The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4

Dolly nodded. ‘Aretha, Darren, Ellie and me were lucky to get out of the nick in one bit. The pigs didn’t have nothing on us, we were just there for your birthday party after all. But it was touch and go for a minute there as to whether they’d swallow it or not. Look, Annie, what about Redmond?’

‘What about him?’

‘Well, wouldn’t he pull some strings?’

‘I won’t ask him,’ said Annie. ‘You know how it is, Doll. They take care of you but you never implicate them.’

‘And is he going to do that? Take care of you … when you’re …?’ Dolly couldn’t say it.

When you’re inside, added Annie to herself with a shiver.

Christ, going to prison. She knew it was going to happen. She knew she’d done the crime and she would have to do the time. But the thought of it was putting the fear of God up her. Her bowels felt liquid. She felt sick as a dog.

‘Well, we’ve got to hope so, haven’t we,’ said Annie, dunking another biscuit. She had to eat, at least, had to keep body and soul together.

‘You’re being very brave about it,’ said Darren. ‘I’d be in bits.’

But Annie had always toughed it out. It was in her nature to stand alone and stick two fingers up to the world. Suddenly she felt tired. She’d been nicked on her twenty-second birthday. Two years had gone by since she’d first done the dirty on her sister by sleeping with Max Carter. Two long, fucking years.

And what did she have to show for it? A dodgy ex-lover, a family who didn’t want to know her, and a pending prison sentence. Nothing to be proud of, now was it?

And the papers were lapping it all up. The Mayfair Madam was fast becoming a national figure to be poked fun at by the populace. Neighbours at the Upper Brook Street apartment had tattled to reporters and the story had been seized upon with delight. Echoes of Profumo, yelled the dailies. Pillars of the community caught with their trousers down. Red-faced peers and clerics and high-flying businessmen cavorting with classy West End prostitutes. The scandal!

A picture of Annie walking along a London street wearing a fur coat and sunglasses had been found from somewhere and splashed on to front pages. ‘Jackie Kennedy lookalike Annie Bailey’, they called her. Beautiful, high-class prostitute, Annie Bailey.

But I’m not a fucking brass, thought Annie in dismay. I never have been.

There’d been photos of Mira, too. Impossibly glamorous Mira, striding along with her blonde locks glowing in the sun. She looked expensive, pampered. There were stories about Cliveden, William had been named and he had lost his parliamentary seat as a consequence, although his wife was standing by him. Either that, or Lady Fenella would lose the country estate and the title, thought Annie sourly, and she wouldn’t relish that at all. Fuck it, thought Annie. What a mess it all was. But at least they didn’t know that she was here in Limehouse.

‘What will you do, Annie love?’ asked Dolly.

‘Sit tight and wait for the case to come up,’ shrugged Annie. ‘What the hell else can I do?’

‘Your sister been in touch yet?’

‘You’re having a laugh.’

‘Well, your room’s free.’

‘Thanks, Doll.’

Not a nice prospect – sleeping in the room where they’d done for Pat Delaney. But better than nothing. Better than finding a hotel, running from the press, all that shit.

Dolly gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘Fucking hell,’ she burst out. ‘That copper’s face when he looked in the bedrooms! It was bloody priceless.’

‘Gave him a fucking inferiority complex, I bet,’ said Aretha.

‘Get the brandy out, Ellie love,’ ordered Dolly, wiping her eyes. ‘Let’s top this tea up with something a bit more lively.’

Trust Dolly to laugh in the face of adversity. Annie loved her for it. She almost raised a smile.

57 (#ulink_f3b0d10c-1d05-5ed9-9453-6ee2ab4db8c1)

It was the same old routine, Kieron noticed. Orla went into the church, her flame-red hair covered with a black veil, and lit a penny candle for the soul of Tory Delaney. Never went near the confessional, he noted. Straight out to the grave and then placing the usual twelve blood-red roses into the urn. She was like a robot, his sister Orla. Precise, ordered, void of emotion. Cool as fucking ice. Petey was standing by the car at the gate, watching the surroundings. Watching not the subject but those who might wish to do her harm.

Too fucking late, of course.

Kieron looked at the headstone.

Tory Michael DelaneyBeloved Son, Beloved BrotherRest in Peace

‘I’m thinking of going away,’ said Kieron.

‘Oh?’ She looked up. ‘Where?’

‘I was thinking of Spain. The light’s good there.’

She nodded and went back to her task.

She wouldn’t miss him, he thought. Try taking Redmond from her side and there would be a riot. But him, her baby brother? Dispensable. Out of sight, out of mind.

‘It didn’t work out with Annie Bailey, did it?’ she said.

Kieron snorted. ‘No. I wish it had, but there you go. She has troubles enough now, anyway.’

‘So I hear.’ Orla looked up, her green eyes locking with his. ‘That unfortunate business with the police.’

‘Well, you play with fire, you get burnt. I told her she shouldn’t have been in that line of work. But would she listen? She would not.’

‘Redmond tells me the court case is due next month.’

‘Redmond knows everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Orla. ‘He does. I thought you were a friend of hers though, Kieron. She needs all the friends she can get right now.’

‘She’s made it plain she doesn’t want me,’ said Kieron moodily. ‘That fucking Carter’s got such a hold on her.’

‘Maybe she’ll change her mind.’

‘You think?’

‘She’s coming to us for dinner on Saturday. The least we can do, I think. It’ll be a quiet evening, just us three. Perhaps you’d like to join us?’

Kieron kicked at a tussock of unmown grass. Annie kept rejecting him, pushing him away from her, even though he knew she wanted him really. She’d be his, if only Max Carter wasn’t in the bloody way.

‘Ah, I don’t know. I might even be gone by then. Orla, the woman’s going down.’

‘Well.’ Orla turned back to the flowers. ‘The offer’s there. And it’s true she’ll probably do time, but there’s hope of an appeal.’