Dangerous by Jessie Keane Read Free Book Online Page A

done since they had last met. And he would tell her, proudly – because he
was
proud, dammit – he would tell her that he was in charge of the patch that had once been Lenny Lynch’s, he was
minted
, he could buy her another house, a better one.
    ‘So long as you’re happy, son,’ she would say, beaming with maternal pride. ‘That’s all I care about.’
    Yeah. In his imagination.
    Only here was the reality. Whistling ‘Say You’re Mine Again’ – he loved Perry Como’s voice, and the song was lodged in his brain – he knocked on his mother’s door and she opened it to him. She seemed almost disappointed to see him standing there. Then she turned without a word and led the way into the house, took up her station in the armchair beside the roaring fire – which
he
had paid for, let’s not forget that – and looked up at him in expectation.
    Marcus knew the drill.
    He handed her the pale blue ribbon-tied Tiffany box. There was a pearl-studded brooch inside it.
    She gave the same sharp nod of satisfaction she always gave. Then, not even opening it, she set it aside on a small table and ran her dark cold eyes over him.
    ‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said.
    ‘Have I?’
    ‘You have.’
    She didn’t invite him to sit down, offer to make tea, enquire whether he wanted biscuits or cake, tell him that he needed feeding up. Marcus didn’t expect that, and would have been startled if she had. His mother hadn’t a single maternal bone in her entire scrawny little designer-clad body. She was always immaculately and expensively dressed, her hair beautifully styled, her make-up faultless. And all the jewels he bought her? He’d never yet seen her wearing any of them. Another poke in the eye. Another rejection.
    Since boyhood he’d been doing this, trying to tease some semblance of warmth out of her. A gift, there always had to be a gift. And news of his achievements, bringing with them the promise of more. But what did he get in return? Fuck all.
    ‘I’ve taken over Lenny Lynch’s manor,’ said Marcus, taking a seat even though she hadn’t invited him to.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘There are four clubs. Five snooker halls. Pubs. Restaurants. Rental properties.’ He didn’t mention the massage parlours and whoring establishments. His mother didn’t like ‘rough talk’. ‘So I can get you a bigger house. A better one. In a better area, maybe.’
    ‘I like it here.’
    Marcus gave a tight smile. So typical of her, to toss it back in his face. ‘You fancied Chelsea, you said so.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ said his mother. ‘We’ll see.’
    ‘We’re rich, Ma,’ he said, and felt weariness grip him.
    ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we,’ she said.

11
    Hours after she found Mum dead, Clara was sitting at the table in the next room. She was still deep in shock and she didn’t know what she was going to do. Bernie was sobbing beside her, her head buried in her arms. Henry was standing beside Bernie, struck dumb, his thumb in his mouth, reverting to babyhood in the face of disaster.
    Clara had closed all the curtains, as was proper with a bereavement. In the room next door, their mother lay dead. It was beyond belief, heartbreaking. And if they had been in trouble before, now they were up shit creek for sure. With Katherine’s small income as a dressmaker, they’d struggled; without it, they had no chance.
    ‘We’ll have to tell someone,’ said Clara.
    Bernie looked up from the table, her grey-blue eyes bloodshot, her pretty pointed little face swollen with the force of her tears. ‘What . . . ?’ she mumbled, dragging a shaking hand through her hair.
    Clara gulped. ‘About Mum.’
    Bernie nodded. There was only quiet in the flat. Deathly quiet. Noise still drifted up from the flats below: music, chatter, noises from another world.
    ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ asked Bernie. She was shaking.
    Clara stared at her. She had always been ‘big sis’, the one who cared for the younger girl, made sure she was