The Make (26 page)

Chapter 57

‘For fuck’s sake, what you done to him?’ Mona wailed, shivering and shuddering behind the wheel of her little car, which was now a vehicle involved in criminal activities, in
murder
, in moving bodies to their grave. And the nightmare wasn’t over yet. After he’d buried the
body
, he’d had her drive across town. They’d parked up. Lefty got out and she thought,
Drive away, I’ll just drive away
, but she couldn’t, she didn’t have the nerve.

When Lefty came back to the car with something slung over his shoulder, she thought:
No, please God no, not again, not another body.

‘I ain’t done
nothing
to him,’ said Lefty, grunting with effort as he dropped Alfie into the passenger seat. ‘Shit, how can anyone as small as that weigh so much?’ he complained, grimacing and straightening. He’d pulled a muscle in his back or something, it was painful. He took a quick toke of the butane and felt better, anaesthetized. Anaesthetized, just like Alfie.

Mona was looking with fear-filled eyes at the blond teenager slumped beside her in the car. His head was down on his chest; he was out of it. Was he dead? She didn’t trust Lefty not to have killed again. Killing was what this sick bastard
did.
And how the hell had she got herself involved in this? She was up to her neck in it now and, oh sweet Jesus, she wanted
out.

She peered at the boy while Lefty walked around outside the car, massaging his back and swearing constantly. The boy was breathing. She could see that, and it steadied her, made her feel just a fraction better. But only a fraction.

The boy was alive.

But with Lefty involved, how long before he wound up dead like the others?

Lefty, lit by the headlights, was strolling around in front of the car. Cursing. Pulling the can out, taking another whiff. Rubbing his back. And while he was doing that, she could . . . she could slam the passenger door shut and lock the doors, close the electric window on her side because she’d driven with it open, it was freezing, her whole body was cold, but the fresh air was better than the Lefty-induced fug inside the car.

But now the moment when she could have acted, could have stopped this, had passed. Lefty was coming back to the car, pushing in beside the boy, Christ, she could hardly reach the gear stick or the handbrake. Now she wondered what she could have been thinking. Give the mad bastard half a reason to, and he’d do her too.

But you’d be saving the boy’s life
, whispered in her brain.

Oh yeah. And what about hers? Were there any medals being dished out here for heroes? She didn’t think so.

‘Drive,’ said Lefty, tense and fidgety with blind purpose. ‘Go on. Back to the club.’

So she drove.

* * *

And now here they were, back in the alley beside the club, where it still thrummed with music like the heartbeat of an animal. Mona stopped the car at the side door and Lefty got out. The boy was still unconscious, his head slumped forward. She tried not to look at him. Tried not to think about what was going to happen to him.

The door into the back of the club was opening. Caught in the bright glare of Mona’s headlights, Lefty walked around the front of the car again. A big figure loomed in the club doorway.

Deano
, she thought, and shuddered.

Lefty was talking to him, his movements both placatory and entreating.

Horrible little worm.

She saw Deano’s big bowling-ball head turn and felt his dark cold eyes resting on the car. Mona shrank down in her seat, feeling her guts shrivel with disgust and fear. She knew he must see Alfie in there; the interior light was on because the passenger door was open, and Alfie was completely exposed – and so was she.

How the fuck did I get into any of this?
Mona wondered again, and cursed the day she’d been roped into Lefty’s twisted little world.

But she could get out of it.

She could get the
boy
out of it too.

Again that little voice was whispering in her mind, telling her she could do it, she could do it.

Crazy.

It was a mad idea, and she had to forget it. Just let them take the boy inside and she’d go home, home to her baby and her mother, home to normality and goodness, or at least to the
illusion
of it, because she knew this was going to haunt her. She would see forever this young blond boy in her mind, being dragged and dumped and brought back to Deano to do with as he would. She would look out from her cosy little world and know that there was sickness out there, and madness, and she wouldn’t be able to rest easy if . . .

If she didn’t do something right now.

Deano was stepping out into the alley beside Lefty. All Deano’s attention was focused on the car. Mona looked at Deano, at the sheer size and bulk of him, at the high-toned way he was dressed – his camel-hair coat expensive, his suit Savile Row, his shoes shone to a high gloss – but inside,
inside
, she knew he was filthy, stinking, corrupt.

She closed her eyes, breathed deep, suppressed the urge to act. Thought of her baby Josie, sweet little child . . . oh, but what if this ever happened to Josie? What if some sick bastard wanted her, the way Deano wanted this boy here? And what if someone stood by and did nothing when Josie needed help? What would she think of that person? That person would be
scum
, as bad as any nonce.

The decision was instant, crazy, manic.

Mona reached across the unconscious boy and slammed the door shut. The interior light went out. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Deano and Lefty had stopped moving, startled. Her heart was beating very fast: was she going to have a heart attack? She felt sick, enervated, jumpy. She was going to do it.

Lefty was hurrying forward now. So was Deano.

Holy shit.

Mona scrabbled at the keys in the ignition. Her fingers felt clumsy all of a sudden, they didn’t feel like her own nimble hands at all. She fumbled and gripped the key and turned it. The engine fired straight away. She threw the car into reverse.

But Deano was already there at the passenger door. Mona fumbled again, found the central locking. The lock on the passenger door and on her own clonked down.
Thunk.

Then Lefty reached in through the open window beside her and grabbed her by the throat.

Mona let out a half-strangled yell as he shook her. His other hand came in and fastened over the front of her face. He was cursing, spraying her with saliva, shouting, calling her bitch and cunt.

Gotta get this car moving
, she thought, but she couldn’t see and he was throttling her. Spots danced in front of her eyes. This was all going horribly wrong. She heard the glass shatter on the passenger window and now she could see to her horror that Deano’s big meaty hands were coming inside the car, knocking in shards of glass that fell in a glittering cascade to the floor, reaching in to pull Alfie out.

Mona felt Lefty’s hand over her mouth. She opened her mouth wide and bit down as hard as she could, tasting blood and feeling the gristly
crunch
as her teeth almost met in the middle. Lefty shrieked. His hands were suddenly gone.

Whimpering to herself in a paroxysm of fear, Mona found herself staring into the shark eyes of Deano, who was leaning in to get Alfie. Moving automatically now, her throat hurting, crying with terror, Mona slipped off the handbrake and the car shot backwards down the alley.

Deano fell away, his roar of rage coming after her, but he had Alfie half out of the car and the impetus of its movement took Alfie all the way out.

Shit.

She’d wanted so much to save the kid, but it was not to be. She saw Lefty floundering in the headlights, clutching his hand, but he was a junkie, he wasn’t
really
feeling it, and now he was coming, he was running after her. She hadn’t saved the boy and if she wasn’t damned careful she wasn’t going to save
herself
either; they would
both
be fucked.

Oh Christ oh shit oh help.

The car careered back down the alley and hurtled out into the main road. Mona felt a teeth-jarring crash and glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw that she’d struck another car side-on. Lefty was still coming, running around to her side of the car. He was leaning in again. There were horns blaring, people shouting, Lefty right there with her, his curses raining down on her; it was all crazy, she felt that
she
was crazy, and oh shit she had to get that window shut.

She threw the car into first. Lefty was craning right in now, slapping and punching at her with his bloody hands, trying to get the keys out of the ignition. Mona, screaming and crying in fright and rage, pressed the electric window switch and it slid up.

Lefty was still leaning in as Mona shot forwards along the main road, honking crazily at the other cars to get out of the way. She saw a red light, there was traffic stopping, there was a stationary car right in front of her. She couldn’t stop; she couldn’t ease up for a moment because, if she did, Lefty would get her. She threw the wheel over and smashed down the side of the stationary car.

Metal screamed. So did Mona.

She bounced off that car and hit a bollard.

Then she was hurling the car around a right turn, more red lights, fuck, there were cars shrieking toward her, horns blaring, drivers swerving, the scream of tyres as they tried to avoid her, Lefty still clinging on to the side of her car, his head inside, his arms out, and she saw a huge truck coming toward her, she was too close, she was going to hit it.

Almost in slow motion she saw the huge shape of the thing coming at her. She wrestled with the wheel but it was too late. She hit the truck on one side, felt the crunch and the grind of metal, felt the shuddering, jarring impact of it all through the car.

Jesus, that was close.

She’d nearly killed them both. Shivering and crying with terror, she drove on. Lefty was quiet now, but still hanging on, his head trapped there by the electric window. And now Mona decided what she was going to have to do. She was going to confess, tell them what Lefty had done, burying the body, killing the cab driver,
everything
, and that Deano had the boy. Frightened as she was of the police, these awful people frightened her even more.

She drove until she found a police station, then she pulled up outside and clambered over and out the hole where the passenger door window used to be. She fell to the hard pavement, jolting every bone in her body. She crouched there a moment, beyond terror, beyond all sense.

She had to get help.

Her head spinning, feeling close to passing out, she stepped out in front of the car and looked at Lefty. She put a hand over her mouth. Then she turned away and, slowly at first, almost drunkenly, staggering and sobbing but then speeding up, driven by panic, Mona started to run away from the police station, towards home, towards safety.

The two PCs were just coming off duty when they saw the battered remains of the car parked haphazardly outside the station. They looked closer.

‘Fuck
me
,’ said one of them.

Trapped by its neck, by the electric window mechanism on the driver’s side, was a human head. There was blood spattered all down the outside of the car. There was no body; only Lefty’s head remained there, ripped off at the neck, his eyes open and staring blankly at nothing.

Chapter 58

Lorcan took Gracie back to the apartment over the casino, after they’d dropped Suze back at Vera’s.

‘There’s nothing to be gained by staying here,’ he said at the hospital. ‘They’ll phone us if there are any developments.’

And there he was again, taking charge, dominating everyone around him. Including her. She didn’t like it, she had
never
liked it, but right now it gave her a feeling of safety – and that she was grudgingly willing to accept.

They were inside the apartment, the lights low, music playing. A Christmas tree was lit beside the fire. Gracie looked up at the mistletoe as they came in, and she caught Lorcan’s slight smile.

‘No,’ she said firmly, moving away. ‘When you kiss me, you know I can’t think straight.’

‘Damn, and I thought that was a
good
thing,’ said Lorcan, pulling her into his arms anyway.

‘It’s not a good thing at all,’ said Gracie, aware of her whole body melting,
yielding
, in the most irritating way when it came into contact with his. ‘It is in fact a very
bad
thing. Because look where it led us.’

‘Back into bed?’ Lorcan queried, his eyes playing with hers. ‘Sorry, but I still think that’s pretty good.’

‘Yeah, but it doesn’t stop there. It’d be fine if it did. But sooner or later we have to get out of bed, and then we start to fight, and then we get upset, and it’s just not on.’

‘That was five years ago, Gracie,’ said Lorcan.

‘We’re still the same people.’

‘Are we though? We’re both five years older. You’ve had your dream of running your own place in Manchester, I’ve had mine here. Back then, we couldn’t reconcile the two. Now, maybe we can.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Gracie looked at him sceptically. ‘How?’

‘You could let your manager run the damned place, check in with him a couple of times a month, move back in with me here.’

‘Lorcan . . .’

‘
Or
we could find another place. We could actually start a family together. Your biological clock has
got
to start ticking soon.’

It hadn’t. And if it
had
, Gracie would have ignored it, stuck her fingers in her ears and sung ‘la-la-la’ very loudly until it stopped. She loved running the business. But . . . here she was, back in Lorcan’s arms, and it felt so right. Were they just a hopeless pair of fools that they couldn’t make this thing work? Maybe they were both as bad as each other, both wanting to be the boss, the one in charge?

But now Lorcan had thrown something else into the mix.
Divorce.
So horrible. So final. And it had jolted Gracie, she had to admit that, if only to herself. It would be a clean break, an opportunity for both of them to start again.

Just because the old attraction was still there, that didn’t mean they could live together now any better than they had five years ago. They’d tear lumps out of each other, she was sure of that – just as they always had. She wondered if Lorcan had
deliberately
played the divorce card, to shock her into reviewing the situation.

She sighed wearily. She was so worried about George and Harry, so concerned for Suze, that anything else was just too much. Now, being back here, being involved all over again, she felt the strong reconnection of that family tie that once had been severed. True, she still felt off-balance, and sometimes the longing to just turn her back and return to her own sparse, yet cosseted way of life, so free of complications, so bereft of hassle, was almost overwhelming.

‘I ought to go back to George and Harry’s flat,’ she said.

‘Not a good idea. You’re safer here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I have to go out. Something I have to do.’

‘Right.’
Where?
she wanted to ask, but stopped herself.

‘Stay here, make yourself comfortable. I won’t be long.’

But he was gone so long that Gracie started to feel anxious. She kept herself busy by watching TV until late, then she turned out the lights and wandered into the bedroom. She felt tired, but was too hyped-up for sleep.

Something I have to do
, he’d said.

She sat on the bed in the dim light cast by the bedside table lamp and looked at her watch. Nearly one o’clock in the morning, what the hell was he doing at that hour? She looked at the bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep until he returned.

Her mind started playing the age-old tricks on her, the ones known and dreaded by every female since the world began. Had something happened to him? If you’d asked her if she gave a stuff either way a month ago, she’d have sworn she didn’t; but she did, and she hated the fact and the gnawing sense of worry it brought with it.

Suppose he’d had an accident? Or suppose – oh God, and wasn’t this the more likely answer? – suppose he’d gone to confront this bastard Deano Drax that Alfie had been telling them about? She felt a cold chill of fear crawl up her spine at the thought of that.

Something I have to do.

Like what? That scene at the hospital flashed into her brain: Lorcan getting madder and madder about Deano Drax.

Oh no.

He wouldn’t.

Would he?

Yes. He would. She
knew
he would. Lorcan was hot-headed, full of fire. He’d been brooding about Drax’s misdemeanours and now he’d gone to confront him. Gracie picked up her mobile to call him. His phone was switched off.

For God’s
sake.

She looked around, wondering what to do. Was she just supposed to sit here like patient long-suffering little wifey, when Lorcan might be in trouble, in danger? Lorcan was still married to her, still connected to the Doyles. And Deano Drax was wreaking havoc among them. Would he draw the line at Lorcan? She didn’t think so. She thought of Brynn, staggering half-alive from the burnt-out flat above the casino in Manchester. Brynn had never hurt a soul.

Deano Drax might have Lorcan right now.

Fear stirring her into agitated movement, Gracie stood up and left the bedroom. She crossed to the apartment’s main door and looked outside. The heavy was sitting there. He looked up at her expectantly.

‘Do you know where Lorcan’s gone?’ she asked.

He shook his head.

Gracie paused for a beat, thinking. ‘Do you know Deano Drax’s club in Soho?’

He nodded. ‘You got a car?’

Another nod.

Gracie nodded too. ‘Okay, get the damned thing revved up, let’s get over there.’

The club was shut by the time they got there. Gracie and the heavy trudged against the thickening sleet and the biting north wind down the alley beside the club. The heavy dutifully tried the metal side door. Locked. He looked above it to the armed and blinking security alarm. He turned and looked at Gracie.

‘What now?’ he asked.

What indeed. Gracie stood there, hugging herself against the cold, looking up and down the snow-clad alley as if searching for inspiration. There were two big dumpster-style rubbish bins beyond the door, blocking the front of what was clearly a disused garage.

What to do, what to do?

Lorcan could be locked inside the club for all she knew. He could be unconscious. He could be hurt. She looked at the side door. It was a solid door, burglar-proof. And they daren’t try to breach it anyway. Even an attempt could trigger the alarm. The alarm could be connected to the local cop shop and if they started the Bill swarming around, that would take some explaining. And they couldn’t risk explanations. Start talking to the police about this, and Harry – and now Lorcan – could be toast.

Then they heard it. A whimpering, like an injured dog.

Gracie looked at the heavy. He looked blankly back at her.

‘You hear that?’ he said.

Gracie nodded. It was a chilling sound. Suddenly she was glad she wasn’t standing here in this freezing cold alley on her own. ‘Where is it . . .?’ she asked, turning, trying to nail the direction.

‘There,’ said the heavy, and nodded towards the bins.

Lorcan?

Gracie felt her stomach knot, felt the heavy lurch of incipient sickness. Oh God – was that Lorcan in there? What had Drax done to him?

She felt herself starting to shiver with dread. The heavy was striding towards the bins. The shadows were deeper back here, the whole atmosphere frozen and ominous. Gracie forced her legs to move, forced herself to follow him.

The heavy was throwing back the cover on the closest one. An aroma of rotting vegetation arose and swirled around their heads. Gracie was afraid that she was going to vomit, right here and now.

The heavy looked into the depths of the bin.

‘Can’t see nothing in here,’ he said, and slapped the cover back down.

Which left the other one.

Oh shit, please don’t let it be Lorcan.

The heavy was striding to it, pulling open the lid. Again, the sweet aroma of degradation filled their nostrils, and there were new things in here too. Oh joy. Cooking oil and sweat.

Sweat?
thought Gracie.

‘Something in here,’ said the heavy, and reached in.

The whimpering got louder. The thing in the bin was trying to shout out.

That’s not Lorcan
, thought Gracie.
That’s a woman.

Feeling faint with relief, she moved forward and peered inside. It was so hard to see a damned thing back here in the shadows, but there was someone in there. Terrified eyes stared up at them. There was a gag covering the mouth.

‘Come on, help me,’ said the heavy. ‘Let’s get the poor bitch out of there.’

Gracie helped. It was awkward; the middle-aged black woman was heavy and stiff with cold. They somehow got her out of the bin and she collapsed in a heap on to the hard cobbles. Her hands were tied behind her back. Gracie knelt and fumbled with the gag until she got it free. She threw it aside.

‘My boy, he’s gonna hurt my boy,’ the woman whined loudly, her face a sheen of sweat and tears.

Gracie looked up at the heavy. He shrugged.

‘Who’s your boy?’ Gracie asked the shaking woman.

‘Lefty!’

Now where had she heard that name before?

‘You’re talking about Drax?’

The woman was nodding frantically. ‘He locked me up in the back room. He locked me up, tied me to a chair, that man is
crazy.
Then Lefty came and the man threatened him, said he wanted his boy Alfie back or he’d do things to me.’

‘Alfie?’ Gracie yelped. And now she remembered where she’d heard the name Lefty. Alfie had mentioned him as they all sat together in the hospital cafeteria. Lefty had procured Alfie for that nonce Deano.

She looked down at the woman. Grabbed her plump shoulders. The heavy was trying to untie her hands, but they were securely bound. The woman’s desperate eyes stared wildly into Gracie’s.

‘Where’s Lefty now?’ asked Gracie urgently.

‘I don’t know,’ the woman wept. ‘But he came back, that
monster
came back, and he had a blond boy in there, in the office. He was asleep, drugged, something. I don’t know. That bastard Drax took me past him, gagged me, put me in that filthy thing with all the rubbish, said he’d see to me later.’

Shit
, thought Gracie.
That’s Alfie. He’s got Alfie.

The heavy at last got the woman free of her bonds and she brought her arms round and rubbed gingerly at her bruised wrists.

‘Where’s Deano now?’ asked Gracie. ‘Is he still inside? Is he still in there with the boy?’

If he
was
, then Gracie was calling the police right now, to hell with it. It was
way
past time that bastard was locked up.

The woman shook her head. ‘No, he left. Drove off with the boy in his car, a big black car.’

‘Where would he go? Do you know where he’d go?’

The woman was shrugging, looking around her with dazed, unfocused eyes.

Gracie grabbed her shoulders again and shook her, hard.

‘Come
on.
Lefty. Your boy. Did he see Deano just here, always here? Did he go to Deano’s home sometimes?’

‘No . . .’ The woman was near breaking point, Gracie could see that. Exhausted. Terrified. Beyond all sensible thought.

‘Lefty could be with him at his home,’ said Gracie, knowing that Lefty was all the woman was capable of focusing on right now. ‘If Lefty’s with him there now, we can help. Do you know where Deano Drax lives? Then we can find Lefty.’

It was a lie, but it was a necessary one. All Gracie would want to do for a lowlife kiddie pimp like Lefty was kick him straight in the nuts, but she needed this woman to come up with something. She thought of Alfie, little blond Alfie. Thought of Lorcan. Drax could have them both. She
had
to get something out of this woman.

‘Come the fuck
on
,’ snapped Gracie. ‘Think.’

‘Steady,’ said the heavy, watching her.

‘
You
be steady,’ said Gracie hotly. ‘We’ve got to get to that fucker. I’ll call the police if I have to, right now,
they’ll
know where he . . .’ She fumbled in her coat pocket. Her mobile wasn’t there.
Shit.
She’d left it at Lorcan’s.

‘I got it,’ said the woman.

‘What?’

‘Deano Drax’s address,’ she said. ‘Lefty went there sometimes. He told me all about it. A big place. A big country house with a thatched roof and lions on the gate.’

‘Tell me,’ said Gracie.