Jessie Keane - Black Widow

The fact was, boffing strangers all day and half the night required a variety of coping mechanisms. Quite a few prostitutes took a bath or shower after every client, and that was okay, personal hygiene was always a good thing. Rules were rules. The punters might come in here drunk, disorderly, smelly, but the troops had to be fragrant to a fault.

Which was fine , up to a point. But Ellie had reached that point-in fact she had passed it about a mile back down the road.

‘Caught her in the loo scrubbing herself down there,’ Dolly had confided to Annie earlier in the day. ‘With a flaming nailbrush. And she’s had the bleach bottle out after she’s washed, scouring the sink and the bath. How long before she starts thinking it’s a good idea to use the bleach to clean herself off? I’m telling you, she’s not right.’

It was the beginning of the end of tarting for Ellie, and they both knew it.

‘That’s why she’s getting so bloody fat,’ Dolly had told Annie. ‘Can’t cope with it all any more. Comfort eating.’

Annie almost envied Ellie that. She couldn’t comfort eat. She could barely eat at all. Just waking up every day was a renewal of the pain she was suffering. She’d lost the love of her life, lost him forever. And maybe Layla too, who could say? Dolly kept forcing toast and egg down her, but she felt sick every single day, creased up with anxiety and a feeling of utter helplessness. She was in the hands of the kidnappers, totally. She had no power over what happened next, hard as she found that to accept.

‘Maybe you should take a break, Ellie love,’ suggested Dolly. ‘A couple of weeks down Southend would do you the world of good.’

But Ellie was looking mulish. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

From above them came the sound of someone letting out little yelps of either pain or delight.

‘Jesus, I really think Una enjoys her job too much,’ said Darren, staring up at the ceiling.

And there’s poor Ellie, not enjoying it at all , thought Annie.

‘Something’s come for you,’ said Ross, poking his head around the kitchen door and looking coldly at Annie. She wasn’t on his Christmas card list, that was for sure, and his expression whenever he looked at her said so loud and clear. But for as long as Redmond Delaney said it was okay for her to be here, he’d just have to swallow it.

‘For me?’ Annie repeated stupidly. But no one would send her anything. ‘Can’t be.’

Ross was holding out a small white box, four inches by four, a couple of inches deep.

‘It was on the doorstep.’ Ross shrugged. ‘It wasn’t posted, but I didn’t see anyone leave it there. Just stepped outside for a fag and there it was. Look, it’s got your name on it.’

Everyone in the kitchen was silent and still. Ross was right. In block capitals on top of the box was written ANNIE CARTER.

Enjoy the gift.

Annie jumped to her feet and barged past Ross and out into the hallway. She flung open the front door, ran down the path and stood gasping in the street, looking left and right. Didn’t know who or what she was looking for, but someone had brought the box here, had placed it right on the doorstep while they were all inside, unaware. But she could see nothing suspicious. Just people, walking the dog, pushing prams, parking cars, the odd one or two looking at her, at this dark-haired woman all dressed in black, with distress and madness written all over her face.

Nothing.

Annie took a shaky breath and went back inside. Ross had returned to his chair by the door. She walked straight past him and into the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Dolly, Ellie, and Darren were still there, and there was the little white box in the middle of the table. They looked at it, then at her.

Annie felt her head begin to pound. Her hands started to shake.

Enjoy the gift.

Oh Jesus God.

She sat back down. Looked at her friends. Looked at the box.

‘What the fuck is it?’ asked Dolly.

Annie couldn’t work enough spit into her mouth to answer. She stared at the box. ANNIE CARTER.

‘Well, open it,’ said Ellie.

Annie took a breath. So simple. Open it. Easy enough, but for the moment she felt too scared to even touch the thing.

Dig deep , she thought. Got to dig deep.

Annie reached out in the dead silence of the kitchen and touched the thick cardboard. She grasped the lid; it wasn’t stuck down. It was nice and easy to open.

‘Go on for fuck’s sake,’ said Darren, clutching both hands to his chest.

Annie removed the lid.

Inside, on a bed of cotton wool, was a child’s finger.

‘The bitch should have got her present. She’ll toe the line now,’ said Danny confidently, his eyes jumping wildly between Vita and Phil.

Vita was sitting pale and shaken at the kitchen table again, head down. Right now she couldn’t even look at her brother.

Phil was quiet, pretending to read the paper when really he felt as if he was going to vomit.

Really , he was shocked. When he’d gotten into this deal it hadn’t included harming kids. He looked up at Blondie. Danny. Fucking lunatic , he thought.

‘You got something to say?’ demanded Danny.

‘To you? No.’ Phil got back to his pretend reading, a muscle flexing in his jaw.

‘Good. Get your arse off that fucking chair then and get going.’

Phil closed his paper. He looked across at Danny. He looked at the gun on the table between them.

Danny’s eyes were challenging. You think you’re hard enough, fast enough? Try it.

Phil stood up.

‘Fine,’ he said, and left the room.

Vita’s head was hung low, as if she was waiting for a storm to break. She looked at the painting laid out on the table. Ducks. Painting by numbers. Her brush was in a cup of water, she was going to do the Mandarin drake’s head next, and that colour was almost red, almost like blood. She felt her stomach start to roll.

Painting by numbers! Christ!

Vita had seen the kit and brought it along, thinking that the kid would be amused by it, but she’d ended up painting the thing instead, to stave off madness. The kid was hardly ever awake enough to do anything, anyway. Getting absorbed in the painting stopped her from thinking too much about the plight of the little girl in the cellar. They’d had to drug Layla Carter when they’d snatched her, and they’d had to keep on drugging her, keeping her out of it on the stuff, and that was good, Vita thought, that was very good. Because then she wouldn’t have really felt it, would she, what Danny had done to her?

That was what Vita had to tell herself. That way she could deal with this. She wondered all over again why she’d got involved with any of this. For the money? But she didn’t much care about the money, not really. No, it was mostly because Danny had told her to go along with it, and she had gone along with pretty much anything Danny had told her to, ever since the cradle.

But now something in her rebelled. Hurting a kid. And what he’d done to that Majorcan couple. And she couldn’t forget that the kid had seen her face, not Danny’s, not Phil’s. Hers.

‘She’s not eating much,’ she said to Danny.

Danny shrugged and sat down, pulling the paper closer.

He neither knew nor cared how much a kid that age ate.

‘Do you really think you should have done that?’ asked Vita quietly.

Danny looked up from the paper.

Vita quailed.

‘I mean, damaged the goods,’ she said quickly, in case he went off on one. ‘What if she gets an infection or something?’

‘If you do your part of the job right, she’ll be okay.’