The Jump (59 page)

It was this underlying softness, the capacity Donna had for caring deeply, that attracted him to her.

As he held her, he heard the destruction of the hotel all around them and felt whole once more, cleansed of every wrongdoing ever attributed to him. He likened the feeling to one the soldiers must have felt at the end of the war, when they opened up the gates of the death camps.

He was wiping out all his past misdeeds and writing a new page in his life.

A life he wanted to share with the woman in his arms. She had become like a drug to him, and now he knew that he needed her more than he had ever needed anyone or anything in his life.

And with the destruction of Georgio Brunos’s memory, there was a chance he just might get her.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Donna was sipping a glass of lemonade, while Alan and his henchmen were soring out the last of the Bay View Hotel. One of the men, a bull-necked heavyset individual with deep brown eyes and thick wavy hair, was speaking rapidly into the phone in Urdu.

Alan smiled at Donna grimly. They both looked towards Stephen who lay slumped in a chair staring ahead as if in a trance. His face was blue and swollen, and he was covered in his own blood. Donna felt nothing as she looked at him.

‘He must have been off his head, Donna, to think he could get away with murder. Did Georgio know you were going to top his wife if needs be?’ Alan dragged Stephen’s face around to look at him.

The wounded man smiled, wincing as the move made his lips crack open once more.

‘He was going to leave her high and dry, mate. Even the money from the house, he planned to take that. He was going to leave you with nothing, darlin’. All this was his baby, he loved it out here.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Stephen!’ Alan’s voice was harsh and Donna, leaning forward in her seat, said, ‘No, let him finish, I want to know.’

Stephen shook his head as if she was a recalcitrant child. ‘You’re a stupid cunt, Donna, you always was. Even now you want to know the truth, don’t you? You’re like my mum; tell the truth and shame the devil.’ He laughed hysterically. ‘She didn’t know the devil was living in her house, the devil and his cohorts.

‘Lewis was unaware that his money was being used for all this. That’s where I was going to sort it all out, see - once Georgio was on the trot. Lewis really believed that I was investing his money, and he was getting a good return on it. I was shitting meself for a while, in case he and Georgio ever got to nattering. That line Georgio spun you about Lewis losing money on the hotels was shite - just a lucky guess. I involved Lewis, and then I was going to row Georgio out, see. Because I set all this up. All I needed was his money, but Georgio being Georgio wanted to run the whole rucking shebang. He even wanted the palatial hotel as well. It was me who fucked all that up. I

know my market, see, something Georgio never gave me credit for.’ ‘You’re a piece of fucking shite!’

This from Joey, the leader of Alan’s posse. It was delivered in a thick Geordie accent.

Stephen sniggered. ‘So what does that make you lot then, eh? It was the people on this island that made all this possible. They fought hammer and tongs for us to take their kids, buy them off them. Rent them for a year, and then renegotiate. Supply and demand, mate, the British way of doing business.’

Alan shook his head and said half to himself, ‘I still can’t believe what we stumbled on here. Are there any other operations going on? What about in the Smoke?’

Stephen shrugged. ‘What do I get for my information?’ Alan looked into the battered and swollen face and finally, after long moments, answered him.

‘You get out of here, that’s what you get. Then you disappear off the face of the earth, mate, because I’m going to put the word all over the streets about you, Brunos. About all this, about your wonderful achievements in Asia with little kids.’

Stephen had the grace to look away, knowing he was caught up in something that was now beyond his control. ‘So how are Jack and Jo Jo involved?’

Stephen dabbed at a trickle of blood and swallowed heavily before answering.

‘Jack wanted out pretty much from the start, but you know Jack and Jojo. Where Jojo leads, Jack inevitably follows. They sort out the printing of the merchandise over in England. The books are big money, you’d be surprised the number of men who want what we supply. Georgio’s brainchild was the modem. You know what he’s like with computers. It was one step on from what we were doing here, see? We videoed the kids, took photos, and then we marketed them. Georgio thought up the first batch of titles. Now we’re worldwide, thanks to a contact we found in a northern university. He marketed the stuff for us over the Internet, then we just decided to do it for ourselves.’

‘And what about the children, Stephen?’ Donna’s voice was empty. ‘What about them? Like I said earlier, they were bought and paid for, Donna.’

He grinned at her then, knowing it was killing her hearing all the gory details.

‘Some of the kids are quite good at it, you know,’ he went on conversationally. ‘In fact, with these Asian kids, it’s a kind of knack they’ve got. They’re scum, and we have a permanent supply.’

455

them Alan’s fist hit Stephen on the side of the head with such force it split his ear open, nearly tearing it off. “I’ll fucking kill you, Brunos, do you hear me?’ he snarled. Donna watched, expressionlessly.

Joey topped up her glass of lemonade and said in a low voice, ‘I was offered into all this like, but I knocked it back. I’m glad I did and all. Every time I look at my own kids, I’ll think of these poor little fuckers. Some of the kids here don’t even know where they’re from. We’ll have to take them to one of the Catholic missions, I think. Let them sort it out. When the parents finally arrive the locals will explain what’s happened. The trouble is, a lot of the time the parents sell the kids and then forget about them.’ He ran his hands nervously through his thick wiry hair.

Joey noticed the green tinge to Donna’s face and said gently, ‘Get the lass away, Alan, we’ll finish up here. It’s better if you disappear now anyway. Leave it to me and the local filth to clear this lot up.’

Alan held out a meaty fist. Thanks, Joey, I appreciate it.’

He grinned now, displaying pristine white teeth.

‘You’re paying well, but in all honesty I’d have come here for nowt. I don’t know, Alan. There’s shite in the world these days, and yet it’s the armed robbers that everyone seems to hate. Property or other people’s money is sacred. Human life is a different ballgame altogether, eh?’

Alan nodded, and taking Donna by the arm, he led her from the room.

As they walked through the hotel, she looked at all the children. They were sitting quietly, their faces devoid of expression, no real feeling evident anywhere, accepting this latest development in their fate as they had everything else.

‘What’ll happen to them, Alan? What will be the end result?’

He opened the car door. ‘I can’t answer that one, darling. It was their parents who brought them here. Let Joey sort it out now. We’ve done all we can, haven’t we?’

She looked up into his face and said softly, ‘Have we? Then why aren’t I feeling any better?’

Alan sighed heavily and Donna looked at him properly. She saw the lines around his eyes and mouth, the deep hollows across his face through lack of sleep, and she shook her head in despair.

‘Who cares about them though? Who really cares?’

‘I don’t know, love. Now get into the car, will you? God only worked one day at a time, remember, and even He ended up having a day off.’

If Donna had had a chuckle inside her, she would have given it. As it was, she couldn’t even cry any more.

Jack Coyne looked worried and Jo Jo O’Neil was getting annoyed, ‘So you can’t get through. Big deal. You know what the situation’s like out there. Sometimes they can’t use the phones for days.’

Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t care, Jo Jo, there’s something not right. I can feel it in my water.’

Jojo laughed loudly. ‘Are you sure? You can feel it in your water! Now I’ve heard everything. Knowing Stephen, he’s on a pussy hunt with that piss-head Jake. Only knowing Stephen’s little foibles, Jake’s shagging the kids and Stephen’s after their grannies!’ He laughed uproariously at his own wit.

Jack was silent for a while, until Jo Jo said heavily, ‘Will you go home? I can’t stand you sitting there with a face like a wet weekend in Blackpool. I’ve got a little bird coming round soon, and I want to get her in the mood for shagging, not hanging herself.’

Jack wiped his large hand across his face.

‘I still think there’s something not right. I couldn’t even get a fax through to them. They’re supposed to be letting us know when the next lot of merchandise is coming through, and we’ve heard nothing. Even the modem line is dead.’

Jojo lost his patience. ‘Jack, fuck off home, will you? Play with the kids, play with yourself if you have to, but please, go home.’

Jack stared at Jojo’s bandaged hand. The stumps looked swollen and he knew Jojo was eating painkillers like sweets, on top of his usual bucketful of alcohol a day.

‘He might as well have shot you in the head,’ he said spitefully, ‘because since Nick blew your fingers off you’ve been half-mad.’

Jojo’s face was dark with temper as he bellowed, “I’ll see me day with him!’ He looked down at his fingerless hand and said through gritted teeth, ‘Once the jump’s over, he’s mine. I promised that to oneself. He’s mine and I’ll have that bastard screaming for mercy.’

Jack interrupted him, saying levelly, ‘The way you’re treating the businesses you won’t be able to sort out your dirty washing, let alone Nick Carvello. Drink and drugs, drugs and birds, drink and birds. That’s all you do.’

Jojo looked at his business partner and only friend and said jovially, ‘So what else is new?’

Jack sighed. He knew in his heart that something was wrong in Sri Lanka, and also knew that until he could prove it, his friend and mentor just wouldn’t want to know.

Five minutes later a young girl with tits like rugby balls and a mouth like the Toxteth sewers arrived.

Jack went home then.

457

them All he was interested in was his wife, his kids, and keeping out of prison. With Jojo going over the top like this since the run-in with Nick, he knew that everything he held dear was in danger, and he would cut his partner’s throat with a blunt razor before he let him destroy everything.

Alan sat on the splendid verandah of the hotel sipping a large scotch. The room was actually on the beach itself, about twenty yards from the sea. The sound of the waves coming in was reassuring. The sea was constant, dangerous, and commanded respect. He could identify with that. He loved to listen to it at times like this, with the only other sounds the high peeping noise of the insects, and with the reflection of the nloon on the shimmering water.

Donna’s hotel was discreet and classy. It was for people who enjoyed solitude and were willing to pay for it. It was a far cry from the Bay View in Hikkadoa.

There was a small pathway leading to the water itself, and a freshwater shower. Following the pathway, Alan slipped into the sea, letting the cold water envelop him and cleanse him of the sights and sounds of the day. He wanted it to wash away the feeling of dirtiness Stephen had left upon him.

He closed his eyes tightly as he pictured the small body of the little girl. He tried to blot out the picture, and the unwanted memories it evoked. They didn’t even know her name.

He swam for ten minutes then came out of the water. As he walked up the pathway he saw Donna on the verandah in a thin wrapper, fresh from the shower, the outline of her body revealed against the lights.

As he reached her she sat down on one of the padded chairs and picked up her glass of scotch.

Alan rubbed himself dry then settled beside her. ‘How are you feeling now, love?’ he asked tenderly.

Donna shook her glistening wet hair. ‘I don’t know. It’s all been too much to take in, I think.’

‘It’s the little girl that’s the horror, eh?’ He grasped Donna’s hand as he spoke and she was grateful to him. She nodded her head, eyes shimmering with tears.

‘She was so small, Alan, so vulnerable. Like a little doll. I wish we could go to the authorities.’

He wagged her hand up and down as he spoke.

‘Listen, Donna, we went through all that earlier. They would bang us all up, you included, and believe me when I say a lesbian wing on Holloway would be preferable to being banged up here. Let Joey sort it out.’

458

Donna took a deep breath and watched the moon. ‘We always seem to be letting other people sort things out, don’t we? Shall I tell you something, Alan? When I first met Jonnie H. and Nick and all the others, I was terrified inside. I had to pretend that I was in control, ,you see. For Georgio. If you knew how frightened I was! Even when I met you. I didn’t like you very much, a convicted murderer.

‘No matter what I found out about Georgio, I never cared. Nothing could be that bad, see, because I loved him so very much. I was grateful to him, because until I met Georgio I was little Orphan Annie, Donna Fenland, nobody. He made me into somebody. He gave me a family, and a life. As the years went on, I was grateful if he made love to me. Really grateful. Pathetically grateful, in fact, because I knew he was seeing other women. Yet that was preferable to not having him. I needed him desperately.

‘How could I have let him, or anyone for that matter, do that to me? How did it happen, Alan?’ She looked into his face then. ‘How did I allow myself to get caught up in all this?’

Alan put a heavy hand up to her face and cupped her cheek. ‘As you said, Donna. You loved him.’

‘But is that really any excuse - for all this?’ She pulled his hand away from her face. ‘It was weakness, Alan. I was weak inside. I’ve always been weak inside. Deep down I wanted the house and the cars and the big brash husband. I’d never done a day’s work. Forty years old and never, ever done a real day’s work.’ She laughed gently. ‘That’s shocking really, isn’t it? I judged those mothers today, who took their kids to the Bay View Hotel, and I’ve never been without money once in all my life. Without love, without affection, yes, but never without money. Georgio always gave me plenty of that. Who am I to judge them when I can’t even produce a child?’ . Alan was quiet beside her, knowing that she had to get it all out of her system before she could get on once more with her life.

‘You’re a nice man, do you know that? Why didn’t I ever realise it before?’

He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘After what you just found out about your old man, the Yorkshire Ripper would be classed a nice man.’

Donna laughed then, a tired sound. Standing up, she looked down into Alan’s face. Then she knelt in front of him, resting her head in his lap. Instinctively, he placed a large hand on her hair, rubbing the nape of her neck gently. Wanting to make her feel better, knowing that she needed someone to make it all all right.