Scarlet Women

At the reception desk, a purple-suited and smiling blonde whose name-badge said ‘Claire’ asked if she could help.

‘I hope you can,’ said Annie. ‘Two nights ago a friend of mine died not far from here. This was the last place she was seen alive. With a guest of yours.’

The smile vanished.

‘I’m not sure I can help you with that,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure you can either,’ said Annie. ‘That’s why I need to speak to the concierge who was on duty that night.’

The phone started ringing. The girl turned to it with obvious relief. ‘If you’ll excuse me…?’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Annie, and waited while the girl took a booking for the following weekend.

Claire replaced the receiver and turned back to Annie.

‘As I said, I’m not sure we can help…’

And then the phone rang again, and Claire gave Annie an ‘oh, sorry’ smile as she picked it up. She took another booking. Annie waited.

‘So sorry about that,’ said Claire, and then the phone rang again. She picked up. Then her professional smile died on her lips as Annie snatched the phone from her hand and replaced it on the base, cutting the call dead. Annie leaned over and pulled the phone jack out of its socket. Claire’s mouth dropped open. Annie gave her a tight smile.

‘The fact is,’ Annie said, pausing to glance at the girl’s badge, ‘Claire. The fact is that my friend is dead and I’m upset, so bear with me here and don’t even think about plugging that phone back in unless you want to be wearing it as a necklace, you got me? I need to speak to your concierge, preferably this year and not next. Preferably within the next five minutes. Preferably now. So call him up or have someone fetch him or whatever it is you have to do, and stop it with the fucking phone, please, because this is very, very important, do you understand?’

Claire nodded slowly. She’d gone pale.

‘That’s good,’ Annie congratulated her. ‘That’s very good, I can see we have an understanding here, Claire. Now, what’s his name, this concierge who would have been on duty two nights ago, at gone midnight?’

Claire fiddled about with some papers on the big curving desk. She found a list, and checked down it. She looked up at Annie.

‘That would be Ray Thompson,’ she said. ‘He’s on twelve to eight all this week. He’s not here right now.’

‘He’ll be here at twelve tonight?’ asked Annie.

Claire nodded, swallowing, her eyes wary.

‘Then I’ll be back to see him then. If he don’t come in for any reason, you call me, okay? I don’t want a wasted journey—that would upset me, do you understand what I’m saying?’ Annie took a notepad and pencil out of her pocket and jotted down her name and the Palermo’s number. She handed it to Claire. ‘My name’s Annie Carter, I’ve put it down right here so that you know. Reach me on this number, okay?’

Claire nodded.

‘I’ll be back at twelve if I don’t hear from you first. Oh, and can you tell me who was in room two-oh-six two nights ago?’

‘I shouldn’t…’ Claire started.

Then she looked at Annie’s face. She gulped and flicked back a page or two in the guest book, scanned down it. ‘A Mr Smith.’

Not exactly original, thought Annie.

Dolly had told her that a woman had made the initial booking and that there was no contact number because Rosie—being Rosie—had taken the call, and hadn’t asked for one. Aretha had to meet a man named Mr Smith in room 206 at nine, that was all.

‘Were you on duty that night?’ asked Annie.

Claire shook her head.

‘Write down the name of whoever was on duty,’ said Annie.

Claire wrote down a name and handed the headed compliment slip to Annie.

‘Thanks for that,’ said Annie, pocketing it. ‘And is this person going to be back on duty tonight?’

Claire nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘That’s good, I’ll see him too. Have you heard anything about what happened?’ she asked. ‘Anything that might interest, for instance, the police…maybe help them with their inquiries?’

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Claire, shaking her head nervously. ‘I just saw the police out there when I came in next morning, and people were talking about it. They said it was the third murder in as many months. I’m just really glad I don’t do nights.’

‘Okay. If I don’t hear from you first, I’ll be back at twelve to see Ray and the receptionist.’

Claire nodded. ‘That’s Gareth…Gareth Fuller,’ she said.

‘Gareth Fuller. Thanks Claire.’

Annie turned away from the desk and started to walk back across the reception area to the door. It spooked her, that feeling that she was walking in Aretha’s footsteps, tracing the path the dead woman had taken on her last night on earth.

For a heart-stopping moment she felt she could almost see Aretha up ahead, swinging through the doors into the night, her feather boa trailing behind her, the smell of that horrible hairy Afghan coat she always wore clinging to the air, mixed with the attar of rose scent she favoured, dreads bouncing as she went, flashing a broad grin back at Annie.

Bye girlfriend, catch ya later.

And then the vision was gone, and it was daylight, and Aretha was dead.

It was too late now to bring her back. But not too late to find out who had taken her from them.

There were voices coming from the lounge, male voices, people moving on the edge of her vision. She’d paused there in the middle of reception, but now she moved again, heading for the door just like Aretha had done two nights ago. And then one of the men emerging from the guest lounge called out her name, and she turned and to her shock saw Redmond Delaney standing there—with Constantine Barolli.

They fell silent and stared at her. Shocked, Annie stared right back. Yeah, it was him. She couldn’t believe it. Smooth bloody American, standing there as bold as brass with Redmond Delaney, boss of the Delaney mob and—because she was a Carter—her enemy.

Antagonism between a Delaney and a Carter was not in any way new. This particular fight went way back to the Fifties, to when Davey Delaney had come over from Ireland and tried to muscle in on Max’s father’s patch. Some things were set in stone. All through the Sixties the Richardsons and the Frasers had the South, the Regans the West, the Nashes had The Angel, the Delaneys held Battersea—and a small pocket in Limehouse, down by the docks, often disputed over—the Krays had Bethnal Green and the Carters had Bow.

Now it was the Seventies, and still the Delaneys had to keep pushing their luck, and when they pushed, the Carter mob pushed back. There had been all sorts of disputes over the years between the two warring clans. Sometimes it had turned downright nasty. Major gang fights broke out; serious damage was inflicted. And earlier this year, Billy Black, Annie’s gofer—who for years had walked the Limehouse streets unmolested—had been killed, dissolving any illusion that there might be peace like flesh in quicklime.

For Annie, it was war.

Once, she had done business with Redmond and his twin sister, Orla. Once, she had even pitied them for their miserable backgrounds. Now, she looked at Redmond—tall, effete, red hair swept back from his white skin, his pale green eyes watching her, dressed in his usual sober black—and felt only hatred.

And what the hell was Constantine Barolli, who had for years been tight in business with the Carters, doing—having a private meet in a plush West End hotel with their worst enemy?

‘Annie?’

It was Constantine who called her name, not Redmond. Redmond had always called her Miss Bailey or Mrs Carter. Always very formal, that was Redmond. Cold as black ice and twice as deadly.

Constantine bloody Barolli.

Annie forced herself to look at him with cool dispassion. And that was hard. Because—damn it—he looked good.

In fact, he looked just the same as when she had last seen him—a stunning man in his early forties, tall and silver-haired, with vivid blue eyes and an all-American tan, wearing a beautifully cut grey suit. Exactly the same as when she had chased after him like an over-keen schoolgirl to Heathrow and told him to call her.

And—oh yeah— he hadn’t. He had called the Delaneys.

She looked at him, looked at Redmond—and walked on. She was down the steps and out on the pavement when Constantine caught up with her.

‘What, are you ignoring me now?’ he asked, catching her arm, and his voice was pure New York, just like she remembered.

Annie stared at his hand on her arm. He was very close, very overwhelming—even more physically imposing than she remembered. She could smell his Acqua di Parma cologne, she was dazzled anew by those intensely probing blue eyes, and she knew that she could all too easily fall under his spell again. If she let herself.

‘It looks like it,’ she said, voice cool, face blank. ‘Don’t it?’

‘You got my note?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. I got it.’

‘You didn’t come over,’ he said.

‘You’re right, I didn’t,’ said Annie as Tony pulled up in the Jag. ‘Will you excuse me? I’ve got a lot of business today.’

‘Why the big chill?’ asked Constantine. She could see a flicker of amusement playing around his mouth. Fuck it, she was angry and that amused him. As usual.

‘What big chill?’

‘All right, put it another way, why have you got that stick up your ass? What’s up with you?’

‘What’s up with me?’ Annie opened her eyes wide and stared at him. ‘What’s up with you, arsehole?’

Probably Constantine had done her a favour, leaving her out in the cold for three long months. It had brought her to her senses, made her rethink. Yeah, she was well out of this. Well out.

‘Excuse me, but people don’t generally talk to me like that,’ said Constantine, grabbing her arm again.

Annie saw Tony’s attention sharpen, and he started to get out from behind the driver’s seat. She shook her head quickly. She didn’t want him starting anything up with this one; he’d be placing himself in more danger than any of them could handle. She couldn’t see Constantine’s minders anywhere, but she knew damned well that they were there, watching. Tony stopped moving.

‘Excuse me, but I think you’ll find I just did,’ said Annie, and got in the car. ‘The Palermo, Tone,’ she said.

But Constantine still had the door open. He hunkered down and looked at her. He still looked as though he was finding this whole thing the biggest joke in the world.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to let this go.’

‘Well, good luck with that,’ she said.

‘You asked me to call you.’

‘Yes I did. Stupid of me. Hey, you’d better get back to your meeting. Redmond Delaney’s a big noise around here, you don’t want to go pissing him off. And if he sees you running after a Carter, that’ll do it every time.’

Constantine stood up. ‘Look, it was a business lunch. We met, discussed things, ate a little, drank a little, now I’m going home.’

‘Home to Holland Park? Or home to New York?’

Constantine pursed his lips and stared at her.

‘Is that what all this is for: you’re sore because I didn’t call sooner?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes you do. And okay, guilty, and you called me on it. But you know what? If I can finally find the guts to face this thing, then so can you.’

‘So you were just having lunch with Redmond Delaney?’ she asked.

‘Is there a law against that, two businessmen having lunch?’

‘Who invited who?’ asked Annie.

‘He invited me,’ said Constantine.

‘I knew it. He wants the contracts on your clubs up West. The Carter firm—my firm—has always held those contracts.’

Constantine nodded. ‘Yeah, well. Maybe he was making a better offer.’

‘Was he?’

‘I didn’t say that. And anyway, a deal’s a deal. I was happy to work with Max, and I am now happy to work with you.’

‘Big of you.’

Constantine paused for a beat. ‘You know, I’d forgotten what a complete pain in the ass you could be.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’ve refreshed your memory,’ said Annie, and pulled the door shut.

Tony put the car in gear and they moved off.

I’m not going to look back, thought Annie. But she did. Constantine was standing there, gazing after the car, shaking his head and grinning. When he saw her looking back, he waved.

Damn, he did look good.

Her heart was beating fast and hard. Her face felt hot. She was having a lot of trouble stopping herself from smiling.

Fuck it, she thought.

Chapter 8

Redmond Delaney bought Mira diamonds. She loved diamonds. He bought her furs. She loved those too, but she loved him more.

‘This is just between us,’ he said to her, meaning their love, their lust, whatever the hell it was that drew them together.

Mira nodded her acceptance, but deep down she felt uneasy and hurt. She knew he had parents in Ireland, but there was never any chance that she would meet them. He had a sister too—his twin, Orla. She had met Orla once; they’d been having lunch at a restaurant, and Orla had come in. Reluctantly, Redmond had introduced her to Mira. Orla had looked at Mira like she was contaminated.

So she had become his dirty little secret, one he kept well away from his family. She understood that, even though it pained her. She knew she wasn’t fit for polite society, fit for any society really. Sometimes she even shocked herself. That blackness in her heart sometimes made itself felt in dark moods, wild behaviour. She knew her own weaknesses. She knew that what had been done to her in her childhood had warped her somehow. There were lines that most other people, most normal people, would never cross. But she crossed them every day, with every breath she took, and only occasionally would she think: Jesus, did I really do that?

Not long after their affair began, Redmond bought her a flat in Battersea, close to his family’s breaker’s yard. Not Mayfair—which was what she was used to—but a nice flat in a decent area, a large and sunlit flat which she’d decorated in the latest styles at his considerable expense.

She was happy. William was a distant memory. The brothel she had worked in, the brothel where she met William, had been closed down long ago by the police—so that was all over. But then he already knew that. He made it his business to know things, particularly about Annie Carter and the mob of thugs she controlled.

‘I’m all yours, darling,’ she said, flinging herself into his arms one sunny Sunday afternoon in the sitting room of the new flat.

He’d told her how much he loved her voice, so mellow, so Home Counties. By now Mira knew that he adored the upper classes in general, and they got a kick out of mixing with him, because he was a bad boy and everyone knew it. A bad boy, but a rich boy too—a boy with clout; so the London glitterati flocked around him. From humble beginnings, he had climbed the greasy pole and now he was at the top, with a high-class mistress in tow. She adored him. He adored her. It was love.

‘I was all yours from the minute I first saw you,’ she said against his cheek.

‘Oh?’ Redmond buried his head in her fragrant neck. She wore Shalimar. He loved that too: it was a classic like her, he’d told her.

‘In the dining room at Cliveden.’

‘You noticed me too?’

‘I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. But I had to. Because of William.’

‘He’s the past,’ he said, pulling her in tighter so that she could feel his erection. ‘We’re all that matters now.’

They had christened the new bed in the new flat, and it had been dusk before they were sated, lying together in the warm afterglow.

‘I’m so happy,’ she murmured against his chest.

He was happy too. She was beautiful, polished, exotic—of course he was happy.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he’d said. ‘I want to know everything.’

He settled down for an erotic treat, and was not disappointed. She reeled out the background he had already imagined her to have. Old family money, pony clubs, private schools, a year at Egglestone being ‘finished’ followed by lavish country-house balls and wild, carefree summer parties at Henley. And then, of course, should have come marriage, babies…

Suddenly she fell silent.

Redmond looked at her face. She was crying, silent tears slipping down on to the pillow.

‘Hey…’ he murmured, and held her tighter.

Faltering, she went on talking.

There had been a pregnancy. Her parents had been ashamed. They had demanded to know who was the father of her child, but she hadn’t told them, she couldn’t tell them that her father’s brother, the beloved uncle who had dandled her on his knee as a child, had impregnated her.

‘What happened then?’ he asked her, wiping away her tears.

‘They sent me away to my cousin’s for the abortion,’ Mira told him, choking to get the words out through her tears.

‘Shh,’ he said, rocking her.

‘And after that,’ she said when she could speak again, ‘I never went home again. Never saw my parents again. Couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in their eyes when they looked at me.’

She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. He stroked her back, feeling oddly relieved. She was like him after all. She too had gone to forbidden places, and lived to tell the tale.

‘You could tell them the truth. It wasn’t your fault. It’s not too late,’ he said.

She shook her head vehemently.

‘Yes it is. My father loves his brother better than anyone in the world, including me. He didn’t believe me then and he wouldn’t believe me now. Neither would my mother. It’s too late. It’s over.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, understanding completely, utterly. ‘So after that you became…?’

She shot a glance back at him. A tight smile.

‘A whore?’ With a heavy sigh she threw herself back on to the pillows. ‘It wasn’t that difficult a transition. Men flocked around me, wined and dined me, bought me jewels. Men always have. My family was dead to me, I had to make my own way and what was I good for? I’d never had any training. Anything beyond arranging a few flowers and making a perfect Sacher torte was beyond me. Stupid, yes? What a way to raise a girl to face the world.’

He said nothing.

‘These men coveted me, wanted to pay for my company on holidays in the Bahamas and dinners at the best restaurants, in exchange for sexual favours. So I drifted into that life. And you know what’s strange? I never felt anything for any of them, never felt a thing, until I met you.’

He nodded, pulled her in close against him. He knew that she had instinctively recognized that taint in his soul, the same taint that was in her. That was what had drawn them so swiftly together. It would never leave either of them.

‘My poor darling,’ he said against her hair, and pushed her hand down to his cock again, because the tale of what her uncle had done to her had aroused him.

Chapter 9

Kath, Annie’s cousin, was up in the flat with her three-year-old son, Jimmy Junior, her baby Mo—and Layla. Layla saw Annie coming up the stairs and threw herself at her mother’s legs. She clung on like a small, dark-haired limpet.

Annie scooped Layla up into her arms and smiled into her daughter’s face, although she felt annoyed with Kath because the door had been open, the stairs were a danger, the workmen had been down there with masonry and shit flying in all directions; the kids could get hurt here.

‘You didn’t have to come over, I’d have come to you,’ she said to Kath, who was cuddling her grizzling baby against her vast bosom.

‘Ah, they were getting bored and Layla kept asking for you and I needed some stuff from the shop, so I thought, why not?’ said Kath.

‘How’s she been?’ asked Annie.

Kath shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘A pain in the arse,’ she said, but her grin said otherwise.

Annie kissed Layla’s silky dark hair—so like her own—and inhaled the sweet scent of her daughter.

‘You been a good girl for your Auntie Kath?’ she asked Layla.

‘Yeah!’ said Layla.

‘Is that the truth?’

‘Yeah!’

‘What about you, little Jim?’ asked Annie of Kath’s little boy, who was at the table, his sandy head bent over his paper and crayons. ‘Been good?’

Jimmy gave her a tired smile and rubbed his eyes.

‘He’s ready for his nap,’ said Kath. ‘They’re all getting overtired.’

‘Can Layla stay with you tonight, Kath? I’ve got to go out late on business.’

‘Sure,’ said Kath with a sigh.

She didn’t ask what business. After years of being married to Jimmy Bond, who had once been Max Carter’s number one man, she knew better. But Jimmy Bond was history now, and Kath didn’t seem sorry. In fact, there was a new spring in her step. Jimmy had knocked seven kinds of shit out of her, and she didn’t have to put up with that any more. She was still a train wreck, though; still messy, still untidy.

Annie noticed that Layla had started to cling on tighter to her. She drew back and smiled into the little girl’s eyes—eyes that were the same colour as her own: a dark, dense green. ‘I’ll collect you after breakfast tomorrow, okay? That’s a promise.’

‘You promise, Mummy?’

‘On my life,’ said Annie, hating the anxiety in Layla’s eyes. ‘Uncle Tony’s going to drive you over to Auntie Kath’s with her right now, okay?’

This seemed to reassure Layla, and she nodded and allowed herself to be ushered out the door along with little Jim, baby Mo and a mountain of childcare products and colouring books, plus her overnight pyjamas and Bluey, her new fluffy toy bunny.

At last they were gone. Annie sat in the flat and turned on the TV to catch the news. The Manson trial was still going on in the States, the army had used rubber bullets for the first time in Belfast, and a plane had crashed in Peru, killing all ninetynine people on board. Her attention sharpened as the guy started saying that another escort girl had been found dead, this time in London’s West End, and that the girl’s husband was now helping police with their enquires into this and two earlier killings.

So they still hadn’t formally charged Chris yet. Maybe Jerry Peters had convinced them of Chris’s innocence, and maybe not. They might not have charged him, but neither had they released him. It was too soon to open the bubbly and start dancing on the frigging tables, that was for sure.

There was a different girl on reception when Annie got back to the Vista Hotel just after midnight. ‘Pippa’, the girl’s badge announced. Pippa had a mountain of dark hair on her tiny bird-like head, pale clear skin and blue laughing eyes; her purple fitted jacket and skirt suited her colouring. The place looked deserted, apart from this little bright beacon sitting behind the reception desk.

‘I need to speak to Ray Thompson, your concierge,’ said Annie, surprised to see this dainty little thing here and not Gareth Fuller, as expected. ‘Did Claire tell you about me? I’m Annie Carter.’

Pippa did a flickering downward sweep of the eyelashes. Annie guessed that this wowed the male punters. She waited, expecting that Claire would not have told her colleague about this. Expecting in fact that she was going to meet with more obstruction, more hassle, more of the ‘oh I couldn’t do that’ routine.