Dirty Game
Page 35
‘A pleasure,’ said Orla, and left – a cold, quiet woman with a damaged past and no future.
‘What’s up, lovey? You look sad,’ said Max, coming in and leaning over the back of the sofa to kiss her neck.
‘It’s just Orla,’ said Annie. ‘I feel sorry for her.’
‘Well don’t,’ advised Max. ‘The Delaney twins are a pair of vipers, not to be trusted – or pitied.’
Annie frowned. So for all that had happened, Max still hadn’t changed his mind about the Delaneys. She didn’t suppose he ever would. She stood up and went into his open arms. He kissed her, and she relaxed into his embrace.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said against his lips.
‘And I’ve got something to tell you,’ said Max. ‘I thought we’d take a holiday. Now you’re clear of the courts.’
Annie stared at his face, dark and brooding and intensely sexual. He loved her, she knew that now. He’d done things for her that had proved it to her, once and for all.
‘That sounds good. So what did you have on Judge Bartington-Smythe?’ she asked, smiling.
Max’s blue eyes were suddenly wide-open, the picture of innocence.
‘Come on, Max, give. Was he shagging his housekeeper, or entertaining rent boys?’
‘So you think I’d try to pervert the course of justice, is that what you think?’ Max pulled her closer into him, smiling.
‘I know you would, Max Carter.’ Annie looked at him and felt luckier than she had any right to be. ‘Where shall we go?’
‘Anywhere you want. The sky’s the limit. Now what do you have to tell me?’ asked Max.
Annie told him. Max gave a shout of laughter and kissed her again for a very long time. No further words seemed necessary.
67
After leaving the hotel, Orla’s driver took her to the florist. She bought one dozen blood-red roses. Then Petey drove her to the cemetery and pulled up outside the gate.
‘Go for a walk, Petey,’ said Orla as she got out of the car. ‘I want to be on my own.’
He looked unhappy, but it wasn’t his place to question what a Delaney told him to do. He strolled off. Orla went into the church and lit candles for Tory and Pat, so that she could phone her mum in Ireland tonight and tell her that she’d done it. Then she walked out through the deserted graveyard until she came to Tory’s grave. No resting place here for Pat, she thought. By all accounts he was feeding the fishes. Carefully she bent and removed the dead blooms and replaced them with the bright new blooms.
As she did so, she spoke to the dead brother who had abused her and ruined her young life.
‘So here we are again, you and me, Tory Delaney. Me alive and you dead as a plank of wood. Bet you wish those positions were reversed, now don’t you?’
The priest, Father Michael, was going into the church and he paused when he saw Orla Delaney away in the distance tending her brother’s grave. A devout girl, that Orla – and generous in her donations to the church fund. God knew what her family got up to, but it was not his job to judge them, only to minister to their needs. Not that they ever made much call upon his services. Certainly Orla never set foot inside the confessional, which grieved him; but it was her decision.
He watched Orla finishing her weekly task of refreshing the blooms on her brother’s grave. Ah, she was a good girl. And then his jaw dropped as he saw Orla, right there on her brother Tory’s grave, lift her hands to the heavens and dance.
68
At the same time as Orla Delaney was amazing Father Michael, Ruthie Carter was boarding a train at Waterloo. She opened the door to the first-class carriage and just before she stepped inside she took off her engagement and her wedding rings. The elderly porter put her luggage in the compartment and waited for his tip. She put the two rings in his outstretched hand.
‘What the …’ He looked at them, then at her face.
‘Keep them or sell them, I don’t care which,’ said Ruthie. ‘Either that or I’ll throw them in the rubbish bin, it’s up to you.’
The porter looked at the rings. They looked expensive. There were diamonds, and gold, and a large cabochon-cut emerald that caught the light like green fire. He shrugged and slipped them into his pocket. Ruthie boarded the train, and the porter shut the door after her.
She was going to have an adventure.
She’d never had one before.
Now the world was opening up to her at last.
69
‘Notes,’ said Detective Inspector Fielding.
Constable Lightworthy had almost been nodding off behind the wheel. He didn’t know why they were here today, watching Billy Black again, who was loitering on his usual corner outside The Grapes public house.
They’d been watching Billy for months, looking for something, anything, with which to nail Max Carter, to tie him in to the Tory Delaney killing or the department store job – or anything else they could stick him with.
Lightworthy was sick of all this. The DCI was gnawing away at it like a dog with an effing bone. Even the Super was running out of patience with him.
‘Notes, sir?’ he asked, straightening up.
‘He’s always scribbling in notebooks,’ said Fielding, straightening up suddenly in the passenger seat. ‘Rubbish at the front, facts at the back.’
‘Yes, sir.’ So the poor bastard’s not quite right in the head. Everyone knows that. So what?
‘So where does he keep them? Start the bloody car,’ said Fielding. ‘I’ve got to get a warrant.’
Billy had lots of notebooks. For years they had all been packed away safely in his bedroom in an old suitcase. They told all about the Carters and their boys and Annie and parlours and money-laundering through the clubs and billiard halls – and of getting rid of Mad Pat Delaney’s dead body in a covert clean-up operation.
When the doorbell rang a couple of days later, Billy was in the wasteland they called their back garden, sitting on the bench in the sun. Uncle Ted let the four coppers in, and Mum looked surly as she ushered them through to see Billy.
‘Hello again Billy lad,’ said the head copper.
‘Hello,’ said Billy. He’d been expecting them. They’d been watching him for a long time, he knew that. Things had started to get a bit hairy, Max had warned him to be careful. That was why he’d done what he’d done – and not a minute too soon, by the look of it.
‘They’ve got a warrant to search the house,’ said Mum, all a-quiver with moral outrage. ‘What you been up to, you little runt?’
‘Nothing, Mum,’ said Billy.
‘We’ll start upstairs. If you will show us to Billy’s room, Mrs Black, we’ll get this over with as soon as possible.’
Billy sat there peacefully and listened through the open back door as the coppers went thundering up the stairs to his room. He let out a sigh and sat back in the low autumn sun, his deerstalker shielding his eyes from its glare as he gazed off down the garden towards the little metal incinerator Uncle Ted used to burn the garden rubbish in. A faint curl of smoke rose from its chimney, but the fire was out now. He had already checked that all his notebooks were burned to nothing. All that time and effort, gone into dust and ashes.
He thought of Max and Annie, together. They were going away, leaving Jonjo in charge. He wouldn’t work for Jonjo.
As the coppers thumped about upstairs in his room, he felt a new peace seep over him. Life would go on for now, without them. He would manage. And one day – who knew? – perhaps one day he might see his beautiful Annie again.
Epilogue
When Annie walked into the Limehouse parlour one sunny morning it was just like she’d never been away. Chris let her in with a smile, she strode along the hall and there in the kitchen, seated around the table, were Dolly, Darren and Aretha. It was cosy in here, and Dolly was pouring tea. No Ellie raiding the biscuit tin for once.
Aretha stood up and gave Annie a brisk high-five. ‘How you doin’, girlfriend?’
‘I’m good, Aretha.’ Annie looked a
t Ellie’s empty seat.
‘I had to get rid of that treacherous little tart, she was doing my head in,’ sniffed Dolly. ‘How the hell are you, Annie love?’
‘Blooming,’ said Annie with a grin, taking off her coat and sitting down. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Busy,’ said Dolly with satisfaction.
‘Glad to hear it. Hey, I’ve got some news for you.’ ‘Come on then,’ said Darren, scooting his chair closer to hers, his eyes alight with interest. ‘Out with it then.’
‘I’m up the duff,’ said Annie.
A whoop went up around the table.
‘For God’s sake!’ smiled Dolly.
‘You pleased?’ asked Aretha.
‘Who’s the daddy then?’ demanded Darren.
‘Who do you think?’ asked Annie, giving his arm a thump.
‘Is it all working out then, you and him?’ asked Dolly, pushing a full mug towards her.
Annie picked it up, absorbing its warmth, smelling the fragrant tea. She cupped her hands around it and took a moment to consider. She looked around at her three very best friends in all the world.
‘Yeah,’ she said at last. ‘It’s taken a while, but I think we’re getting there.’
‘Girl, it sounds like you are doin’ just fine,’ said Aretha with a broad grin.
Yeah, Aretha was right. Everything in Annie’s world was very fine indeed. She was in love with Max Carter and that love was returned. She was carrying his child. She felt peaceful now about what had happened with her and Ruthie. All that was gone. And she was going straight.
Whatever came next, Annie knew that she could face it head-on, no worries.
None at all.
Acknowledgments
A small battalion of people helped me along the way, in particular Louise Marley, Trisha Ashley and Anne Bennett, all great friends and fellow writers. Thanks too to Lynne and Steve for the monitor and for being such lovely neighbours, and to Judith my agent and Wayne Brookes my lovely editor. Several books were of great help to me, notably Paul Bailey’s An English Madam and Tony Lambrianou’s Inside the Firm. And last but never least, thanks to Cliff, who held my hand through all the madness.
About the Author
DIRTY GAME
The youngest of eight children by a wealthy, chauffeur-driven father and a gipsy mother, Jessie Keane’s story is one of idyllic early years, then from teenage onwards of struggle against the odds. Family tragedy, bankruptcy and mixing with a bad crowd all filled her life.
After 20 years of trying her first novel Dirty Game was snapped up by Harper Collins in 2007.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive updates on Jessie Keane.
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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A Paperback Original 2008
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Copyright © Jessie Keane 2008
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