The Business by Martina Cole Page A

their time of need.
    Des went back inside and poured them all stiff drinks. He saw that the Dooley boys, both of whom were nice kids, though not exactly what could be termed university material, were shaking in shock at their father’s untimely death. He also saw that Jason Parks, who he actually quite liked after seeing how he had handled himself, was only a line of snort away from total meltdown. If Jason’s old man was still on the scene he would have probably taken his side tonight, but he wasn’t. Gerald Dooley worked for some serious people and that was what Des was keeping in mind. They had liked and respected him, and they would also understand his reasons for the night’s fucking upsets. Gerry had been looking after his own, and that was something they could all associate with in one way or another.
    Des caught Jackie Martin’s eye and, shrugging, he walked softly up to Jason Parks, grabbed him tightly by his hair and quickly and cleanly cut the boy’s throat. It was a necessary evil. But after the accusations, which like a lot of people he believed were rather exaggerated on Imelda Dooley’s part, Jason was already finished in their world. You could live down a lot of things, except grassing or violence against women or children. There were some things that were taboo, and Jason Parks had been accused of rape. As the boy bled out, Desmond was already opening a bottle of industrial strength bleach and telling himself that the place was overdue for a new carpet anyway.
    Jackie Martin was saddened at his friend’s death, he was on his own now, and he knew that he didn’t have the presence of mind or indeed the acumen that was needed for this line of work. Without Gerry he was fucked. He couldn’t believe what had happened to his life in the space of a few hours.
    Three deaths in one night, the fucking Kray twins had been banged up for less.
     
    Imelda Dooley had watched her mother as she listened politely to the policeman. She had shown no emotion as he had explained to her in a very low and very respectful voice that Gerald Dooley’s body had been found on a bit of waste-land, with another man’s, and she was now a widow. Imelda had watched in morbid fascination as her mother calmly offered them tea, asked them the appropriate questions and eventually saw them to the door.
    In the forty-eight hours since her father and brothers had walked out of the house, the world as she knew it had ended. Three people were dead, and her family had been left without the protection of her father’s name.
    Her brothers were useless without their father to guide them, even she could see that much, and Jackie Martin, who up until now she had seen as almost her father’s equal, seemed to have visibly shrunk before her eyes.
    Like her mother, he had aged dramatically over the last couple of days, and she knew that neither he, nor her mother, would ever regain their previous strength. It was as if, with his death, Gerald Dooley had drained the life-force out of his whole family.
    As Imelda slipped up to her bedroom, away from the crushing grief that was tainting everything and everyone it came into contact with, she wondered once more at how well her mother had taken her husband’s death.
    For the first time in her life she felt guilty, felt responsible. It was not a feeling she was used to and definitely not a feeling she ever wanted to experience again. She was the catalyst for everything that had happened, and she would admit that to herself in the dark hours of the night but, Imelda being Imelda, blamed all that had happened on the child she was carrying. A child that had been created without a second’s thought by two people who couldn’t even look after themselves, let alone a child, and whose existence was the cause of not only its father’s death, but of both its grandfathers too. It was a child of pain and suffering and she hated it.
    As Imelda sat on the edge of bed she felt the urge to scream wash over her. She