Strong Women Read online

  Jo set off at a brisk pace, keeping her eyes peeled for an empty cab. The evening air had a chill in it and she wished she’d brought a coat. Her high-heeled shoes, more suitable for posing than walking, were beginning to pinch her feet. She cut down on to Euston Road and was almost at the station when she heard the shout behind her.

  ‘Hey!’

  Jo didn’t react. This was London and people were always raising their voices. It was only as she became aware of footsteps pounding the pavement that she glanced over her shoulder. Oh no! Gabe Miller was racing towards her.

  Her stomach barely had time to sink before he had grabbed hold of her elbows and shoved her roughly back against the wall. ‘Very smart. Very cute,’ he snarled. ‘You want to tell me where she is?’

  She stared back at him, her eyes widening with alarm. ‘What?’

  ‘Skip the innocent act, Helen.’ He squeezed his hands tighter around her arms and pushed his face into hers. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I – I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap!’

  His eyes were blazing and the pressure from his fingers was painful. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said, trying to pull away. But his grip only tightened.

  ‘Tell me,’ he demanded again.

  Jo was growing seriously afraid. He looked like he wanted to kill her. People were passing by, a few of them giving curious glances, but nobody – as was so often the case in the city – seemed willing to intervene. If she wanted help she was probably going to have to scream for it.

  She opened her mouth, intending to do just that, when he suddenly let go. He took a step back and groaned. ‘Jesus,’ he said. Still softly swearing, he tore his fingers through his hair and began to pace in front of her, three steps to the left, three steps to the right. ‘Have you any idea of what you’ve done?’

  Jo rubbed at her arms. Coming from a blackmailer that seemed kind of rich but it was hardly a point to start debating at this particular moment. She had more important things to worry about. Gabe Miller was clearly a bad loser, a man who didn’t like his victims turning the tables. Twisted – wasn’t that how Laura had described him? She was beginning to understand what she meant.

  ‘I really have no—’

  ‘Don’t even go there,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ He stopped pacing and glared at her. ‘I’ve just been robbed. Doesn’t that bother you at all?’

  She stared silently back at him.

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ he said. His voice had turned curiously pleading. He raised his hands and dropped them again. ‘Look, whatever you’ve been paid, I’ll double it. It’ll be just between you and me, no one else. I promise. Just tell me where she is.’

  ‘Nobody paid me,’ Jo croaked.

  Miller stood in front of her, his wild eyes staring into hers. ‘Don’t you see what this makes you? A bloody accessory!’

  ‘So call the cops,’ she snapped back, her indignation abruptly reviving what little was left of her courage. As soon as she’d spoken, she wished she hadn’t. His expression grew even blacker. She wanted to believe that nothing truly bad could happen to her in a public place but that was a hope that was gradually diminishing.

  ‘You’ll regret it,’ he said.

  ‘This has got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘The fuck it hasn’t!’

  As she tried to walk away, Miller grabbed hold of her arm again. Jo struggled to free herself. ‘Leave me alone!’

  He jerked her closer, his hot whisky breath in her face. ‘As soon as you tell me who paid you to play Mata Hari.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she protested. ‘It’s only a laptop!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You had no right to take it in the first place and I’m sure it won’t take you long to find someone else to blackmail.’

  Miller instantly released her arm, stood back and laughed. It was a bleak, empty kind of sound. ‘Blackmail?’ He rolled his eyes towards the heavens. ‘Get real. Shit. You can’t really be that stupid!’

  Jo didn’t know what he meant. And she wasn’t prepared to stay and find out. The sooner she got away from him the better. Finally freed from his grasp, she started walking down the street.

  ‘Fine,’ he called out after her. ‘You do that. You take off. But don’t think he won’t find you and when he does he’s going to blame you just as much as me.’

  The words stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘He?’ Jo said, turning to look at him. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  Miller shook his head. ‘You go on home, sweetheart, and pour yourself a stiff drink. You’ll need it.’ He paused. ‘Only make sure you lock all the doors and don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Jo swallowed hard. He was just winding her up. He had to be. Laura had got her laptop back and he couldn’t deal with it. Except … there was something worryingly real about the fear in his eyes. The skin around his cheekbones had tightened and his face was gaunt and grey.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He took a step closer. ‘That you’re in as much damn trouble as I am.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Your partner in crime is long gone. They’re probably miles away by now. And they’ve left you to pick up the pieces. They’ve landed you well and truly in the shit.’

  Jo’s mouth fell open. Surely Laura couldn’t have … ‘It’s only a laptop. Why should anyone—’

  ‘There is no laptop,’ he said, his voice rising again. ‘This has nothing to do with any bloody laptop. Can’t you get that simple fact though your thick skull?’

  Jo glared back at him. ‘So what has been stolen?’

  Miller hesitated and then shook his head. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘Make your mind up. A moment ago it was very much my business. You can’t just—’

  Miller glanced sideways, his attention caught by something. A thin hiss escaped from his lips. ‘Christ,’ he murmured. Then, dashing straight out into the road, he stopped a passing cab and yanked the door open. ‘Come on!’

  Jo remained where she was. She looked at him, then back along the street. Two very large men were approaching from the direction of the Lumière, both of them dressed in smart dark suits. If it hadn’t been for the excessive amount of gold bling they were exhibiting, she might have mistaken them for hotel security but these were clearly professionals of a different sort. Friendly wasn’t the first word that jumped into her head. Like a pair of oversized grim reapers, there was an air of vicious determination about them. When they noticed Miller they began to run.

  ‘Helen!’ he yelled.

  Jo froze. What was worse, getting into a cab with a man who was possibly deranged or taking her chances with … Perhaps it was some kind of better the devil you know instinct that finally kicked in. However mad Gabe Miller was, she didn’t fancy facing those two thugs alone.

  Chapter Five

  She slammed the door behind her and perched on the edge of the seat. Her heart was pumping, slamming against her ribs.

  ‘Straight on,’ Miller quickly instructed the driver.

  As the taxi pulled away, Jo gazed back at their pursuers. They were lumbering to a halt as they realised the chase was over. One of them took a phone from his pocket, flipped it open and jabbed at the numbers.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Nobody you’d like to meet,’ he said. ‘Believe me.’

  Jo did. But she wasn’t too keen on the company she’d chosen either. Moving as far from him as she could, she hugged her arms to her chest and hunched into the corner. Everything felt unreal, like a bad dream she was struggling to wake up from. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d be able to do that.’

  The cabbie leaned back in his seat. ‘Where to, guv?’

  ‘Well?’ Miller said to her. ‘I presume you live in London. Where are we going?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘We are not going a
nywhere. Just tell him where you want to be dropped off and I’ll take the cab on from there.’

  ‘I don’t think so, love. We’ve some serious talking to do.’

  ‘I’ve already told you. I don’t—’

  ‘Spare me,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got the time. Either you choose somewhere or I will.’

  Jo thought about it. She didn’t want to end up miles from the flat and even if she stopped the cab right now, Miller could get out too. She was safer in the taxi than alone with him on the street. As her overriding desire was to get home as fast as she could, she shifted forward and addressed the driver: ‘Kellston, please. The station.’

  Miller nodded and closed the sliding window so the cabbie couldn’t hear any more of the conversation. ‘Let’s skip the games. We’re both up to our necks and we have to figure out what we’re going to do next. Our friends back there will already be searching for us.’

  ‘For you,’ she insisted. ‘Not me.’

  He barked out a laugh. ‘You may not have signed up to any contract, darling, but you’re in this as deep as I am. You’re involved whether you like it or not. I sincerely hope that whoever you’re trying to protect is worth it.’

  Jo shuddered and stared down at her bag. She wanted to ring Laura but couldn’t while he was sitting right beside her.

  ‘It’s not me you need to be afraid of,’ Miller said softly. ‘It really isn’t. I apologise for earlier; I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘Yes you did,’ she retorted. She might have been wiser to keep silent but she couldn’t. This had all become too nasty.

  He lifted his shoulders in a slight dismissive shrug. ‘You have to understand that what’s been taken … Well, it doesn’t belong to me. I was only looking after it.’

  ‘And that’s a good enough reason to shove someone up against a wall, to threaten them?’

  ‘Maybe not, under normal circumstances. But these are far from that. And please don’t even try to deny that you deliberately set me up.’

  ‘I didn’t. You bought me a drink, that’s all. I didn’t force you into—’

  Miller snorted. ‘Are you kidding? You virtually threw yourself at me.’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘As near as damn it.’ He slapped a hand against his thigh. ‘For God’s sake, Helen, stop messing about and give me some answers. This has nothing to do with any blackmail plot, with any laptop, with any of that shit.’

  ‘Then tell me what it is to do with.’

  He glared down at the floor. A few seconds passed before he looked up again. ‘What if I said “silver” to you? Would that mean anything?’

  Jo instantly thought of Ruby’s, of the jewellery shop on the High Street. ‘Silver what?’

  His dark eyes gazed unblinkingly into hers. Then, satisfied that she might be as ignorant as she appeared to be, he said: ‘You ever hear of a man called Vic Delaney?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s a businessman, of sorts. A few weeks ago he employed me to retrieve … let’s just call it an item, something that had gone missing that he wanted back. It took some time and a fair amount of grief but I managed it in the end. We had a meet arranged for tonight at nine o’clock. The hotel was a good place, mutual ground for the exchange. You know how it works – I hand over the goods and he hands over the cash.’

  Jo wasn’t sure how anything worked in Gabe Miller’s world but the concept wasn’t too hard to grasp. ‘So he was one of those guys back there?’

  ‘Hell no, I can’t remember when Delaney last broke sweat. They were just the hired muscle.’

  She instinctively jumped. ‘Muscle’ suggested henchmen which in turn suggested crime, violence, gangsters and all those other dubious things she’d read about in the tabloids. ‘So why … why did they get there so early?’

  ‘Good question,’ he said. ‘Presumably because some kind soul tipped him off that I wasn’t going to be able to deliver – the same kind soul, no doubt, who got you involved in all this in the first place.’

  ‘Laura wouldn’t do that,’ she retorted.

  ‘Laura?’

  Jo turned away and stared out through the window. They were on the outskirts of the East End, winding through the backstreets, and what she saw was as grey and as bleak as the thoughts that were running through her head. She knew exactly how and when she’d been drawn into this nightmare but still couldn’t understand why. None of it made any sense. She and Laura were friends. Or at least she thought they were.

  ‘You need to start talking,’ Miller said.

  ‘Why should I tell you anything? Why should I trust you?’

  ‘Because I just saved you from a highly unpleasant encounter with two very nasty goons – an encounter, I might add, that might have left you with a rather less pretty face than you have at the moment.’ He paused. ‘I could have left you standing on the pavement but I didn’t. Give me credit for that. And to be honest, you don’t have many options: either you go on home and hope they don’t catch up with you or you do the sensible thing and tell me what you know.’

  Jo leaned even closer into the side of the cab. She felt sick to the stomach.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You don’t feel too happy about all this. I get it. I’m not exactly overjoyed myself. We’ve both been turned over for one reason or another. What we have to sort out now is what we do next.’

  ‘Do?’ she repeated glumly.

  ‘Tell me about this Laura.’

  ‘You tell me. She’s your ex. You were supposed to be meeting her in the bar tonight.’

  Miller shook his head. ‘No. No on both counts. I take it she’s a friend of yours. How long have you known her?’

  ‘A while,’ she said evasively.

  ‘How long is a while?’

  Jo frowned. The truth was they’d only met several months ago. Laura had come into Ruby’s and they’d got chatting. She hadn’t bought anything but a few days later they’d bumped into each other on the High Street and gone for a coffee. Whose idea had that been? She suspected it was Laura’s, although she couldn’t be sure. Since then they’d been meeting up regularly, at least once and sometimes twice a week. ‘A few months.’

  Miller made a choking sound in the back of his throat. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Do you always go round planning robberies with people you barely know?’

  ‘I didn’t plan any …’ Her objection fizzled out almost as soon as it had begun. There was no arguing with the fact that she had agreed to help Laura retrieve the laptop. She cleared her throat and carried on. ‘I mean, I didn’t see it as a robbery, more of a … a repossession. She was only taking back what was hers.’

  ‘Except it wasn’t hers, was it?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said. His voice had a bitter edge to it. ‘But now that you do, it’s time to start sharing what you are aware of.’

  Jo wasn’t sure how to respond. She didn’t like Miller, didn’t trust him, but her loyalty towards Laura was beginning to feel rather misplaced too. It was dawning on her just how little she actually knew about her so-called friend. Laura had never spoken much about her life and Jo, wrapped up in her own ongoing problems, hadn’t thought to ask. After losing Peter she’d become distanced from so many of her old friends, their awkward sympathy and embarrassment – matched by her chronic inability to overcome it – creating a barrier between them. With Laura it had all been so much easier, a friendship based entirely on the present.

  ‘We could start with a surname,’ he said.

  She sighed. ‘James.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a Laura James,’ he said. ‘Describe her. How old is she? What does she do? Where does she live?’

  Jo hesitated.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Miller said. ‘You don’t owe her any favours. She’s involved you in a robbery, done a runner and left you to face the music. She’s stitched us both up. If I can’t track her down, if I can�
�t get Delaney’s property back, then we’re—’ He stopped, sighed and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they had that pleading look in them again.

  Jo stared at him. She had the impression that he wasn’t a man who was easily scared – which made his current expression even more disturbing. ‘If this silver thing has been stolen, why don’t you call the police?’

  As if her level of stupidity had just gone off the Richter scale, Miller glared back at her.

  ‘Haven’t I made it clear? Delaney isn’t the type of guy who likes the cops involved in his business. But fine, you call them if you want. You’ve got a phone – go ahead and use it. Dial 999. I won’t stop you. You can explain all this to them – about how you tried to set me up, how you planned to steal from me. I’m sure they’ll be very understanding. Of course, I can’t guarantee how Delaney will react. It’ll be entirely up to them to protect you from his less than pleasant temper. Let’s hope they have the necessary resources.’

  Jo didn’t even look at her bag, never mind take out her phone. Delaney aside – and it was a big aside – she had a dreadful image of walking into Kellston Police Station and coming face to face with the vile Sergeant Hannon again. After the business with the letters, she could imagine how he’d react. He’d already got her classified as some kind of nutter.

  ‘We’re running out of time,’ Miller urged. ‘And, yes, I understand you don’t know me from Adam but it strikes me you don’t know this Laura too well either. If nothing else you could give me a description. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

  ‘Okay,’ she snapped back. ‘She’s a bit taller than me, about five foot six or seven, in her late twenties, attractive, slim, long brown hair, hazel eyes.’

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Very helpful.’

  Jo shrugged. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’

  ‘Anything,’ he said, ‘any minor difference that might distinguish her from all the other lovely brown-haired girls out there.’

  Jo tried to conjure up a picture of Laura in her head. ‘No, there isn’t …’ She stopped suddenly, recalling one small detail. ‘Hang on. There is something: she’s got a tiny chip in the corner of one of her front teeth.’