The Annie Carter Series Books 1–4. Jessie Keane
stared at him. ‘He was my brother.’
‘You can’t bring yourself to say it.’
‘The head of the family.’
‘Orla.’ Kieron grabbed her shoulders and stared into her face. ‘We all know what Tory was. He was vicious and he was a thug and he hurt you and Redmond.’
‘Kieron, stop it,’ said Orla.
‘No, it’s got to be said,’ said Kieron passionately. ‘I remember it all, just as if it were yesterday. Tory was seventeen, I was eight, Pat seven. You and Red were just ten years old. I heard it all happening. I’ll never forget it. I heard Tory in your room, and I saw … once I crept out and I saw what he was doing to the pair of you and I felt sick and I ran off, I was afraid that he would do it to me too if I made a sound. I saw Pat in there too, laughing and watching. Seven years old and he was already a sick little bastard, I saw him.’
Orla started to tremble. ‘Please, stop this,’ she said in a small voice.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ said Kieron soothingly, rubbing her shoulders now, his hands gentle. ‘They’re gone, they’re both gone, thank God. Never to return. I wanted you to know, that’s all. I wanted you to know that I did it for you, for you and Redmond. I set you free of him, once and for all.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Orla.
‘I think you know,’ said Kieron.
‘No. I don’t. Tell me what you mean.’
‘I didn’t come back from Africa just before the funeral. I was here, in England, a month before Tory was killed. When Redmond phoned long-distance to say that Tory had been shot, a friend took the message and phoned me. I was painting in Hayle. Huge beaches, vast skies. The light’s good there, too. Vivid.’
‘Kieron.’ Orla nearly screamed it.
‘It was easy to do. I was in the country nearly a month before. It had been eating away at me for years, what he did to you and Redmond when you were just children. And I thought, why not? No one even knows I’m about the place. Everyone has guns out in South Africa, you know. It’s a dangerous country. I had a gun, I had bullets. I brought it back with me and I painted and I thought about what had been done and that it had never been avenged.’
‘Go on.’ Orla’s face was bloodless. She looked like she might faint.
‘I came up here and I watched. I was careful that no one knew I was about – not even you. I watched Tory’s movements. I knew he went out to the Tudor Club at Stoke Newington every Friday night. So I went there too, and I waited outside … and then I shot him. No one ever suspected. Everyone thought Max Carter had done it.’
Orla stared at him. Kieron was half-smiling, knowing she would be pleased.
Then she slapped his face so hard that he reeled backwards. Then she fell on him like a fury, grabbed his hair, yanked back his head and yelled into his face: ‘What the hell have you done, you bloody fool?’
Kieron blinked in shock. She was supposed to be pleased. He was sure she would be pleased. ‘But you hated him. You had good reason to hate him.’
‘Yes! I hated him!’
‘Well then.’
‘Well then nothing, you fucking little idiot. Yes, I hated him and I hate him still. I come here and light candles and lay flowers for Mum, not for me. And I curse his rotten soul every time I come here. I hope he’s frying in hell. I detest the memory of him. If I was unattended here, you know what I’d do?’
‘No. I don’t.’ Kieron’s voice shook. His face burned where she had struck him. He was amazed at the change in her. This wasn’t the Orla he knew.
‘I’d dance, Kieron. Right on this fucking grave. I’d dance on top of him.’
‘Well …’ Kieron felt afraid. He had never seen her in such a tear.
‘But Dad doted on him. Tory was his firstborn, his favourite. Do you have any idea what it did to him, losing Tory? It drove him mad, Kieron. It drove him mad with grief! Our dad’s an empty shell, he’s nothing now. An old man with a wandering mind. And you stand there smiling like someone waiting to get a prize? Shame on you!’
‘But you hated him …’ repeated Kieron blankly. He couldn’t understand her reaction, he couldn’t take any of this in. She was supposed to be pleased.
‘Of course I did.’ Orla was hissing into his face, spittle flying with every word she uttered. ‘What do you think I am, a fool? I know what he did to us. I know he ruined us both. I can’t look at men. I can’t contemplate marriage, or sex, or babies. It gives me the heaves every time it crosses my mind. Because of what my own brother did to me. How do you think that feels, Kieron?’
‘And that’s why I did it,’ said Kieron desperately. ‘Because I knew, and because I couldn’t let him get away with it.’
Orla took a quivering breath and regained a measure of calm. She stared at him as if at a stranger.
‘You killed him,’ she said.
She’d thought of just about everyone, but never Kieron. She had suspected the Mafia – the Americans, particularly the Barolli family, were strong in the West End and Tory had been openly resentful about their presence here and about their business links with the Carters. And the Carters. Of course the Carters. Hot-headed Jonjo or cool, controlled Max. Either one. Someone had set out to kill Queenie Carter, and that had been a step too far. No one would have blamed them for wreaking revenge.
‘I did it for you,’ said Kieron urgently. ‘For you and Redmond. You must have wanted to do it yourselves. You must have.’
‘Of course we did,’ spat Orla.
Every day of her life she remembered it, every night she dreamed of it; a flare of faint light from the landing. The bedroom door opening, then closing softly. Someone moving inside the dark room, inside her and Redmond’s room. Someone was coming to her bed.
Even now she felt the familiar hopeless terror, the awful tightness in her chest. Someone was sitting down on the edge of her bed, but she mustn’t scream or tell, she mustn’t cry out because she would never be believed, Tory had always told them that. Her tears were silent, like her fear. And then the covers moved, and the nightmare became unspeakable.
‘Of course we wanted to kill him,’ she said, dragging in a breath to steady herself. ‘But we never would. He meant too much to Dad. When Dad was gone, then we would have made our move. Not before.’
‘He was a bastard and he deserved what he got,’ insisted Kieron, determined to justify himself. ‘He was cruel and sadistic. Messing with his own brother and sister. And he called me a pansy because I painted. Both Tory and Pat despised me because I was an artist, not a proper part of the firm like they were. Well I showed him. I’m not a fucking pansy, I’m not as soft as you all think I am.’
Orla was still giving him that odd look, as if she had never seen him before. ‘You didn’t have any part in the killing of Pat too, did you?’ she asked.
‘No. But you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I wish I had.’
Orla stared at him. Her sensitive, artistic little brother. The misfit in a family of gangsters. Maybe not so much a misfit after all. The thought troubled her. Blood ran deep, she thought. Deeper than she had ever thought possible.
‘You did it for us,’ she said at last. ‘You meant to do good.’
‘Of course I did,’ said Kieron.
He’s like a puppy, she thought. Bringing you your shoe although he’s chewed it beyond redemption. Trying to please. Creating havoc but only for the best of reasons. God help