Black Widow

JESSIE KEANE

Black Widow

To Barrie, who would have been so pleased about it all. And to Molly, Charlie and Sherbert, my little writing companions, now flying free.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Jessie Keane

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

1970

Terror filled Charlie ‘The Dip’ Foster’s world.

Charlie had earned his nickname by being a great ‘dipper’—a pickpocket—as a kid. From there he’d graduated with honours to GBH and armed robbery; he’d worked his way up the ranks of the Delaney mob, one of London’s finest, until he was Redmond Delaney’s right-hand man. So he was no fool. He knew he was up shit creek.

Some heavy faces had brought him to Smithfield meat market and he knew he was in it up to his neck.

They were Carter boys.

For the Cockney Carters and the Irish incomers, the Delaneys, the streets of the East End were a war zone. Always had been, always would be.

They’d snatched him; worked him over. Taken him by surprise.

He’d been at his girl’s twenty-first birthday party, key of the door. They’d been bopping the night away; they’d got all amorous and gone outside for a bit of how’s-yer-father, and he’d been caught with his trousers down—literally.

So now here he was.

They’d laughed as they put him up here. Hung him up by his jacket collar from a hook while joking about meat being well hung. Then they’d left him here while they stood around chatting. Killing time. Waiting for something, he thought. Or somebody.

Charlie was a tough bastard but right now he was scared shitless.

It was the noise. The awful noise of that thing coming down on the wooden block.

Charlie’s brain was agile, quick, like his fingers—you didn’t get well up in the mobs without having a few brain cells, but now his mind kept faltering. That noise.

Thunk!

That thing on wood.

Thunk!

Chopping through flesh and bone.

He tried again to get his hands free from their bindings, but failed. He slumped, exhausted.

He dangled there, limp, fearful, worn out. And the smell in here. The stink.

The smell of meat, of death. Pigs’ heads surrounded him, the skin flayed from the flesh. Their eyes stared at him blindly. Sides of beef nudged him, smearing him with blood.

The cleaver came down again and a trotter thumped on to the floor.

Thunk!

Oh God help me, he thought.

He knew he’d done bad things. Hurt people. Robbed people. Bad things. So perhaps God wasn’t listening.

The butcher with the gentle eyes and the bloodstained apron went on chopping patiently away at the meat.

Dead meat, thought Charlie. That’s what I am.

Sweat was dripping from his chin on to the concrete floor, even though it was cold in here.

Gonna die right here, thought Charlie.

But now the boys who had been slumped around, chatting, straightened up and fell silent.

Something was happening.

Someone had arrived.

Now he could see through his stinging eyes that there was a woman approaching. A tall woman, dressed in black.

Dark straight hair falling on to her shoulders and dark green eyes that were just this side of crazy. A real looker. Black coat. Black leather gloves. Like the angel of death.

There was a heavy on either side of her. Known faces. Jimmy Bond, he knew that bastard of old. Jimmy was moving off to the left and watching, his eyes going from the woman to Charlie, back and forth, back and forth.

The woman stopped walking several paces away and stared up at Charlie.

He gulped.

‘You’re Charlie Foster,’ the woman said. Her voice was low and husky. ‘Are you wondering who I am, Charlie? Or do you know?’

Hanging up here was killing him. His head ached, his shoulders were agony. Charlie gulped again, couldn’t speak.

‘I’m Annie Carter,’ she said.

Fuck it, he thought. That’s it. I’m dead.

1

Not for the first time, Phil Fibbert wondered what he was doing out in the arse-end of nowhere with the warming Mediterranean sun on his back as he dangled, strapped on, from the top of the telephone pole. It wasn’t hot, but this was a tricky job and he was soon sweating and cursing.

‘How’s it going?’ shouted up Blondie from below.

Phil glanced down. His calves quivered with effort as he stood braced on the metal struts. Fucking idiot, he’d only just got up here, how did he think it was going? But he bit back a sharp reply. Blondie down there was paying the bills. Plus, the man had mad eyes. There was a funhouse party going on in that guy’s head. Best not to upset him.

‘Okay,’ Phil shouted back.

The girl was down there too, blonde hair, tits to die for, straining against a tight white T-shirt. She was looking up and shielding her baby blues from the glare with upraised arms. He was on a job with a lunatic and a fucking tart, how sensible was that?

But the money.

He kept his mind on the money.

Phil found an unused pair on the cable. This was a simple REMOB or Remote Observation job. Or Tap and Trace, if you wanted it in layman’s terms. He was muscular, squat, powerful, dark haired. His hands were large, dusted with dark hair, the fingers spatulate; but now they worked with the delicacy of a surgeon, fastening on the crocodile clips, setting up the relay. He unravelled the wire and tossed the roll down to Blondie. Then he made his way down the pole, jumping the last four feet and landing in a puff of pink dust. He went to the back of the dirty old van and connected the handset. Then he looked at Blondie.

‘Job done,’ he said. ‘Whatever calls they make, we get to hear them too.’

The tall blond man nodded, satisfied. He looked at the blonde woman. At the dark, muscular man. Their contact had tipped them off, given them the perfect time to strike. That time was now.

‘Are we ready then?’ he asked them, twitching about like always. Couldn’t seem to keep still for a moment.

They nodded.

The blond man reached into the back of the van and pulled out three dark wool hoods. Slits for eyes, a slit for a mouth. He dished them out, pulled his own over his bright straight blond hair. Waited until the other two were similarly concealed. The girl was tugging on a shabby old anorak to hide the tits. She zipped it shut, put the hood up, nodded. Ready.

‘Let the games begin,’ said Blondie, and pulled out the gun.

2

Ten seconds before the pool house exploded, everything at the Majorcan finca was normal. Later, Annie would distinctly remember that. The bay that encircled their hideaway was silent but for the rush and suck of the turquoise sea against the pink-toned rocks far below. Sparrows were drinking at the edge of the pool.

Normal.

Max’s younger brother Jonjo was visiting. Jonjo was sprawled out in bathing trunks on a sunbed, beer belly oiled, torpid in the warming noonday sun. His latest blonde floozy was sprawled beside him in the bottom half of a red bikini. Max was in the heated pool, doing strong overarm laps. Max liked to keep himself fit. Layla was indoors, changing into her swimsuit.

Normal.

Annie would always remember that.

Or as normal as it got, with Jonjo and his blonde—this one was called Jeanette, but there had been so many of them that Annie barely ever registered their names any more—here on a visit. Annie hated Jonjo with a passion, but she never let it show. He treated women like dishrags.

‘Feed ’em, fuck ’em, then forget ’em,’ was Jonjo’s motto.

Annie knew her loathing of Jonjo was mutual. Jonjo hated any woman having any sort of influence on his brother. Most particularly he hated any woman with brains. The Carter boys stood together against the world, and Jonjo saw women—Annie included—as mere embellishments.

Thank God Max had always been different. Max had been her lover, her companion, the father of their daughter. Layla. Her little star. Four years old come May, the apple of her father’s eye. Their beautiful, dark-haired daughter, whom Max adored. When Annie looked into Layla’s face she saw herself there. Her own dark green eyes, not Max’s steely blue ones. Her own straight nose and full lips, and even her own cocoa-brown hair; not Max’s which was black.

Annie had loved Layla obsessively since the moment the Majorcan midwife had laid her, newborn, in her arms. Born out of wedlock, of course, and that had bothered Annie, but only for Layla’s sake.

At that time Max was still married to Ruthie, Annie’s sister, although that marriage had been a non-starter. Mostly Annie’s fault, of course, and she knew it. So she hadn’t complained. But Max had done a wonderful thing for her. He had tracked Ruthie down, got the divorce quickly, and married Annie.

She would never forget it. All right, it had been a quiet affair: no fuss, no bother. But the sentiment of the day, the sheer love she had seen shining in Max’s eyes as he placed the wedding ring on her finger, was all that she needed.

It was incredible to think how much time had passed since they’d left England’s shores. They’d been here ever since, in this beautiful private place. The days had passed in a happy haze. Dinner at little restaurants in the hills. Visits to Valldemossa to see the monastery up in the silent, blue-hazed mountains. Trips in to Palma to marvel at the cathedral and saunter along the little alleyways and spend too much in the shops and eat lunch on the quay.

They hadn’t intended to stay, but stay they had. Annie didn’t miss London’s grey skies: even in February, as now, the sun shone in Majorca; and Max showed no inclination to get back either.

Soon they would have to think about schooling for Layla, but not yet.

Jonjo visited now and again to let Max know what was happening with the family firm, and Max seemed content with that. Apart from Jonjo—and of course the blondes—no one disturbed them.

A middle-aged Majorcan couple occupied a little villa up by the gate and tended to their needs. Inez cleaned and cooked, Rufio saw to the pool and the maintenance of the finca and took a machete to the date palms every spring to cut their old leaves away and make them look pristine.

All was peace and tranquillity.

But when Jonjo visited, things were different. Then there was tension. On summer nights humming with the song of the cicadas, Jonjo and Max sat out late into the night on the terrace. Tiny lizards clung to the walls above the terrace lights. The air was warm and dense from the heat of the day. They discussed family business, drank San Miguel and smoked cigars, and women were not welcome. Max became cooler, harder. Jonjo whispered in his ear and Max listened. Sometimes his eyes would stray to Annie while he listened to what Jonjo had to say. Annie understood—or she tried to—but some of the blondes rebelled.

Jeanette was the latest blonde. It was cooler now, February, so in the evenings the two men occupied the sitting room instead of the terrace, and talked into the small hours.

‘He could be in bed with me; why sit up half the night talking?’ Jeanette complained to Annie one morning. ‘We’re here for a nice holiday, and half the time he fucking well ignores me.’

Annie hoped Jeanette didn’t share that thought with Jonjo, but by lunchtime next day it was obvious the silly bint had. Jeanette was sporting an angry-looking bruise on her right cheekbone, and her expression was sulky.

Jonjo and his blondes, thought Annie with distaste. Annie wore a discreet black swimsuit on the days when it was warm enough to lounge by the pool, but Jeanette seemed intent on going completely nude if she could. Anything to catch Jonjo’s attention.

Annie glanced over at Jeanette, 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 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.