fuck him up after the jump. Then, when he’s back inside, when he’s finally putting everything together, we’ll have to sort him out from there.’

Donna looked into Alan’s eyes and took a deep breath.

‘You don’t mean … you’re not saying …’ Her expression was one of utter confusion.

Alan nodded, his face hard now. The face Donna had seen when he had attacked Stephen Brunos.

“That’s the only way out for any of us, Donna. While Georgio is breathing we’re in mortal danger. He’ll hear the whisper about us, and believe me, we will be gossiped about. Especially to Georgio. He’s shrewd, he’ll have sussed everything out before anyone else does. I know him, he’s got someone waiting for him in Ireland, someone who will be amazed and then frightened when he doesn’t arrive, someone who knows a lot more about what’s going on than you ever did.’

Donna nodded. ‘You mean Vida, the mother of his child?’

Her voice was bitter as she spoke and Alan’s eyes opened wide in amazement.

‘I know everything now,’ she whispered. ‘I told you that. Carol filled me in about her, along with everything else.’

‘Well, you’ll know that Vida is the one setting up the final stage of the jump from Ireland. I suspect you were to be left high and dry. I sussed that out at the beginning of all this.’

‘Well, thanks for letting me know,’ she cried. ‘I was under the impression we were friends!’

He shook his head. ‘While you were still all over that Greek ponce I had to keep me peace, didn’t I? He could have fucked Vida off out of it. I didn’t think he would, but that could have been the scenario. I

was doing a mate a favour. And with respect, Donna, look where the fuck it’s got me.

‘I now have to make sure the mate - and believe me when I say, for all his faults, Georgio was a mate to me when I needed him -1 have to make sure that this mate, this good old mate, stops breathing at the first available opportunity! So don’t sit there like fucking Britannia, all knowing and womanly strength. Remember I am also in this up to my neck and I still have to live in the criminal world afterwards.’

Donna acknowledged that what he said was true.

‘So what is your plan, Alan. What do you want to do?’

‘Nick Carvello is well-known for his hatred of beasts and nonces,’ Alan began. ‘A while ago, Lewis put it about that Georgio was beasting. He obviously knew that it was true because, with Stephen, he was going to try and take the lot from Georgio. Now Nick believed it all: he wanted out of the jump. I was the one who talked him into staying with it, gave him my word it was all bullshit. You see - I thought it was at the time. Everyone did. Georgio the nonce-hater, Georgio the man’s man.

‘Anyway, all that aside, I’ll tell Nick on the quiet that it’s true. I’ll tell him everything, and that will be for our good as well because Nick will go after Jo Jo and Jack Coyne like a maniac. He hates them. He will hate Georgio for putting him in the position he is in. Helping him, knowing he’s a nonsense - that will send Nick into a mental the likes of which you couldn’t even imagine. Consequently, when Georgio reaches Liverpool, Nick will either be waiting for him with a twelve-bore sawn-off shotgun, or your hubby will arrive up there to fuck-all help. No safe house, no safe passage, nothing.

‘If I was you I’d pin your hopes on the former. Because one thing you must understand: Georgio will have to die. If he doesn’t, me and you are in more trouble than you realise. Especially you, because he’ll find out you went to Sri Lanka and he’ll know you put the fuck on him.’

Donna listened to Alan in wonderment. Everything was like a nightmare. Her life was in danger, her whole world was collapsing around her, and instead of running from it all, running from Georgio, she still wanted to fight him.

‘Ring Nick Carvello now. I’ll wait until the jump’s over. But I warn you, Alan, if he gets to Ireland, I go to the Old Bill and I tell them everything I know. And I don’t care if they lock us all up and throw away the key, I’ll see my day with that bastard I married.’

Alan nodded, stifling an urge to throttle the woman before him, without whom none of this would be happening. Yet even as he

raged, he had to admire her. Donna Brunos had more scruples than anyone he had ever met in his life.

She would fight for what she wanted.

He hoped to Christ she finally got it.

Lewis smiled at Sadie as she sipped at her small scotch and water.

‘So, Sadie, what’s this big story you want to tell me?’

Sadie looked at Donald Lewis and took a deep breath.

‘Did you know I was deaf until I was sixteen, Mr Lewis?’

Donald shook his head. ‘How the fuck would I know that? Why would I be interested in that?’

Sadie licked her lips nervously.

‘Well, I lipread till then - you know the life I had, Donald, everyone does. I suffered from what’s known as glue ear. I was as deaf as a post. Anyway, I still lipread, even now.’

She saw Donald’s eyes narrow and sipped once more at her whisky before finishing what she had to say.

‘I lipread something tonight I think you ought to know about, Mr Lewis.’

Donald Lewis looked through slitted eyes at Sadie and said gently, ‘Go ahead, love, tell me what’s on your mind.’

He refilled her glass with scotch and sat waiting for her to talk again.

‘It concerns Georgio, Mr Lewis. Georgio, and Beavis and Butt head.’

He nodded.’Goon.’

Sadie gulped at the drink now, needing Dutch courage. ‘In the reccy room, a while ago, Georgio went and sat with them. I watched them, out of curiosity, you know. I often do it. I know a lot of what goes on, but I keep me own counsel. It doesn’t pay to get involved in other people’s troubles and I just want to do me time in peace. I ain’t out to get on anyone’s tits, like.’

Lewis sighed heavily. ‘AH right, Sadie, we’ve established you’re not a grass. Now will you tell me what the fuck this is all about?’

She pushed her hands through her hair nervously.

‘Georgio sat down and said to them: “You open your traps about me the kids, Sri Lanka or the merchandise and I’ll rip your hearts out.” I couldn’t get the answer from them as their, faces were obscured but then Georgio said, “Our business was just that, our business,” and then he said that no one would believe them anyway, because he was the last person anyone would take for a beast.’

Sadie saw the blank look on Lewis’s face and said quickly, ‘I know what I read, Mr Lewis. I wouldn’t have come to you if it was about

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anything else. But from the look on his face, he was involved with them all right. He was warning them off. He’s supposed to be fucking them up in the morning to get on a laydown. You’d be surprised what I read around this nick. Now, you’d better believe me, Mr Lewis, because I am laying my life on the line here.’

Lewis looked at her and said expressionlessly, ‘And why are you doing that, Sadie? What’s in it for you?’

She laughed mirthlessly.

‘What’s ever in anything for the likes of me, Mr Lewis? But I had dealings with them two, years ago when I was a kid. They’re filth, Mr Lewis. They murdered little kids - raped, tortured and murdered them. I was the one who told Georgio who they were. I wanted to come straight to you, but he stopped me. Now I know why. Also I know Georgio has a hotel in Sri Lanka, or at least business dealings there.

Their case involved international paedophile rings, Mr Lewis. They turned Queen’s evidence against the others in their ring. That’s why they’re in here. No one saw their faces before or after the trial. Now Georgio is frightened they’re going to blow his cover, I don’t know what made him think that, or what they might have said to him. All I know is what I read off his lips, and you have to do something about it. You’re the only person I can trust with this. And now, Mr Lewis, my life is in your hands. My gift is also now at your disposal, I realise that.’

Lewis nodded at the logic of what Sadie said. Her gift, as she put it, would be very handy, very handy indeed.

‘But why are you telling me all this really? Come on, Sadie, I know you. What’s really behind this? You was stuck up Brunos’s arse for ages, I thought you was his best mate.’

Sadie threw back the scotch and coughed heartily, her eyes watering at the unaccustomed alcohol.

‘I was fucked rigid by them when I was twelve. They hurt me and they hurt me bad. I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone, Mr Lewis. Especially not a small child - say a three year old. Even you couldn’t countenance that, surely?’

Donald Lewis, psychopath, sociopath, cruel-minded and evil as he could be, mass of contradictions and twisted in his perceptions of right and wrong, could not, under any circumstances, countenance that. Not in prison anyway. The other men would never allow it, no matter who it was. It was this fact that Sadie was relying on.

‘You did well, Sadie love,’ he told her now. ‘And as you point out, your little gift will be an asset to me. I’ll look after you now, you’re

under my protection. I’ll sort this out, don’t you fret your little head any more over any of it.’

Sadie smiled. Thanks, Mr Lewis.’

She went back to the rec room and Georgio winked at her as she sat down to watch Emmerdale. She smiled gently at him and then turned her face to the screen. But she wasn’t seeing the pictures before her, she was seeing two men, a dark smelly room, could smell faeces and blood mixed with sweat, the men’s breath laden with brandy and cigarette smoke, and she was hearing a child’s crying, a child’s terror.

The child was herself.

Davey walked into his house at eleven-thirty. He was half-drunk and tired. He slipped off his leather jacket and placed it on the banister at the bottom of the stairs. Yawning slightly, he walked into the front room.

Carol was waiting for him. She had on no make-up, a shock in itself to Davey, who rarely saw her thus, and she was wearing a towelling dressing gown. On the floor by the coffee table were two cases.

‘What? You leaving me again, Carol?’ His voice was half-jocular, half-bored.

Carol stood up. Folding her arms, she smiled. ‘No, Davey, I’m not leaving you. I’m throwing you out.’

She watched with pleasure the look of absolute shock on his face. Then she saw him grit his teeth.

‘Listen, Carol, I ain’t in the mood for all this tonight, love. In fact, I am that far,’ he put his finger and thumb together to make a perfect O, ‘from smacking you one. And if you persist with this load of old crap, I will not only smack you one, I’ll slap you black and fucking blue!’

Carol faced him. ‘Oh you will, will you? Well, Davey Jackson, I am that far,’ she made the same perfect O at him, ‘from putting a knife right through your dirty stinking nonceing heart! Now take your bags and fuck off before I do just that. And another thing while we’re at it: I think you had better see a solicitor, mate, about access to Jamie and the other kids, because knowing what I know now, I don’t think I can allow you to see them without me or someone else present.’

She was hurting him, and she was enjoying it. As she saw the dawning of realisation hit his face, she smiled wickedly, even though her heart was breaking inside her chest.

‘Carol… Carol love, listen to me.’

He took a step towards her but she backed away.

‘No, Davey, I ain’t ever listening to you again. You dragged me into something that I would never, ever have dreamt you capable of.