He was nodding too. With a shudder his eyes went back to the tiny dead thing in the pot. ‘I’ll see you all right,’ he said.
Before he’d taken her to that ugly cow in Aldgate, Dolly would have believed that.
Now, she didn’t.
23
London, June 1994
‘Fuck, it’s you,’ said the man.
Annie turned. It was the day after she’d got to Ellie’s. She’d overslept so she had a quick bath, dressed, skipped breakfast, said hello to Chris, Ellie’s husband, who was sitting at the kitchen table and who grunted a reply. She braced herself and took a cab over to the Palermo Lounge to see what was happening there.
Answer? Not much. The big double red doors were closed, the neon sign was switched off, there were police tapes strung up and a beat copper was standing there, staring impassively into the middle distance. And now this other man had arrived, one she recognized. He was about six-three, with straight dark hair and dark hard eyes that endlessly scanned everything around him. He was formally dressed in a black suit, white shirt and tie. His downturned solemn trap of a mouth didn’t lift in a smile.
‘Oh! DCI Hunter,’ she said vaguely, and went back to staring at the front of the building.
He stood there with her, silent for a moment. Then he said: ‘I thought you might show up. A bit of a shock, yes? You knew her well.’
‘I’ve known her for years,’ said Annie, and she had, since way back in Limehouse when Auntie Celia had held sway over the best whorehouse in the district and Dolly had been the brassiest of the brasses who worked there. Dolly had come a long, long way since then. They all had. And to see it end like this was damned near unbearable.
‘And how is Mr Carter?’ asked DCI Hunter.
Annie’s face was set as she turned her head and started at him. Years, the Bill had been trying to pin stuff on Max. But he was always too sharp for them. Too sharp for her, too. She wondered what he was up to right now, and again her mind filled with images of tangled limbs, hot and heavy sex, some anonymous younger woman greedily, eagerly, taking her place. Quickly, she dragged her mind away from that. There was nothing she could do about it.
There’s nothing you can do about this, either, said a voice in her head.
But she couldn’t, wouldn’t ever, believe that. She’d come back to find out what had happened here. And she meant to do that.
‘You got any leads on this?’ she asked him.
He gave a tight little smile. ‘None that I am inclined to share with you.’
Annie shrugged. She’d find out anyway. From way back, before the Carter gang became almost legit, running not only the three London clubs but also a lucrative security firm whose territory encompassed a hefty chunk of central London and deep into Essex, they’d had tame coppers tucked away in the Met, people who were on their payroll and kept them up to speed with whatever was going down.
‘She was shot, I was told,’ said Annie.
‘If you know anything else about this, you should tell me,’ he replied, neither confirming nor denying it.
‘How the hell would I know anything? I’ve been abroad.’
‘Disgruntled customer? Lover?’
‘Dolly didn’t have lovers.’
‘She was never married?’
Annie pursed her lips. She felt she was giving away more than she wanted to, but perhaps he could help. Perhaps he could even nail the lowlife who’d done this. ‘Dolly didn’t care for men much,’ she said.
‘Women then?’
‘Dolly? Nah. Dolly was no lezzie. Dolly was…’
Had been…
Self-sufficient best summed it up, Annie supposed. Some people might say she had a cold core, but that wasn’t the case. Once you were in with Dolly, you were in for life and she’d do anything for you. But… no lovers, male or female. She liked cats, Annie knew that. But not kids. She could vividly remember one of the girls’ sisters bringing in a tiny baby to the Limehouse knocking shop, and all the girls cooing over the infant – but not Dolly. Never Dolly. She didn’t want to hold the child and she seemed uninterested in it. If anything, she seemed relieved when the girl left and took the kid with her.
‘Friends?’ asked Hunter.
‘She had friends all right. Close friends. Ellie at the Shalimar. And me.’
‘Relatives?’
Annie squinted at him through the rain. It was coming down harder, sticking her hair to her head. Jesus, she hated the rain. All at once she had an urge to run back to the airport and get on a plane, escape to her carefree sunlit life, to Max.
‘How should I know?’ she asked. She didn’t know a damned thing about Dolly pre-Celia, and that had been the sixties. Dolly had never spoken about brothers or sisters, or her mother and father.
‘What, you’ve known this woman for a long time, been friends with her-’
‘Best friends.’
‘And you don’t know whether she has any relatives? Don’t that strike you as strange?’
Annie took a moment, considering this. ‘Sometimes you know when a person don’t want to talk about something. They don’t have to tell you, you just know. Dolly didn’t want to discuss her past. And I never dug around in it because I got the message loud and clear, OK?’
‘Would Ellie at the Shalimar know more?’ he asked.
‘She might…’
‘I’ll talk to her.’
‘… but I doubt it.’
Hunter was silent, staring up at the Palermo Lounge’s façade. They were both getting soaked to the skin. Then he stirred and let out a sigh. ‘I’m going inside,’ he said, and moved off toward the PC standing at the door.
‘Can I come?’ asked Annie, following.
Hunter stopped in his tracks. ‘For what?’
‘I might be able to see if something’s wrong. You never know,’ said Annie.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I could help you,’ she said.
Hunter turned and looked at her.
‘I have contacts. Lots of them,’ said Annie.
‘I know that. I know what type of contacts too, Mrs Carter. Keep out of this.’
Annie stared at him. ‘Anything I find out, I’ll share with you. That’s a promise.’
He paused, gazing at her hard-set face, drenched in tears or rain, or both. He really couldn’t tell. In that moment, he thought she was beautiful, formidable. He’d always thought it, and it annoyed him. Annie Carter had been many things in her life – a Mafia queen, a gangster’s moll, a madam in a Mayfair whorehouse. When he looked into her eyes he saw a steely determination and a strength that was alien to most women. She was a bad lot. Not the type of woman that any self-respecting, straight, top-class copper should go thinking thoughts like that about. But she was right: maybe she could help.
He stared at her for another moment. Then he said: ‘You don’t touch anything. Not a damned thing. You understand me?’
Annie nodded.
‘Come on, then,’ said Hunter, and led the way inside.
24
Inside, the club was dark; it was a place built for the night, not the day; there were no windows. It only came alive in the evenings, but for now it was spookily still, empty. The atmosphere was chilly.
Annie reached out to the wall on the right of the closed door, switched on a bank of lights. All at once the big room sprang into focus: acres of brown carpet, faux tiger-skin chairs and deep chocolate-brown banquettes tucked away in quiet, private recesses. And everywhere, there was gold. On the walls, the ceiling. Great gilded angels were spreading their wings; golden poles were set into tiny podiums, gold-framed paintings adorned the walls.
‘What did I just say?’ asked Hunter.