Scarlet Women

about that and suppressed rage ate at him.

He cracked his knuckles as he walked across the club car park, the fog descending. Jesus, this fucking weather, and it was supposed to be summer. It was hot, and it was damp. And misty as a bastard; out on the road he could just see cars crawling through it like ghosts, drivers suddenly nervous.

‘Hey mate, you got a light?’

The voice startled him. He heard a girlish squeak emit from his own mouth. Then he turned and it was him, the freak from the snooker hall, leering and tattooed, standing there still holding the damned snooker cue, but no cigarette, because Mick realized suddenly that what he was doing—and Mick thought, oho clever bastard are we?—was making a little play on words.

He didn’t want a light. What he wanted to do was remind Mick about the light over the table. Mick was still smarting from that disagreement. And now here the weirdo was, taunting him with it.

‘You know, you ought to learn to shut your fucking mouth,’ said Mick, his blood singing with the urge to knock this fucker into the middle of next week, fury and booze overcoming all his earlier trepidation.

‘Make me,’ said the tattooed man, and Mick didn’t need any more in the way of an invitation.

He charged at the freak but he’d had several pints too many and he missed his target. The tattooed man jumped lithely aside, and as Mick passed he whacked him hard across the back of the neck with the cue.

Mick let out a wheezing gasp as the pain lanced through him, stinging, biting. He fell to his knees, but he was tough: he whipped around, ready to sweep the freak’s legs from underneath him, but he was fast. He’d already come in close behind Mick and now he had the cue over Mick’s windpipe and he was pulling back, arching Mick’s whole body like a bow.

Mick gurgled, spots weaving in front of his eyes as the blood was cut off to his brain. He felt himself falling into blackness as the freak pressed harder, harder…and then the man let go.

Oh thank Christ, thought Mick.

A huge waft of breath blew out from Mick as he slumped forward on to the tarmac. Fuck, he’d thought he was dead then. Relief flooded him. The freak kicked him hard in the midriff and again there was pain, mighty pain, but at least he was fucking alive, and Mick had been sure he was dead.

Mick keeled over on to his side, rolling into a ball to stop the bastard doing even more damage to his innards. He’d done some already. Something was rasping in there, something was broken. Mick closed his eyes. All right, he’d done his bit, now the cunt would leave him, he would go.

With his eyes closed, Mick didn’t see the freak put the cue to his ear. Mick felt the movement there, then his eyes opened. He tried to move, opened his mouth to scream. The freak rammed the cue down, puncturing Mick’s eardrum and then his brain like meat on a skewer. Mick’s legs went into wild convulsions. Froth bubbled at his lips. His eyes rolled up in his head. Then, suddenly, he was still.

The freak pulled out the cue and stared down at his fallen adversary. Mick had thought he was dead. Now, he was.

‘Hey! Pete Delacourt, ain’t it?’ shouted a voice from the mist-shrouded shrubbery.

The tattooed man’s head whipped round. He saw a cluster of men there, spot-lit like pale wraiths beneath the yellow sodium glare of the streetlight.

‘We want a word, Pete,’ said another.

The men moved. Came closer. Pete saw that one of them was Charlie Foster, the Delaney mob’s main man. His brother Rizzo had already warned him that Charlie was looking for him, that Redmond Delaney was chewing the carpet over something, some bit of skirt or other, and that wasn’t good news—in fact it might be bad.

Pete turned, still clutching the cue, and ran.

Chapter 21

It was two o’clock on Sunday morning when the phone started to ring right beside Annie’s bed. She shot up, startled, disorientated, with her heart in her mouth.

‘Shit,’ she said, and fumbled for the light.

She knocked over the small table lamp, righted it. Pressed the switch. Light flooded the room and still the damned thing was ringing; it would wake Layla soon. Oh—but Layla was at Ruthie’s. She felt the pain anew. Shoved it aside. She snatched up the phone.

‘Yeah?’ she asked. ‘Who is it?’

There was silence except for someone breathing.

This is all I need. Heavy breathers at two o’clock in the sodding morning.

‘Hello?’ she said loudly.

‘It’s me. Dolly. Can you come over?’

Dolly?

Annie looked at the phone and frowned. ‘Doll, it’s two o’clock.’

‘Come over. I think we got trouble.’

Annie dragged a hand through her hair. ‘I was asleep.’

‘Come. I wouldn’t ask…but just come, will you?’

‘Fuck me, Doll.’

‘For God’s sake come.’

And then Dolly put the phone down.

‘Oh for…’ Annie said, and slapped the phone back on the cradle. What the hell could have happened? Whatever, it sounded serious; she had to go.

She got out of bed, still feeling groggy, and pulled on yesterday’s clothes. She phoned for a taxi—no need to bother Tony, not at this late hour. This had better be damned good, Doll, she thought as the taxi tore through the abandoned streets toward Limehouse.

It was anything but good. She could see that the moment Dolly opened the door to her. Dolly was in her dressing gown; without make-up her face looked naked, vulnerable—and white with strain.

She ushered Annie in and led her through to the kitchen.

Sharlene was sitting there at the table. Under the harsh glare of the light, Dolly looked awful, worse than in the hall. No slap on, a couple of curlers in the front of her hair, denuded of her armour of neat suit and faultless make-up; she looked like a different person altogether. Not Dolly, bold as brass and twice as mouthy, but a scared and shrunken woman.

Sharlene didn’t look any better. Her dark hair threw her stark white face into sharp relief.

‘What’s going on, Doll?’ asked Annie, sitting down at the kitchen table.

‘You want a brandy?’

‘Not for me.’ Dolly knew she hated the stuff; what was she offering it to her for?

Because something’s got her shit-scared and she’s not thinking straight, thought Annie.

Dolly topped up her own glass, and Sharlene’s, and slumped down in a chair. Annie watched Dolly, feeling more fearful by the second.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked her.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Sharlene.

‘I know it wasn’t,’ Dolly told her.

‘What wasn’t?’ demanded Annie.

‘The booking. The escort booking,’ said Sharlene, tears starting in her eyes.

‘What escort booking?’ asked Annie. ‘Wait a minute. When I was here on Friday you were saying to Sharlene and Rosie that there’d be no more escort bookings, and they were arguing over one that had come in…’ her voice tailed off.