Scarlet Women

quick, and oh shit she was so slow, too slow, surely too slow…

She caught up with Mira when she was right on top of the closed window, caught her and held her, pulled both her arms back, uncaring of how badly she might hurt her, intent only on stopping her committing suicide.

‘Let me go, I’ve got to get out, I can’t stay here, he’s after me, for fuck’s sake let me go! ’ Mira was shrieking incoherently.

‘Mira! Stop it! You’re going to kill yourself!’ shouted Annie, losing her grip, struggling, Mira kicking back, trying to get free, trying to throw herself right through a solid pane of glass that would surely kill her, cut an artery, make her bleed to death even if she survived the long drop on to the paving below.

Mira got a hand free, and to Annie’s horror she started punching the glass, shouting, yelling, screaming, and the glass cracked, the crack running across the surface, and then another blow, and the cracks were deepening, spreading, and now there was blood on Mira’s hands, splashing out scarlet on to the curtains, spurting on to Annie’s face. And oh fuck Annie could feel her grip starting to go.

‘Jesus…’ she muttered, knowing that in an instant Mira would be through the glass, cutting herself, damaging herself irreparably.

‘It’s okay,’ said a male voice by Annie’s ear, ‘I got her.’

Ross was there. At last. Grabbing Mira bodily around the waist, ignoring her kicks, her struggles, her screams; taking her over to the dirty, disgusting bed and dropping her down on to it.

‘Restraints,’ he said as Annie sagged to the floor beside the window and tried to get her breath back.

Dolly had her head in her hands. The two girls in the doorway were standing there bloodied and tearful.

‘We need something to restrain her,’ said Ross again, to his exhausted audience.

Dolly dropped her hands. ‘The punishment chair,’ she said, and left the room and came back with what looked like two huge leather belts. Ross took them from her, and secured Mira, who was sobbing uncontrollably now, to the bed.

‘Well thank fuck,’ said Sharlene from behind the towel.

‘You can say that again,’ said Dolly, and went and hauled Annie back to her feet.

Annie looked at Ross. Wondered if he’d heard her scream out Mira’s name. Maybe not. She hoped not.

‘She’s written something,’ said Rosie half an hour later.

‘What?’ asked Dolly.

They were down in the kitchen. Ross had gone out to fetch bandages from the local chemist, leaving the four women down there drinking tea and recovering their scattered senses. After a little while, Dolly had sent Rosie back up to see that Mira was okay. Or as okay as she could be, tethered to a filthy bed and out of her head with the need for a fix.

But the operative word here was tethered. Mira couldn’t harm anyone now, not even herself. Annie looked at Dolly and then up at the ceiling. Mira was still shouting and swearing up there, cursing them, telling them she had to get out.

‘What do you mean, she’s written something?’ asked Annie as Rosie came and slumped in a chair. ‘She’s tied to the bed, she can’t write something.’

Unless she’d got loose. Annie sprang to her feet in alarm.

‘It’s okay, she’s still tied to the bed,’ said Rosie. ‘But she’s written something on the sheet. In blood, I mean.’

Frowning, Annie left the kitchen and went along the hall and up the stairs. She hesitated at the open door into Mira’s room. Mira fell silent and stared at her, wild-eyed, from the bed. She was still tied down, unable to move. Thinking of what Mira had almost succeeded in doing to her, Annie was thankful for that.

She moved forward cautiously until she was right by the bed. She looked down at Mira’s bleeding right hand. It wasn’t bad, not an arterial bleed, thank Christ, but it was seeping steadily, and with her index finger Mira had scrawled something in blood on the soiled sheet.

Annie looked at what Mira had written. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest. She stared at the letters and then looked at Mira’s face, her eyes rolling in her head, still out of it but not quite, because she had started to write a name.

Holy fuck, thought Annie.

She heard the front door open with a key. Ross was back with the medical supplies. But then she heard other low voices—male, not female. She moved back to the door, crept out on to the landing. Peering over the banister, her heart froze in her chest. Ross was there, but so was Charlie Foster, the Delaneys’ number one man. For a moment she stood there, immobilized with fear and horror. Then she quickly returned to the woman on the bed. Touching her fingers to Mira’s wounded hand, she scrubbed more blood on to the word Mira had written on the sheet, obliterating it. They were deep in the shit already. Better to be safe than sorry. Mira squirmed, seemed almost to protest.

‘It’s okay,’ said Annie. ‘I know. I got it.’

But now what? she wondered, guts churning in panic as she stood looking down at Mira. Would she understand what Annie was about to say to her?

She leaned closer to the woman tied to the filthy bed and spoke in a whisper.

‘Mira, listen. This is important. I don’t know if you understand me or not, but you should be quiet now. Do you hear me? Don’t make another sound. Gonna try and get you out of this, Mira, but help me out here will you? Be very, very quiet.’

Mira’s eyes rolled, but she fell silent. She understood. Somewhere in there, Mira— her Mira—was still alive.

The voices downstairs mingled with Dolly’s. She didn’t blame Dolly. She couldn’t. Not for this. And now heavy footsteps were coming back along the hall, and she heard the first tread on the bottom stair. With a last glance at Mira, she raised her finger to her lips and then quickly crossed to the door. She went out on to the landing, closed the door behind her, locked it, slipped the key into her jacket pocket and took a deep, calming breath as she waited for Charlie Foster to join her upstairs.

Chapter 35

Charlie Foster got the shock of his life when he got up on to the landing and found Annie Carter standing there. She was pointing an old .38 Smith & Wesson revolver at his head. He froze on the top step. Ross, coming up right behind him, paused, looked ahead, saw her standing there.

‘What the fuck?’ he asked in annoyance.

‘Hiya Charlie,’ said Annie.

Charlie carefully put his hands up. He was staring at the gun, which was now pointing towards his chest.

‘Hey,’ he said with a nervous half-smile, a thin shadow of his usual predatory leer. ‘Careful with that.’

‘I’m always careful, Charlie.’

‘We don’t want no trouble, Mrs Carter,’ he said, his pale eyes still on the gun in her hand.

‘What do you want?’ asked Annie.

‘You’ve got something of Mr Delaney’s here, Mrs Carter. That’s all we want. Just that.’

‘You’re talking about a friend of mine,’ said Annie, holding the gun steady although she could feel her heart stampeding inside her chest, could feel her stomach clenching with terror and loathing. Charlie Foster was a tough, mean bastard and she was scared shitless, but she wasn’t going to hand Mira over to him, not in a million years.

But here was the thing. She was here, standing in a parlour that paid protection to the Delaneys. She was on Delaney soil. The Delaneys owned this patch and controlled everything in it; she was only permitted to be here because Redmond Delaney said she could be. When he said she couldn’t, she was going to have to get the fuck out of it pretty damned fast—and it looked like that time had