The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane
Ruthie’s eyes were hard. ‘Let me tell you about my life, Annie. I spend a lot of time sitting alone in that mausoleum in Surrey now that poor little Eddie’s gone. If I go out to get my hair done or to go shopping I have to take my minder with me. The stockbrokers’ wives with their little Pony Club kids and their twinsets and pearls don’t like my accent or my dodgy connections and they shun me. I don’t see my husband very often, he’s a busy man, but when I do we’re at each other’s throats. Mum’s in bits on her own but Max won’t let her come and stay with us because she might mess up Queenie’s rugs or leave drink stains on the tables. So I came back to the Smoke. I go out to the shops here, but still I’ve got to take my minder with me. The shopkeepers all serve me first, before all the other women. I go straight to the front of the queue, even if I don’t want to. I have to apologize for that, but the other women say, oh don’t worry, we’re not in a rush. But they stare at me and they hate me and they envy me. They’re afraid of me. Or rather they’re afraid of Max. That’s my life, Annie. That’s my life.’
Suddenly there were tears in Ruthie’s eyes. Instinctively Annie put out a comforting hand, but Ruthie snatched hers away.
‘Don’t you dare pity me,’ she said.
‘I don’t,’ lied Annie.
‘I’d rather be me than you,’ sniffed Ruthie, her expression one of disgust. ‘Running a massage parlour! For God’s sake, whatever possessed you to get sucked into all that?’
‘Mum threw me out,’ Annie reminded her. ‘Where the hell else could I have gone? And Celia always liked me.’
‘And now she’s left you in charge?’
‘Yes.’
‘You ought to be careful,’ said Ruthie. ‘You’ll get all sorts banging on your door.’
Don’t I know it, thought Annie. But the parlour had been her lifeline. She was busy expanding it. Fuck it, she was proud of the work she’d done there. It had been running at a quarter of its full capacity under Celia. Under Annie’s rule, it was thriving.
‘I’m always careful,’ said Annie. ‘So … are you and Max still together, Ruthie?’
Ruthie looked at her sister scornfully. ‘Yes, we’re still together. Contrary to rumour. I’m going back at the weekend, we’re going to spend it together. Don’t think you’re going to step into my shoes, Annie Bailey. I’m still wearing them.’
‘I don’t,’ said Annie, colouring.
‘No?’ Ruthie gave a derisive snort. ‘He always wanted you, really. But he won’t ditch me for you, Annie. Max doesn’t dump his commitments. He isn’t Jonjo. He takes his responsibilities seriously.’
‘I don’t want him to,’ said Annie, standing up sharply.
‘Sure you don’t,’ scoffed Ruthie.
‘I don’t!’ God, was she trying to convince Ruthie or herself? Flustered, Annie snatched up her bag. Her cheeks felt hot. She looked at Ruthie. ‘I just wanted to see you,’ she said.
‘What for? To see the damage you’ve done?’ snapped Ruthie.
‘We were so close before,’ said Annie.
‘Before? You mean, before you fucked my bridegroom?’
It wasn’t like Ruthie to swear. But then this was a different Ruthie – hardened and sharpened by life, by all that had happened to her. Annie stared at her and could see nothing of the Ruthie she had known and loved. Nothing at all.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Ruthie. ‘Of course you are.’
‘I think he’s had enough,’ said Annie, passing through the hallway and pausing to look at what Aretha was up to.
More and more Annie was becoming blasé about the sex parties. Men were a strange lot, straight sex seemed to be the last thing on their mind. One client had begged her to let him redecorate the kitchen – while stark naked of course – while Aretha whipped the crap out of him and told him to do it better. Annie had declined his request. The kitchen was off-limits to clients. Men! What a bloody strange bunch they were. In her limited experience, women were so much easier to please. Most women wanted a nice warm one-to-one cuddle – blokes wanted much more diverse pleasures.
‘Why? He’s a very naughty boy,’ purred Aretha.
This was becoming a practised part of their little act. Aretha was the slave mistress, the beater and abuser dressed in a leather basque and holding the whip, Annie was the prudishly clad, sweet voice of discipline and reason who said enough was enough. It was good cop/bad cop, really. Which was ironic, when you considered that the bloke who was strung up from the stairwell was a chief inspector.
‘Who’s a naughty boy then?’ asked Aretha, biting pineapple and cheese from a cocktail stick and then giving the copper a playful stab in the buttocks with the point. He shrieked with ecstasy and writhed about.
Frankly, Annie had seen prettier sights than this middle-aged man, his fat arse slick with baby oil, hung up there like a sodding Christmas ham. It tickled her that Chris was still sitting by the front door, his face impassive. He could have been a eunuch standing guard in a harem for all the interest he showed in the proceedings.
‘Another ten minutes.’ Annie looked at the alarm clock set up on the hall table. It would ring at three o’clock in the afternoon, announcing to their visitors that it was time to get gone. She was always relieved at this point, however much she became accustomed to what happened here. Dolly was upstairs with two punters, Ellie was drinking sherry with one of their dear old fellows in the front room. Darren had a judge upstairs, doing God knew what. Connie Francis was belting out her latest on the radiogram, Annie loved that song.
She was tired now, tired of smiling and being Madam. Their new barman, Brian, was boxing up the empties, putting the dirty glasses to one side. All the food had been cleared today. It had been a busy party, and very profitable. No trouble, either. All in all, a good day’s work.
Annie went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. She kicked off her courts and sighed with pleasure. You couldn’t beat a cup of tea and a sit-down at the kitchen table with all your mates to talk over the day together. She looked around her happily, then frowned at the new kitchen door.
Not frosted glass now. She didn’t like it, but this one was solid wood, with a peephole and a Yale lock. At the kitchen window, which looked out over a tiny square of garden, there was now an iron grid. There was also a discreet strip of barbed wire on the fence at the bottom of the garden and the side of the house, and a solid securely locked side gate had replaced the pretty, white painted, wrought-iron one that used to be there.
None of this pleased Annie. She felt like she was living in fucking Stalag 13, and the wooden door blocked out a lot of light from the kitchen. Everyone was admitted from the front of the house now. No surprises, nasty or otherwise. She picked up Chris’s paper from the table and browsed through it, stopping dead when she came across a piece about two nightclubs being burned to the ground. Arson was suspected. The clubs were owned by the ‘influential’ Delaney family, it said. Enquiries were ongoing.
Annie sat down at the table. Yeah, sure, she thought. The Bill were sure to enquire closely about what happened to gangland clubs, weren’t they. She hugged herself and shivered. She’d been feeling down since going over to Mum’s to see Ruthie. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Maybe a tearful, happy reunion? Perhaps for Ruthie to hug her and say, there, there, it’s all forgotten. To be forgiven for the unforgivable? What a fucking laugh. She’d told herself to buck up and get a grip. She’d done the deed, and these were the consequences. Still, she’d been undeniably low ever since. And now this!
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