Jackie scuttled away, but not before he’d bent and snatched up the fiver from the ground. Annie watched him go, disgusted. He’d been one of Max’s best, and now look at him – not even the dignity left to argue the toss with her. Not even the dignity left to refuse the money, tell her where to stick it. If he’d done that, she might have thought there was some hope for him. But he hadn’t.
She walked on, with no idea where she was going to go or what she was going to do. Her broken rib and bruised body ached with every step. Her head ached too. People passed her on the pavements and the traffic roared through her throbbing brain like a nightmare. Once, a place of refuge would have been obvious: Dolly’s. But not now, not any more.
He knows.
The thought pinged into her brain and lodged there like a cold metal spike, before sinking to the pit of her stomach and stabbing her with icy dread.
Oh Christ, it’s true. He knows.
A two-stroke motorbike rushed past, the blank black helmet turning her way. Then bike and rider roared off, weaving in and out of the traffic up ahead. A white van pulled into the kerb and two men in navy boiler suits got out. Annie thought they were going to go into the audio shop she was passing in front of, and she went to step around them. They stepped in front of her. She stepped aside again. They blocked her way. Suddenly she thought of Ellie’s place, wrecked.
Six men in boiler suits, hadn’t someone told her that?
Yeah. They had.
Annie stopped walking. Oh Jesus, please, not again. She looked from one to the other of the men, total strangers to her.
‘Look . . .’ she said, dry-mouthed, thinking that she couldn’t take another beating, she just couldn’t.
‘Get in the front,’ said one of them.
‘Wait . . .’ said Annie.
He took her arm and pulled her out into the traffic, then when there was a gap in the flow he opened the passenger-side door and pushed her oh so gently but still very firmly inside the front of the van. He got in, and the driver did too, neatly pinning her between them. No knives in evidence this time, but these were hard men, people who wouldn’t think twice about using force if they had to.
‘Listen, I don’t know what this is about, but you’ve got the wrong person,’ she said quickly. ‘You don’t want to do this. Believe me. I have friends. Dangerous friends.’
They didn’t answer.
Annie gulped as the driver started the van and steered it out into the traffic. ‘Wait! It’s true, what I’m telling you. You’ll be sorry you did this.’
Neither one of them answered.
Annie fell silent, her heart hammering.
There was nothing else to say.