Black Widow. Jessie Keane

lying there with her heavy naked breasts exposed to the warm Mediterranean sun. She’d even asked Annie once if anyone would mind if she slipped the bottom half off.

      ‘Yes,’ said Annie coldly. ‘I’d mind.’

      Jeanette had looked at her and sneered. ‘I dunno what you’re acting all posh for,’ she said. ‘I know all about you.’

      ‘Oh yeah? What do you know?’ Annie lifted her Ray-Bans and looked at the girl.

      Jeanette was a pain in the arse. Yesterday had been great, because she had unexpectedly asked to borrow Rufio’s dusty, ugly, rear-engined old Renault to go shopping in Palma. The peace had been wonderful. But now she was back. And running off at the mouth, as usual.

      ‘I know you worked as a tart. I know you snatched your own sister’s man. You got no cause to act all hoity-toity.’

      Annie dropped the Ray-Bans back in place and lay back with a sigh.

      ‘You know nothing and you understand even less,’ she said.

      ‘Oh yeah? Well I—’

      Annie lifted the Ray-Bans again. Her eyes were dark ice as she stared at the girl. ‘You keep that evil trap shut, or I’ll have your stupid arse out of here on the next flight,’ she hissed.

      Jeanette fell silent.

      Jonjo and his fucking blondes. Jeanette was among the worst of them, dim to a fault and full of meaningless chatter and always flaunting herself, so sometimes Jonjo did take notice of her. After one or two overly flirtatious incidents beside the pool, Annie had had to have a word with him about what she considered to be suitable behaviour in front of a child approaching her fourth birthday. It hadn’t endeared her to him, but fuck him. This was her home, hers and Max’s, and if he wanted to come here then he would have to follow their rules and keep his dick in his trousers unless he was in the privacy of the bedroom.

      On the whole, Jonjo was good with Layla. He played with her in the pool, chased her around the grounds, made her scream with laughter. Jonjo had a way with kids. Different when they got older, of course. Once Layla hit puberty, Annie knew that Jonjo would treat her as he treated all adult women—with contempt and suspicion.

      Still, all was quiet for now. Annie relished the moment. She could hear Layla singing in her bedroom, some silly French song she and Max had been learning together. ‘Ma chandelle est morte…prête-moi ta lume.’

      Annie felt a surge of pride. She could barely speak a word of Mallorquin, or even Castilian Spanish but, thanks to Max’s good ear for languages and the cheerful chatter of Inez, their daughter was going to be multilingual.

      Jonjo was snoring like a hog, Jeanette had shut her yap for five minutes, and Max was scything rapidly through the water. Annie watched him as he swam to the edge of the pool and pulled himself out in one lithe movement. He padded over to her, water streaming off his dark-skinned and well-toned body, and bent to kiss her.

      ‘Max!’ she complained. He was drenching her with water droplets.

      He grinned. ‘All right, babes?’ he asked, sitting down on the edge of her sunbed.

      ‘You’re soaking me,’ said Annie, but she was smiling.

      He leaned in and kissed her again, deeper and harder. Annie put her arms around his neck.

      ‘Shit, get a room,’ muttered Jeanette.

      Annie ignored her. Max drew back a little and she smiled into his eyes.

      ‘Love you,’ he murmured against her mouth.

      ‘Love you too,’ whispered Annie.

      ‘Jesus,’ groaned Jeanette.

      ‘Coming in?’ Max asked Annie.

      ‘Not yet. In a mo.’

      He kissed her again and stood up, went to the edge of the pool and dived smoothly in.

      I’m married to the hottest man in the world, thought Annie with a happy sigh.

      She glanced at her Rolex, a present from her working girls back in the days when she had been Princess Ann, the Mayfair Madam.

      A lifetime ago, it seemed now.

      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