Black Widow. Jessie Keane

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

      ‘Oh fuck,’ bleated Jeanette, dissolving into tears again. ‘It must be true! What would they make it up for?’

      Again that almost unstoppable urge to strike out, to stop Jeanette uttering another word. ‘I don’t know,’ said Annie through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t understand any of this. But we’ve got…’ she glanced at her watch. God bless Rolex. Still working, despite the blast, despite the water. ‘…three-quarters of an hour to get up there and back again. It’s time enough.’

      ‘But…should we go outside?’ asked Jeanette fearfully.

      ‘Maybe not. But we’re going to, all right? Because if they’d wanted us dead too, then I’m guessing we’d be dead already.’

      Jeanette nodded dumbly.

      ‘Right. Let’s go,’ said Annie. ‘We’re going to keep under cover as much as possible, and we’re not going to speak, okay? You’re going to follow me, step where I step, and keep your fat mouth shut for a change, got that?’

      Another nod.

      Annie lifted the gun, slipped off the safety catch, and opened the door on to the poolside terrace. She looked out. The wreckage of the pool house was still smoking. The sun was still shining.

      ‘Jesus God,’ shrieked Jeanette.

      Annie’s stomach flinched with fear. All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

      Jonjo’s body was gone.

      ‘All right, shut up. Shut up!’

      Jeanette was off again, shrieking her head off, signalling their precise whereabouts to anyone who cared to listen. Annie turned in the finca’s doorway and whacked her a good one across the face. She was putting them both at risk; it had to be done. Jeanette reeled back and thumped against the wall and was instantly silent. Annie held a finger to her lips and her eyes told Jeanette to shut it, right now, or she’d get another one.

      Someone was playing mind games with them. Someone had left them alive when they ought to be dead. Someone was here, right here, noting what they were doing, noting their reactions. Perhaps just toying with them until they felt like doing the deed. But perhaps not. Maybe there was a faint grain of hope to be found here, for them and for Layla too.

      Annie had to cling to that. She was used to standing alone against the odds. A drunken mother, an absent father, all kinds of rucks after she had betrayed her sister Ruthie, all kinds of battles to be fought. And she had fought them, and somehow she had won through. Where there was life, there was hope.

      She put any thought of Max aside with ruthless firmness now. She tucked all that away in a box in her mind marked PRIVATE. She would look in there later. But for now, she was alive, she had a chance. She was not going to throw it away. And there was Layla. She owed it to herself, but more than that she owed it to Max’s daughter. If she had to beat this poor dumb idiot to a pulp to shut her up, she’d do it; and Jeanette saw that resolve very clearly in Annie’s face.

      ‘We’re going to get Inez and Rufio,’ said Annie, slowly and clearly, as Jeanette stood there with tears streaming down her bruised face. ‘If I hear another sound out of you before we get up there, I’m going to make you pay for it. You got that now?’

      Jeanette nodded and swallowed. Annie looked capable of anything. She looked scary.

      ‘You draw attention to us again, I’ll just knock you unconscious with this.’ Annie held up the gun. ‘You’d better believe what I’m saying.’

      Jeanette nodded. ‘I do,’ she said weakly.

      ‘Good. Now let’s go. Keep right behind me and keep checking behind us as we go, okay? You see anything, tap my shoulder but say nothing. Got it?’

      Another nod.

      Annie looked down at Jeanette’s feet. Why had she put high heels on?

      ‘Take those bloody shoes off, they’re too noisy.’

      Jeanette kicked off the shoes and held them sheepishly in her hand.

      ‘Shut the door behind us, quietly. Okay?’

      Nod.

      ‘Good. Come on then.’

      And Annie was off, keeping close to the finca’s wall as she skirted the terrace, stepping off and into beds of hibiscus. She paused as she hit the driveway, keeping close to the rocky edge of the drive where they would be concealed from anyone hiding out on the scrubby rock face behind the property.

      She looked back at Jeanette, who was nervously looking all around them. That was good. Fear was making her alert. Annie felt fearful herself, and exposed, all her nerves jangling, her skin crawling.

      Everything was quiet, only the rising wind in the palms and the faint rush of the sea making any noise at all. At any moment she expected someone to come at them, to finish the job, but she walked on, cat-footed, creeping along the edge of the drive, watching, walking…it seemed endless. But finally they were there, stepping on to the back terrace where in summer a huge bougainvillea trailed papery magenta blooms over a rickety pergola. Stepping into deep shade, Annie stopped at the closed blue-painted back door.

      Annie was aware that she was wet through with nervous sweat. Runnels of perspiration trickled down between her breasts, and her T-shirt was sticking unpleasantly to her back. She had to keep blinking sweat out of her eyes.

      This was stark, consuming terror of a type she had only experienced once before, when Pat Delaney had come after her with mayhem and murder in his twisted mind. It was horrible, making her bowels feel loose, making her want to puke. But if Jeanette saw her losing it, then she would lose it too—and then where would they be? She reached out with a shaking hand and tried the handle. It gave and the door moved inward. She braced herself. Looked back at Jeanette. Jeanette nodded. No one about. Annie brushed the sweat from her stinging eyes with the back of one hand. Found she didn’t want to open the door at all. Felt afraid. Horribly, mortally afraid.

      She pushed the door open anyway.

       4

      Inside the little villa it was cool and quiet. They had stepped straight into the kitchen, which was very simple—there was a stone sink, a stout table, an old but clean cooker. Everything was scrubbed, spotless. Inez was a good housekeeper and prided herself on her cleanliness. But to Annie the kitchen looked too clean. There was no evidence of lunch preparations on the table, no bread, no cheese, no beer or limoncello, nothing. No sign of activity.

      There was always activity around Inez: she liked to keep busy. Layla loved to come up here and make a pest of herself in this little kitchen, and Annie had questioned Inez, was Layla a nuisance to her? But Inez always laughed and said, No, Señora. The bambina was no trouble at all.

      Now there was no Inez bustling about, scolding Rufio with a smile, laying out food, chatting full-tilt in indecipherable Mallorquin, chopping onions and fat red tomatoes grown fresh on the vine by Rufio’s own hand. Now there was no activity at all. The finca was silent. Annie and Jeanette stepped inside the kitchen, and Jeanette pushed the door closed.

      A gust of wind caught it and it banged shut.

      Annie gave Jeanette a sharp look. She didn’t know what they were going to find in here. They—whoever they were—could be lying in wait, ready to spring a nasty surprise on the two women. She didn’t want any of their movements signalled ahead.

      She crossed the kitchen cautiously to the wide-open parlour door. Here too the furnishings were simple. Polished marble flooring—marble was cheap and plentiful in the Balearics—and a little old couch, a couple of spindle-back chairs, and a scrubbed-clean dining table. But no Inez, no Rufio.

      This