Scarlet Women (22 page)

‘I hope so. You remember me? I came here before, talked to you about the…the deceased.’

Jesus—deceased. Aretha, the deceased.

‘Oh yes.’ He was hanging up the robes, his movements hurried. ‘It’s a bit of a bad time, actually. I’ve another service this afternoon, and things to do before then.’

‘I won’t take up much of your time,’ said Annie.

‘I’m afraid I can’t spare any time at all, not today,’ he said, turning back to her, his longfingered hands busily folding the black sash, laying it neatly aside.

‘I’m afraid you must,’ said Annie.

The vicar was suddenly still, staring at her blankly. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me. A few minutes, that’s all. Oh.’ Annie fished in her bag, pulled out a couple of
tenners. ‘And a donation. For the church roof. Or whatever. Don’t the steeple need repointing or some damned thing?’

Now his face was distinctly unfriendly. He looked disdainfully at the money, then back at her face. ‘Just say what you’ve come to say and go,’ he said.

‘Aretha. Girl you’ve just buried, you did her wedding ceremony.’

He shrugged. But his eyes were watchful.

‘Only she was pretty memorable to look at. Gorgeous, tall, black. Very distinctive. And the man she married was huge—a bouncer, an ex-boxer. I think you would have remembered them, but when I spoke to you last time, you weren’t sure. You thought maybe one of your lay preachers had done the job. But they didn’t. It was you.’

‘Oh. Well.’ He shook his head, his eyes moving away from hers. ‘I do a lot of weddings. Hundreds.’

‘Bet you don’t go to many receptions though,’ said Annie. ‘And get wasted.’

That touched a nerve.

‘Look, what is all this about?’ he demanded, an edge of aggression to his voice now. He stepped towards her, and now she could see the broken veins on his cheeks, the yellow cast to his eyes. Heavy drinker. Heavy
regular
drinker.

‘Nothing much,’ shrugged Annie. ‘I’m just wondering how you could have forgotten doing
that particular wedding—tall black girl, big bouncer;
very
memorable pair—and getting drunk afterwards at the reception and running off at the mouth about fallen women…Or maybe you just wanted to forget you’d done it. What’s up, did your guard slip, did your secret come out, do you often end up lying blotto on someone’s else’s floor?’

‘All right!’ Now he was angry. ‘I conducted the ceremony.’

‘Then why not come straight out and say so?’ ‘I drank too much that evening, made a laughing stock of myself, I didn’t
want
to remember it, and I didn’t want any of my parishioners remembering it either. I felt ashamed of myself, I’d let myself down—is that good enough for you?’

Annie stared at him for a beat. ‘Ain’t there a line in the Bible, “Judge not lest ye be judged”?’ she asked. ‘Only, you were making judgements left, right and centre, by the sound of it. Which don’t seem quite right, coming from a man of the cloth.’

‘I’d had too much to drink. I may have said some unfortunate things…’ he started, colour mounting in his mottled cheeks.

‘Oh, you remember that much then, we’re making progress here. Now you remember you did Aretha’s wedding, and you remember you got abusive and drunk at her wedding reception, upset people all to hell. If we keep on going with this, do you think you’ll remember anything else?’

He looked at her. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I
mean
that three working girls are dead, and you denied all knowledge of one of them, which has incidentally turned out to be a lie. I
mean
that you got falling-down drunk and started showing your true colours at Aretha’s wedding reception, and now I’m wondering if you had contact with the other two as well.’

‘Get out,’ he said suddenly, trembling with indignation. ‘Go on, get out of here!’

Annie stared at him for a beat. ‘For now,’ she said at last, ‘but this ain’t the end of it.’

She tucked the tenners back into her purse. ‘Thanks for your help, Reverend,’ she said, and left.

‘Thank God you’re back,’ said Dolly frantically, meeting her at the front door of the Limehouse parlour.

‘Why? What’s up?’ Annie asked, freezing in alarm as she saw the expression on Dolly’s face. And then the noise came. It sounded like a soul trapped in hell, wailing and moaning. Goose bumps sprang up on her arms, and all the hair on the back of her neck lifted. ‘What the fuck…?’

‘Mira. It’s bloody Mira,’ said Dolly, and hurried away upstairs. ‘I
told
you I didn’t want her here.’

Annie followed, her heart in her mouth. Ross was nowhere to be seen. When they got up to the top landing, Rosie was standing with her face bleached white with alarm outside Mira’s door. Along the landing, they could see Sharlene through the open bathroom door, running water into the
sink, splashing her face, groaning. The water was running pink.

‘What’s happened?’ Annie demanded.

‘Sharlene took her in a cup of tea, that’s all,’ said Rosie shakily. ‘No good taking her in food, she just chucks it at you, she never eats a thing. I was in my room, I saw Sharlene go past, and that girl in there—she’s been shouting and screaming all morning, it’s enough to drive you mad, she just went bloody crazy. Sharlene said she upped and cracked her one in the jaw, split her lip and everything, and Sharlene just got the hell out and locked the door on the mad bitch.’

Something hit the door, hard. They all stepped back. Annie went along to the bathroom and looked at Sharlene. The sink was a mess of blood, and Sharlene now had a white towel clamped to her mouth. The towel was slowly turning red.

‘You all right?’ she asked Sharlene.

Sharlene nodded, but she looked shaken all to hell. ‘Just a cut lip,’ she said, her voice muffled. She tried to smile. ‘I’ve had worse off punters.’

‘Rosie.’ Annie beckoned the blonde girl along, and she gratefully moved away from the door and came to the bathroom. ‘Stay with Shar and look after her, okay?’

Rosie nodded.

Annie went back to the door and looked at Dolly. Dolly returned her stare.

‘You ever see anyone go cold turkey before?’ asked Dolly.

Annie shook her head.

‘Well I have. That’s what’s happening here. It ain’t pretty. One of my cousins got into drugs and his dad shut him in the shed for three days to dry him out. I’m telling you, by the time it was done and he was clean again, the inside of that shed looked like a fucking nuclear fallout zone.’

A huge thump hit the door.

‘Gotta get out! Out! Let me OUT,’ shrieked Mira.

Annie and Dolly exchanged tense looks.

‘I’d better go in there,’ said Annie. ‘She knows me, maybe I can talk to her, calm her down.’

‘Rather you than me,’ said Dolly, wincing as something smacked hard against the other side of the door again. The key in the lock fell out and hit the carpet. ‘I
warned
you,’ said Dolly in agitation. ‘I told you not to bring her in here. But would you listen? No. As per fucking usual. You always have to fly around like a fart in a bottle, messing around in things you don’t even understand.’

Annie turned to her with hands on hips. ‘Okay, let’s have this out in the open. What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘Nothing.’ Dolly’s eyes slipped away from hers.
‘I don’t want a ruck with you, I just don’t want this girl here, she’s killing my business. I want her
out.
’

‘You’re coming in with me,’ said Annie, snatching up the key.

‘Thanks a
bunch
,’ said Dolly.

Annie took a breath to steady herself. Christ knew what they were going to find in there. She put the key in. Suddenly the howling and screeching from the other side of the door stopped dead. She paused. Looked at Dolly. Dolly mouthed,
Get the fuck on with it then.

Annie turned the key in the lock.

Nothing.

She turned the handle and pushed the door open wide with the flat of her hand.

Inside, it looked as though an army of chimps had been marauding around the room. There was blood and shattered crockery on the floor, tea seeping into the carpet. The bed was shit—and urine-stained. The mirror above the dressing table opposite the door was cracked right across, talcum powder dusted all over the top of the dressing table and on the floor too. Scent bottles were thrown to the four winds, some broken, their jagged bits of glass strewn all over the place.

But…silence. Sudden, unearthly silence. A sort of
waiting
silence.

But this was Mira. Skinny, weak, no threat
to anyone. So really there was no need—was there?—to feel like just relocking the door, turning tail, leaving whatever demons had been unleashed in there to play on and do their worst.

Annie stepped forward, aware that Sharlene, her chin still swathed in the reddening folds of the towel, was watching with Rosie from the open bathroom door. Annie walked cautiously into the room. China and glass crunched underfoot.

‘Mira?’ she said quietly into the silence.

No answer. She took another step forward. Saw a movement in the broken mirror across the room and ducked instinctively back, out of the way of the sliver of broken perfume bottle that Mira brought crashing down, intending to strike her head with.

‘
Jesus!
’ hollered Dolly, as Annie fell back against her.

A flailing figure came at them, arms pin-wheeling, slashing, trying to inflict harm. Wild hair flying, face twisted in a rictus of hate, eyes glaring. Annie was faintly aware of the two girls along the hall erupting into hysterical screams, but the only thought in her mind was:
Christ, she meant to kill me with that. Mira was going to kill me stone dead.

Trapped between this crazy whirling dervish and the staggering too-slow body of her friend, Annie pushed forward hard, grabbing hold of the wrist of the hand holding the lethal glass shard.

Mira was snarling, spitting, her other fist raining blows down on Annie’s head. Dolly recovered herself and charged in too, trying to get a hold on that arm. But Mira was out of it and—shockingly—she had the strength of ten men.

‘Let me out, I’ve got to get out!’ she was yelling and screaming, panting with the effort of trying to do damage.

‘Mira!’ Annie shouted, trying to get through to her. ‘Mira, for God’s sake. It’s me, it’s Annie!’

But Mira was shoving forward, both hands caught, the two women struggling against her single-minded fury. Even though they had hold of her, they were losing the fight. She was pushing frantically, edging them back out through the door, literally throwing herself against them. Dolly went down on to her knees but held on tight to the wrist whipping about above her head. Annie pulled back, not wanting to do it,
hating
to do it, but what choice did she have? She pulled back as far as she could and punched Mira hard on the jaw. Mira toppled, the glass fragment flying out of her hand. Dolly let go of the girl’s skeletal wrist and hauled herself back to her feet.

‘Shit a
brick
, who’d believe she’d be that strong?’ she panted in wonder.

Annie sagged against the door, nursing her aching knuckles. Gasping, shaken, she stared down at Mira, who was squirming weakly on the floor,
her eyes closed, her face screwed up in pain. Sharlene and Rosie crowded into the open doorway behind them.

‘What’s she been on?’ marvelled Rosie.

‘Who gives a fuck?’ muttered Sharlene, wincing behind the towel. ‘She ought to be locked up. She’s a sodding nut job, that one.’

‘What the hell we going to do with her now?’ Dolly asked, looking at Annie.

Rosie screamed.

They turned. Mira was scrambling back to her feet.
Damn
, thought Annie, bracing herself for the next onslaught. But Mira didn’t run at her. Mira gave the women in the doorway one desperate, despairing look, and her eyes shifted sideways. All at once, she was running across the room, towards the
window.

‘Shit!’ said Dolly loudly.

Oh God help us
, thought Annie, and dashed after her.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Mira up ahead, arms pumping, ready to fling herself into a sheet of glass to get out, ready to run herself into a messy and final oblivion. Annie rushing after her, the screams coming from Rosie, Dolly yelling something that Annie neither fully heard nor understood. Had to be
quick
, and oh shit she was so slow, too slow, surely too slow…

She caught up with Mira when she was right on top of the closed window, caught her and held her, pulled both her arms back, uncaring of how badly she might hurt her, intent only on stopping her committing suicide.

‘Let me go, I’ve got to get out, I can’t stay here, he’s after me, for fuck’s sake
let me go!
’ Mira was shrieking incoherently.

‘Mira! Stop it! You’re going to kill yourself!’ shouted Annie, losing her grip, struggling, Mira kicking back, trying to get free, trying to throw herself right through a solid pane of glass that would surely kill her, cut an artery, make her bleed to death even if she survived the long drop on to the paving below.

Mira got a hand free, and to Annie’s horror she started punching the glass, shouting, yelling, screaming, and the glass cracked, the crack running across the surface, and then another blow, and the cracks were deepening, spreading, and now there was blood on Mira’s hands, splashing out scarlet on to the curtains, spurting on to Annie’s face. And oh fuck Annie could feel her grip starting to go.

‘Jesus…’ she muttered, knowing that in an instant Mira would be through the glass, cutting herself, damaging herself irreparably.

‘It’s okay,’ said a male voice by Annie’s ear, ‘I got her.’

Ross was there. At last. Grabbing Mira bodily around the waist, ignoring her kicks, her struggles, her screams; taking her over to the dirty, disgusting bed and dropping her down on to it.

‘Restraints,’ he said as Annie sagged to the floor beside the window and tried to get her breath back.

Dolly had her head in her hands. The two girls in the doorway were standing there bloodied and tearful.

‘We need something to restrain her,’ said Ross again, to his exhausted audience.

Dolly dropped her hands. ‘The punishment chair,’ she said, and left the room and came back with what looked like two huge leather belts. Ross took them from her, and secured Mira, who was sobbing uncontrollably now, to the bed.

‘Well thank fuck
,
’ said Sharlene from behind the towel.

‘You can say
that
again,’ said Dolly, and went and hauled Annie back to her feet.

Annie looked at Ross. Wondered if he’d heard her scream out Mira’s name. Maybe not. She hoped not.

‘She’s written something,’ said Rosie half an hour later.

‘What?’ asked Dolly.

They were down in the kitchen. Ross had gone
out to fetch bandages from the local chemist, leaving the four women down there drinking tea and recovering their scattered senses. After a little while, Dolly had sent Rosie back up to see that Mira was okay. Or as okay as she could be, tethered to a filthy bed and out of her head with the need for a fix.

But the operative word here was
tethered.
Mira couldn’t harm anyone now, not even herself. Annie looked at Dolly and then up at the ceiling. Mira was still shouting and swearing up there, cursing them, telling them she had to get
out.

‘What do you mean, she’s written something?’ asked Annie as Rosie came and slumped in a chair. ‘She’s tied to the bed, she can’t write something.’

Unless she’d got loose. Annie sprang to her feet in alarm.

‘It’s okay, she’s still tied to the bed,’ said Rosie. ‘But she’s written something on the sheet. In blood, I mean.’

Frowning, Annie left the kitchen and went along the hall and up the stairs. She hesitated at the open door into Mira’s room. Mira fell silent and stared at her, wild-eyed, from the bed. She was still tied down, unable to move. Thinking of what Mira had almost succeeded in doing to her, Annie was thankful for that.

She moved forward cautiously until she was right by the bed. She looked down at Mira’s bleeding
right hand. It wasn’t bad, not an arterial bleed, thank Christ, but it was seeping steadily, and with her index finger Mira had scrawled something in blood on the soiled sheet.

Annie looked at what Mira had written. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest. She stared at the letters and then looked at Mira’s face, her eyes rolling in her head, still out of it but not quite, because she had started to write a name.

Holy fuck
, thought Annie.

She heard the front door open with a key. Ross was back with the medical supplies. But then she heard other low voices—male, not female. She moved back to the door, crept out on to the landing. Peering over the banister, her heart froze in her chest. Ross was there, but so was Charlie Foster, the Delaneys’ number one man. For a moment she stood there, immobilized with fear and horror. Then she quickly returned to the woman on the bed. Touching her fingers to Mira’s wounded hand, she scrubbed more blood on to the word Mira had written on the sheet, obliterating it. They were deep in the shit already. Better to be safe than sorry. Mira squirmed, seemed almost to protest.

‘It’s okay,’ said Annie. ‘I know. I got it.’

But now what?
she wondered, guts churning in panic as she stood looking down at Mira. Would she understand what Annie was about to say to her?

She leaned closer to the woman tied to the filthy bed and spoke in a whisper.

‘Mira, listen. This is important. I don’t know if you understand me or not, but you should be quiet now. Do you hear me? Don’t make another sound. Gonna try and get you out of this, Mira, but help me out here will you? Be very, very quiet.’

Mira’s eyes rolled, but she fell silent. She understood. Somewhere in there, Mira—
her
Mira—was still alive.

The voices downstairs mingled with Dolly’s. She didn’t blame Dolly. She couldn’t. Not for this. And now heavy footsteps were coming back along the hall, and she heard the first tread on the bottom stair. With a last glance at Mira, she raised her finger to her lips and then quickly crossed to the door. She went out on to the landing, closed the door behind her, locked it, slipped the key into her jacket pocket and took a deep, calming breath as she waited for Charlie Foster to join her upstairs.