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Sinner
Jacqui Rose
‘Gritty and gripping’ Kimberley Chambers‘A gripping yet tear-jerking gangland masterpiece’ Kerry BarnesHaving been brought up amongst the hardest gangsters and faces of London, Franny Doyle learnt never to let love be her weakness. But she’ll do anything to protect those close to her, and at whatever cost.Her partner Alfie Jennings is under pressure. The only person he ever sent down has recently been released from prison, and his Soho nightclub is under threat from his rival Charlie Eton – a man who doesn’t respond kindly to people taking away his business.Charlie is playing dirty to come out on top, and when innocent children become involved in the feud, Franny and Alfie are dragged into a dark underworld where Alfie must face demons from his past, and Franny is in a dangerous race against time to ensure her own secrets aren’t exposed.Betrayal and lies come with consequences, and old sins cast long shadows…The heart-racing new thriller perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers and Martina Cole.
SINNER
Jacqui Rose
Copyright (#ulink_146c32eb-e268-5e13-b7ed-07c28b0a11e5)
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Jacqui Rose 2019
Cover design © Alison Groom 2019
Cover photographs © Shutterstock/Unsplash 2019
Jacqui Rose asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008287344
Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008287351
Version: 2019-06-04
Dedication (#u11079ef9-fcfd-5e23-8982-408b929b25ee)
To my readers, with thanks x
Epigraph (#ulink_5233ce0f-76d3-553a-aac5-ea30765f1cc0)
‘What’s done cannot be undone.’
Lady Macbeth
Contents
Cover (#u47423da1-53c3-5ba7-8d7a-ebe9d29ead79)
Title Page (#uc6fb156f-213c-5f6d-a862-82ef6d9e164a)
Copyright (#u055431c1-2a5d-5b5c-baf7-d4a1e9d64cc5)
Dedication
Epigraph (#uedb08335-e3f0-5640-8388-67355c37619c)
Chapter 1 (#u6c50fdb2-561f-538a-b055-df57d88e3a29)
Chapter 2 (#uccd1842c-c118-577e-a4ee-a3a9055501f9)
Chapter 3 (#u19fbae13-a104-55f7-9084-0d4e435e1d0a)
Chapter 4 (#u56b45df9-b279-5197-8f47-4c428d5c4d21)
Chapter 5 (#u0ea8f0a5-c3f0-57a0-8091-9632d1be2038)
Chapter 6 (#uec6a272c-e9dd-5dd9-bedb-bd8aad494690)
Chapter 7 (#u3501fa48-7a4d-56fb-8e1e-1127868e774d)
Chapter 8 (#u13250043-26c1-5ea0-bd60-df4bdbc6a1a4)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Jacqui Rose (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#ulink_ce2b9f66-15fe-56da-8ede-907dbbd542fa)
SOHO (#ulink_ce2b9f66-15fe-56da-8ede-907dbbd542fa)
LATE LAST NIGHT (#ulink_ce2b9f66-15fe-56da-8ede-907dbbd542fa)
Alfie Jennings gulped down the last drops of the bottle of whiskey as he watched the orange and yellow flames of the fire dance about. Pulling his gaze away he stared at the letter he held in his hand, reading it once more as he tried to stop himself from trembling whilst feeling the same clawing terror he’d felt over the past ten months or so since the letters first started to arrive.
Leaning over the neatly cut-up line of cocaine that sat on top of the black, hand-carved mantelpiece in the front room of the large Georgian house in Soho, Alfie snorted it up greedily. He hoped the coke he’d bought from his friend would somehow make him feel better. Get him high and make him forget.
Closing his eyes, he swallowed as the white powder hit the back of his throat. He tasted the bitterness as a rush of euphoria raced through his bloodstream and for just one fleeting moment, his crippling fear subsided, only for it to return a few seconds later as it came crashing back all too hard, all too quickly.
About to snort another line at the same time as making a mental note to pull up his mate for selling him low-grade coke, Alfie felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out, he stared at the screen. Number withheld. He frowned as he answered.
‘Hello? … Hello?’
Getting no reply and trying to ignore the cold, clammy dread creeping over his body, Alfie attempted to convince himself that his racing heart was just down to the bad batch of coke. He spoke again. ‘Hello? Hello? Listen, whoever this is, let me tell you something: I don’t appreciate being prank called, and when I find out who you are, I will make sure I get …’ He stopped suddenly, hearing slow breathing on the other end of the line. But not wanting to show alarm, Alfie cleared his throat, now aware of his own breath; short and shallow, his voice smaller, quieter, fear mixing into his words.
‘Who is this? Look, this isn’t funny anymore. You hear me? I don’t know what you’re trying to do but if you think you’re going to scare me by playing the old heavy breather game, think again, cos you’re wasting your time. You don’t scare me. You think a few phone calls and a few letters are going to get me going? Do me a favour. You seriously can’t know who I am. I’m Alfie Jennings. You hear that? I’m Alfie, and I never get frightened about anything, so why don’t you just do one and call someone else?’
Hurriedly, Alfie clicked off his phone, throwing it across the room as he took deep, long breaths, wiping the prickles of sweat off his face, trying to calm his trembling, trying to stop the wave of nausea overwhelming him as he swallowed the vomit back down along with his panic.
It was stupid. So stupid. How could a few letters and calls make him feel so jumpy? Maybe it was just the coke making him twitchy. Paranoid. Christ almighty.
But as Alfie stood – his handsome face pale and strained – in the large, newly decorated front room, still holding the letter in his hand, the second one he’d received that day and feeling like it was burning a hole in his palm, he knew the real problem wasn’t the substandard coke. The real problem was he was scared – really scared – and he hated himself for it. He was disgusted at his fear, and God knows he’d never admit it to anyone. The worst thing was, no matter how much he drank and snorted coke to take away the panic, the fear still sat there like a stone in his stomach.
He couldn’t even tell Franny – his long-term lover – about it, although it was clear she knew something wasn’t quite right. She’d asked him on several occasions if there was some kind of problem, even going as far as suggesting that he took a break, went back to Spain, set up again there, anything to make him feel better. But all he’d said to her was that he was fine. That everything was just fine, but fine couldn’t be further from the truth.
It was a joke. He was a joke, and the shame of it all sat on his shoulders like a weighted barbell. And besides, even if he wanted to tell Franny, what would he actually say to her? How would he say it? And how could she look at him afterwards with any kind of respect when he told her he was afraid? Afraid of the calls. Afraid of a letter. A flipping four-line letter. It was pathetic because after all when it came down to it, he was the great Alfie Jennings, the same Alfie Jennings who’d put fear into so many men over the years and the same Alfie Jennings who’d taken on gangs and notorious crime families to become one of the biggest faces there was. Yet here he was trembling like a girl over a poxy note, which this time had been left on the window of his car. But then, it wasn’t just any note, was it? Because the note wasn’t from just anybody, was it? No, because he was certain he knew exactly who the note was from.
