Scarlet Women

about it. Kicked his arse all around his kitchen. His old lady went wild, chucked a frying pan at me, grease and rashers and all sorts of shit all over the place, but Tel was sound. Apologized, said he’d get it repaired on him, give us a discount on the job even though it’s going to cost him more, you know, pumps and all that stuff—that’s dear shit we’re talking about.’

‘What about the one who was supposed to have locked up?’

‘Gordy? Not stupid enough to fuck us around. I had a word. He swore he locked the door, wouldn’t budge on the story. Think it’s the truth.’

‘Then who got in? Who did it? The lock wasn’t breached,’ said Annie.

‘Ways and means to do that,’ said Gary, pushing back his chair and stretching out his stick-thin legs. If Steve was squat, Gary was long, like a crane. Blond and pallid and skinny, with eyes as vicious as a shit-house rat’s. ‘Place is wide open. Builders in and out all day like they are.’

There was a silence. The club refurb was another bone of contention. It wasn’t going to be the Palermo Lounge any more, it was being renamed ‘Annie’s’. Nothing had been said, but she felt the boys were resistant to the change. They had resisted the dropping of the dodgy stuff and the expansion of the security business, too. They resisted, in fact, any fucking thing she cared to suggest and she was getting sick of it.

Security! What a laugh. They were in the security business, and someone had easily breached the club, cut the pipe and flooded the cellars.

Fuck it.

‘Can we spare some muscle to keep an eye on things?’ she asked.

‘What, just the Palermo?’ asked Jackie.

‘All three clubs.’ Better to be safe than sorry.

‘Yeah, just.’

‘Okay, do that. You all know about what’s happened with Chris Brown and his wife Aretha?’ asked Annie.

‘Yeah, Boss, we know,’ said Deaf Derek. He shrugged. ‘You marry that sort of trouble, you’re going to get more trouble, am I right?’

He looked around the table. They all looked back at him blankly.

‘I’m just sayin’,’ he said, reddening.

‘Well don’t just say, cunt,’ advised Jackie, puffing vigorously.

Annie shot a freezing glance at Derek. If it wasn’t for his usefulness in keeping contact with all the grubby little lowlife bastards that crawled around this area, milking them for information about anything that was going down, Annie would have gladly seen him out the door.

‘I want someone keeping an eye on Aretha’s Aunt Louella,’ she said. ‘Make sure she’s okay for money, but take it easy. She’s a proud woman.’

All the boys nodded. This was the way the firm was run, since way back before Max was in charge, since the days when his dad had held pole position. The boys looked after their own. Widows were cared for, and orphans. Guys who came out of nick and were known to them were looked after, set back up on their feet. Pensioners were helped out all around the East End. Kids’ hospitals and even boxing charities profited from the firm’s business—Max and his brother Jonjo had been keen sportsmen in their youth, and Annie saw no reason to stop any of that. It kept youngsters in the East End on the right path to get a bit of boxing in.

There was still, despite the growing influx of drugs on to the streets, a strong code of ethics among the various firms who did business around the City—despite any villainy they might perpetrate. The rules were still clear-cut. You didn’t steal off your own, you never interfered with other men’s wives, ponces and dealers were treated with contempt, sex offenders were the lowest of the low and to be seen off with a good kicking.

‘That’s all for tonight, then,’ said Annie.

Jackie took a folder out from under his coat and pushed it towards her. ‘Laney gave me this for you. Said it was a bitch to get hold of,’ he said.

Annie nodded. DS Lane had done a blinding job, and that was good. ‘Okay then. I’ll see you all later.’

One by one they filed out.

‘Want me to wait in the car, Boss?’ asked Tony.

‘No, Tone.’ She stood up, picked up the file. It wasn’t going to make very pleasant reading, but it had to be done. ‘Come on Tone. Let’s go home.’

Annie sat up late into the night at the kitchen table in the flat over the club, reading about the other two murdered girls from the case notes that DS Lane had filched from the police collating department, photocopied, and delivered to her through Jackie Tulliver.

Layla slept peacefully in the next room. The building was silent, empty of all life but them. Because of the sabotage on the building work, there was a guard outside the main door of the club now, sitting in his car, watching. Knowing he was out there made Annie feel just a bit more secure.

Just a bit.

Because here she was, reading about these two women who had once lived, laughed, loved, breathed. And then looking at photos of them, dead. Teresa Walker and Val Delacourt.

It was enough to make the hardest person on the planet shiver. Both white, whereas Aretha was black. Both based in the East End, like Aretha. Both garrotted. Like Aretha.

She read on, looking for anything that could link the three killings—anything other than the same method; knowing the police would already have done this, and done it far better too. But still, she had to look, she had to try, tired as she was, or Chris was stuffed.

They were prostitutes, all three of them. Working girls. Tarts. And maybe plod didn’t care too much if three tarts got the chop. She, however, did. So she had to keep looking, even though the pictures made her gag and made her heart wrench with pity; even though she felt she was probably wasting her time.

A tiny part of her knew there was no hope, that Chris was finished. She ought to admit it. But she couldn’t. It was as simple as that.

Chapter 15

Goods were moving around London and up and down the country all the time. It was money on the hoof and, usually, if you had your fences lined up ready, those goods were easy to dispose of. If security was the Carter speciality, then lorry hijacking was the Delaneys’. It was lucrative and easy.

A load of brand-new car parts had vanished overnight on the road to Basingstoke, and were already being taken to where a price had been agreed for them. Money for nothing, thought Redmond Delaney.

He and his twin Orla were in the static office of the family’s scrap-metal yard, having a celebratory whisky after a profitable day’s business. The fact that the car-parts depot that their boys had robbed was on Carter soil just made the heist that much sweeter. The Carter firm would get hassle from their clients over security fees paid out for fuck all. So it was business and pleasure, all rolled into one.

It pissed Redmond off that the Barolli family were still proving resistant to his offers on the clubs, but it was a minor annoyance. He had been interested to see the interaction between Constantine Barolli and Annie Carter when they had chanced to meet at the Vista Hotel. Maybe there was more than a business interest going on there. He would look into that. Knowledge was power: that had always been Redmond’s motto. He’d discussed his suspicions with Orla.

‘You really think there could be something going on?’

Orla was sceptical. If Annie Carter was risking an affair with the Mafia boss, she was risking a great deal. Her