Maura's Game (38 page)

This was what she had missed: being with her children, being a part of their lives. If a little voice inside was calling her a hypocrite for this after all she’d said and done she was ignoring it now. She felt needed and she felt wanted and that was all that mattered when you were nearly ninety and ready for the long sleep.

Sarah made another of her famous pots of tea and settled down to have a good gossip with the lovely little girl her Garry had brought to meet his mother. Leonie was young enough to be his daughter, grand-daughter even, but Sarah swallowed that. Leonie was a girl and girls could have babies and that was what the world was all about, wasn’t it?

Jack and Billy sat together in Maura’s large dining room. The table was littered with food and bottles, and the French doors open wide to combat the cigarette smoke. Jack had already built himself a few lines to get himself through the night and the atmosphere at the moment was friendly if wary.

Garry was on his best behaviour and for that fact Maura was grateful. Even Roy and Lee seemed relaxed.

Jack Stern watched proceedings with a wary eye and finally asked the big question.

“So what’s going to happen with me coke?”

He snorted a line immediately afterwards and Garry said in jocular fashion, “We only took it to stop you snorting the profits!”

Even Jack had to smile at that one.

“Very funny, Garry, but it don’t answer my question, does it?”

Maura heard seriousness in his voice. It sobered up all the other occupants of the room. Billy Mills closed his eyes in disgust. He was supposed to be negotiating about the drugs and Jack had just fucked it all up with his impatience.

“What about Vic Joliff? Shouldn’t we deal with the main business first?”

Garry sounded friendly still, but it was obvious he was getting pissed off with the whole thing.

“I honestly have no idea where Vic is. I mean, I hear from him obviously but he don’t tell me nothing like that.”

Roy picked up a ham sandwich and bit into it before saying quietly, “You are one lying cunt, Jack Stern.”

Jack was out of his seat in a second, shouting: “Oi, you, hold up there! What the fuck gives you the right to say that to me, Roy?”

Garry picked up a small handgun. Waving it in Jack’s general direction, he said merrily, “Well, this does for a start.”

Maura gestured all the men back into their seats.

“No childish displays if you don’t mind, guys. Just sit the fuck down and let’s sort this once and for all.” She took a deep breath.

“Roy has a point, Jack. You are dealing with Vic on this shipment, we all know that…”

She held her hand up as he tried to interrupt her. Her voice full of barely suppressed irritation, she pointed a finger at him and said: “Vic got you that coke, don’t bother lying about it. Don’t ever make the mistake of treating me or mine like cunts, all right? It’s a bigger shipment than we allow other outfits to handle. Strictly speaking you should be cutting us in but let’s leave that for now. We’re trying to get to Vic and other grievances are being put on the back burner for a while.”

She looked around the room before she made her next announcement.

“Tommy Rifkind is as of now on his way here. He’s being flown from Liverpool to a nearby farm so we can guarantee we’re going to get to the bottom of it all tonight. Abul will bring him straight here.”

They were all watching Jack’s reaction closely, even Billy Mills. Jack, as they all remarked later, took the news surprisingly well. That was what let him down if only he’d realised it.

Maura continued in the same clear voice: “Kenny Smith is on his way over as we speak. He saw Vic again, gave me a message from him. Maybe he’s our best way in to the lunatic, but first we have to find Vic and you’re going to help us.”

Jack had never felt so exposed in all his life. He knew he had the eyes of everyone in the room on him.

“I can’t do it, Maura, you know that.”

She stared at him, her clear-eyed gaze never wavering.

“I ain’t a fucking grass. Vic is me mate and me partner…”

He was starting to panic, they could hear it in his voice. Still no one said anything and the silence was deafening as he looked around the table.

“You killed my Tony, man.”

Jack was indignant.

“I fucking well did not…”

Tony Dooley Senior shook his head sadly.

“You knew about Tommy, and you were in deep with Vic. You are the reason my boy Tony is dead.”

His other sons all nodded at their father’s words.

Billy Mills watched in abject terror as he realised what was actually going down in this room.

Jack shook his head in disgust, the coke taking over and disrupting his thinking. He was paranoid and he was upset. He was also loose-lipped and even as he spoke he knew he was burying himself.

“So much for a fucking friendly meet! You can always trust the Ryans to do the fucking dirty on you. Vic was right, you are a load of has-be ens He’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

Garry was laughing gently at his words. He looked around the room.

“I told you he was a fucking waste of space, didn’t I? He wants to have his cake and eat it. Or should that be coke? Thought he could swan in here, do a deal for it then waltz off without us even suspecting a thing about him. Just how stupid can a man get? This wasn’t a one off, Jack. We know you and we know Vic. This was just a toe in the water, wasn’t it? Vic Joliff wants what’s ours and he won’t rest till he gets it.”

Jack stood up, his anger boiling over.

“Bollocks. I ain’t sitting here listening to this.”

He signalled to his minder Jerry Sinclair. But Jerry stayed put and Jack shook his head sadly.

“Bought you and all, have they?”

Jerry shrugged nonchalantly. He didn’t give a toss what happened to Jack, that much was evident.

“So much for fucking loyalty.”

“You never paid me enough for loyalty, Jack.”

All the men round the table laughed at the words. Jack was gutted and it came through in his voice and the fearful expression that was slowly settling over his face.

“Want another drink while we wait for Tommy to arrive, Jack?”

Roy’s voice was sarcastic but he nodded anyway. Jack knew he was finished; inside himself he knew this was the end. He’d already done enough to justify them nutting him. If they spoke to Tommy and found out how far back it went there was no chance of a quick merciful shot to the head. Short of a miracle he was a dead man. He swallowed the drink straight down. He had a feeling he was going to need as much alcohol as he could get. He’d need something to dull the pain once this lot went off.

He snorted another line and pushed the small mirror towards Garry who shook his head.

“Thanks to you, Jack, I’ve got plenty of me own, mate.” Everyone laughed again. Except, of course, Jack Stern.

Benny was woken up by the cell door opening. He put up a hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light now flooding into the room. He saw a young man with ultra-fashionable clothes and a buzz cut walk into the cell. The door was immediately closed again and Benny felt anger building inside him. He was not sharing a cell. He was most definitely not sharing his space with anyone else.

The young man was obviously drunk and had recently been involved in a fight. Benny decided he had been on the losing end by the state of him.

The boy yawned and said sleepily, “All right, mate?”

Benny stared at him as if he had never seen another human being before in his life. This type was actually talking to him as if they were friends or something. He swallowed down the retort that had come to his lips.

The boy slid down the wall and lit himself a cigarette, blowing the smoke out noisily. The spy hole closed and Benny heard the grille shut noisily.

“All right, Benny me old son?”

There was laughter in the boy’s voice now and Benny opened his eyes wide as he finally realised who was in the cell with him.

“Jonny White?”

He nodded.

“I thought it was you when they put me in here. But in case you was trying to be incognito, I didn’t let on I knew you. What a fucking coincidence!”

Benny stopped smiling.

“Coincidence isn’t the word.”

Jonny started to laugh nervously.

“Leave it out, Ben, you’re always so paranoid.”

“What happened to you then?”

Jonny grimaced.

“Opened me trap once too often as usual. There was a crowd of us went to a nightclub called RaquePs on Micky Harper’s stag night. What a shit hole. Anyway I got out of it and pushed me luck with some bird, and her brother was built like a brick shithouse. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Benny started laughing. That was Jonny all over.

“What brought you here? As if I didn’t know!” Jonny said.

“Saw it all on the telly. It’s the talk of the fucking country, mate.”

Benny preened himself at the words.

“It was all a set up. I had nothing to do with any of it.”

Jonny grinned again.

“What? Someone walked into your house and stuck a fucking human head in your wardrobe, is that what you’re saying?”

Benny nodded and just in time Jonny remembered exactly who he was talking to. If Benny Ryan said it was a set up, it was a set up. If Benny Ryan told him his own mum was on the game Jonny would not argue with that fact.

“What a diabolical fucking liberty, Benny, eh?”

“My thoughts entirely, Jonny. Someone wants me out of the frame, that much is for sure.”

He yawned and settled himself on the bed once more. Jonny knew he would not be sleeping there, that much was already plain.

“How’s Abul these days? I ain’t seen him lately.”

“He’s all right, you know Abul.”

Jonny nodded.

“I saw him a while ago, up the Circus Tavern of all places.”

“What Abul?”

The other man could hear the surprise in Benny’s voice and nodded.

“He was up the Circus Tavern? Who with?”

Jonny shrugged.

“I don’t know, I only saw him in the car park. They had one of them Sport girls’ nights, you know what I mean. A load of old slappers, if you ask me, but well fit and up for the game if you get my drift. I assumed Abul was up there for the crack like.” Jonny burped loudly and carried on.

“Had a fucking barrel load of drink, I’ll feel like shit in the morning.”

“Who was he with?”

“Who?”

“Fucking Abul, stupid! Who else?”

Jonny could hear the annoyance that was creeping into Benny’s voice and it made him nervous.

“I don’t know, some old bloke.”

Benny rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“Whatold bloke?”

Jonny was nonplussed for a few moments.

“Just a bloke, I don’t know who it was. Flash, though. Few grands’ worth of tailoring and a brand new sky-blue Roller. What a piece of fucking kit!”

Benny jumped from the bed and, grabbing Jonny by his jacket, dragged him up from the floor with one mighty heave.

“Are you sure it was Abul? Fucking answer me, you stupid cunt!”

Jonny was nodding like mad now.

“Yeah. I spoke to him, said hello like.”

Benny dropped him back down on the floor then rang the bell by the cell door. As usual no one was interested in answering it. He stood with his finger on the bell without moving it, but ten minutes later they were still being ignored.

“Fuck, fuck fuck.”

Jonny watched him warily. This was the last thing he needed tonight, Benny Ryan on the rampage. Still, as he consoled himself, it would make a good story one day and life was made up of good stories, wasn’t it?

He only hoped he lived long enough to tell this fucking tale in the first place because Benny Ryan did not look like a happy bunny. Then again, he never looked happy period.

Abul sat next to Tommy in the six-seater Cessna. They never spoke once all the way to the airstrip in Rettendon. As they alighted he pushed Tommy out of the plane. He stumbled and landed heavily on his knees.

Abul dragged him up by the scruff of the neck and threw him unceremoniously into a waiting car. He jumped into the back seat with him and ordered, “Drive!” to a young Indian guy in a turban.

Tommy was seriously narked. Dusting down his suit, he glanced out of the rear window at the two bemused-looking heavies left standing on the tarmac and warned, “You’d better watch it, boy. Remember, I know all about you.”

Abul grinned and settled back in his seat.

“Relax, Tommy.

“Course you do. Anyway, you didn’t think I was really taking you to Maura’s, did you? Me and you are off to see Vic, mate.”

Tommy paled, but was instantly on the offensive.

“You know, you are in deep doo-doo,” he said conversationally.

“I mean, your pal Benny will kill you now you’ve shown your hand like this.”

Abul shrugged.

“He’s got to fucking find me first, though.”

“And Vic will fuck you up without a second’s thought,” Tommy persisted, trying to get some leverage.

“He’s heavily into racial purity and all that founding member of the Inner City Firm. And besides, he has good reason to hate you, hasn’t he?”

Abul half-smiled and answered him in a bored tone of voice.

“In fact, Tommy, it’s you he’s really pissed off with. I know how to handle psychos like Vic - I’ve had enough experience, after all.

“His pitiful racist beliefs I can overlook for as long as it makes business sense. This is a new world, Tommy, and I intend to be a major player. The Ryans and villains like them have had their day. They forgot one very important rule. The key thing with power is knowing when to hand it over. If you don’t, someone stronger always comes along and takes it from you anyway.”

Tommy laughed.

“Hark at you! Fucking East Ham’s answer to Osama fucking bin Laden.”

Abul laughed with him.

“Amazing, isn’t it, how they all took it for granted that I was going to walk in Benny’s shadow for the rest of me life? That calming him down and doing his bidding was all I was good for. When the Silvertown mob approached me with their idea I was more than ready to listen. For as long as it suited me. Bunch of lightweights!”