The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

was aware that this day should be a moment of triumph for her. It was the day of her first party in the new apartment. She stood in the centre of the Upper Brook Street place’s oak-panelled drawing room and looked around her and saw how far she’d come. This was a million miles from the Limehouse knocking shop. Big leather Chesterfields for the clients to sit on. A crackling fire to keep them warm. Sinatra on the radiogram because Sinatra always said class. Champagne and twenty-year-old malt whisky. Oysters and salmon and caviar, all set out on a side table – the best things for the best people. Havana cigars in wooden boxes on the small occasional tables dotted all around the big room. The scene was set. Everything looked good.

      ‘It’s a gentleman’s club with extras,’ said Redmond when he’d walked around it with her just this morning. ‘You must be very pleased with it.’

      ‘I am.’

      She was nervous of Redmond now, and she didn’t have to ask herself why – the ghost of Pat stood between them.

      Annie showed him the bedrooms. With any other man she’d be nervous of getting jumped. But not with Redmond; instinct told her this was not his style. She suspected he never had sex. Didn’t want it, either. She had the same feeling whenever she saw Orla. Sad somehow – but she was relieved. The last thing she needed was another complication. She had complications enough. She had been bracing herself while they toured the apartment for any mention of Pat, and finally the moment came. Redmond said that Pat hadn’t been seen since he left the party at Limehouse the Friday before last.

      ‘Really?’ said Annie, her heart galloping her in chest. ‘Does he often just take off like that?’

      ‘Occasionally. I hope he caused no trouble at the party?’

      Oh Jesus, thought Annie, nearly paralysed with fear.

      ‘He was a bit drunk.’ She shrugged. ‘No more than usual, though. He seemed fine when he left.’

      And – thank God – Redmond said no more about it. He professed himself happy with all the arrangements she had made, and then he left.

      Annie dragged her attention back to the here-and-now. Her three new girls, Mira, Jennifer and Thelma, were sitting around chatting to their clients, just chatting as ladies would do. That was the first rule Annie had insisted upon – no shagging in the drawing room. There were three lovely luxurious bedrooms for that; in there, they could do whatever they wanted. They could have threesomes, foursomes, all-out orgies if they wanted, behind closed doors. But out here, there was to be a polite house-party atmosphere and no one with their trousers around their ankles and their pricks in their hands. There was music, and laughter, and drinking and eating; a prelude to the more serious action. Annie preferred it that way.

      ‘William’s invited me to Cliveden with a group of friends for the weekend,’ said Mira, sidling up to Annie.

      Mira was a statuesque blonde with a don’t-touch-me air about her that could soften to oh-go-on-then in an instant, once you showed her enough money. Like the other girls and like Annie herself, Mira was dressed in a simple shift dress with court shoes and pearls. Annie insisted that her girls look like ladies even if they were highly skilled tarts.

      ‘What you do in your own time is your own concern,’ said Annie. ‘But be careful.’

      Mira nodded and moved away, back to the side of the middle-aged peer of the realm she was entertaining. They all knew about Christine Keeler. Pillow-talk was all very well, Annie had stressed when she gave the girls their initial pep-talk, but you had to be circumspect about cross-contamination. Like don’t mix Soviets with British Cabinet Ministers. When you were moving in these high circles, it was easy to slip and fall, and it was always the woman who carried the can, not the punter.

      ‘Sir Paul, how nice to see you. How are you?’ said Annie in her best ‘posh’ voice to a distinguished, grey-haired gentleman, one of the Limehouse regulars, as she sat down beside him.

      He told her, in detail. She nodded and smiled and laughed in all the right places. The party was going well. But still, she felt screwed up into a knot. She had felt that way ever since the night Pat Delaney died. She was nearly going mad with the weight of guilt on her shoulders. And having to talk to Redmond more often now was sheer torment, she was terrified she was going to let something slip. Her guilt felt like a beacon, signalling that she had killed his brother, struck the first blow anyway.

      Max’s boys had disposed of Pat Delaney, shoving him aboard a trawler leaving the Thames and then pushing him off the deck when they reached the open sea. She knew the body would never be found. Nothing would ever be pinned on her or the others. But the thought of Pat lying with the fishes, being buffeted by the tides and his flesh slowly decaying on his bones, played constantly on her mind. She had thought she was tough. Well, maybe she wasn’t tough enough to commit murder.

      And she no longer knew what to think about Max. Pat’s words about Celia – she was sure he meant Celia – had left her feeling that she had walked away from Max for nothing. Left what made her happy, only to be condemned to feeling tense and miserable for the rest of her puff. She knew she should feel good today; but she couldn’t.

      ‘Annie!’ It was one of the Horse Guards, a lovely chap with the physique of a god and flirtatious blue eyes. He leaned down, nodded politely to the old gentleman, and kissed her hand. ‘Lovely to see you again, m’dear.’

      Yeah, she’d come a long way from a dirty, rented two-up-two-down on the mean streets of the East End.

      Maybe too far.

      Annie went and got herself a glass of champagne. She sipped it. Ugh. Made you light-headed and the bubbles went up your nose. God, there was no danger of her ever getting a taste for booze. She gave up and poured herself an orange juice instead, and looked around again at all her happy punters and her high-class tarts. A couple making for a bedroom … another couple kissing … three on the sofa, they’d be off together soon. She was doing good business, and she ought to feel happier.

      Maybe Kieron’s exhibition tonight was just what she needed. Get her out, cheer her up. Stop her brooding.

      Fat chance.

       46

      Toby Taylor’s Jermyn Street gallery was heaving with crooks that Friday night, and he was thrilled. Regans, Nashes, Krays, Delaneys, Foremans – everywhere you looked, it was Crook City. Toby was the original mob whore. Mixing with criminal gangs almost gave him an orgasm.

      He was mincing around the gallery, smiling and pressing the flesh, his ever-expanding belly straining against his fluorescent green floral shirt, his toupee clinging to his sweat-dampened head. His rings and neck chains flashed in the gallery’s vivid lighting. Paolo, who was being swept unwillingly along in his partner’s slipstream, thought Toby had all the easy charm of a rabid rat.

      All around them hung Kieron’s work. Landscapes: fields and dales, cliffs and turbulent seas. Some were already sold, but it wasn’t going as well as his last. English pastoral always lost out to the more exciting African savannah. And the portraits and the nudes were missing this time. Everyone loved a good nude.

      ‘Maybe he’s lost his muse,’ said Toby to Paolo.

      Paolo cast a sullen look at his older lover. ‘No he hasn’t. There she is, right over there.’

      Paolo drew closer to Toby. Major odour alert, he thought, wrinkling his pert nose in disgust. Couldn’t the pervy old whore ever wash? If Toby wasn’t so free with his cash, Paolo would have been out of there in an instant.

      ‘They say she is running a very discreet establishment in the West End now,’ whispered Paolo.

      Toby gazed at Annie. ‘She’s very beautiful,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Looks like butter wouldn’t melt.’

      Paolo thought that if he were ever to fancy women