Scarlet Women. Jessie Keane
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Annie followed Chris and his captors into the interview room.
The room was small, bare and windowless. On the near side of an oblong table were two chairs, one of which was quickly occupied by the portly, bald and sweaty-looking cop. They seated Chris on the other side of the table. He slumped there, his slab-like forearms spread out on the table, his big ugly ex-boxer’s head resting upon them. He looked fucked.
Annie watched him worriedly. She’d known Chris for years. He was a big, hard man who had once been the bouncer on the door at the Limehouse brothel. He was a Delaney man, but he was rock solid. Tough as nails. Took no crap from anybody. Now when he looked up at her his eyes were full of desperation; his face was wet with tears.
‘Oh Christ,’ he said, and put his head back down again, and sobbed like his heart was breaking.
‘All right, what the fuck you been doing to him?’ Annie demanded.
The tall dark-haired one gave her that ‘stepped in something nasty’ look again. She was already getting a bit tired of it. He moved a chair to the other side of the desk, beside Chris.
‘Take a seat,’ he said.
‘I’ll take a seat when you start telling me what’s going on here,’ said Annie.
He looked at her. His dark eyes were unfriendly. ‘Take a seat. Then I’ll tell you what’s going on here.’
Annie sat down. She looked at Chris, hulking great Chris, sitting there crying like a baby. She had a very bad feeling about all this. She patted his arm. She noticed his hands were cut. She dug in her bag and pulled out a wad of tissues and handed them to him. He took them, nodded, wiped his face.
‘What’s going on, Chris?’ Annie demanded. ‘They been knocking you about?’
The fat bald cop let out a laugh. ‘You kidding? Look at the fucking size of him.’
Which was a point. Chris looked as if he could eat both these cops; put them between two slices of bread—even the tall dark-haired one, who had the look of a man who could handle himself in a tight corner. But she had never seen him upset like this. Never seen him shed a single tear.
‘I want to know what’s going on here,’ she said, looking directly at the one in charge, the dark-haired, sour-faced one, who was now standing there leaning against the wall. He loosened his tie and stared at her again like she was shit on his shoe. He said nothing.
She turned her attention back to Chris. ‘How long you been in here?’
‘Jesus, I dunno,’ he groaned, running a huge, shovel-like hand over his face. He looked at her wearily. ‘Hours. Fucking hours.’
‘Shouldn’t he have a brief here?’ Annie asked the cops.
‘Probably he should,’ said Prune Face. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Hunter, this is Detective Sergeant Lane.’
‘Oh. Right. I’ll get a brief organised.’ She looked a question at Chris. Wondered why Redmond Delaney hadn’t done this already.
‘Good. The sooner the better.’
‘What happened?’ Annie looked at Chris, who shook his head. Tears were still seeping out of his eyes, running unchecked down his face. ‘Chris, come on. What happened?’
He gulped.
‘It’s Aretha,’ he mumbled. He closed his eyes. His face was a mask of anguish. ‘She’s dead, Annie,’ he said, and buried his head in his arms again, and cried hard.
‘I know.’ She thought of her friend with the huge grin, the shock of dreadlocks, the wildly colourful clothes, wafting in to Dolly’s parlour just a few days ago shouting, ‘Hey girlfriend!’ and giving her a high-five and a warm hug.
‘She’s dead,’ sobbed Chris. He lifted his head and looked at her. Desperation and despair and deep, heart-wrenching grief were all written large across his face. ‘She’s fucking dead, and they think I killed her!’
‘No,’ said Annie. She looked at Chris, then at DI Hunter and DS Lane. She shook her head.
‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ said Hunter.
‘There has to be some mistake.’
‘There’s no mistake,’ said Hunter.
He nodded to Lane. The fat one stood up, went to the closed door, opened it, snagged a passing uniform and told him to fetch in some water. He closed the door, sat down again. DI Hunter was leaning on the desk and looking at Annie and at Chris as if they were both guilty as hell.
Annie looked up at him, trying to take all this in. ‘Does her family know yet?’ she asked him.
‘Not yet,’ he said.
A PC came in with a tray, plastic cups and a jug of water. He placed it on the desk, then left the room.
Annie cleared her throat. ‘Look—Chris wouldn’t harm a hair on Aretha’s head. You’ve got it wrong. Whoever did this, it wasn’t Chris.’
But what about the blood on his hands? she thought, unable to help herself. What the fuck was that all about?
Hunter’s fixed expression of disapproval deepened. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if she had cracked a really good joke.
‘The evidence indicates otherwise,’ he said.
‘What evidence?’ demanded Annie.
‘Look, luv,’ chipped in DS Lane. ‘Fact is, this tart had a bag-load of S & M gear with her. Whips and rubber coshes and nursy outfits and peephole bras, stuff like that. She wasn’t exactly a nun. If you know her then you must know that’s true.’
What, and you think that means she deserved this? thought Annie in fury.
She said nothing, just glared at the fat, repulsive Lane.
‘We know she worked as an escort,’ said DI Hunter.
‘So where’s your evidence against Chris?’ asked Annie.
‘Mr Brown was waiting for his wife in his car, according to him,’ said Hunter. ‘Perhaps I’d better let Mr Brown himself fill in the details.’
Annie looked at Chris. He gulped, gave a shuddering sigh and wiped at his eyes. He looked at her.
‘Chris?’ she prompted.
‘I was waiting for her. Around the corner from the hotel. In the car. It was raining, raining hard. She’d told me she’d be finished by one o’clock in the morning, but by one thirty she still hadn’t shown and I started to get worried.’