They talked money, lots of it. Five thousand for information, five thousand to discover that there had been no fuel leak; five thousand to find that Constantine Barolli the Mafia don had ordered sabotage, had wanted both Redmond and Orla dead.
‘And there’s more,’ said Gary Tooley, clearly gloating now. ‘This old cunt keeps phoning here, talking about past times, and she’s hinting at something more. Something incredible.’
‘And what is that?’ demanded Redmond.
Gary spread his long-fingered hands. ‘That I don’t know yet,’ he lied. ‘But I will. I’ll worm it out of the crazy old bitch and then we’ll talk again, yeah? Agree another price for the additional information?’
Redmond smiled. It was the smile of an alligator before it snaps its jaws shut on its prey.
‘Of course,’ he said.
After the meeting, Redmond went home to his new rented house.
‘Good day?’ asked Mitchell, who had replaced the old housekeeper after his troubles with the church. Mitchell had worked for Redmond years ago, he could cook – after a fashion – and he was handy in any sort of fight, however nasty, so he was always useful to have around. Redmond had been booted out of his grace and favour home, although that didn’t concern him much. Years ago he had salted money away all over the place, the proceeds of lorry hijacks and shop robberies; he was minted. He could do as he pleased. He did miss all those willing little acolytes from the church, but what could you do? There were always women, if you wanted them. Right now, he didn’t.
‘Yeah, good,’ he said, and doggedly ate the meal Mitchell had prepared to keep his strength up, although he felt sick with excitement and his insides were churning.
Constantine Barolli had planned to kill him, and his twin.
And for what? Because Barolli had the hots for Annie Carter, of course. And who wouldn’t? She was – had always been – magnificent. Strong, ferocious – a lioness. You had to admire that.
It was a miracle that they had survived that crash.
The Mafia boss had wanted them dead.
And Gary Tooley had said there was more information to come.
Redmond wanted that information now.
He finished the meal, hardly even registering what he was eating, and went upstairs to his bedroom. There he sat on the bed for a while, then he stood up, stripped off his jacket and his shirt, and went to the mirrored wardrobe. Turning slightly, he saw the marks on his back, the freshly healed scars there. He opened the wardrobe door and took out a brown cardboard box, three feet long by four inches wide, removed the lid, and lifted out the kidney-shaped piece of rubber and the cat o’ nine tails hidden there.
He was wicked and he knew it.
He’d disgraced the church.
Disgraced himself.
Self-flagellation was the only cure, the only thing that cleansed him and made him feel better. So he lifted the woven-leather handle, marked brown with dried blood – his blood, and the blood of some of those women before Sally Westover, those poor little acolytes of his with their puny soft backs striped with the marks of the whip, the way he liked them, whimpering in pain and fear and adoration.
He put the rubber between his teeth. Then he lifted the whip out, and swung it back, and struck, hard.
The pain was exquisite, cleansing him, scouring his troubled soul.