Jessie Keane - Black Widow

‘Will you shut up? And will you put your fucking hood on, and why didn’t you have it on in the first place? That way she wouldn’t have seen your stupid face, for God’s sake.’

‘Don’t have a go at me,’ said Vita. ‘You got the dose wrong.’

‘Look, she’s a kid. I gave her what I thought was enough but not too much ’cos that could have killed her, and that wouldn’t be very clever now, would it? She’s no fucking use to us dead. What I’m saying is, she won’t know you anyway, so will you for the love of God calm down?’

‘Yeah, it’s all very well for you to say calm down, but it wasn’t your face she saw, was it?’ yelled Vita, getting good and mad and also a bit panicky.

Because for sure the little girl had seen her face. She didn’t think Danny was taking that point quite seriously enough.

‘She’s a little kid,’ said Danny with a bored tone in his voice. ‘She won’t know your face.’

‘Yeah, but Da-’

‘Shut up.’ Now Danny was getting mad too. His stupid sister had been about to blurt his name out. A kid might forget a face, but a name might stick in her memory; she might repeat it when she got free- if she got free-and then people would come knocking. All of which was a situation Danny Byrne hoped to avoid.

‘Don’t keep telling me to shut up,’ said Vita.

Everything about this was upsetting her. It was all too much. She hadn’t expected that they were actually going to kill people, and she still felt sort of sick to her stomach about that. And most particularly about what Danny had done to the man and the woman in the little villa by the gate. He had seemed to glory in their terror, to get high on it; he had laughed and played in the blood like a kid in a bubble bath. Whenever she thought of it, she felt nauseous and afraid. She’d always known Danny was crazy, but now she thought he was really sick in the head, and dangerous.

‘Look, no names,’ Danny was saying to her. ‘We never say names in the girl’s hearing, remember? Got that?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ said Vita sulkily. ‘Where’s Ph…where’s he gone, anyway?’

‘To hire the boat.’

‘Jesus, hasn’t he done that yet? I thought this was meant to be a smooth operation.’

‘It’s smooth,’ said Danny.

‘Oh sure it’s smooth. No boat, and she’s seen my face.’

‘Will you for fuck’s sake drop that?’ roared Danny.

Vita flinched and fell silent.

‘My daddy’s going to kick your arse,’ said a tearful, furious little voice from inside the hen house.

Tony was there at a quarter to two, with Max’s beautiful old Mark X Jag all polished up and gleaming. Which was good. Someone was sitting up and taking notice, thought Annie, and not before time. Kath had obviously passed on the message-grudgingly-and Jimmy had acted upon it.

All good.

Not the unqualified support she had hoped for, but the best she was going to get, and that would have to do-for now, at least.

Annie sat in the back of the car and was suddenly overwhelmed by it all. Max’s car. She had sat in here nearly five years ago, with the scent of leather all around her like a comfort blanket, the heady smell of luxury, of Max’s lemon-scented cologne, with Max right there beside her-a strong, seemingly invincible presence.

Not so invincible though , she thought despairingly.

She looked at the empty space where Max should be. And into her mind, suddenly and starkly, came the image of him being pushed off the side of a mountain: falling, bouncing off rocks, lying crumpled and broken and lifeless at the bottom.

Annie shut her eyes and swallowed sickness. Had they stood and laughed while they killed him? Had he- oh God no -had he lain there, fatally injured, suffering, hurting, for hours on end, perhaps days, before he finally died?

She opened her eyes, shuddering, and tried to get hold of herself. She could see Tony’s eyes, watching her in the mirror. Max had valued Tony. Tony was built like a fucking outhouse. He was bald and he was ugly and he wore gold hoop earrings with crucifixes dangling off them, but he followed orders to the letter and he was loyal, Max had always said that.

‘You all right, Mrs Carter?’

‘I’m fine, Tony.’

‘Is Mr Carter coming back soon?’ asked Tony.

‘I dunno, Tony,’ said Annie.

So Jimmy had been as good as his word and hadn’t told the boys the truth-that Max wasn’t going to be coming back, not soon, not ever. Jimmy had kept quiet, as they had agreed he should, and that was good.

All good , thought Annie tiredly as the car glided smoothly through the rain-drenched streets of London’s East End. Oh yeah. Fucking wonderful. Spring was coming, but today it still looked like winter. She looked out at the grimy terraced houses, the people milling around in the sodden grey streets, the shops, the traffic.

She was back.

But everything was different. Everything had moved on.

Ronnie and Reggie Kray had been banged up a year ago for shooting George Cornell, one of the Richardson boys, in the Blind Beggar, and for doing Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie at Blonde Carol’s.

Yeah, things had changed.

The Beatles had split up. And Dolly had told her that all through this last winter the maxi-skirt had been favoured by trendy London girls over the chillier mini.

Little changes, big changes. Some bad, some good.

Annie feared that, for her, nothing was ever going to be truly good again.

As Jimmy had told her, the Palermo Lounge was open, the red neon sign shining brightly above the set of red double doors in the sullen daylight. She had brought Max’s keys but she didn’t need them. It felt odd to just walk in during the day. The Palermo, like Max’s other two clubs, had always been very much a nightclub. But today there was a jungle beat going on inside.

There was a man on the door, and Tony introduced her as Mrs Carter. She saw the man’s expression change then. Saw the glint of respect that the Carter name commanded.

She went in, Tony dogging her footsteps.

Annie paused and looked at the poster board. Her eyes widened. She glanced at Tony, but Tony was suddenly finding the ceiling of great interest. Annie pushed through another set of double red doors and the beat of the music shot up to deafening levels. She went down the stairs and paused halfway.

The lights in here were dim-Christ, how come no one broke their necks on these stairs coming in here? She looked down and saw about fifteen punters sitting at tables in a fug of cigarette smoke, some clutching drinks bought from the bar at the far side of the room, others just goggling open-mouthed at what was happening on the brightly lit elevated half-circle that passed for a stage.

Above and to both sides of this ‘stage’ were thick red velvet drapes edged in gold. Annie remembered those drapes. At their apex were the gold letters MC.

Max Carter.

In the centre of the stage, a girl wearing black pants, bra, suspenders, and stockings was gyrating wildly in time to the music, her huge tits bouncing around like melons in a sack, her blonde hair turned silver by the spotlights. As Annie watched, the girl leered at the watching crowd and reached back, unhooking her bra. The massive tanned breasts jumped free and there was a feeble roar of encouragement from the watching men.

Fuck it all , thought Annie. Max would hate this. What’s happened to this place?

The girl was parading around now, clutching her breasts-not naked, but brandishing gold nipple tassels-and wiggling them provocatively in the faces of the watchers.