Max was silent for a long time, staring at her face.
‘You what?’ he said at last.
‘The man was lonely. Desperate. I think . . . I think he realized what he’d tossed away, all those years ago, and when he saw I wasn’t going to play ball, he lashed out. He threatened you.’
Max was nodding, grim-faced. ‘Oh, that’s clever,’ he said.
‘Clever?’ she echoed faintly.
‘Yeah, it is. So you did it? You spread your legs for that git because you had to, right? To save me. How long did it take you to think that one up?’
Annie stared at him in outrage. ‘You shit,’ she snapped. ‘What, you think I’m playing you? That I’ve cooked up his threat to you so I could just say, “Oh, I had to sleep with him, I couldn’t help it”?’
‘Got it in one,’ he snapped right back.
‘You’re wrong. So wrong. I spoke to Alberto next morning – after a night alone, I might add – and told him what his father said. Alberto spoke to him. And Constantine backed down. He apologized for saying it, and he said that even if I couldn’t agree to . . . well, to be more than that, at least we could be friends.’
Max stared at her in disbelief. ‘Just supposing any of that hogwash is the truth . . .’ he said.
‘It is,’ said Annie.
‘Yeah, yeah. Just supposing it is, and there was no fucking involved, only friendship, my arse . . .’
‘You asked for the true story and I’m giving it to you.’
‘So you stayed friends. Played Monopoly in the afternoons, or poker. Or did he poke you?’
Annie didn’t dignify that last crack with a response. ‘I don’t play poker. As you well know.’
‘Oh, you play all sorts of games, I know that.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you’re not setting the alarm deliberately. Meaning you’ve been expecting me, and you knew damned well I had a key, you remembered that, don’t deny it. You want time to work on me. You’re spinning these tales and hoping I’ll fall for them.’
‘Well, at least you’re getting tales. You’re getting some information. Which is more than I ever got from you, by the way,’ said Annie, flinging one of the pillows aside in frustrated anger. It hurt, and she stifled a wince.
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ he demanded.
‘You cleared off without any explanation. You were fed evil bloody lies by Gary Tooley – who’s always hated me, you know that – and you ran off to Sicily without ever once thinking of talking to me first.’
‘You’d have denied it,’ said Max.
‘Well, of course I would, because what you’re thinking, it’s not even the bloody truth. That’s not the point. The point is, it was “all boys together”, as usual. You believed your old mates over me. And that’s a fucking insult, Max Carter. I’m your wife. And meanwhile, do you know what I thought was happening?’
He shook his head.
‘I thought you were having an affair.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard. We see them all the time on Barbados, don’t we? Men of your age with women twenty years younger. We’ve even laughed about it. The way these girls just happen to turn up when they think a soft target’s in view, a man in his forties or fifties with loads of cash on the hip. Well, you bastard, I thought the joke was finally on me.’ Her voice trembled on those last words.
Max was silent, looking at the floor. Then he said: ‘So. You went back there, to him, many times?’
Annie nodded. ‘Two, three times a year. Sometimes more.’
A muscle was working in Max’s jaw. He looked mad enough to hit someone. ‘Yeah. When you told me you were here in London or going to the States to call in at the Annie’s club in Times Square.’
‘On the way there, I’d call in on him. Sometimes on the way back.’ Annie stared at Max, so closed-off from her, so distant from her. ‘The man was lonely. There was no spark left there between us. None for me, anyway. None at all.’
‘But for him, it was different. He wanted you back.’
‘Yeah. He did. But I made it clear that wasn’t an option.’
‘Really.’
‘Yeah, really. Max – he was shut up in that place. Sometimes he played golf with other big-time crooks who also had to hide away to stay free. But in fact, seeing them, talking to them, seeing the fear in their eyes, you realize that none of them are free at all. They daren’t move, they’re so afraid of the law catching up with them and putting them in the slammer. Well, guess what? They’re already there.’
‘All that bloody time . . .’ Max was shaking his head now. ‘You were up there, with him, seeing him, and you didn’t say a fucking word.’
‘I couldn’t. You know that. And if I could have? Even then, I wouldn’t.’
His head whipped round and those intense navy-blue eyes held hers. ‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ Annie gave a thin laugh. ‘Because you’d have gone up there and killed him.’
‘But you’re telling me now.’
‘Only because you’ve found out anyway. And have I told you the exact location? I don’t think so.’
‘Gary will tell me that. And even if he don’t, I’ll track the bastard down. If it takes years, I’ll do it.’
‘Maybe. But you’ve had time to think now, yeah? To think, and to calm down. And maybe to get together some faith and trust in your own wife, for God’s sake.’
‘When she’s played me for a mug.’
‘Max – I haven’t.’
‘Yeah, you have.’
‘So divorce me then. Only you don’t name him as co-respondent or whatever the fuck they call it – you never name him, OK? Think about it. Because on paper? He’s dead. And because Alberto’s still alive, and he’s with Layla – and Layla means the world to you, I know she does. So you mustn’t stir up anything that involves them. You can’t.’
‘Piss off,’ said Max furiously, and stood up and left the room.
Annie watched him go, her face creased with anguish.
This time, he wouldn’t come back. She knew it.