The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

last thing she’d expected was what he’d just said.

      ‘But Max,’ she started, trying to sit up, her eyes wide with shock.

      Max’s hand on her face was suddenly hard and hurtful. He grabbed her chin and stared into her eyes.

      ‘No buts,’ he said flatly. ‘This is it. Finished and forgotten. No one’s ever going to know about it. Clear?’

      Annie nodded as best she could and he let her go. He patted her cheek. ‘Good girl,’ he said, and reached for a cigarette.

      Annie lay staring at the ceiling, her face throbbing and her mind seething with resentment. So Ruthie won again. As always.

      The phone rang and Max snatched it up. ‘Jimmy. What kept you?’

      Someone spoke. Max put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked at Annie. ‘Go and get cleaned up, eh love?’

      So she was dismissed. Had and then forgotten. Rage started to eat at her. Bastard! She threw back the covers and stormed from the bed, aware that he was watching her. Not that she cared. She was proud of her body. It was good, better than Ruthie’s. Better than a lot of girls could hope for.

      Annie went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. She could hear Billy Fury still singing away downstairs as she ran water into the sink to clean the blood off her thighs. She snatched up the flannel and started to wash. She could hear Max on the phone talking about some club or other. She blinked back stupid, weak tears. She never cried. Never.

      She turned the tap on harder to drown out the sound of his voice. Max’s business was best not known about.

       2

      The killer drove through the night and parked the car a mile away from the Tudor Club in Stoke Newington. Then the shadowy figure walked to the club and waited, cloaked in darkness. The killer was patient and could wait for hours, but this time wouldn’t have to. The information was sound, the soundest you could get.

      The killer felt the cold, hard weight of the .38 Smith & Wesson and was reassured. The gun was familiar, like family.

      The punters were coming out now. And it was fortuitous that Tory Delaney was – as usual – towards the back of the crowd and without a minder. The killer sneered at the man’s arrogance. He would pay for it.

      The figure followed Tory at a discreet distance as he went to his car, a flashy-looking Rover. When Tory had the key in the lock and there was no one about, the killer stepped out of the shadows.

      ‘Hello, Tory.’

      Tory was fast on his feet, always had been. You didn’t have to paint Tory no pictures, and that made him dangerous.

      Tory turned and suddenly there was a knife in his hand. He came at the interloper with the blade slashing. The killer felt the knife swish past, missing by an inch as Tory lunged, teeth bared like a madman.

      The gun lifted and shot Tory three times in the chest. Tory dropped the knife and fell back over the bonnet of his car. He slid down, his face draining of blood, and landed on the tarmac.

      The killer kicked the knife away from Tory’s groping hand, then looked around to be certain no one was in sight. They would come soon, staff and management pouring out of the club to see what was going on. The noise would have alerted them. But there was a moment.

      Just a moment.

      ‘You,’ gasped Tory, and his killer smiled.

      One more shot was fired between Tory’s eyebrows. Pink jelly spattered, brain and bone. Then at last Tory was still, staring sightlessly at the balmy evening sky.

      No time to gloat.

      The killer was already walking away, slipping the gun back into its oiled bag and then into a larger polythene container – don’t want any cordite on our coat pockets, now do we? – then moving into deeper shadows as people started to appear at the door of the club, looking around to see what the noise had been about.

      The killer walked away in darkness and strode out the mile back to the car, then got in, pleased with a job well done, and placed the gun in a concealed compartment under the passenger seat, removed the thick leather gloves and drove home.

      Later that same night Max Carter sat in his Surrey kitchen and cleaned and oiled his gun. While he was doing it, his kid brother Eddie came in and sat down at the kitchen table.

      ‘Busy night?’ asked Eddie.

      ‘Fair,’ said Max, carrying on with his work.

      Max looked at Eddie. Eddie was queer as a fish, but he was a good kid and trustworthy. He liked to wear all those floral shirts and cords, and his mid-brown hair was over his collar, like that new group The Beatles wore theirs. Mum would have thrown a fit to see it.

      But she was gone. The bleakness filled Max again at the thought of that.

      Gone for ever.

      ‘Where’s Jonjo?’ he asked Eddie.

      Eddie made a face. ‘Out with a new blonde.’

      That cheered Max up a bit. Jonjo was good entertainment value, that was a fact. Jonjo and his fucking blondes. When Marilyn Monroe offed herself last year, Max almost thought that Jonjo would off himself too. Marilyn, to Jonjo, had been the ultimate.

      Max couldn’t see it himself. He preferred dark-eyed brunettes. And Eddie preferred pretty young blokes, but so long as he didn’t frighten the horses, so what?

      Eddie was looking at the gun in his brother’s hand.

      ‘You did it then,’ he said flatly.

      Max paused and looked at Eddie square in the eye. Max’s eyes were suddenly a chilly blue, like arctic ice. ‘I did nothing.’

      Eddie swallowed nervously. His lips quivered. ‘Holy Christ,’ he muttered.

      Max replaced the gun in its oiled cloth and held it out to Eddie.

      ‘Take it out and bury it,’ he told him. ‘I don’t want to know where.’

      Eddie did as he was told. Max went into the lounge and put Mozart on the radiogram. He sat down with a brandy, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

       3

      ‘And where the fuck have you been?’ Connie Bailey demanded of her daughter as Annie let herself in the front door of her mother’s little terraced council house.

      It was nearly dawn and one of Max’s boys had just dropped her off at the end of the road. Annie silently cursed her mother’s erratic sleeping habits. Connie was always trotting about in the night, making cups of tea and smoking fags, and that was in the quiet times. Now it was the day of the wedding, and with all the excitement Annie doubted that her mother had slept a wink.

      Connie was perched on the bottom stair with a mug of tea and a cigarette. Annie looked at her with stark dislike and hoped it wasn’t true that daughters turned into their mothers.

      Connie was dirt-poor skinny, with a smoker’s lined and yellowish skin. Her dry, dyed blonde hair was up in the sponge rollers she always wore at night, and her candlewick dressing gown, once peach-coloured, had faded to dirty beige.

      Oh God, Annie thought, I could do without this. She was still smarting from the fact that Max had barely bothered to say goodbye to her. Annie wondered if he’d had Ruthie yet, but she doubted it. Ruthie was the Virgin Princess, the sort that men took home to meet their mums. Ruthie had been presented to Queenie Carter over tea at Christmas and, when she had met with Queenie’s approval, the marriage had been given the go-ahead.

      Annie