Black Widow. Jessie Keane

Jimmy shrugged.

      ‘Is it still running smooth?’ asked Annie. Not that she cared, but she was trying to get him to communicate with her. It was bloody hard going.

      ‘Yeah. Opens lunchtimes too now.’

      ‘Right.’

      Annie had to bite her lip to keep back her exasperation. We don’t have time to fuck about, is what she longed to say. But she stopped herself. She didn’t want to start out by trying to push Jimmy Bond into a corner. He was a proud man—Max’s best boy—and she had to treat him with respect, too.

      ‘Make it soon,’ was all she allowed herself.

      ‘I will,’ he said, and left.

      She watched him go through the open kitchen doorway, nodding to Dolly as he passed her in the hall and giving the hard man on the door a mocking smile before stepping out on to the path. Ross kicked the door shut behind him.

      ‘Fucking bastard,’ he muttered, then came along the hall to the kitchen and handed Annie a note. ‘For you,’ he said, and went back to his seat by the front door.

      Annie looked at Dolly and opened up the folded sheet of paper. The handwriting was forward sloping and almost painfully neat. The note said: We hope you like your stay, Mrs Carter. Just make it a short one, and there’ll be no trouble.

      It was signed Redmond Delaney.

      Annie pocketed it, her eyes on Ross through the open kitchen doorway. He returned her stare. Dolly, standing between them in the hall, swallowed nervously. And then the telephone started to ring. Annie steeled herself, nerves jangling. The fucking phone had rung a thousand times over the past few days. Always it was clients, or mates of Darren’s or Ellie’s. Una didn’t seem to have any mates, which was no big surprise. But it was never, ever the call Annie was waiting for. She watched Dolly pick up the phone, watched her face go bleached white. Dolly’s head turned and she held the phone out to Annie.

      ‘For you,’ she said, and Annie’s heart froze.

      ‘Hello?’ said Annie when she took the phone from Dolly.

      Dolly shooed her doorman into the front room and closed the door on him. Then she stood beside Annie in the hall, her face anxious.

      ‘Ah, so you are there,’ said the voice.

      The same voice again. Irish. Annie hated that voice.

      ‘I’m here.’ I’ve been here for days, she thought, but didn’t say it. Best not to antagonize him.

      ‘And now you are, what shall we do with you?’ he asked, and she could hear it again in his voice, that smile, that loathsome smile.

      Annie was gripping the receiver so tightly that her knuckles were white as bone. She relaxed her grip, took a breath. Calm, she thought. Keep calm, think clearly. For Layla.

      ‘You tell me,’ said Annie.

      ‘And what if I don’t feel like telling you quite yet?’ he said, playing with her, the bastard. A ding in the background…teacups? Something…

      ‘That’s your decision,’ said Annie, refusing to rise to the bait, refusing to scream and yell and pull her hair like he wanted her to. ‘Is Layla all right? Can I speak to her?’

      ‘Yes, and no. In that order.’

      ‘Then how do I know she’s still alive?’ asked Annie.

      ‘You don’t. You have to take my word for it.’

       Bastard.

      ‘I want to do a deal with you,’ said Annie.

      ‘You’re in no position to be offering deals,’ he said.

      ‘Yes I am. And the deal is, me for Layla. Hand Layla over, and take me instead.’

      Dolly made a ‘for Christ’s sake no’ gesture. Annie waved her away.

      ‘It’s a good deal,’ said Annie when there was only silence at the other end. ‘It’s me you want to torment, isn’t it? Or else why am I still alive? You could have killed me in Majorca.’

      ‘There’s another reason we could have kept you alive, though,’ he said.

      We. But of course there was more than one person involved in all this, as Jeanette had told her. To blow up the pool house, kill Max and Jonjo, kill her two friends, snatch Layla, drug her…too much, far too much, for one alone to manage.

      How many then? wondered Annie. Hadn’t Jeanette said four? But then Jeanette was an idiot.

      ‘And what’s that?’ asked Annie.

      ‘For the dough, dear heart. For the brass, the wonga, the money.’

      At last.

      ‘How much?’ asked Annie. ‘Tell me and I’ll get it.’

      ‘Ah, now that’s something we’ve yet to decide upon.’

      Toying with her again. Playing her. Tormenting her. Annie clutched at her head, which felt as if it was about to burst open. A pulse of pain bloomed behind one eye. Calm, she thought. Calm.

      ‘So you’re going to let me know about that,’ she said numbly.

      ‘I dare say. We’ll call again in a few days, discuss things further, how’s that?’

      Annie swallowed her hatred. She wanted to kill him. She would kill him, if she ever got the chance.

      ‘Whatever you say,’ she said.

      ‘That’s right,’ said the man. ‘Whatever I say goes, right?’

      Annie’s jaw clenched. ‘Right,’ she agreed.

      ‘We’ll talk again…’

      ‘Wait.’ She needed to hear Layla’s voice. Needed it desperately. ‘Let me talk to my daughter.’

      ‘Later,’ he said. ‘I’ll call again on Friday.’ And he put the phone down.

      ‘Wait!’ shouted Annie, but she was talking to nothing but empty air. With a cry of rage she smashed the receiver back on to its cradle, picked up the phone and flung it hard against the wall.

      ‘You fucker!’ she yelled.

      Dolly stared at her friend, aghast. She had never seen Annie lose it before. Annie stalked off along the hall, turned at the foot of the stairs and walked back, breathing hard. She picked up the phone from the floor, picked up the receiver, listened. Still working. She exhaled sharply.

      ‘Sorry, Doll,’ she said.

      Annie knew she couldn’t go on like this. Waiting powerlessly for that bastard to call again and again; waiting, hoping, and then every time her hopes being dashed and her anxiety increasing. She had, somehow, to reclaim some control.

      Oh sure, she thought with black amusement. And how are you going to do that, smartarse?

      She would concentrate on getting some money together. Work hard at that, and keep strong. Jimmy had rightly said that Max must have a stash somewhere, a secret stash. Maybe more than one. And there were safes at the clubs, weren’t there, for the takings. She had to wait until Friday when he called again. Why not use that time?

      She went out to use a phone box a few streets away. Dolly went with her. They crowded into the little cubicle, out of the rain. Annie dialled Kath and Jimmy’s number. Kath answered.

      ‘Kath—Annie,’ she said shortly. ‘Get hold of Jimmy and tell him to get Tony, Max’s driver. I want Max’s car at Dolly’s place in Limehouse at two o’clock.’

      ‘Who the hell do you think you are, issuing orders?’ demanded Kath.

      Annie