The Jump (25 page)

Alan was not surprised to see Donna standing in his office. He had had a feeling she was going to show up. He poured her a small brandy and as she lit herself a cigarette, he sat back in his1 chair, enjoying the sight of her. She was really a sweet-looking little thing, even if she did have a tongue like an adder.

‘So Mrs B. What can I do for you?’

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Donna. Taking a deep draw on her cigarette, she said gently, ‘I need to know what’s going on, Mr Cox.’

Alan lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sorry?’

Donna could feel herself getting annoyed and forced herself to calm down. She tried another tack.

‘Look, Mr Cox, I was hoping we could forget about what happened and start fresh. Georgio is depending on us, and I don’t think it’s a good idea if he knows that we aren’t getting on very well. I think we should at least give it a try, and if it doesn’t work out in say a month, we’ll both have a rethink. What do you say?’

Alan tut-tutted gently.

‘In case it’s escaped your notice, I have invited you into my office, I have poured you a brandy, and I have lit your cigarette for you. Now, lady, according to my lights, that is an act of forgiveness.
will give you two weeks - and if you don’t show enough savvy, me and you are parting company whether Georgio likes it or not. Fair enough?’p>

‘Fair enough.’

i Donna was shrewd enough to realise that this was as close as Alan Cox would ever come to any kind of apology.

‘May I ask you something, Mr Cox?’

She observed the exaggerated shrug and felt once more the prickle of annoyance he always provoked in her. ‘Do you know anything about Stephen Brunos at all? Either before Georgio was put away or since?’

She watched his pupils dilate and felt a stab of satisfaction. ‘What I’m asking you, Mr Cox, is do you know anything about Talkto Enterprises?’

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them Nonplussed for a second, Alan felt his own temper rising inside him.

‘What the fucking hell are you on about now?’

Donna sighed and started to talk calmly and reasonably. ‘All I am asking is this. Talkto is supposedly a telephone business - you know the kind of thing: how to cope with arthritis
etc.
It’s got a good turnover and it’s making a handsome profit … except I found another set of books tonight, and these books have only a list of names and amounts of money written beside them. For example, one entry said, “Gilly, fifty-five minutes, sixty-five pounds”. Then beside that in a separate column, “ten pounds”. I take it those were Gilly’s earnings-. Then in another book I find shifts written down, once more with girls’ names, times, et cetera. There was a young lady at the offices who worked in a peepshow. I think the second set of books are about that. I wondered if you could shed any light on all this?’

Alan downed his brandy and said testily, ‘Are you trying to accuse me of pimping?’

Donna’s eyes widened in shock. ‘Of course not…’

‘Well, why would you think I’d know anything about that then?’

Donna was frightened by his reaction.

‘I am not accusing you of anything, but as you seem to be a member of the Soho elite I just thought you might know what it was all about, that’s all. I am not, I repeat not, accusing you of anything untoward.’

‘I should fucking hope so and all! Let me give you a bit of advice. Whatever Stephen Brunos is doing is his affair, all right? Not yours, mine or anyone else’s. That’s one of the first things you need to know. Don’t judge anyone, don’t question anyone, and never, ever under any circumstances ask anyone what they do for a living. Even a peepshow hostess. It’s the unwritten law, love. Keep your beak out of everyone’s affairs. It can become very unhealthy if you know too much about anyone, do you get my drift? If Stephen Brunos is running a few toms then that’s his affair, not yours, and fucking certainly not mine.’

Donna lit another cigarette and said in a trembling voice, ‘Why are you so aggressive towards me? Swearing upsets me.’

Alan really did laugh now.

‘Swearing upsets you and you want to be my number two!’ His voice was incredulous. ‘Darh’n’, swearing around this gaff is like “God bless you” in a vicarage. Said all the time without a second thought. So get used to it. Now, let’s look at all this from Stephen Brunos’s point of view, shall we? I reckon he went to Georgio and said, “Right, got a bit of collateral, bruv?” “Yeah,” says Georgio,

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and bungs him a few grand. He’s a sleeping partner now, ain’t he? In fact, he wasn’t just a sleeping partner; if I know Georgio he was in a fucking coma! Which is exactly how I like my sleeping partners, how everyone likes their sleeping partners! That, my little love, is why they’re called fucking sleeping partners.’

Donna sat upright in her chair, her face flaming red with embarrassment. ,) ; ‘I just wanted some advice—’

Alan cut her off. ‘And that is exactly what you got. And I’ll give You another bit of advice while you’re here. When we get going with this little lot, I hope you don’t intend to pull any more stunts on me like this. Checking up on me, trying to be Girl Wonder, because if you do, me and you will have a little falling out. If I tell you to jump off a cliff, then you jump. No questions - nothing. Your job is to do what the fuck I tell you and relay the messages back to Happy Harold on the Island. That’s it. I am in charge, let’s get that straight once and for all.’

Donna was shocked and hurt by his words. She did not know that Alan was worried for her. After requesting another number two, he had been given word that this woman in front of him was what he had, whether he liked it or not. She was attractive, a nice person, but for company, not for working with on a daily basis on something that could get dangerous, nasty, and already had the bad luck to have Lewis hanging over it like the Sword of Damocles.

Donna stood up unsteadily. Picking up her handbag, she turned to leave the room. Alan sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Donna.’

She turned at the door and he saw in the harsh light the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Walking over to her, he pulled her into his arms. The action made Donna really start to cry. She cried as she hadn’t since the day Georgio was sentenced. She breathed in the smell of Alan Cox, the cigar and brandy odour mixed with a hint of lemon from his aftershave, she felt strong arms around her, pulling her frail bpdy into his, and the longing for her husband overcame everything else, everything that he had said to her, and she found herself holding him, squeezing herself into the confined space of his arms. Frightened in case he let her go too soon and she couldn’t assuage the grief that was inside her.

Alan held her while she cried, unable to understand his sudden tenderness towards her, his feeling that holding her was the right thing to do. Seeing her sitting in front of him, with her face drawn, her active mind concentrating on Stephen Brunos instead of on the job she was already up to her neck in, had angered him. Angered him

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them because he felt ineffective. Georgio wanted her, and so she was the number two. He wanted to ask her how she felt about her husband putting her life in danger, because that was exactly what he had done. It wasn’t just a jailbreak here, and God Himself knew that was enough. It was a jailbreak under the nose of, and without the knowledge of, Donald Lewis.

He could feel her trembling, and when finally she pulled herself away from him, he was sorry. Desperately sorry. Because he was enjoying the nearness of her, the smell of her hair, her perfume.

“I’m sorry, Alan, you must think me a fool.’

He smiled gently down into her face. Her make-up was smudged, her eyes red and swollen, yet she looked more desirable to him then than any woman had before.

‘You’re upset, Donna, and I’m not surprised. I was a bully, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

She took a deep shuddering breath.

‘I think we were both at sixes and sevens today. Both in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not usually a crier - Georgio can bear me out on that.’

It was as if his name had opened up a gulf between them, and each subconsciously took a step back from the other, distanced themselves in case the embrace should be repeated.

‘Let’s both have another brandy,’ Alan suggested, taking charge again, ‘and then we’ll talk properly about what you came here to ask, shall we? I promise not to bite your head off.’

Donna wiped her eyes once more with her fingers and smiled tremulously. Alan handed her a large white handkerchief and she patted her face carefully, dismayed at the black streaks appearing on the snowy linen.

Alan poured them both more drinks. Opening a box on his desk, he took out a cigarette and lit it, handing it to Donna as she once more seated herself in her chair. She took it gratefully, pulling on it hard, drawing the smoke down into her lungs as if it was oxygen and she was dying for lack of it.

‘Drink your brandy.’ Alan’s voice was still low. He could feel the electric charge in the room and knew that Donna Brunos felt it as well.

‘I’m afraid I had what is known as a shitty day today, Donna, and you came in on the tail end of it—’

She interrupted him. ‘No, Alan, you were right in all you said, really. I should never have come here asking your advice like that. You have known Stephen a long time; this is your patch here, Soho, your way of life. I turn up like a silly schoolgirl asking stupid

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questions on a whim - and it was a whim, you know. Nothing concrete, just a gut feeling.’ She laughed gently as she spoke, feeling foolish once more. “I’ll ring Stephen tomorrow and apologise to him. He must feel like I have taken his kindness and kicked it back into his teeth. He really was a boon when Georgio was sentenced. So please … don’t apologise. It’s me who should be apologising, for bothering you in the first place.’ Alan grunted. If only she wouldn’t be so bloody humble! ‘Look, Donna, I don’t mind you asking me questions, honestly. It’s just that today I was a bit overwrought, that’s all. Now as to what you said about Stephen, I think it would be best for all concerned if you left him to run Talkto. OK? Just leave him doing what he4cnows best. Really, Donna, it’s the only thing you can do. I have set the ball rolling for the other business and believe me when I say, once we get our tongues around that lot, there won’t be time for a shit, a shave or a shampoo.’

Donna laughed at him. She felt as if she had somehow been reborn. He was right, of course, she had no reason to try and tell Stephen how to run his businesses. He had done perfectly adequately without her. Who did she think she was anyway? In her mind’s eye she had a vision of what Georgio would have said to her regarding Talkttf and was uncomfortably aware it would be along the lines of Alan Cox’s advice.

‘Drink your brandy, ducks, and let’s relax for a moment. Just through that doorway there is a bathroom. When you’re ready, go and wash your face, you’ll feel much better.’

Five minutes later he was listening to the taps running and cursing himself for what he had done. But he also told himself that as much as he had upset her, and he knew that he had, she would be much more upset by the time she was through with the next step of this operation. She had cried tonight because he had told her off. How would she react to people like Anthony Calder? And poor old Tony was one of the good guys!

. Alan hoped deeply and honestly that before too long Donna Brunos would retire from the fray and let him get on with it his own way. As it was she was becoming a liability. Not least because he felt a bit too much for her, and at the end of the day, as he told himself over and over again, she was Georgio Brunos’s wife, and Georgio had done him more than a few favours.

As she walked out of the small bathroom he smiled pleasantly at her, all the while planning a visit to Georgio to try and talk some sense into the man. Once he had decided that, he felt better. Donna, for her part, was still embarrassed and humiliated. Even

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them though she accepted that Alan Cox was right and sensible in what he had said about Stephen she knew deep down that there was more going on with Stephen Brunos than met the eye - and she was determined to find out exactly what it was … Alan Cox was right to an extent, as she had just realised. Her name was down on Talkto. If she was a partner, silent or otherwise, and if Stephen was doing something illegal, surely that affected her? So she made up her mind to carry on looking into Talkto’s businesses, even if Alan, and Georgio if he could have, advised her to stay away.

The couple sat opposite each other, both scheming, both smiling, and both glad of the other’s company. Both hoping to forget what had taken place, because it had affected them more than either would have liked to admit.

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Chapter Eighteen

Georgio and Timmy sat at a small table eating cheese omelettes and salad, made for them by Sadie.

Timmy shovelled half the omelette into his mouth on his fork. He chewed noisily, unaware of the faint look of revulsion on the faces of both Sadie and Georgio.

‘This is handsome, Sade, do us another one.’

Sadie tutted and left the cell to go into the kitchen once more and resume cooking.

‘She ain’t a bad old stick, my Sade, is she, Georgio?’

Georgio smiled. ‘No. In fact, she’s all right really.’

Pleased with Georgio’s answer, Timmy shoved the other half of the omelette into his mouth and chewed on it noisily.

‘Didn’t anyone ever learn you any manners, Timmy?’

The big man shrugged. His mouth full of food, he mumbled: ‘Nan, what for? I ain’t going to be eating with the Queen, am I?’

Georgio grinned. ‘I think we can safely assume you’re right there, Timmy. Honestly, you eat like you ain’t eaten in months.’

Timmy picked his front teeth with his fork.

‘Well, it’s good scram, ain’t it? I don’t know why you’re always going on about the way I eat, the way I smell and everything. I’m a man, ain’t I? Men are a bit… well, manly.’

Georgio pushed the rest of his omelette on to Timmy’s plate.

‘Just because you’re a man don’t mean you can’t have a wash or eat with your mouth closed, Timmy,’ he said good-humouredly. ‘Christ Almighty, how far do you think Sylvester Stallone would have got if he ate like a pig and smelled like a poke of devils? It’s like torture in this cell some nights with the hum of you. Honestly, Timmy, I’m telling you as a mate.’

Before the big man could answer, Lewis walked into the small cell. ‘You should listen to him, Timmy. Our Georgio likes his men to smell nice. He’ll have Sadie off you if you’re not careful.’

Timmy carried on eating, ignoring the man in front of him.

‘I think it’s about time you went into the kitchen with Sadie while I

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them twenty-five-foot electric fence with tremblers all over it. Anything over seven pounds lands on it, the alarms go off. On top of that is three lots of razor wire - no one is going over that! - then there’s the cameras. They are everywhere, plus floodlights, dogs, the whole shebang. The only way out is straight up. That’s where a helicopter comes into it. So as you can see, it’s a big operation.

‘Once he’s out, we need to remove him quickly. Now he ain’t going on the ferry, is he, so we need a boat of some description, then a secret destination for the boat to take him - a place where he can be picked up and subsequently helped to disappear. I think Southern Ireland’s a good idea. Everyone else legs it to Spain. Ireland’s a small place, but there’s plenty of places to hide away until we can ship him off properly when the heat dies down.’

Donna sat listening to Alan in dismay. Now it was actually happening she felt a cold hand grip her heart. Pulling herself together, she stubbed out her cigarette and said: ‘So once he’s out of Parkhurst itself, we arrange a boat to Ireland?’

Alan shook his head. ‘No. We arrange a boat to take him along the coast. Then we change him to a vehicle of some kind. We make our way to Scotland, and from there he’ll go to Ireland. They’ll be looking for a boat, won’t they? If we sink the boat they’ll still be looking for it. No one will guess he’s in Jockland for a good while. When someone escapes they keep a look out on a fifty-mile radius. It’s very rare for someone to be on the trot for any length of time. It’s normally luck that stops them getting caught at once, but the luck usually runs out after a couple of days.

‘What we need is to be well-prepared for any emergency. Have a back-up plan in case anything goes wrong, and to keep level heads. Georgio is depending on us now. He knows the ball’s been set in motion and is trusting us to deliver the goods for him. What I need to know is, after hearing all this, are you sure you can handle it?’

Donna smiled, a tight, deliberate smile.

‘Don’t worry, Alan, I can handle anything you throw at me.’

She regretted her words immediately as she heard his answer.

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that, love, because you’ll have more than a bit of mud thrown at you before this lot’s over, starting on Friday in Scotland.’

. Picking up his wine glass he toasted her silently and Donna was hard-pressed not to slap his smug smiling face.

‘Scotland?’ Dolly’s voice was high. ‘What on earth are you going there for?’ Donna tensed irritably. After listening to Alan Cox telling her in no

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uncertain terms that he thought she wasn’t up to helping him, she now had to get the third degree from Dolly. ‘I’m going for a weekend break, what’s wrong with that?’ Dolly caught the nervousness in Donna’s voice and kept her peace. ‘Christ, Dolly, surely I can go away for the weekend if I want, can’t I?’

‘Of course you can, darlin’, it was just unexpected.’ Donna wiped her hand across her face in agitation. ‘Has Paddy rung in at all today?’

‘No, love. I expect he’ll phone about seven-thirty as usualv’ Donna nodded curtly and walked from the kitchen into the small office. Closing the door, she curled up in the deep easy chair in the foetal position.

She was in over her head even before it had all started. Listening to Alan today had been a frightening experience; she had felt the fear seeping out of her pores even as she sat there in Joe Allen’s. All her big talk was forgotten. As much as she loved Georgio, and she did love him dearly, the full significance of what he had asked her to do had now come home to her. Donna Brunos was being asked to set up a prison breakout with men she would rather not know even existed, let alone have to meet.

She was expected to keep a level head, help with the arrangements, sort out the businesses as well as get her husband his freedom. Suddenly she realised that what she had taken on was too much for her. She wasn’t strong enough to cope. When she was sitting with Georgio she could cope; when she was lying in bed missing him desperately she could cope; now the first steps had been taken, she wasn’t sure she could cope with any of it. Alan Cox’& smug grin had shown her that he could read her like a book, that he knew the fear his words had evoked. That the real truth of the situation had finally dawned on her.

Dolly knocked on the door and brought her in a cup of coffee and a letter. ‘ , “This came from your man by second post.’

Donna took the letter as if it was a live snake. Placing the coffee on the small table by Donna’s chair, Dolly left the room to give her some privacy.

Opening the letter, she read the familiar words of love, loneliness and need. She read between the lines his plea for her to help him escape. She felt the waves of frustration coming off the two pieces of ruled prison paper. The well-worn phrases: I love you, I miss you, and I need you, were interspersed with, I am depending onyou. Reading the letter again she knew that there was no going back now. For better or

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them worse, she would have to keep her part of the bargain. Folding up the letter, she let it drop on to the thick carpet. She was to realise later on, during a sleepless night, that much as she loved her husband, a new element had entered her feelings about him. It was resentment.

She resented him for asking so much of her now, after never asking anything of her before.

Slowly she felt panic rising inside her, felt the cold heavy sweat across her back and shoulders that always accompanies acute fear. Lighting a cigarette with hands that trembled, she sat and pondered her situation properly for the first time.

Before today it had been talk, just talk. Now it was fact, she was really into all this, up to her neck. She was now part of it all and it was scaring her. It was all somehow coming true.

One thought was with her constantly. No matter what she felt, how frightened she became, she would go through with it. She owed Georgio that much.

Outside in the kitchen Dolly was on the phone to Big Paddy. He was as surprised as she was to hear that Donna was going off to Scotland for the weekend.

Paddy quickly understood that Donna’s seeing so much of Alan Cox and now going away could mean only one thing: they were going to spring Georgio. And he also knew that Donna, whether she iet him in on the secret or not, was going to need all the help she could get.

Maeve was listening to Stephen as he talked with his brothers. She could hear the peculiar whine in his voice that he affected whenever he spoke these days about Donna. Maeve knew that somehow the two had fallen out, but about what she couldn’t even begin to guess. The worst of it all was, she wasn’t in a position to ask. It was a situation where once you found out, you would be dragged into the centre of it and asked to take sides.

That was the last thing she needed at this time. With Georgio’s being away, the family was already minus one member. She didn’t want to open her mouth and estrange another two.

Nuala’s voice was tight as she spoke to her brother. ‘What’s this with you and Donna all of a sudden? Why the upset?’

Stephen shrugged. There’s no upset really, I just wish she would stick to her own businesses and leave mine alone.’

Nuala tossed her dark hair impatiently. ‘You were on to her about taking on everything, we all were, she’s only doing what was expected of her. Myself, I knew she’d be great at it all.’

Stephen carried on drinking his coffee. Then, ‘All I’m trying to say

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is, she should keep her nose out of my affairs. When I asked Georgio to be a silent partner, I didn’t think for one moment I’d have his little wife, dear Donna, breathing down my neck.’

Maeve was disturbed and upset at her son’s tone.

‘What have you to hide then, that all of a sudden your business is so private? What’s the rub, Stephen? That child is only doing what her husband wanted, nothing more, and as Nuala says, it’s what we all advised at the beginning.’

‘That “child” is a grown woman, Mum,’ he said viciously, ‘and she can take the helm of all Georgio’s businesses if she wants, I don’t give a damn about that. It’s her interference in my operations that is annoying me.’

Maeve smiled nastily. ‘So, I ask you again, what have you got to hide that’s so important Donna can’t know about it? Is it something to do with Talkto at all?’ Maeve’s voice was heavy with innuendo and Nuala listened in dismay to the burgeoning argument between her mother and brother.

Talkto is a good money-making company—’

Maeve interrupted her son, her voice rising in temper. ‘Do you think I’m some kind of fool, me laddo? I knew from day one what the escort agency really was, and it didn’t take me long to suss out this Talkto crap. You’re me son and I love you, Jaysus Himself knows that, but sometimes I wonder just how eejity you think me and your father are.

‘I’ve seen some of the so-called girls that work for you. Even that secretary, the one with the face like a boiled shite, even she isn’t as good as she tries to make out. How she can take your calls and still hold that snooty beak of hers in the air, I don’t know. So don’t you sit there with your big galoot-looking features and come on at me about Donna Brunos! You should take a leaf out of her book, son, and see how a business should be run. I’ve a good mind to take me hand across your arse, as big as you are.’

‘Mum!’ Nuala’s voice was scandalised.

‘Don’t you “Mum” me, Nuala. This one here thinks he’s some kind of gift from God. Well, it’s about time he was knocked down a few pegs. I’ve known for years he was whoring. Sure, your father knew straight off. Escort agency, my arse! Now he has the gall to sit and pull my Donna apart like that because she’s likely found out what he’s up to and, being a decent kind of girl, wants no more to do with it.

‘Him and Georgio were both great disappointments to me, Georgio because he could never see what he already had, only what he wanted, and him because he’s not man enough to get himself a real job, a real

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them business. When I think of them women it turns me stomach inside out. So now you know, Stephen Brunos, that I know all about ye, and I don’t like it.’ He stood up unsteadily. ‘I will forget what you just said, Mum. I can see you’re overwrought.’

She laughed scornfully. ‘You were always the man with the words. Even as a child you could talk the hind leg off the table. Well, let’s clear the air here once and for all. Every time I think of what you’re doing I feel as sick as a priest at a Jewish wedding. You and Georgio broke me heart between you, and now I’ve had it up to here.’ She poked herself in the forehead to emphasise her point. ‘When I think of how you spoke about Donna, you two-faced bastard of hell, I could cut the legs from under ye.’

‘I think I’d better go.’

Nuala pulled on her brother’s arm, shocked to the core at all her mother had said.

‘Oh, let him go, Nuala, I’m sick of the sight of him.’

Nuala watched her brother walk from the room and Maeve ran to the doorway and called down the stairs to where Stephen was opening the front door.

‘And tell that fat bitch you’re knocking off it’s a sin against God. She’s old enough to be your mother!’

Nuala stood with her fingers across her lips at her mother’s parting words. Maeve pushed past her daughter and stormed back into the tiny front room.

The cheek of that one! I saw him with me own eyes, kissing and pawing at an old biddy, be Christ. I could have ripped the head off the two of them. What have I bred, Nuala girl? One away till Judgment Day and the other a granny lover. If it wasn’t so sad it’d be hilarious.’

‘Oh, Mum!’

‘Jaysus and Mary, is that all you learnt at that convent? “Oh, Mam!” I only told him the truth, it’s about time someone did.’

She lowered herself on to the old settee which groaned under her weight.

This room used to be full of children. I felt blessed because my seven kids were eating well, were healthy. I used to thank God every night on me knees for it all. Now I ask Him what happened? What went wrong? Mario is as queer as a nine-bob note, Georgio’s away for eighteen Christing years, and Stephen … clever, handsome Stephen is running women, and living the life of Riley on the proceeds. Only you, Mary and Patrick seem half-normal, and Mary is so boring you’d fall asleep on the phone to her. All her talk about the neighbours, and