Scarlet Women

They loved that sofa seat; they’d made out on it a time or two, but really he enjoyed that more than her. She preferred their bed: good old-fashioned bread-and-butter lovemaking; no risks, no thrills, just deep warmth and contentment and waking up together in the morning, which they could do now that he no longer worked permanent nights, thank you God.

She was going to have a nice hot bath first. Wash the day away. Then crawl into bed, snuggle down. Forget the whole evening. She was good at doing that; she’d had plenty of practice. Keep her chin turned away and he wouldn’t see the redness, the swelling. Maybe while she was in the bath she’d hold a cold flannel against it. That’d soothe it. She’d be careful to take the flannel away when he came in, brought her a glass of wine as was his usual practice. He was a good husband. Even if a little too forgiving of her profession.

It wasn’t the first time a punter had walloped her, she wasn’t about to get all girly and hysterical about it. She wasn’t about to tell her loving husband that it had happened, either—he’d want to rip the bastard’s arms off.

No, what she was going to do was forget it.

All in a day’s work, and that was a fact.

You took a knock, so what?

There were footsteps behind her. High heels. Another working girl, heading home after a long day, poor bitch. She glanced back, saw who it was, and stopped walking with an exasperated sigh.

‘Fuck it, I can’t talk now…’ she started to say, and then she was hit for the second time that night. It was beyond a bloody joke, that’s what it was. But when she fell this time she wasn’t falling on to Axminster. This time her head hit the pavement with a crack and suddenly the darkness came.

Chapter 2

Annie Carter was standing at the top of the stairs in the Palermo Lounge, looking down at the shell of the place that had once been her late husband Max’s favourite club. The builders were in—and running late. They were taking the curtains on the small stage area down. Huge red velvet drapes, a bit faded now, a bit tired-looking, like the rest of the club.

As she watched, a man up a ladder took out a hammer and chisel. He chipped loose the big gold letters ‘MC’ at the apex where the curtains joined together. He threw them down to his mate. The M hit the floor, and shattered.

And how’s that for an omen? she thought with a pang of the old sadness.

There was so much to be done, so much to think about. The brewery had been in and agreed—after some hum-ing and ha-ing—that they would continue to supply liquor to the club. The drinks licence was, after all, already in place. The dance floor—which was a total fucking mess at the moment, broken up and knocked all to hell—was going to be relaid, and there were going to be strobe lights, the works.

But first the red velvet curtains, the plaster cherubs, the flock wallpaper, all that old dated tat, had to go.

Sorry Max.

She’d hired a good accountant, set out her aims. She planned that this club—and eventually the two others, the Blue Parrot and the Shalimar, which were currently standing empty—were going to earn her a good living, support her and her small daughter in some style. That was the plan, anyway.

Of course, the first thing the accountant had done when he’d seen last year’s books, peering at her over his pince-nez spectacles, was to suck in his breath.

She got this all the time. From the brewery bosses. From the builders. Now from her accountant. She was a woman in a man’s world, and all the men in it thought she couldn’t cope.

‘It would appear the business has been running at quite a loss,’ he said, giving her a pitying glance.

‘Or could it just be that the profits haven’t been finding their way into the accounts?’ she suggested.

He’d shrugged, nodded. ‘Certainly, that could be the case.’

Ha! Certainly, that was the case. He’d departed, leaving her sunk in gloom. But then she had a stern word with herself. Okay, she’d been shafted—royally worked over. But now she had to pull it all back together, even if the going was tough. Hell, she was used to tough.

She had lost her husband. She had loved gang lord Max Carter almost beyond life itself, and losing him had cut her to the heart. But she still had her daughter. She still had Layla. And that was in no small part due to American mob boss Constantine Barolli.

Annie frowned.

When they’d last spoken, Constantine had said he’d be back from his home in New York soon to see her. But three whole months had passed. Three months without a word, without a telephone call, with nothing. She felt furious, rejected, and she knew she’d made a bloody fool of herself into the bargain by asking him to call her. Because, guess what? He hadn’t.

‘Fuck it,’ she muttered, her hands clenching around the wrought-iron banister. She closed her eyes for a second and instantly she could picture him—a smooth, slickly suited Mafia don, with armour-piercing blue eyes and a commanding aura, a tan and startling silver hair.

The silver fox.

The rumour was that his hair had turned from black to silver overnight when he was in his twenties and had been told that his mother and brother were dead, victims of a deliberate hit by another Cosa Nostra family in his native Sicily. That’s what they called him on the streets of New York, the silver fox. And like a fox he’d slipped away.

Hell, she’d probably panicked the bastard, been too keen too soon. And, of course, he’d run straight for the hills. She’d blown it. Fuck it.

She went up the second flight of stairs to her office and slammed the door closed behind her. She slumped into her chair behind the desk. Once it had been her late husband’s chair; now it was hers. Now she was in charge of the East End manor that he had once ruled.

It was a very different manor now. A very different firm. Times had changed. Gone was the old respectful Kray and Carter style no-drugs-but-plenty-of-the-hard-game rule of the Sixties. Now there was an active—and often violent—drugs scene in London.

Annie had made it clear from the start that she wanted no part of that sort of trade—but she had been quick to see how the firm could profit from its impact. The Carter firm was all about legitimate security now; the firm controlled an army of enforcers working all over London and Essex, keeping order at venues.

And shit, how it paid. The money was rolling in.

Even better, it was all above board. She’d come close once to going down, and she was never going to risk it again, not with Layla to consider.

So now it was her who took payment from the halls and arcades and shops, her boys who gathered at Queenie’s—Max’s late mother’s—house, to meet with her and receive their orders.

As it turned out, everything had worked out pretty much okay. The boys had accepted her, and they had also accepted that Jimmy Bond—who had been Max’s number one back in the day—was history.

She thought about that.

Yeah, they had accepted her, but she was concerned that it wasn’t a full acceptance. It was an acceptance of her role as Max’s widow, that was all. She knew her position was tenuous. These were hard men, men who’d grown up on the wild side—out on the rob, out on the piss; they took no shit from anyone. Legitimate business had been a shock for them, but—so far—they’d swallowed it. Or had they? She was never sure.

She looked down at her thumb, where Max’s ring glinted. A square slab of royal blue lapis lazuli set upon a solid band of gold embellished with Egyptian cartouches. Yes, he was long gone, but it calmed her to look at the ring, the symbol of his power and authority.