Dirty Game

He pressed himself to her frontage and Annie knew he wasn’t telling a lie. To her horror she felt him reaching down between them to unzip himself. This was getting beyond a joke.

She hauled back and brought her knee up, but he had turned to the side and it didn’t connect where it should. She opened her mouth to speak, but his mouth quickly covered hers again. The feel of it disgusted her. To her alarm she realized that he was stronger than she had thought. She tried to get free, managed to get one arm away. She clawed at his face.

‘Bitch,’ Kieron cursed her, angry scratch marks emerging on his cheek. Then his hand was on her throat and she had really had enough.

She brought her free arm round and punched him straight on the jaw. He reeled back, clutching his chin, his eyes registering almost comical surprise. Annie stood there glaring at him, panting, hands on hips.

‘Now listen to me, you little fucker,’ she hissed. ‘You and me are never going to happen. Get that through your thick skull.’

‘Yeah, because of that bastard Carter,’ yelled Kieron.

‘Keep your fucking voice down!’ said Annie. She didn’t want a public ruck, not with punters in.

‘Oh, you don’t want to hear the truth? Because it is, isn’t it. It’s only that fucking Max Carter standing in our way.’ Kieron straightened, wincing. There was blood at the side of his mouth where she’d struck him. ‘It’s me you really want, but you’re afraid of what he’d do if you gave in to it.’

‘You’re deluded, Kieron,’ said Annie coldly. She went to the door and opened it. ‘Just get the hell out of here, will you?’

Josh came over instantly. ‘Is everything all right, Annie?’

He glanced anxiously between the two of them, seeing Annie’s agitation and the blood streaming down Kieron’s chin.

‘Ah, you can tell your lapdog I’m off,’ sneered Kieron with an angry look at her and a sneer for Josh.

‘Piss off, Kieron,’ said Annie tiredly. She was sick of the sight of him now.

‘You really okay?’ asked Josh when Kieron had pushed past him and gone, slamming the door behind him.

‘Fine,’ said Annie, feeling suddenly shaky. ‘Take over for a little while, will you Josh?’

Annie went back into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Trembling, she sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands and knew that the bad blood between the Carters and the Delaneys was far from over. And here she was again – stuck unwillingly between the two. Stuck exactly where she didn’t want to be.

53

Ruthie Carter had been at home in Surrey all week and she was fed up to the back teeth. All she had down here for company was the minder on the door, who had just a single brain cell rattling around in his head getting rather lonely – Dave couldn’t be relied on even to string a sentence together.

And as for Miss Arnott, that old cow was forever giving Ruthie dirty looks and thinking what a common little thing she was. Oh, she knew what Miss Arnott thought of her all too well. There was naff-all to do in this place, and the silence out here in the country was deadly.

Ruthie longed for London, for the noise of traffic and voices, for the close proximity of other people going about their daily lives. But she had agreed with Max that they would do this. They had sat down together and he had been straight with her. He knew he had made mistakes. But they could still save this, they could still make it work. That’s what he said. But she had to stop the drinking, get herself busy, bringing this place to life. Ruthie had actually started to think there was some hope.

But that had been two weeks ago. Since that one night – when they hadn’t slept together – Max had barely shown his face in this arsehole of a rural nowhere. He’d been busy up in town. She had phoned him at Queenie’s old house. He had said not now, Ruthie, he was up to his ears in stuff, he’d be down at the weekend.

And here we are, she thought. The weekend. Her great bonus in the long haul that was being married to Max Carter. He showed up at eleven on Saturday night. Half the weekend gone, anyway. She was steaming, and Max hardly had a foot through the door when she let rip.

‘You said we’d spend the weekend together,’ said Ruthie, following him across the hall as he dumped his overnight bag and shrugged off his coat.

‘And I’m here,’ he said.

‘But you don’t want to be,’ yelled Ruthie.

Max glanced around. ‘Is Miss Arnott here?’

‘No, she’s off for the weekend. You don’t have to worry that I’ll show you up in front of your posh housekeeper, shouting about like a fishwife. I told her she could take some time off. I thought we’d be here together. I thought we’d need some privacy.’

‘And Dave?’

‘He’s asleep, so far as I know. Who the hell cares?’

Dave had a flat over the garage. Miss Arnott disdained Dave, too. Margie, the cleaner, had been in his flat and got an attack of the vapours. It was lined floor to ceiling with photos of nude women. Margie complained to Miss Arnott, Miss Arnott complained to Ruthie. But whatever Dave did within his own four walls was fine with her.

She knew she should have protested more, to gain Brownie points with Miss Arnott, to convince her that Ruthie was a lady. But Ruthie couldn’t be arsed. Miss Arnott knew what she was, all right. She knew that Max was ‘in business’ and she knew that Ruthie had married above herself. Ruthie wasn’t going to flog her guts out trying to convince the sour-faced old bag otherwise.

‘Nice welcome,’ said Max.

‘You don’t deserve a nice welcome,’ shouted Ruthie. ‘I had dinner all planned, and where the fuck were you? Up in town with her, were you?’

‘If by her you mean Annie, no, I wasn’t,’ said Max.

He turned his back on her and went through to the drawing room. He poured himself a brandy, and sat down.

Ruthie came and stood over him. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she spat.

Max raised his glass to her. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, and took a drink. He put his glass aside and stood up to put on some music, but Ruthie came close and glared up at him, standing in his way.

‘You said you’d give her up. It was part of the deal.’

‘Along with you laying off the bottle,’ said Max cruelly. ‘I remember. I kept my half of the deal, Ruthie. Did you keep yours?’

Ruthie’s glance slipped away from his hard gaze. She’d had the odd glass or two. Miss Arnott had probably snitched to Max about it, the snooty cow.

‘No, don’t answer that,’ said Max after a beat. ‘We both know you’d be lying.’

‘We’re both good liars, Max. I think you’re still seeing her.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You’re lying,’ screamed Ruthie. ‘Listen, I’m warning you – if you don’t pack it in, I’ll tell the police you weren’t with me on the night Tory Delaney died. Then you’ll be in the shit.’

Max grabbed her shoulders. His eyes were icy as they glared into hers. ‘A wife can’t testify against her husband, you silly bitch,’ he hissed. ‘But go on. Tell them whatever the fuck you want to. Because I didn’t kill Tory Delaney.’

‘Oh, sure you didn’t. You were off somewhere that night. Eddie said he hid a gun for you.’

Max stiffened. ‘Eddie shouldn’t have said that.’

‘And what are you going to do about that, “discipline” him? Send the boys round? You’ll have a hard job. The poor boy’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘You’ve been drinking,’ said Max with disgust. His eyes had narrowed to slits. His mouth was grim. He leaned