Angel shrank further back, turning her face to the wall.

She couldn’t look any more. It was too awful.

She waited to feel his hands on her. But nothing happened. Slowly she turned her head and forced herself to look. He wasn’t moving. Donny was face-down on the carpet, his hand still reaching up, clutching the bed cover. It didn’t look like he was breathing.

Angel sat there and thought: I can’t move.

He was just fooling her. If she tried to get past him, to get out of the door, then he would grab her and throttle the life out of her. She sat there for a long, long time. The electric kettle in the kitchenette boiled and switched off. Then there was silence in the flat. Noises outside came to her. Downstairs’ radio playing. The background hum of traffic. A baby crying. But here, inside this hell hole, there was nothing.

Because he’s dead, said a calming voice in her brain. You could sit here for the next week, he ain’t going to move.

Oh God, she’d done it. She’d killed him.

She got to the edge of the bed, put her feet to the floor. She wasn’t sure she could stand. Her legs felt too weak. But she had to get out of this room. The stink of the blood in here was terrible. Her gorge kept rising, she was sure she was going to be sick. She clapped a hand to her mouth, sobbing, heaving.

She lurched to her feet and crossed the room. Got to the door. Then she looked back. It was all over for her now. She had to go to the police, tell them what she’d done. Then the front doorbell rang, and in panic, beyond reason, she slammed the door closed on Donny Maguire’s corpse and ran for the front door and threw it open.

102

All right, so he was back again. Lenny Axelford, wide boy, aspiring main man. Stricken by lust or love or some damn thing by this girl, and it irritated him all to hell. No flowers this time. What his chat with Max Carter had convinced him of was this: he really was in trouble. And the way out of it was simple; do as Max advised, get her on the payroll and then he would fuck Angel O’Brien thoroughly, get her out of his system. Then he’d be able to forget her. Then it would be done.

He thought of Max, watching his wife Annie coming across the club floor. Annie Carter was a riveting woman, stunning. A force to be reckoned with, too, by all accounts. But Max had been looking, Lenny thought, both annoyed and unhappy. No, Lenny didn’t want all that. He didn’t want commitment and all the horse shit that came with it. He didn’t fancy that in the least.

So he was here, outside the flat door. Thinking this was the way to resolve this problem, which was starting to take over his every waking moment. And he couldn’t have that.