Black Widow

by Jessie Keane

  She put the gun back in Dolly’s drawer, got dressed, and took the ruined dressing gown downstairs with her. She paused on the top stair.

  Billy’s body was gone. The front door was closed.

  All that showed something hideous had happened was the wet gloss on what could be seen of the hall tiles, where they had cleaned away Billy’s blood. The long strip of carpet down the centre of the hall was pristine clean, too.

  Shuddering, she went down into the kitchen. Dolly, Ellie, and Darren were sitting around the table, passing around a half-empty brandy bottle. Annie stuffed the robe into the washing machine, added powder, switched it on. Then she filled the kettle, got out a mug and the tea caddy.

  ‘That poor bastard,’ said Dolly.

  Annie turned and glared at her. ‘Yes, Dolly. I know.’

  Dolly looked taken aback. ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘Well don’t, okay. Shit, give me some of that brandy, will you?’

  Annie went over to the table, poured brandy into a spare glass and knocked it back in one. Then she went bright red, coughed and clutched at her throat.

  ‘Jesus, how can you drink this stuff?’ she wheezed, grimacing.

  ‘Easily, right now,’ snapped Dolly. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s happening, Annie, but I don’t bloody like it. Jesus Christ, I hope never to see anything like that ever again.’

  ‘Here’s to that,’ said Darren weakly, raising his glass with trembling hands and taking a long swallow.

  Ellie still looked deathly pale. Annie thought she had probably been sick. Ellie was staring at Annie. So was Darren. So was Dolly.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, will you all stop looking at me like that?’ yelled Annie.

  ‘Guilty conscience?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on Annie. We didn’t come over on the last banana boat,’ said Dolly. ‘This is gang stuff. Somebody done Billy because he’s your lapdog. Or he was. Poor little sod. I tell you, I don’t like the way all this is going.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do about that?’ demanded Annie. ‘I’m floundering here, Doll. Ask me where I am and I’ll tell you: I’m up shit creek without a paddle. My daughter’s in the hands of maniacs and I’m getting bits of her sent to me. Now Billy’s copped it. You think I’m happy with any of this? Think again.’

  ‘Will the pair of you just stop shouting?’ whined Ellie, clutching her head. ‘It’s bad enough seeing that—that—in the hall, but why argue about it? What good does that do?’

  Darren nodded. ‘Ellie’s right. It’s not Annie’s fault.’

  ‘No? I don’t know so much,’ said Dolly, who had now got up a full head of steam and wasn’t about to be stopped from delivering her opinion. She looked at Annie. ‘Fuck it, Annie, I don’t mind helping out, but when it comes to having people fucking die on my doorstep, I have to start drawing the line.’

  ‘So what are you saying? You want me to leave?’ asked Annie.

  Dolly drew a breath and blew out hard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘That’s the truth, I don’t bloody know. But we were getting along just fine until you showed up, and now it’s all starting again. The Delaneys always left us alone before. Took their protection money and kept the fuck out of it. Which was fine. But now this! Redmond Delaney was in here a few days ago talking to you and when he’d finished you looked like he’d scared the crap out of you good and proper. I don’t mind jokes but I don’t like sodding pantomimes Annie. I’m not a fool. Not by a long shot.’

  Annie sat down at the table, her tea forgotten. If Dolly was turning against her, she was sunk. She’d lost Billy. A shudder heaved through her. She’d lost Max. Lost Layla. Now was she going to lose Dolly too? Dolly, her dearest friend?

  ‘What do you want me to do, Doll?’ she asked more quietly. ‘You want me to go?’

  Dolly hesitated, looking at Annie’s face. Darren and Ellie were watching anxiously.

  ‘No,’ said Dolly at last. ‘Christ, what sort of friend would I be if I turfed you out of here when you’re in this much trouble? No, I don’t want you to go. And anyway, how the hell could you—those rotten bastards reach you here, don’t they? You can’t go, and you shouldn’t go either. I want you to stay.’

  And Dolly reached out and patted Annie’s hand.

  No hearts and flowers, not from Dolly. But Annie felt reassured. It was a small thing, but it was something precious, to have Dolly’s support even when Dolly wasn’t sure about the wisdom of giving it.

  Next day they heard about it on the radio. A dead body had been dumped outside the local hospital and the police had no comment to make until they had traced the victim’s relatives, but it looked like a gangland killing, they said, and beyond that they had no further comment to make.

  Poor old Billy.

  Annie was tormented by the thought of his miserable life. She knew his mother was a rough, dirty old cow because Max had told her so. She knew about Billy’s succession of live-in ‘uncles’. Knew that his mother knocked him about, despised him because he was a bit simple. Which was nothing more than the truth. Billy had been a bit odd, but he had been loyal to Max all his life, and to Annie too.

  Rest in peace, Billy love, she thought, and felt choked up all over again, and wondered where the hell she went from here.

  She sat in the kitchen staring at the wall while Dolly and the ‘girls’ got on with the business of the day. It was Friday again. And in a week’s time, exactly a week, the kidnappers would phone again; and if she hadn’t found Layla by then, or secured the money by then, Layla was as good as dead.

  What to do?

  She sank her head into her hands and tried to think straight, but her brain was darting here and there and getting nowhere. She felt trapped.

  All around her, again, there were the sounds of sex. Laughter, whisperings, hangings, cries of pleasure and cries of pain.

  What scared her was this: there were times when she tried to call Max’s face to mind and she couldn’t do it. Black hair, dark skin, a hook of a nose, fierce eyes that could become gentler, smokier, when he held her and loved her.

  Which he never would again. She mourned him bitterly, mourned their lost love.

  Now she was in trouble and having the worst time of her life, feeling adrift, needing someone to lean on because she had become used to having a man making decisions, taking control: that was why she was feeling a tug of attraction to Constantine Barolli; that was the only reason.

  She told herself that, over and over. Trouble was, she didn’t really believe it.

  Someone was having an orgasm upstairs.

  She stood up, went through to the hallway, past the open door of the front room wherein the revellers waltzed semi-nude to Dana’s sugar-sweet voice singing the Eurovision winner, All Kinds of Everything. Ross looked up at her expectantly as she took her coat off the rack and quickly put it on.

  ‘Going out,’ she said, and scribbled her name in the book. Everyone had to sign in and out, for security. Christ knows they needed it. Now, more than ever.

  ‘Fine,’ said Ross.

  Annie gratefully left the building. As she walked down the path she saw how thorough a job Tony and Jackie had done of cleaning up during the small hours. Not a speck of blood anywhere. But Annie could still smell it; it seemed to have permeated her soul, the scent of Billy’s blood pooling around her as he lay dying.

  She quickened her step. The spring sun was shining, glinting off the highly polished bonnet of the black Jag parked at the pavement. The trees were budding. Nature was renewing herself all over again. She tapped on the window and Tony lowered his paper and wound down the window.

  ‘Going over to Kath’s,’ she said, and got in the back and felt momentarily safe as she sank back on plush polished leather upholstery. The big engine purred into life. Tony, without fuss, steered the car out into the traffic.

  Safe!

  Annie sneered at the very thought.

  She wasn’t safe. She wasn
’t safe to be let out on her own. She had made bad—disastrous—decisions and she loathed herself for that. But she had to quash that feeling. Had to get over it, keep functioning, keep the faith. For Layla, if for nothing else.

  After all, what else was left to her now?

  51

  When they busted in on Talitha in her cheap, tatty flat, the waitress was alone and terrified, pleading her innocence.

  ‘I don’t know anything about any men or a woman with a kid. How the hell would I know that? I just wait on tables, that’s all.’

  ‘A tall thin blond man and a big-busted, blonde woman. The other one has dark hair—he’s big, powerfully built. All English and English-speaking. No?’

  Talitha looked up at the huge men gathered around her as she lay cringing on the bed. Huge men with guns, knives, pick handles. Christ, if she knew anything, she’d tell them. She shook her head violently.

  ‘You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know anything about these people.’

  They believed her.

  They knocked her around a little, but she was scared already, scared enough to talk, and she said nothing more that was of any help except that she had a boyfriend who was a fisherman, his father owned a boat called the Fiebre, but he would never do anything like this; would never have anything to do with people who had kidnapped a child.

  Which wasn’t much help, really. So—maybe a dead end.

  They left Talitha there, bruised and sobbing.

  They went down to the harbour and started talking to the sailors, the fishermen, just hanging around shooting the breeze, buying some pescado, chatting, being friendly but also saying, do you know anything about this? Three people—two men and a woman. Plus a child.

  It took just a week, and it turned out that Talitha’s boyfriend was in the frame. The Fiebre was owned by a father and son who fished the waters around the island. The Fiebre had gone out late at night about a week ago, not at the usual time but an hour later—the fishermen had noticed this. Three people had got on board: yes, two men and a girl. One tall thin blond man, one with dark hair, stocky, powerful. A pretty blonde woman. The Fiebre had not come back until three days later.

  And the child? There must have been a child?

  The fishermen stood around and shook their grizzled heads in unison.

  ‘No. No child,’ said one with a swift shake of the head, and his words were instantly translated into English. The one in charge looked at the little man, at his sun-weathered skin and crinkled brown eyes, and in an instant the air of camaraderie was gone. He moved in close to the small fisherman and spoke low, his eyes cold.

  ‘My friend, think hard. A child. Think.’

  The fisherman gulped. His friends all shuffled uneasily, wondering if there was going to be bad trouble now, whether they should intervene, and thinking probably not. It didn’t look safe with these men. One moment, they had been so friendly. Now, the pretence was gone. They looked like killers.

  ‘I…I can’t think,’ mumbled the fisherman, his eyes suddenly wild, wishing to placate, to help, if only to save himself from violence.

  ‘We can help with that,’ said one of the men, the one who was translating from Spanish to English. His eyes skewered the little fisherman. ‘We got things we can do, help you concentrate.’

  ‘I told you, I can’t think of anything else,’ said the fisherman desperately. ‘I didn’t see no child.’

  ‘Not good enough, my friend,’ said the one in charge regretfully. ‘Nowhere near good enough.’ He stepped in even closer to the cringing little man.

  ‘The dark-haired one was carrying a big bag,’ said one of his friends hurriedly.

  The one in charge stopped moving. The bag again, he thought.

  ‘How big?’ he asked. He spread his arms. ‘So big? This big?’

  The man who had spoken nodded. ‘Very big, si, like that.’

  The one in charge looked around at his men.

  ‘Big enough to hold a small child,’ he said.

  They nodded. This bore out what Marietta had told them.

  ‘And the Fiebre’s coming back when?’ asked the one in charge.

  ‘Tonight,’ said the fisherman, and his friends all agreed, si, tonight, with a palpable air of relief, of disaster closely averted.

  ‘Hey, that’s good.’ The one in charge was smiling. Suddenly he was the big genial bear of a man again, everyone’s friend.

  He paid the fishermen handsomely and bought them many glasses of hierbas secas, the island’s herb and aniseed liqueur, and sangría, in one of the bars. Then he and his men settled down by the quay to wait for the Fiebre’s return.

  She came in on the morning tide, a medium-sized fishing vessel looking the worse for wear, but serviceable. Big winches on the back, nets in a mess on the deck, one younger man jumping on to the dock to tie her up, the older one steering her in.

  ‘Hey, we got us a result,’ said one of the waiting men, straightening, flexing his stiffened limbs as the Fiebre approached. His colleagues followed.

  They grabbed the small lithe young one as soon as the boat was secured, but the older one surprised them—this was his son, after all—when he saw what was happening and put the engines hard astern. The engines screamed in protest as the vessel tried to drag half the dock away with her. Two of the men jumped quickly on board.

  ‘Hey, stop fooling around. Switch it off,’ said one of the men, and it was translated. The older fisherman ignored this, so one of the men gave him a warning cuff around the face.

  ‘We said, turn it off.’

  The grey old fisherman was cupping his lined and now bruised face in his hands. He took another look at them and switched it off.

  The men bundled the youngster back on board. Both fishermen were dark-skinned and small by European standards, as most of the islanders were. They threw the youngster into the wheelhouse along with his father and advanced on the pair of them. The pair started shouting and screaming.

  ‘Shut up!’ yelled the one in charge. He drew his hand out of his pocket and suddenly he was pointing a gun at the older one’s head. The older one looked at it as if his eyes were going to pop straight out on stalks.

  The fishermen fell silent.

  ‘Ask them,’ he said to the man who stood beside him.

  The man asked them in Castilian Spanish if they had just shipped two men and a woman and a large holdall over to England.

  No, they said, shaking their heads.

  The one in charge whacked the older fisherman hard around the head with the pistol. He fell back against the wheel, and the younger one surged forward.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ advised the one in charge, swinging the gun in his direction. The young one stepped back.

  ‘Ask them again,’ said the one in charge, and stepped coolly forward and kneed the youngster in the groin. He collapsed, groaning and retching, to the wheelhouse floor. ‘And tell them no more games.’

  The other man asked them.

  They said nothing, absorbed in their various ills.

  The one in charge stepped forward and raised the gun and hit the younger one in the nose, shattering it. Blood flew, spattering the wheelhouse floor. Then he stepped forcefully on the older one’s balls.

  The older one yelped and then started talking. He was told to empty his pockets, and this he did.

  ‘Lots of pesetas,’ said the leader of the men, looking around at his companions with a grin.

  ‘Hey, if I knew fishing paid this well, I’d get me a boat too, wouldn’t you?’

  They nodded agreement.

  ‘So what’s he saying?’

  ‘He’s saying his balls hurt.’

  ‘That’s too bad. But at least he’s still got balls: that’s a plus. Tell him that.’

  The message was relayed. The older fisherman looked sick with terror.

  ‘Now, did he take these people to England? Ask him. And tell him that he’d better not try anything fancy. We want the truth. We don’t want to cut off his f
amily jewels, but we will if we have to. Tell him.’

  The translator relayed all this. The fisherman looked sicker all the time. Then he started talking, very quickly.

  The translator grinned, looked at the one in charge, and nodded.

  52

  ‘Jesus Christ, Kath, look at the state of you,’ said Annie when Kath opened the door to her.

  Kath had sprouted more bruises. Her jaw was yellow, and there were finger-sized black bruises on the forearm that was holding the yelling baby against the front of her grubby, overstretched T-shirt.

  ‘I don’t want you round here,’ said Kath, and her eyes darted left and right as if Jimmy might somehow be watching, and taking note.

  ‘Tough. I’m here,’ said Annie, and pushed on into the hallway. Jimmy Junior ran up to her, smiling, remembering the chocolates. ‘Hiya, Tiger,’ she said, and bent and tickled him. He laughed in delight. Annie thought of Layla, and her guts clenched in pain.

  She straightened and turned to Kath as Jimmy Junior ran into the kitchen.

  ‘What happened to your face? And your arm?’ she asked.

  Kath kicked the door closed and brushed past Annie. ‘I tripped on the stairs,’ she said, not looking Annie in the eye.

  ‘Again? Okay. Right,’ said Annie with a sigh. ‘Ellie says you’ve sacked her.’

  Annie followed Kath’s wide beam into the kitchen and looked around. Slightly better this time, thanks to Ellie. But it was hardly the Ideal sodding Home Exhibition. The sink was still full of crocks, for a start. And the floor needed mopping. Kath sat down at the kitchen table and fastened the baby on to the teat. Then she glared at Annie.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to send people snooping around here,’ she said. Her chin wobbled. ‘You got me in bother with Jimmy.’

  Annie shrugged off her coat, went over to the sink and squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl, then ran some water. But it was stone cold.

  ‘The immersion’s not on,’ said Kath.