Scarlet Women (18 page)

There was silence between them. The lift descended smoothly, and the doors opened; they were in reception.

Annie stepped out.

Constantine caught her arm. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said. ‘After what happened the other day? After you came into my house and practically
raped
me?’

‘Look,’ said Annie desperately, ‘that was a moment of weakness. I regret it now.’

‘The fuck you do.’

‘I
do.
I called you Max, for God’s sake. I’m…I’m still in love with Max.’

She blurted it out; she had to stop this. Had to hurt him to stop it if necessary, and she did see a flicker of pain in his eyes.

‘You’re lying,’ he said.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not lying. I’m serious,’ she said flatly. ‘This is too risky. It’s finished.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘
Yes.
’

‘Look…think it over. And if you need me, call.’

‘I won’t.’ She pulled her arm free and started to walk away. Tears pricked her eyes, but she knew what she was doing was the right thing, the
safe
thing.

‘You will. Remember—you only have to say you need me,’ he called after her. ‘I’ll be there.’

But I won’t say it,
she thought.

She knew it was over. She knew it
had
to be.

It was Wednesday morning, ten o’clock, sun bright in the sky, traffic honking and nudging along the roads, girls out in short skirts, the parks green and beautiful. And there was Annie, feeling depressed and queasy and sitting alone in the waiting room of the funeral parlour, alone this time and wishing she was out there in the noise and the heat and the fumes,
anywhere
in fact but in here.

She felt sick, thinking about what she had to do.

She snatched up a paper from one of the chairs, trying to distract herself and failing. Read about troops firing CS gas at rioters in the Bogside area of Londonderry, and scuffles between blacks and police in Notting Hill. Everywhere, it seemed, there was fighting, destruction, death.

Then the same thin woman she had seen last time came in, smiling and efficient as always. Black
Vidal Sassoon-type bob, black suit, neat white shirt and black buckled shoes. Clipboard clutched briskly to her nonexistent breasts.

Annie put the paper aside.

‘Mrs Carter,’ said the woman.

‘Yes,’ said Annie, and stood up.

‘You’d like to spend some more time with Aretha, I understand,’ said the woman in the same sugar-sweet and soothing tone she’d used last time.

‘That’s right,’ said Annie, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth, it felt so dry.

‘That’s no problem at all. Were you very close?’

Oh God, she wants me to make polite conversation,
thought Annie. I’m here to do the unthinkable, and now she wants a fucking
chat.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very.’

That was, if you counted being madam and whore together. If you counted laughing together until your sides ached, and sharing breakfasts and dinners and sometimes tears and gripes about period pains and men and this face cream or that nail varnish and the state of the whole damned world. Silly little things, but all shared. She couldn’t tell this woman how funny Aretha had been, or how courageous; how more than once Aretha had come through for her and for others, putting herself at risk to help her friends.

Now, all that was gone.

‘Follow me then,’ said the woman, her professional smile growing more fixed as she took Annie’s tone for what it clearly was—a rebuff.

Annie followed her into the same room as before, the Chapel of Rest, where last time she had stood with Dolly and Louella. The coffin was still there, the coffin containing all that was left of Aretha. Annie felt her stomach constrict. She didn’t want to do this.

‘If you’d like me to stay with you…?’ the woman offered.

Yes please
, thought Annie.

But this was something she had to do alone, without an audience. And once again she wondered why she was taking Mira’s words so seriously. Mira the wreck, the junkie. But still, Mira. Mira who had once, long ago, strode through Mayfair in furs, adored, applauded, cosseted, her favours highly prized. Mira, who had known her own value to the nth degree. Who was nobody’s fool.

‘I want to see her alone.’

‘If you need me, I’ll be…’ She indicated the next room.

Annie nodded. The woman withdrew, closing the door behind her. Annie took a breath and walked forward. Stopped, heart thumping sickly. Moved forward again,
forced
herself to move one foot in front of the other. Until she was right there, looking down at Aretha’s slumbering face. No, not
slumbering. The face was dead. The face was just a shell that would soon dissolve, disintegrate, fade back into the earth.

‘Christ,’ muttered Annie under her breath. She could feel cold sweat breaking out all over her body. She felt as if she was going to chuck up, right now.

But it wasn’t really Aretha, lying there. She told herself that, very firmly. And when she half closed her eyes, she imagined she could see the real Aretha, the Aretha of the high-fives and wide watermelon grin, standing there in her hot pants and her Afghan coat by the dummy altar—watching her old friend, and amused by her trepidation.

Jeez, girlfriend, you so
soft, said the real Aretha.
Get on with it, for fuck’s sake. What, you think that poor empty thing’s gonna leap out an’ bite you or somethin’? Dream on.

Annie gulped.

‘Oh fuck this,’ she muttered miserably, and reached out.

She had to do this. If only to be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was all nonsense, all the product of a junkie’s tormented mind. She stepped forward, leaned over the coffin. Reached down with a shaking hand and touched the frilled gown at Aretha’s throat, pushed the fabric back. Saw the red contusions that the gown had concealed. Felt her heart squeeze tight with grief and pity. Then felt the
rage come hot on its heels. That someone could do this to Aretha. The rage helped her, steadied her a little. Her hand drifted down, gently lifting the gown at Aretha’s feet. She hesitated.

‘I’m sorry as hell about this, Aretha,’ she said into the still, cold air of the place.

Annie lifted the cool linen, pulled it slowly up. As she did so a faint fragrance wafted up. She wrinkled her nose and gagged. What she could smell was the sweet, almost sickly whiff of corruption. The ghastly smell brought it all home to her with vicious force. Aretha was
dead.
And although it was cool in here, slowing the natural processes, postponing the inevitable, outside it was high summer and it was hot. Soon, Aretha’s remains would begin to rot.

Bile rose, hot and sour, in her throat. She swallowed and moaned. She had to force herself to stay there, force herself not to run away from this.

Got to dig deep and do this.

For Chris, she had to do this. Otherwise he was going down, for sure.

Again she had that strong feeling of Aretha standing nearby, laughing her head off.

Damn, girl, get the fuck on with it, what you waitin’ for now?

‘Okay,’ said Annie, straightening up, gathering herself. ‘Okay.’

She lifted the white fabric higher, up over the
dead Aretha’s sheeny chocolate-brown skin, over her long calves, over her shapely knees, up over her long, strong thighs. The smell was stronger now. Annie was breathing through her mouth, trying very hard not to throw up all over the damned corpse.

‘Oh Jesus, Aretha, help me out here, throw me a fucking
bone,
will you?’ she groaned aloud, sweating, nearly crying aloud with revulsion and loss. She leaned in and lifted Aretha’s leg. It was a dead weight, dead in every sense. A bubble of hysterical laughter almost escaped her then.

Who could have thought a dead person’s leg would be so heavy?

Annie found that she was sweating heavily now, despite the coolness of the room. She felt disgusted with herself because she was doing this, disgusted with Aretha for being dead, disgusted with the sick bastard who had destroyed this living, breathing woman and inflicted a thing like this on them both.

‘What in the name of God you doin’, girl?’ said Aretha’s furious voice loudly from right behind her.

Annie’s heart leapt into her throat. She dropped the leg and spun round, clutching her chest. But it wasn’t Aretha at all, it was Louella, standing there with hands on huge hips, staring at her with horrified eyes.

‘I’m…’ Annie’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak.

‘Well, what?’ demanded Aretha’s aunt, shaking her head. ‘You
sick
,’ she spat, turning on her heel and making for the door. ‘I’m gonna get that woman in here and she goin’ to kick your sorry arse right out on the street, you hear me?’

Annie heard her. And she knew she had to get this done quick. She turned back to Aretha’s corpse, lifted the left leg again, put all her weight behind it this time, grunting with the effort. Looked high up on the inner thigh. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Just pure, unblemished skin. She could hear Louella screaming and bawling to the woman in the next room, could hear a chair scraping back, hurried foot-falls coming closer.

So little time.

Yeah, girlfriend, so get the fuck
on
with it, why don’t you…?

She dashed around the other side of the coffin and reached in and lifted the right leg this time. Hefted it up with a grunt of effort.
Right
up.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ demanded the woman, dashing in with all pretence of charm gone, all guns blazing. She’d even forgotten her clipboard. She turned back towards the door. ‘I’m calling the police…’

And there it was.

Annie stared at Aretha’s inner thigh, and there it was.

Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

A flame tattoo.
It’s a marker, Mira had said.
There’s money in it.
Aretha loved money.

But what the hell did that mean? And a marker for what—and for
who?

Aunt Louella was babbling something, but Annie didn’t hear her.

‘Hey!’ she shouted. The woman stopped, turned, her face a picture of total fury. ‘Yeah, go on. Phone the police. Ask for DI Hunter. Tell him it’s urgent.’

‘Another complaint, Mrs Carter,’ said Hunter coldly. ‘This is getting to be a habit with you. First intimidation, now interfering—for God’s sake—with a
corpse.
Anything to say about this?’

They were pacing about on the pavement outside the undertaker’s. DS Lane was leaning against the cop car watching them, and Tony was leaning against the Jag watching too. Louella had thrown a few accusations about when Hunter had first arrived, and then she had stormed off, warning Annie not to go near ‘her baby girl’ again. The woman from the funeral parlour had filled him in with the unsavoury details of the situation.

Annie had sat in the waiting room, watching his face while he absorbed what had gone on here. He didn’t look happy about it, and that was a fact. Finally, he said they’d talk outside, and told
the woman goodbye. She’d watched Annie go with a sneer of disgust.

‘Yeah, I got something to say,’ said Annie. ‘I was looking for a flame tattoo, on her inner thigh.’

Hunter stopped pacing and turned to face her.

‘And this is significant how?’ he asked.

‘God, I don’t know. Someone told me these girls who have been killed were all marked with this particular tattoo—I know, it sounds sick—at a parlour beside the Alley Cat club in Soho, shortly before they were killed.’

Hunter looked at her. ‘In France, prostitutes used to be marked with the fleur-de-lys,’ he said.

‘Well these were marked with a flame.’

‘Who is this someone?’ asked Hunter. His dark eyes were probing, searching her face for answers.

‘Can’t tell you that,’ said Annie.

His gaze got harder. ‘Withholding information from the police is a serious matter, Mrs Carter.’

Annie stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and looked at him.

‘I’m not trying to be obstructive,’ she said. ‘I think we can help each other out here. I spoke to Teresa Walker’s mother, but she had no knowledge of a tattoo and Teresa was cremated so there goes all hope of checking it out now. But you must have things like that on record, distinguishing marks, moles, stuff like that.’

He was still gazing at her. ‘Of course.’

‘Then check it.’

‘What about Val Delacourt?’ he asked.

‘You know she worked in the Alley Cat, stripping?’

He drew breath. Seemed to count to ten. ‘Of course I know that.’

‘Right next to the tattoo parlour. We can check that too.’

‘Mrs Carter.’ He raised a finger and pointed it squarely at her. ‘
I
can check it.
You
can stay out of trouble.’

They locked eyes. He had nice eyes, she thought. Dark as bitter chocolate. They could even be warm, if he ever unbuttoned himself enough to relax and smile.

‘What about Gareth?’ she asked.

‘What the f…what
about
him?’

‘You said the post mortem was on Friday.’

Hunter gave a sigh. ‘You’re a very annoying woman, Mrs Carter.’

‘Yeah, it’s a bitch,’ said Annie. ‘I’m annoying and you’re uptight, what can you do?’

He ignored that. ‘The findings were inconclusive. Consistent with asphyxia, but—’

‘But? But what?’ demanded Annie.

‘There was evidence of a lot of drugs in his system. It seems that with that level of toxicity, it’s unlikely the victim would have the energy or the inclination to hang himself. Open the door, possibly. But hang himself? Almost certainly, no.’

Annie’s attention sharpened. ‘So you think I could be right—you think someone hanged him?’

‘It’s possible.’ Hunter looked at her. ‘Have you heard of autoerotic asphyxia, Mrs Carter?’

‘Oh come on,’ she gave a half-smile. ‘You know my history. Of course I’ve heard of it. You think Gareth was into that?’

‘We don’t know yet. And whether he was or not is actually no concern of yours.’

‘This was my husband’s manor,’ said Annie.

‘I don’t believe in “manors”, Mrs Carter, you know what I’m saying?’

‘Now it’s mine,’ said Annie, ignoring what he’d said.

He was back at the finger-wagging again. ‘Keep your nose out,’ said DI Hunter.

Annie looked at the finger, thinking that if he wagged it in her face just one more time, she was going to bite the fucker, hard. But she kept a lid on it. After all, she needed his cooperation. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Can I see Chris Brown? Is that possible?’

‘No,’ said Hunter. ‘It isn’t.’

‘He needs a friend to talk to. I’m his friend. Let me talk to him.’

Hunter looked at her as if she was some interesting alien species. ‘Despite all that he’s done?’

‘If I thought he’d done it, I wouldn’t be asking.’

‘Obstinacy isn’t a virtue, Mrs Carter,’ said Hunter.

‘Persistence is,’ said Annie.

He paused. Looked at her. His hand dropped to his side. She had the distinct impression that he was almost stifling a smile. ‘I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.’

Annie nodded, satisfied. She went to the Jag and got in.

He watched her being driven away.
Her
manor, for God’s sake. He approached the malodorous DS Lane, who was leaning there smirking against the car. He hated Lane. He was sure that the creep had been passing info to Annie Carter. He had a cop’s nose for who he could trust and who he couldn’t. Lane was bent. He just
knew
it. And Annie Carter? Who the hell knew
what
went on in that woman’s brain?

It was her day for getting grief. Grief off Louella and the woman at the Chapel of Rest, then grief off Hunter, and now even
more
grief, from a thunderous Dolly this time, when she joined her in Limehouse for lunch.

‘Something up, Doll?’ she asked, since they were alone.

‘You want to know what’s up?’ Dolly crashed the teacup down into the saucer. ‘I’ll tell you what’s up. I’ve had Aretha’s Aunt Louella on the phone bending my ear over you. Saying how you should be ashamed of yourself, you are a monster, a pervert, possibly a lezzer, no
probably
a lezzer,
shouting down my ear, she was for about half an hour, and all because of what you’ve been up to.’

‘Ah,’ said Annie.

‘You might well say “ah”. When she told me, for fuck’s
sake
, Annie Carter, when she told me that, I didn’t blame her.’

‘Doll—’

‘I don’t
believe
you. I really don’t. I cannot believe that you’d do a thing like this, fiddling with a fucking corpse.’

‘Doll, look—’

‘Shut up, I’m not done. You’ve really put the tin lid on it this time. You’re off on some bloody wild-goose chase again looking for something you’ll never find, looking to pin this whole horrible business on someone other than Chris—well, let me tell you, Annie, you won’t. Because—face it—Chris did it. He did Aretha, and he did the other two as well. He’s guilty as sin and they’ve got him for it and he’s going to go down for a long, long stretch and that’s good because
he did it.
Now.’ Dolly stood up, placed both hands flat on the table and glared down at Annie. ‘Aretha’s funeral’s on Thursday, and you’d better be there and you’d better apologize to Louella for all this upheaval. God knows if she’ll ever forgive you, but it’s the decent thing to do and so you’re going to do it. Got that?’

Annie pursed her lips and looked up at Dolly.

Trust Dolly to tell it exactly how it was. And maybe she was right. Maybe she was right and Annie was wrong. But while they were flinging mud about, what about
Dolly?
What about her weird behaviour when Rosie went walkabout? She’d been shitting bricks, and Annie hadn’t asked her to explain that yet, because if Dolly thought that Chris had killed them girls, then why was she so worried for Rosie? It didn’t add up.

‘Look,’ said Annie. ‘I had a good reason for acting like I did. Mira told me something…’

‘That
junkie?
’ snorted Dolly.

‘Yeah, that one.’ Annie’s voice hardened. ‘Doll, you’re just going to have to trust me on this. I had reason, okay? But listen. I’ll be at the damned funeral. And I
will
apologize.’

Dolly let out a breath. ‘Good.’

‘Now I’ve got to go,’ said Annie.

‘I had to say something,’ said Dolly.

‘I know, Doll.’ Annie slipped on her jacket and went down the hall, past a boot-faced Ross in his seat by the front door. ‘Where are the girls?’ she asked him, pausing there. ‘It’s quiet.’

‘Sharlene’s got a client in. Rosie’s out,’ said Ross reluctantly. He hated her, she knew that. She was a Carter, he was a Delaney boy. They couldn’t get past that.

Annie went on outside, closed the door behind her. She knew one thing for sure. She had to pursue
this thing with Aretha, whatever else might get in the way. She had to
try.
And the first thing on her to-do list was finding Mira again.

Tony dropped her back to the club. As he pulled away, a florist drew in and threw open the back doors of his van. Annie stepped inside the club.

‘Mrs Carter?’

She stopped. ‘Yeah?’

‘Flowers for you. Where do you want these?’ asked the man, hurrying up behind her.

Annie felt suddenly apprehensive.
Dead flowers
, she thought.
It’ll be dead flowers like the last time, some sick gift from some sick bastard.
She shuddered.

But the man was bustling forward and there was the familiar crackle of cellophane—but this time there was a huge bunch of fifty living, breathtakingly beautiful blood-red roses in his arms. She relaxed and started to smile.

Constantine
, she thought, her pulse picking up speed.

‘Is there a card?’ she asked.

The florist nodded, handed it to her. She pulled the card out of the tiny red envelope and read it. Words this time, not numbers. No codes, no
pizzino.
This was plain speaking, straight from the heart. It said:
Just say you need me. Any time, day or night. I’ll be there. C.

‘Bring them upstairs,’ she said, pocketing the card.

When the florist was gone, she put the roses in the sink to keep them fresh and stood there looking at them. The flat was empty, quiet. She turned on the radio over the sink. James Brown started punching out ‘This Is a Man’s World’.

Annie smiled grimly.
Yeah, you got that right
, she thought.

She was a woman in a man’s world, but she was going to make her own way in it, she was determined about that now. She wasn’t going to call him. She didn’t need a man,
any
man. Not even one as red-hot as Constantine Barolli. As soon as all this shit was over, it was going to be just her and Layla. She picked up the phone and dialled Ruthie’s number, feeling a sudden overwhelming need to hear her baby’s voice.