Jessie Keane - Black Widow

‘Let me speak to her again, you scumbag!’ yelled Annie into the phone.

‘No. No more talking. Just answer the question, you got my money?’

Annie drew in a breath. Layla was alive. She was alive.

‘I’ve got it,’ she said.

‘Good. Nice to know we understand one another. Speak to you again on Friday. Twelve noon.’

Her life was in bits but she still had things to do, places to go. Tony drove her to the place she told him, and when they got there he looked at her and his eyes said, I don’t fucking well believe this.

They were outside a breaker’s yard in Battersea. It was rumoured to be the same yard where Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie’s car was crushed after he’d been done by the Krays. Forever after, the car had been known on the streets as ‘the Oxo’, because all that had been left of it was a tiny cube of mangled metal.

‘It’s okay, Tone,’ she reassured him. ‘Wait here, yeah?’ she said as they got out of the car and stood in front of the gates.

The yard was completely fenced off with tall, thick wire panels. Tony looked at the security guard approaching with a black-faced Alsatian, snarling and yanking at its choke chain. At the back of the yard, piled high with the rusting hulks of dead cars, they could just glimpse the edge of a static caravan that served as an office.

‘No, Boss, I’m coming in with you,’ said Tony.

The dog was going mad. The guard snapped a command at it, jerked the chain. The dog fell silent.

Annie nodded acceptance of what Tony had said. Easier than arguing. Now she’d braced herself to do this, she hadn’t the energy for a fucking debate. Best to get it over with, get it done.

The guard looked them over. And suddenly the one man became, as if by magic, three men. Big, hard, flint-eyed men who gathered around the other side of the fence and stared at them with extreme suspicion.

One of them was Charlie ‘The Dip’ Foster, the Delaneys’ number one man. He stared at Annie as if he’d like to slit her open like a rotten fruit. She looked down at his hands: one was bandaged. Annie didn’t feel sorry, not any more-even though she knew she’d made a huge mistake over the Delaney involvement in Layla’s kidnapping. Charlie was a bastard; she was surrounded by bastards. If he had to refine his dipping technique to cope with his new disability, so what? Fuck him.

‘I’ve come to see Redmond,’ said Annie.

‘Maybe he don’t want to see you,’ said Charlie.

‘Just tell him I’m here,’ said Annie, hard-faced even though inside she was quaking.

They all stood there looking at her sceptically. Charlie went away.

He came back inside five minutes. He looked at the guard and nodded. Annie and Tony were ushered inside the yard.

‘Open the coat,’ said Charlie to Annie.

‘Hey!’ said Tony.

‘It’s okay,’ Annie told him, and unbuttoned her coat and held it open.

Charlie watched as one of the other men searched her pockets and then frisked her with leisurely relish. By the time his pal had finished, Annie felt completely fine about the damage she’d done to Charlie Foster.

Tony looked like thunder as the man repeated the exercise on him. Neither of them carrying, they had nothing to hide. Tony kept sending Annie looks that said, What the fuck are we doing here?

‘Okay, come on,’ said Charlie, and led the way.

Inside the static, Redmond and Orla Delaney were sitting at a desk. They stared at her steadily as she came up the steps and walked in. It was basic in here-a desk, three chairs, a lamp, a kettle and tea tray, some filing cabinets. Nothing fancy.

The twins said nothing. One man, one woman, with the same thick red hair, white skin, pale green eyes. Both tall, both thin. Book ends , thought Annie. A perfectly matched pair of beauties: cold as ice and twice as nasty.

Finally, Redmond spoke.

‘Mrs Carter,’ he said cordially. The faint Irish lilt was there in his voice. Southern Irish, like the voice on the phone. But Redmond’s voice wasn’t harsh, it was low and well educated. Totally deceptive, as she knew only too well. This effete and perfect specimen of manhood had ordered Billy murdered with as much compunction as he would swat a gnat.

Annie stepped forward. She felt nauseous and her hands were clammy with sweat. Her heart was pumping madly.

‘Hello Redmond,’ she said coolly. ‘Hello Orla.’

‘Annie,’ acknowledged Orla.

‘Can we do something for you?’ asked Redmond.

Yeah, you can drop dead, the pair of you , she thought furiously.

But Annie remained outwardly calm. ‘I’ve come here to set the record straight over a few things.’

The twins stared at her flatly.

Then Orla said: ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve come to say that what you did to Billy was beyond the pale. He didn’t deserve it.’

Redmond shrugged his shoulders. ‘We discussed this before, Mrs Carter. It was business. Nothing personal.’

‘It was personal to me,’ said Annie.

Again the shrug. He didn’t give a fuck, she could see that. ‘And was there anything else?’

‘Yeah,’ said Annie. ‘Plenty. Max is dead. So’s Jonjo.’

They were silent, staring. Brains whirring like calculators, if she was any judge.

‘They were hit in Majorca,’ she went on. ‘They’re gone.’

‘I see,’ said Redmond slowly.

‘Yeah, I bet you do. But what you don’t see yet-and I’m going to fill you in on this, stay with me-what you don’t see is that I’m taking over here. Now we were friends once, and because of that I’m telling you all this, just marking your card before you decide to do anything foolish.’ She could feel sweat trickling down her back. ‘All the shit stops here. I run the Carter patch now. It belongs to me, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay. Max is gone. Jonjo’s gone too. But I ain’t. So, before you get any ideas about taking over or anything rash like that, think again. I’ve got muscle, and no one is taking anything away from the Carters.’

When she finished speaking, they were silent, taking it all in.

‘You’re still in Limehouse,’ said Redmond at last.

‘Not for much longer.’

‘Good.’

‘I appreciate you letting me stay there,’ said Annie, although it nearly choked her. ‘It’s temporary, as I said. But Dolly Farrell’s my friend and I’d like to call on her in the future if I can. I appreciate it’s your patch and I respect that. But I’d like to be able to call in there. Just occasionally.’

Redmond shrugged again. ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t. You see, Mrs Carter, I’m not an unreasonable man. Now if that’s all…?’

‘Yeah,’ said Annie. ‘That’s all.’

She turned and walked out of the little office, back down the steps. She crossed the yard with Tony, and the guard let them out, the Alsatian emitting a low, threatening growl throughout. Charlie Foster and his co-workers watched them blankly as they got back into the Jag.

‘Jesus,’ said Tony.

Annie sat back, feeling on the point of nervous collapse. She closed her eyes.

‘Amen,’ she said faintly.

‘Hot candle wax,’ Aretha was saying to Annie and the others later in the day when Annie got back. They were all sitting around the kitchen table. ‘Can you believe that?’

‘I can believe anything,’ said Darren, sipping tea and shivering.

‘But don’t it hurt?’ asked Dolly.

‘That’s the buzz, I guess,’ said Aretha with a shrug.

‘What a bloody pervert,’ said Ellie, dipping into the biscuit tin.

‘Hey, whatever gets you through the night,’ said Aretha. ‘That’s what massa wanted, that’s what massa got. So there I was, dripping hot candle wax on to his balls, and you know what? He seemed to like it.’