Scarlet Women

Annie stood up, went out into the hall. Dolly went off into the kitchen and started noisily clattering plates into the sink to convey her mood.

‘Hello,’ said Annie into the phone.

‘So where are you, Mrs Carter?’ asked Constantine Barolli.

‘What?’ Annie said stupidly, caught off-guard at hearing his voice.

‘It’s one o’clock. Didn’t we say one o’clock for drinks, and lunch at two? We’re just leaving.’

‘Leaving?’

‘For lunch at the hotel. With the family.’

Annie drew a breath. ‘But I thought…’

‘What? That one pretty understandable little slip was going to stop this?’

He sounded very calm about it now, very confident.

‘You were pretty angry at the time.’

‘At the time, I was. But you were in an emotional state and I was being unfair. So hurry up and get your glad rags on. Want me to send the car?’

Annie’s head was spinning. Mira was in there perfuming the front parlour like a skunk, frightening her with fairy tales of flame tattoos, and now she was supposed to go to lunch, lunch with the man she had called by her dead husband’s name in the heat of passion, and meet up with his ghastly family, and—oh God, she didn’t need this.

But…he was giving her a second chance. The question was—should she take it? She thought of the boys again. She knew she was skating on thin ice here. Did she want to carry on, despite the difficulties, despite any possible dangers? She took a deep, steadying breath.

‘Don’t bother with the car, I’ll meet you there. I’ve got some business to sort out first.’

‘Okay, honey. I’ll see you there.’

She put the phone down.

Honey.

It was the first time he’d used any sort of endearment with her, and it touched her. Made her feel…safe. Sort of protected. The way she used to feel with Max. But she hadn’t been safe at all, or protected. All that had been an illusion, shattered in an instant. Shattered forever.

The phone shrilled again. She picked up.

‘Hello?’

‘Who is that?’ said a male voice, deep and deadly cold, with a soft Irish lilt.

‘Who is that?’ asked Annie, but she knew. Way back when she’d been in charge here, she had received his calls every week. He liked to keep his finger on the pulse, to know that everything was running as it should.

‘This is Redmond Delaney. May I speak to Miss Farrell please?’

Annie put the phone down on the little table. She went to the kitchen door and looked in at Dolly.

‘Redmond Delaney for you, Doll,’ she said, and turned back to the phone, back towards the front parlour. Suddenly the door on to the street was being thrown open and she saw Mira dashing out, slamming it hard behind her.

Annie ran to the door. But by the time she got to the gate, Mira was already haring off into the distance. Annie stood there, looking after her ruined friend.

‘Fuck it, Mira, don’t go,’ she said to empty air.

But Mira was gone.

And that’s that, thought Annie. I’ll never see her again.

Chapter 27

She made a couple of calls from a nearby telephone box and then summoned Tony. Within half an hour she was standing at Mrs Walker’s front door. She knew she didn’t have time for this, not really, but then she didn’t truly have time for lunch at a swanky Park Lane hotel with the Barollis—if she was a bit late, sod it.

Mrs Walker looked exactly the same. Her red hair was scraped back and her face was lined with exhaustion. She was as washed out as a faded watercolour painting, clutching a pale lavender woollen cardigan around her tall bony frame as if it was a cold day. It wasn’t. It was hot, bright, a beautiful English summer day. She looked at Annie for a moment without recognition. Then the pallid eyes flared briefly. ‘Oh!’

‘Yes, Mrs Walker. It’s me, Annie Carter. Can I come in?’

Mrs Walker stood back. Annie went past her into the same scrupulously clean but very threadbare front room, looked again at the photos of Teresa lined up along the mantelpiece.

Mrs Walker followed her into the room and sat down. She picked up the Bible from the arm of the chair, sat there stroking it nervously. Annie sat down too.

‘Mrs Walker, I need to ask you something.’

‘Yes?’

‘Did Teresa have any tattoos?’

‘What?’

‘Tattoos. Did she have any, that you know of?’

Mrs Walker’s face contorted briefly. ‘No. Of course not. I always hated tattoos—so common. Only sailors and sluts have tattoos.’

Like Teresa was a Sunday school teacher, thought Annie. But she kept quiet about that.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said the woman emphatically. ‘Teresa didn’t have any tattoos.’

And that neatly knocked Mira’s theory into a cocked hat. Unless…unless Teresa did have tattoos and simply kept them hidden or didn’t tell her mother about them. The flame tattoo had been applied high up on the inner thigh, Mira had told her. Maybe, just maybe, Teresa had been tattooed but, knowing her mother’s disapproval of them, she had not confided in her mother about it.

And a couple of days later, you’re dead, that’s what Mira had said.

Val had a tattoo. It’s a marker, Mira had told her.

She wondered whether Teresa had been buried, or cremated. Couldn’t bring herself to ask this poor little woman such a question. But there was an urn on the mantelpiece, among the photos.

‘That your husband, Mrs Walker?’ she asked her.

Mrs Walker shook her head. ‘No, that’s my little girl. That’s Teresa.’

And there went the only way of ever checking out Teresa’s tattoos.

She hadn’t noticed any reference to tattoos in the police files and it was too late to take a second look. Lane had already put the damned things back. Sod it.

She didn’t even want to think about what her next move was. It was too fucking horrible to contemplate. But she knew she was going to have to do it.

She went back to the club—and yes, now she was very late—and got changed while the hammering and drilling of the workmen downstairs went on in the background. The place was in chaos, as usual, but it was finally coming together, she could see it clearly now. It was going to be great. She didn’t want a dingy club with prossies dancing round in their knickers; she wanted the place to radiate class. She wanted to get the big players in, make it special—and now she could see it happening, right in front of her eyes. There had been no more incidents, no more attempts at apparent sabotage. Everything was looking fine.

All she had to do now was block from her mind what she was going to have to do very, very soon and go and enjoy a lunch with a colleague, who just happened to have a family who’d give the Borgias a run for their money, and who also just happened to be a powerful Mafia don. Who also happened to be her