Black Widow (32 page)

Phil was getting impatient.

He had dashed out looking along the hallway, but he hadn’t been quick enough; it was empty. The girl had gone. He checked the lounge, kicking over furniture. She was small, she could hide away, tuck herself into some little corner and he would
never
find her. But he had to find her. It was a quarter to twelve, he had to make the call in fifteen minutes, sort out the drop for the money; he had to keep his mind on that, and he had to find the bloody kid.

He looked upstairs, throwing open wardrobe doors, looking under beds, everywhere.

He couldn’t find her.

Fuck it.

‘Layla!’ he bellowed.

No answer.

Only silence, and this time the silence wasn’t
comforting. It was unnerving. Because he had to get this sorted, and quick. He glanced anxiously at his watch. Ten minutes to go and he had to call the Carter woman, get the money in place.

He went back down the stairs,
ran
, slipping and sliding, wondering where the hell she could be hiding. The outer doors were locked and they were too high for a kid not quite four years old to reach. She was still in here, somewhere.

It was then that he saw the cellar door was slightly ajar.

Smiling, he walked towards it.

He nudged the door open with his foot. The light at the top of the cellar steps was on. Low enough for her to reach, she’d fled down into the cellar, but the dark had spooked her and she’d put the light on and given the game away. She was down there.

‘Oh, Layla!’ he called, making his voice as friendly as he could. ‘Come on sweetie.’ Then he had a thought. Layla loved chocolate. ‘Come on darlin’, got some chocolate for you. It’s okay, the nasty people are gone now. Come and have some of this chocolate, okay?’

He waited.

‘Or else I’ll just have to eat it myself,’ Phil elaborated, walking softly down the steps. ‘Layla?’

His eyes searched the gloom down there. The place was whitewashed and full of the usual
household junk. The air smelled damp, fetid. A whiff of rat urine caught his nostrils and he winced.
Shit.
He hated rats.

‘Come on, Layla, come and get the chocolate,’ he cooed.

And Layla stepped out of the shadows and looked at him as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He smiled.

Then a voice behind him said: ‘Don’t move, arsehole,’ and the smile froze on his lips.

‘You’d better put that fucking gun down. Right now,’ said the voice behind Phil.

It was over, then. Fuck it. Phil thought of all they had gone through to get this far. All that time, trouble, and planning. Snatching the girl, kicking the mob boss off down the mountainside, shooting the brother right there by the pool, and then the hiding, the sneaking around and trying to keep it all under wraps while he’d been closeted with those two fruit-loop Byrnes. But now they were gone, and he was in charge and he had thought, he had really
believed
, that he could hack this. Polish off the kid, make the call, collect the money, and vamoose. But now there was someone behind him on the stairs, trying to put a stop to all that, and he wouldn’t finish what they had begun in Majorca.

Phil just hated not to finish a thing once he’d started.

He’d always been the same. Liked things done
right.
Done
just so.
His dad had always said to him: ‘Son, you start a job, you finish it.’

He would have finished this one a rich man.

Maybe he still could.

Looking down into the cellar, he could see that Layla had scooted off into the darker shadows again. Bloody kid, nothing but trouble. But he’d sort her out later. First…

He turned on the steps, as fast as he could. Fast as one of those gunslingers in those old Westerns his dad had loved to watch on the telly. But his dad had been a loser, and Phil was a winner. He saw the figure standing above him, outlined against the light at the top of the stairs, a clear target. Pale hair, a flowery shirt, flared cords. He took aim at the torso and fired. Up in the house somewhere, a woman screamed.

Constantine was out on the road near the house, three meaty henchmen at his side. He didn’t look pleased to see Annie.

‘What the fuck you doing here?’ he asked her, as she and her mates swarmed out of the Jag.

He didn’t
sound
very pleased, either. But fuck him. Layla was her daughter. She couldn’t just stay away and do nothing.

‘I’ve come for Layla,’ said Annie.

‘I think you should go home,’ said Constantine.

‘And
I
think you should forget it,’ said Annie.

‘I don’t want you messing this up.’

‘Look, if anyone’s going to mess this up it’s you, standing here having a fucking debate when my little girl’s in there with those bastards.’

‘Mrs Carter…’

‘No. Don’t even think about it. I’m staying put.’

Constantine looked at Annie, then at Dolly
standing there, all bubble-perm blonde and neatly suited, as much use on a day like this as a French poodle—but standing there anyway, obstinately, at Annie Carter’s shoulder. He looked at Aretha looming behind her, her face black thunder. Tony was standing at the back of the group, like a brick wall.

‘Where’s Darren got to?’ Dolly was looking around. ‘And where the fuck’s Ellie?’

‘I don’t think—’ Constantine started.

That was when they heard the shots, and a woman screaming.

‘Jesus,’
said Annie, her face draining of colour.

‘Gene, Michael, round the back,’ said Constantine quickly, and two of the heavies shot off like well-trained attack hounds.

Annie stood there, frozen with fear for her little girl, swamped by dread but unable to act, terrified of what even moving could bring.

Dolly put an arm around her shoulders. Tried to give her comfort. Annie shrugged her off. She was totally strung out, all her attention focused on this remote, neglected house and what could be happening to Layla inside there
right now.

Constantine and the other heavy ran up the path and the man crashed his shoulder into the door. It gave instantly, and he piled into the hallway, Constantine right behind him. Annie somehow got her legs moving and followed with Dolly.

The first thing they saw was Ellie cringing against the wall at the top of the cellar steps, and the cellar door standing wide open.

Tears were flooding down her face.

She looked at the men and then her eyes fastened on Annie.

‘We went round the back. Darren got through the open window over the sink,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s so skinny, you know how skinny he is, and he opened the door round there for me, and he heard the man down in the cellar talking to Layla, and he went down there and saw the gun in that man’s hand and he just bluffed him, just said, put the gun down…’ Her voice tailed off as she sobbed harder.

They didn’t need to ask her to elaborate further. The man had shot Darren. Annie, Aretha, and Dolly stood there open-mouthed, aghast with horror.

‘I saw her down there. I saw the little girl, I saw Layla,’ Ellie cried.

One of the men barrelled past Ellie, who was being pulled into Dolly’s comforting arms, and aimed a gun down the cellar steps. Annie surged forward, but Constantine held her back. The kitchen door was open and Annie stared at the bloodied corpses on the floor beside the sink.

One male, one female.

Jeanette’s brother and sister, she guessed.

The one down in the cellar killed his partners in crime. He’d shot Darren, and God knew how badly he was hurt. Thwarted, he might now shoot Layla. Perhaps he had hold of her right now. Perhaps, right this instant, he was putting the muzzle of the gun to her head.

Annie shuddered.

The fact that he was trapped would make him even more dangerous and desperate. He knew the game was up, that there would be no payout, no good ending to this mad scheme. And, knowing that, he might decide what the hell? That he would thwart Annie Carter anyway, pay her back for breaking the rules, for having the temerity to come looking when they had told her no. He might even now kill Layla, out of spite.

Constantine’s henchman was looking down the cellar steps. He looked briefly back at Constantine, held up one finger, then passed the finger across his throat.

One down.

Darren
, thought Annie painfully. Poor brave bloody stupid Darren.

Then Constantine’s man was gone, moving fast down the cellar steps. Another shot rang out, a ricochet, and a shout.

Oh Jesus
, thought Annie.
Not Layla. Please, not Layla.

Constantine’s other boy was now at the top of the stairs, peering around the edge of the wall, very cautious. Shooters were being used; he was right to be bloody cautious. As Constantine and the women watched, he started off down the cellar steps.

‘Take Ellie in there,’ Annie hissed to Dolly, and Dolly nodded grimly and led the devastated girl into a shabby old lounge.

Annie exchanged a tense glance with Aretha. ‘Go with them,’ she said.

‘No, girl’

‘Yes
, Aretha,’ said Annie firmly. ‘I’ve got one friend down there who could be dead already, I don’t want to have to worry about you too.’

Aretha reluctantly nodded and went into the lounge with Dolly and Ellie, pulling the door closed behind them.

Tony stood there at Annie’s side. He looked at Constantine.

‘What you want me to do?’ he asked.

Fuck it, shouldn’t he be asking me that?
thought Annie angrily. She was the boss, not Constantine. It was
her
daughter these freaks had got hold of.

‘Watch that she stays safe,’ said Constantine, indicating Annie. He threw his coat aside, pulled out a pistol, and started to head towards the cellar steps.

Annie felt a new thrill of fear.

Not for her daughter.

Not for Darren.

Not for herself.

For
Constantine.
Because he was actually going to do it. He was going to lay his life on the line for her and for Layla.

‘No, don’t go down there,’ she said.

Constantine stopped moving. He looked at her. Leaned in close, just for a fleeting moment. Kissed her lips.

Panic gripped her. She’d already lost Max. She could still lose Layla. She was shocked to find that she didn’t want to lose Constantine, too.

What the hell is going on here?
she wondered wildly.

He went over to the cellar door, and vanished down the steps.

‘I’m going too,’ said Annie, starting forward.

‘No, Boss. No way,’ said Tony, blocking her progress.

‘Then you go. Go and help him, for God’s sake!’ Frantic, Annie drew out Max’s revolver. His faithful old Smith & Wesson. ‘It’s a hair trigger, Tone. Be careful.’ She handed him the gun.

Tony weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. ‘You stay up here, okay, Boss? You stay up here where it’s safe. We don’t need too many down there, you got me?’

In other words, you’re a woman, and a woman has no place in a situation like this.

It rankled with Annie, but she knew it made sense. ‘I’ll stay here,’ she promised.

Tony gave her a cheery grin. ‘We’ll get Layla back, Boss. Don’t you worry.’

And Tony too vanished into the cellar’s maw, and she wondered if she was going to see any of them again.

Suddenly she was alone in the hallway. The cellar was quiet. She hugged herself hard and screwed her eyes tight shut. Horrible images crowded into her brain, of Layla scared, hurt, and alone. If ever there was a time when she had to dig deep, it was now.

She opened her eyes and they fastened on the nightmare just visible through the half-open kitchen door.

Two people, brother and sister, lying dead in a pool of blood.

She knew their names now. Vita and Danny Byrne.

She thought with vicious hatred of Jeanette, their sister, once Jonjo’s bit of fluff and now the mistress of that traitorous bastard Jimmy Bond. Jeanette, with her motor mouth and her silly prancing ways: she had fooled them all. She had been the viper in the Carter nest, the insider, ready to turn against her hosts at a moment’s notice, the greedy, treacherous cow. Annie promised herself that she wasn’t even
started
with Jeanette and Jimmy yet, not by a long shot.

She froze as she saw the back door start to swing inward and she held her breath when she saw who was standing there.

‘Vee? Dan?’ Una called softly.

Una.
Una really was in on it too.

Annie felt sick and dizzy with rage.

Una had watched her suffer, had enjoyed her suffering. All that smirking and stalking about the place, and all the time she had
known;
the bitch had known that Layla was being held hostage by her brother and sister. The whole Byrne family were due to profit from Annie and Layla’s misery and distress, and from Max’s and Jonjo’s untimely deaths.

Bastards!

Una paused in the doorway, looking left and right. Her eyes fell upon the two bodies and her
mouth dropped open. She fell to her knees beside them, muttering
no no no
, checking for pulses, her movements jerky with shock and horror.

Waste of fucking time.

Annie felt a shudder of grim satisfaction as she watched Una’s frantic efforts to rouse her siblings.

No pulses there, not a hint of a breath.

Her brother and sister were dead.

Good riddance to bad rubbish
, thought Annie.

For Una, reality sank in slowly. There were even a few tears squeezed out by that cold, hard, hateful bitch. Annie saw them fall on to the broken bodies lying there, heard the guttural sounds of grief emanating from her.

She had made those noises too. She recognized them. They were old friends, those noises of pain and anguish and unbearable loss. Her husband had died. Her daughter had been snatched and subjected to mutilation and incarceration and maybe even worse, how the hell would she know?

So Annie felt no sympathy for Una. None whatsoever. She stood there like a stone, watching as Una realized that her loved ones were gone. Then the blonde Amazon half turned towards the open hall door, and her eyes met Annie’s.

Annie was smiling.

With maniacal speed, Una came screeching down the corridor towards her.