Stay Dead

by Jessie Keane

  And now the acting bar manager, a very efficient dark-haired woman who was wearing thick black false eyelashes and who was also acting as overall manager now that Dolly was dead and Caroline was off the scene, was telling her that Peter Jones had not shown up for work for a week. They had hired a replacement to start next week; she’d sorted it.

  ‘Is he still at the same address?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Yes, he is. We phoned, but no answer.’

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Vanda Pope.’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Vanda. And just double-check for me, will you? There’s no Peter Jameson works here?’

  Vanda went off upstairs and came back within five minutes. ‘No, there’s no Peter Jameson works here, sorry.’

  And they were off, Tony at the wheel, over to the tiny back-alley flat in Camden accessed by metal walkways.

  They went up to the door, with purple paint peeling off it in strips, and Tone put his boot to it. It juddered open and they walked in. The flat was neat, clean, and completely empty. No clothes in the wardrobes, no personal belongings. Peter Jones had cleared out.

  Annie walked around the flat. She kicked the sofa. Walked away. Went back, and kicked it again.

  ‘That whinging little bastard,’ she said, her voice cold with hatred. ‘He must have changed his surname by deed poll to cover his tracks. He killed her for revenge,’ she said flatly. ‘He planned it. Got a job on the bar in the Palermo so he was close enough to do it. Got hold of a gun from somewhere, and he fucking shot her.’

  ‘Looks that way,’ said Tony.

  ‘Pete’s grandfather died because of what Dolly set in motion against her father. Pete’s mother died too, because she found her dad dead and couldn’t get it out of her mind. It was one big fucking tragedy all round, Tone, and his family was ruined by it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tony.

  Annie paced around the room. ‘That little fucker sat there with us and cried like a girl. He wasn’t sad for Dolly, he was scared for himself. Well, he bloody should be. I want him found. I want him dealt with.’ She stopped pacing and looked at Tony full in the face. ‘I want it like you said, Tone. No cells, no cosy TV, no nothing.’

  ‘We’ll see to it,’ said Tony, walking over to the door. He looked down. On the cobbles below, behind the Jag, another black car had just pulled up and DCI Hunter was getting out of it with his new DS in tow. Annie joined him, looked down.

  ‘They’re on it,’ said Tony.

  ‘Yeah. Looks like.’

  ‘You going to tell them what we know?’ said Tone.

  Annie thought. ‘Why not? They might find him.’

  ‘I’m hoping we find him first.’

  ‘I’m hoping we do, too, Tone.’

  Tony held the shattered door open for her. ‘Breaking and entering,’ he said sadly. ‘Old Bill’s not going to like that.’

  ‘We found it that way. We didn’t break. Or enter. We just stood here in the smashed doorway and looked inside, right?’

  ‘Good plan,’ said Tony, and smiled. ‘After you, Mrs C.’

  Annie went out of the flat feeling like a weight was gone from her shoulders. They knew Dolly’s killer now. All they had to do was finish him.

  On the way back down to street level, they met Hunter and his new handsome young sidekick coming up.

  ‘Is he up there? Peter Jones?’ asked Hunter.

  ‘Nope. And I suppose you know—’ started Annie.

  ‘That he’s really Peter Jameson? Yes, Mrs Carter, we do. Son of Clarissa Jameson, née Biggs, the grandson of Arthur Biggs who ran a steam engine into Sam Farrell, Dolly Farrell’s father, and killed him.’

  ‘You might find the lock’s gone on the door,’ said Annie as she carried on down, Tony following.

  ‘Oh, big surprise,’ said Hunter, but he was almost smiling as he climbed on up the stairs.

  121

  Annie had Tony drive her over to the cemetery next day. She bought roses on the way; pink, Dolly’s favourite colour. Then she went alone to the freshly filled grave. Someone had put up a wooden cross; it would take time for the ground to settle, months before a proper headstone could be erected. Which was OK. Now that they had a handle on who had robbed Dolly of life, everything else would follow at its own pace.

  They would find Pete Jones. Peter Jameson.

  And then . . . Dolly would be avenged.

  ‘We’re on it, Doll,’ she whispered under her breath as she stood and looked at the cross there. ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to find that arsehole.’

  ‘Talking to yourself?’ asked a female voice behind her.

  It was Ellie.

  Annie gave her a sarky look. ‘No good talking to you, is it?’

  Ellie stepped forward, looking sheepish. ‘Chris says it’s all OK now. That you and Mr Carter have sorted it.’

  Constantine’s dead, if that’s what you mean.

  She still wasn’t sure that Max had forgiven her for keeping to the code like she’d sworn she would. But wouldn’t he have done the same? She knew he would.

  ‘I suppose we have,’ said Annie.

  ‘Well, good. I’m pleased,’ said Ellie, impulsively linking her arm through Annie’s. Ellie looked down at the grave. ‘It’s so bloody peculiar. Thinking of Doll in there.’

  ‘She’s at peace now,’ said Annie.

  ‘If you believe in all that,’ said Ellie.

  Annie wasn’t sure whether she believed or not. But she hoped Doll was somewhere else; somewhere better.

  ‘Chris said it was Pete Jones,’ said Ellie.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That son of a bitch.’

  Annie bent, wincing at the pain from her broken rib. It was getting better, but still there. She emptied the dead flowers Dolly’s sister Sarah had placed there from the vase, and put the pink roses in there instead. She placed the vase carefully on the grave.

  ‘Hurts still, does it?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘Not too bad. Got lots of painkillers. Another month, I’ll be able to get this strapping off. Can’t wait. It’s awkward showering with the damned thing on.’

  ‘What you going to do now then? Go back to Barbados? Or stay on? I mean, you and Mr Carter, it’s all OK now, ain’t that right?’

  ‘Dunno. I might stay for a while.’ We haven’t got Peter Jones yet. And Max? I just don’t know.

  ‘Oh. So it’s like that, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s like, Ellie. That’s the truth.’

  ‘Well, if you do stay on, why don’t we make a date then? Drink a toast to the old cow’s memory, eh? Next Thursday at the Ritz.’

  Annie turned and looked at Ellie. For the first time in a fortnight, she actually felt like smiling. ‘It’s a date,’ she said.

  122

  At the entrance to the cemetery gates, Ellie went off in a cab and Annie was just getting into the Jag when DCI Hunter pulled up.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ he said.

  ‘Something up?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing at all. Don’t worry – we’re going to find Peter Jones, I promise you that.’

  ‘And bang him up for – what? – ten years, twelve? What does he plead – insanity, the balance of his mind disturbed by family tragedy? Then he’s out, and what about Dolly? She gets a longer sentence than that. And so do we. All the people who loved her.’

  ‘It’s justice, Mrs Carter,’ he said.

  It stinks, thought Annie. It’s not good enough.

  She had all the boys out looking for the little shit, and their contacts were on the alert now. Added to that, she’d had a word with Alberto, and the Mafia street people were watching out for him, too. He wouldn’t get away with it. She was going to make certain of it.

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Mrs Carter?’ said Hunter.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Who exactly is David Sangster?’

  ‘What?’ Annie was poleaxed.

  ‘David Sangster. The David Sangster who is on the board of th
e company that owns the house on the outskirts of Edinburgh, the one you stay in sometimes. And the castle you visit in the Highlands, he owns that too, I’m told. I’ve checked out all the other directors, and they’re kosher, but Sangster? He’s a bit more interesting. Lots of paper trails, all leading nowhere. So I repeat, Mrs Carter – who is he?’

  Annie was silent for a long, long time. Then she smiled, sadly.

  ‘He was a friend of mine,’ she said.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Yeah, he was.’ Annie took a breath and turned away and walked over to the Jag. She paused there as Tony opened the door for her, and she looked back at Hunter. ‘But he’s dead now,’ she said, and got in.

  And he’s going to stay dead, she thought, as Tony got behind the wheel and started the engine.

  123

  When she got back to Holland Park, she found Max in the study, behind the desk. Chris was in there too, and Steve. All conversation halted when she showed up and stood in the open doorway looking at them.

  ‘What’s this, a board meeting?’ she quipped, breezing in, thinking, stuff them; they’d intimidated her once, they weren’t ever going to do it again.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Max.

  ‘Anything I should know about?’ she asked, looking around at the three of them and seeing that something had changed.

  Now, Steve looked directly at her, not avoiding her eyes. And Chris, who hadn’t addressed a single civil word to her in a fortnight, was smiling ruefully.

  ‘Hunter’s just phoned,’ said Max.

  ‘Oh?’ Annie held her breath.

  ‘They’ve picked up Pete Jones. He was getting on a ferry in Portsmouth when they collared him.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Annie. Yes, she could almost feel some sympathy for the little bastard. His life had been so wrecked by the fallout from Sam Farrell’s sins and Dolly’s revenge that he had been driven to murder. But she hadn’t wanted the Bill to get him. His arse belonged to her. She didn’t want prison, rehabilitation and release for him. She wanted this closed up, done with.

  Chris and Steve stood up and came to the door. Annie stepped aside.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ said Steve, passing her with a polite nod.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ said Chris, and winked at her.

  Annie closed the door on them both, heard them go off across the hallway and out the front door.

  ‘Blimey, what did you say to them?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Max, standing up and coming around the desk.

  ‘Bit different to the treatment I’ve been getting.’

  ‘They thought you’d screwed me over.’

  ‘I know.’ Annie stepped further into the room. ‘And now, knowing the full story, what do you think?’

  Max stared at her.

  ‘God’s sake, say something,’ moaned Annie, wishing he’d come to her, hold her, take the fear away, the awful fear that she might be losing him.

  ‘I think that you kept an oath you swore to keep. You honoured that oath, even when it came back and bit you in the arse. Even then, you kept it. When a lot of others would have given it up.’

  ‘It sure didn’t do me any favours,’ said Annie.

  ‘Even so. You kept it.’

  ‘You say that as if it’s good.’

  ‘Loyalty’s a good thing.’

  ‘Max, I’m sorry,’ Annie burst out suddenly. ‘I wish I could have told you. I wanted to. I couldn’t do it. Not just because of the oath. I was too afraid of what your reaction would be.’

  Max moved closer until he was within touching distance.

  ‘I was mad as hell at you,’ he said. ‘When I left Gina Barolli’s place, I wanted to wring your bloody neck.’ His eyes dropped to the bruises at her throat. ‘I nearly bloody did it too, didn’t I. Sorry.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’ She couldn’t believe it; he’d apologized.

  ‘You did. Being so tough, so bloody-minded, so certain you were in the right.’

  ‘I was in the right.’

  Max stepped closer. He let out a breath and gripped her waist with both hands and pulled her in, very gently, so that their bodies touched.

  ‘One thing,’ he said.

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’ Annie linked her arms around his neck. She kissed his chin, then his cheek, then his mouth, nuzzling in against him, inhaling his scent.

  Max eased her back a bit, grasped her chin, stared her straight in the eye. ‘No more fucking secrets. Not now, not ever. Are we agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Annie.

  ‘Swear?’

  ‘I swear. I really do.’

  ‘Good.’ He pulled her back in and kissed her, hard. ‘Time for bed, then,’ said Max.

  ‘It’s two in the afternoon,’ said Annie, starting to smile.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Max with a grin, and lifted her into his arms.

  ‘Ow! Watch the damned rib,’ she said.

  ‘I said, shut it.’

  EPILOGUE

  1995

  Pete Jones was just going out into the prison exercise yard, lined up with a load of other cons, all jostling each other, talking, telling jokes, taking the piss, all of them waiting for the gates to be opened.

  He’d been handed down a twelve-year stretch for doing Dolly Farrell, but he reckoned he’d be out in eight and it was worth it because he’d done it, he’d got even with that bitch for what she’d done to his family. He’d loved his mum, couldn’t ever get over losing her. And Grandpa, his death had been for what? Just so some vicious cow could get her revenge on someone. None of it should ever have touched his family, but it had, and he was glad he’d made her pay the price for that.

  The sun was shining. He couldn’t wait to get out in the yard, kick a ball about, stretch his legs. Stir wasn’t so bad, once you got used to it. Bit rough, and you had to watch out for the queers after a slice of your arse in the showers, but not too bad. No cats, though. He missed Benj, but Benj was all right, Dad was looking after him. He was sorry about this prison business for Dad’s sake. But he’d get out, make it up to him. Put all this shit behind the both of them.

  Then someone shoved him from behind. He turned.

  ‘Easy,’ he complained, seeing a hard, dark-eyed face close to his own.

  ‘This is for Dolly Farrell,’ said the man, and plunged a knife straight into Pete Jones’s heart.

  He died instantly, collapsing to the ground, an image of Benj the last thing he thought of before he kissed goodbye to this world and headed for the next. His murderer moved on, and was quickly lost in the crowd of other cons.

  Later that day, one of the cons made a call out to a mate.

  ‘It’s sorted,’ he said, and put the phone down.

  The man he’d phoned went out, down the pub, saw another man. ‘It’s sorted,’ he said.

  Next day, Steve Taylor made a call to Barbados. When Annie Carter came on the line, he said: ‘Hiya, Mrs C. Tell Max that business he wanted seeing to? It’s done.’

  Annie was silent for a moment. Then she said: ‘I’ll tell him.’

  She put the phone down, looked out of the big picture window of the villa at the crystal-blue Caribbean and the azure of the cloudless sky above it, and thought, There you go, Doll. Hope you’re safe in heaven now, babe, with the angels.

  Then with a light step she walked out on to the sunlit terrace to join Max.

  By Jessie Keane

  THE ANNIE CARTER NOVELS

  Dirty Game

  Black Widow

  Scarlet Women

  Playing Dead

  Ruthless

  Stay Dead

  OTHER NOVELS

  Jail Bird

  The Make

  Nameless

  Lawless

  Dangerous

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks go to Jane Gregory of Gregory & Co and to the Pan Macmillan team. A special mention here for my editor, Wayne Brookes, whose skill and patience has helped catapult my books into the Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller list. />
  Thanks to White & Co who helped me move vast piles of books and waterlogged belongings this year, and to James Colville who guided me through the whole process of (finally) moving home while writing this book at the same time.

  Last but never least, thanks to all the supermarkets and stores and bookshops who stock and sell my books – and all my readers, bless you! Big thanks too to all my Facebook and Twitter friends, followers and fans. It really wouldn’t be the same without you.

  Jessie Keane is a Sunday Times top ten bestselling author. She’s lived both ends of the social spectrum, and her fascination with London’s underworld led her to write Dirty Game, followed by bestsellers Black Widow, Scarlet Women, Jail Bird, The Make, Playing Dead, Nameless, Ruthless (the fifth book to feature Annie Carter), Lawless and Dangerous. Jessie’s books have sold more than 750,000 copies.

  She now lives in Hampshire. You can reach Jessie on her website JESSIE-KEANE.COM.

  Or find her on Facebook WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/JESSIEKEANE or Twitter @REALJESSIEKEANE

  First published 2016 by Macmillan

  This electronic edition published 2016 by Macmillan

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-4472-5432-4

  Copyright © Jessie Keane, 2016

  Cover Photo © Colin Thomas

  Background Photo © Peeter Viisimaa / Getty

  Author Photo © Alexander James

  The right of Jessie Keane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.