Jessie Keane - Black Widow

Aretha grabbed Una’s arm, but her hand was slippery from the blood off the corpses. She could dimly hear Ellie screaming at Una to stop, for God’s sake stop , and Dolly was shouting at Ellie to fucking well do something. She saw the knife in Una’s hand, saw her start with the upswing, and thought, oh shit.

Tried to get her head free again.

Couldn’t do it.

The knife was coming down.

Phil Fibbert lunged forward.

‘Christ!’ yelled Tony, grabbing Layla and shielding her with his own body.

But Constantine’s men were on it. Phil went down in a devastating hail of bullets, the knife still clutched in his hand. He crumpled into a heap and lay there, twitching and bloody on the cold concrete floor.

There was a sudden silence.

Constantine was the first to move, gathering Layla up, pulling her in tight against him so that she couldn’t see the mess that was all that was left of her kidnapper.

From above them, up in the main body of the house, they could hear women screaming and shouting.

‘Jeez,’ said Tony, and pushed past Constantine and his two helpers, tore up the stairs two at a time past the fallen body of Darren and barrelled out into the hall.

Annie was crouching there, clutching her side. Dolly was there too, kneeling beside her, sobbing and pointing towards the kitchen. ‘Aretha!’ she screamed at him.

Tony dashed into the kitchen, slipping and nearly going down on to the cheap tatty lino in his haste.

He saw Aretha pinned down and Una straddling her with a knife in her hand, drawing back her arm to stab Aretha.

He saw Ellie there, trying to hold Una’s arm back and failing.

In one movement he pushed Ellie aside and caught Una’s arm and pulled back. The woman gave a shriek of protest, and Tony punched her hard in the face. She fell back onto the bodies of her brother and sister, groaning.

Aretha lay there, stunned, breathing hard, vaguely surprised to still be alive.

‘You okay?’ asked Tony, ripping the tin-opener out of the lino to free her dreads.

Aretha sat up, nodding shakily.

‘Mad bitch ,’ she muttered, looking sideways at Una, who was now weeping over the bodies, clutching at her sister’s limp hand, smoothing her brother’s lifeless torso.

‘She’s finished,’ said Tony. Una looked up and her eyes were full of hatred as she stared at him. Tony stood up and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet. He shook her like a dog shakes a rat.

But Una wasn’t finished yet. She swung round fast and stabbed her fingers at Tony’s eyes. He fell back with a shout, tumbling over the corpses, losing his grip on her.

‘Crazy bitch ,’ he muttered, scrambling back to his feet, but Una was out through the back door at a run.

‘Shit,’ said Tony, and launched himself after her.

‘Tone!’ shouted Annie from the hall.

Tony stopped in the doorway. Looked back at Annie.

‘Let her go,’ said Annie. ‘For now.’

‘Fuck it all,’ said Aretha painfully. She sat up, wincing. Then her brow creased with worry as she looked at Tony. ‘You got the kid? You got Layla?’

‘She’s fine. Look.’ He indicated the open door into the hallway.

Aretha looked, and started to smile through her pain.

Constantine had emerged from the cellar carrying Layla.

Incredulously, Annie stumbled to her feet.

‘Layla? Baby?’ she whispered, hardly able to believe it.

Layla looked at her mother crossly. ‘Mummy, where have you been !’ she demanded.

A wild laugh escaped Annie. In hell , she thought. I’ve been in hell and now I’m out of it.

Layla held out her arms to Annie.

Annie took her daughter in her arms, not caring that it hurt her ribs, and hugged her tight, and kissed her.

‘You’re squeezing me too hard, Mummy,’ objected Layla.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ mumbled Annie against Layla’s neck.

She caught Layla’s hand, looked at the bandage there, where her daughter’s tiny finger should be. Her face clouded.

‘Oh, my poor sweet baby. Does it hurt?’ she moaned, wishing she could have spared Layla this.

Layla shook her head. ‘No, it itches.’

‘That means it’s getting better,’ said Dolly, smiling shakily at the little girl.

‘I don’t like those people,’ said Layla. ‘They’re nasty.’

Annie looked at Constantine over Layla’s silky dark head.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘We’ll get her checked over,’ he said. ‘But she looks fine. You okay?’

Annie nodded. Her ribs hurt but she didn’t give a fuck. She had Layla back.

‘I owe you,’ she said. And I didn’t believe in you, not for an instant.

She felt bad about that now. Worse than bad.

She had thought that Constantine was stringing her along, intent only on using her as a sex object, uncaring of her daughter’s plight.

She’d been wrong. She could see that now.

All the time, while she’d been stumbling around trying to find answers, feeling desperate, bewildered, barely able to function, Constantine had had his people working steadily toward this moment, when she would be reunited with Layla, her beloved daughter, her little star.

Layla was peering over her shoulder at Constantine, her eyes bright with interest.

‘You’re pretty,’ she told him.

Annie laughed and hugged her hard.

‘Well, at least I’ve found favour with one of the Carter women,’ said Constantine with a wry smile, picking up his coat and dusting it off.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ asked Layla.

The laughter died in Annie’s throat. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She looked at Constantine. His smile was gone. He pulled on his coat, saying nothing.

Ellie had moved to the top of the cellar steps and was looking down, her face a picture of misery.

‘Oh God, Darren…’ she muttered, and went back down the steps.

Dolly followed, and Aretha.

Annie stood there looking anxiously after them, holding Layla. She looked at Constantine. He shook his head and held open his arms.

‘I’ll take her,’ he said.

‘Mummy…’ whined Layla as Annie made to hand her over.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart, stay with the nice man just for a moment while Mummy does something important,’ said Annie.

Layla allowed herself to be transferred into the stronger, surer arms of Constantine Barolli.

With a new dread in her heart, Annie followed Dolly and Aretha. Constantine’s men were still down in the cellar, tidying up the remains of Phil Fibbert. Ellie was a quarter of the way down the cellar steps, kneeling beside the crumpled form of Darren. She looked up, face streaked with tears, as the three other women came down.

‘He looked back at me when he was coming down here,’ she said to them all. ‘He had a look on his face…like he was saying, “Oh well, may as well go out with a bang…” Oh Darren, you bloody fool.’

She started to sob.

Dolly looked hopelessly at Annie. They all clustered around him. He was still breathing, but weakly. His torso was a bloody, mangled mess.

‘We’ll get an ambulance…’ said Aretha.

‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ whispered Darren.

They all fell silent.

His eyes flickered open. He looked up at Dolly, Aretha, Annie, and at Ellie who was in floods of tears.

‘Don’t c-cry you daft mare,’ he said faintly. ‘Better this way.’

Darren knew he was dying. They’d all known that the wasting disease was going to take him one day, and it would be a long, slow, painful process-much worse than this.

Annie thought that Darren was right. It really was better this way. He’d done this reckless, heroic thing and they all had to be proud of him for it. He’d charged in to save Layla, knowing that his own life might be the forfeit. It was better to go for it than to just hang around, waiting for death to sneak up on you.