her.
‘Hi, Layla,’ he said, and turned straight to Max. ‘We might have another lead on this Rufus Malone,’ he said.
Annie was watching Layla’s face. She saw the way her cheeks flushed, the hurt in her eyes.
Oh, so that flame’s still burning, she thought.
‘Where?’ asked Max.
‘Essex.’
Max’s attention sharpened. ‘Out on the marshes?’
‘You know about it?’
‘Something O’Connor said. You get an actual address?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then what the fuck are we waiting for?’
Leaving Tony and Bri on guard, Max, Alberto and Annie – despite Max’s protests – shot off out the front door, leaving Layla standing there alone in the empty, echoing hall.
All that effort, all that work. And he hadn’t paid the slightest attention.
‘Welcome home,’ she said glumly to herself. Alberto hadn’t even noticed what she looked like.
That bastard.
She angrily kicked off her heels, snatched them up, and trudged up the stairs.
It had become a daily ritual for Rufus, phoning the farm. He’d let it ring and ring until he couldn’t stand it any longer, then he’d hang up.
But today, after two rings, someone answered. His heart leapt with hope.
‘Yes?’ It was Orla’s mother, her voice quavering. She gave a thick-sounding cough.
‘Mrs Delaney? It’s Rufus – put Orla on, will you?’
‘She isn’t here. She hasn’t been back since the pair of you left… oh, when was it now? I can’t think straight at the moment – I’ve been in bed with the flu all week. I still don’t feel right. I tell you, I’ve been laid low, Rufus. Really bad.’
‘She hasn’t come back then?’ he asked, his stomach twisting in sickening dread.
‘Back from where…?’ Another hard cough; this one rattled on. When she finally recovered her voice, Orla’s mum said: ‘Where’d the pair of you go to in such a hurry, anyway?’
‘No matter,’ he said, and put the phone down.
So she wasn’t at the farm, waiting for him.
He didn’t think the Carters would hold her, locked up in a basement somewhere. Hold her for what? To what end?
Which left only one other option. The worst one, the one he couldn’t bear to face.
Orla, dead? Truly gone from him forever?
Rage surged through him at the thought, rage against the Carter bitch and all her kin. He knocked over the table, scattering cups and plates, smashing them on the floor. Then he stood, panting, remembering that last night in Islington, Orla’s excitement as she’d set off on her mission to kill Annie Carter. How much it had meant to her, making that bitch pay for the hurt she’d caused.
Part of his mind still flinched from accepting that she was dead. How could she be? He’d thought her dead once before, only to discover that she’d survived, against all the odds.