Scarlet Women (20 page)

‘You don’t go for a piss, dickhead. You piss in a bottle. What are you, stupid?’ asked Gary.

Barney looked as if he was about to expire with fright. He was small fry on the firm, but these two were number ones, mean machines, real hard men.

‘Sorry,’ said Barney.

‘Sorry don’t cut it,’ said Steve. ‘You cunt.’

Steve turned to Annie, who was still standing there in her robe, shivering and—until now—being ignored by the three of them. ‘You got any ideas who done this?’ he asked.

Annie shook her head and looked at the cat, feeling sick at the sight of the poor thing hanging there,
nailed
there. What twisted arsehole would do a thing like that?

‘It’s a warning,’ said Gary.

Of what?
she wondered.

She thought of Bobby Jo, warning her off poking around. And Charlie Foster, who hated her and was clearly keen to get even for all she’d inflicted on him in the past.

Steve, Gary and Barney were now arguing about the cat, and Steve was reiterating the fact that Barney should
not
be taking comfort breaks when he should be doing his effing job.

‘Hey,’ said Annie.

They just carried on talking. Steve swatted Barney upside the head.

‘Ow! Fuck!’ complained Barney.

‘Hey!’ Annie tried again, her temper stoking up fast. What the hell was she here, the little woman,
to be ignored? ‘
Hey!
’ she bellowed. ‘Person in charge here trying to make herself heard!’

They fell silent. Breathing hard, she glared around at the three of them.

‘Barney,’ she snapped, ‘get back on watch, and no more buggering off. Piss out the window if you got to. Steve, Gary—get rid of
that.
I’m going back to bed.’

She stepped back inside and bolted the door behind her.

Oh Christ.
She still felt as though she was going to spew her guts up. She’d rattled
someone’s
cage, that was for sure. She hurried back upstairs to wash the blood off her hands.

On Thursday, Annie got an unexpected call from DI Hunter. By eleven that same morning she was sitting in a chilly, blue-painted and comfortless room in HM Prison, Wandsworth. The room contained two hard chairs and an oblong table. There was no window. The light was coming from a forty-watt bare bulb hanging overhead. It glimmered weakly on Annie and on Chris Brown, who was sitting opposite her wearing prison fatigues.

Annie thought Chris looked sick. He’d lost weight, his skin was developing a greyish pallor, his eyes looked haunted. She knew that look. She’d seen it in the mirror. But she was disturbed by how quickly this had happened to him. Chris, the strong ex-boxer, built like an armour-plated tank. Chris the tough and uncompromising Delaney hard man. Who also happened to be her friend.

She thought about that. Yeah, here she was again. Crossing over the invisible line that had been drawn long ago between the Delaney and the Carter firms. The Delaneys ought to have been fitting Chris up with a brief and pushing for a visit—but instead here she was, doing their work for them.

Over the years she had come to appreciate this man. He looked like a terrifying bruiser—but in fact she believed he was gentle to the core. She knew his appearance gave the lie to that. He had shoulders like slabs of beef, a huge neck, hands that could knock nails into wood. No doubt about it, Chris was a fearsome sight, even diminished as he was by suffering. Easy to see why Hunter was trying to pin this on him. He looked guilty as fuck, a perfect fit for a frame.

Annie frowned, watching Chris. Hunter still seemed convinced that Chris was their man.

And what if he’s right and I’m wrong? What if I get to prove Chris is innocent because I’m too stubborn and I’m trying to prove a point as usual, and he gets off and then tops some other poor bitch?

But no. She looked into Chris’s eyes. No. She couldn’t be wrong. She had to carry on believing that.

‘They treating you all right in here?’ asked Annie into the leaden silence of the room.

‘Yeah. Fine.’ Chris passed a hand over his eyes, as if they were sore. He looked at Annie.

‘They released her body yet?’

Annie gulped down a breath and nodded.

‘When’s the funeral?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Friday.’

He nodded heavily. ‘They won’t let me go. Not a chance.’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

There was a pause. ‘I didn’t do it,’ said Chris. ‘And those others. I don’t know them from a hole in the ground. Honest.’

‘I believe you.’

‘Can’t prove it though, can I? Same MO.’

‘We’re all trying to help, Chris. Seriously.’

Chris nodded again, tried to smile. ‘Friday,’ he said, and his voice cracked. ‘Christ. Friday. And I can’t even be there.’

There was absolutely nothing Annie could say to that. Nothing at all.

She went straight from the prison back to the Alley Cat club. Tony followed her round the back, to where they had questioned Tamsin. The door there was unlocked, so they went in. It was just coming up to lunchtime, and the girls were getting ready. Tony started throwing open doors. Girls in various states of undress got all prim and started clutching pieces of clothing in front of their modesty.

‘Hey!’ complained Sasha the snake girl loudly as her door was flung wide to reveal a tangle of tits, python and sparkling g-string.

‘Sorry,’ said Annie, and Tony shut it. He went to the next. A pair of girls in this one, turning angry, stage-painted faces to the door.

‘Do you
mind?
’

Tony shut the door. Went to the next and opened it. A very tall woman in a sparkling blue dress and red wig was sitting in front of a mirror, applying purple eye shadow above a thick outcrop of black lashes.

‘What the cunting hell?’ demanded Bobby Jo furiously.

‘Hi,’ said Annie with a smile. ‘Time for a visit?’

They went in, and closed the door behind them.

‘What do you want now?’ asked Bobby Jo.

Tony stepped forward. ‘Mrs Carter wants a word with you. Be nice,’ he said.

Bobby Jo’s mouth opened, then shut again. His temper level went down several notches.

‘All right, but can it be quick? Lunchtime trade’s waiting.’

‘Is that what you said to Teresa?’ asked Annie.

‘What?’

‘You know. Teresa.’

‘
What?
’ He was looking at her as if she’d gone mad.

‘Is that what you said to her: we’ll have to be quick before the lunchtime trade?’ Annie elaborated.

Everything about Bobby Jo was suddenly very still.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said after a beat. ‘You’re crazy.’

Annie stepped forward. She hated the sight of this git. And she couldn’t help wondering if
he
was the one who had put that grisly little present on her door. She wouldn’t put it past him.

‘No, Bobby Jo, I’m not crazy, but I’ll tell you what, Tony here
is.
He has the shortest temper, you can’t imagine. People start giving him shit, and whoosh! Off he goes. Flies straight off the handle. Haven’t you got a terrible temper, Tone?’ she asked him.

‘Yeah,’ said Tony. ‘Uncontrollable.’

‘Listen, I don’t know what you’ve heard…’

‘We’ve heard plenty. About how Teresa used to come in here about eleven in the morning, and the door would be closed—but these walls are thin, you know. Paper thin. And people hear things. Things like—I dunno, let’s think—oh yeah. Like you fucking Teresa Walker’s brains out up against the wall here.’

Bobby Jo was gulping, his eyes going from Tony to Annie.

‘It was a one-off,’ he said at last.

‘Like hell,’ said Annie sweetly. ‘You and Teresa
were a regular thing, twice, sometimes three times a week. Up against the wall was favourite, ain’t that right?’ She tapped the wall beside her. ‘Very thin, these walls. What, did you pay her?’

Bobby Jo was fidgeting like a caged animal now. Tony moved in closer.

‘Okay!’ Bobby Jo held his hands up. ‘Yeah. All right. You got me. I gave Teresa a quick hump a couple of times a week, is that a crime? I tell you, that girl was
hot.
And she came on to me, not the other way round. What can I tell you? When Teresa started coming in here and offering it on a plate in exchange for a bonus or two, what was I supposed to do? Turn it down?’

Annie shrugged. ‘Why should you?’

‘Exactly!’ He half smiled, but it quickly faded back to that edgy, uncomfortable look. ‘But serious. Straight up. Can we keep this between ourselves, for God’s sake? If you ever tell anyone I was getting my leg over with Teresa, I’ll deny it flat out.’

Annie stared at him. ‘Why the big secret?’

Bobby Jo’s eyes slipped away from hers.

‘No reason. Just wouldn’t want it getting around, that’s all.’

‘Why, you got a boyfriend too?’

‘No.’ Again with the fidgeting. Annie could see that this was making Bobby Jo extremely uncomfortable.

‘Steady girlfriend then?’

‘No. Yeah. That is…’ he faltered, half grinned. There was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Yeah, my girlfriend’s the possessive type. She heard I’d been screwing around, I’d be toast.’

Annie was silent. So was Tony. Bobby Jo’s eyes were darting between them, wondering what was coming next.

Finally Annie spoke. ‘Did Teresa have a red flame tattooed on her inner thigh?’

Bobby Jo stiffened and his eyes met Annie’s. ‘Yeah, she did. Had it done a couple of days before she died. They did it next door. She said it was still sore, when we—’

‘When you fucked her in exchange for a bonus.’

‘Hey, it was a bit of business, that’s all,’ said Bobby Jo with a return to his former self. ‘I gave her kickbacks; she gave me sex. Then she had to go and take advantage, start passing her cards round, I ask you. I found out about the cards just before she got herself done.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, now hold
on
,’ he said, half laughing. ‘You think I had anything to do with that? Think again. Sure, I’m sorry for the girl, but she was always pushing her luck, and it couldn’t be a surprise to anyone that she ended up the way she did.’

‘You weren’t so mad over the cards incident that you thought you’d stop her little games once and for all?’ asked Annie. ‘Maybe you got a taste
for throttling working girls and you did Val Delacourt too, and Aretha Brown?’

‘Hey, no.’ Bobby Jo’s eyes were desperate now. ‘I didn’t do a thing to Teresa, or those others. I
didn’t.
’

‘Really?’

‘You have to believe me. I didn’t do nothing.’

‘I know he’s lying about something,’ said Annie to Tony. They’d left Bobby Jo and were now standing on the pavement outside the tattoo parlour.

It was closed again. It was early afternoon, music blaring out from the club next door, girls taking up their places in fetish-club and strip-joint doorways to hook in the punters, big guys enticing people into the smoky depths with offers of free booze and topless bar girls who’d let you lean over the bar and suck their delectable tits. They would also arrange for anything else you fancied sucking in one of the discreet little rooms they had out back, for a price.

Everything had a price.

Again her thoughts turned to Aretha, who had loved money so much. She wondered how that had really sat with Chris, who earned so little in security at the airport. Whether it caused rows between them. Rows that might possibly have tipped over into something worse…But no. Surely not Chris.
Never.

She looked around. Women of all descriptions: Asian, Chinese, whatever took your fancy; it was all here for the asking. And rent boys—posh ones for the East End villains who leaned that way, cheeky little Cockneys for the toffs. All human life was here, and it was all on sale.

But Pete Delacourt’s tattoo parlour was still closed. The curtains were still pulled over in the flat upstairs; there was still a light shining dimly through the tatty drapes. They got back in the car and sat there, looking at the little shop. Not a soul moving in there.

‘Did you think Bobby Jo was lying about something, Tone?’ asked Annie.

‘Through his teeth, was my feeling,’ said Tony.

‘Yeah, me too. Get one of the boys to watch him, okay? See where he goes, what he does. And why is that place never open?’ She indicated the tattoo parlour with a nod of her head.

Tony shrugged. ‘Where to?’

‘Head back East, Tone.’

They were passing Victoria Park along Old Ford Road, Annie deep in thought, just gazing out at the people and the traffic rushing past the window, when she saw the huddled figure sitting on the park bench. Looked once. Did a double take. Leaned forward and tapped Tony sharply on the shoulder.

‘Stop the car.’

There was a shit-load of traffic bringing up the
rear. Tony clapped on the anchors. Cabbies started doing their nuts, leaning out of their windows and saying was he considering ever learning to
drive
that bloody car, or was his sole ambition in life to just get it mangled to a pulp? Other drivers honked their horns, indicated, tried to get round the sudden obstruction the black Jaguar had become, as it pulled in to the kerb with a screech of wheels.

‘Wait here,’ said Annie, and shot out of the car and into the park.

She ran to the bench.

The hunched figure was gone. Had no doubt heard the commotion on the road, and legged it.

‘Fuck it.’ Annie looked frantically around.

Not a hundred yards away, a thin girl was walking fast, head down, hurrying away.

‘Mira!’ Annie bellowed.

The girl stopped. Turned. Then started walking again, away from Annie.

Annie sprinted after her. Caught hold of her arm. It
was
Mira.

Annie was elated, despite the state Mira was in, despite everything. She’d thought the silly mare was in some sort of danger—if not actually dead. Yet here she was. Mira, her old friend, still stinking like a polecat, still skinny and covered in sores—what a bloody mess she was; but it was
Mira
, thank God.

‘What the hell do you want now?’ asked Mira,
wild-eyed, twitching away from Annie when she reached out to touch her.

‘Hey, is that any way to greet a friend?’

‘What do you
want
?’ asked Mira, shivering.
Shivering
, on a summer’s day with male office workers out on the grass in shirtsleeves, secretaries with their cheesecloth tops rolled up to expose pale midriffs, all of them just lapping up the heat, and here was Mira—emaciated, filthy and shivering like she was in the teeth of an arctic gale.

‘I want to help,’ said Annie. ‘For fuck’s sake Mira, come on. Why’d you run off like that? I’m trying to help you.’

‘You can’t,’ said Mira. ‘No one can.’

‘That’s crap.’

‘You can’t make me do anything,’ said Mira weakly.

‘No? Look at yourself,’ said Annie. ‘You couldn’t knock the skin off a fucking rice pudding. So you’re coming with me.’

‘I can’t,’ said Mira, and now there were tears trickling down from her eyes. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can,’ said Annie, still holding on firmly to Mira’s arm. It felt like a skeleton’s, all bone, hardly any muscle at all. ‘Come on, Mira,’ said Annie more gently.

Mira just lowered her head, all the fight going, draining from her in an instant. Annie led her over to the car, and got her seated in the back.
Tony looked at Annie in the mirror as if she’d finally taken leave of her senses. His boss had just put a female
tramp
in his nice clean car. Annie cranked open a window and gave Tony a winning smile.

‘Dolly’s place, Tone,’ she said.

‘Jesus, no!’ snapped Mira, making panicky movements to throw open the door. ‘I can’t…don’t make me go there.’

Annie stared at her in puzzlement.

‘It’s
his
patch. I shouldn’t be there. It’s
his
,’ said Mira, wide-eyed with fear.

‘Redmond Delaney?’ Annie was still staring—and now she was remembering how Mira had run last time from Dolly’s place, just as she’d told Dolly that Redmond was on the phone. ‘You scared of Redmond?’

Mira nodded. More than scared: she looked terrified.

‘It’s okay,’ she told Mira. ‘He never goes there.’