Scarlet Women

Jeez, girlfriend, you so soft, said the real Aretha. Get on with it, for fuck’s sake. What, you think that poor empty thing’s gonna leap out an’ bite you or somethin’? Dream on.

Annie gulped.

‘Oh fuck this,’ she muttered miserably, and reached out.

She had to do this. If only to be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was all nonsense, all the product of a junkie’s tormented mind. She stepped forward, leaned over the coffin. Reached down with a shaking hand and touched the frilled gown at Aretha’s throat, pushed the fabric back. Saw the red contusions that the gown had concealed. Felt her heart squeeze tight with grief and pity. Then felt the rage come hot on its heels. That someone could do this to Aretha. The rage helped her, steadied her a little. Her hand drifted down, gently lifting the gown at Aretha’s feet. She hesitated.

‘I’m sorry as hell about this, Aretha,’ she said into the still, cold air of the place.

Annie lifted the cool linen, pulled it slowly up. As she did so a faint fragrance wafted up. She wrinkled her nose and gagged. What she could smell was the sweet, almost sickly whiff of corruption. The ghastly smell brought it all home to her with vicious force. Aretha was dead. And although it was cool in here, slowing the natural processes, postponing the inevitable, outside it was high summer and it was hot. Soon, Aretha’s remains would begin to rot.

Bile rose, hot and sour, in her throat. She swallowed and moaned. She had to force herself to stay there, force herself not to run away from this.

Got to dig deep and do this.

For Chris, she had to do this. Otherwise he was going down, for sure.

Again she had that strong feeling of Aretha standing nearby, laughing her head off.

Damn, girl, get the fuck on with it, what you waitin’ for now?

‘Okay,’ said Annie, straightening up, gathering herself. ‘Okay.’

She lifted the white fabric higher, up over the dead Aretha’s sheeny chocolate-brown skin, over her long calves, over her shapely knees, up over her long, strong thighs. The smell was stronger now. Annie was breathing through her mouth, trying very hard not to throw up all over the damned corpse.

‘Oh Jesus, Aretha, help me out here, throw me a fucking bone, will you?’ she groaned aloud, sweating, nearly crying aloud with revulsion and loss. She leaned in and lifted Aretha’s leg. It was a dead weight, dead in every sense. A bubble of hysterical laughter almost escaped her then.

Who could have thought a dead person’s leg would be so heavy?

Annie found that she was sweating heavily now, despite the coolness of the room. She felt disgusted with herself because she was doing this, disgusted with Aretha for being dead, disgusted with the sick bastard who had destroyed this living, breathing woman and inflicted a thing like this on them both.

‘What in the name of God you doin’, girl?’ said Aretha’s furious voice loudly from right behind her.

Annie’s heart leapt into her throat. She dropped the leg and spun round, clutching her chest. But it wasn’t Aretha at all, it was Louella, standing there with hands on huge hips, staring at her with horrified eyes.

‘I’m…’ Annie’s mouth was so dry she could hardly speak.

‘Well, what?’ demanded Aretha’s aunt, shaking her head. ‘You sick,’ she spat, turning on her heel and making for the door. ‘I’m gonna get that woman in here and she goin’ to kick your sorry arse right out on the street, you hear me?’

Annie heard her. And she knew she had to get this done quick. She turned back to Aretha’s corpse, lifted the left leg again, put all her weight behind it this time, grunting with the effort. Looked high up on the inner thigh. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Just pure, unblemished skin. She could hear Louella screaming and bawling to the woman in the next room, could hear a chair scraping back, hurried foot-falls coming closer.

So little time.

Yeah, girlfriend, so get the fuck on with it, why don’t you…?

She dashed around the other side of the coffin and reached in and lifted the right leg this time. Hefted it up with a grunt of effort. Right up.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ demanded the woman, dashing in with all pretence of charm gone, all guns blazing. She’d even forgotten her clipboard. She turned back towards the door. ‘I’m calling the police…’

And there it was.

Annie stared at Aretha’s inner thigh, and there it was.

Her mouth dropped open in surprise.

A flame tattoo. It’s a marker, Mira had said. There’s money in it. Aretha loved money.

But what the hell did that mean? And a marker for what—and for who?

Aunt Louella was babbling something, but Annie didn’t hear her.

‘Hey!’ she shouted. The woman stopped, turned, her face a picture of total fury. ‘Yeah, go on. Phone the police. Ask for DI Hunter. Tell him it’s urgent.’

Chapter 30

‘Another complaint, Mrs Carter,’ said Hunter coldly. ‘This is getting to be a habit with you. First intimidation, now interfering—for God’s sake—with a corpse. Anything to say about this?’

They were pacing about on the pavement outside the undertaker’s. DS Lane was leaning against the cop car watching them, and Tony was leaning against the Jag watching too. Louella had thrown a few accusations about when Hunter had first arrived, and then she had stormed off, warning Annie not to go near ‘her baby girl’ again. The woman from the funeral parlour had filled him in with the unsavoury details of the situation.

Annie had sat in the waiting room, watching his face while he absorbed what had gone on here. He didn’t look happy about it, and that was a fact. Finally, he said they’d talk outside, and told the woman goodbye. She’d watched Annie go with a sneer of disgust.

‘Yeah, I got something to say,’ said Annie. ‘I was looking for a flame tattoo, on her inner thigh.’

Hunter stopped pacing and turned to face her.

‘And this is significant how?’ he asked.

‘God, I don’t know. Someone told me these girls who have been killed were all marked with this particular tattoo—I know, it sounds sick—at a parlour beside the Alley Cat club in Soho, shortly before they were killed.’

Hunter looked at her. ‘In France, prostitutes used to be marked with the fleur-de-lys,’ he said.

‘Well these were marked with a flame.’

‘Who is this someone?’ asked Hunter. His dark eyes were probing, searching her face for answers.

‘Can’t tell you that,’ said Annie.

His gaze got harder. ‘Withholding information from the police is a serious matter, Mrs Carter.’

Annie stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and looked at him.

‘I’m not trying to be obstructive,’ she said. ‘I think we can help each other out here. I spoke to Teresa Walker’s mother, but she had no knowledge of a tattoo and Teresa was cremated so there goes all hope of checking it out now. But you must have things like that on record, distinguishing marks, moles, stuff like that.’

He was still gazing at her. ‘Of course.’

‘Then check it.’

‘What about Val Delacourt?’ he asked.

‘You know she worked in the Alley Cat, stripping?’

He drew breath. Seemed to count to ten. ‘Of course I know that.’

‘Right next to the tattoo parlour. We can check that too.’

‘Mrs Carter.’ He raised a finger and pointed it squarely at her. ‘I can check it. You can stay out of trouble.’