Jessie Keane - Black Widow

Annie bit back an angry reply. She had to get him onside. Somehow.

‘Who was in overall charge of the clubs? Who collected the takings from the managers?’ she asked.

‘I did.’

‘Then you know how bad they’ve got.’

‘I know they’re making good money,’ he retorted.

‘How good?’

‘Better than they were as nightclubs.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘The books don’t lie.’

‘I want to see them. Who keeps them?’

‘I do. You got a problem with that?’

Convenient , thought Annie.

Jimmy took a breath. ‘Those acts Max used to hire, they cost a fortune. Strippers are cheap.’

‘Jonjo had no right to make these changes without consulting Max.’

‘Max must have known.’

‘Do you really believe that Max would approve a low-tone operation like that?’

‘Who knows what the fuck Max would do? He took off for the sun and left Jonjo in charge of the manor. What did he care?’

Annie heard the resentment in his voice. She looked at him and he dropped his eyes first. ‘I want those books here this afternoon,’ she said. ‘And Jimmy-don’t come in here again with half a fucking army, for God’s sake. I’m here on sufferance. Redmond Delaney’ll only take so much.’

Max had trusted Jimmy, so she had to. Simple logic. She hoped her logic was sound this time. Whatever, she wanted to see those books.

‘And do you know the combination on the safe at the Palermo?’ she asked him.

There was just the one safe, she had discovered. Nothing at the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar except small cash boxes with bugger all inside.

Jimmy gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘Jonjo trusted me with a lot of things, but not with that,’ he said.

Fuck it , thought Annie.

‘We’ll need the locksmith,’ she said.

Annie awoke with Layla’s little body snuggling in against hers. She could feel Layla’s silky-soft hair and buried her nose in the back of Layla’s neck, where the baby-smell of her was strongest-talc and sweetness. She turned, smiling to herself, and came up against Max’s skin-hard, hot, reassuring.

‘Annie?’

A female voice.

Max was gone. And that wasn’t Inez talking. This voice was pure East End of London. A bit roughened by fags and booze and hard times, but familiar.

Annie opened her eyes and this time came properly awake. Dim light in Dolly’s bedroom. Dolly there, smiling down at her like a fond mother, putting a mug of tea on the bedside table. Then it came back to her again, all of it. The pain; the anguish. But instead of howling and screaming with the agony of loss that she was feeling, she sat up. Dolly pulled back the curtains to let in the cold grey English light. The Majorcan villa was a world away.

And- oh fuck -it was Friday.

She’d slept very late. What was it with her, all this sleeping? Escaping from reality , Annie thought. Funny how she always woke up feeling exhausted, though. All these dreams. Max, falling…her reaching for him, but it was too late, far too late. Layla screaming. Annie, alone in a wasteland, no one there except her and a feeling of impending doom. All those bloody dreams.

Feeling tired and edgy she washed, dressed in Dolly’s black shift dress again, brushed out her hair, dabbed a bit of Dolly’s rouge on her cheeks and on her lips and still looked like death-not that it mattered.

She stepped out of the bedroom and on to the landing. Loud voices and laughter drifted up from the front room. Ross was sitting down there in the hall in the corner by the door that Chris had always occupied when she was last here.

Friday. Of course. Lunch party day. Noises from the other bedrooms, someone moaning, someone crying out yes, yes, yes. Music, too. Fleetwood Mac playing ‘Albatross’, fading into older stuff from days gone by-smoky, bluesy ‘Mad about the Boy’, Etta James’s voice dripping with passion.

Annie stood there at the top of the stairs and let it wash over her.

That song said everything she had ever felt about Max. Stupid to have been drawn to him-her sister’s husband. Knowing he was dangerous. Knowing he was off limits. Knowing she could not resist his piratical charm, his strength, his masculine allure.

God, I’ve got to snap out of this , thought Annie.

‘What the hell are you looking at?’

Annie looked up. Una, with her white-blonde crew-cut and her pallid blue eyes was standing in the doorway opposite. She was in black leather today. There was a whip in her hand. As Annie watched, a droplet of blood fell from the end of the whip and hit the landing carpet. The droplet expanded, spreading in the thick pile. The door behind Una was ajar and Annie could see a naked man in there, tied to a chair, his shoulders striped red, his head drooping.

A dominatrix didn’t get paid, Annie remembered. She was awarded a ‘tribute’ from the punter when he left. The punter wanted to be abused, debased, humiliated-and the dominatrix happily pandered to his vice, and was amply rewarded for doing so.

‘I’m not looking at anything,’ said Annie truthfully. Fuck it, if the punters wanted to be whipped and if Una got her kicks that way, what did she care?

‘Good. You want to keep it that way, babes, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Right.’

‘Only I don’t like your attitude.’

Annie looked at her. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said.

‘You see? There it is again.’ Una came in close. She smelled of sweat and cheap perfume and her eyes were glittery with excitement, ready for a fight. ‘Your mouth says all the right words, but your eyes say fuck you. You got a real attitude problem, babes, and I don’t like it.’

‘Duly noted,’ said Annie, and turned toward the stairs.

Or she started to. She vaguely saw Una’s booted foot come out, but it was too late to step back. She felt herself start to fall, snatched at the banister, but too late. She went head over heels all the way down to the bottom and ended up at Ross’s feet with all the wind knocked out of her. She looked back up the stairs as Dolly and Ellie came running to her aid, and there was Una, smirking down at her.

Everything hurt. She’d bumped her head, there was blood coming from a cut above her right eyebrow, her left arm felt wrenched where she’d tried to stop herself falling.

‘Fuck it, Annie, what’s going on?’ asked Dolly, hauling her back to her feet.

Annie looked up at Una, still standing there, gloating.

‘Nothing,’ she said to Dolly. ‘I just tripped, that’s all. Careless of me.’

Una’s smile broadened. She turned and strolled away, back to her room.

It was late afternoon when the call came. The phone had been ringing all day, and every time Annie had tensed, bracing herself for the next horror. All through the long day, she had been in the kitchen, waiting. Wishing she smoked, wishing she drank.

Listening to the revelry of the party going on in the front room, the thumping of feet going up and down the stairs, the laughter, the noises of hot frantic sex going on over her head.

Thinking of what could be happening to Layla. Of what had already happened to Max. And poor bloody Jonjo, who had never liked her. Well, she’d never liked him either. But still.

Driving herself mad.

A few hours later and the party was over, the washing-up done, the bottles cleared away, the takings counted. When the phone rang it was Dolly who picked it up again, and it was for Annie.

‘Give us a minute, will you, Ross?’ Dolly said quickly, and the bouncer went off into the front room, closing the door behind him. Dolly shut the kitchen door. Only her and Annie were in the hall. Dolly had her hand over the mouthpiece.