The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

She was so skinny now, and her expensive dress hung on her like a rag. Where had Annie’s plump, warm-featured sister gone? Ruthie looked like a mannequin, painfully thin and cold.

      It was better outside in the air, even if the wind cut like a knife near the grave. Queenie’s headstone was huge and elaborate, a tribute from Max and Jonjo and Eddie. Now Eddie was joining her, to lie beside her for eternity. The many mourners, Annie among them, stood back and let the close family cluster around the grave. The vicar was saying the ancient, soothing words. Ruthie was crying and dabbing at her eyes. Connie put her arm around her and Annie felt her guts clench in sympathy. Jonjo was a big, bulky presence, standing with head bowed beside a rigidly upright Max.

      Annie allowed herself to look at him again. One look, one last guilty moment of pleasure before she stopped this silliness once and for all. She stared at his face. The hooked nose, the dark hair being tossed by the wind, the steely blue eyes that raised and now looked – oh God – straight into hers. Annie’s breath caught with the shock of it. Their eyes locked for a long time, then Max looked down at the grave again.

      ‘It’s a fucking shame,’ someone was saying behind her. ‘Not that long since the old lady went, and now the boy.’

      Then it was over. Thank God, thought Annie. She rushed out of the cemetery gates to the waiting taxi. She didn’t look at Max Carter again. She didn’t dare.

       21

      Redmond Delaney sent over an ex-boxer called Chris Brown for the job on the door. He was an ugly bald man, six-and-a-half feet tall and eighteen meaty stones of muscle, with a battered nose and misshapen ears. Chris had a gentle, respectful way with women and a hard but polite way with men. He dressed immaculately. Annie took to him at once, but was appalled to realize how much he expected to make out of her. She hammered him down to the lowest possible basic, adding that there would be perks to the job.

      ‘Tips on the door, food and drink, a bed if you should need it, and the use of the facilities.’

      ‘The facilities?’

      ‘The girls. Or Darren. Work out any charges with them.’

      ‘No freebies?’ Chris smiled.

      ‘This is a place of work, not a dating agency,’ said Annie firmly. ‘And the golden rule here is discretion. We get on okay with our neighbours, because they don’t know our business. I don’t want them to, either. Keep inside, don’t make yourself obvious out in the street. Break that rule and you’re out. And Mr Delaney will be told why.’

      ‘Mr Delaney said you were tough,’ said Chris, unruffled. ‘I respect that, Miss Bailey.’

      ‘Good. Then we’ll get along fine.’

      With Chris installed from late afternoons to early morning, she felt safer. Poorer too, but still – everything came at a price in this world. He was handy as well. He reviewed their security, telling her she needed better locks front and back, security chains, a peephole on the front door, locks on all the windows and a firmer line on house personnel. She needed to monitor more closely who was in and who was out. He hit on the idea of a book on the hall table. When someone, staff or punter, left, they were signed out. When they came back, they were signed in. That way, Annie insured against any nasty surprises. And keys must be more carefully guarded.

      ‘See to it,’ said Annie. More fucking expense, but she knew he was right. ‘But remember …’

      ‘Be discreet. Got it,’ said Chris, squeezing into his Zodiac and roaring off to the hardware store.

      Kieron was still being a pest. A week after the funeral, he phoned and at last she agreed to sit for him again – and this time in the nude. She wasn’t happy about it. Her mind was in turmoil. The pressures of Eddie’s death, seeing Max and Ruthie, preparing for the first of the parties and not knowing whether it would pay or not, wondering where the hell Celia was and if she was okay – it was all getting to her.

      And now – this.

      ‘I’m not sure about any of this,’ said Annie when she got to his flat at Shepherd’s Bush and stood there in the paint-spattered room with the smell of turps and linseed oil nearly choking her.

      Kieron was busy putting a prepped new canvas on the easel, not taking any real notice of her. As usual. What was the matter with the bastard? she wondered in sudden fury. He’d pushed a tatty, red velvet chaise to the centre of the room, ready for her to recline upon. Probably heaving with nits and all sorts by the look of it, she thought angrily. For God’s sake, did she really need this?

      ‘There’s a robe on the door, get changed in that little room through there,’ he said, not even glancing at her, tossing boxes aside as he hunted for fresh charcoal.

      The ‘little room’ turned out to be a broom cupboard. She barked her shins on a metal bucket and knocked over mops and brushes when she tried to turn round.

      ‘Fuck it!’ she muttered.

      ‘Okay in there?’ he trilled.

      ‘Oh sure. Marvellous,’ said Annie.

      She got stripped off and put on the grubby, red silk robe, then went back out and looked at him expectantly. He didn’t even look up. This time he was cleaning brushes. Fuck! she thought and took off the robe and threw herself down on to the dirty chaise. Dust plumed up and she started to cough.

      ‘When did you last clean in here?’ she asked him.

      ‘I clean up,’ said Kieron defensively, adjusting the easel. ‘That sink over there gleams like pools of piss in the moonlight.’

      Annie realized that, like all men, Kieron had selective vision when it came to dust. They cleaned one bit of the room intensively and ignored the rest.

      ‘Look.’ Annie was getting irritable. ‘I hope this isn’t going to take long.’

      ‘Sure, you can’t hurry the creative process,’ said Kieron, straightening up. ‘Right, I’m ready.’

      Kieron looked at the woman on the red chaise for the first time and nearly dropped his charcoal. Christ alive, but she was a beauty. Her skin was luminously pale, her hair long and dark, her eyes as deeply green as tourmalines.

      ‘Right,’ he said, staring.

      ‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Annie. ‘How do you want me?’

      ‘Right.’ Kieron swallowed hard. ‘On your front then, if you will. Look back at me over that shoulder. Like that, yes. Put that arm down a bit. That left leg up slightly.’

      Think of her as a bowl of fruit, he thought to himself. Or a landscape. Kieron started to sketch Annie’s curvaceous outline on to the canvas. His hand shook slightly.

      ‘How come you don’t have a minder?’ asked Annie while he drew.

      ‘I can’t be doing with all that,’ said Kieron. There was a stunning woman lying in her pelt in front of him. Bowl of fruit. Bowl of fruit.

      ‘Yes, but you’re a Delaney. And there’s a lot of trouble going on at the moment. Wouldn’t you feel safer with a minder?’

      ‘Ah, but you’re forgetting that I don’t get involved with the family business side of things.’

      ‘That’s a naïve attitude,’ said Annie. ‘You may not be “involved”, but you can’t help being a member of the family. I mean, your parents care for you. They wouldn’t want any harm to come to you. And people might not pick and choose. They might just see a Delaney, “involved” or not.’

      By people Kieron knew she meant the Carters. He paused and smiled.

      ‘Ah, but you’re forgetting I have another family connection,’ he said.

      ‘Oh?