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  Donna watched as Dolly practically bristled from the room. That word always seemed to be in the back of her mind lately. Depending. Georgio was depending on her, they were all depending on her to keep everything going for him. It was like a death knell.

  She stared down at the now-cold coffee and bit her lip. Life wasn’t fair. In all her years with Georgio she had loved him, looked after his home, cared for him and depended on him emotionally. Now it seemed he was depending on her - and she was finding it difficult to accept.

  After years of just being there for him, at his whim, the novelty of being the strong one, the organiser, was beginning to wear off. He needed her all right, he was depending on her all right, but only because ultimately there was no one else he could really trust.

  It was this that was really galling her.

  Dolly was already talking about him in the past tense; most people did. It was all about before he went away, never about the present. Talk of ‘when Georgio gets out’ was growing less and less, even from his family.

  He was depending on her to spring him from one of the most secure jails in the country. He was asking her to take her life, her very own freedom, into her hands - because if they were caught she would be sent to prison too. Yet she knew that as far as he was concerned, and indeed everyone else, she owed it to him. He was depending on her. After listening to Alan Cox today, the enormity of what Georgio was asking her to do had finally hit her.

  It went against everything she believed in. She had always been a law-abiding, upright citizen, and had never in her life had any dealings with the police. She was praying now that things would stay that way. The thought of going to prison terrified her, yet what was the alternative?

  No one else could be trusted, or so Georgio said. Yet he trusted Alan Cox. In fact, as much as she hated to admit it, Donna also trusted Alan Cox.

  Now she was in way over her head and there was nothing more to think or to talk about.

  Their course was set. She was going to Scotland on Friday to negotiate with a man called Jimmy Mac, instead of having her hair done and maybe going into the West End to do some shopping. Her world was upside down, and she was too far in to get out without a fight. Georgio would never forgive her if she let him down. He was depending on her.

  Taking a last puff on her cigarette, she put it out carefully and stood up. She’d take a pill and have an early night. Put it all out of her head until the morning.

  But Donna didn’t sleep, even with the pill inside her. She would not have been comforted to know that Maeve Brunos was also lying awake in a similar state.

  Both women were feeling let down by people they loved and trusted.

  But one of the women was willing to put all she possessed, from her freedom to her good name, on the line for one man.

  Because Donna Brunos loved her husband, no matter what he had done.

  In a funny way she could even sympathise with Dolly.

  Georgio also had trouble sleeping.

  As he lay on his bunk, Chopper ensconced above him, he heard the pitiful wailing of a young man of twenty-one who was doing a life sentence for robbery and attempted murder. The boy’s painfully lonely cries brought tears to Georgio’s eyes because he could hear an echo of them in his own heart.

  The sound travelled along the landings and into the cells. All over the Wing men were putting themselves in the boy’s place. Most were over the most difficult period of adjustment. It took a young lad, after a visit from his mum, to put it all into perspective for them once more.

  They were trapped, for good or bad. Trapped.

  Chopper turned over noisily on the bunk above. ‘Ah, the poor little lad. I wonder if the old woman he robbed cried herself to sleep?’

  ‘He ain’t in here for robbing an old lady.’ Georgio’s voice was tight.

  Chopper laughed nastily. ‘Maybe not, but you can bet your bottom dollar there’s an old biddy somewhere with a memory of him. That’s how we all started.’

  Georgio fluffed up his pillow which felt as if it was stuffed with pieces of flint and said, ‘You speak for yourself, mate.’

  Chopper sniggered, glad he’d raised Georgio’s hackles.

  ‘Oh, but I am, Georgio. I am. I’d murder me own fucking sister if the price was right. Let’s get that straight right away.’

  Georgio closed his eyes even as he knew it was a futile thing to do. After what Chopper had said, sleep would be the furthest thing from his mind.

  The boy’s crying was getting on his nerves now. It was almost eerie in the darkness of the cells. Five minutes later, it seemed most of the men felt the same way. A man shrieked: ‘Put a fucking sock in it, will ya?’

  And the place was quiet once more. Except for the snores, groans and loud bursts of wind that were usual in any prison.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Georgio was awake well before the bell rang. He lay in the silence of the early morning, listening to the heavy sound of his own breathing. In the bunk above him, Chopper’s snores were low and regular. He was asleep. Georgio toyed with the idea of getting up quietly and hammering him with the metal slop bucket, but dismissed the notion as soon as it wandered into his mind. Anything he did to Chopper would be repaid tenfold. That much, at least, was a certainty.

  He knew the man above him was Lewis’s plant - at least Lewis made no bones about that. He also knew that in order to live he had to keep on the right side of Lewis, Chopper, and any other henchmen Lewis employed.

  One good thing about Chopper, he showered, washed out his socks, and put his books and shaving stuff away neatly - a result after Timmy. Though Georgio was missing Timmy now, even with his smell and dirty habits.

  Chopper moved in the bunk, and the noise was heavy in the confined space. This huge hulk above him would, and could, kill him on a whim. Lewis’s whim. It was this that was making Georgio so uneasy.

  As he heard the distant clanking of doors, and the early-morning noises of the prison, he relaxed. The days were just about bearable; now the nights would be like torture.

  He consoled himself with the thought that Alan and Donna were working for his release and it cheered him. Christ Himself knew, he desperately needed something to latch on to. Even his early-morning erection had died a death at the thought of Chopper, Lewis and the rest of them.

  As Georgio slipped a hand into his boxer shorts, Chopper was off his bunk in one swift movement.

  ‘Wanking already, Brunos?’

  Georgio snatched his hand out of his boxers as if he’d been burnt. ‘No, scratching me nuts.’

  Chopper laughed, and stripping off his underwear, stood in all his glory before Georgio, a half-smile on his face. Georgio’s eyes were immediately drawn to the biggest penis he had ever seen in his life.

  Chopper, obviously used to the reaction, grinned, showing incredibly white teeth.

  ‘You’ll get used to seeing it, man, it always takes people like that the first time, especially the women!’

  Walking to the cell door, Chopper removed the wedge and started banging on the metal with his fist.

  ‘Open this fucking door up, will you? I want to have a shite!’ Turning to Georgio he said nonchalantly, ‘People always think my nickname’s because I use an axe. But as you now know, that’s not true.’

  The door was opened by a warder and, picking up a towel, Chopper walked out on to the landing.

  Georgio followed him, in spite of himself amazed at the reaction of the men around them. Chopper, stark naked, strolled down to the showers like a prize stallion. Sadie, coming out of his cell, squealed with delight. ‘Oi, love, I’ll have half!’

  Grinning, Chopper walked into the shower room.

  Making a face at Georgio, Timmy said in awe, ‘Fuck me, he must use a bar of soap just washing his donger!’

  Lewis was already in the shower room. He had finished his ablutions and smiled at Georgio as he passed him.

  Big Petey Jones called across the shower room: ‘All right, Chopper? Long time no
see. I heard you’d stuck your cock out the window in Durham and half the nick disappeared over the wall by sliding down it!’

  Chopper, still grinning, put down his towel. Taking his bar of Camay, he went over to a bull-necked Irishman called Davey O’Keefe.

  Davey was watching him warily, and the men realised that something was going down.

  The shower room went silent.

  ‘Hello, Davey, long time no see.’

  He nodded. ‘All right, Chopper?’

  Chopper put his hands on his hips and said loudly, ‘Now when was the last time we met? Oh, I remember. It was in Durham top security. You’d just grassed me up on an attack I had made on your mate - what was his name?’

  Davey stared at the Colossus in front of him without saying a word. He was resigned; he knew he was for a hiding and he just wanted it over with.

  ‘That’s it - Tommy Blackmoore. A slag of the first water. I know you was his mate, Davey, so don’t take this too personally.’

  As Chopper raised his fist, Davey O’Keefe was underneath his arm and on his way out of the shower room. Suddenly, the thought of the hiding was more than he could bear.

  The next thing, the two men were tearing along the landing, both naked, both excited. Mr Ellington, the warder on bathroom duty that morning, was just leaving his little office as he saw them run past. He stepped back inside it and put the kettle on. Picking up his copy of the Sport, he decided, wisely, to sit the lot of it out.

  Mr Borga and his assistant watched with smiling faces the antics of Davey and Chopper. As Chopper grabbed at Davey’s hair, and dragged him backwards, they shook their heads with glee. All the cons were watching now. It was a bit of light relief, a bit of excitement in an otherwise boring day.

  After punching Davey a few times, Chopper picked the man up, standing with him above his head for a few seconds, like a champion weightlifter, before he threw him over the landing, to the roar of the men and warders alike.

  Davey screamed as he hurtled through the air and landed in one of the nets kept in place for events such as this and for attempted suicides.

  The younger men all gathered around and the warders pulled Davey O’Keefe back on to the landing.

  ‘Did you see him belt him! Did you see the size of that bloke’s hands? Like bunches of fucking bananas!’

  Mr Borga said loudly, and to the amusement of the whole Wing, ‘It could have been worse, son. He could have smacked him one with his cock. Now that would have hurt!’

  Georgio watched as Chopper swaggered back to the shower room, a half-smile on his face.

  Chopper had done a great PR job on himself in two minutes. One, he had put himself on the men’s side by paying back a debt of honour. To grass was to die, even if it was over a mate. Two, he hadn’t really hurt Davey, just terrified him, which was a fair logic because Davey O’Keefe wasn’t a hard man. Three, his enormous member, and his good-natured acceptance of the remarks about it, had made him into a decent bloke. His chopper would be the talking point of the day with screws and cons alike. This was the man Georgio was banged up with, a man he knew would hurt him at the drop of a hat.

  Thoughtfully, Georgio wandered back to the showers. As he watched Chopper under the water, he wondered just how long it would be before Lewis got fed up with waiting and demanded his money again.

  Alan Cox was up early, had breakfasted alone, and was now on his fourth cup of coffee. He lit his first cigar of the day, a small cheroot, and blowing the smoke lazily out of his mouth, grimaced as the first spasm of coughing attacked him. He had a lot to do today, a lot of arranging. He had missed pitting his wits against the police, missed the element of uncertainty that became like a drug to many bank robbers and that always proved their downfall. He’d missed the suppressed excitement of knowing something big was going down and being a major part of it.

  Amigo’s was doing well, exceptionally well, but the urge to succeed was long gone, as he’d known from the first few nights of its opening that it was already a foregone conclusion. Alan liked setting things up. Once they were up and running and doing well, they bored him. He liked the element of risk. Now he was arranging Georgio’s break out, he felt the familiar rush of adrenaline and thanked God for it. It was what he had needed.

  The only bugbear was Donna Brunos. He had tried every trick in the book to put her off taking the job of number two. He knew in his heart that she was shit scared, yet still she insisted she was going to do it. He admired and respected her for that, even as she annoyed him, because he had a feeling she would prove to be a liability.

  In a way, Alan also admitted to himself, he was a bit jealous of Georgio. His own wife would never have even countenanced doing anything remotely similar for him. She would have been scandalised and disgusted if he had even suggested it. Yet Georgio had, Georgio Brunos, ‘the hostesses’ friend’ as Alan used to call him, who ran around on that lovely wife of his with young tarts - and they were tarts. By Christ, a few were jailbait, barely out of school. One girl Georgio had had couldn’t have been more than fifteen for all her big tits and backcombed blonde hair - yet Georgio’s woman, Donna Brunos, was willing to risk a prison sentence for him. It was laughable really. But then she didn’t know the half of it. Which was probably just as well.

  What really troubled him was why Georgio was involving her. There was something fishy about it, nothing that Alan could put his finger on . . . but it just seemed wrong somehow.

  Maybe, he conceded, it was his own natural sense of fair play. He would no more have asked this of his wife than he would have asked it of his mother or daughter. It was best to keep family out of the criminal part of your life; it was the code most villains lived by. Even the Krays had kept their mother out of their dealings, and that was more power to them. Womenfolk were to be loved, respected, cared for. You did not bring them on a bank robbery or ask them to get rid of stolen booty. It was an unwritten law. Anyway, most women couldn’t keep their traps shut. If they knew their old man was out blagging, by the time they’d told their mates, discussed it with their mum, and chatted to a few acquaintances, the Old Bill would be waiting at the car for him as he raced back from the post office or bank, his shooter at the ready and his balaclava full of nervous sweat and spit.

  That was what had been bugging him!

  Why was Georgio so adamant that his number two had to be his wife? Why not Stephen, his brother? Why not Big Paddy, his oldest mate? Why a little slim woman with large blue eyes and the most gorgeous hair and legs Alan had ever clapped eyes on? Yet, even as he cursed the fates that had made her go against his unspoken advice yesterday, as he cursed her for being so hard-nosed about helping her husband out, a little part of him was pleased. Because he realised, with a flash of insight that should have knocked him down, how glad he was that he would still be seeing her regularly. It was a long time since a woman had interested him so much.

  Later on as he showered, and the London skyline was just beginning to appear with the dawn, he reminded himself of all Georgio had done for him, and reminded himself too that Donna Brunos was his best friend’s wife.

  Maeve and Mario arrived at Donna’s house at eight-fifteen. Maeve parked her Lada in the drive, the old familiar surge of pleasure rushing through her at the sight of the mansion. Donna answered the door to them herself, a large smile plastered on her white face. Maeve took in the black circles under her eyes, the tightness of her skin and the slump to her shoulders, and silently cursed Georgio even as she asked brightly how he was.

  Mario, in his usual quiet way, kissed Donna gently and asked her if she was sleeping all right.

  Pleased to see them, Donna assured him she was fine and led them through to the large kitchen for coffee.

  Dolly beamed at them as they walked in, taking in Maeve’s old lilac coat with a wince, remembering the suede and leather coat Georgio had bought for her and which, to Dolly’s knowledge, she had never worn.

  ‘Hello, Dolly love. This one is so bloody busy these days, I said
to Mario here, “We’ll descend on her early in the morning, we’re bound to catch her in then!”

  Mario grinned. ‘You’re looking well, Doll, it’s nice to see you.’

  She nodded and set about making the coffee. She observed Mario surreptitiously, taking in the effeminate features and gestures. He was like a poor man’s Georgio, except where his brother’s face was chiselled and manly, Mario’s was womanish. Indeed, it seemed a shame to Dolly, and Maeve if she could have admitted it out loud, that Nuala hadn’t got Mario’s features and he Nuala’s. Dolly watched the way he picked up his cup and sipped his coffee fastidiously. The way he used his fingers as a comb to push his hair out of his eyes. The way he raised his eyebrows as he spoke to emphasise a point. Dolly sighed heavily. He was as bent as a nine-bob note, all right. She would lay money on that.

  Maeve watched her son eagerly. He had always had a rapport with Donna and now he was making her smile and Maeve could have kissed him for it.

  ‘Are you still working with John?’ Donna asked.

  Mario shook his head. ‘No, Don, I’m afraid we had a bit of a falling out. I’m seriously thinking of going abroad for a while. My Uncle Costas in Rhodes has offered me an opening out there. I’ll see how I feel. I quite fancy a year or two in Falaraki. I know it’s a bit of a shithole, but I thought if I moved into a small apartment in Lindos, I could have the best of both worlds. You know, the madness and frenetic pace of Falaraki and the tranquil beauty of Lindos. Also my friend Casper lives there and I can bunk in with him for a while till I get me bearings.’

  Donna saw the tightening of Maeve’s lips and felt an urge to giggle. She must know Mario was homosexual, he seemed to exude it as other people did sexiness or charm. Unlike Maeve, Donna would have been thrilled to have been given a son like Mario. Homosexual or not, he was a good, kind, respectable person and that was the main thing as far as Donna was concerned. He had never been a day’s trouble to Maeve and Pa Brunos. He had worked hard at school, gone on to the Poly in Barking, which was now the East London University, and had done very well for himself.