Jessie Keane - Black Widow

Phil sighed.

He wasn’t wearing his hood.

That stupid bloody Vita had left the kid’s door unbolted again.

Oh fuck.

Now he was going to have to do it for real. He was going to make the call to the Carter woman instead of Danny, that was not a problem, but first he was going to have to kill the child. And then he’d have to get rid of the bodies, Vita’s and Danny’s-and now Layla’s too, which was a damned shame, but there it was. Bury them all out in the woods somewhere: that was the thing to do.

He turned the pistol in her direction.

But she was quick.

Layla saw the gun swinging her way, and she ran.

Phil was getting impatient.

He had dashed out looking along the hallway, but he hadn’t been quick enough; it was empty. The girl had gone. He checked the lounge, kicking over furniture. She was small, she could hide away, tuck herself into some little corner and he would never find her. But he had to find her. It was a quarter to twelve, he had to make the call in fifteen minutes, sort out the drop for the money; he had to keep his mind on that, and he had to find the bloody kid.

He looked upstairs, throwing open wardrobe doors, looking under beds, everywhere.

He couldn’t find her.

Fuck it.

‘Layla!’ he bellowed.

No answer.

Only silence, and this time the silence wasn’t comforting. It was unnerving. Because he had to get this sorted, and quick. He glanced anxiously at his watch. Ten minutes to go and he had to call the Carter woman, get the money in place.

He went back down the stairs, ran , slipping and sliding, wondering where the hell she could be hiding. The outer doors were locked and they were too high for a kid not quite four years old to reach. She was still in here, somewhere.

It was then that he saw the cellar door was slightly ajar.

Smiling, he walked towards it.

He nudged the door open with his foot. The light at the top of the cellar steps was on. Low enough for her to reach, she’d fled down into the cellar, but the dark had spooked her and she’d put the light on and given the game away. She was down there.

‘Oh, Layla!’ he called, making his voice as friendly as he could. ‘Come on sweetie.’ Then he had a thought. Layla loved chocolate. ‘Come on darlin’, got some chocolate for you. It’s okay, the nasty people are gone now. Come and have some of this chocolate, okay?’

He waited.

‘Or else I’ll just have to eat it myself,’ Phil elaborated, walking softly down the steps. ‘Layla?’

His eyes searched the gloom down there. The place was whitewashed and full of the usual household junk. The air smelled damp, fetid. A whiff of rat urine caught his nostrils and he winced. Shit. He hated rats.

‘Come on, Layla, come and get the chocolate,’ he cooed.

And Layla stepped out of the shadows and looked at him as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He smiled.

Then a voice behind him said: ‘Don’t move, arsehole,’ and the smile froze on his lips.

‘You’d better put that fucking gun down. Right now,’ said the voice behind Phil.

It was over, then. Fuck it. Phil thought of all they had gone through to get this far. All that time, trouble, and planning. Snatching the girl, kicking the mob boss off down the mountainside, shooting the brother right there by the pool, and then the hiding, the sneaking around and trying to keep it all under wraps while he’d been closeted with those two fruit-loop Byrnes. But now they were gone, and he was in charge and he had thought, he had really believed , that he could hack this. Polish off the kid, make the call, collect the money, and vamoose. But now there was someone behind him on the stairs, trying to put a stop to all that, and he wouldn’t finish what they had begun in Majorca.

Phil just hated not to finish a thing once he’d started.

He’d always been the same. Liked things done right. Done just so. His dad had always said to him: ‘Son, you start a job, you finish it.’

He would have finished this one a rich man.

Maybe he still could.

Looking down into the cellar, he could see that Layla had scooted off into the darker shadows again. Bloody kid, nothing but trouble. But he’d sort her out later. First…

He turned on the steps, as fast as he could. Fast as one of those gunslingers in those old Westerns his dad had loved to watch on the telly. But his dad had been a loser, and Phil was a winner. He saw the figure standing above him, outlined against the light at the top of the stairs, a clear target. Pale hair, a flowery shirt, flared cords. He took aim at the torso and fired. Up in the house somewhere, a woman screamed.

Constantine was out on the road near the house, three meaty henchmen at his side. He didn’t look pleased to see Annie.

‘What the fuck you doing here?’ he asked her, as she and her mates swarmed out of the Jag.

He didn’t sound very pleased, either. But fuck him. Layla was her daughter. She couldn’t just stay away and do nothing.

‘I’ve come for Layla,’ said Annie.

‘I think you should go home,’ said Constantine.

‘And I think you should forget it,’ said Annie.

‘I don’t want you messing this up.’

‘Look, if anyone’s going to mess this up it’s you, standing here having a fucking debate when my little girl’s in there with those bastards.’

‘Mrs Carter…’

‘No. Don’t even think about it. I’m staying put.’

Constantine looked at Annie, then at Dolly standing there, all bubble-perm blonde and neatly suited, as much use on a day like this as a French poodle-but standing there anyway, obstinately, at Annie Carter’s shoulder. He looked at Aretha looming behind her, her face black thunder. Tony was standing at the back of the group, like a brick wall.

‘Where’s Darren got to?’ Dolly was looking around. ‘And where the fuck’s Ellie?’

‘I don’t think-’ Constantine started.

That was when they heard the shots, and a woman screaming.

‘Jesus,’ said Annie, her face draining of colour.

‘Gene, Michael, round the back,’ said Constantine quickly, and two of the heavies shot off like well-trained attack hounds.

Annie stood there, frozen with fear for her little girl, swamped by dread but unable to act, terrified of what even moving could bring.

Dolly put an arm around her shoulders. Tried to give her comfort. Annie shrugged her off. She was totally strung out, all her attention focused on this remote, neglected house and what could be happening to Layla inside there right now.

Constantine and the other heavy ran up the path and the man crashed his shoulder into the door. It gave instantly, and he piled into the hallway, Constantine right behind him. Annie somehow got her legs moving and followed with Dolly.

The first thing they saw was Ellie cringing against the wall at the top of the cellar steps, and the cellar door standing wide open.

Tears were flooding down her face.

She looked at the men and then her eyes fastened on Annie.

‘We went round the back. Darren got through the open window over the sink,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s so skinny, you know how skinny he is, and he opened the door round there for me, and he heard the man down in the cellar talking to Layla, and he went down there and saw the gun in that man’s hand and he just bluffed him, just said, put the gun down…’ Her voice tailed off as she sobbed harder.

They didn’t need to ask her to elaborate further. The man had shot Darren. Annie, Aretha, and Dolly stood there open-mouthed, aghast with horror.