Stay Dead Read online

  JESSIE

  KEANE

  STAY DEAD

  MACMILLAN

  To Cliff

  Yo, Bitch!

  What a year, eh?

  OMERTA

  (The Mafia code of silence)

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  PART TWO

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  106

  107

  108

  109

  110

  111

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118

  119

  120

  121

  122

  123

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Outside the Shalimar nightclub, London, June 1994

  Annie Carter had lived through her fair share of bad days, but this one had to rank among the worst. She had only two close friends in the entire world. One of them had just told her to piss off, and the other one was dead – and that broke her heart in two. She came out on to the pavement fighting back tears, unable to fully believe what was happening to her life. She didn’t know where her husband was, or what he was up to, but visions of naked sweaty limbs and glam young girls danced in her brain day and night, like fairy dust or a gigantic snort of coke.

  Added to all that, she had a secret, a big, big secret that she’d been carrying around with her for years. The burden of it was heavy, and terrible. She couldn’t share it with a single living soul. And she feared there was worse to come.

  She was coming out of the Shalimar, one of three lap-dancing clubs owned by her husband Max, the other two being the Palermo and the Blue Parrot. She was looking a million dollars because she always did, even when she was feeling like shit. She was wearing a Gucci black skirt suit, white chiffon blouse and Italian-made high-heeled boots, and her long chocolate-brown hair bounced on her shoulders. Even in the depths of emotional torment, Annie Carter took trouble over her appearance, and she’d slicked on red lippy and a flick of black mascara.

  Right now, Annie felt like her whole world was caving in on her. People who had once treated her with respect were behaving toward her as if she was diseased, dirty. Ellie and Chris Brown. Steve Taylor. Gary Tooley. Even Tony, who had been first Max’s driver, then hers, and then Dolly Farrell’s.

  Maybe they know, whispered a voice in her brain.

  The thought of that sent a vicious, bone-deep shudder of dread through her.

  No. Impossible.

  They couldn’t know.

  Could they?

  She stood there in the dismal drizzling rain. Summer in England. A bike shot past. Then a long dark car swerved into the pavement with a screech of brakes. Horns tooted, taxi drivers hollered out of their windows and waved their fists. Annie walked on, uncaring, thinking about Dolly, feeling the awful gnawing grief grip her, shutting off the world around her, filling her whole being with blackness. Suddenly there were two big men standing on either side of her and one of them was shoving what felt like a knife into her side.

  ‘In the car,’ said the one with the knife. She looked up into a big plug-ugly face with a bulbous nose dotted with blackheads, mean piggy eyes and thick curling black eyebrows that met in the middle.

  I know you, thought Annie.

  He jabbed the knife deeper into her side. ‘Don’t fuck me around,’ he warned.

  Annie saw that the other one was shaven-headed, his tanned face pitted with adolescent acne.

  ‘Do it,’ said Eyebrows.

  Annie got in the car, and off they went.

  Baldy stopped the motor by a warehouse down by the docks and together him and Eyebrows dragged her out. Annie’s heart was pummelling her ribs like a drum, but she thought the best thing would be to front it out.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re playing with here,’ she said, gulping and breathless.

  Ridiculously, she heard the next phrase coming out of her mouth, a phrase she openly laughed at when it was uttered by politicians, film stars, people who were so far up their own arseholes that they had lost all sense of reality.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ she said.

  Eyebrows looked at her. Baldy’s face was like stone.

  ‘Yeah, we know who you are. And what you are too.’

  ‘I’m warning you—’ started Annie, and Eyebrows slapped her hard across the face.

  She flew backward as if shot from a cannon. The stinging pain of the blow was shocking. She tottered unsteadily on her feet and grabbed her face as if checking it was still attached to her head. She couldn’t take it in. This fucker had the nerve to hit her – her, Annie Carter. She drew in a breath. Her eyes were watering. She started to speak again, and Eyebrows came in close and punched her mid-section.

  All the breath went from her in one almighty whoosh of exploding air. She fell to the ground and lay there, unable to breathe, her mind in shock, her body clenched, her stomach a fiery ball of agony.

  You bastards! You can’t do this! I’m Max Carter’s wife, are you fucking mental . . . ?

  Her mouth formed the words but she couldn’t speak. She had no breath to speak with. Groaning, face screwed up in pain, she tried to crawl away, thinking this can’t be happening. Eyebrows kicked her hard in the ribs and there was a snap and unbelievable pain rocketed through her as she felt something give. She went face-down into the muddy gravel, the rain washing her hair into the dirt, covering her clothes with yellow slime.

  She was choking, half-vomiting with the anguish of it, crawling, trying feebly to get away. It wasn’t possible. They were following her, both of them. Kicking her in the guts. And in the end it was easier to just stop moving, to just hope
that it would end.

  It did end, eventually. In this century or the next, she wasn’t sure. But not before she’d passed out; not before she’d prayed for oblivion, even for death, just to make the pain stop.

  Help me, she thought.

  But no one came.

  Oh yes. It was a bad, bad day.

  PART ONE

  1

  February 1994

  The calls started late one night, waking Gary Tooley, the manager of the Carter-owned Blue Parrot nightclub, from his peaceful slumbers alongside his latest squeeze, Caroline Wheeler.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he asked, because actually it wasn’t even late one night, it was early the next morning.

  To be precise, it was three o’clock, and he was pissed off to be woken up like this. He’d had a crazy Friday night, punters kicking off and complaining left, right and centre, staff arsing about and people shooting up in the toilets, and all he wanted now was some kip. Was that too much to ask?

  Of course Caroline, the idle bitch, didn’t lift a finger to answer the phone. She’d been working the bar a couple of months when they’d started getting friendly, and friendly had quickly turned into fucking the life out of her down in the stockroom, then in the empty bar, then in the cellars, then in bed.

  Now here she was, snoring like a hog and taking up most of the quilt. Christ, he would really like his own bed to himself for a change. Caroline was good in the sack – she was even good on the floor – but sometimes all a bloke wanted was some sleep. He leaned over her huddled form and snatched up the phone.

  ‘What?’ he demanded.

  And then came the voice. Female. Foreign accent. But speaking English. Saying that there was a crash, she knew about it, Constantine had planned it.

  What the hell? wondered Gary, brain fogged with sleep.

  ‘Who is this?’ he said, when she’d babbled on for a full five minutes.

  There was a long pause. Then a decisive: ‘I am Gina Barolli.’

  ‘OK. Right. And why are you phoning me in the middle of the night?’

  ‘You work for the Carter family.’

  ‘I do. Yeah.’ Gary scrubbed a hand wearily over his face. Caroline snored on, undisturbed.

  ‘It was all for her. Annie Carter. The crash.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The plane crash.’

  Gary’s attention sharpened. Was the mad old bint talking about the plane crash in the seventies, the one that should have put an end to those mad cunting Irish the Delaneys forever? Sadly, it hadn’t. Redmond Delaney survived. Gary knew all about the plane crash; all the trusted people close to Max Carter did. So what?

  ‘My brother, Constantine . . .’ she said, and paused.

  ‘Yeah. Your brother. What about him?’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything,’ said the woman, and the line went dead.

  That was the first call. And then came others, and that made Gary think. Maybe it was time to cash in on some of this info. Caroline had expensive tastes and he had a bit of a gambling habit, loved the dogs and the horses; a bit more wedge would come in very handy right now. And he knew exactly who he was going to get it from.

  2

  It was a pity, Redmond Delaney thought, that he’d been ousted as a priest. A real shame, because the priesthood had suited him nicely, given him a standing in the community that he’d missed after being forced to abandon his previous existence as an East End gang leader.

  The Delaney mob had ruled Limehouse and Battersea, back in the day, and people had treated him with respect, treading very carefully around him. Cold and controlling, he had relished his position and his fearsome reputation. It had amused him to see terror in people’s eyes when they came face to face with him. How ironic, that the roles of gang boss and priest should turn out to have so much in common: extracting confessions from sinners, doling out hellfire and damnation to wrongdoers . . .

  Both jobs had similar perks, too. Gang groupies had flocked to him when he’d run the Delaney mob. Church groupies had twittered around him when he ran his parish. Ah, so tempting they were, all those shy, bored housewives who were dazzled by this stunning red-haired Adonis in his black soutane and pristine white collar. Too tempting, that was the trouble. Easy meat, really. One after another he used them, and every time he’d prostrate himself before the altar afterwards and say, ‘Sorry, Lord, but I am only flesh and the flesh is weak. Forgive me.’ And every time he’d be forgiven, his sins wiped clean . . . until the next time he weakened.

  He’d been busy indulging the flesh again the morning his career as a priest came to an abrupt end.

  The woman had come to him with a personal problem – something about a bored husband who she believed was straying. Redmond had listened, or appeared to, while thinking: Tasty. Blonde. Curvy. Quite delicious. A little morsel for him to gobble down at the first opportunity.

  ‘Drop by the presbytery, we’ll discuss it,’ he said, thinking that she was very angry, very hurt, about her husband’s extramarital activities, and that anger and hurt would make her vulnerable. He couldn’t wait.

  The minute she set foot inside the hall and the door closed behind her, Redmond put his tongue in her mouth and slipped a hand under her dress to touch a silken cool thigh. As he kissed her, his hand went higher, delving deeper.

  ‘Oh God . . . oh, Father!’ she gasped in shock and delight against his lips.

  ‘You’ve been driving me insane,’ he said, and kissed her again.

  He said this to all of them, of course, all the little titbits he enjoyed, because it fed their female vanity, made them proud. They’d turned a priest, sworn to celibacy, their charms so overwhelming that even fear of God left him unable to resist.

  She was Sally Westover, who was married to Bill Westover, who almost certainly hadn’t strayed because he was such a dull bugger, but Father Delaney wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead he took her upstairs to his single priest’s bed and gave her the hammering of her life.

  Then . . .

  ‘Oh God, the phone. . .’ she moaned.

  Damned thing was ringing, right by the bed.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ he ordered her, snatching it up. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Is that Redmond Delaney?’ asked a male voice.

  ‘Who wants him?’ asked Redmond, watching Sally’s large pendulous nude breasts bouncing around above him while she straddled him, impaling herself repeatedly on his manhood and wheezing like an asthmatic chimpanzee.

  Oh, she’s a good one, he thought.

  Later he was going to indoctrinate her properly into the ways of the flesh. She’d barely touched the surface, he could see that. She was a keen amateur, that was all. After this afternoon she would be full of remorse. She was a wife, a mother (he could tell that because she was quite loose), and she would be so guilty. He would tweak that guilt, hang his head in shame, say she had made him commit this sin, betray his vows.

  Oh yes. Such fun and games he would have with Sally Westover. He would introduce her to the delights of pain and ice and fire, to bondage and choking, all those darker aspects of sexuality that were his preferred territory.

  ‘This is Gary Tooley,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘You don’t know me, but—’

  ‘The one who runs the Blue Parrot?’ asked Redmond, thinking that Sally was banging away so hard now that it was getting difficult to maintain his control. He remembered Tooley. Redmond had a good memory, a very fine brain in fact, and he knew that Gary Tooley worked for the Carters.

  He wondered – briefly – how Tooley had got hold of this number. He didn’t like people tracking him down; as a rule, Redmond liked to do the stalking if there was stalking to be done. In fact, he enjoyed it.

  ‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Gary sounded surprised. ‘I’ve got some information for you.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘You won’t believe it,’ said Gary.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Nah. Not over the phone. We need to meet up.’

/>   ‘That’s not convenient.’ Sally gasped and Redmond raised a finger: shush.

  ‘It will be when you hear what it is.’

  ‘All right.’ Redmond was mildly intrigued. ‘When and where?’

  Gary named a place, a time. Redmond said: ‘This had better be worth my while.’

  ‘It is,’ said Gary, and put the phone down.

  ‘This is so good,’ groaned Sally, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing . . . and then all at once it was too much, and Redmond grabbed her hips and came.

  At the same moment, as he gasped and writhed and thrust at Sally with abandon, there was a knock and the bedroom door opened.

  ‘Sorry, Father, I forgot the shopping list and I thought I’d better ask—’

  Redmond’s housekeeper, Mrs Janner, stopped dead in the doorway and stared at the naked couple on the bed, her face a mask of shock. Sally daintily put her hands up to cover her breasts. Redmond just lay there, thinking, Well, that’s that then.

  That was the day Gary Tooley first got in touch with him, the same day that Mrs Janner phoned the bishop, the same day that Redmond Delaney was summarily dismissed from the priesthood.

  Pity, really, because he had liked it.

  While it lasted.

  3

  The Palermo Lounge nightclub, June 1994

  The uniformed police got the call at 11.24 on a Friday morning, and by 11.42 they were there, talking to an hysterical young barman called Peter Jones.

  ‘She opens the front entrance door at eleven, every day. But today I got here and it was still locked. I thought she was ill in bed or something, so I used my own key. She don’t like me doing that, but what else could I do?’

  ‘Why doesn’t she like you doing that?’ asked one of the uniformed police, his weary sigh and set face saying he’d seen it all before, and then some.

  They were standing in the big bar, backlit with blue fluorescent lights, and all was serene down here. As in the other Carter-owned clubs, the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar, there was lots of gold leaf on the walls, and angels and cherubs flying around the ceiling, dark tobacco-brown carpeting underfoot and about a hundred chairs decked out in faux tiger skins set out around circular tables. There were teensy little podiums with poles for the dancers. Gold chain curtains concealed exits over at the far right-hand side of the vast room; and there was a staircase, roped off and leading upwards, on their left. Neither of the two cops wanted to go up that staircase.