Black Widow (21 page)

So the kidnappers were not in Palma any more. There had been talk about a boat, so perhaps the scum had already left the island? But
talk
of a boat didn’t mean they’d actually got on one, did it? Constantine Barolli’s boys had done door-to-door and that had proved worth while. Now they concentrated on taxis, car rentals, and the bars and, yes, the
boats
in and around Palma’s harbour to find the route out that the kidnappers had taken. They drew a blank on the taxis and the car-hire firms—nothing on those names, nothing on those descriptions, not a damned thing. Then they started on the bars, talking to bartenders, owners, waitresses.

In one of the last they tried they spoke to two waitresses who said that on the night in question, a Wednesday, they hadn’t been working, but Talitha, another waitress, had, and her boyfriend
was a fisherman who had a boat with his father and—guess what?—sometimes they did little jobs here and there; not fishing, little jobs, did they know the sort of thing?

Oh yes, the men laughed, they knew the sort of thing.

And where did Talitha live? the men asked. Oh, we couldn’t tell you
that
, giggled the girls, and the men said, oh but you
could
, and smiled, and flashed enough money that the girls managed to overcome their scruples towards their colleague’s privacy.

It was a very slim chance, but they were used to pursuing slim chances now.

The girl was gorgeous. Blonde, Afro-style hair. Big tits, pink nipples you could hang your hat on. Tiny waist, real womanly hips.
Not
a natural blonde, which was a bit of a disappointment. Reddish bush. But still—luscious. She was the sort who’d run to fat in later life, but he wouldn’t be boffing her in later life, so who gave a fuck? And she had too much chat, but then that was women for you, thought Jimmy Bond as he lay in the afterglow of a stupendous sex session.

One of many stupendous sex sessions.

He felt like a tiger in the sack with this girl.

Oh, he’d had other girls since he’d walked up the aisle with Kath. Silly cow got up the duff on their honeymoon—fucking rubber had burst—and after that it was all downhill. First with the morning sickness, then the not wanting sex in case it hurt the kid, then on and on and on, nag, nag, nag,
until he’d just tuned her out. When they’d first been married he could have eaten her; now he wished he fucking well had.

He’d been hanging out at the Blue Parrot the night she’d dropped the first sprog, and down the billiard hall with the lads when she dropped the second. By then he knew the drill. Kath was a dirty cow, let the house go all to fuck, and he was fastidious by nature, he hated mess. So what else could he do but look elsewhere for his pleasures?

‘Was that the doorbell?’ his bed-mate asked, rolling against him and giving him the equivalent of a full body massage.

Jimmy felt himself getting excited all over again. Christ, she was a handful. He clutched at the big breasts, rolling them around in his hands.
Luscious
, he thought. Yeah, that really summed her up. And of course there was another little bonus involved in shagging this particular girl. It turned him on every time he thought about it, and he was thinking about it now.

‘You’re awful,’ she groaned happily, arching her back and moaning. Then she stiffened. ‘That
was
the doorbell. Just a tick, sweetheart, I’ll have a look, see who it is.’

And she was gone.

Fuck it
, thought Jimmy. It would be some frigging door-to-door salesman, trying to get her to buy brushes or cunting encyclopaedias.

‘Leave it. They’ll go away,’ he said lazily.

But she was peeking out through the nets, looking down. Jimmy stretched and yawned and thought
what an arse
as he watched her standing there in the buff. He thought of who else had admired that arse and lay there feeling like a king.

Only trouble was, the Queen had come back, and that was a bit of a downer.

He frowned.

Annie fucking Carter.

The King is dead
, he thought.
Long Live the Queen.

Wasn’t that what they always said? He’d heard it somewhere, and he’d rolled it around in his head many times over the years he’d worked the Carter patch. His version had recently changed, however. His version now said: Max Carter the King is dead, and Jonjo the King’s brother is dead too, and the new King was going to be him—Jimmy Bond. King of the hill; top of the whole bastard heap.

Only so far it hadn’t worked out that way.

Annie fucking Carter.

She seemed to have nine lives, like a cat. She’d been shot in the chest, and lived. Had been set upon by Pat Delaney—and he knew hard men, real faces, who had walked in terror of Mad Pat Delaney and his drugged-up benders. But she’d survived that too.

Couldn’t seem to kill the bitch for love nor money.

That fucking skirt had stormed back into the manor like a whirlwind, dishing out orders, and Jimmy was not used to taking orders, not any more. It had suited him down to the ground, Max out in the sun, Jonjo flitting back and forth between the manor and Majorca and not caring too much what was going on. He had taken charge. Now, he was used to
being
in charge. And he didn’t like it one little bit that he wasn’t King any more.

Of course, he could play it smart, get in good with the Queen. She was certainly tasty, in that stuck-up, ‘how dare you think about touching me?’ way she had. It was sort of challenging with a woman like that, breaking down the reserve,
penetrating
(and here he congratulated himself on making a really good pun) that thick layer of ice…But he didn’t like bossy women. And Christ, she was bossy.

Needs a good stiff talking-to
, he thought, feeling his erection tenting the bed sheet as he thought about doing just that.
That would sort her out. And I could be just the man to do it. And then I’d be King—because she’d be the Queen, but I’d make sure she took a back seat, left me in charge
…

‘Shit!’ yelped the girl.

She snatched up her robe from the floor.

Jimmy looked at her in surprise, disturbed from a pleasant reverie in which he was master of Annie Carter, master of the whole effing
manor.

‘What?’ he asked irritably. He wished she’d stop arsing about and come back to bed. He’d got himself all worked up thinking about how he was going to bring Annie Carter to heel, and he was annoyed that the girl was faffing around the room now, checking her hair in the dressing-table mirror, shuffling into her slippers, telling him to
get up.

‘What the fuck for?’ Jimmy asked, sitting up in bed, getting pretty angry now.

If it was her mother calling round again, he was going to give the stroppy old bint a piece of his mind.

The girl was nearly hopping from one foot to another.

‘For Christ’s sake, Jimmy, get
up.
It’s
her.
It’s Annie bloody Carter.’

‘They’re in. But they’re not answering,’ said Annie. She had seen the curtains twitch upstairs.

Jimmy certainly hadn’t wasted any time. Straight back from the meat market, straight into bed. Maybe violence gave him a hard on. Annie stood there, still feeling sick, but determined.

Tony rang the bell again.

They waited. And waited.

Finally Annie said: ‘Can you get this door open, Tony?’

Tony snorted.

‘I could get that door open with the cheeks of my arse.’ He paused. ‘Pardon my language, Mrs Carter.’

‘Okay, open it.’

Tony opened the door with a shoulder charge. It popped back, shattering the lock, and whacked against the inside wall. There was a girl with a
blonde Afro halfway down the stairs, frozen in action in a pink dressing gown and slippers. She was holding her head in her hands and looking at her wrecked door in horror.

‘For fuck’s
sake,’
she complained. ‘I was just coming.’

‘Hiya Jeanette,’ said Annie with a bright smile. ‘Long time no see. I like the new hairdo.’

Jimmy Bond appeared at the top of the stairs, pulling his shirt on.

‘And Jimmy!’ said Annie. ‘This is cosy. Well, you going to ask us in?’

They stood around in the kitchen. A nice kitchen too. All the latest units. They’d passed the front room on the way in here: that was nice too. Beautifully decorated, neat. Very nice. Money had been spent. Lots of it. Jeanette didn’t offer tea. The silence was ominous.

Annie waited.

‘Would you like me to wait in the car, Mrs Carter?’ asked Tony.

Annie glanced across at him, leaning against the worktop. Tony looked awkward. Jimmy Bond was a well-respected Carter boss. It was obvious that Tony felt bad about busting in on him like this. And Jimmy wouldn’t forget that Tony had witnessed his embarrassment today.

‘Yeah, if you’d like to,’ she said.

Tony was out of there like a dose of salts. Leaving the three of them, Jeanette fiddling with her hair, Annie quietly waiting, Jimmy with arms folded, scowling at the floor.

‘How long you two been an item?’ she asked the pair of them.

Jimmy opened his mouth.

‘A couple of months,’ said Jeanette the motor mouth. ‘Jimmy bought me this place, wasn’t that good of him?’

‘For God’s sake, why don’t you ever learn to button that fat mouth of yours?’ snapped Jimmy.

Jeanette flinched back, flushing, eyes wide.

Oh, so she hasn’t had any of the rough stuff yet
, thought Annie.
That was a surprise to her.

‘But not too long ago you were with Jonjo, in Majorca,’ said Annie.

Jeanette looked sulkily at the floor.

‘Yeah, I know, But he wasn’t very nice to me. He used to, you know, get rough sometimes.’

Poor old Jeanette.

How long before Jimmy, who was now flavour of the month, began to ‘get rough’ too? They were still in the honeymoon period. Jimmy beat up on his wife; sooner or later he was going to beat up on his girlfriend too. Annie guessed that Jimmy’s good behaviour wouldn’t last beyond a year.

She looked at Jimmy.

‘Jonjo couldn’t have known about this,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘He didn’t.’

Because he’d have cut your balls out with a blunt carving knife if he had.

‘I take it Kath don’t know either?’ Annie enquired. ‘You remember Kath—my cousin? Your wife? The mother of your two children?’

‘Hey, don’t start on me,’ snapped Jimmy, stabbing with his finger. ‘You know what she’s like. She’s a filthy bitch and she’s frigid as a nun.’

‘She’s had two children and she’s lost her mother. She’s had it hard.’

‘No,
I’ve
had it hard. You don’t know what it’s like, having to go back to that fucking tip every night, the kids crying, Kath sat there stuffing her face and bleating on about what a struggle her life is.’

‘For God’s sake Jimmy—Kath’s life
is
a struggle. And since you probably ain’t bothered to get her any help, I’ve sent one of the girls over from Dolly’s place to help her get the place cleaned up,’ said Annie.

Jimmy looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel. ‘You had no right to do that,’ he said.

‘I had every right. She’s family, and she’s drowning.’ Annie looked at him and her eyes were hard. ‘Plus, she’s very accident-prone. Keeps walking into doors. Or tripping on the stairs. Or something.’

Jimmy went even redder. ‘I don’t want you sending people into my home to spy on me,’ he shouted suddenly. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

‘I’m helping Kath,’ said Annie. ‘That’s all’

‘No you’re not. You’re snooping around, seeing what you can find. How did you find
this
place, eh? I know. I was followed, right?’

‘Jimmy, you can’t be surprised I want to know what you’re up to,’ said Annie. ‘You’ve been anything but straight with me. For instance, you
knew
about what had happened to Max and Jonjo when we first spoke about it, because Jeanette must have told you. Jeanette usually tells everyone everything, don’t you Jeanette?’

Jeanette just stood there, open-mouthed.

‘So you knew they’d been hit. You knew, but you made me jump through hoops anyway. Why, Jimmy? For fun? Because you’re a fucking sadist?’

‘Look.’ Jimmy made an effort and got himself back under control. ‘I’m entitled to a private life.’

‘You’re not entitled to treat a member of my family like a fool. Your loyalty should be to her and to the firm. Right now,
I
am the firm. Don’t make me question your loyalty again. I want this finished, Jimmy. Kath’s your wife—start treating her like it.’

Annie left the room. She went out of the shattered front door and got into the car and sat there, fuming. She was up against a whole shitload of
grief. And the one person she was supposed to be able to depend on most, Max’s number one man, was proving to be nothing but fucking trouble.

She leaned her head back against the leather upholstery and closed her eyes. She was getting nowhere. Time was slipping past, and she was getting
nowhere.
Snatching Charlie Foster, Jimmy’s opposite number on the Delaney firm, had proved nothing except that she had no stomach for torturing people. And there could be repercussions—Redmond and Orla Delaney would not take an attack on a Delaney boy lightly. There could be trouble.

Everywhere she looked, there was trouble. And she was still no closer to getting Layla back alive.

Time.

Time was her enemy.

Time was running out
fast.

‘Where to, Mrs Carter?’ asked Tony, starting the car.

‘Limehouse,’ she said.

I need help
, she thought.

Well, it had been offered.

Oh yes—but at a price.

When they got back to the Limehouse brothel, Dolly had news.

Aretha was back in the saddle, doing three days a week.

Ellie was disgusted with Kath’s place, but she was cutting through the dirt downstairs like a good ’un, even though Kath had made it clear she didn’t want any favours off ‘Annie fucking Carter’.

Una and Aretha had—predictably—hated each other on sight.

Darren was off sick again.

‘What—again?’ Annie asked, worried about him. ‘What’s up with him Doll—really? He looks damned rough and he don’t seem to be getting any better.’

‘Don’t ask,’ said Dolly grimly.

Oh yes—and Billy had dropped by to say that Constantine Barolli wanted another meet with her.