Black Widow (25 page)

When they busted in on Talitha in her cheap, tatty flat, the waitress was alone and terrified, pleading her innocence.

‘I don’t know anything about any men or a woman with a kid. How the hell would I know that? I just wait on tables, that’s all.’

‘A tall thin blond man and a big-busted, blonde woman. The other one has dark hair—he’s big, powerfully built. All English and English-speaking. No?’

Talitha looked up at the huge men gathered around her as she lay cringing on the bed. Huge men with guns, knives, pick handles. Christ, if she knew
anything
, she’d tell them. She shook her head violently.

‘You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know anything about these people.’

They believed her.

They knocked her around a little, but she was scared already, scared enough to talk, and she said nothing more that was of any help except that she had a boyfriend who was a fisherman, his father owned a boat called the
Fiebre
, but he would never do anything like this; would never have anything to do with people who had kidnapped a child.

Which wasn’t much help, really. So—maybe a dead end.

They left Talitha there, bruised and sobbing.

They went down to the harbour and started talking to the sailors, the fishermen, just hanging around shooting the breeze, buying some
pescado
, chatting, being friendly but also saying,
do you know anything about this?
Three people—two men and a woman. Plus a child.

It took just a week, and it turned out that Talitha’s boyfriend was in the frame. The
Fiebre
was owned by a father and son who fished the waters around the island. The
Fiebre
had gone out late at night about a week ago, not at the usual time but an hour later—the fishermen had noticed this. Three people had got on board: yes, two men and a girl. One tall thin blond man, one with dark hair, stocky, powerful. A pretty blonde woman. The
Fiebre
had not come back until three days later.

And the child? There must have been a child?

The fishermen stood around and shook their grizzled heads in unison.

‘No. No child,’ said one with a swift shake of the head, and his words were instantly translated into English. The one in charge looked at the little man, at his sun-weathered skin and crinkled brown eyes, and in an instant the air of camaraderie was gone. He moved in close to the small fisherman and spoke low, his eyes cold.

‘My friend, think hard. A child.
Think.’

The fisherman gulped. His friends all shuffled uneasily, wondering if there was going to be bad trouble now, whether they should intervene, and thinking probably not. It didn’t look safe with these men. One moment, they had been so friendly. Now, the pretence was gone. They looked like killers.

‘I…I can’t think,’ mumbled the fisherman, his eyes suddenly wild, wishing to placate, to help, if only to save himself from violence.

‘We can help with that,’ said one of the men, the one who was translating from Spanish to English. His eyes skewered the little fisherman. ‘We got things we can do, help you concentrate.’

‘I told you, I can’t think of anything else,’ said the fisherman desperately. ‘I didn’t see no child.’

‘Not good enough, my friend,’ said the one in charge regretfully. ‘Nowhere
near
good enough.’ He stepped in even closer to the cringing little man.

‘The dark-haired one was carrying a big bag,’ said one of his friends hurriedly.

The one in charge stopped moving.
The bag again
, he thought.

‘How big?’ he asked. He spread his arms. ‘So big? This big?’

The man who had spoken nodded.
‘Very
big,
si
, like that.’

The one in charge looked around at his men.

‘Big enough to hold a small child,’ he said.

They nodded. This bore out what Marietta had told them.

‘And the
Fiebre’s
coming back when?’ asked the one in charge.

‘Tonight,’ said the fisherman, and his friends all agreed,
si
, tonight, with a palpable air of relief, of disaster closely averted.

‘Hey, that’s good.’ The one in charge was smiling. Suddenly he was the big genial bear of a man again, everyone’s friend.

He paid the fishermen handsomely and bought them many glasses of
hierbas secas
, the island’s herb and aniseed liqueur, and
sangría
, in one of the bars. Then he and his men settled down by the quay to wait for the
Fiebre’s
return.

She came in on the morning tide, a medium-sized fishing vessel looking the worse for wear, but serviceable. Big winches on the back, nets in a mess on the deck, one younger man jumping on to the dock to tie her up, the older one steering her in.

‘Hey, we got us a result,’ said one of the waiting men, straightening, flexing his stiffened limbs as the
Fiebre
approached. His colleagues followed.

They grabbed the small lithe young one as soon as the boat was secured, but the older one surprised them—this was his son, after all—when he saw what was happening and put the engines hard astern. The engines screamed in protest as the vessel tried to drag half the dock away with her. Two of the men jumped quickly on board.

‘Hey, stop fooling around. Switch it off,’ said one of the men, and it was translated. The older fisherman ignored this, so one of the men gave him a warning cuff around the face.

‘We
said
, turn it
off.’

The grey old fisherman was cupping his lined and now bruised face in his hands. He took another look at them and switched it off.

The men bundled the youngster back on board. Both fishermen were dark-skinned and small by European standards, as most of the islanders were. They threw the youngster into the wheelhouse along with his father and advanced on the pair of them. The pair started shouting and screaming.

‘Shut up!’
yelled the one in charge. He drew his hand out of his pocket and suddenly he was pointing a gun at the older one’s head. The older one looked at it as if his eyes were going to pop straight out on stalks.

The fishermen fell silent.

‘Ask them,’ he said to the man who stood beside him.

The man asked them in Castilian Spanish if they had just shipped two men and a woman and a large holdall over to England.

No, they said, shaking their heads.

The one in charge whacked the older fisherman hard around the head with the pistol. He fell back against the wheel, and the younger one surged forward.

‘Don’t be silly,’ advised the one in charge, swinging the gun in his direction. The young one stepped back.

‘Ask them again,’ said the one in charge, and stepped coolly forward and kneed the youngster in the groin. He collapsed, groaning and retching, to the wheelhouse floor. ‘And tell them no more games.’

The other man asked them.

They said nothing, absorbed in their various ills.

The one in charge stepped forward and raised the gun and hit the younger one in the nose, shattering it. Blood flew, spattering the wheelhouse floor. Then he stepped forcefully on the older one’s balls.

The older one yelped and then started talking. He was told to empty his pockets, and this he did.

‘Lots
of pesetas,’ said the leader of the men, looking around at his companions with a grin.

‘Hey, if I knew fishing paid this well, I’d get me a boat too, wouldn’t you?’

They nodded agreement.

‘So what’s he saying?’

‘He’s saying his balls hurt.’

‘That’s too bad. But at least he’s still
got
balls: that’s a plus. Tell him that.’

The message was relayed. The older fisherman looked sick with terror.

‘Now, did he take these people to England? Ask him. And tell him that he’d better not try anything fancy. We want the truth. We don’t want to cut off his family jewels, but we will if we have to. Tell him.’

The translator relayed all this. The fisherman looked sicker all the time. Then he started talking, very quickly.

The translator grinned, looked at the one in charge, and nodded.

‘Jesus Christ, Kath, look at the state of you,’ said Annie when Kath opened the door to her.

Kath had sprouted more bruises. Her jaw was yellow, and there were finger-sized black bruises on the forearm that was holding the yelling baby against the front of her grubby, overstretched T-shirt.

‘I don’t want you round here,’ said Kath, and her eyes darted left and right as if Jimmy might somehow be watching, and taking note.

‘Tough. I’m here,’ said Annie, and pushed on into the hallway. Jimmy Junior ran up to her, smiling, remembering the chocolates. ‘Hiya, Tiger,’ she said, and bent and tickled him. He laughed in delight. Annie thought of Layla, and her guts clenched in pain.

She straightened and turned to Kath as Jimmy Junior ran into the kitchen.

‘What happened to your face? And your arm?’ she asked.

Kath kicked the door closed and brushed past Annie. ‘I tripped on the stairs,’ she said, not looking Annie in the eye.

‘Again? Okay. Right,’ said Annie with a sigh. ‘Ellie says you’ve sacked her.’

Annie followed Kath’s wide beam into the kitchen and looked around. Slightly better this time, thanks to Ellie. But it was hardly the Ideal sodding Home Exhibition. The sink was still full of crocks, for a start. And the floor needed mopping. Kath sat down at the kitchen table and fastened the baby on to the teat. Then she glared at Annie.

‘I didn’t ask you to send people snooping around here,’ she said. Her chin wobbled. ‘You got me in bother with Jimmy.’

Annie shrugged off her coat, went over to the sink and squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl, then ran some water. But it was stone cold.

‘The immersion’s not on,’ said Kath.

‘So how’d you wash the kids today? Not in cold water?’ Annie went over to the door Kath indicated, and flicked the switch down. Then she filled the kettle and stuck it on the stove to heat up.

‘Haven’t got around to much yet,’ said Kath.

Annie felt a stab of anger at her cousin. It was nearly two o’clock in the afternoon, and the kids hadn’t even been washed yet. Here was Kath—and
oh yes, Annie could see the poor cow was up against it, what with losing her mother and being married to that prize prick Jimmy Bond—but here she was with two beautiful kids, and she wasn’t even looking after them properly.

If I had Layla right now, I’d be treating her like a princess
, she thought miserably. When she had first held Layla, bloody and squawling after her birth, she had known the meaning of complete and utter love. Oh, she had loved Max. She had loved him with a passion that had never ceased to surprise her. But Layla had come from her, was a
part
of her. When she was separated from Layla, she ached to be with her. When Layla suffered, she suffered too.

She was suffering now.

And Kath was here, with her two wonderful children, neglecting them.

All right, she could understand that Kath felt depressed. Christ, she certainly wasn’t having a ball being married to Jimmy. And she’d been so closely connected to her mother that Maureen’s death had come as a horrible blow to her.

But still, she had her kids. And wasn’t that worth making the effort for?

Annie certainly thought it was.

The kettle whistled and she turned off the gas and poured the hot water into the bowl. She found rubber gloves under the sink and started on the washing-up.

‘Christ, Annie Carter the domestic type,’ sneered Kath, watching as Jimmy Junior picked up the tea towel and held his hands up to Annie. She handed him down a saucer, and he started to dry it with enthusiasm, his brow knitted in concentration.

Lovely kid
, thought Annie. Jimmy Junior! She was sure it was Jimmy’s idea to call his son by his own name, the bigheaded bastard. Didn’t Kath deserve a say?

Angrily, Annie plunged her hands into the sink and cut a swathe through the washing-up. It helped to do something constructive, even if it was only a small thing. It helped her rage at Billy’s death, helped her grief, helped her confusion.

She’d shut the clubs, when according to the books they were good paying concerns. She’d lost people their jobs, their livelihoods. Wrong.

She’d made such a bloody hash of everything, she knew that.

She had heard that stupid noise on the phone and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Half hysterical with distress, beyond reason, she had pinned all her suspicions—which had been totally wrong—on Kieron Delaney.

She’d moved in on Charlie and incurred Redmond’s wrath—
so
wrong.

And now Billy was dead.

Full house.

And what had she got right in this whole sorry
mess? Nothing, yet. But she had to keep at it. There was nothing else she could do. She knew she’d grown soft and slack, had come to rely on Max too much. Now, somehow, she had to conquer her doubts, get a grip on herself, and be self-reliant again, the way she used to be.

It was going to be hard, and she knew it.

If you were up against it, you had to take responsibility, make decisions.

Sometimes, they were the wrong ones.

Oh, and how she knew that.

But you had to keep going. Keep your eye on the goal.

Jimmy Junior was tugging at her dress and she was staring out of the window, sudsy water dripping from her hands.
Away with the fairies again.

She passed him down a sandwich plate. Kath was talking.

‘What?’ Annie asked.

‘Jimmy told me Billy Black got hit,’ said Kath.

Annie felt the stem of a glass snap in her hand. There was sharp pain and then blood spurted.

‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Got any plasters, Kath?’

Kath nodded towards one of the kitchen cabinets. Annie held the tea towel around the cut on her finger and scrabbled about with the packet of plasters. She got one out, stuck it over the cut.

‘You all right?’ asked Kath as Annie sat down at the kitchen table.

Annie looked at her in surprise. Kath was watching her nervously, as though she might flip at any moment.

‘Yeah,’ said Annie on a sigh. ‘I’m fine, Kath.’

There was a brief silence, broken only by the baby’s noisy suckling.

‘It’s rotten, losing someone,’ said Kath, her eyes on the baby’s head as she stroked the downy hair.

‘Yeah,’ said Annie. Jimmy Junior ran over to her and gave her the dried plate with a big beaming smile on his face. ‘Thanks, Tiger. That’s nice.’ She looked at Kath. ‘You must miss your mum something awful.’

‘Yeah.’ Kath didn’t look up but a fat tear rolled down her cheek and plopped on to the baby’s head.

‘It gets easier,’ said Annie. ‘Don’t it?’

Christ, I really hope it gets easier
, she thought.

Kath looked up. ‘S’pose so,’ she sniffed. ‘Look, no offence. But I don’t want you coming round here any more, and I don’t want that bloody Ellie here either, poking around. Jimmy don’t like it.’

‘Okay, Kath. I understand,’ she said. She stood up and put her coat on. No point staying where she wasn’t wanted. Best to get on, do what she had to do. She was halfway out the hall door when Kath said: ‘I’m sorry you lost Billy. On top of everything else.’

Annie paused and looked back at her cousin. Kath looked awkward.

‘And I’m sorry about this business with Layla,’ said Kath haltingly. ‘Jimmy told me someone’s snatched her. I’m sorry.’

Annie stood there, thinking that Jimmy had obviously been mouthing off more than he should have been, but
also
thinking, miracles would never cease. Kath was being almost nice to her.

‘Thanks, Kath,’ she said, and she went on out through the front door, closing it softly behind her.

Tony was waiting in the car. Reading the paper again. Jesus, Tony read a
lot
of papers. Annie sneaked a quick peek. The Israelis and Syrians were fighting again.

Thank God for Tony
, thought Annie.

‘Where to, Mrs Carter?’ he asked as she got in the back.

Annie braced herself. She’d had an idea, maybe a stupid one, but what did she have to lose now?

‘Constantine Barolli’s place,’ she said.