Scarlet Women

said so loudly on the way out to the car, causing a few net curtains to twitch in the neighbouring houses. Tony gave him a backhander across the cheek, which quickly quietened him down. He then forcefully shoved him in the front of the car, where he could keep an eye on him.

‘Where to?’ he asked Annie when he was back behind the wheel.

‘Soho. The tattoo parlour. To see Rizzo’s brother Peter.’

‘Hey, you don’t want to go upsetting Pete,’ advised Rizzo, swivelling round in his seat to give Annie a challenging grin. ‘Get him in the wrong mood and he’ll chew you up and spit you out. He’s mean, that one.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Well, Tony’s pretty mean too. So I’m not too worried.’

Rizzo was still grinning. He delved into his pyjama jacket pocket and pulled out a dog-eared rollup, then stuck it in his mouth. ‘You got a match, girl?’ he asked her.

‘Yeah, I got a match. Your face and my arse.’ Annie leaned forward and snatched the cigarette out of his mouth and flung it out the window.

‘Hey!’

‘Shut it, Rizzo,’ advised Annie. ‘You know that girl you had on the game— Mira?’

‘Mira? I don’t know no Mira.’ He frowned in mock concentration. ‘Oh, you mean Misery.’

‘Why’d you call her that?’

‘Because that’s what she is, the miserable cunt. Thank Christ she’s wandered off somewhere, because I’m telling you, seriously, I was going to have to let her go.’

‘Shit, I bet she’d have been sorry about that,’ said Annie.

‘Hey, is that sarcasm? That’s the lowest form of wit, you know that?’

‘Yeah, I do know that. And you’re the lowest form of life, Rizzo.’

‘You think that? That ain’t true. I took her under my wing. Gave her work when she was on her uppers. And Pete ain’t exactly the antichrist either; he passed her on to me.’

‘What?’

Rizzo nodded. ‘See, now that’s surprised you, ain’t it? He did the girl a big favour. Word was she had to lose herself for a while, some hard faces were on her tail, she was in a panic about it, and Pete did the good thing, he put her on to me.’

Annie stared at him. ‘And you put her on the game by the canal under the Mile End Road.’

‘Yeah, sure. She did a little business for me, got paid, got a little nose candy to keep her going, but was the girl grateful? I don’t think so.’

They’d arrived in Soho. Tony eased the car into the kerb. Annie got out.

‘Hey, I’m in my fucking jimjams here, I ain’t getting out,’ protested Rizzo.

Tony hauled Rizzo out on to the pavement. Passers-by looked at him, stifled smiles.

‘What you staring at?’ shouted Rizzo.

Business was obviously brisk in the Alley Cat. Punters were going in, music was pulsing out, heavies were handing out flyers. But in the parlour, nothing. The tattoo parlour was empty of customers again, the closed sign up on the door. Upstairs, the curtains were still pulled closed, and there was the same dim light shining behind them.

‘Let’s go round there,’ said Annie, and Tony grabbed Rizzo by the arm and walked him down the road and into the alley.

They walked around the back, passing a Chinese chef in dirty whites, loitering at the back of his open kitchen door, smoking a fag during a lull in business, then on past the chemical waft and hum of a dry cleaner’s. They came to the back door of the tattoo parlour. Rizzo surged ahead and swore, loudly, when he saw the door was hanging open. He swore even more loudly when he saw that the lock was shattered.

‘Look at this!’ he said to Annie and Tony. ‘Someone broke in here.’

Annie and Tony exchanged a look.

‘Maybe he got locked out and busted it to get in,’ suggested Annie.

Rizzo was shaking his head.

‘He wouldn’t do that. He’s careful, Pete is. He don’t mix much. Lives for his work. Well, he is his work. He’s tattooed all over. Started doing them to up his self-esteem, and it did, but it made people scared of him, the way he looked, so he got sort of stay-at-home in his habits, you know what I mean? He’s sort of what you might call reclusive.’

‘That’s a big word for an idiot,’ said Annie.

‘That’s a big mouth for a bitch,’ retorted Rizzo.

‘And you got a death wish, my friend,’ said Tony, shoving Rizzo through the mangled door and along a short dingy corridor, bypassing a flight of stairs to their right. ‘So shut your trap before that wish gets granted.’

They arrived in the front of the tattoo parlour. It was full of charts displaying various tattoo designs, a few chairs, a little counter with a till. The CLOSED sign was up at the door, and the windows hadn’t been clean in a long while.

There was a dirty little kitchen, a small cloakroom, a little room with a massage bed in it, draped with a white sheet. There was a table beside the bed with tissues, disposable rubber gloves and a large silver box, bigger than a toaster.

‘What’s that?’ asked Annie as Rizzo wandered in behind her.

‘That’s an Autoclave, like dentists use, for sterilizing the needles,’ he said. ‘Pete’s very hot on cleanliness.’

Judging from front-of-house, Pete didn’t look that keen on cleanliness. Tony pushed Rizzo ahead of them again and they went upstairs to Pete’s flat. They could hear a faint buzz of conversation. No lock here to bust, and the door at the top was open.

‘It ain’t like him, leaving these doors open like this.’ Rizzo was still babbling on. ‘Pete’s a big doorshutter, you know the type? Always closing doors into this room, closing doors into that room, drives you nuts after a while, I’m telling you, and he always says to me, what’s the matter with you, were you born in a fucking barn or something, shut the damned door.’ He went through the door and bawled: ‘Hey, Pete, you here?’

There was no answer.

Annie and Tony exchanged another look and followed Rizzo in. The noise of conversation was just the TV. They looked around the little bedsit, which was lit by a single bare low-wattage bulb in the middle of the room, with the curtains still pulled closed. The bed was unmade and the sheets stale, an empty beer bottle and half a plate of congealed shepherd’s pie was on the floor by the couch.

The TV in the corner was roaring away to the empty room. Everything was dusty and the carpet was peppered with tea stains. They looked in the loo, and found it empty. Stared at a large cupboard. Annie and Tony glanced at each other. Big cupboard, and what did they expect to find in it? None other than Pete Delacourt hanging up by his neck. Annie thought about finding Gareth strung up. Thought that if Pete was strung up too, she really was going to hurl. But they couldn’t smell anything. Not yet, anyway.

Tony moved forward and threw open the big cupboard’s doors.

Annie was holding her breath. But they looked inside and there was nothing. Nothing in there but outsize jeans, and T-shirts so big that boy scouts could have camped out in them. No Pete.

‘Looks like he left in a hurry,’ said Tony to Annie. And not of his own free will, his eyes added. He crossed to the TV, grabbed the edge of the curtain beside it. With his hand covered by the fabric, he turned the TV off. Silence descended.

‘Now where the fuck’s the fat cunt got to?’ Rizzo wondered aloud.

Annie and Tony stood there and looked at each other. They said nothing.