Jessie Keane - Ruthless

Grimly she remembered her mother’s parting shot: ‘Don’t go getting all pally with the girls, OK?’

Layla thought that wasn’t OK at all. She thought it was pure snobbery on her mother’s part, imagining the daughter of the great Annie Carter was too good to mix with lap dancers.

‘I won’t be staying long,’ said Layla, praying that would be the case. She was dreading having to phone in sick again tomorrow. No one was ever sick at Bowdler and Etchingham. Anyone foolish enough to take sick leave was liable to return to find their desk had been moved to a less desirable spot, their chances of promotion reduced.

‘You can stay as long as you like,’ said Ellie. ‘That goes without saying.’

I’m going to lose my job, thought Layla. She loved her job, it defined her. She loved neat rows of figures, making columns add up. She craved order, and accountancy gave her that.

Yeah, because it’s missing in other areas of your life, right?

‘Telly’s there if you need it,’ said Ellie, desperate to break the uneasy silence. ‘And there’s the radio.’

‘Fine,’ said Layla.

She made no move to start unpacking, settle in. Just stood there, looking lost.

‘Don’t go out if you can avoid it, but if you do , you take Chris or Simon or Kyle with you,’ said Ellie.

Layla knew Chris on sight: Simon was a blond mound of muscle, and Kyle had waved her in the door today, dark-haired and barrel-chested, with a broad smile of welcome. She rather liked Kyle.

‘And you don’t ever go out without telling me exactly where you are.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Layla. ‘Mum’s orders?’

Ellie smiled but didn’t answer that. ‘Just ask if you need anything,’ she said, going to the door. ‘Oh – and Layla?’

‘Hm?’

‘Probably best if you stick to your room in the evenings,’ said Ellie, and with that she closed the door.

Terrific, thought Layla.

Annie was alone that evening when the police came knocking. She was just sitting there, thinking over what Layla had said before Tony had taken her off to Ellie’s place.

I’ve phoned Dad.

Shit. If there was one thing she didn’t need, didn’t ever need, it was him poking his nose in.

She’d got used to him being on the other side of the world, and she liked it that way. Max had his fingers in quite a few pies still, she knew that. She couldn’t avoid knowing. Layla always came home from her Barbados vacations fizzing with joy, keen to impart news of her dad.

Annie didn’t want to hear any of it. She didn’t want to see, either, how lit up her daughter was, how suntanned, happy, exuberant – a different girl almost – simply because she’d been in her father’s company, in her father’s home.

His home.

Well, that was what Barbados was these days. Max lived the life of a wealthy ex-pat, with interests in Barbados, Cuba and the Cayman Islands. He still owned the three London clubs, along with Carter Security, which was now managed by Steve Taylor. The clubs were raking in a fortune and Steve was doing well, pulling in lucrative City contracts and work all the way out to Essex.

Annie sighed. She wouldn’t mind being an ex-pat herself, upping sticks to New York where her work was. But then… you couldn’t really call the club work , not with Sonny running the place so smoothly that she was left with little to do. He was a good manager, honest and diligent. Her occasional flying visits to check up on the place only served to put his nose out of joint; he took it as a lack of trust on her part, an affront to his integrity, when in fact all she was doing was trying to pretend she had a purpose in life.

In London she had nothing to occupy her besides shopping and chewing the fat with her mates. But most of the time they weren’t even free. Dolly and Ellie were both busy women with responsible jobs, so she was often hanging about alone, like a spare part. She would never admit to anyone that she was lonely. And – up until these last few hellish days – she’d been bored witless, too.

It almost came as a relief when Rosa’s knock interrupted her thoughts.

‘Señora Carter?’ The housekeeper’s eyes were wide with worry in the wrinkled folds of her face. ‘ Polícia .’

Here we go, thought Annie. Eyes down, look in.

She stood up. ‘Thanks Rosa. Show them in here, will you?’

Rosa nodded. She ushered in two plain-clothes cops, one an older man, tall, dark-haired, grave-faced, with inky-brown eyes that scanned her like a computer.

The other was a young female, with honey-coloured hair scraped back to display knife-sharp cheekbones and hostile eyes. The girl didn’t look like Layla, but something in her buttoned-up manner, her deliberately unflattering choice of hairstyle and strictly unsexy clothes, reminded Annie forcibly of her daughter.

I suppose she’s here in case I faint or something, thought Annie wryly.

She thought she recognized the older detective. Could be an undertaker, a face like that, with that turned-down trap of a mouth. She hadn’t expected CID this fast in the proceedings, though. She’d assumed uniforms would arrive first.

The senior man flashed his badge.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Annie.

‘Mrs Carter,’ he said.

‘DI Hunter! Thought it was you. Long time no see.’

‘I had hoped to continue that absence of contact,’ he said smoothly, taking a seat. ‘And it’s DCI now.’

‘Well, good for you.’

‘This is DI Duggan.’

Annie nodded to the woman. ‘Haven’t seen you in a long time,’ she said, returning her attention to Hunter. He’d aged well. Still looked the business.

‘Is this your car, registration number…’ asked DI Duggan, whipping out her notebook and rattling off a number.

‘It is,’ said Annie.

‘And are you aware that it was blown up not far from one of the Carter clubs?’ asked Hunter.

‘Yes.’

‘You drove it there?’

‘Yes.’

He stared at her. ‘You left the scene.’

‘I was shaken up. Had to come home.’

His stare hardened. The Annie Carter he’d known – the one he’d encountered back in the day when some nutter was wasting London prostitutes – wouldn’t have been shaken up. That Annie Carter had been too busy throwing her weight around, leaving him and his colleagues playing catch-up while she stalked the streets that she – according to her – owned.

‘No one else was in the car with you, I take it?’

‘No. Nobody.’

‘Yet someone was right there when the bomb exploded. And that person is dead.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘Isn’t it. We’ve yet to identify the indiv-’

‘As far as I could see, there wasn’t much left of them. Whoever they were. Was anyone else hurt?’

‘Minor injuries, which was lucky. Cuts and scratches. It wasn’t a large explosive device. Only lethal at short range.’

‘Did you talk to Dolly Farrell? The manager of the Palermo.’

‘We did.’

‘Then she’ll have told you that I was with her when it went off, in the office upstairs. I didn’t see anything, I was inside the club.’

‘But you saw the aftermath, obviously.’

‘I did.’

‘And you have no idea who this person might be? The one who died in the blast?’

‘None.’

‘Have you anything you’d like to tell us, Mrs Carter?’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as – oh, let’s see. How about telling us why someone would be trying to kill you?’

‘There’s nothing I can tell you. Nothing I know that you don’t.’