Scarlet Women. Jessie Keane
had extended her business to include a small escort agency, Aretha had been right up the front of the queue for more work.
Oh, Aretha had loved money.
Through all this, despite his own unhappiness with the situation, Chris had supported Aretha’s choices. He’d known his woman since way before he’d ever married her. To him, Aretha had been exotic, exciting, beloved. Annie guessed he’d closed his mind to the rest of it. Made sure as far as he could that she kept herself safe. Waited for her in a parked car on rainy London nights. Didn’t want her on the bus or the Tube that late. Waited for her. Supported her. Loved her in the best way he knew how.
And now they were supposed to believe that he’d killed her?
‘They’ve got it wrong,’ said Annie, laying a hand flat on the table in absolute denial of this shit they were trying to stick on to Chris. ‘Chris did not kill Aretha.’
Dolly was silent.
‘Doll?’ asked Annie after a beat or two.
Dolly shrugged. ‘Yeah, but from what you told me they’ve got real evidence. Real evidence. That thing, that…’
‘The cheese wire,’ said Annie with a shudder. The garrotte.
‘Yeah, that. But…well, you said it had Chris’s blood on it. And his hands were cut.’
‘From where he tried to get it off her,’ said Annie.
‘Yeah, but is that how it really happened?’ Dolly frowned at her. She looked awkward. ‘Is that really it? Or…’
‘Or what, Doll?’ Annie looked at her.
‘Or—God, I hate to say this—did he get the cuts when he did the deed, you know? Did he get those cuts on his hands, cut himself, when he…when he strangled her with that thing?’
Annie was silent for long moments. Then she said: ‘You don’t believe that.’
Dolly swigged back the last of her brandy, slapped the glass back on to the table between them as if laying down a challenge.
‘Fact is, I don’t know what to believe,’ she said, shaking her head wearily. ‘But if the evidence is there…’
‘Well I do,’ said Annie firmly. ‘I believe that Chris loved Aretha. I believe that he injured himself trying to get the garrotte off her neck. And I believe that unless we help him out here, the plod are going to fit him up with this and with the murders of those other two poor bitches that were topped. He’ll be sent down for Christ knows how long, Doll, and I can’t let that happen.’
‘Yeah, fine words,’ sniffed Dolly. She poured herself another stiffener, held the bottle aloft to Annie. Annie shook her head. ‘But what can you actually do? Supposing he didn’t do it, and you know what? I think he probably did. Once the Bill think they’ve got the right man, do you really think you’re going to change their minds?’
Annie stared at the table, thinking hard with shock and disgust. How could Dolly believe Chris had done the deed? But she was right, up to a point. Convincing the police—particularly that cynical bastard Hunter—of Chris’s innocence would be an impossible task. She knew it. But didn’t they at least have to try?
‘The Bill must have informed Aretha’s Aunt Louella by now,’ said Annie.
Dolly nodded grimly. She’d given them Louella’s full name and address, the poor cow. Louella was Aretha’s only relative in England so far as they knew. Aretha had been sent to her Aunt’s to stay, by her parents in Rhodesia. Louella was childless herself and poor—she was a cleaner at the local hospital—but Aretha’s parents, who scratched a meagre living in a squalid township, were destitute. They had no doubt sent their precious daughter to foreign shores with a heavy heart, but with the sincere hope that she could make a better life than the one they had.
And now look.
Annie remembered sitting right here with Aretha, and Aretha telling her the tale of how she became a brass. The London of the Swinging Sixties had seemed like paradise to the teenage Aretha, and she had joined in a life where everything seemed possible: a golden future, no more hunger, plenty of money, free love—the Pill was a miracle!—and fun.
Her happy pursuit of fun had soon convinced her that all the fun she was having with boyfriends could be turned into a good living. So she started to charge for fun. She had no qualms about that. Her impoverished background had taught her that you got money wherever you could, by whatever means you could—who gave a damn how?
Soon Aretha was coining it. Aunt Louella, who was a fierce Christian, found out about it and was furious. They argued, Aretha left and moved in with Annie’s aunt Celia, who ran a quiet and orderly establishment in Limehouse before Annie and then Dolly took over the reins. And the rest was history. Aretha had settled right in as the house’s resident dominatrix, its biggest earner.
But now look, just look.
Aretha lay in the morgue. Her husband was being held and probably being charged right now for her murder. It was an unholy mess.
Dolly looked sick about all this. ‘That poor woman’s got a world of grief to get through. They were still quite close, you know. Even though she disapproved of what Aretha did, she made a point of never losing touch with her. Maybe thought one day she’d bring her back into the fold. Very religious lady, Louella.’
Annie nodded. She knew that Louella lived on the Carter patch, her patch. Max would have paid a call, sent flowers, helped out the bereaved in any way he could. When you ran an area, when you owned an area, there was a certain etiquette to be observed, certain dues that always had to be paid. Even Redmond Delaney, who owned these Limehouse streets and the streets of Battersea, even he would understand that. And now that Annie was in charge of the Carter manor in Bow, she was determined to fulfil her obligations too.
‘Give me her address, Doll. I’ll go and see her.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ said Dolly, and stood up and went to the drawer where she kept her books.
‘And I want to know who Aretha was with last night. And where.’
Dolly’s expression was irritable.
‘You’re like a dog with a fucking bone, Annie Carter,’ she grumbled, coming back to the table with books, paper and pen. ‘I wish you’d drop it. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. You ought to leave it to the brief. That’s my advice.’
Ross, the young heavy on front of house, knocked at the kitchen door. He poked his head around it and looked disapprovingly at Annie.
‘Tony says a guy just handed him this,’ he said, holding out a scrap of paper.
Annie looked surprised and then suspicious. It was late. Who would want to contact her here, tonight? Who would even know she’d be here?
She stood up and took it. ‘Thanks, Ross.’
She sat back down at the table and spread out the piece of paper. Looked at it. Numbers.
‘Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar,’ she murmured.
‘What is it?’ asked Dolly, craning forward.
Annie sat back, shaking her head, her mouth twisted in a bitter smile.
Dolly looked at her. ‘Come on! What is it?’ She peered interestedly at the note. ‘Numbers? Haven’t you had some of these before? There was a name for them, I remember. Pizza somethings.’
‘Pizzino,’ said Annie.
‘That’s the feller. Oh!’ Dolly’s eyes widened. ‘It’s from that Mafia bloke. Barolli. Well, come the fuck on, what’s it say?’
‘What’s it say?’ Annie stared back at her in outrage. ‘Look, Doll, mind