The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4

Yeah, she was dying all right.

She could taste blood and her face was wet with it. Couldn’t seem to get her breath. Which was what you’d expect, if you’d been shot in the chest.

‘You’re all right, Annie, you’re going to be fine,’ said the medic.

Bullshit, she thought.

But she was okay with that because at least now there was no pain. They’d given her a shot of something, a sharp sting in her arm and suddenly she was floaty and hazy, but still aware. Aware of too-bright lights and the man bending over her telling her lies, aware when that same man turned and looked at his companion and nodded, aware that the other one moved to the front and said: ‘Every red light’s a green one, Steve.’

She closed her eyes. Too bright in here. But this seemed to cause the man agitation.

‘Come on, Annie, look at me. My name’s Simon. Look at me, can you see me, I’m right here.’

It was too bright in here. She kept her eyes closed, despite what he said. Stubborn as a mule, as always, going her own way. Going, for sure.

So this is what it’s like to die, thought Annie. Actually it wasn’t too bad. No pain, anyway, not now. She gulped down a breath. It was difficult, breathing. She tasted blood again – unpleasant. But now she couldn’t feel the movement of the ambulance as it roared, tyres shrieking, siren screaming, through the night streets of London. Couldn’t feel anything much, really, and that was good.

She was sinking into a warm cocoon. The medic’s voice was fading.

‘Fuck, she’s flatlining,’ she heard him say.

She felt a little movement then, someone doing something at her chest where the bullet had ripped through, severing flesh, exploding bone, but there was no pain now, no pain at all, and that was good.

She thought of Max, Ruthie and her mother, but there were no regrets now, it was too late for regrets. It was too late for anything because she was too busy dying. Her mind felt detached, disengaged from what was happening here. She let it wander back, to find the place where it had all begun for her.

1 (#ulink_0304b657-1ec5-53aa-bbb4-9f069f6f3105)

Annie Bailey lay naked in the arms of Max Carter. They were in his bed in the flat over his club, the Palermo Lounge, and she could hear the sound of the star turn coming through the ceiling, a new rising star called Billy Fury. A good singer, but such silly names they had. That Heinz for example. What a joke! Dyed blond hair and a name taken straight from a tin of baked beans.

Max had left the small bedside light on while they had sex. He said that she’d been driving him mad and he wasn’t going to have her in the dark, when instead he could see her and enjoy her all the more.

She lay there, ecstatic, feeling the heat of his big hard body and stroking her fingers over the crisp damp curls on his chest. His right hand was flung over his waist. He had strong hands, a fighter’s hands. On his index finger he wore a gold ring, engraved with Egyptian cartouches on either side of a square slab of lapis lazuli.

Annie stared at his curving nose, at the smoothly tanned skin, the gleaming thickness of his black hair, the flat brows above the long dense black sweep of his lashes. His eyes were closed. She could hardly keep from laughing out loud with triumph and joy.

She’d been to bed with Max Carter!

Annie had wanted Max from the first moment she’d set eyes on him. She knew she was only twenty and he was thirty, but she’d been instantly struck by his elegance, his poise, his presence, and had quickly developed a massive crush on him. She was a girl who could smell power and wealth through a four-foot concrete wall, and Max had both.

Well, he owned the club. Three clubs, actually.

This, the Palermo Lounge, was the one his father had started out with. It was his favourite, and the one he frequented the most. But there was also the Shalimar, and the Blue Parrot. Max exuded an aura of danger and riches, and she loved that. It turned her on. And she had seen a reciprocal flicker of interest in his eyes, much as he might have tried to conceal it.

That flicker was all she needed. She had set out to get Max Carter.

She looked at him again and shivered with the excitement of it. Then there came a pang of guilt, but she quickly suppressed that. No, she was going to relish this moment. Nothing was going to stop that.

He must have felt her shiver. He opened his eyes, his head turned. God, he had such beautiful eyes! They were a bright clear blue, very deep-set and penetrating. Those eyes seemed to look straight into her soul.

‘You didn’t mind, did you – that I was a virgin?’ asked Annie.

Max shook his head, but truthfully she had surprised him. He had thought she was a right little tart, the way she’d come on to him, a dolly bird flashing her arse in those tiny miniskirts, showing off her long slender legs in those trendy white boots. Hanging around the club on the nights she knew he’d be there and giving him the glad eye even when her sister was there taking the punters’ coats and hats.

She had some front – but fuck it, she was a little beauty.

Max liked her big bouffant of long dark hair and her dark green eyes. He liked her low, husky voice. She followed the fashion of putting that horrible panstick on her mouth, making it look white, but he’d kissed all that away and now her lips were pink and she looked even more beautiful, rumpled and warm. No doubt about it, Annie was a handful.

Strictly mistress material, he thought. Unlike her older sister.

His old dad had given him just one piece of advice about women. He said: ‘Son, marry a plain woman. Keep her well fucked and poorly shod, and she’ll never give you a moment’s trouble.’

Max knew his dad was right. Ruthie was the sort a man married, Annie was the sort he took to bed.

Max cupped one of Annie’s full breasts in his hand. She shivered again, and arched her back as his mouth got to work there.

God, if Ruthie could see her now! Again she felt that tickle of guilt. Annie knew she shouldn’t be here like this with Max, but the temptation had been irresistible.

All her life Annie had grown up in Ruthie’s shadow. Ruthie was a good girl, home-loving and quiet, or so Mum always said. Mum favoured Ruthie, and always had. Annie had got used to that over the years, and she’d had no father to take her part when her more unruly nature had landed her in trouble.

Dad had left when the two girls were little, and Mum had worked like a slave, holding down three cleaning jobs, God knew how many catalogues and a job folding greetings cards that paid a princely four shillings and sixpence for every thousand folded. Connie never tired of ranting on about all the sacrifices she’d made to bring her two girls up decent and to keep the family home going.

There had been no money for luxuries. It was enough that they had food on the table and could just about pay the rent. Well, sometimes. There were times when Connie had to send Annie to the door when the rent man called, to say that Mum was out and would settle with him next week. No good sending good-as-gold Ruthie, who would have choked on the barefaced lie.

As part of their frugal existence, Annie had long since got used to wearing Ruthie’s cast-offs. She often went to Carnaby Street to window-shop on her days off, to drool over Chelsea Girl and Biba and Quant, just to stare longingly in shop windows. But she only worked in a corner shop, she couldn’t afford new stuff. It was all mend and make do.

And then their ship had come in! Ruthie got a job in the Blue Parrot and hit the jackpot. One night she caught Max’s eye, with her unremarkable looks and her reserved manner. Max started escorting Ruthie about town, taking her up West and lavishing money upon her. He moved her from the Blue Parrot to the Palermo so he could keep a closer eye on her.

One unforgettable day, Max Carter – the Max Carter – had bought Ruthie an engagement ring. Their mum Connie had been in heaven. She said that once Max married Ruthie all their money problems would be over, Ruthie would see them all right.

But all Annie could see was the prospect of more hand-me-downs of Ruthie’s. Ruthie the rich married lady would dole out cash and goods to her mother and sister, the poor relations. Resentment festered in Annie’s heart. Trust Ruthie to be at the front of the queue, getting a man like Max to marry her and never having to worry again where the next meal was coming from. Annie had always fancied Max like mad. But Ruthie had hardly even noticed him. How could it be fair that Ruthie got the wedding ring, when Annie was the one who really wanted Max?

So Annie had set about getting him for herself. Just for once in her life, she would have something first, before demure, ladylike Ruthie got her claws into it.

He was such a man. Not a bit like his brother Jonjo, who was always out on the town and fooling around with different women.

Nothing like his other brother, too-pretty Eddie, who, it was rumoured, went out on Clapham Common in the evenings touting for young men. But if that was Eddie’s bag then it was fine with her. After all, he wasn’t murdering nobody, now was he?

Max, she was pleased to find, was all man. And she’d had him first, on the night before her sister was to marry him.

When many another man would be out on the town with his mates getting blotto, Max was here bedding her. Not that Max ever seemed to drink much, and he didn’t like drunks around him. Drink made people loose-mouthed, she’d heard him say, and he wouldn’t have that.

‘This is lovely,’ Annie sighed happily.

‘Yes it is.’ Max raised his head and smiled down into her eyes.

‘You really don’t mind that I was a virgin, do you?’ she asked again, nuzzling her nose playfully against his.

‘No,’ said Max, caressing her cheek. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit. Because this is a one-off.’