Black Widow (20 page)

‘She’s a very attractive woman,’ said Annie, unsure where this conversation was leading. A neutral compliment to the woman she had seen with Constantine’s group at the Ritz seemed the safest path. She just wanted to get out of here, but his soft, clammy hand was still holding hers and she couldn’t jerk it away without seeming rude…

Lucco laughed. It was a distinctly chilling sound.

‘Ah, no. You think Aunt Gina’s my mother. No, no. Gina’s my father’s sister. My mother Maria is dead.’

His eyes were suddenly flat, unreadable, as they stared into hers.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘She died five years ago. And of course my father is devoted to her memory,’ said Lucco.
‘Utterly
devoted.’

The little fucker’s warning me off
, realized Annie.

‘Of course he is,’ said Annie stiffly.

This time she didn’t care if she was being rude or not. She didn’t give a stuff. She wrenched her hand free.

His eyes sharpened on hers, but she kept staring right back at him.

‘Nice meeting you,’ said Annie, and swept past him to the front door.

‘And you,’ he called after her, rather too loudly. ‘Likewise.’

‘So what the fuck happened?’ asked Dolly when she got back to Limehouse.

‘It’s like sticking your hand in a pit full of scorpions,’ said Annie, collapsing into a chair in the kitchen and kicking off her heels.

And did she want to do that again?

Simple answer—
no.

Constantine Barolli could stuff his half a million quid. He could stuff his empty promises about looking for Layla, too. Annie knew she was on her own. She was going to have to go to Plan B.

Whatever the fuck Plan B was.

She sank her head into her hands. ‘Christ, Doll, I need a drink,’ she moaned.

‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Thanks, Doll’

‘Jimmy been back yet?’ asked Annie.

‘Nope.’

‘Darren and Ellie out?’

‘Darren’s at the doctor’s,’ said Dolly. ‘Feeling a bit below par, poor kid.’

‘He don’t look well’

‘Keeps having blackouts. Bit anaemic, maybe.’

‘And where’s Ellie?’

‘Over at your cousin Kath’s place, cleaning it up.’ Dolly slapped three spoonfuls of tea into the pot and pulled a face. ‘Jumped at the chance to do something different like we thought she would—but, my God, I wouldn’t wish that fucking dirty hole on my worst enemy. Sorry, I know she’s your family, but it’s true, ain’t it? Don’t know how she’ll get on there. Probably never want to go back again if I’m any judge.’

‘I told Jimmy to get a couple of the club cleaners on the job,’ said Annie, taking off her coat and gloves. ‘Don’t think he bothered, though. He don’t seem to take a blind bit of notice of anything I say.’

Which couldn’t go on. Annie knew it. Jimmy was going to have to be pulled back into line. Trouble was, she didn’t have a clue how to do it at the moment. She didn’t have a clue about anything much at all.

‘Una behaving herself?’ she asked.

‘Yep. Can’t last. Keep your eye on her. She don’t seem the type to take a pasting lying down. She’s a brooder, that one.’

Like Lucco
, thought Annie.

She thought back to their encounter in the hall at Constantine’s. Yes, she’d definitely been warned off. Tony had told her that Constantine and Maria had married when they were both just twenty, then had the three children in quick succession. They had remained together until Maria’s death five years ago. Lucco didn’t want his dear daddy taking any interest in a woman who looked like dear dead mummy, and Annie knew why. If Constantine remarried, if he fathered another child, then Lucco would see that child as competition—possibly for his father’s affection, definitely for his father’s position and his money.

He needn’t worry
, thought Annie sourly.

A liaison with Constantine Barolli was the last thing on her mind.

She thought back, to the shocking thing he had said to her. Still couldn’t believe it.

‘Penny for them?’ Dolly sat down beside Annie and started pouring the tea.

Annie looked at her, startled. ‘What?’

‘You’re miles away.’

‘Oh, nothing.’ Annie gave a tight smile.

‘Did something happen at the Barolli place?’

‘What? No. Nothing.’

‘Is he going to help then? With the money?’

‘No. I don’t think he is.’

‘But I thought he was a friend of Max’s. Well,
at least a business associate. I thought they were tight together.’

Annie shrugged and sipped her tea.

She had sworn to herself that she would do anything,
anything
, to get her daughter back safe.

But not this
, she thought.
I can’t do this.

Because Constantine Barolli wanted her in bed.

He’d stated that fact, calmly, clearly, shocking her rigid, making her run for the hills. But how far could she
really
run? Layla’s safe return, the money,
everything
hinged on her compliance.

But she just couldn’t do it.

So then. Plan B.

And then Jimmy Bond came in, and sat down at the kitchen table across from Annie, and looked at her.

‘It’s done,’ he said. ‘We’ve got him. Shall we go? We’ll take my car.’

It was time to stand up and be counted. Annie gathered up her coat and gloves.

‘I’ll see you later, Doll,’ she told Dolly.

Dolly just nodded. She didn’t know what was going on and she didn’t want to know either. It was better to be left in ignorance.

Charlie ‘The Dip’ Foster was Redmond Delaney’s right hand, and right now Charlie knew he was done for.

Some heavy faces had brought him to Smithfield meat market and he knew he was in
big
trouble.

They’d snatched him, worked him over. Taken him completely by surprise.

He’d been at a party at his girlfriend’s house, her twenty-first birthday. They’d gone outside for a bit of how’s your father and he’d been caught with his trousers down—literally.

So now here he was.

They’d laughed as they’d hung him up here, joking about meat being well hung. Then they’d left him here for an hour, just left him dangling.

He was a tough bastard but right now he was scared shitless.

It was the noise. The awful noise of that thing
coming down on the wooden block. His brain was agile, you didn’t get to be well up in the mob without having a few brain cells rattling around in your head, but now his brain kept faltering. That
noise.

Thunk!

That thing on wood.

Thunk!

Chopping through flesh and bone.

He tried again to get his hands loose from their bindings, but again he failed. He slumped again, exhausted.

They’d hung him up from one of the meat hooks by the back of his jacket collar, laughing as they lifted him up there. The smell had hit him first. The smell of meat, of death. Pigs’ heads surrounded him, the skin flayed from the flesh. Their eyes stared at him sightlessly. Sides of beef nudged against him.

The cleaver came down again and a trotter thumped on to the floor.

Thunk!

Oh God help me
, he thought.
Please help me.

But then he knew he’d done bad things. Hurt people. Robbed. Bad things. So perhaps God wasn’t listening. Perhaps he was turning a deaf ear.

The butcher with the gentle eyes and the bloodstained apron went on chopping away patiently at the meat.

And now Charlie could see through his stinging eyes that there was a woman approaching.

A woman in black.

All black.

Dark hair and eyes that were just this side of crazy. Black coat. Black leather gloves.

A heavy on either side of her. Known faces. Jimmy Bond, he knew that bastard all too well, moving off to one side and watching, his eyes going from the woman to Charlie, back and forth, back and forth.

The woman stopped several paces away and stared steadily up at Charlie.

He gulped.

‘You’re Charlie Foster,’ the woman said. Her voice was low. ‘Are you wondering who I am, Charlie? Or do you know?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie with an effort. Hanging up here was killing him. His head ached, his shoulders were agony.

‘I’m Annie Carter.’

Fuck it
, thought Charlie. Carter was a name he hadn’t wanted to hear, not here, not now.

‘And you’re the Delaneys’ main man,’ said Annie. ‘Got a question for you, Charlie. Think carefully before you answer.’

Charlie nodded.

‘Where is Kieron Delaney?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie.

Jimmy came over, slipping something on to his hand. He suddenly gut-punched Charlie with a brass knuckle-duster. All the air came out of Charlie in a whoop.

‘Think again,’ said Annie.

Charlie was struggling to get his breath back. He was gasping like a fish out of water.

‘Jesus, I don’t know,’ groaned Charlie, his face screwed up in pain.

Panic blurred his thoughts. His brain felt like mush.

‘Come on, Charlie. You can do better than that. Just tell me where Kieron Delaney is and you can go.’

‘I don’t
know
where he is,’ said Charlie. ‘If I knew, I’d tell you.’

‘I think you
do
know, Charlie. And you’d better tell me.’

‘I don’t. I don’t know,’ babbled Charlie.

An eye for an eye
, thought Annie.

She nodded to Jimmy.

Jimmy nodded to the boys. They manhandled him back down on to the concrete floor. His legs sagged under him. He was shaking. Urine trickled down his thighs. They held him up between them.

‘Put him here,’ said the butcher, indicating the block.

Charlie started to scream.

Ten minutes later, Annie went outside and was sick into the gutter. Being sick, feeling sick, repulsed, disgusted, was becoming a way of life. For the first time, she seriously wondered if she had the balls for this.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

All very well to think it, say it—but to do it? That was another thing altogether. Layla had lost her finger and her freedom and Annie had craved revenge for that. So Charlie had lost a finger too. However, he still hadn’t given away Kieron Delaney’s whereabouts. And he wouldn’t. Charlie was tough. Scared shitless, yes—but hard as nails. He wouldn’t squeal.

‘Should we go on?’ Jimmy had asked her after the butcher had done the job on Charlie.

She’d shaken her head, disgusted with herself, that desperation had driven her to this. She’d walked out.

Oh yes
—
and then she’d been sick. Sick as a cowardly dog in the gutter.

Sick like the feeble woman she was. Max wouldn’t have been sick. Neither would Constantine Barolli. They would have severed Charlie’s digits themselves and then carried right on until he blabbed or died. She knew it.

But she’d done what she had to do. She’d sent a clear message to the Delaneys that they crossed her at their peril. And she wasn’t finished yet—not by a long shot.

‘You happy now?’ Jimmy said, coming out and finding her, apparently composed, waiting by the car.

‘Oh, I’m fucking ecstatic,’ said Annie coldly.

‘There’ll be trouble over this,’ said Jimmy.

Annie looked at him. For fuck’s sake! He was meant to be on her side; he was meant to be her right-hand man. And all she was getting from him was aggro.

‘There’s already trouble,’ she told him. ‘I’m unhappy. And when I’m unhappy, you’d better watch out.’ She turned away from him and got into the car. Jimmy drove her back to Limehouse in silence and then sped off without a word.

It was Friday—party day again. The weeks were speeding past. There were three new girls in, entertaining the punters in the front room. Music drifted out, not too loud of course—had to keep the neighbours in mind. The door from the hall was wide open and Ross was at his station beside the door.

As she passed the open front room door, Annie saw the drinks set out, and the nibbles, and the low, intimate lighting in there. One of the girls was straddling an older punter in an armchair, bouncing up and down. He looked too old to take the strain. Annie hoped she didn’t kill the poor old sod: a stiff on the premises would be awkward.

But then
, she thought wryly,
it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

Two of the girls—pretty, fresh-looking young girls—were kneeling on the carpet giving two
punters blow jobs on the sofa. The two men were chatting about the state of their share margins as the girls gave them head. They could have been in the boardroom. They looked the type.

There were rapturous noises coming from upstairs, and the fainter sound of a whip whacking on flesh.
Una.

Dolly emerged from the kitchen, closing the door carefully behind her. She beckoned to Annie.

‘Billy’s here,’ she hissed. ‘He says he’s got news for you. Christ, he does pick his moments, don’t he?’

Annie hurried into the kitchen, closing the door on the sounds of revelry behind her. Billy Black was there, sitting at the kitchen table, his hat in his hand, his briefcase clutched on his lap, a cup of tea steaming in front of him.

He looked up as she came in, and blushed.

‘Hello Billy,’ said Annie, and sat down at the table. She looked across at him. ‘Dolly says you’ve got news. Have you found out something?’

Billy nodded and haltingly told her what he had discovered. That he had an address. It hadn’t been easy and it hadn’t been quick. The quarry had been cagey, taking careful steps, but Billy prided himself on his persistence and it had certainly paid off. He’d found that this was a long-standing arrangement, not an overnight wonder. The quarry had been back and back and back for more.

Annie stood up.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Come on, Billy.’

Tony was waiting in the car, reading the paper. Senator Kennedy was on the front page and there was trouble in Sudan and Ethiopia. Same old, same old. Annie tapped on the window and he wound it down and looked at her expectantly, and at Billy standing there at her side like a spare part.

‘We’ve got an address to go to, it’s not far. Billy’s going to direct you.’

Tony nodded and put his newspaper aside. Billy got in the front passenger seat, Annie in the back.

Stammering and halting, Billy directed Tony through the streets until they wound up at a small row of terraces with a neat and tidy air about them. Tony got out and opened the door for Annie. Billy came around the car. They stood on the pavement and looked up at the house in question.

‘That’s his old Zodiac over there,’ said Annie. She’d clocked the registration number when he’d driven her back from Smithfield meat market, and the colour was distinctive: it was definitely the right one. She looked at Billy. ‘Make yourself scarce now, Billy. Can you get back home from here?’

‘Course I can,’ he mumbled, and shambled off along the road.

She didn’t want Billy taking any heat because he’d helped her with this.

‘Okay, Tone,’ she said, bracing herself for this. ‘Let’s go.’