Scarlet Women

Annie thought about the vicar. A little grey man who had simply blended into the background. One of those men who could walk into a room and out again, causing not so much as a ripple; afterwards, you would not remember what he looked like. No one would.

Annie took a breath and pushed a full cup towards Mira. ‘Did Val go to the soup kitchen?’

‘Yes.’ Mira took a sip of the tea. ‘And Jackie too. We used to go in there for the soup and bread, get warmed up, then back to the bridge under the Mile End Road. Rizzo didn’t like it much.’

‘Fuck Rizzo,’ said Annie. ‘Did you ever see Teresa Walker there?’

Mira looked blank.

‘Big, loud-mouthed, red-haired girl.’

‘Oh, her. Yes. Couldn’t miss her, could you?’

‘Mira, Teresa Walker’s dead. So’s Val Delacourt. They were both garrotted.’

Mira’s gaunt face lost even more of its colour. ‘I know,’ she said weakly.

‘My friend Aretha was garrotted too.’

But Aretha wouldn’t have been on the streets, she wouldn’t have been frequenting soup kitchens, so what am I proving with this? Annie wondered.

But there was a connection. The soup kitchen was attached to St Aubride’s church. Louella sang in the church choir. The vicar had officiated at Aretha’s wedding, showing himself up for a bigot in the process.

There was a connection. Someone hated prostitutes and wanted to kill them. Had killed three of them.

‘You know what?’ Mira’s face was blank, hopeless. ‘I’ve realized something about myself. I’m poison. Everyone around me gets hurt. I just attract shit. Gareth never did anything…’

Annie sat up straight. ‘Who did you just say?’

‘Gareth,’ said Mira. ‘Gareth Fuller.’

Holy shit, thought Annie.

‘He was a good friend to me. I moved in with him, he was so gentle, such a complete no-hoper, the poor thing, wouldn’t hurt a fly…and someone hanged him.’ Suddenly, Mira started to cry.

‘Hush, it’s all right,’ Annie said soothingly, fishing out a tissue and pressing it into Mira’s hand. She was thinking: Jesus, it’s all connected. It’s all linked.

‘It’s not bloody all right,’ said Mira, her face twisted with woe. ‘It’s me, isn’t it? Everything I touch, I ruin.’

‘That’s bollocks,’ said Annie.

‘Is everything all right? I hope you’re not tiring her too much?’ asked the white-coated nurse, appearing suddenly and hovering anxiously beside her patient while shooting hostile looks at Annie.

‘No! I’m fine, I’m fine,’ Mira sniffed, trying to compose herself again.

‘You want me to go?’ Annie asked Mira. ‘I can come back later.’

‘No, stay.’ Mira looked bleary-eyed up at her nurse. ‘She stays,’ she said firmly.

‘All right, but try not to upset her,’ tutted the nurse, and departed briskly once again.

‘You all right?’ Annie was holding on tight to Mira’s bony, bandaged hand.

‘Yes.’ Mira blew her nose, got herself back together again. Her hands were shaking. The drugs weren’t out of her system yet, they couldn’t be. Poor cow, how low she’d sunk.

Annie squeezed her hand.

‘Tell me about Gareth,’ she said.

‘He was so nice. Completely useless, but nice. You know?’ Mira rubbed at her eyes like an exhausted child. ‘We were sort of friends. I moved in with him. I thought he’d be like all the other men, want sex in return for a roof over my head and a few fixes.’

Christ, she really hit rock bottom, thought Annie.

‘If he had I wouldn’t have minded,’ Mira went on. ‘I expected that. But he didn’t. Well, he was so spaced out most of the time that I don’t think he could have managed sex anyway. What he seemed to want from me was company. We sort of looked out for each other. He had a job at one of the hotels up West, working odd hours. Some early morning shifts, some late evening, just filling in, you know? He had a little dog, thought the world of it. Dinky the dog.’

Annie thought of the dog barking endlessly in distress, of Tony breaking the door of the flat down, of her piling in there with Hunter and finding the pitiful remains of Gareth dangling from the light fixture in the centre of the room.

Poor bastard.

‘He was looking for me. But Gareth wouldn’t have told Redmond where I was. And look what happened to him!’ Mira was off again, crying softly now, the tears wrenching at her body, making her gasp and shudder. ‘It’s me! I’m just no good.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Mira!’ Annie burst out angrily. ‘You can’t blame yourself for what other people do. And you are good.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Yeah, you are. You were always good to me. And you gave me this—you, Jen and Thelma.’ Annie indicated the Rolex on her wrist. ‘You needn’t have bothered but you did and that was kind of you. I was really touched.’

‘That was just money,’ sighed Mira through her tears. ‘I had plenty of that then.’

‘No, you took trouble. You got it engraved. You’re a good kind person, Mira, whether you’ll admit to it or not.’

Mira half smiled at that. Then she frowned again. ‘I haven’t told you about Pete, either.’

‘Pete?’

‘Pete Delacourt, who runs the tattoo parlour beside…’

‘The Alley Cat club,’ finished Annie for her, feeling a sick swaying in her stomach as all this unfolded.

Mira looked at her in surprise.

‘You know Pete? Only he was good to me, took me in for a while, got me some work…’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, he got me in with Rizzo, his brother. He ran the little patch under the canal bridge on the Mile End Road. Rizzo kept me supplied, got me punters.’

‘Oh yeah, he’s a fucking saint, that Rizzo,’ said Annie grimly. She was totting up the score so far, and it wasn’t looking good. Association with Mira was obviously a dangerous thing. Gareth was dead. And Pete was missing, forcibly removed from his little parlour and probably propping up a new motorway bridge by now.

But how could this tie in to Val, Teresa and Aretha? Right now, she just couldn’t see it.

‘I tried to write his name, didn’t I? I wrote it in my own blood…’ She looked down at her bandaged hands. ‘I remember doing that…and trying to hurt you, I was just so desperate, I had to get out, had to get away. I knew he’d come for me, he always said that, that I was his and that no one else would ever have me, that he’d kill me if I tried to leave him…’

‘Redmond can’t get you now,’ said Annie. ‘You’re safe here.’

Mira looked at Annie with tired, red-rimmed eyes.

‘Oh, Annie. We both know I’m not safe anywhere. Not from him. And you shouldn’t have crossed him, not for me, not for anything. Because now you’re not safe either.’

Chapter 41

On Monday Annie went to the cop shop and asked for DI Hunter at the front desk.

‘He’s busy,’ said the desk sergeant.

‘I’ll wait,’ said Annie, and sat there for nearly an hour.

Finally she was ushered through to an interview room. Hunter was there, alone. No DS Lane to fug up the place with his BO.

‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked, indicating the chair.