Is Jackie in here somewhere? she wondered. The same thought was obviously crossing Steve and Max’s minds, because Steve said, ‘Mind if I take a look around the place?’
Redmond shrugged, seeming perfectly relaxed. Whether he said yes or no, it was obvious Steve was going to do it anyway. ‘Of course. Although you won’t find your missing friend here, I’m afraid.’
Steve didn’t reply, he just left the room. They could hear his footfalls as he climbed up to the first floor, could hear the old boards creaking as he moved about up there.
‘Please – sit down,’ said Redmond.
‘I’ll stand, thanks,’ said Max. He planted himself against the wall beside the door and pulled out a gun and pointed it in Redmond’s direction.
Redmond’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but he made no comment.
‘This is Mitchell,’ said Redmond, as the stooping man came into the room, sent a long look at Max and the gun, and took up a position on the other side of the door. ‘He keeps house for me. Sees to things. You know. Mrs Carter . . . ?’ Redmond indicated a seat on the other side of the fire.
Annie sat down, and so did he. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly thick with a palpable air of menace.
‘What did you want to find me for, Mrs Carter?’ asked Redmond.
‘My friend’s been killed. Dolly Farrell,’ said Annie bluntly.
‘Killed? What, you mean an accident?’
‘No accident. She was shot in her flat over the Palermo club. She was managing it for us, for the Carters.’
‘I see. I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs Carter, but I don’t understand how you expect me to help with this.’
‘You knew Dolly – didn’t you?’ asked Annie.
‘Oh, from years back. She was an acquaintance, occasionally an employee, back then.’
‘In the Limehouse knocking shop,’ she said, remembering that Redmond’s language was always formal and polite. He might be an arsehole, but you’d never guess it when you spoke to him.
‘That’s correct,’ he said.
‘Her father abused her.’
Redmond was silent for a long while. Then he said: ‘Yes. I knew about that.’
‘And Dolly asked the Delaney family to do away with her father.’
‘Yes, that’s right too.’
‘Only my friend Jackie’s turned up stories of an accident on the railway where Dolly’s dad worked. And I just wondered . . . was it an accident?’
‘What does any of that matter now?’
‘It matters because someone might be upset at what happened to the old tosser. They might have gone looking for revenge. They might have targeted Dolly. Did the Delaneys organize that “accident”?’
‘God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, Mrs Carter.’ Redmond gave a chilling smile. ‘Yes, your Aunt Celia brought Dolly Farrell to me, wanting me to do something about her father. She explained the situation – it was quite distressing. A kiddie fiddler. A filthy nonce. Is there anything lower? Anything worse?’
Annie shook her head. No. There wasn’t. ‘So . . . what happened?’ she asked.
‘I said, “Let his co-workers decide his fate. Let’s tell them what he is, what he’s done.” Of course they were in uproar. You can rely on the masses for hysteria, I find. One person on his own? Not so bad. An angry group of people? Lethal.’
‘And so?’ Annie prompted. She could hear Steve upstairs, going from room to room.
Fuck it, Jackie, where are you?
But she kept her focus on Redmond. She had to hear the rest of this.
‘They all agreed, all of Sam Farrell’s railway workmates, that he was scum and must go. Arthur Biggs was the train driver, but he was reluctant. He said the guilt would be on his shoulders, he was the one who would back the engine on to Sam Farrell; even if all the others swore it was an accident, he was the one who would do it.’
‘He objected?’ said Max.
‘Strenuously,’ said Redmond. ‘But his co-workers rounded on him and said he had to. So . . . he did.’
Christ, thought Annie.
‘And so,’ said Redmond with a sigh, ‘the people who had once been Sam Farrell’s friends attacked him, and the locomotive backed into him. Crushed his chest and stomach as flat as a pancake. Killed him.’
‘And then Arthur Biggs was so tormented with guilt that he hung himself,’ said Annie, thinking of what Sandy had told her, and that she had to find the Biggs family and speak to them.
‘Did he? I didn’t know that.’
Steve was coming back down the stairs in his size elevens, the treads creaking under his weight as he did so. He caught Max’s eye, shook his head, and then went off further along the hall and started looking in the downstairs rooms. Mitchell sent a look at Max; Max stared him down. Mitchell left the room, went along the hall toward the kitchen.
‘Tea, anyone?’ asked Redmond, and he stood up.
‘No thanks,’ said Annie and Max together.
Then all the lights went out.