The Make (14 page)

Chapter 32

23 December

Gracie suggested that Suze move in with her sister for a while.

Predictably, Suze didn’t like it. ‘Vera won’t want me there. She’ll be rushed off her feet getting ready for Christmas; she’s got all the kids coming.’

‘You’ll have to tell her it’s an emergency,’ said Gracie. ‘Boiler’s bust, it’s Christmas, you’re freezing, no plumbers to be had, Claude’s walked out, it’s Christmas, yada, yada.’

‘Christ,’ said Suze wearily. ‘That’s going to make her day. You know how she is. I love her to bits but she’s so fucking smug and superior.
She
never got divorced. Her kids go to uni and they’re going to be doctors, solicitors . . . and what are mine? One deals out cards to sad sacks who haven’t got a home to go to, one’s on the dole and the other one runs a gambling den.’

So that’s how she sees me
, thought Gracie, feeling hurt.

But Suze phoned Vera and secured a bed for a few days.

‘Well, that’s good,’ said Gracie, and while Suze was packing up a few things she stood there looking at the front door, willing the ones with the chainsaw not to come back before Suze got her act together. One of the neighbours had apparently phoned the police, and had even knocked on the door shortly after Claude’s hasty departure. The police, with their hands full with Christmas revellers no doubt, hadn’t yet shown up, and Gracie wasn’t about to sit around waiting for them.

‘Hurry the fuck up, will you?’ she scolded, as Suze dithered around the place.

‘All
right.
’

Once Suze was packed, they got a taxi over to the hospital to visit George. He was exactly the same – no change at all. Gracie wondered if there ever would be. She felt impossibly weary now, under siege, endangered by something, she didn’t know what. So George and Harry had been squiring a few women about the town, so what? Surely
that
couldn’t lead on to
this
. . . could it?

She stared at George, lying there, out of it. If only he could come round. If only he could speak. But he was so still it was like he was dead already. She thought of the emails, in her bag. Thought of Harry. And wondered –
worried
– about where he was.

‘He’s not going to pull out of this, is he?’ said Suze, sitting there on the opposite side of George’s bed, looking old and almost shrivelled; not herself at all.

‘Yeah,’ said Gracie firmly. ‘He is.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Suze with a tired, tremulous smile.

They sat there for a full hour, listening to the beeps of the monitors, while the nurse hurried around them, sending them fake cheery smiles. George was going to be all right, he was going to pull through. Wasn’t he?

Gracie doubted it. She really did.

From the hospital they went over to her aunt Vera’s. Vera lived in some style and was justly proud of her faultless, clever family. Gracie could understand that Suze felt bitter when Vera kept – gently, but very firmly – ramming her own family’s perfections down Suze’s throat. But better to be safe and bitter than at home and at risk.

Gracie didn’t go in.

‘You ought to say hello, at least,’ said Suze as they sat in the cab with the engine still running.

Gracie shook her head. ‘No, I’ve got enough to think about without having to field Vera’s questions about what I’m doing here. Don’t tell her anything about what’s happened, Mum. The less anyone knows, the better.’

‘All right,’ Suze relented unhappily.

Gracie looked at her mother. Usually dippy Suze would argue black was white, but now all the fight seemed to have drained out of her.

Suze returned Gracie’s gaze and said: ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

Gracie stared at Suze in surprise. Then she swallowed hard past a sudden lump in her throat and was about to speak when Suze opened the cab door, and was gone. As the taxi pulled away to take her back to George and Harry’s flat, Gracie glanced out of the back window and saw Vera opening the door, embracing Suze. Her mother went inside the house and the door closed behind her. Then Gracie saw the lines of dazzling headlights behind them.
Was
there anyone following her?
I’m watching you, Red.

She was exhausted, confused, overcome. She sat in silence all the way back to the flat, and was grateful when the cab pulled in and she could pay the driver off and let him go. She wanted to be alone, to think. The snow was several centimetres deep now, and it was still falling. A white Christmas. She started walking towards the block, fishing out George and Harry’s keys as she went. She heard a movement behind her and half turned. She felt the stunning impact of the blow to her head, and saw the snow rushing up to meet her. That was all she knew before blackness and silence descended.

Chapter 33

23 December

Gracie came back to consciousness because someone or something was tugging at her legs. She was aware of a dim sense of irritation, a befuddled awareness that she must be in bed and dreaming, but
someone was definitely tugging at her legs.
And her whole front section was achingly, bitingly cold. While the rest of her felt strangely warm and peaceful.

Very odd.

She tried to speak, to tell whoever was hurting her ankles and seemingly dragging her backwards through something very cold and wet and unpleasant, to
stop doing it.
But she couldn’t get the words out. She frowned.
Definitely
a dream.

Ow. But her head hurt.

Ah, she’d just go back to sleep. She was aware of voices, angry shouting just a little way above her head, but she was out of it, nice and warm, and now she couldn’t really even
feel
all that cold unpleasant stuff on her front, she was just really warm, really comfortable, really . . .

‘Gracie!’

Hmm? Ah, shaddup. Wanna sleep . . .

‘Gracie! Come on! Gracie!’

It was a familiar voice. She ignored it. Hoped they’d just go away, drift away out of her dreams, because she was so comfy, she wanted to sleep now, just to sleep . . .

‘Fuck it, Gracie, will you bloody well
wake up
?’

She knew that voice. Her eyes flickered open, now he was
seriously
getting on her tits, what the hell was he doing here in her dream?

‘That’s it! Come on! Wakey-wakey!’ said Lorcan, and she felt herself being not so much lifted as
hauled
– pretty bloody painfully – to her feet.

‘Oh
shit
,’ she moaned, feeling the world start to spin, feeling – in fact – extremely strange.

Gracie felt a biting wind on her face, on her sore forehead. What was she doing out here, outside in the cold and the wind and the . . . the front of her clothes were wet, icy.

It was just a nightmare.
He
was a bloody nightmare, always had been, that was for sure.

‘You’re a bloody nightmare,’ she slurred out. ‘Leave me ’lone.’

‘Come on, Gracie. One foot in front of the other, that’s the way.’ She was being propelled somewhere, and now someone was yanking at her bag, and what was she doing with a bag if this was a dream? ‘Jesus, you couldn’t be a dainty little woman, could you?’ he was complaining loudly right by her ear. ‘Six feet of flaming trouble, that’s you. Where the fuck’s the key . . .?’

Gracie could hear him pillaging her bag, finding . . . oh yes, now they were half walking, half falling through the outer door into the hall. No wind now. All gone. She closed her eyes, started to crumple again.

‘Hold up, Gracie. Come on.’ And something hard was hitting her mid-section. She groaned, thought for a moment she was going to throw up, but it was a dream, you didn’t hurl in dreams. And then – and this was horrible – she could still feel that hideous pressure on her guts and she could see the stairs swaying beneath her.

Gracie closed her eyes. Oh she
was
going to be sick, no doubt about it.

What the hell was going on?

Somehow they were on the top landing. She could hear the key scraping against the lock, could hear Lorcan swearing his head off as he tried to get the thing in there. He got it in. He was carrying her somehow. Fireman’s lift? And now they fell forward into the hallway, both of them, just tumbled on to the hall floor, Gracie feeling like rubber, like soft floating swansdown, and maybe
now
he would just let her go back to sleep . . .

‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he was saying.

What the hell for?

Something touched her forehead. She yelped. Opened her eyes and saw Lorcan leaning over her. ‘You
prick
,’ she said with feeling.

‘Sore, uh?’ He held up a finger and Gracie thought that if she’d had the strength she’d have bitten it right off. ‘Can you see this? How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Ten,’ groaned Gracie, wishing he’d fuck off.

‘Gracie . . .’

‘One.’

Now he was moving his finger back and forth. ‘Just follow it with your eyes, how does that feel, do you feel okay?’

Gracie traced the finger’s progress with her eyes. ‘Oh, I feel just
great
,’ she moaned.

‘You’re freezing cold. Gotta get you warmed up,’ he said, and there he went again, pulling her to her feet like she was a sack of spuds.

‘No, no! Just let me lie here, I’ll be fine,’ complained Gracie.

‘You heard about hypothermia, Gracie? You lie down in the snow and you go to sleep, and then you
die.
You are terribly, terribly cold. Now come on.’

He was pushing her through into the bathroom, turning on the walk-in shower. Holding his hand under it. Tweaking up the heat. Oh. No. He wasn’t going to. Was he? No. Not even he would be
that
crazy. She was fully dressed. She felt her eyes closing again, in the steamy heat of the room. She just wanted to
sleep,
couldn’t he get that through his thick head?

And then she felt him pushing her, pulling her.

‘Jesus, Gracie, I’ve felt blocks of
concrete
more movable than you,’ he gasped out, and then
she
gasped, because she was getting soaked, the shower, she was in the shower, she was getting wet through, what the fuck was he playing at now?

‘Argh!’ she shouted. ‘Oh you
fucker.
’

She’d been so comfy. So warm, just drifting . . . and now she was getting wet. Soaking wet. Her eyes flicked open and there he was.
Fucking
Lorcan Connolly.

And now . . . now she was aware that her skin was cold. Very, very cold. The hot water was hitting her face, but she could only feel the moisture, not the heat. And now . . . now he was unbuttoning her coat, pulling the sleeves down her arms, throwing it on to the bathroom floor.

‘Ohhh,’ moaned Gracie. What was he torturing her for? All right, she might be a hyper-ambitious cow, but that didn’t warrant this sort of treatment, did it?

He was pulling her polo-neck jumper over her head now,
that
was going to be ruined – then he was kneeling, the water raining down on his head and slicking his hair into a sheen of black. He was pulling at her ankle boots, then he got busy at her waist, unbuttoning and unzipping her jeans, holding her upright with one hand while yanking them off with the other. Her socks followed.

‘
Ow
,’ yelled Gracie, because she was starting to feel the heat of the water. She looked down. Her skin – oh fuck – it was turning bright lobster-red, and the circulation that had been so deadened by the icy cold outside was coming back to life and it was
agony.

‘Feeling that, huh? That’s good,’ he said. He straightened up and started
rubbing
his hands over the cringing skin of her arms.

‘Ow! Don’t do that!’

‘How’s your head?’

‘Absolutely. Bloody. Great
.
You
arse
.’

‘Think you need to go to A & E?’

‘No I fucking-well don’t. But trust me, you keep doing that,
you
will.’

‘Not feeling sleepy now?’

Sleepy?
How the hell could anyone sleep under these con ditions? Pins and needles were crawling all over her body, like an army of ants was under there, their little legs dancing around. It was
horrible.

‘Uh. Hurts,’ she groaned.

‘That’s good. It’s meant to. If it
didn’t
, you might be losing fingers or toes to frostbite . . . How
are
your fingers and toes?’ he said, and now he was rubbing her fingers – oh, the pain.

‘You sadistic bastard, will you stop that?’

She was gritting her teeth but they were still chattering. She could hardly get the words out. But . . . the pins and needles were a little less painful now. She was starting to feel . . . warm. Her head was throbbing horribly but, apart from that, she felt pretty much okay.

‘Gracie?’ he asked as she leaned back against the tiles, eyes closed.

‘Hm?’

‘Better?’

‘Yeah. Better.’ Her eyes flickered open. He was there, right there in the shower with her, and his coat was soaked through and she was standing there in her underwear. ‘Your clothes are wet,’ she pointed out.

Lorcan looked into her eyes and slowly he started to smile.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Gracie, if I take
my
clothes off too, this could lead somewhere neither of us wants it to go.’

Who says I don’t?
wondered Gracie.

But he was right. They were on the threshold of divorce; that was the sensible option. Being together had only ever made them miserable. He was
completely
right.

‘I’d better get dried off,’ said Gracie.

Lorcan switched off the shower. He pulled a bath sheet off the heated towel rail and swaddled her up in it like a baby. ‘Can you walk okay now?’

‘Of course I can walk okay now.’

‘Only just now you could hardly stand up.’

‘That was because . . .’
That was because someone hit me over the head.
She shivered again, not with cold this time. She stepped out of the shower cubicle, swathed in the bath sheet, and walked gingerly into George’s bedroom.

She sat down on the bed, pulled up the towel and started to dry her sopping-wet hair. Instantly she flinched and paused. Her forehead was sore and she could feel a small lump coming up there. Her bra was sticking clammily to her skin, ditto her pants. Shuddering with distaste, she pulled both off and tossed them on to the floor.

‘You okay there?’ Lorcan appeared at the open door, peeling off his shirt. Lovely brown skin. Hard, sculptured pecs. How had she forgotten those?

‘I’m fine, will you please
knock?
’

‘The door was open.’

Gracie got up, staggered, righted herself and crossed the room. ‘Well now it’s not. Okay?’ She slammed the door shut in his face.

She picked up her undies and draped them over the radiator. Then she went to her overnight bag and with trembling hands pulled out clean underwear, a fresh cream jumper, jeans and socks. She got out her hairdryer and a brush and started to dry and unknot the tangled mess that was her hair. Then she slowly got dressed, put the towel over her undies on the radiator, and went out into the hall. Lorcan’s coat, shirt, trousers, socks and shoes were all lined up on the lounge radiator, moisture rising from the wet clothes and fogging up the window. Lorcan himself was in the kitchen making tea, wearing a too-small towel around his waist.

Gracie went on into Harry’s room, snatched up his velour bath robe, and stalked back into the lounge with it. She tossed it through the hatch into the kitchenette.

‘You can put this on,’ she said pointedly.

‘Thanks,’ said Lorcan, and took off the towel.

Gracie primly averted her eyes while he got the robe on. When she thought it was safe to look, he was wearing it.

‘Tea,’ he said, bringing two steaming mugs out into the lounge.

Gracie sat down and he put the mugs on the coffee table. Lorcan sat down too, tucking the robe in so as not to offend.

But then
, she thought,
nothing I haven’t seen before, right?

Which didn’t mean she wanted to see it all over again. Did it?

‘You could borrow some of Harry’s clothes,’ she said.

‘In a minute.’ Lorcan had been half smiling, but now his face was serious. ‘I want to know what’s going on here, Gracie.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t give me that shit. I
mean
what the fuck’s going on? I came over here tonight to discuss the divorce with you, and you know what I found?’

Gracie shook her head dumbly.

‘You, face-down in the snow, unconscious. And some bloke trying to drag you back towards a car.’

The tugging on her legs.

Holy shit.

‘Gracie, it’s just as well you’re
not
a dainty little woman. Or he wouldn’t have had such a struggle shifting you, and I wouldn’t have got here in time.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘No. It was dark. He was tall, wearing a long leather coat. When I turned up and shouted and ran at him, he took off for the car and drove away.’

Gracie said nothing.

‘Is this all connected? George in hospital, Harry missing . . . and what about the tyres being slashed on your car? And this fucker tonight, he was trying to
abduct
you, Gracie. Thank God I showed up when I did.’

Gracie sat there feeling sick and shattered. He was right. There was horrible trouble here, and somehow it was all linked to Harry missing and George at death’s door.

‘Are you going to tell me what’s been going on? Have George and Harry been up to something they shouldn’t?’

‘You should know what George has been up to. He works for you,’ shrugged Gracie, unwilling even at this point to land George in it.

‘When he can be arsed to show up, which is not very often,’ said Lorcan. He stared at her speculatively. ‘What is it Gracie? Drugs?’

‘No
,’ said Gracie firmly.

‘Only it looks like they’ve upset someone, wouldn’t you say? Someone who knows how to hold a grudge.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Gracie, and picked up her mug and drank the tea. It was hot, reviving. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s a mess. Someone’s got it in for all the Doyles. Including me.’

‘Go on.’

Gracie took a breath. ‘Someone torched the front of my casino.’

Lorcan was staring at her. ‘You
what?
’

She nodded and swallowed hard. ‘And they delivered me a bag full of Harry’s hair. They sent a bag of it to Mum, too. And tonight . . . I’d just come back from Mum’s place, and someone’s hacked at her door with a chainsaw. They ran out of petrol, couldn’t break through. But she’s a nervous wreck. I took her over to Aunt Vera’s to stay.’

‘Holy
shit
,’ said Lorcan. ‘And you don’t know why any of this has kicked off? Seriously?’