Jessie Keane - Black Widow

What if Layla was dead already?

Yes, she had spoken to her on the phone, but they could have done it straight afterwards. Killed her. Too much trouble to let her live, to deliver her back to her mother. They’d already hurt her. They were animals. Scum. Pond life.

She looked at the note again while all the others whooped and leapt around the kitchen in a mad cacophony of joy.

‘I’ve got to get there,’ she said dazedly, clinging on to the merest chance that Layla might still be in the land of the living. She stood up, shaking, and went into the hall to get her coat.

‘Wait a sodding minute,’ said Dolly. ‘If you’re going, we’re coming with you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ellie and Darren together.

‘Damn sure,’ nodded Aretha.

‘No,’ said Annie, already in the hall, shrugging on her coat, Ross standing there looking at them all as if they’d finally flipped.

‘Yes,’ said Dolly.

Annie didn’t have time to argue the toss. She hesitated, then said: ‘Wait.’

She tore up the stairs and into Dolly’s room. Flung open the knicker drawer, took out the Smith & Wesson, checked it was properly loaded, checked the safety was on, shoved it in her coat pocket. Then she ran back down the stairs and straight out of the front door.

They all ran after her. They barrelled up to the Jag, parked at the pavement with Tony sitting there, reading his paper behind the wheel.

Annie piled in the front, Dolly and her workers jumped in the back.

‘What the f-?’ asked Tony, dropping his paper.

Annie told him where they were going, and why.

‘Fucking hell,’ said Tony. He gunned the engine and shot out into the traffic with the Jag’s wheels screaming in protest. He didn’t even apologize for the language.

Danny was going to make the call at twelve noon, tell the Carter woman where to drop off the money, and no funny business or else she wouldn’t get her daughter back, alive or dead.

Now it was nearly eleven, and he was getting sort of nervous.

After all, it wasn’t every day you took possession of half a million pounds.

He sat there at the kitchen table and daydreamed pleasurably about what he would do with it. Jimmy would take his share and Vita would get a small cut: that was okay. But he’d need the rest, get a nice place abroad in the sun, get a car, get all the pussy he could eat , it would be fucking amazing.

‘Today’s the day then, yeah?’ Vita said behind him, washing up dishes, making all that bloody noise, clattering stuff about. Jesus, she was a pain in the arse.

‘Yeah,’ he grunted, looking at the pistol in front of him on the table, its clip already loaded, ready for action.

‘I’ll be glad when it’s all over,’ said Vita for about the zillionth time.

‘Yeah,’ said Danny.

‘It’s been hard,’ said Vita. ‘And, let’s face it, you ain’t made it any easier.’

Why doesn’t she ever just shut the fuck up? wondered Danny.

‘You got to admit that’s the truth, Dan,’ she went on.

Danny imagined picking the pistol up, half turning in his seat, and blowing Vita’s tiny, troublesome pea brain straight out of that window over the sink. Now he remembered why he’d left home so early. Their mum had been a nag too. In fact, all the women in his family seemed to have a talent for mindless high-pitched chatter-except Una, who was so spaced out of her head most of the time that she said very little.

Jeanette was nearly unbearable, gabbling on yack-yack-yack all day and night. She might have a good body but, let’s face it, her brain was screwed.

His poor old dad. A nag for a wife, and three stupid daughters, and just the one son, the one boy he could rely on.

Danny sat there feeling good about himself, even though reliability had never been his strong suit. He didn’t know how his father had ever stood it, but then Dad had been in and out of the nick for most of his life, mercifully, and his stays at home had usually been brief. His father had died inside, heart attack. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to him , thought Danny. He was going to finish this one big job, then take the money and run as far and as fast as it would take him. Which was pretty fucking far, he believed.

‘Dan? You’re not saying much,’ said Vita, turning away from the sink to look at him.

‘That’s because I never get a fucking chance ,’ said Danny. ‘How’s anyone supposed to get a word in edgeways with you always carping on?’

‘Hey-it wasn’t my idea to get into all this,’ said Vita hotly. ‘And it wasn’t my idea to start cutting bits off the fucking kid either. I tell you straight, Dan, I don’t like that one bit.’

‘Will you for once let that fucking rest?’ Danny stood up and loomed over his sister, his finger poking the air for emphasis. ‘If you remember clearly, Vee, it was you who nearly lost the kid altogether; it was you who was fucking stupid enough to let her see your face-and mine, incidentally, and do you think I’m about to throw a party over that? You’ve got no right to stand there telling me what you do and what you don’t like !’

‘Well, there’s no need to fucking shout at me like that,’ yelled Vita.

‘There’s every need, Vee,’ roared back Danny. ‘You know what Mum ought to have called you? Eh, Vita? She should have called you fucking Titanic , because you’re a bloody disaster.’

‘Well, fuck you,’ screamed Vita, hurling a plate into the sink where it smashed loudly. ‘You think I ever wanted to be part of this crazy scheme? You think I was pleased when you and Jeanette cooked this up with her fucking boyfriend, that fly bastard Jimmy Bond?’

‘Well, you were keen enough to join in when you thought about the money!’ And that’s kind of funny, because you ain’t seeing a penny of it now, you mouthy cow , he thought.

‘I signed up for the money, sure. But not for torturing innocent people. Not for cutting kids about. Not for that.’

Phil Fibbert had come soft-footed into the room, and here they were again. Shouting and screaming. Fighting. He reckoned they’d been doing it since the cradle, and would be doing it right up until they were tucked into their respective graves. Christ, he was so sick of hearing them ranting at each other.

This time he didn’t hesitate.

He picked up the pistol from the table and with calm consideration he shot Danny through the back of the head. Danny’s dead body shot forward against his sister, who started screaming in earnest, so Phil took aim and shot her too, straight between the eyes.

Silence fell.

Blissful, wonderful silence.

Phil liked silence.

He looked at the bodies, slumped on the floor. He frowned. He hadn’t intended to kill them, but they’d been shouting and screaming and it was all like being small again, like being the small helpless boy he had once been, watching his mum and his dad, coming back roaring drunk from the pub and tearing lumps out of each other. He had cringed on the stairs as a child, watching, fearful, unable to sleep, unable to move, afraid they would kill each other-but at least, he had started to think, if they did , then it would be quiet.

It was certainly quiet now.

He loved the quiet.

He looked again at the bodies, piled up there by the sink. Looked at Vita’s half-finished painting of the Mandarin ducks on the table, her brush still standing in the sludge-coloured cup of water. She’d never finish it now.

A sound made him turn, look towards the door into the hall.

Layla was standing there, looking at the bodies. Her dark hair was tousled, and her bandaged hand was at her mouth. She looked very small. Her eyes, huge and dark green, met his.