‘A lot. That guy had himself a real bang-shoot with her. Broke some ribs, her nose and her jaw, and there’s a head wound – they’re worried about internal bleeding.’ His eyes met Layla’s, and slid away.
Layla wiped her eyes, pulled free of Annie’s embrace.
‘I was in the monitor room when it happened,’ she said, struggling to regain control. ‘I saw him. It was him, Mum – Rufus Malone. We have to get him.’
At three o’clock next morning, Annie, Max and Alberto were at the Holland Park house. They’d brought Layla home from the hospital, after a lot of protesting on her part.
‘I can’t go. I want to be there when she comes round from the surgery,’ said Layla.
‘She won’t come round until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Get some rest, and we’ll come back then,’ Annie insisted.
So they’d returned to the house, and Annie had put Layla to bed.
Layla had been convinced she wouldn’t – couldn’t – sleep. But she did. She was beyond exhaustion, and Annie had only to sit with her for ten minutes before she was dead to the world. Then she’d crept from the room, and joined Max and Alberto downstairs.
‘Malone can’t be doing all this on his own,’ said Max.
Annie rubbed her eyes. She was tired out, deeply upset by Layla’s distress. She wanted this bastard found, and found fast. But it was like chasing a shadow. Somehow he was constantly evading them. Max had a point. He must be getting help. Help from close quarters.
‘Who though?’ she asked. ‘One of the girls?’ She thought of Layla, the way she’d – much to her mother’s surprise – fitted in at the club, even made friends. It made her skin creep to think that someone could have been in there, assisting Malone.
‘She made any enemies at the club?’ asked Alberto. ‘Someone there dislike her enough to help this guy?’
Annie shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Apart from those two significant lapses, she thought that on the whole Layla had been following her instructions and keeping a low profile. And she wasn’t the type to get into catfights.
Then she thought of Ellie. There’d been trouble with her in the past. Once, she had been a Delaney insider. But that was a long time ago. Since then Ellie had become her friend, she couldn’t even begin to believe that Ellie would have helped bring all this down upon them.
‘What about the guy who was supposed to be watching the monitors. What was his name, Kyle? Where did Chris and Ellie find him? Did they check his references?’
‘Kyle was on his break. Eleven to eleven fifteen. And of course he was checked.’
‘Don’t they have someone covering?’