Ruthless - страница 4

Annie gazed around her at the empty, opulent study with its tan Chesterfield sofas, its walls lined with books, the costly Aubusson rugs on the floor. She had everything… and she had nothing at all. She’d lost her husband, and her daughter hated her.

Raindrops pattered against the window panes. She stared out of the window at the darkening sky, and wondered how the hell she was going to come back from this. She’d fought so long and so hard, but all she felt was defeated. She was too worn out even to try any more.

Annie sat there and thought of old friends, old enemies, her weary mind a tangle of jumbled images. Two faces emerged from the fog in her brain and she shuddered.

The Delaney twins.

She could see their faces, their cold, pale green eyes, their red hair. Those twisted, horrible bastards.

It was raining harder now and she was dimly aware that she was crying. She never cried. Dig deep and stand alone, that was the motto she’d always lived by. And she’d never been more alone than she was right this minute.

Well, that was one thing she no longer had to worry about. The Delaneys were gone. And she couldn’t help thinking that, perverted as they were, evil and vindictive and out for her blood as they had always been, the Delaney twins were the lucky ones. She was here, alone and suffering: Redmond and Orla Delaney had been fortunate in comparison.

They were out of it.

They were dead.

Over the Irish Sea…, 1970

Orla Delaney had always been a nervous flyer. She was nervous anyway, on this flight – for it was a flight in every sense of the word. Along with her twin, Redmond, she was fleeing for her life in the Cessna 210, knowing that London was over as far as they were concerned. Orla’s only comfort was the knowledge that, before their crime empire had collapsed, they had finally got rid of Annie Carter.

Barumph!

The wind buffeted the small plane with a vicious swirl and she clutched harder at her seat, stifling a scream as the four-seater rocked from side to side and then plummeted, dropping like a stone, leaving her stomach somewhere up on the padded ceiling. She wondered if she was about to be sick.

‘Rough night,’ said Fergal the pilot, a big grey-haired Irishman who sat unperturbed at the controls.

Orla was reassured by Fergal. He’d worked for the Delaney firm for years, ferrying illicit cargoes – drugs, arms, people – in and out of Britain. He boasted he could land the Cessna on a gnat’s tit, he’d been flying it for so long. Orla believed him. He’d been a British Airways pilot once, then he’d done a stint crop-dusting in Kenya before Redmond had recruited him into the far more lucrative family firm.

She glanced at Redmond. He seemed calm. He half-smiled, squeezed her hand briefly. It was only she who was panicking.

It felt like an eternity since they’d left the airport. After a wild drive down to Cardiff in the dead of night, Fergal had flown them into the tumultuous skies unauthorized, with no co-pilot, no mechanic, no clearance. They were in violation of air traffic safety guidelines and aircraft operation rules. But Fergal didn’t give a shit about any of that. Neither did either of his passengers.

Orla glanced at her watch and saw that they’d only been aloft for ten minutes.

Whumph!

Again the wind tossed the plane, batting it almost playfully around the blackening sky. Night was coming, the moon was up and full, scudding clouds drifting across its face. Even in big planes, she was nervous. In a miniscule Cessna, a fluttering stomach and a chest tight with fear took on a whole new level. She prayed for dry land, for the lights of the airport. Peering out of the window, she saw only the dark sea below them. No lights. No ships, even: in weather like this, any sane captain would put in to shore, ride out the storm.

But not them. If they’d delayed getting out of England by so much as an hour, the police would have shut down their escape.

They’d only just made it.

Orla stifled her nerves. It was OK. They’d got away. Soon they’d be in Limerick. She could see it now in her mind: the old farm on the banks of the Shannon, the Delaney family home. From there they could go anywhere, anywhere in the world. All would be well. She breathed deeply, told herself,