The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane
then Max asked her what she’d like, and she panicked, she couldn’t understand a word on the menu. Blushing and feeling a fool, she had to ask him to explain what the food was, and her ignorance seemed to amuse him. He looked at her fondly, and she started to relax.
There were people around them who looked rich and spoke in that haw-haw way that posh people did. The men wore dinner jackets, the ladies wore glittery dresses, fur stoles and heaps of jewellery. Ruthie drank it all in, knowing that such good fortune was unlikely to come her way again.
But it did.
Max took her out again.
And again.
Although he kissed her, he never tried to go all the way. He was always the perfect gentleman, and she liked that. She knew this was a permissive society now, with girls on the Pill and enjoying a free sex life without fear of the backstreet abortions that had been the plague of women all through the fifties. But that wasn’t her. Max treated her with respect, and she loved him all the more for that.
Finally they were engaged, and now plain little Ruthie Bailey was emerging from the gleaming white Rolls-Royce into sunlight outside the church. Her Uncle Tom, Mum’s brother, was giving her away. He took her arm with a smile. Annie and Kath kept hold of her long lacy train. It had rained last night, and it mustn’t be allowed to trail in the mud. It was an expensive item.
But then, Max was paying. Max always paid. He knew the Baileys didn’t have much, and he had plenty. There were new nets up at Connie’s windows now, and she was the proud owner of a television, and even a fridge. She was made up.
Ruthie looked around her at all the smiling faces. The vicar was standing at the church door waiting for her. For her! Ruthie Bailey. Soon to be Mrs Max Carter.
The photographer was fussing around them now, setting up shots.
‘Veil up for this one,’ he said, and Annie lifted the veil off Ruthie’s face, which for once was radiant with pride and happiness.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Ruthie to Annie, who was very quiet today. Unusually quiet.
Connie, their mother, was clucking around, trying to tell the photographer how to do his job. This was a big day for her too – her daughter, marrying into the Carter clan. People around here were going to have to start treating her with more respect after today. Connie was relishing the idea and throwing her weight about already. She knew that Max’s boys always met upstairs in the house that had once been Queenie’s, but Connie was going to suggest that they meet at hers instead. After all, she would be family. She would take care of them, make tea and cakes. Imagine the neighbours’ faces when that happened!
Ruthie looked sympathetically at her younger sister. ‘Don’t worry, Annie,’ she said. ‘It’ll be your turn before you know it.’
Annie eyed her sister with dislike. How dare the smug cow patronize her!
Annie was in a foul mood, still smarting from the fact that Max had walked past her fifteen minutes ago without even acknowledging her existence. All right, she hadn’t expected hearts and flowers, but after what they’d shared last night she expected at least a show of warmth.
All the hurt of years seemed to flood up into her throat, choking her. Ruthie the favoured one, Ruthie the good girl. Ruthie the one who was making a fantastic marriage while she, Annie, stood behind her and watched the man who should have been hers wed himself to her holier-than-thou sister.
She’d had years of it.
All the hand-me-downs. All those seconds worn first by Ruthie; things that were too long, too loose, threadbare, washed out and worn out. Second-best. Everything Annie had ever had was second-best. Ruthie came first.
But not this time.
‘Maybe I’ve already had my turn,’ Annie said, her eyes hard and angry.
Ruthie’s smile faltered. She stared at Annie. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh – nothing.’
‘Yes you do. What are you talking about?’
The photographer had gone into the church to set up his tripod for the aisle shot. Connie was fussing around Kath’s peach draperies. Uncle Tom was taking a furtive nip of brandy from a hip flask. The vicar was talking to Gary Tooley, a close associate of Max’s, who was one of the ushers. For the moment, the two sisters stood alone.
‘Nothing. It’s nothing,’ said Annie. Then her eyes looked straight into Ruthie’s and her mouth curved into a vicious smile. ‘I’ve had your hand-me-downs all my life, Ruthie. But today, guess what? You’re getting one of mine.’
‘Come on, Ruthie. Let’s get your veil down, oh, don’t she look a picture, Tom?’ Connie was there again, pulling the veil down over Ruthie’s shocked and stricken eyes.
‘Beautiful,’ said Uncle Tom obligingly, his eyes lingering covertly on the far more eye-catching Annie.
Ruthie saw the look. She swallowed, reeling, sickened, as the full meaning of Annie’s words sank in. She tried to compose herself again as she stepped up to the church’s grand entrance.
‘My little girl, getting married,’ gloated Connie.
Kath and Annie stepped in behind Ruthie and the vicar, and then the Wedding March sounded loud and clear from inside the church.
Annie followed her sister up the aisle to join Max at the altar. Her throat was closed and she was choking with hatred and misery. She saw Max there looking impossibly handsome and his brother Jonjo as best man standing by his side. She saw the expression in Max’s eyes as he looked back and saw Ruthie.
He’d never looked at her like that.
The bastard.
But at least she’d had her revenge for the way he’d so casually dismissed her. Ruthie knew. There was no going back from that.
Ruthie knew.
They sat outside in the car and looked at the shop. They were Max’s boys, and they were following orders. One of his most trusted lieutenants had told them to do the shop late on the Saturday afternoon when the information was that there would be upward of three thousand quid in the till.
They knew that they were on the Delaney patch. They knew the shop-owner was paying protection to the Delaneys, and this had caused them some concern.
‘Just do the fucking job, leave the thinking to those that can,’ came the orders when they questioned this action.
There were four of them, all of them handy but still worried. If the Carters were looking to take a pop at the Delaney manor, there was going to be seven kinds of shit flying about, and they weren’t happy.
Some things were set in stone. The Richardsons and the Frasers had the South, the Regans the West, the Nashes had The Angel, the Delaneys held Battersea – and a small pocket in Limehouse down by the docks, often disputed over – the Krays had Bethnal Green and the Carters had Bow. You never argued with that. But the boys were loyal, and there was a bonus in it for them. When they had asked what their cut was to be, the answer had come swiftly back from Jonjo Carter.
‘Take the fucking lot. Piss it all up against a wall if you want to, just take it.’
Which was very unusual. The Carters were notoriously keen on taking their pound of flesh. The boys took this to mean that this job was intended as an insult to the Delaneys, a message to say, look you cunts, we can take you any time you like, no worries.
They were worried all right. There had been rumours that Tory Delaney was out of circulation, maybe ill, maybe God knew what.
But orders were orders, and Max Carter was the guvnor. He knew what he was doing, and he didn’t