Playing Dead (22 page)

‘Let’s go on over to the club,’ she said wearily.

Nico steered the car out into the traffic. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Layla,’ he said.

‘Oh God, Nico, not now,’ said Annie. Her head was pounding; she felt exhausted. Layla was safe with Ruthie; she didn’t need to know any more than that. She couldn’t
take
any more than that.

He shrugged and drove on in silence.

When they got there, Nico parked up in a side street, grumbling about right-hand-drive cars and tiny roads not fit for purpose as he manoeuvred the car into a space. They got out and walked the short distance to the club, its bass back-beat keeping time with their footsteps. Punters were swarming into the club as they approached.

Annie paused and looked at the red neon sign over the scarlet-painted doors. Annie’s. If Max was really and truly back, really alive, what would he make of
that
? He had known this as the Palermo Lounge. Right now, the workmen were over at the old Blue Parrot, gutting it, tearing that old sign down too, replacing it with another one of these, the red neon Annie’s.

‘Hi, Paul,’ she said to the doorman, and he nodded as she passed inside with Nico trailing behind.

‘Knock Three Times’ was blasting out of the massive sound system as they went down the stairs and into the main body of the club. There were gyrating bodies out on the circular glass dance floor, the strobes beneath it flashing up yellow, orange, red, blue. On the tiny up-lit podiums the go-go girls danced and twirled in their fringed white bikinis and white boots.

‘Jeez, the noise in here . . .’ complained Nico, leaning close to Annie’s ear to make himself heard.

Annie cast an appraising eye over the club’s dimly lit interior. Chocolate-brown banquettes lined the walls; cosy little spaces where people could chat, eat their chicken or scampi in a basket, drink, watch the dancers.

Annie went over to the bar with the duplicate neon-red ‘Annie’s’ sign glowing warmly above it. Dolly was behind the bar, complaining to the barman about there being no mixers as per bloody usual, then she turned and saw Annie and her face fell.

‘Pleased to see me?’ asked Annie with an attempt at a smile.

‘Daft bat, I’m always pleased to see you,’ said Dolly, coming to the bar and leaning over so she could make herself heard. ‘But . . . fuck it, he’s
here
, Annie love. He’s bloody here, over there in the corner.’

Annie felt as if all the blood had left her head and shot straight down to her feet. She swayed for an instant and Nico caught her arm.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Did you hear that?’ Annie asked him.

‘Yeah. I heard.’

Annie peered among the crush of bodies, but she couldn’t see anything. She felt the blood singing in her ears and wondered if she was about to pass out cold. She gulped down a breath. It steadied her a little. But she could feel herself shaking, literally
shaking.
Because . . . he could really be here. Max Carter, the man she had loved so passionately once; the man she had won, lost and mourned; the man she had thought she would happily spend the rest of her life with.

But it hadn’t worked out like that.

‘I’m going over there,’ she said through lips that felt numb with shock. ‘I’m going to talk to him.’

Nico still had hold of her arm. ‘Is that the smart thing to do? Bearing in mind what everyone’s told you about how he took the news of you and the Boss?’

‘I don’t give a shit whether it’s smart or not, I’ve got to know if it’s true. I’ve got to know if it’s really him.’

She pulled her arm away. Nico stared at her face. ‘You want me to come over there with you?’

Annie shook her head: no.

Aware of Dolly standing there tensely behind the bar watching her, aware of Nico’s worried expression as she moved away across the room, still Annie felt that she was in some sort of awful twisted dream as she pushed through the fug of cigarette smoke and the crush of bodies.

Would she get there and see Constantine there, not Max; Constantine charred and grinning at her, lolling dead and incinerated on the banquette?

Oh God, please let me wake up now
, she thought, aware of her heart thudding away in her chest, of the unsteadiness of her legs, of the sick tension in the pit of her stomach.

She pushed on through the punters, their laughter grating on her ears, their curious looks at this demented-looking dark-haired woman glancing off her like darts off a rhino’s hide. Yeah, this was a dream. She would just go on and on walking, trying to find him, and she would never get there. She would wake up, and the dream would be over.

Then the crowds seemed to part at last, and she stopped walking. She was looking at a banquette with a group of people sitting around it. There were half-full glasses on the table, the remnants of a meal. Baskets and red napkins, knives and forks.

The first person she saw was Steve Taylor; dark-haired, muddy-eyed, he was looking up at her in surprise. The other people at the table were talking, but soon Steve’s silence infected them as they saw what he was looking at,
who
he was looking at. Steve had a woman with him, but Annie didn’t recognize her.

Gary was there too, with another girl; his blond hair was catching the light of the whirling strobes, his pale eyes were pinning her where she stood. Beside the girl who was with Gary was another woman: a small, succulent blonde in a sugar-pink Dusty Springfield get-up, who was draping herself over a dangerous-looking dark-haired man sitting right in the corner, his back to the wall.

Annie stepped forward until she was standing right in front of their table.

Her eyes were fixed on the dark-haired man, the one who seemed to be the centre point of the group. He had a deeply tanned complexion, a predatory hook of a nose under black brows, and thick black curling hair. His face was sharp, sharper than she remembered, hardened in some fiery crucible she knew nothing about, but his eyes were the same – a dense, dark navy blue – and they were staring at her right now, sweeping up over her body and then back down again, with a chillingly cold disdain.

‘Who the fuck’s this?’ the little blonde was asking.

‘That’s his
wife
, dingbat,’ said Gary, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray but not taking his eyes off Annie for a minute.

‘His . . .?’ The blonde was looking between the dark-haired man and the dark-haired woman now, her expression thunderous.

‘Holy shit,’ said Annie. ‘It’s true. You’re
alive
.’

Now there could be no more doubt. She was looking at Max Carter.

Chapter 44

Annie stood frozen to the spot. She didn’t feel that she could have moved, even if she’d wanted to. The last time she had seen him he had been diving into the pool in Majorca over two years ago – and then the nightmare had really begun. The kidnappers had told her he was dead, that they’d thrown him down a mountain.

Yet here he was. Alive.

Now Steve and the girl beside him were moving out of the way. Max was shrugging off the embracing arm of the Dusty Springfield lookalike; he was coming off the banquette and walking towards her with that same fluid, panther-like way of moving he’d always had.

He stopped walking two paces away. It was him. More compact and more powerfully muscular than Constantine. Shorter, but only by a couple of inches. It was
him.

‘Jesus . . .’ said Annie.

‘You fucking
slut
,’ said Max.

Annie recoiled as if he’d slapped her. ‘What?’ she could only whisper, blinking with surprise.

‘
What?
What do you mean,
what
?’ he went on angrily. He was staring at her as if she was filthy. ‘My God, I should have known. Getting into bed with your own sister’s fiancé? That should have told me all I needed to know about you.’

‘What the . . .?’ Annie was trying to gather herself. He was attacking her, wading into her, and – for God’s sake –
he’d
been a part of that too, every bit as guilty as she was. She felt a stirring of fury deep in the pit of her stomach. She’d done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. He had
no right
to slag her off like this.

But now he was grabbing her left hand, staring at it. She was still wearing the wedding ring Constantine had slipped onto her finger, and the big vulgar diamond engagement ring he’d bought for her at Tiffany’s in New York.

Max stared at the evidence for long moments, then dropped her hand with a disdainful flick of the wrist.

‘You know what?’ he said, and now his eyes were boring into hers. ‘Constantine Barolli’s fucking well welcome to you. Of all the cheap tricks!’

‘I thought you were dead,’ said Annie numbly, aware of Dusty back there sneering at her and enjoying this put-down, aware of the others watching, taking it all in. ‘I was
told
you were dead.’

‘Yeah? And instead of going into mourning, what did you do? You shagged Barolli and left the country with him.
That’s
how grief-stricken you were.’

‘That ain’t true,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah it is. You couldn’t
wait
to get another man in your bed, could you?’

Annie could only stare at him, overcome.

‘
Could
you?’ he demanded.

She took a deep breath, steadied herself. She felt on the verge of collapse, on the verge of shrieking and being unable to stop. But she wouldn’t let him and his cronies see her fall apart. She drew herself up to her full height and looked him dead in the eye.

‘You know what, Max Carter?’ she said, and her voice was firmer now, louder. ‘You can just
fuck. Right. Off.
You got that?’

And she turned on her heel and walked away from him, pushing back through the crowds until she reached Nico, who was still standing at the bar with Dolly.

‘You see him?’ asked Dolly, her face worried.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Annie on a trembling laugh, breathing hard with the effort of maintaining a calm front. ‘I saw him. Come on, Nico, let’s go.’

Chapter 45

Outside, Annie breathed in the fresh night air and felt that she wanted to just get in the car and tell Nico to drive to the ends of the earth; she just wanted to get away from the torment of it all, the confusion in her brain, the hideous images that kept flashing through it, the nightmares that would not let her rest.

‘You okay?’ Nico asked her as she hurried along, hands in pockets, trying not to even
think
any more.

‘Fine,’ she lied. The car was up ahead; she just wanted refuge, she wanted it all to
stop
.

They reached the car, and Nico was now fumbling with the key on the passenger side of the car to let her in out of the misty rain, while she waited. There was a loud noise, stunningly loud, a car backfiring. Annie jumped and looked around, up and down the street. She could see nothing, only shadows, only the wet gleam of the tarmac after the evening’s early rain, the lines of cars, the cold yellow glare of the streetlights.

Nico was leaning in against her, heavier and heavier.

She looked at him, actually focused on him for the first time since they’d rushed out of the club. In the dim light she could see he wasn’t trying to open the car door any more; his eyes were closed and he was slowly keeling over onto her.

‘Nico!’ she screamed.

But he didn’t seem to hear her. He was toppling like a tree. She was falling beneath him, trying to support his weight and failing. She sagged to the pavement with Nico’s huge bulk pinning her there. She felt the hard, cold surface hit her shoulder, then her knee. Oh Christ, he was so heavy!

‘Nico,’ she gasped out. He was smothering her, crushing her ribs; she could barely get her breath. ‘
Nico.
’

He’d had a heart attack. She was certain of it. All that they had endured together over the last months had finally proved too much for the old soldier. She lay there, pinioned. She tried to move, tried to shift him even an inch or two, and she couldn’t. She slumped back. Tried not to panic. Help would come. There were other cars here; someone would sooner or later come and free her, get Nico the help he needed.

Someone was coming now. She heard footsteps, saw a dark shape standing over them.

‘Thank God,’ she wheezed. ‘He . . .’ And then she stopped talking as she saw the gun.

That wasn’t a backfiring car.

Nico hadn’t had a heart attack. He’d been
shot.

‘Holy
shit
,’ she muttered, pushing desperately at Nico’s bulk, trying to move him, desperate to get free, to run, while all the time her eyes were fastened upon that dark shadowy figure above her – she couldn’t see its face – and the icy glint of the muzzle as the figure raised the gun and pointed it with slow, easy deliberation, straight at her head.

Oh shit, was this Max? Was this Max, disgusted with her, wanting her dead?

It would be quick, anyway. An end to all the pain.

But still she pushed at Nico’s body, tried to get free. She wasn’t succeeding. She was going to die. She slumped back onto the pavement and the figure took aim.

Here it comes.

She was almost glad.

Then there was a shout; the figure stopped, the gun lifted. The shadowy figure stepped back, started to run, was gone. Suddenly there were men surrounding her where she lay, people tugging at Nico, heaving his senseless body off her. Someone pulled her roughly to her feet. She staggered, feeling the swell of sickness, the aftermath of terror – and then realized that she was leaning against the hard, reassuring body of her ‘dead’ first husband, Max Carter. Horrified, she pulled herself quickly away and sagged instead against the side of the car. Gary Tooley was there, squatting over Nico, Steve Taylor looking on.

‘Any good?’ asked Steve, glancing down at Nico and then skipping around to scan the streets all around them.

Annie looked where they were all looking now – at the dark spreading stain on the left of Nico’s chest. The sickness swelled up into her throat. She swallowed hard, turned away.