Maura's Game

  She was shaking her head in disbelief at his words.

  ‘You bastard.’

  Roy stood up then and said to Garry, ‘My Benny is you all over again. He looks like Michael but he is you. Have a fight with his own fingernails, him. And he gets it from you. I said it before and I say it again, Mother should never have had any more kids. I mean, what are we? Look at us.’

  He glanced around with an expression of utter disgust.

  ‘What are we, eh? Fucking animals, that’s what we are. Sitting here at our time of life, waiting to find out about more fucking mayhem.’

  He sighed.

  ‘Well, I’m going. I’ve had enough. You can all do what the fuck you want.’ He picked up his cigarettes, and as he walked out of the door looked back at Garry and said: ‘I’ll tell you something, I never liked you. Even when we were kids I could never stomach you. Poor Geoffrey had more going for him than you did as far as I was concerned. Look at us, take a good look at us. We’re half the family we were after all the deaths. We’re all stuck up each other’s arses because we have to be, not because we want to be. We can’t trust anyone, even each other any more. Welcome to the Ryan family. One last word of advice, though. Let Maura sort this lot out – she’s the only one of us with even a modicum of brains.’

  Garry shook his head and shouted at his brother’s retreating back, ‘Keep taking the tablets, nutter, keep taking the tablets.’

  He looked at Maura, saw the hurt on her face and instantly his expression changed. She knew he was having another of his lightning swings of mood, like Benny did, like Michael used to. Roy was right, they were all a bit touched, the whole family was tainted.

  ‘It’s tension, Maws, it’s nothing but the tension of all this hag. Now sit down and finish your tea. I’ll go up and get back in Muvver’s good books.’

  Maura sat at the table and lit yet another cigarette. Roy was right, that was the worst of it. He was right and they all knew it, but until the impasse with Vic Joliff was over there was not a thing they could do to sort out their personal lives.

  Joe the Jew was as usual in his scrapyard, staring absently at a porn film on the portable flatscreen TV in his office. It was allegedly one of his favourite pastimes, and he knew it enhanced his reputation as an octogenarian cocksman. In fact, the flickering images and cries of fake ecstasy barely registered with him any more, but he’d never acknowledge that before another man.

  He was bored with his films, bored with it all if he was honest. He also felt very strongly that time was running out for him. His heart was still strong as an ox’s, he knew that from his regular medical check ups. But how much longer could he realistically hope to get away with it?

  He had ordered his affairs meticulously and was ready to pass everything on to a young relative of his, a gifted boy currently at business school in the States. He could take the property and loans businesses fully legit, probably not the clubs – or he could choose to follow the same path as his parents and Joe. The decision had to be his.

  Joe knew which choice he would make, given his time over.

  He’d lived all his life on the fringes of the criminal world, his transgressions mostly limited to false accounting, some violence in the pursuit of bad debts, and a lifetime’s disregard for the licensing and gaming laws. He’d made himself a handsome living for decades without ever needing to dirty his hands further.

  And then, six years ago, he’d made a near-fatal mistake and got in over his head in a scheme to oust the Ryans and take over their drugs empire. Even now he couldn’t believe his own stupidity – though of course he’d had his reasons. When it all went tits up he managed to cover his tracks and keep his head down, good old Joe, happy with his dingy clubs and his grubby yard and his little blonde shiksa. But always he’d known the fragile peace was built on sand.

  True to form Vic Joliff had come back on the scene, an evil genie bursting out of his bottle to wreak havoc all around him, and Joe knew it was the beginning of the end for him.

  But he filled Vic in on what he wanted to know, and agreed to do a few favours for him. The latest was getting him down. He lowered the volume with the remote and cocked his head, listening. Everything sounded peaceful . . . But just as his hopes were getting up it started again, a hammering noise, frenzied and insistent, on the ceiling above.

  Joe heaved himself to his feet, mumbling curses under his breath as he opened a door in the corner of the room and started on his laborious way up the dusty stairs to a crawl space under the roof.

  He knelt on the top step and groped for a flashlight he’d left handy. Shining it into the gloom he could just make out the whites of two frantically staring eyes above a mass of duct tape wound round and round the prisoner’s face. He was in chains too but they were the least of his worries at present. There was a slit in the tape apparently but he only got enough air if he kept still and calm.

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ Joe said irritably, ‘you’re just making it worse for yourself. You need to calm down and . . . what is it Camilla says? . . . chill. Yes, that’s it. Chill out, Abul my friend. You’re going nowhere until Vic Joliff says so.

  ‘Now shut the fuck up, will you? I’m trying to watch a bluey down here and you’re putting me right off my stroke.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Radon was dead and Benny was annoyed with himself for losing his temper. In fairness, Radon had taken a lot first and Benny was reluctantly impressed with his old mate; he had stood more than most people and still hadn’t told Benny any more than he’d been able to work out for himself – though it never occurred to him that Radon might not know more than this either.

  Abul, his best mate, had been planning a takeover since 1994. The Ryans, all of them, were due for the chop, and when the new firm was established all Abul’s secret squirrels were due big money and maximum respect.

  Benny had spat in his face when Radon had said that, then chucked the electric fire in the bath to finish him off.

  He went down to the lounge. Dezzy looked awful and Shamilla was sitting quietly staring at the TV. MTV was showing a video full of black men and scantily clad black girls. Benny watched it with her for a few seconds before he said to her, ‘Shamilla, I’m going and I ain’t taking Dezzy with me. What are you doing?’

  He sounded so normal, as if the day’s horrific events had been no more than a picnic to him. She stared back at him in terror. He sighed heavily, bored already now that Radon was dead.

  ‘Come on, Sham, I ain’t got all fucking night. Are you going to your mum’s or what? I can drop you off, if you like.’

  ‘What . . . what about . . .’

  She pointed up towards the ceiling.

  ‘Radon?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Oh, he’s well brown bread, the cunt.’

  ‘And I can go home?’

  Her voice was choked with fear as she asked him the question. Benny, however, was exasperated by now. It came over in some heavier sighing and his usual sarcasm.

  ‘Well, where were you thinking of going then – fucking Harrods for some shopping?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. I just wanna go home, Benny.’

  He smiled then, happy they had finally sorted everything out.

  ‘I’ll drop you off, OK?’

  She nodded once more.

  ‘Keep shtoom though, Sham. This was private business, OK?’

  He held a finger to his lips and she nearly severed the muscles in her neck as she nodded vigorously.

  They left Dezzy lying on the floor and walked from the flat.

  ‘Hang on.’

  Benny sat her in the car and then got a can of petrol from the boot. Five minutes later they watched as the whole place went up.

  ‘Were they dead, Benny?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I know Radon was, but I ain’t sure about Dezzy. Still, he is now.’

  She was quiet all the way to her mother’s house. Benny dropped her off courteous
ly and even gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.

  ‘See you around, Sham.’

  As she got out of the car, he pulled her back. Smiling at her once more he put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Tell your dad I said hello, won’t you?’

  It was a threat and they both knew it. She loved her father more than anyone in the world. She nodded, and tried to smile herself into Benny’s good books.

  As she let herself into the house she could hear the theme music to Inspector Morse and cringed as her mother called out in her harsh phlegmy voice, ‘That you, Sham?’

  She could picture her in the pink Dralon-covered chair, her face lined and her body old before its time from too many cigarettes and too much cheap booze.

  ‘You fucking come home sometimes then. What’s the matter, fell out with Mr Washing Powder?’

  Shamilla could smell stale takeaway and cigarette smoke; it was the smell of her childhood, the smell of her whole life. It was what had made her want to be with Coco Chatmore and men of his ilk in the first place. She was determined she was not going to turn into her own mother. She was not going to end up in such a state that a poxy TV programme was talked about as if it was her own life. She hated it here, hated the sameness of her mother’s days and the complete desolation of her life. Her father spent all his spare time with his bird, an Italian woman with big tits and very red lips. Shamilla didn’t blame him, her mother could bore for England. She loved her father and blamed her mother for his increasing absence from her life.

  Though, after what she had just witnessed, her mother’s boring life seemed almost seductive to her at this moment in time.

  She ran straight up to her bedroom and when her mother finally bothered to come up to see her she assumed she was crying over a man.

  ‘Oh, Shamilla, get a grip, love. None of them are worth it, you know. All wankers, the lot of them.’

  She was amazed when her daughter knelt up on her bed, surrounded by her posters of Shaggy and Goldie, and screamed out: ‘Oh, Mum, will you just fuck off!’

  She was still crying the next morning, but her mother being her mother didn’t even think to ask her daughter what might be wrong. Which was just as well as she really wouldn’t have wanted to hear the answer.

  Shamilla was working in a bar in Marbella within the week. The police were slow in looking for her, much to her relief. She didn’t see her mother again for nearly six years. So, as she often reflected, some good had come out of it all.

  Maura and Garry were still waiting for the call from Vic. Meanwhile Maura had gone into the West End because the clubs needed to be overseen no matter what else was happening. They were all on edge and she was aware that if she didn’t get away from her brother she would end up having another row with him.

  Inside Le Buxom she walked into hostess bedlam. Two of the girls were fighting, and to make matters worse they were fighting in front of the punters. Hair and nails were flying as Maura walked deliberately between them. The male bouncers were definitely not getting involved; AIDS and hepatitis were foremost in their minds where working girls were concerned.

  Maura was already at the end of her patience and when one of the girls, a large African with braided hair and nails like a Hammer Horror vampire, acted like she was still determined to fight, said caustically, ‘Go on, Wanda, I fucking dare you.’

  Both women realised in seconds that this was not the usual easygoing Maura and stopped their shouting immediately. Her eyes, normally merry, were hard and her face paler than usual. Even her hair looked ruffled not smoothly brushed in its usual immaculate blonde bob. All in all she looked like a woman on the edge and they stood facing one another with all the anger and spite drained out of them for the time being.

  ‘What the fuck is this about?’

  The English girl, a dark-eyed blonde from Gillingham, said sheepishly, ‘She was after me punter, Miss Ryan.’

  The black girl shook her head in consternation.

  ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t. He didn’t want you. The Germans always like the black birds, everyone knows that.’

  Maura rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Her voice was cold as she said, ‘You were fighting in my club, in front of paying customers, and you expect me to stand here and listen to this shit?’

  The two women stared at the floor, aware that all the other girls were listening intently to what was being said.

  ‘Get your gear and fuck off, the pair of you. Find another club to fight in.’

  Even the head girl was shocked at her words. Hostesses had fights, it was par for the course. In fact, it was mandatory if it was a shit night and no one was earning.

  If Maura had not come here then this would have been resolved between the interested parties and no one would have been any the wiser. Everyone knew that the Ryans were up shit creek without a paddle, the word had been on the street for a while, and if ever anyone was wired it was Maura Ryan tonight. So there had to be some truth in the rumours.

  ‘Come on, Maura.’

  The head girl’s voice was placating and friendly but Maura was having none of it.

  ‘Shut the fuck up! I pay you to keep these birds off the gear and on the tables. If you can’t manage that, love, I’ll replace you and all. It’s as simple as that.’

  She was not in the mood for any of it and when she walked the two girls off the premises ten minutes later she knew she was causing a sensation.

  Next she bawled out the bouncers, her voice so loud it could even be heard above the stripper’s music – and as she removed her clothes to ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls Maura’s voice had to be particularly loud.

  The two men stood and took it, they had no choice in the matter. But they were not happy about it and it showed. Maura could see the sly looks they gave one another, could feel the lack of respect. This told her that the family’s problems were already being talked about on the street. Michael used to say that you knew your standing in the world by the treatment you got from the hired help. This was being proved to her now, and in anger and frustration she slapped one of the men’s faces and, though he swallowed it, she knew it would be remembered. Vic was hot news, and it seemed people thought he was already King of the Jungle. Well, she would use all her resources to prove this a lie. It was imperative that they win this stand-off or they might as well write their own suicide note.

  ‘What are you fucking looking at?’

  The bouncer stared at her for a few moments before dropping his gaze.

  ‘Well, answer me then! I am paying you fucking serious wedge, boy, and you can’t even sort out a couple of brasses. What do you do when a punter kicks off – go to fucking Tenerife for your holidays?’

  Still he didn’t answer her.

  ‘You’d better get your fucking act together or you can both fuck off and all. I ain’t got time for wasters and neither has any of my family. Now piss off and earn your wages. I don’t need fucking kindergarten teachers, I need bouncers, and if you can’t cut it then you can both get fucked.’

  She stared them both down and then bellowed, ‘Well, what you waiting for? Your mums to come and pick you up and take you both home? Go and do the job you are being paid for, and getting paid fucking well for if you don’t mind me saying.’

  It was Maura at her best and they both knew it. She was menacing in her icy coldness and knew that whatever they might have thought before, they would not be writing her off just yet. She knew the benefit of bad language, something she used rarely but to good effect. Even the hostesses curbed their swearing around her because she hated it so much.

  The open lack of respect bothered Maura, it bothered her more than she would ever have believed. She was used to the effect her name had on people, used to being given priority over everyone else. She was amazed at just how much the change in her staff upset her. It was at times like this she wished she had someone to lean on, someone to turn to. She had thought she had that in Terry, and then in Tommy Rifkind, but in truth the only person who had ever been fu
lly there for her was Michael. He had been her teacher, her mentor, and also the only man in her life she had respected.

  That was a lot of her trouble, she realised now. She didn’t respect most men because she was too busy taking care of business. How could you respect someone who was in an inferior position to you? And, with Maura Ryan, that was the case with most men she met. They were nervous of her, wary of saying or doing something wrong. She was, after all, the woman who ran the biggest family in London. No wonder Tommy had had such a hard time trying to stand beside her, lying scheming bastard though he was.

  Her head was aching with tension and her mouth dry with what she suspected was nerves. In her office she swallowed down a large brandy to steady herself. Once it was all over with Vic she could sort herself out. Until then she was trapped and she knew it.

  But tonight she had learned a lesson she would not forget in a hurry. Word travelled fast on the street and it seemed that the Ryans were already being written off as has-beens. Well, there was life in this old bitch yet and they would all be shown that in the next few days. Then let them see who was really top dog and challenge her again, if they dared.

  Tommy opened his eyes and instantly regretted that fact. He felt as if he had been through a grinder, and knowing Vic that was exactly what had happened to him. He was in the dark in a confined space, that much was evident. He could feel wooden panels close to his body and his legs were slightly bent as if he had been forced into something.

  The first prickle of serious unease stirred in his brain.

  He closed his eyes once more as the fear spiralled up inside him. He was in a storage container of some kind and suddenly aware that he was buried somewhere which could only mean one thing: he had been buried alive. Vic would see that as a joke. He was only sorry that he couldn’t see the humour of it himself.

  He felt the bile rising inside his mouth and swallowed it down. It was bad enough in here as it was without the added smell of vomit. He took deep breaths to try and steady his heartbeat but then the panic was rising once more and he wanted to start screaming.