The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

and wondering what was going on. She wanted to be in her bed, asleep. This was a fucking nightmare.

      ‘It was kind of you to come,’ said Annie to Orla.

      ‘Not kind at all. We have a lot of respect for you. We admire you as a businesswoman, and we have a great deal to thank you for.’

      ‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ said Annie wearily.

      ‘But we have.’ Orla’s face was blank but her voice was sincere. ‘For instance, we have you to thank for solving a major problem for us.’

      Annie frowned. ‘What major problem?’

      Orla smiled gently. ‘Why Pat, of course. He was getting to be a terrible problem, and you got rid of him for us. You and Mr Carter here. Isn’t that the case?’

      There was silence in the room. Annie was aware that Max was tensing as Orla spoke. He was ready to move. But Orla was still coolly sitting there beside her, as if this were a bloody afternoon tea party and not an unexpected meeting that was turning out to be very scary indeed.

      ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said finally.

      ‘Yes you do,’ said Orla. ‘We know most of what happened to Pat. Nearly all of it, really.’

      They’re guessing, thought Annie. They’re hoping I’ll admit something and then their bait will have worked. I’m not falling for it.

      ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she repeated.

      Redmond tutted under his breath and looked at his sister.

      ‘Ellie is a Delaney girl to her bones,’ said Orla. ‘She needed to unburden herself. She wanted to go to the police but she didn’t, and that’s something else we have to thank you for. She confessed to us that you were all in on the killing except her. She tried to stop it, but you dealt the final blow.’

      Annie’s mouth dropped open. That fucking little liar. Out to save her own skin again, the miserable little grass. And to say that Annie had dealt the final blow! Jesus, it was Ellie herself who had jumped on Pat’s back and slit his throat wide open.

      ‘That isn’t true,’ said Annie. ‘It was Ellie who slit Pat’s throat.’

      ‘Be that as it may,’ said Redmond. ‘We’re grateful.’

       ‘Grateful?’

      ‘He used to abuse them when they were children,’ said Kieron suddenly. ‘Him and Tory.’

      ‘Kieron,’ said Orla, her face a mask of horror and shame as her secret was laid bare for everyone to hear.

      Redmond’s look should have dissolved Kieron on the spot.

      Annie looked at Redmond. Then at Orla.

      ‘Jesus,’ she said helplessly. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

      ‘Don’t say anything,’ said Orla, sending Kieron a furious glance. ‘My brother Kieron has a very big mouth and he ought to learn to keep it shut. This is family business.’

      ‘Oh, why hide it away? They were bastards, the pair of them,’ Kieron blundered on. ‘Tory was the instigator, but Pat was happy to participate, the fucking filthy nonce.’

      Annie was trying to take it all in. God, all the times she had quivered with fear at the thought of Redmond finding out that she had been instrumental in the death of his brother Pat. How she and Dolly and Aretha and Darren had schemed and struggled to cover their tracks. And all for nothing. Ellie had told Orla and Redmond a warped version of events, and they had been pleased to hear that their nasty, incestuous, junkie brother had finally left the earth. Pleased.

      ‘Pat was becoming a liability, in any case,’ said Orla. ‘Something would have had to be done about him soon.’

      It was as if she was discussing something totally disconnected from her, Annie realized. This was the key to Orla and Redmond Delaney. Finally Annie understood what she was dealing with. The childhood abuse had made them like this. So cold, so detached, so unable to participate in the normal everyday things of life. Both so beautiful and both so ruined, she thought in pity. No marriage, no children, no feelings for anything except each other. And what about Kieron? What about their parents?

      She couldn’t ask. She looked at Orla and felt only horror and sympathy.

      ‘If you were relieved about Pat, then … you must have been relieved about Tory too?’ she asked.

      Orla shot Kieron a disgusted glance. Then she looked at Annie. ‘Of course we were. But our parents were devastated by it.’

      Kieron was looking fidgety again.

      ‘When our parents went back to Ireland, I burned down the Galway and the Liberty Lounge and we pocketed the insurance,’ said Orla matter-of-factly. She smiled at Max. ‘Like you, Mr Carter, we have plenty of other good things going. We didn’t need them. They were Tory’s invention, Tory’s pride and joy. Every time I so much as thought about them I was reminded of him. I hated them because of that, and they didn’t even pay well. So I got rid.’

      Annie looked over at Max. Orla seemed very hot on ‘getting rid’. Of people, of places. Whatever displeased her, in fact. Anything and everyone. It struck her that Orla was a very dangerous woman indeed. Christ, and Annie had been walking around these past weeks believing the Delaneys to be in ignorance of Pat’s death. Fucking Ellie. Annie could easily have woken up dead one morning, yet Ellie had been behaving as if everything was fine. Which – for her at least, the treacherous cow – it was.

      Max sat back in his chair and looked at Orla.

      ‘I have to ask – did you kill Tory?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘And I never would. Not until our parents had passed over, anyway.’

      ‘Then … you don’t know who did? You don’t believe the rumours that I did it?’ asked Max. He glanced at Kieron. ‘You accused me of doing Tory at your exhibition, didn’t you.’

      Kieron gave a snort of laughter. ‘Yeah. But only so Red and Orla would believe it and get you out of my life for good, you bastard. I’m sick up to here of you treading on my toes. I thought that when they heard that, they might do the deed at last.’ He gave his brother and sister a sneering look. ‘But they didn’t. Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ He flung his arms wide in exasperation. ‘Don’t you get it yet? It was me. I did it. I shot the bastard.’

      Once again shocked silence filled the room. Downstairs, the crowd roared. Donald had performed his finale. The band were taking their bows. The compère was talking loudly into the microphone, but the words were just garbled noise to the people grouped in the small room upstairs.

      ‘I’m not ashamed of it,’ said Kieron.

      ‘Well you should be,’ said Orla, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. ‘You know what it did to Dad.’

      ‘It needed doing. I can’t be like you, laying flowers and lighting candles for the bastard who caused you both such grief. I had to do something about it.’

      So Max hadn’t killed Tory Delaney. Annie’s eyes met his and she read the question there.

      ‘So if this is the time for confessions, what about Max’s family?’ she asked, turning her gaze to Redmond and Orla. ‘What about Queenie? What about poor Eddie? Jesus, Max had reason enough to hate you all, don’t you think, when he believed you were behind their deaths?’

      ‘Jesus, trust you to come galloping to his defence,’ said Kieron angrily.

      ‘I’m not defending anyone. I just want to hear the truth, that’s all.’

      Why didn’t the fool just shut up? Annie didn’t even glance at Kieron’s face, she was sick of his mouthing off. She’d spent all this time sitting on the fence that divided the boundaries of the Carter and