The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

      ‘Dolly.’ Annie’s voice was desperate now. ‘We have no choice.’

      ‘Yes we do. We could get rid of the body.’

      Annie snapped at this. ‘For fuck’s sake, Dolly, see sense. We couldn’t even lift him. He’s too bloody big for us to move. You know it, I know it.’

      Dolly moved her eyes to the Irishman lying at her feet.

      ‘Jesus, it stinks in here,’ moaned Aretha.

      She stood up and tottered off to the bathroom. They heard her retching. Annie had thought Aretha was tough, but this scene of carnage was too much even for her.

      ‘What are we going to do?’ moaned Darren. ‘Chris could come back at any minute. He won’t stand for this. He’ll tell Redmond Delaney. We’ll be fucked.’

      ‘Ellie,’ said Annie.

      Ellie turned a tearstained face to her.

      ‘You’re going to have to keep Chris busy. Get yourself cleaned up. Go and wait for him in the hall, and when he comes back take him into the front room. Close the door. He likes you, he’ll take the bait. Make sure he does.’

      ‘I can’t,’ whined Ellie. She knew what was expected of her. If Chris wanted sex, she had to provide it. But after all this, she felt too shattered to take on anyone.

      ‘Just do as you’re bloody-well told, will you!’ shouted Annie. ‘Get going. Hurry.’

      Ellie got to her feet like a weary old woman and staggered from the room. Dolly looked at Annie.

      ‘There is something else we can do,’ she said. ‘We don’t have to leave.’

      ‘Dolly!’ Annie said in exasperation. ‘See reason. We can’t stay here. We can’t move him. We’ve got to go.’

      ‘No,’ said Dolly. ‘It’s obvious. I know what we should do.’ She was babbling now, the idea in her mind putting a mad light into her eyes. ‘Who would help us get rid of a Delaney? A fucking Carter! Max Carter’s still hung up on you, Annie. Everyone says so. You could phone him. He’d help you.’

      ‘No. I can’t.’

      ‘You have to. He’ll know what to do. He’ll send the boys round and they’ll take care of this mess.’

      Fuck it. The more she tried to extract herself from involvement with Max, the more she seemed to get sucked in. She felt like she was struggling in quicksand, sinking deeper by the minute. She knew what Dolly said made perfect sense. Max would help her. She knew he would help her. And this was his type of territory. He would know how to deal with this; she didn’t.

      Into her mind came Pat’s words when he had threatened Aretha. He’d implied that he’d been responsible for what happened to Celia. So did that mean Max hadn’t done it? But Celia had been told it was a present from Max.

      Annie clutched at her aching head. What did it matter, anyway? They were all violent bastards, intent on maiming any poor fucker who got in their way. She was best off out of it, and maybe she had always known deep down that she would have to let Max go if she was ever to stand a chance of getting Ruthie back.

      ‘Annie!’ Dolly’s voice was harsh, cutting into her thoughts. ‘For God’s sake, we’re in deep shit here. Get down there and phone the man before Chris comes back. Max Carter will work it out. He’ll know what to do.’ She looked at Darren and at Aretha, who had come back and was standing there in the doorway, her dark skin tinted grey with nausea. ‘Darren. Aretha. Get cleaned up and dressed, the pair of you. Quickly. Nothing’s happened here. Pat went home when all the other clients left. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Behave normally. Say nothing. Got that?’

      Darren and Aretha nodded tiredly.

      ‘I don’t want to phone him,’ said Annie. Her mind was spinning. The cuts on her hands and legs were starting to hurt. She felt sick.

      ‘Do it,’ said Dolly. ‘Or I’ll do it for you.’

       44

      In the early hours of the following morning, Billy stood in the shadows opposite the Limehouse parlour and watched as Gary Tooley and Steven Taylor carried something wrapped in a tarpaulin out to a car. They bundled the thing inside, shut the doors quietly, and were away.

      Max’s boys.

      Billy often liked to walk in the early hours. The streets were quiet, he blended into the darkness, became one with the night. You saw all sorts when you were out late. He walked, and walked, because he slept badly. He was on medication for his nerves, and that seemed to affect his sleep. So he walked. Often he ended up in the street in Limehouse, looking up at the house where his beautiful Annie lived.

      He knew which room was hers. He’d worked it out. The one on the left at the front. He stood there sometimes and gazed up at that dark oblong, knowing that beyond it she slept. It was comforting to be nearby. His mum didn’t care where he got to in the night. She had a boyfriend, he had to call the man Uncle Ted, but he wasn’t his uncle really. His mum was busy with Uncle Ted during the night-times. It was better to be out, to walk, rather than lay there awake listening to them making those animal noises through the wall.

      But his quiet stroll tonight had been different. Wearing his mac and deerstalker, clutching his briefcase as he always did, he knew that tonight there had been something going on. Something bad. All the lights had been blazing in the house. Then the boys had shown up and there had been nothing for a while, but he was patient. He had nothing else to do, so he waited. And an hour and a half later, the boys came out with the thing in the tarp. It looked the size and shape of a body, Billy thought. He made a note of it in his book.

      It’s as if Pat Delaney was never here, thought Annie as she looked around her room next day. Gary and Steve had done a thorough job of cleaning every trace of Pat’s death away. It had all gone like clockwork. The angels had been on their side. Chris hadn’t come back; he’d phoned through to say that his mum was ill and he was needed at home. They all knew he was just keeping the fuck out of it, but at least Ellie had been spared having to jump his bones. Gary and Steve had come in like shadows and did all that had to be done.

      ‘We’ll take the bastard for a swim,’ said Gary jokily, wrapping Pat up in what was to be his shroud. ‘A nice long dip, eh? We’ll take him down Newhaven way, no bother.’

      Annie couldn’t laugh with them. The callous bastards. It was too horrible. They’d killed a man, and even if that man was a total bastard like Pat Delaney, he had been a living, breathing human being, and they had taken his life, and the guilt was overwhelming. The lowest point had been when she had to limp into the hall and phone Max to ask for his help.

      ‘What sort of help?’ he asked. He sounded cold and uncompromising.

      ‘There’s been an … incident,’ said Annie. She eased her sore knee by taking the weight off it. It was bandaged – Darren had tended to all their cuts and bruises. Her hands were bandaged too, where the glass had sliced into them. She looked and felt a mess. And now Max was talking to her as if she was a stranger.

      She reminded herself that his coldness to her was a good thing. But she couldn’t get Pat’s words out of her mind. What if Pat really had done Celia, and not one of Max’s mob? No, it was no use thinking like that. She had to think of Ruthie now, and put her first.

      ‘What sort of incident?’ he asked.

      ‘A bad one.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘Max, I’m not kidding around here. Take it from me that I wouldn’t be on this fucking phone asking for your help if I could avoid it.’

      ‘If that’s how you feel …’ said Max. He was going