Scarlet Women

‘Hey…’ he murmured, and held her tighter.

Faltering, she went on talking.

There had been a pregnancy. Her parents had been ashamed. They had demanded to know who was the father of her child, but she hadn’t told them, she couldn’t tell them that her father’s brother, the beloved uncle who had dandled her on his knee as a child, had impregnated her.

‘What happened then?’ he asked her, wiping away her tears.

‘They sent me away to my cousin’s for the abortion,’ Mira told him, choking to get the words out through her tears.

‘Shh,’ he said, rocking her.

‘And after that,’ she said when she could speak again, ‘I never went home again. Never saw my parents again. Couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in their eyes when they looked at me.’

She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. He stroked her back, feeling oddly relieved. She was like him after all. She too had gone to forbidden places, and lived to tell the tale.

‘You could tell them the truth. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not too late,’ he said.

She shook her head vehemently.

‘Yes it is. My father loves his brother better than anyone in the world, including me. He didn’t believe me then and he wouldn’t believe me now. Neither would my mother. It’s too late. It’s over.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, understanding completely, utterly. ‘So after that you became…?’

She shot a glance back at him. A tight smile.

‘A whore?’ With a heavy sigh she threw herself back on to the pillows. ‘It wasn’t that difficult a transition. Men flocked around me, wined and dined me, bought me jewels. Men always have. My family was dead to me, I had to make my own way and what was I good for? I’d never had any training. Anything beyond arranging a few flowers and making a perfect Sacher torte was beyond me. Stupid, yes? What a way to raise a girl to face the world.’

He said nothing.

‘These men coveted me, wanted to pay for my company on holidays in the Bahamas and dinners at the best restaurants, in exchange for sexual favours. So I drifted into that life. And you know what’s strange? I never felt anything for any of them, never felt a thing, until I met you.’

He nodded, pulled her in close against him. He knew that she had instinctively recognized that taint in his soul, the same taint that was in her. That was what had drawn them so swiftly together. It would never leave either of them.

‘My poor darling,’ he said against her hair, and pushed her hand down to his cock again, because the tale of what her uncle had done to her had aroused him.

Chapter 9

Kath, Annie’s cousin, was up in the flat with her three-year-old son, Jimmy Junior, her baby Mo—and Layla. Layla saw Annie coming up the stairs and threw herself at her mother’s legs. She clung on like a small, dark-haired limpet.

Annie scooped Layla up into her arms and smiled into her daughter’s face, although she felt annoyed with Kath because the door had been open, the stairs were a danger, the workmen had been down there with masonry and shit flying in all directions; the kids could get hurt here.

‘You didn’t have to come over, I’d have come to you,’ she said to Kath, who was cuddling her grizzling baby against her vast bosom.

‘Ah, they were getting bored and Layla kept asking for you and I needed some stuff from the shop, so I thought, why not?’ said Kath.

‘How’s she been?’ asked Annie.

Kath shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘A pain in the arse,’ she said, but her grin said otherwise.

Annie kissed Layla’s silky dark hair—so like her own—and inhaled the sweet scent of her daughter.

‘You been a good girl for your Auntie Kath?’ she asked Layla.

‘Yeah!’ said Layla.

‘Is that the truth?’

‘Yeah!’

‘What about you, little Jim?’ asked Annie of Kath’s little boy, who was at the table, his sandy head bent over his paper and crayons. ‘Been good?’

Jimmy gave her a tired smile and rubbed his eyes.

‘He’s ready for his nap,’ said Kath. ‘They’re all getting overtired.’

‘Can Layla stay with you tonight, Kath? I’ve got to go out late on business.’

‘Sure,’ said Kath with a sigh.

She didn’t ask what business. After years of being married to Jimmy Bond, who had once been Max Carter’s number one man, she knew better. But Jimmy Bond was history now, and Kath didn’t seem sorry. In fact, there was a new spring in her step. Jimmy had knocked seven kinds of shit out of her, and she didn’t have to put up with that any more. She was still a train wreck, though; still messy, still untidy.

Annie noticed that Layla had started to cling on tighter to her. She drew back and smiled into the little girl’s eyes—eyes that were the same colour as her own: a dark, dense green. ‘I’ll collect you after breakfast tomorrow, okay? That’s a promise.’

‘You promise, Mummy?’

‘On my life,’ said Annie, hating the anxiety in Layla’s eyes. ‘Uncle Tony’s going to drive you over to Auntie Kath’s with her right now, okay?’

This seemed to reassure Layla, and she nodded and allowed herself to be ushered out the door along with little Jim, baby Mo and a mountain of childcare products and colouring books, plus her overnight pyjamas and Bluey, her new fluffy toy bunny.

At last they were gone. Annie sat in the flat and turned on the TV to catch the news. The Manson trial was still going on in the States, the army had used rubber bullets for the first time in Belfast, and a plane had crashed in Peru, killing all ninetynine people on board. Her attention sharpened as the guy started saying that another escort girl had been found dead, this time in London’s West End, and that the girl’s husband was now helping police with their enquires into this and two earlier killings.

So they still hadn’t formally charged Chris yet. Maybe Jerry Peters had convinced them of Chris’s innocence, and maybe not. They might not have charged him, but neither had they released him. It was too soon to open the bubbly and start dancing on the frigging tables, that was for sure.

There was a different girl on reception when Annie got back to the Vista Hotel just after midnight. ‘Pippa’, the girl’s badge announced. Pippa had a mountain of dark hair on her tiny bird-like head, pale clear skin and blue laughing eyes; her purple fitted jacket and skirt suited her colouring. The place looked deserted, apart from this little bright beacon sitting behind the reception desk.

‘I need to speak to Ray Thompson, your concierge,’ said Annie, surprised to see this dainty little thing here and not Gareth Fuller, as expected. ‘Did Claire tell you about me? I’m Annie Carter.’

Pippa did a flickering downward sweep of the eyelashes. Annie guessed that this wowed the male punters. She waited, expecting that Claire would not have told her colleague about this. Expecting in fact that she was going to meet with more obstruction, more hassle, more of the ‘oh I couldn’t do that’ routine.

Should have brought Tony in with me, she thought. Tony’s appearance tended to galvanize people in a helpful direction. But Annie didn’t want to come over all heavy here. She just wanted to know what had happened two nights ago; she didn’t want to go busting heads if charm and negotiation could do the business just as well.