The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane

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      ‘Someone likes you,’ said the female officer, not unkindly. ‘Bail’s in place. You can go. Don’t leave the bloody country though, and you’ll be required to check in to your local police station once a week until your case comes to court.’

      ‘All right,’ said Annie. Her head ached. She felt shattered and sick at heart. Some birthday.

      But somehow, she felt she deserved this. She had done wrong, and she was going to be punished. Annie knew that she had done more wrong than could ever be put right. She had sat in that barren cell and thought about her mother, who had never loved her. Annie had given her a lot of trouble over the years. Hitting back in the only way she could, being a brat to punish Connie for her lack of affection.

      And Ruthie. Ruthie, the favoured one. She’d punished Ruthie for that, too. Punished her by ruining her marriage, ruining her life. The poor cow.

      And now Annie knew that she had been caught out, and that she would be punished. Which was good. Then maybe … maybe she could start to wipe the slate clean.

      It was all over now, her and Max Carter.

      She knew it was all over with Ruthie too. All those pitiful attempts at reconciliation. Who was she kidding? Would she have forgiven Ruthie, had the boot been on the other foot? Not in a million years. And Ruthie was not going to forgive her, not ever. She had lost her sister. It was done. Time to move on.

      She walked out of the police station with her little bag of jewellery in her hand. She walked smack into Kieron Delaney.

      ‘How did you know I was here?’ Annie asked him coldly. She was looking up and down the busy road for a cab. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, and especially not to him.

      ‘Redmond told me,’ said Kieron. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘I’m fine.’ Bloody taxis, never one around when you wanted one. She was wearing a thin shift dress and it was fucking freezing out here.

      ‘Come back to the flat with me,’ said Kieron.

      ‘No.’

      Didn’t I already tell him several times to fuck off? wondered Annie.

      ‘Oh come on. Where the hell else are you going to go?’

      ‘That’s my business,’ said Annie sharply. At last she spotted a cab approaching.

      She hailed the cab and got in without another word to Kieron.

      She wondered where to go. The Upper Brook Street apartment was off-limits. It was probably still crawling with police, probably cordoned off as a crime scene.

      There was only one place in the world that would forever be home.

      It was just like old times, thought Annie. Darren and Aretha and Ellie and Dolly and her, all around the kitchen table in the Limehouse parlour, drinking tea and keeping Ellie from eating too many biscuits. Chris out there in the hall, in his seat by the door.

      ‘How bad is it?’ asked Dolly, getting straight down to brass tacks.

      Annie sipped her tea and sighed. ‘Pretty bad,’ she admitted. ‘The brief reckons I could be looking at a two-year stretch. I was caught red-handed running a disorderly house. No argument. He reckons it’s best to plead guilty, get the two years, then appeal.’

      ‘What if you threatened to drop a couple of names to the Bill?’ suggested Aretha. ‘You know, girl, all those lords and stuff. They wouldn’t want to be put in the frame, now would they? They got clout, those people. They got reputations to protect. Couldn’t they get you offa this?’

      ‘I couldn’t do that,’ said Annie. ‘Look, I ran the place. I accept responsibility.’

      Dolly nodded. ‘Aretha, Darren, Ellie and me were lucky to get out of the nick in one bit. The pigs didn’t have nothing on us, we were just there for your birthday party after all. But it was touch and go for a minute there as to whether they’d swallow it or not. Look, Annie, what about Redmond?’

      ‘What about him?’

      ‘Well, wouldn’t he pull some strings?’

      ‘I won’t ask him,’ said Annie. ‘You know how it is, Doll. They take care of you but you never implicate them.’

      ‘And is he going to do that? Take care of you … when you’re …?’ Dolly couldn’t say it.

      When you’re inside, added Annie to herself with a shiver.

      Christ, going to prison. She knew it was going to happen. She knew she’d done the crime and she would have to do the time. But the thought of it was putting the fear of God up her. Her bowels felt liquid. She felt sick as a dog.

      ‘Well, we’ve got to hope so, haven’t we,’ said Annie, dunking another biscuit. She had to eat, at least, had to keep body and soul together.

      ‘You’re being very brave about it,’ said Darren. ‘I’d be in bits.’

      But Annie had always toughed it out. It was in her nature to stand alone and stick two fingers up to the world. Suddenly she felt tired. She’d been nicked on her twenty-second birthday. Two years had gone by since she’d first done the dirty on her sister by sleeping with Max Carter. Two long, fucking years.

      And what did she have to show for it? A dodgy ex-lover, a family who didn’t want to know her, and a pending prison sentence. Nothing to be proud of, now was it?

      And the papers were lapping it all up. The Mayfair Madam 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, СКАЧАТЬ