‘Well, good for you.’
‘This is DI Duggan.’
Annie nodded to the woman. ‘Haven’t seen you in a long time,’ she said, returning her attention to Hunter. He’d aged well. Still looked the business.
‘Is this your car, registration number…’ asked DI Duggan, whipping out her notebook and rattling off a number.
‘It is,’ said Annie.
‘And are you aware that it was blown up not far from one of the Carter clubs?’ asked Hunter.
‘Yes.’
‘You drove it there?’
‘Yes.’
He stared at her. ‘You left the scene.’
‘I was shaken up. Had to come home.’
His stare hardened. The Annie Carter he’d known – the one he’d encountered back in the day when some nutter was wasting London prostitutes – wouldn’t have been shaken up. That Annie Carter had been too busy throwing her weight around, leaving him and his colleagues playing catch-up while she stalked the streets that she – according to her – owned.
‘No one else was in the car with you, I take it?’
‘No. Nobody.’
‘Yet someone was right there when the bomb exploded. And that person is dead.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Isn’t it. We’ve yet to identify the indiv-’
‘As far as I could see, there wasn’t much left of them. Whoever they were. Was anyone else hurt?’
‘Minor injuries, which was lucky. Cuts and scratches. It wasn’t a large explosive device. Only lethal at short range.’
‘Did you talk to Dolly Farrell? The manager of the Palermo.’
‘We did.’
‘Then she’ll have told you that I was with her when it went off, in the office upstairs. I didn’t see anything, I was inside the club.’
‘But you saw the aftermath, obviously.’
‘I did.’
‘And you have no idea who this person might be? The one who died in the blast?’
‘None.’
‘Have you anything you’d like to tell us, Mrs Carter?’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as – oh, let’s see. How about telling us why someone would be trying to kill you?’
‘There’s nothing I can tell you. Nothing I know that you don’t.’
‘And you locked the car when you left it?’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘You’re sure?’ asked Hunter.
‘Perfectly sure. This person who was in the blast,’ said Annie. ‘You’ve no idea who he or she is?’
It couldn’t be Redmond. Could it?
Hunter stood up. ‘Not yet. We’ll be in touch, Mrs Carter.’
‘Only that might tell us something important, don’t you think?’ said Annie.
He paused. Seemed to count to ten. ‘Our first and most urgent priority will be to discover the identity of the person who died.’
‘That’s a damned good place to start.’
Hunter glared at her. ‘Don’t give me any trouble, Mrs Carter.’
‘Of course not,’ she said, standing up and moving around the desk as his DI got to her feet too.