The Make (6 page)

Chapter 11

20 December

Gracie stood looking at the wrecked frontage of Doyles the next day. She felt drained to the point of exhaustion by all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Going to the hospital with Brynn, making sure he was all right, phoning his sister because he had no wife – Brynn had never been married. The job was his life. Angie was anxious, asking, ‘Is he all right? How did it happen?’

Good question
, thought Gracie grimly.

They released Brynn later in the day, not even keeping him in overnight. His swift exit from the building had saved his lungs from the worst of it. Angie pitched up at the hospital in double-quick time and said he was coming back to stay with her, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

To Gracie’s surprise, Brynn was so shaken by the whole thing that he didn’t even raise a murmur in protest. Sometimes, she guessed, all a person wanted was a safe haven, a friendly hug.

She wasn’t about to get one of
those
, she knew that. She rang round all the staff, told them what had happened and that she or Brynn would be in touch when Doyles was operational again. By the time the fire officer had finished questioning her at the scene next day, asking her if she had any money worries, any enemies (she answered no to both), and she had contacted the insurance people and the building had been secured, she was worn out.

She drove home, looking at all the twinkling Christmas lights, the shoppers in search of that perfect last-minute present. A giant inflated blow-up Santa bobbed past on the back of a flatbed truck. It was three thirty in the afternoon and already beginning to get dark. There’d been more talk of snow on the forecasts, but she thought it was too cold for that. She parked up underneath her building, and with relief took the lift up to her flat.

There was more post on the mat. She picked it up and took it through to the kitchen, with that
other
thing niggling at her again – the divorce papers. Talk about ‘it never rained but it bloody well poured’! She leaned on the kitchen counter, weary to the bone, and thought about her short-lived marriage to Lorcan Connolly.

There had been something wild, almost indecent, about the passion that had flared up between them. Gracie liked to be in control. But with him . . . she had lost that. Found her inhibitions being thrown to the wind, and it had made her feel too vulnerable. Like she couldn’t steer the good ship Gracie any more; as if she was being buffeted by some force stronger than herself. She was cool and logical, whereas Lorcan was fiery and impulsive. They attracted and repelled each other, like powerful magnets.

Lorcan had worked for Gracie’s father when he had managed a casino in London’s West End. Then, when Paddy had taken off for Manchester with Gracie after his divorce, he had head-hunted Lorcan and installed him as manager of his new casino up there. Inevitably, Lorcan and Gracie had met. She’d been learning the business, working her way up the greasy pole as Dad insisted she should. She and Lorcan had fallen in love, then married on Gracie’s twentieth birthday.

It should have been happy-ever-after. But Lorcan hadn’t been content in Manchester. He was a Londoner, and he wanted to return there, to open and run his own place. Gracie, however, was settled in Manchester. Her dad was there, she loved Doyles and was thrusting ahead with her own career. So Lorcan went off down to London to get started up, expecting her to join him – but by then she had his old job, managing the entire casino, and she was happy.

There had followed weekends together, arguments, endless wearying debates. And all it boiled down to was this: he was settled in London. She was settled in Manchester.

Gracie heaved a sigh that shuddered through her frame. She’d
loved
him. But she had loved her career too, her burgeoning, swiftly growing career up here in Manchester with Dad.

Never one to mince his words, Lorcan had told her flat out that something was going to have to give, but it seemed he was sure it wouldn’t be his career to go, it would be hers. Then he had said he wanted children, but Gracie had been so busy forging a career that she didn’t want children, not yet anyway. Why couldn’t he understand that?

He didn’t.

During one bitter, final phone call he’d laid down an ulti -m atum: either she moved back down to London, or it was over.

‘Okay then!’ Gracie had screamed down the phone at him. ‘Okay, you bastard! Enough! It’s over!’

She had slammed the phone down. After five years of trying – and failing – to reconcile their differences, they gave up. They never spoke again.

She poked the papers with one finger.
Divorce.
Horrible word. An admission of failure. She looked down at her long, pale hands, bare of ornamentation. She hadn’t worn her wedding or her cabochon-cut,
beautiful
emerald engagement ring in years. Why the hell did he have to choose
now
, when she felt so stressed, when bad memories of her father’s death and new disasters were besetting her, to start proceedings?

Irritably she turned away, shrugging off her coat and throwing it aside. Time for the other post. Bank letters, those blank credit-card cheques that she never used and were a bugger to dispose of. A jiffy bag. She tore open the fastenings and tipped the contents out on the table. A bundle of mid-length dark red hair fell out, and a note.

She literally leapt back, away from it, her hands flying to her mouth.

It was a dead animal.

What the fuck?

Her heart started stampeding around in her chest as she stared wildly at it. She felt a hot sour surge of sickness building in the back of her throat. Oh Jesus. Had some sick
bastard
posted a dead thing to her? Then she noticed that the hair was exactly the same colour as her own.

Gulping hard, she reached out and tentatively touched it. There was no substance, no form, no small dead body. It was just hair, a lot of it – and it was just like hers. She looked at the folded note. Her hand shook with shock and fear as she picked it up, unfolded it, and read the typed words.

Smoke getting in your eyes?

Blame your scumbag brother.

I’m watching you, Red.

Call the filth on this and you’re all dead.

Gracie sat down hard on one of her bar stools. Her brain felt hot-wired suddenly, the blood singing in her ears. She couldn’t get her breath. She wondered for a moment if she was actually going to pass out.
Smoke getting in your eyes.
The fire at Doyles
. Blame your scumbag brother.
George in hospital. The tearful call from the girl, Sandy. Harry . . . Harry was missing.

George had always been trouble, and Harry had always followed his lead. What had they been getting into this time? And even more frightening than any of
that
, which was terrifying enough, the final line.
I’m watching you, Red.

Gracie snatched up the jiffy bag. The label was neatly typed, like the note, and postmarked London. Whoever had sent this, they knew where she lived. They knew where she worked. They could be watching her right now.

Gracie glanced at the window. Outside, night had fallen, and there were stars starting to twinkle in the sky. There was no wind; the air was still, clear and cold. There would be frost tonight. Lights were winking cheerily down there on the narrow boats moored all along this stretch of the canal. There were buildings right opposite this one, with windows that faced right on to her kitchen. She got up, crossed quickly to the kitchen window and slammed shut the blinds with a shaking hand.

She looked again at the hair. It was the same texture and colour as her father’s had been before it became peppered with grey; the same colour as her own. Was that George’s? Harry’s? It wasn’t her mother’s; mum had been bottle-blonde just about forever.

Suddenly she didn’t want to be here alone in this big, echoing apartment with its lovely views. She went through to the sitting room and shut the blinds in there too, then went to the front door. She checked it was locked, and put the chain on.

After that she began to unwind, just a bit. Aware that she had been holding her breath, she told herself
breathe, you idiot. No wonder you thought you were going to faint, you have to breathe.

She wished someone was here with her, someone who was a bit of a bruiser, an action-man type.
Oh, you mean like Lorcan Connolly?
shot into her brain.
The one who caused you tears and heartache, and turned out to be the rottenest, most chauvinistic bastard you’d ever met?

Come on
, she told herself.
Get a grip, okay?

She went back into the kitchen. The hair still lay there on her table. Gracie stared at it and shuddered. Then she hurried back into the sitting room and went to the answering machine. She hadn’t wiped the messages. She replayed them, five al together, two about business, and three from the girl called Sandy, each one more distraught than the last.

She listened to Sandy’s messages again, tuning in this time, paying close attention. George was in hospital, Harry was fuck-knew-where. Sandy gave her phone number – a mobile, not a landline. Gracie wrote it down on the pad, cleared the messages, and dialled.

No answer.

Gracie went and took a shower, slipped on her slouchy indoor-wear, and made herself a warming cup of tea. She kept glancing through the open doorway at the hair on the kitchen table. She didn’t think she could keep down any food, so she didn’t bother trying. Instead she turned on the evening news, listening but hardly hearing any of it, the note constantly replaying in her mind.
Call the filth on this and you’re all dead.
She phoned Sandy’s mobile again at seven, then at eight. It went straight to voicemail. She left a message, said please call.

At nine, Sandy did.

‘Hi. Sandy?’ asked Gracie, quickly muting the TV with the remote.

‘Yeah. Hi. How are you?’ The girl sounded exhausted.

‘Fine. How’s George?’

‘I’ve been at the hospital all evening with him. He’s about the same. Still in intensive care.’ She sounded tearful again. ‘It’s horrible in there.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Gracie, although truthfully she couldn’t. ‘Did Mum go in with you?’

‘She’s going tomorrow. We’re taking turns, makes it a bit easier.’

‘Can you give me her number again? I mislaid it after you left it yesterday.’

‘Sure.’ Sandy repeated the number. ‘Pity you’re not closer, you could come and see him.’

‘Yeah I could.’ Gracie glanced through to the kitchen, looked at the dark red hair there – one of her brothers’ hair. It belonged either to handsome, gentle, idle Harry, or loud, chunky Jack-the-lad George. Probably it was Harry’s. She wasn’t going to tell this poor, wretched-sounding girl about the hair. She wondered if she should tell the police about it, show them the note, but it had stipulated no cops . . . and Harry was missing.
And
they’d said they were watching her.

‘Listen, I’m coming down to London,’ she said, the words coming out almost of their own volition.

‘Really? When?’

Gracie thought about that. She looked again at the hair. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

Chapter 12

21 December

Gracie called in on Brynn next day at his sister’s place and told him to take over, that she was going down South for a bit.

‘How long’s a bit?’ asked Brynn, still coughing and spluttering after yesterday’s fire.

‘I don’t know. You can keep in touch with me on the mobile, and I’ll be back soonest, okay?’

‘Not much is going to be happening for a while,’ said Brynn, wheezing then letting out a hacking cough. ‘If the insurance people come back with anything, I’ll let you know.’

‘You look after him,’ said Gracie to Angie.

‘Will do,’ said Angie.

She dropped an awkward kiss on to Brynn’s leathery cheek, registering his surprise at this small show of affection.
Gracie Doyle
, she thought, unable to help herself.
The girl with a calculator where her heart should be.
Wasn’t that what Brynn, what the whole world, thought? That she was cold? And maybe he was right; maybe she
was
. But perhaps right now, when everything was hitting the fan, that was a
good
thing to be.

She’d already thrown a few bits and pieces into a suitcase and a bag this morning, put them in the back of the car. Now, with Brynn primed, she drove off into the cold, leaden-skied morning down the M6. She picked up the M1 east of Birmingham, stopping briefly in the services to refuel. Four hours later, she was in London.

It was starting to snow. Maybe it would be a white Christmas after all. She snagged a parking space a long way from her mother’s door in the familiar Hackney street, bought a parking ticket, and went and knocked at the door of the plain Victorian house she’d grown up in. There was a small, red-berried wreath hanging on it. Mum had kept the house after the divorce, and Dad hadn’t objected. Gracie guessed he’d just been glad to be free, to start anew.

‘Who is it?’ asked a shaky female voice from the other side of the door, after she’d knocked on the damned thing for what felt like an age.

‘It’s Gracie,’ she called out.

‘
Gracie?
’ echoed the voice. ‘What the hell . . .?’

There was a noise of chains being unfastened, bolts being thrown back.

‘What, you had a crime explosion round here?’ asked Gracie as her mother swung the door open. ‘What’s with the—’

Gracie stopped speaking. Her mum was standing there. Her mother had always been a youthful dresser. She was pushing sixty now, but still she wore skinny jeans and a fashionable turquoise top. Her hair was cut close to her head and skilfully dyed a flattering ashy blonde, but her face looked pale and puffy. Her bloodshot brown eyes were darting and nervous. Her lips trembled. She looked like she’d had the stuffing kicked out of her.

‘Oh fuck,’ said Suze wearily. ‘Not you.’

‘Nice to see you too, Mummy dear,’ said Gracie, and pushed inside the hall with her case and bag.

‘I suppose Sandy phoned you.’

‘She did, that’s right. And the police called too. Said you’d notified them. Why didn’t
you
call me?’

Suze shrugged, as if it wasn’t worth dignifying Gracie’s comment with a reply. ‘I’m just surprised you actually bothered to turn up.’

Gracie turned a gimlet eye on her mother. ‘Yeah, well, I actually did,’ she said, refusing to rise to the challenge of a fight so soon. She was tired from the trip. She didn’t want arguments, she wanted tea, biscuits and answers – in that order. She went on through to the kitchen. So familiar, but all different – the units were new beech-effect, the worktops a shiny black granite.

Suze was busy refastening the defences at the front door. By the time she joined Gracie in the kitchen, Gracie had taken out the jiffy bag and decanted the hair inside it out on to the worktop.

‘Someone sent me this,’ she said, as her mother stopped dead in the doorway and let out a small cry.

‘Oh
shit
,’ Suze moaned, putting her hands to her mouth.

‘George is in hospital,’ said Gracie. ‘So Sandy told me.’

Her mother nodded. ‘Yeah. He is.’

‘Did someone cut his hair? Does this look like George’s hair to you?’

Her mother was shaking her head. She went over to the worktop and lightly touched the hair, her hand shaking violently. ‘No. I mean yes. They cut his hair, they had to, but George never wears his hair this long anyway. And look.’ Suze pulled a jiffy bag out of a drawer and tipped out the contents.
More
hair. And it was the same.

‘Was there a note with this?’ asked Gracie, feeling sick.

‘Yeah. Here.’

Gracie took the note Suze handed her. It said ‘
Doyle scum. No cops
.’

Gracie stiffened. ‘You haven’t. Have you? Told the police?’

Suze shook her head. ‘I was too frightened to.’

‘I guess this is Harry’s then,’ said Gracie.

‘He wears it long, like that,’ said Suze.

Gracie stared dumbly at the hair. George had been a mouthy little pain in the arse through most of his childhood, but Harry had never been any trouble. Gracie didn’t like to think of someone hacking Harry’s hair off like this. She didn’t like it at all. It spoke of a spiteful need to inflict visible damage.

Her mother was still fingering the hair. Gracie set her bag down on the floor, looking around her. The same old place. She hadn’t been happy here. Mum and Dad ranting and raving at each other, Harry and George sitting on the stairs in a state of terror and tears, her trying to reassure them . . .

Bad, old memories that she didn’t want to look at all over again. She didn’t even want to
be
here. But she was.

‘They still living here, with you?’ she asked.

Her mother looked up. ‘What?’

‘George and Harry? They live here?’

‘Nah, they moved out when Claude moved in. About a year ago.’

‘Who’s Claude?’ asked Gracie.

‘I am,’ said a masculine voice.

A man had just appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was tall with a beer gut, a receding hairline and blue eyes magnified by hugely thick rimless glasses. He looked in his fifties, and he had a smarmy smile on his face that put Gracie’s hackles up straight away.

‘This . . .’ Her mother looked at her with less than friendly eyes. ‘. . . This is my daughter Gracie, Claude.’

‘The famous missing daughter!’ Claude came forward, holding out a hand in greeting. ‘Well, I never.’

‘Hi,’ said Gracie, pulling back when he tried to kiss her cheek.

Claude noted it straight away. He turned a smile on her mother. ‘She’s a bit frosty, Suze,’ he said jokily.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said her mother sourly. Gracie saw her mother’s eyes snap to his hand, which was still holding hers. His grip felt soft and damp and Gracie pulled her hand away.

‘Bad business about your brother being in hospital,’ he said, twisting his face into an appropriate expression of sympathy.

Gracie could see why George and Harry had moved out. She’d taken against Claude on sight and she was willing to bet he’d driven them away.

‘Yeah, it’s bad all right.’ Gracie turned her attention to her mother. ‘What’s the latest on that? Is George any better?’

Suze shook her head. ‘Just the same.’

‘And what’s this?’ Claude was crossing the kitchen and was now prodding at the hair. ‘What on earth . . .? Is this
another
lot of hair?’

‘Yeah. Some was posted to me, too,’ said Gracie, not really wanting to discuss any of this with him. ‘It’s got to be Harry’s.’

‘Well, it’s got to be some sort of
joke
, don’t you think?’ asked Claude.

‘A
joke
?’ shot back Suze. ‘Well it ain’t very funny, is it?’

‘Yeah, but you know what these youngsters are like. One of their mates larking about, and maybe him and Harry thought it’d be a laugh.’

Gracie looked coldly at Claude. The man was an idiot. And clearly he didn’t know Harry at all.
She
could only dredge her memory, but what she did remember told her that Harry would never go in for a sick, demented prank like this.

Gracie wondered for a moment about showing her mother the note
she’d
got, but decided against it. Her mother could wail and shout for England, and Suze throwing a fit all over the bloody kitchen wasn’t going to get Harry out of bother.

Gracie reviewed the facts. Harry was in trouble, George was taking nil by mouth, her casino had damned near burned down and
would
have burned down if not for Brynn’s quick thinking. She was only surprised that something hadn’t yet happened to Suze or her live-in lover Claude.

‘You got a room I can stay in for the night?’ she asked wearily. She scooped the hair she’d been sent back into the bag and stuffed it into her holdall. ‘My old room will do.’

Her mother opened her mouth to speak – probably to say a flat no, but Claude, the oily bastard, chipped in.

‘Of
course
she has.’ He was beaming with bonhomie. Gracie bent to pick up her coat and she didn’t miss how the creep’s eyes lingered on her arse.

Gracie wondered what on earth her mother saw in him, but then Suze’s judgement had never been entirely sound. Her mother was the perennial good-time girl, preferring to dance on tables all hours of the night, play bingo and get bladdered rather than take proper care of her house and kids. Suze thrived on flattery, and seemed unable to distinguish between fake and genuine. Gracie had always thought her dad did the right thing in leaving her; she still did.

‘I’ll take my things on up,’ she said, grabbing her bag just as Claude reached down to get it. ‘Thanks,’ she said with a tight smile at him. ‘And Mum – can you dig out their addresses?’

‘Address,’ said Suze, looking at her daughter with a cold eye. ‘They got a flat together, it ain’t much.’

But better than staying here with you and this arsehole
, thought Gracie.

‘Jot it down for me, will you?’

‘Jesus, what did your last slave die of?’ asked Suze with a sniff.

‘Insolence,’ flung back Gracie, dismayed to find that when dealing with her mother she still felt like a snippy teenager. ‘You going to see George tonight at the hospital?’

‘No.’ Her mother’s eyes filled with easy tears. ‘Not tonight. Tomorrow. My poor boy.’

‘I’ll tag along then. If you don’t mind?’

‘Mind? Why should I mind? I’m only surprised that you care enough to bother.’

Gracie gave her mother a long hard stare. But what was the use? They’d never got on; they never would. She turned her back and pounded off up the stairs to her room. Her mother hadn’t hugged her, and she hadn’t hugged Suze, either.

Two hours later, she was awakened by grunts and bangs from the room next door to her own.

Oh, terrific.

As if she didn’t have enough to contend with, now she had to listen to creep features and her own damned mother doing the nasty through the thin partition wall. A perfect end to a perfect day. How the hell could Suze
do
that, in these circumstances? She thought of George, lying in a hospital bed. And Harry. Where the hell was Harry? She thought of the note with the hair.
No police.
Then she thought of gentle, easy-going Harry out there somewhere, in trouble, alone, and it pulled at her heart. Finally she turned over and pulled the pillows over her head. It was hours before she could get to sleep.