Black Widow

by Jessie Keane

A time when she’d got mixed up with the Carter and the Delaney mobs, when she’d run two brothels, one in Limehouse, the other in Mayfair. All gone now; all forgotten. Except when Jonjo called and reminded her of it all. She hated it when Jonjo called.

  It was nearly one o’clock. Inez usually called in at twelve-thirty to fix lunch, then she and Rufio took their siesta. She was late, but then the Majorcans were never hot on timekeeping. Everything was mañana. Tomorrow, things would get done. Today…maybe not.

  All was…normal.

  Jonjo snoring.

  Layla indoors singing a silly French song.

  Max doing laps of the pool.

  Normal.

  And then Annie’s world exploded, and normality was forgotten.

  3

  Annie woke up by slow degrees. She opened her eyes and saw the blue bowl of the sky above her. A buzzard was circling over the cliffs. There was a smell. Smoke and dust. She lapsed into unconsciousness again. Or was it sleep? Was this a dream?

  Again she awoke, and this time it was with a powerful sensation of nausea. Of something wrong. The sun was warm but something was burning. Her eyes hurt, her throat felt as dry as dust. A dream. A nightmare.

  The third time she came back to herself with a violent urge to vomit. She shot up on the sunbed, leaned over, and was sick. Her head spun. Clutching at the sunbed she lay back again and closed her eyes. There was crackling nearby, like a fire in a grate.

  What the fuck’s going on? she thought.

  She opened her sore eyes and alarm started to take hold. She wasn’t in bed. This was daylight, she was lying beside the pool and…she fought to clear her jumbled thoughts…there was something happening. There had been a bang, then something on her face, and now there was an unpleasant chemical smell in her nostrils and—Jesus—she was going to throw up again.

  She vomited again on to the stones of the terrace, then thought: Layla?

  She had heard Layla indoors singing just before the bang. Sometimes you got hunters up in the wood after rabbits, but this had been different, so much louder. A roll of smoke and dust, a bang louder than any firework, it had hurt her ears and they were ringing with the aftermath of some sort of shockwave. She could hear a dog whimpering nearby.

  No. Not a dog, a person.

  Layla?

  Annie fought her way up into a sitting position, swaying, impelled by the need to get to her daughter right now. She felt drunk. Which was almost funny because she had never been drunk in her life. Her mother Connie had been an alcoholic and it had killed her. Annie was happy never to touch the stuff, ever.

  She opened her eyes to a scene of horror. Jonjo’s sunbed was empty. Jeanette was still there, though. Jeanette was sitting up and with her head in her hands. The whimpering was coming from Jeanette.

  Alarm shot through Annie.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Annie. Her voice came out a croak.

  Jeanette dropped her hands. She looked at Annie with eyes wild with terror. She opened her mouth and started to shriek. Annie lurched to her feet, staggered, then righted herself. She plummeted to her knees in front of Jeanette.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked again, and her voice was stronger now.

  Jeanette’s hysterical screams seemed to be echoing around Annie’s aching head. She hauled back an arm and slapped the other woman, hard. Then she grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

  ‘What happened?’ she shouted. ‘Is Layla indoors? Is Layla all right?’

  Now Jeanette was crying and shuddering.

  Christ, thought Annie. She stumbled to her feet and half fell off the terrace and through the door into the sudden cool and semi-darkness of the finca’s hallway. The telephone on the hall table tinkled as she passed by. She stopped, looked at it. What the fuck? It had never made that sound before. Maybe the blast had damaged the wiring in some way. She picked it up, heard only a normal dial tone. She quickly put it back down again and hurried on. Supporting herself against the walls, she dragged herself to Layla’s bedroom, blinking to try to see with eyes that were incredibly sore.

  Layla’s swimsuit was laid out on her bed beside her teddies and dolls. But the room was in chaos. The stool at the dressing table was thrown on the floor, and a chair had been knocked over, and the dressing table itself was askew, as if it had been pushed.

  But the thing was way too heavy for Layla to have moved it.

  Where was Layla?

  Swallowing bile and a growing panic, Annie lurched into the bathroom, into the master bedroom, into the spare bedroom, the kitchen, then the sitting room.

  ‘Layla!’ she yelled, but there was no answer. She ran outside to the back of the finca where Layla loved to play; she had a swing there, suspended from one of the palms.

  ‘Layla!’ she yelled again, but there was only silence.

  Maybe this was a nightmare. Please God let it be a nightmare. At any moment Layla would come and jump on the bed and she would wake up and Max would groan beside her and roll over and go back to sleep.

  ‘Layla!’

  Nothing. No answer. No sound.

  Annie stumbled back outside to the terrace and stepped on something soft. There was a tiny crunch of bones. She looked down. A dead sparrow. Not a mark on it, but it was dead. The blast, she thought. The Shockwaves had killed it. There had been an explosion. Or had it been merely stunned? Had she just killed the poor damned thing with her weight? Nausea rose again. Her eyes went to the pool house and found nothing there but smouldering wreckage.

  Her eyes drifted on.

  ‘Max?’

  Her eyes locked on to the body in the pool. A man’s body, the skin brown from hours spent in the sun, face-down, floating on the surface. Dark hair on the arms, dark hair on the head—and blood billowing all around it like a crimson halo.

  Annie felt the breath leave her body in one horrified, disbelieving rush.

  ‘Max!’ she screamed, and dived straight into the pool.

  Afterwards, Annie couldn’t even remember swimming across the pool. One moment she was on the side looking at Max’s lifeless body, then she was there beside him.

  ‘Max!’

  The nightmare was relentless. She rolled him over and he was weightless, lifeless in the water. Max, oh God Max no please don’t be dead, please Max…

  It was Jonjo.

  The breath left Annie in a whoosh and she sank and came up spluttering and choking on chlorine and Jonjo’s blood. Jonjo’s pale blue eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the sky, and between them was an impossibly neat hole, leaking a steady flow of red into the blue water. She flinched away from the body in horror. Glanced at Jeanette, who had seen that it was Jonjo too and was now starting to shriek again.

  Where was Max?

  Annie felt panic grip her, robbing her of reason. Jonjo was dead. The explosion. Layla, where was Layla? And Max. Where the fuck was Max?

  Something deadly serious had happened here. A deliberate hit. Max and Jonjo Carter had influential friends but they had bad enemies too. People whose toes they had trod on over turf in London. People who might want to take revenge. Maybe she and Max had been out here lotus-eating for so long that they had dropped their guard. She had to do something. Fuck, she wished Jeanette would shut up.

  She looked all around the perimeter of the finca and stared up at the rock face looming behind the building. Max could have taken cover up there, if this was a hit. And if this was a hit, they—whoever ‘they’ might be—could be up there right now, watching, maybe taking aim.

  Annie swam swiftly to the side of the pool and hauled herself out. She grabbed Jeanette and yanked her to a standing position.

  ‘Just shut up,’ she ordered, and shook the blonde again, hard. ‘Shut up. Come inside, come on, you silly cow.’

  Annie grabbed Jeanette’s arm and hauled her indoors. She slammed the door shut and locked it. She went to the back door and quickly locked that too, while Jeanette stood nearly nude, shivering and crying in the hallway. Annie closed all
the windows and shutters. Then she bundled Jeanette into the master bedroom, locked the door behind them and shoved her in the direction of the wardrobe.

  ‘Put some clothes on,’ said Annie. ‘Move, Jeanette. Come on.’

  Jeanette was still weeping and wailing. She was just standing there looking at the clothes.

  Annie ran over to her. Her heart was pounding, her head was spinning, she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t going to be sick again. She wanted to scream too. Layla. Max. Where the fuck were they?

  ‘What did you see out there, Jeanette?’ she demanded urgently.

  Jeanette just stared at her. Shock, thought Annie. She’s in shock.

  ‘Come on. Talk,’ she said more gently. If she was ever to get any sense out of the poor bitch, she’d better ease up.

  ‘Men, there were men,’ cried Jeanette.

  ‘Go on.’ Annie felt herself grow still as she braced herself as if for a fatal impact.

  She wanted to hear, but she didn’t. Dreaded the details, but she had to know. Christ, she was shivering too now. She wanted to roar and scream at Jeanette, demand every detail; she wanted to know. But know what? How terrible would it be, to know what had taken place out there on the terrace? How terrible, to know what had happened to the man she loved so much, to the daughter who was a living, breathing part of her and of him?

  ‘Maybe four of them—I don’t know.’ A sob burst from Jeanette. Snot and tears ran down her face in rivers. ‘It all happened so fast; it was so confusing. They had masks on. They dragged Jonjo off the bed and shot him and threw him in the pool. They put a cloth over your face. I thought they were going to kill me.’

  ‘Max?’ asked Annie, thinking: I’ll never survive this, I couldn’t live if he was dead…

  ‘They grabbed him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They grabbed Layla too.’

  Layla.

  Annie turned away from Jeanette. Moving like a zombie, she went to the left-hand side of the bed, the side that Max always slept on, and opened the drawer in the bedside cabinet. The first thing she saw was Max’s ring. He always took it off when he was in the pool. It was bright yellow gold, with engraved Egyptian cartouches on either side of a square slab of lapis lazuli. She took it out, turned it over. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  Max.

  She took a breath, blinked, got focused again. She slipped the ring on to her thumb, for comfort, for reassurance; then got back to business. There was a small bunch of keys, and she pocketed them. She pulled out a cloth-wrapped parcel with shaking hands and removed an oilcloth-covered item from within it. Pulled off the oilcloth and sat down hard on the bed as her head spun suddenly and the room tilted and darkened.

  Got to get a hold, she thought. Got to keep thinking.

  But Max. Layla. Someone had them. Fuck it all, someone had killed Jonjo.

  Come on, Annie. Get a grip. You’re still fucking alive. They left you alive.

  Annie came back to herself, taking deep breaths. The room steadied. Why had they left her alive? They’d drugged her, left her to find this horror. They’d left Jeanette too, apparently untouched, unmolested. Shit, if they were willing to snatch Max and Layla, if they were willing to plant a bullet hole in poor bloody Jonjo’s head, why hadn’t they finished the job? Why hadn’t they killed her and Jeanette too?

  Annie tipped the gun out on to the bed and snatched it up. Christ, she was shaking so hard. She flicked open the chamber, as she had seen Max do. He practised shooting at a target back in the woods sometimes, and he was a crack shot, a brilliant shot, but she was nervous of guns. She’d taken a bullet herself, and that was enough to make anyone wary.

  She took out the box of bullets and removed the lid. Started loading the cold, slippery things into the chambers. Tried to, anyway. Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly get the bullets in there. She breathed deep again, steadied herself. Got the bullets in and snapped the chamber closed. Slipped her finger in beside the trigger.

  ‘It’s a hair trigger,’ she remembered Max saying when he had shown her the gun once. ‘You’ve got to be careful. One squeeze and you’ve blown someone away. Put the safety catch on once it’s loaded.’

  Annie had shuddered. She still had the scar from the bullet she’d taken; she didn’t want to go shooting anyone. She had seen what guns could do, first-hand.

  But they could still be here, hiding, waiting. And they had taken Layla. They had taken Max.

  Annie clicked on the safety and went over to the wardrobe. Jeanette was still standing there like a spare prick at a wedding. She stared wide-eyed at the gun in Annie’s hand.

  ‘We’ve got to protect ourselves,’ said Annie. ‘Now come on. Let’s get dressed.’

  She pulled out tops and jeans for them both and shoved the clothes at Jeanette. ‘Put these on.’

  Jeanette stood there, clutching the clothes to her and still not moving.

  Nearly demented, Annie hissed through gritted teeth: ‘Move, you stupid cow.’

  Annie’s tone would have galvanized a regiment. Jeanette started to put on the clothes. Annie did the same, yanking on jeans and a blue top. Then the phone started to ring in the hall.

  It would be Inez, apologising for being late with the lunch, telling her that she was coming now, Señora, she would be five minutes, only five…which meant another half an hour. Inez, with no idea that hell had been set loose. Thinking no doubt that the bang of the pool house being blown up was somebody back in the woods, hunting with a shotgun. If she had heard it at all. Inez was a little deaf, and Rufio liked a drink or two; they weren’t the brightest kids on the block and that was a fact.

  Grabbing Jeanette with one hand and clutching the gun in the other, Annie went into the hallway and picked up the phone.

  ‘Inez?’ Her voice sounded like someone else’s. Some dry old woman’s. She was breathless with panic and whatever crap they had used to knock her out had affected her voice, made her throat dry and sore.

  ‘Annie Carter.’

  Annie dropped the phone. It had been a man’s voice, low and mean and Irish. Not Inez. She hauled the damned thing back up by the cord, shaking like a leaf, and clamped it back to her ear.

  ‘Who is it?’ Jeanette bleated anxiously.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Annie. She took a breath and spoke into the phone. ‘Who wants her?’

  ‘No questions.’

  Annie was suddenly furious. ‘What the fuck have you done with them, you tosser?’

  The man was laughing. She’d amused him. She wanted to smash the phone against the wall; she wanted to crawl down inside it and come out the other end and smash this creep to smithereens.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’ she screamed at him.

  ‘Ah, the girl. I’ve got her here somewhere.’

  ‘And Max. Where’s Max?’

  ‘You mean Max Carter?’

  He was toying with her; she could hear laughter in his voice; this was a massive joke to him—her distress, her fear, her horror was meat and drink to him.

  ‘You’ll pay for this,’ she promised.

  ‘Fine words,’ he said.

  ‘He’ll make you pay.’

  ‘That would be a neat trick. He’s dead.’

  Annie sagged against the wall. Her head was thumping with pain now, she was frightened she was going to faint. ‘He’s not dead,’ she said. She couldn’t let herself take that in. She couldn’t allow herself to believe it, not for an instant. If she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t go on. Not even for Layla’s sake.

  ‘Oh but he is. We pushed him off a fucking mountain and watched him bounce all the way to the bottom.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jeanette was wild-eyed, clutching at Annie’s shoulder, almost shaking her. ‘What are they saying? Who’s dead?’

  Annie sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ she told the man on the end of the phone.

  ‘He’s dead.’ The voice was harsh. ‘Get used to it. I’ll
phone back in an hour. Be waiting. Oh—and your staff, in case you were wondering, are a bit tied up. An hour. Be ready.’

  The line went dead.

  A bit tied up. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had these bastards done something to Inez and Rufio? Their smaller villa was up by the gate—maybe they had seen the men coming in and had questioned them? Or had the men come down from the hills behind the property, to maintain the element of surprise?

  They had an hour. This bastard was on the other end of a phone, so he wasn’t lurking outside.

  No, he isn’t—but what if he’s left someone behind, someone to watch and see what you do?

  No matter. She couldn’t just sit on her arse for an hour with Jeanette bawling and screaming in her ear. She had to do something, or go crazy.

  ‘Did they say Max was dead too?’ Jeanette was demanding.

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie.

  Oh shit, why doesn’t the silly bitch just shut up? I don’t want to hear that again. Not now, not ever.

  ‘Come on,’ Annie said sharply. ‘We’re going to go and get Inez and Rufio.’

  Jeanette looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘But what about Jonjo?’

  ‘Jonjo’s dead for sure. We can see that with our own eyes. Whether we stay or go, there’s no help for him.’

  Jeanette flinched back as if Annie had slapped her again.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Jeanette on a shuddering breath. ‘Jonjo said you were a hard bitch, and now I believe it.’

  ‘We can’t help Jonjo,’ said Annie. ‘But we can see that Inez and Rufio are okay.’

  Jeanette’s eyes were suddenly cold. ‘I can see why he hated you,’ she said.

  ‘He wasn’t my first choice for a brother-in-law either,’ said Annie. ‘He didn’t like any woman close to Max.’

  Jeanette’s face sagged. ‘God, I can’t believe he’s dead. I can’t believe it! Did they really say that Max is gone too?’

  Annie felt a surge of hate for Jeanette, but she reined it in. Jeanette might be stupid, she might be a gobby little tart, but she didn’t deserve Annie’s anger. She regained control of herself with an effort.

  ‘They said so. But we don’t know it’s true.’