Scarlet Women

He looked at the pipe. It was old. These buildings were Victorian, beautifully built—he appreciated that because he was a craftsman, a master builder; he had an eye for a lovely old place like this, wished he could own such a place; no sodding chance.

An old lead pipe like that could easily weaken over many years and eventually spring a leak. A miracle it hadn’t happened before, really. He frowned at the pipe. Touched a finger to the edge where the breach was. His frown deepened.

‘These old pipes, they can go at any time,’ said Gordy, his mate. ‘Jeez, we’re going to have to get a pump down here now.’

‘Yeah,’ said the foreman, and made a mental note that he was going to speak to the Carter boys right now. He didn’t want to carry the can for this. This wasn’t his doing and he hoped it wasn’t his mate Gordy’s doing either. He’d known Gordy a lot of years and he didn’t think he was a fool. Not fool enough to start arsing about for a wedge of cash-in-hand, because the Carter firm were very strong on loyalty, and the lack of it would upset them. You didn’t want to upset the Carter boys, ever.

‘You locked up behind us, didn’t you?’ he asked Gordy. Gordy had been last out, after all. Tel had strolled ahead to the pub, leaving his old trusted working mate to lock the door. But had he locked the door? That was the question.

‘Course I did. I always do, don’t I?’

And the lock hadn’t been breached. It had opened sweet as a nut when they’d come back from their pie and pint. Someone had a key, then—unless Gordy was lying through his yellow buck teeth. Either way, they were in the shit, and if this was Gordy’s doing, then he was going to beat the crap out of the stupid little git for landing him in it.

‘This pipe ain’t worn,’ he told Gordy, and he turned and grabbed Gordy by the front of his paint-stained boiler suit and shook him, hard. Gordy’s beery eyes were suddenly wild with alarm. He lost his footing, slipped down a step or two. Tel leaned over him, bigger and stronger than he was—his old mate, he’d always thought, his friend, but now he looked mad as a cut snake. ‘Did you do this, you silly bastard? Come on, own up.’

‘I didn’t do nothing, Tel,’ bleated Gordy, shocked at the change in his old pal and drinking mate. Fuck, what had got into the old fart? One minute he was normal, the next he’d gone berserk.

Tel shook him again. Gordy’s balding head clunked painfully against the cellar’s dank wall and he let out a holler of protest.

‘What happened, did the other lot slip you the cash to cause trouble? That what happened?’ demanded Tel furiously. ‘You stupid sod, you don’t arse around with people like this. We’re responsible. We left this place and now we’ve got trouble and it’s down to us.’

‘I didn’t do nothing,’ said Gordy breathlessly. ‘Honest, Tel. I locked the cunting door, I swear it. I didn’t do nothing.’

Tel looked into Gordy’s eyes. If he was lying, he was a good liar.

‘I ‘spect the pipe just gave way, age and that,’ said Gordy hopefully.

‘It didn’t give way, you stupid fuck,’ said Tel morosely. He looked at the water gushing out, shook his head. He released Gordy. No good taking it out on him, whatever had happened here. It was his responsibility, he was the foreman, his arse was going to be chewed off, not Gordy’s.

Tel looked morosely at Gordy. ‘This pipe’s been cut through,’ he said. ‘And if you didn’t do it, then who the fuck did?’

Chapter 14

‘Somebody,’ said Gary Tooley, ‘is taking the piss.’

That evening, Annie sat at the head of the table in the upstairs room in Queenie’s house. Queenie had been Max’s mother. She’d been dead some years now, but Max had never got around to selling the place, so the Carter mob still met there, just as they had always done. It was mostly empty, full of ghosts rather than furniture. Only a spare bed in the back room and the large table and chairs in this one remained.

Ghosts.

Annie listened to what Gary was saying, feeling like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Didn’t she have enough going on, without this? For instance, there was Chris banged up and Aretha dead. For instance, there was Kath who’d given her a verbal arse-kicking over her tardiness in collecting Layla. And Kath was right, absolutely right, but still the rebuke had stung her to the marrow. She’d left Layla now with Dolly and Ellie, left her in a fucking whorehouse, but what else could she do?

Was she a bad mother? Was she putting her business concerns, her friends, her own needs before Layla’s? And the thought of her needs led her mind straight to Constantine. She thought of her visit to see him, and his invite to lunch with the family. She’d wanted to refuse, but she’d accepted. Now she was having doubts. A lunch with him, fine. With his sons, though, and with Cara and maybe even snooty Gina too—total bloody nightmare.

She ought to be putting Layla first and she knew it. Layla had been traumatized enough by all that had happened to her: didn’t she owe it to her daughter to be there for her as much as she possibly could be? There for her, as Constantine was for his kids, ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice and pitch in to help?

But Annie had all this other shit to get through, things that she couldn’t delegate, things that were taking up so much of her time, and how could she help that? There was, for instance, this latest thing, which was all she fucking well needed.

All the boys were in. Steve Taylor on her left hand, Gary Tooley on her right. Jackie Tulliver down at the bottom of the table like a sulky elf, puffing on a large Cuban cigar. Deaf Derek was in. Tony was in. The gang was all here. All except Jonjo and Max.

Annie pushed all thoughts of that aside. Max and his brother Jonjo were gone. Now, she was in charge. Yeah, right, she thought.

Constantine was right, being a lady boss was hard. Because even when she felt like her head was coming off from all the stress, she had to hold it together, to be seen to be rock solid, or the boys would say, see, didn’t we say this would happen? You can’t expect a woman to be strong enough to run a firm, it just ain’t natural.

And what would they think if she cosied up to Constantine? She knew he was right about that too. The boys were loyal to the Carters, but mostly to Max’s memory, not to the living, breathing Carter in front of them—because she was female. If they got wind of a sexual liaison between her and Constantine, they’d take a dim view of it, of course they would. What would they say about her then? That she liked the old pork sword too much, that she was a slag, that there was no way they could take orders from a tart like that.

So she had to keep her secrets.

Hold it together. Dig deep and stand alone. As per fucking usual. And now, this thing.

‘You say the pipe was cut?’ she asked Steve.

He nodded. Steve was just five feet eight inches tall, and all muscle. He had a round, high-coloured face, hard mud-coloured eyes, dark hair and a permanent five-o’clock shadow. He could shave three times a day and still look like he could use another.

Steve had many talents, though. He could chop the air out of your lungs with a squeeze. He could clamp his fingers around your ankle and fell you in agony, like a cut oak. Get into a wrestling situation with him and he could get you in his infamous ‘grapevine’, wrapping his legs around yours with such force that he could snap your femurs like twigs. He was squat, powerful, and much feared on the manor. He was also fiercely loyal to the firm.

‘Cut right through. Nothing to do with Tel, though, I’d stake my life on that,’ Steve went on. ‘I asked him