The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

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

      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 Delaney Beloved Son, Beloved Brother Rest 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.’

      ‘I’m surprised you’re having her in the place,’ said Kieron. ‘You don’t want any mud sticking to the pair of you.’

      ‘She’s a friend we know through you, that’s the story,’ said Orla smoothly.

      ‘Ah, sure. That’s the story.’

      ‘Yes. It is.’

      Orla turned back to the flowers and started in with the murmuring under the breath again. Kieron drew a bit closer.

      ‘Bastard, you bastard, you’re dead and I’m alive …’

      Kieron drew a breath. ‘Orla,’ he said.

      She stopped. She put the last flower in place and stood up and faced him. ‘Yes, Kieron?’

      ‘You hated him, didn’t you?’ said Kieron.

      ‘Who, Tory?’ Her eyes were shuttered now. ‘He was our brother.’

      ‘He was a bastard, the worst kind.’

      Orla lifted her chin. ‘He was the head of the family,’ she said.

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘And to be accorded respect.’

      Kieron stared at her. ‘Orla. Tory and Pat were bastards together. They were bad to the core.’

      ‘Were? You’re talking as if Pat’s dead, too.’

      ‘Don’t you think he is?’

      Orla paused for a beat. ‘I know he is.’

       ‘What?’

      ‘Redmond and I believe he died at the Limehouse parlour. Annie Bailey complained of him before to Redmond, said Pat was taking drugs and getting out of hand. Not that it was a surprise. We knew, anyway. And he was there the day he vanished, then he was gone during the doorman’s break and there was word of the Carter mob coming in and doing a clean-up that night. They carried something out of there. Annie Bailey had hurt her leg somehow, and Dolly Farrell had a tooth missing. The story was there’d been a catfight over territory, but it stank to high heaven. They were all jumpy with us after that. Guilty as hell. Oh, Pat’s dead all right.’

      ‘You don’t sound very sorry,’ said Kieron.

      ‘Why would I be?’ Orla’s smile was chilling. ‘As you say – he was a bastard.’

      Kieron