Black Widow (15 page)

Tony was waiting in the car, patient and enduring as always. She was suddenly very thankful for Tony. It was dark outside now, dark and cold. She huddled into the back seat and absorbed the warmth of the car’s interior.

Tony was good. He didn’t ask how the meet with Constantine Barolli had gone, and she was grateful for that. She wouldn’t have known how to answer anyway. Talking to Constantine Barolli had been like entering a foreign land. In the sumptuous Holland Park house the overwhelming aura had been one of great riches, extreme comfort.

Yeah, and they say crime don’t pay
, she thought sourly.

She reminded herself that Constantine Barolli was a crook of the highest order, cunning as a fox. Wasn’t that what they called him on the streets of London and New York, the silver fox? Now she
could see why. She was hoping that a man with Barolli’s clout could somehow turn the odds in Layla’s favour, magic up a good result.

Impossible.

In her heart, she knew that her baby girl was lost, gone from her forever.

And maybe that’s what I deserve
, thought Annie painfully.

After all, she’d done some pretty bad things, things she wasn’t proud of. She thought of Ruthie, her lovely trusting sister. She’d stolen her sister’s man from right under her bloody nose, and she had walked carelessly on the dark side of life—she had even colluded in murder. She
deserved
to suffer, that was it.

But still she couldn’t give up. She knew she was beaten, she knew it was all for nothing, but she
could not give up.
Not while there was even the smallest chance that Layla could still be alive.

‘Where to, Mrs Carter?’ asked Tony as he moved the car smoothly off into the flow of traffic.

There’s a block of apartments in Mayfair, on the corner of Oxford Street and Park Lane. Let’s go there.’

But what the hell for?
she wondered the instant she’d said it.

She knew what for. She was revisiting her old life, the life where she had been in control, where things had never been easy but at least they hadn’t
ripped her guts out and left her to die slowly inside. She was trying to reassure herself, to tell herself that all was not lost—even when she knew that it was.

They were passing Hyde Park, the car zipping along smoothly.

Max’s car.

Is he dead?
Constantine Barolli had asked her, his hand on her wrist.

She hoped he hadn’t felt her pulse leap with the lie.

Now they were cruising past Park Lane, into Piccadilly, and then they were there, and the block of flats looked just the same. Tony eased the car into the side of the road.

Nothing had changed. She had lived here with Max as his mistress, and she had been so happy. Rapturously, first-love happy. There were lights on in the apartment; someone else was living there now. Annie wondered if human feelings sank into the bricks of old buildings, if other people could feel the happiness of past generations…but if that was so, then what about Dolly’s place? There had been plenty of sex there and plenty of laughter—but there had been other things too. Worse things. Pat Delaney meeting his Maker. Poor little Eddie, Max’s youngest brother, too…but she didn’t want to think about that.

Tony waited behind the wheel, the motor idling.

‘You know Upper Brook Street, Tony?’ she asked at last.

‘Yep. I do.’

‘Let’s go there.’

It wasn’t far. Back along Park Lane, passing the glitzy hotels, then the car swung right and she was back in her old life again.

This place was luxurious too. But the memories she had made here had not been like those she had made in Mayfair with Max. These memories were of a successful business, a high-class brothel. Peers of the Realm and MPs and City gents had flocked here to see Madam Annie’s classy girls. But then it had all gone sour. It was here that she had been arrested. Here that Kieron Delaney, pampered brat of the rival Delaney gang, had tried to force himself on her…

‘That’s enough, Tony. Let’s get home.’

Or what passed for it.

‘No, wait.’ Annie straightened. ‘You know Max’s mother, Queenie, you know where she used to live? Max never sold the house, did he?’

Tony shook his head.

‘I know it,’ he said. His eyes moved sideways, away from hers, in the mirror. ‘It might not be convenient tonight though, Mrs Carter.’

Annie stared at his face curiously.

‘Convenient for who?’ she asked.

‘It’s just that the boys meet there sometimes…’

‘Ah. And they’re meeting there tonight? Well
good. Come on then, Tony. Let’s take a look at the old place.’

Tony glanced at her face in the rear-view mirror. He sighed, then pointed the car toward the meaner streets of the East End.

Annie had never been inside Queenie Carter’s home. She knew Max and the boys used to meet there—they still met there even after Queenie was dead—but she had never stepped inside. She had never even met Queenie. Her sister Ruthie had. Ruthie, as Max’s prospective bride, had been taken to Sunday tea with the imperious woman and had declared herself to be ‘scared shitless’ throughout. Which had to be true, because Ruthie rarely swore, but she had come back home from the meeting in a real lather.

‘She’s horrible,’ Ruthie had told Annie. ‘Really scary.’

But Max had adored his mother.

Had Queenie lived, Annie doubted that she would have found favour with the old woman, either. At least Ruthie had been sweet natured and biddable, which must have been what Queenie wanted in a daughter-in-law. But Annie was strong-headed, opinionated—too much, she felt, like Queenie herself. They would have clashed. That much was certain.

There were people still arriving when Tony stopped the car. Dark shapes passing beneath the streetlights, disappearing into the doorway.

‘Coming then, Tone?’ Annie was out of the door but then stopped dead, remembering what had happened last time she hurried across a street.

But the road was quiet.

Tony got out and locked the car and followed her over the road.

He knocked and the door opened to reveal a rat-faced little man holding a cigar. Rat Face’s jaw dropped when he saw Tony standing there with a woman in tow.

‘What the fucking hell…?’ asked Rat Face. ‘Who’s this, Tony?’

‘This is your boss,’ said Annie, pushing forward and into the hallway. ‘Shut the door, will you? It’s freezing out there tonight.’

‘This is Jackie,’ said Tony to Annie. To Jackie he said: ‘Watch your mouth. This is Mrs Carter.’

The faces of the men seated around the big table in the back room upstairs were so comically startled by her appearance that Annie almost had to stifle a laugh. Jimmy Bond was there, at the head of the table. He looked not just startled but badly put out. There were a couple of others she recognized. Gary Tooley was there: lanky, blond and—by all accounts—vicious. And Steven Taylor, a squat and powerfully built man with mud-coloured eyes and a permanent five o’clock shadow on his chin. If Jimmy was Max’s most trusted lieutenant,
these two were tough sergeants-at-arms. Hard men. Handy men. Men who were not to be trifled with.

‘Hi Jimmy,’ said Annie brightly, unbuttoning her coat. ‘Introduce me to all these nice gentlemen, why don’t you?’

Jimmy looked as though he was about to blow a gasket, but he swallowed it and stood up.

‘Boys, this is Max’s wife.’

‘Who is taking over, as of now,’ said Annie, smiling tightly.

‘Yeah,’ said Jimmy. ‘Annie—’

‘
Mrs Carter
,’ Annie reminded him sharply, still smiling.

‘Mrs Carter,’ said Jimmy with heavy irony. ‘This is Steve, this is Gary…’

‘Yeah, I remember you two,’ said Annie.

They nodded, looking at her as though she’d just landed from Mars. ‘This is Deaf Derek, and this is Benny. This is Jackie Tulliver…’ The cigar-smoking little Rat Face nodded, all the while looking at her as if she’d crawled out from some place beyond his understanding.

The welcome was distinctly underwhelming, but Annie was determined to remain unfazed.

‘Thanks for the intros, Jimmy,’ she said, walking straight to the head of the table. Tony followed.

As Jimmy stood there with his mouth open, Annie slipped into his chair. Tony took up station
behind her, arms folded, looming over the assembled company.

‘Take a seat, Jimmy,’ said Annie, looking at the frozen faces around the table. ‘Nice to see you, boys. I suppose Jimmy’s already told you what’s going on. Max is doing some business with Jonjo in the Med, so I’m taking over here.’

With a face like thunder, Jimmy sat down in a vacant chair near the bottom of the table.

‘Now,’ said Annie. ‘Let’s talk business, shall we?’

Two hours later the boys picked up their coats and started to leave. Annie still sat at the head of the table, sweating with nerves but outwardly cool as ice. Aware that these were serious hard nuts and that she badly needed them on her side.

But she did hold one ace.

She was Max’s wife.

Max had once
owned
this manor. He had been feared and respected here. Oh, she knew the Bill were trying to clamp down on the gangs, but they were a long way off succeeding in clearing the streets just at the moment. So the Carter name still had a lot of clout.

As a Carter wife, she had to be accorded respect. Any other woman coming in off the street would be given very short shrift; Max’s boys would laugh in her face. But she was
Mrs Carter
, and that counted for something. Thank God.

Even so, she could see they were sceptical. Even so, they had looked at her at first as if she must be having a laugh.
A woman, in charge?

Get used to it, boys
, she thought.

And actually it hadn’t gone too badly. After that first sticky half an hour, they had started to tell her what was happening out there on the manor. That the arcades and parlours were turning over trade nicely, that there had been trouble here and there, like that little fracas at Lolly’s place, but that had been the Delaney mob trying to edge in while Jonjo was away. They had jumped on that hard, hit two cunting Delaney sites like a ton of effing bricks…

‘Any trouble since then?’

Steve shook his head.

So all was well. Or sort of.

When they had all gone and Jimmy was wandering out after them, Annie called him back.

‘Tony, can you wait outside in the car?’ asked Annie.

Tony nodded, and went.

Jimmy sat down and leaned nonchalantly back in his chair. He looked at Annie.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘What?’

‘How many sets of keys to this place?’ she asked.

‘
Why
are you so obsessed with locking things up?’

Oh, maybe because I’ve had nearly everything I thought I owned snatched away from me
, thought Annie.

Aloud she said: ‘Just answer the question, Jimmy.’

‘Okay. Jonjo had a set, and so did Max. I’ve got a set too. No one else.’

Annie nodded. So she might find a key on Max’s key ring, the one she had brought with her from Majorca.

‘Okay. Get another two cut, will you?’

‘Fine. Listen, the boys ain’t happy about you shutting up the clubs.’

‘I know.’ Annie paused. ‘Tell me again who collects from where, Jimmy.’

Jimmy went through it all. Laid it out. There were twelve people involved in collecting for the firm. Jimmy named each of them, and which of the arcades, brothels, car showrooms, and shops each individual was responsible for. All monies were passed to Jimmy Bond, and he passed the cash on to Jonjo.

Annie listened intently.

‘And you personally collected the monies from the three clubs?’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘So where are they?’

‘Where is what?’

‘The monies you’ve collected from the clubs. And from all the other venues.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Sitting in Jonjo’s bank account, I suppose. Or Max’s.’

‘Yeah, but what about last month’s?’

‘What?’

‘Jonjo’s been away for at least a month, in fact nearly two, so you’ve collected about two months’ worth of takings—from the clubs and from all the other venues—that haven’t been passed on to him.’

Jimmy’s face reddened. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’ he asked.

Annie eyed him curiously. ‘No, Jimmy. I’m asking what you’ve done with two months’ takings.’

She knew it would be a sizeable sum, in the thousands.

‘Stashed safe at home,’ he said coldly. ‘What, do you want me to hand that over too?’

‘Yeah, that would be good,’ said Annie sweetly. She was getting a bit fucking fed up with Jimmy Bond and his attitude. ‘And any future monies too. Every week. As Jonjo’s not here, they come to me.’

Jimmy Bond was in a stinking mood by the time he parked his cream and blue Mark 11 Zodiac outside his house. By the time he walked through the front door his mood had degenerated even more. Annie fucking Carter had kept him at Queenie’s, turning the place inside out in case Max or Jonjo kept cash hidden there. They’d come up with nothing.

And now he was home.

Home.
What a bloody laugh.

It was late and still the fucking kids were screaming and bawling. He tripped over a kiddy car and a mini chair in the messy, dusty hallway, and was cursing Kath up hill and down dale by the time he got through to the kitchen.

In here, it was worse.

What exactly does the dirty cow do all day?
he wondered.
Anyone would think she had six fucking kids, not two.

She was sitting there at the kitchen table nursing the baby, a fag in her free hand sending up a ribbon of smoke. Jimmy Junior was whining for something and hanging on to her knees, grizzling to himself.

For fuck’s sake! Shouldn’t the kids be in bed by now?

‘What you got to eat?’ Jimmy asked, taking off his coat.

He looked around for a clean surface to lay it on but there was nowhere. Muttering under his breath, he went back into the hall, barking his shins on all the crap on the floor, and hung the coat up on a rack that was bursting with stuff. Everywhere in this sodding house was bursting with stuff. Open a cupboard and a ton of shit fell out on you. Open a drawer and you couldn’t close it again. He hated it.