Black Widow

by Jessie Keane

  Tony opened his mouth, then shut it again. The door closed and he was gone. A man of few words, Tony. Annie sort of liked that.

  ‘Now Jeanette,’ she said with a chilly smile, ‘tell me what happened while I was out of it.’

  ‘I already told you,’ moaned Jeanette.

  ‘There were four men? Five men? A fucking army? Come on, how many? You were there.’

  Jeanette nodded wearily. ‘Um, I dunno. Maybe four, maybe three. Two big ones I think, and maybe one small.’

  ‘Small, what? Short?’

  ‘Short…um, slight, you know.’

  ‘Slight. What, like a jockey you mean? Short and skinny?’

  ‘Um, I don’t know. I was scared to death. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Which one slapped me with the chloroform?’

  ‘God, I dunno.’ Jeanette looked away.

  ‘Think.’

  ‘One of the bigger ones. First he…’ Jeanette’s face clouded and she fell silent.

  ‘What? Go on,’ said Annie.

  Jeanette gulped and her eyes got teary.

  ‘Max had got out of the pool again. I saw him on the other side, he was towelling himself dry, then I saw one of the big ones come up behind him and hit him on the head. He never even saw it coming. He went down like a sack of shit. I was just starting to sit up, then there was another one on our side of the terrace and he slapped that pad on your face and Jonjo started to wake up and then this bloke just turned…’ Jeanette’s face crumpled…‘He just turned and shot Jonjo straight between the eyes.’

  It was quiet in the office for long moments while Jeanette looked down at her lap. Tears spilled down her cheeks and dripped off her nose.

  ‘I know he wasn’t a good man,’ she sobbed. ‘I know he didn’t treat me too well, but they just wiped him out like he was nothing.’

  Annie felt her blood run cold, felt despair seize her in its grip all over again. A deliberate, calculated hit. She stood up and closed the window, looking out at the rain, the people scurrying about, the cars moving slowly through the packed streets…all these people, with homes to go to, loved ones to see. And what did she have now?

  Nothing.

  Max was dead.

  Layla was God knew where.

  She gulped and felt like joining Jeanette and having a bloody good howl. Maybe it would make her feel better, who knew? But she was used to keeping her feelings inside. A loveless upbringing with a drunk of a mother had seen to that.

  Dig deep and stand alone.

  She hadn’t had to stand alone for some time. There had been Max, taking the weight, seeing to her comfort and security; but now he was gone. And she was going to have to learn to stand on her own two feet again—because what was the alternative? Sink into the abyss. Give up the fight.

  No fucking way, she thought. Not while there’s still a chance for Layla.

  She turned, leaned against the dusty window frame. Jeanette had composed herself a little, she saw. Good.

  ‘So which one grabbed Layla?’ she asked.

  Jeanette scrabbled around for a hankie. She found one in her pocket and honked her nose loudly. She blinked up, red-eyed, at Annie.

  ‘Look, it could have been the little one,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I heard Layla singing that funny little French song she liked…’ Jeanette took a faltering breath. ‘Poor little cow. I heard her yell, then nothing. The one who’d shot Jonjo and drugged you told me to be quiet or I’d get a bullet too.’

  ‘What did he sound like?’

  ‘Um…British, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh come on, you can do better than that.’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Irish? Was he Irish?’

  ‘Um…oh fuck it, how should I know? He could have been.’ Jeanette was squirming in her seat.

  Then maybe he’s the one who phones me, thought Annie. Or maybe not.

  ‘Did he have any distinguishing marks? Describe his face.’

  ‘I didn’t see his face. He had a mask on, they all did. And gloves. They were covered right up; I couldn’t see anything of them. I saw the one on the other side of the pool grab Max under the arms and drag him off into the bushes, and the one on our side of the pool hauled Jonjo into the pool’

  ‘Strong man,’ said Annie. ‘Jonjo was pushing sixteen stone.’

  Jeanette nodded. ‘He lifted him like a fireman, you know? The fireman’s lift thing, over his shoulder, and dumped him in the pool.’

  Sixteen stones, dead weight. It would take a very strong man indeed to lift that.

  So what do I have? thought Annie. One small and slender. One big and exceptionally strong. One big and unknown, but he must move like a cat to get up close enough to do Max, because Max was sharp and fast, all instinct and movement and power…

  Or he had been, anyway. When he was alive.

  That made it three people, not four. But so what? Where did knowing that get her?

  Annie turned back to the window and stared up above the rooftops to grey depressing skies. There was no hope, and she had to admit it.

  But she couldn’t.

  ‘Okay Jeanette, you can go,’ she said, not looking round.

  Annie heard the door close. Then she looked again at the safe in the corner. It had a combination lock, and she didn’t know the code. She wondered who did. Then she let out a sigh, dropped her head on to her chest and closed her eyes in despair.

  14

  It was all going according to plan. Phil Fibbert had got the boat sorted and they were going to move after dark. Vita had calmed the fuck down after the hood incident: everything was good to go.

  Danny was pleased.

  He sat out in the late afternoon sun on the terrace and felt that he had everything nicely under control. And then he heard the normally quiet Phil (fucking boring, actually) kicking off at Vita in the kitchen, and soon Vita was screaming and yelling so loud that he had to rouse himself and go and see what the fuck was going on now.

  ‘What the hell?’ he demanded when he got into the cool, dark kitchen.

  Phil just stood there, arms folded. Man could bore for Britain, thought Danny irritably.

  Vita was silent, looking surly.

  ‘Look,’ said Phil, indicating the stuff on the table.

  There was a bag of groceries. Rolls and fruit and stuff poking out of the top.

  Danny frowned.

  There was a woman who came in to bring their food, Marietta. They were renting this place in the winding back alleys of Palma from Marietta’s husband, Julio, and the deal was, Marietta—who did not speak a word of English, and that was part of the master plan too—came in and cleaned every day, and brought provisions at 9.30 in the morning. So what was all this new stuff doing on the table at three in the afternoon?

  Also on the table was a fuchsia-pink bag from one of the boutiques. Peeping out from this bag was a pair of Nubuck Majorcan sandals—you saw them everywhere in the shops here, in all colours of the rainbow. These were a bright, clear turquoise—Vita’s favourite colour. She often wore it.

  ‘Look, it’s no big deal,’ said Vita hurriedly, seeing the direction of Danny’s eyes. ‘I was going stir-crazy cooped up in this place. I got fed up just sitting here painting all day, so I went and got some more food in, and I looked in the shops and went to the flea market on Villalonga, and I had a walk down to the harbour.’

  Danny went straight across and slapped her, hard.

  Vita reeled back, clutching her cheek.

  ‘Listen, you silly cow, we stick to the plan. Remember the plan? You’re getting right up my nose, you really are. The plan is, we stay here. We don’t go out flashing the cash about. We don’t want no one knowing we’re here except Marietta and Julio, and to them we’re just tourists, that’s all. Marietta brings in the food, she cleans, she fucks off. We don’t ever let her go out in the garden, just in case you were going to invite her out on to the terrace for tea and effing cakes, you got that? Oh—and every time you go near the girl you put your fucki
ng hood on.’

  ‘All right, I hear you,’ mumbled Vita.

  ‘Good. And you.’ He turned, glaring, to Phil. ‘Don’t kick off at my sister, you got that? If you got anything to say, you say it to me.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Phil moodily, shrugging and putting his hands in his pockets. Sure thing, Blondie, he thought. Blow it out your arse, Blondie. You fucking maniac.

  ‘You got the boat sorted? Everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s lined up for eleven,’ said Phil, thinking that he for one would be absolutely fucking delighted when they got back to England, got their money, and went their separate ways. He could not wait to see the back of this crazy pair.

  ‘Okay, we’ll clear up at ten and be out of here and down at the harbour by a quarter to eleven—and by the way, Vee, we will be wearing our hoods when we fetch the girl, okay? Then we’ll give her a good dose of stuff, blindfold her, and get her on board the boat and that’ll be that, okay?’

  Vita nodded, one hand nursing her reddened cheek.

  ‘I said okay?’ repeated Danny.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  15

  When Annie got back to Limehouse it was business as usual—punters arriving, punters leaving, Una knocking the living crap out of some poor twisted bastard up there in the back room that Aretha used to occupy. Darren was entertaining a gentleman from the City, Dolly told her over a cup of tea in the kitchen, and Ellie was busy with a chubby-chaser—very popular too, she was.

  ‘It’s all hands to the pump, if you’ll pardon the expression,’ said Dolly, putting her cup down. ‘So how’s it all going?’

  ‘Oh, peachy,’ said Annie. ‘My baby girl’s been snatched, my husband’s been hit, and now I find his clubs have been turned into strip joints.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You knew?’

  Dolly shrugged. ‘Everyone did, it’s no big secret. Jonjo Carter made the changes. No one questions the Carter brothers over what they do. Everyone thought Max knew about it.’

  ‘No,’ said Annie positively. ‘He couldn’t have. He’d have hated it.’

  She’d been appalled at what had happened to the Palermo. Then she’d had Tony drive her over to the Shalimar and the Blue Parrot, only to find they’d been given the same down-market treatment.

  She’d closed them both up, sacked the managers, got Tony to get the locks changed. Tony had got quieter and quieter as the day had progressed, and finally Annie had asked if there was a problem.

  ‘No,’ he’d said, driving through the drizzle and the heavy traffic, his eyes not meeting hers in the mirror.

  ‘No? Only I think there is.’

  Tony shrugged.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Annie.

  ‘The boys might not like all these changes. That’s all’

  Annie sat back. ‘You mean Jimmy Bond?’

  Jimmy hadn’t exactly fallen over himself to welcome her, and that was a fact. Which was a shame, because she knew she badly needed Jimmy onside.

  ‘Him and others,’ said Tony diplomatically.

  Meaning that where Jimmy led, the others followed, thought Annie.

  ‘Well,’ said Annie, ‘if Jimmy—or any of the other boys—have something to say about the alterations I’ve made, then they can say it to me, can’t they?’

  Tony had grunted and said no more.

  ‘So you’ve closed the clubs. Now what?’ asked Dolly.

  Annie looked at Dolly blankly. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You’re not going to leave them shut, are you? Those clubs must have been bringing in a lot of dosh for the Carters.’

  Annie sighed and leaned her chin on her hand. Dolly was right. But she’d been outraged at what she’d seen happening to Max’s clubs. They’d been his pride and joy, and she had acted on instinct and stepped in. Maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe she would very soon have been glad of that income. But maybe not. When the kidnappers asked her to cough up the money—as soon they must—she was sure that it wouldn’t be covered by a couple of big-titted girls twirling their tassels lunchtime and evening.

  ‘I remember those clubs as they were, Doll. Class acts on. Good, respectable punters. The place clean and tidy, the staff happy, the whole thing running smooth.’ She pulled a face. ‘You ought to see the fucking place now. Sleazy don’t cover it. I’ve run better knocking shops.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘For the clubs? I dunno yet.’

  ‘The boys are going to be up in arms.’

  ‘Yeah, Tony told me that.’

  ‘You don’t care?’

  ‘Doll—I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m just waiting for Friday.’

  But before Friday could come around, Jimmy Bond was knocking at the door mob-handed with Steve Taylor and Gary Tooley minding his back. Ross let Jimmy in, and Steve and Gary loitered with insolent ease in the hallway while Jimmy and Annie went into the kitchen.

  This time Jimmy was breathing fire. She’d rattled his cage good and proper, and Annie was perversely glad to see him riled. At least he was engaging with her now, not being snide and laughing her off as a ‘bit of skirt’.

  ‘What the fuck have you been up to?’ he demanded when they were alone in the kitchen.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Annie icily.

  ‘You heard me.’ Jimmy leaned his gloved hands on the table and loomed over her as she sat there, all innocence. ‘You’ve closed up the clubs. You’ve had the fucking locks changed. You’ve fired the staff. You crazy?’

  ‘Nope.’ Annie stood up and leaned her fists on the table, too. They were glaring nose to nose. ‘And watch your mouth, Jimmy. I told you. I’m taking over.’

  ‘Yeah, sure you are. You know about running clubs, do you?’

  ‘I’ve run businesses.’

  ‘You’ve run a high-class whorehouse, and you nearly did time for that, which wasn’t very clever, was it?’

  Annie bit back an angry reply. She had to get him onside. Somehow.

  ‘Who was in overall charge of the clubs? Who collected the takings from the managers?’ she asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then you know how bad they’ve got.’

  ‘I know they’re making good money,’ he retorted.

  ‘How good?’

  ‘Better than they were as nightclubs.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘The books don’t lie.’

  ‘I want to see them. Who keeps them?’

  ‘I do. You got a problem with that?’

  Convenient, thought Annie.

  Jimmy took a breath. ‘Those acts Max used to hire, they cost a fortune. Strippers are cheap.’

  ‘Jonjo had no right to make these changes without consulting Max.’

  ‘Max must have known.’

  ‘Do you really believe that Max would approve a low-tone operation like that?’

  ‘Who knows what the fuck Max would do? He took off for the sun and left Jonjo in charge of the manor. What did he care?’

  Annie heard the resentment in his voice. She looked at him and he dropped his eyes first. ‘I want those books here this afternoon,’ she said. ‘And Jimmy—don’t come in here again with half a fucking army, for God’s sake. I’m here on sufferance. Redmond Delaney’ll only take so much.’

  Max had trusted Jimmy, so she had to. Simple logic. She hoped her logic was sound this time. Whatever, she wanted to see those books.

  ‘And do you know the combination on the safe at the Palermo?’ she asked him.

  There was just the one safe, she had discovered. Nothing at the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar except small cash boxes with bugger all inside.

  Jimmy gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘Jonjo trusted me with a lot of things, but not with that,’ he said.

  Fuck it, thought Annie.

  ‘We’ll need the locksmith,’ she said.

  16

  Annie awoke with Layla’s little body snuggling in against hers. She could feel Layla’s silky-soft hair and buried her nose in th
e back of Layla’s neck, where the baby-smell of her was strongest—talc and sweetness. She turned, smiling to herself, and came up against Max’s skin—hard, hot, reassuring.

  ‘Annie?’

  A female voice.

  Max was gone. And that wasn’t Inez talking. This voice was pure East End of London. A bit roughened by fags and booze and hard times, but familiar.

  Annie opened her eyes and this time came properly awake. Dim light in Dolly’s bedroom. Dolly there, smiling down at her like a fond mother, putting a mug of tea on the bedside table. Then it came back to her again, all of it. The pain; the anguish. But instead of howling and screaming with the agony of loss that she was feeling, she sat up. Dolly pulled back the curtains to let in the cold grey English light. The Majorcan villa was a world away.

  And—oh fuck—it was Friday.

  She’d slept very late. What was it with her, all this sleeping? Escaping from reality, Annie thought. Funny how she always woke up feeling exhausted, though. All these dreams. Max, falling…her reaching for him, but it was too late, far too late. Layla screaming. Annie, alone in a wasteland, no one there except her and a feeling of impending doom. All those bloody dreams.

  Feeling tired and edgy she washed, dressed in Dolly’s black shift dress again, brushed out her hair, dabbed a bit of Dolly’s rouge on her cheeks and on her lips and still looked like death—not that it mattered.

  She stepped out of the bedroom and on to the landing. Loud voices and laughter drifted up from the front room. Ross was sitting down there in the hall in the corner by the door that Chris had always occupied when she was last here.

  Friday. Of course. Lunch party day. Noises from the other bedrooms, someone moaning, someone crying out yes, yes, yes. Music, too. Fleetwood Mac playing ‘Albatross’, fading into older stuff from days gone by—smoky, bluesy ‘Mad about the Boy’, Etta James’s voice dripping with passion.

  Annie stood there at the top of the stairs and let it wash over her.