Anna Smith: Kerry Casey Books 1 to 4

by Anna Smith

Genres: Mystery Anthologies & Collections; Hard-Boiled; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

Read the entire Kerry Casey series in one value-for-money volume. Enjoy four action-packed gangland thrillers starring Glasgow's newest and toughest gang leader, Kerry Casey.

Though Kerry had no plans to become the head of her family's criminal empire, tragedy strikes and she is left alone to pick up the pieces.

Join Kerry in her quest to put her family on the right side of the law. She'll face countless opponents on the way, but she'll do whatever it takes to settle the score and keep those around her safe.

She's had everything taken from her, including her freedom, and now someone's going to pay.


Praise for the Kerry Casey Series


'Gritty, hard-edged, not for the faint-hearted' Sunday Mirror

'Chilling and compelling' Kimberly Chambers

'Provocative, shocking and utterly harrowing' Daily Record

Release date: April 6, 2023

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 1552

Sample

Six days later

The funeral was going at full pelt, and the bulk of the mourners were three sheets to the wind. Kerry gazed around the pub, packed to the rafters, as her Uncle Danny led the sing-song, his eyes puffy from crying, his thick jowls crimson from years of boozing, but his velvet voice sweet as she remembered.

The room was silent as he sang about missing the hungry years, when people had nothing but each other, and how so much of that was lost along the way as they made their fortune.

Kerry closed her eyes for a moment and listened to the old Neil Sedaka song, her mind drifting back to the days when she’d sat as a kid at the top of the stairs in a relative’s house, her knees hugged to her chest, while they belted out songs down in the living room. More often than not, there was a corpse in a coffin in the corner. They were second generation Irish, and they would sing about love and heartbreak, and missing the ould country, yearning to go home. Though none of them ever did.

She opened her eyes and swallowed hard as she looked across the table at her mother, Maggie, staring into space, her cheeks wet with tears as Danny sang. Kerry watched as her mother nudged her sister, Auntie Pat.

‘I don’t miss them, Pat. I don’t miss the bloody hungry years. They were miserable as sin.’

Kerry reached over and clasped her mother’s hand, feeling its warm softness as she held it tight. Maggie had buried her first-born child, Mickey, today, executed by rival gangs in some turf war she couldn’t comprehend. All she knew was that they took her only son. Her once lovely face was now etched with the pain of loss and heartache that she would carry to her grave. Kerry knew that in her mother’s heart she may not have missed the hungry years, the poverty, the struggling, but at least then they were all alive, her children around her, her husband by her side. The Caseys were top of the heap now, but they had paid a hefty price. I should have been here, Kerry said to herself. I should have been with you all these years, Mum. I should have come home.

But it had been her mother who’d sent her away at fourteen, when her father died suddenly of a heart attack. Get out of all this shite, her mother had told her as she gathered her cases and accompanied her to Spain, where she was being sent to live with her aunt and uncle. At the time, Kerry had been heartbroken and bewildered as to why her mother was sending her away, when she’d just lost the father she adored, her hero dad who had promised he would give her the world if he could. But she’d suspected it was because her brother Mickey was now going to be taking over the family, and from what she could gather in the snatches of whispered conversation she had picked up, things were going to be a lot different. Mickey would take them in another direction that would make them rich and powerful and feared. You’re better than this, her mother had told Kerry as she’d wept on her shoulder when she’d left her that scorching morning on the Costa del Sol. It wasn’t the first time Kerry had been told by her mother that she was so precious to her. Many times she had spoken of how she and her dad had almost given up hope of having another child, after three miscarriages. Then Kerry arrived, she’d said, like a gift from God. She was the golden child. Mickey was always going to take over from her father, but Kerry was going to be different. You’ll make something of your life, she’d said. I know you will. And she had. Privately educated in an expensive English-speaking school, Kerry went on to study in London and gained a first class honours degree in law. The world where she’d grown up seemed a lifetime ago, and she would never be a part of that. She was
home now, for her brother’s funeral – but for her mother’s sake, not Mickey’s. Kerry had never forgiven Mickey for what he had done to ruin their father’s dream of building a business where they would be respected and admired, instead of supping from the same trough as the drug-dealing filth he had despised and resisted. Kerry would be gone in the morning, and her mother knew that too.

‘I wish you weren’t going away tomorrow, Kerry,’ her mother said. ‘Could you not stay a while longer? We’ve hardly had any time together.’

Kerry could see the sadness in her mother’s eyes. All those years they had spent apart while she lived in Spain, coming home only for school holidays or seeing her when she came to visit. So much time wasted. So often, Kerry had resented her mother for sending her away, even though she knew it was to keep her from what Mickey was doing to the organisation.

‘I know, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’d love to stay, but I have to get back to the case I’m working on. Once that’s finished, I promise I’ll come back for at least a month and we’ll do things together – you, me and Auntie Pat. We’ll go up north, maybe, or down to Ayrshire for a break.’ She squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘Remember when we used to go to Butlin’s when I was a kid? The laughs we had?’

Her mother smiled for the first time today.

‘Oh, aye. And your dad would come down at the weekend and take us all for a slap-up feed out of the camp. We felt we’d escaped. Jesus!’ She sighed. ‘You know, Kerry, I blame myself sometimes – for you being so distant.’

‘I’m not distant, Mum. I just don’t live here.’

‘Oh, I know. But you’re different. With your education and stuff, your life is different from ours. You’re in a different world.’

‘But I’m still the same person deep down.’ Kerry glanced around. ‘This was my world. I loved Glasgow, my family and friends here. This is all I ever wanted. But it wasn’t to be, and maybe it was for the best that you sent me away, because I’ve done all right. I like what I do in my job.’

‘You know, if it hadn’t been for Mickey – God forgive me – your father would have made something to hand over to you. Something respectable. Something you could build on in his memory, to make him proud. But this . . .’ Maggie shook her head. ‘This is not what he wanted. All this time, I’ve had to take a back seat and let Mickey get on with the business, because I wouldn’t have known where to start. But he’s gone now. I just don’t know what will happen. I know I’m not up to it.’

‘But you’ve got Danny, Mum, and Frankie and Marty. All of them. They’re all loyal to you and to Dad.’

‘Yes. They’re loyal. But the Caseys are now a bunch of drug dealers. ’

‘I know, Mum.’ Kerry didn’t know what to say.

Her mum looked at her. ‘What about you, Kerry? Would you ever think about coming into the business? I mean, I know you have another life, and maybe I’m just being a sentimental old woman, but, could you ever come back? Not to this, but make something different?’

For the first time in her life, Kerry could see her mother vulnerable, weak, and it tore the heart from her. She was always so vibrant, so full of life and so driven, especially in the very early days when they had nothing, and her mother held it all together. But now she was getting older, reliant on others. Mickey would always have taken care of her, and she knew that, but with him gone now, there was no figurehead, no Casey to keep alive her father’s dream. There never would be. Kerry didn’t know what to say, because she couldn’t lie to her and make any promises that she knew she couldn’t keep even if she wanted to.

‘Oh, Mum,’ she eventually said. ‘I wish it could be different.’

They were still holding hands when the music trailed off; with the noise of the crowd they hadn’t heard the doors burst open and the first cracks of gunshot. For the first few seconds, Kerry was rooted to the fear in the eyes of her mother and Auntie Pat. Then everything happened in slow motion. People were screaming, and diving below tables as the burst of gunfire echoed round the room, glasses plinking as the gantry was peppered with shots. It sounded like machine-gun fire. Jesus Christ! There were three masked men shooting randomly around the room. Then, suddenly, she saw her mother and aunt’s shocked expressions, as they were hit.

‘Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ, no, Mum!’

Maggie slumped off the chair and Kerry lunged across and caught her as she fell to the floor. She looked up and could see a bloodbath now, because the people she knew were family bodyguards were shooting back, and there were bodies everywhere. She watched in horror as blood spread on her mother’s white satin blouse, the big collar saturated. Kerry clasped her hand as she heard sirens in the background.

‘Oh, Kerry,’ her mother muttered. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph protect us.’

‘It’s okay, Mum. The ambulance will be here. Stay with me. You’ll be okay.’ Kerry could hear herself say it, but she was dazed with the carnage all around.

‘Kerry! Don’t leave me!’ The colour was draining from her mother’s face.

‘I’ll never leave you, Mum. Jesus! I never should have left you.’

‘Kerry. I’ll never, ever leave you . . . I’ll always be on your shoulder.’

Blood pumped from her chest and through Kerry’s fingers as she tried to stem the flow.

‘Mum! No! Please, Mum!’

Kerry cradled her in her arms and pulled her close, but her head lolled to the side, and she looked up through tears to see Auntie Pat, weeping on her knees. She was clutching her arm and blood streamed through her fingers.

‘Holy fucking Christ almighty! Aw, our Maggie. Aw, Jesus no!’

Kerry sat staring at her, tears streaming down her face. They had killed her mother, her beautiful, innocent, precious mother. They’d murdered the only constant in her life. She could see armed police and medics come in through the doors to what looked like a battlefield, with bodies all over the place. She stared into the mayhem, feeling sick and dizzy. Then she noticed blood dripping off her own chin and onto her blouse. She’d been hit and she hadn’t even felt it. She’d been conscious of a stinging sensation, but nothing else. A bullet must have grazed her cheekbone. She touched her face and it felt tender. She looked up to see Uncle Danny, pushing his way through the upturned chairs and tables. He fell to his knees, crouched over his sister-in-law’s body.

‘Aw, Maggie! Aw, Christ, Maggie!’ he murmured.

Kerry’s chest felt like it was going to burst open and she could barely breathe. ‘They killed my mother,’ she muttered. ‘They killed her.’ She touched her mother’s silver hair and smoothed it away with her bloodstained fingers. She knew there and then her life would never be the same. Whatever – whoever – she’d been before was over. She would find who did this, and make them pay, as long as there was breath in her body. Every fucking last one of them.

From her bedroom in the big sandstone villa, Kerry stood gazing out of the bay window at the thin grey morning. She watched as, now and again, the men guarding the solid steel gates spoke on walkie-talkies, then the gates would slowly open. Car after car pulled off the main road into the driveway, making their way up the treelined path. There was the sound of gravel scrunching under the wheels of blacked-out Mercs, Jeeps and Jags. When she looked across the expanse of clipped garden and lush trees, she spotted at least two other men, bulked up with protective vests and clearly armed, patrolling the perimeter walls. Christ! It had been like a fortress when she arrived three days ago for Mickey’s funeral, with all the security and CCTV cameras everywhere, but now it was as though they were under siege. And the fact was they were. She could hear the front door opening and closing and the soft tones of the men whispering downstairs. The atmosphere, the heavy silence was oppressive, and inside she was bursting to scream why it had come to this. Two other people had died, caught in the crossfire at the wake – one of them was a well known Glasgow jeweller-come-fence who had been close to the Casey family for as long as anyone could remember. The other was one of their bodyguards who had just got out of jail after a four year stretch. And there were seven people still in hospital with gunshot wounds, some of them serious. Kerry touched the wound on her cheek where the doctors had put three stitches in last night, and it was still tender. Every time she looked in the mirror for the rest of her life, she’d be reminded of yesterday, of the carnage. She didn’t care that the high cheekbones admirers had always remarked on were now flawed. What kind of shit had led to killers coming into a funeral and spraying the place with bullets? Her mother was lying in the funeral parlour, and they would bring her body back to the house later today, when relatives and close friends would gather for the rosary around her coffin. Her coffin. The image brought a pain in Kerry’s chest and she was dreading the moment the hearse would pull up outside, carrying her mother in a box. How had it come to this? Kerry never shed a tear over Mickey’s death, other than the sadness for her mother whom she could see was heartbroken. Whatever Mickey was, to his mother he’d once been the little hungry kid she’d bounced on her knee, who she’d made the world safe for. But it was because of the direction he took the family in that her mother was now coming home in a coffin. And she could never forgive Mickey or any of the rest of his cohorts for that.

She saw Marty Kane arriving in his black Mercedes, and as he stepped out of the car in his navy cashmere coat, his breath steaming in the cold, she saw him look up through the rimless glasses that gave him the look of the distinguished professional he was. They exchanged glances, and he pulled his lips back a little in a sympathetic grimace. He was older now, much older, more like an ageing, loved great-uncle who had always been pragmatic and considerate. He had been her father’s best friend, and the family lawyer for thirty years, and he was the most trusted of all. Marty had called her last night as she lay in her bedroom drifting in and out of consciousness, watching the day turn from light to dark. He had suggested for her to meet with him and a few of the men but first, he would see her privately. She would be glad to talk to him, because she had nobody to turn to right now while her Auntie Pat was still in hospital with a gunshot wound to her arm. Kerry had done all of her weeping alone, listening to the floorboards creak as someone patrolled the top landing of the house checking everything was secure. She closed the curtains, took off her clothes, then went into the shower. She stood under the warm spray, her eyes closed, wishing she could open them and find this had all been a terrible nightmare. She had never known she could feel this sad about anything. She’d been devastated when her father died, but this was like a sword slicing through her heart.

As Kerry came downstairs, she saw one of the men sitting on a chair in the hall. He stood up quickly, as though she was arriving royalty, and she looked at him curiously. She didn’t know him, and he hadn’t been there last night, but Marty had told her he was posting men all over the house, twenty-four seven. The guard was hard-looking, with thick black crew-cut hair and a broken nose. He nodded when she passed him.

‘Where’s Marty?’ she asked.

‘He’s in the study.’ He pointed to the closed door at the end of the hall.

Kerry walked down the wide hall. The study. She almost smiled to herself. She remembered the two-bedroom damp tenement the family had lived in until she was seven, and now this was where they lived, in this massive six-bedroom stone-built villa in the heart of one of north Glasgow’s poshest areas, among the lawyers and the surgeons and the millionaire businessmen. But at what price? She pushed open the heavy oak door and Marty looked up from the long mahogany desk, immediately rising to his feet. He had been at the hospital yesterday in the mayhem, to console her and hug her and promise her everything would be fine. But it never would.

‘Kerry, sweetheart!’

He opened his arms to her and she allowed him to envelop her, holding her close, and she could feel herself fill up with tears again. She swallowed hard when they parted, and she could see the glistening in his eyes.

‘Tough days, Kerry. Tough days. But you’ll get through it.’

Kerry didn’t say anything but sat down opposite him.

‘Tea?’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

He poured a cup and handed it to her and she looked at the table, where his briefcase sat with papers and files stacked around it. He sat back for a moment, his cup in his hand, looking pensive. Kerry looked at him and waited for him to say something. Eventually he did.

‘Kerry.’ Marty took a breath. ‘I know this is the most difficult moment of your life, and I want you to know that I will be here for you any day, any time. You know that, don’t you? Always.’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘Your father and me, you know how far back we went. I knew him when I was a young duty lawyer and he was a bit of a rogue. Before he got involved in any serious crime. Even before his safe-cracking days. But you know something, Kerry? He was a villain, but he was never a bad man. I knew that straight away. Your father only wanted the best for his family. He wanted you to have everything he didn’t. Him and your mother – they grew up with nothing.’

‘I remember when we all had nothing.’

‘I know you do. And now?’ He waved his hand around the vastness of the room. ‘You have all this. More than your father ever dreamed of.’

Kerry shook her head.

‘He’d have given it all up if he’d known my mother would be murdered like this at their own son’s funeral.’

Marty nodded in agreement.

‘I know. I know he would. He never wanted any of that crap Mickey got involved in. He would have been spinning in his grave these past sixteen years.’

‘I know. And as you know, that’s why Mum sent me away.’ She shook her head. ‘Christ, Marty! I was miserable over there. I hated Spain. I didn’t belong there.’ She sighed. ‘But now? I don’t know where I belong. I . . . I just feel . . . Aw . . . so angry! So angry! How could they do this to my mother, Marty? How? How did something like this happen?’

He took a sip of his tea and put down the cup.

‘It’s been a long road, Kerry. A long story of bad things and dark places Mickey took us.’

‘Why couldn’t you stop him?’

‘I’m only the lawyer. I don’t have the power to change things – especially not with Mickey. I didn’t have the same closeness with him as I did with your dad. But I gave Mickey my best advice. I told him: stay clear of that shit, the drugs, the people-trafficking. It’s all East European gangsters now, so different from when your father was a young man. But it was all about money and power with your brother. Mickey moved in with everyone – a finger in too many pies. It’s a long story and complicated, but we’ll talk about it. We’re still trying to get to grips with why he was murdered, and by who, but information is coming in. It’s hard to get to the truth.’

They sat for a moment in silence and Kerry watched as he shuffled papers.

‘Listen, Kerry. You need to know the extent of the business. Everything. There’s a lot of money. A fortune. Businesses everywhere. From here to the Cayman Islands. It’s yours now. All of it. Your mother made a will. Everything was left to you. Mickey didn’t even know that. He didn’t leave a will, not that he owned anything on paper. Everything was in your mother’s name.’

Kerry swallowed. She knew this was coming. She’d known it last night as she tossed and turned in her bed. She’d known the way everyone looked at her, from the men on the door to the people in the house. She was the head of the family now. Her life was going to change. The life that she’d led – the world she’d lived in since she was sent away from here, had not prepared her for a world of violence, where scores were settled at the end of a gun by people who know no other way to exist. And yet inside her right now was a feral anger that somehow made her feel more affinity with the armed hard-men surrounding her house than she did with all the sophisticated figures in the legal establishment where she had spent her past years. She was educated to react to violence and murder by bringing in the police, by letting them chase down the criminals, put them behind bars. But that was not how they did business in the world where she was now in charge. The thought that she might be capable of retribution both frightened and spurred her on.

She sighed and clasped her hands.

‘You know, Marty, I could walk away and go back to Spain or London after my mother’s funeral and never set foot in this place again. Leave this all to the police to sort out. I could do that. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I know.’

She waited for a moment.

‘But I’m not going to. So talk to me.’

‘Okay. It’s going to take a lot of going through, but you’re a lawyer so you’ll understand and look closely at things in the coming days. It’s not for now. Let’s get your mum’s funeral over with, give it the dignity she deserves, and have some time to grieve before we look at the business.’

Kerry felt that red mist coming up again. She took a breath then leaned forward, looking Marty square in the eye.

‘I’m going to tell you something. And you need to listen and understand. You’re telling me this is all mine now. I’m in charge, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think that makes me proud? In charge of a bunch of gangsters who sell heroin to kids in the street, who traffic women?’

He frowned. ‘Kerry. Look. I know how you feel about that, and I’m the very same. So was your mother. That’s why I want to talk to you about making changes. Your father wanted nothing more than to go into property, make everything legit. Your father was no angel. He was a criminal, a safe-cracker. He made money from armed robberies in the early days. But he resisted the moves Mickey was trying to push him into. He raged about it. I know he did.’

‘I know that too, Marty,’ she said. ‘I was very young, but I remember overhearing a conversation between my father and some people Mickey had brought to the house to discuss some business opportunity. I remember there was Mickey and these two guys, well-heeled, powerful men. I don’t know exactly what was said that night, but I remember later, my father was furious with Mickey and telling him that he’d humiliated him in front of these guys. My dad was nearly in tears, and Mickey just stood there, defiant as ever. I hated him from that moment. My father died a few months later. I think his heart was broken.’

Marty nodded. ‘I remember that. This crap we’re in now is all Mickey’s doing. But we can make it different. You can make it different, in time.’

‘Okay. And we can talk about that. But, right now, I only want to talk about one thing. And I need you to bring in here the people you know I can trust.’ She paused. ‘Somebody betrayed us yesterday and allowed this murdering orgy to take place. Someone betrayed my mother yesterday, and my father.’ She shook her head. ‘To hell with Mickey! Those’re the kind of people our Mickey lived with. And you know what? God forgive me but he got the death he deserved for someone who sells junk to kids. But my mother?’ She tightened her mouth to stop her lip quivering. ‘This isn’t over.’

Marty looked at her. ‘I know you’re burning with anger right now.’

Kerry put her hand up to stop him.

‘Marty, I’ll be burning with anger till the day I die. I’ll see all this paperwork later. But listen now. Get me your most trusted guys in here: Danny, John, Jack – those guys. The old ones. The people I can trust. People in the know.’

‘But why?’

‘I told you. A turf war, the papers will be calling this. Well, this war isn’t over. I don’t know who these guys are who got people to come in and kill innocent mourners at my brother’s funeral, but it doesn’t end here. It’s just beginning. It will end when every one of them is dead and their business ruined. That’s all I’m going to do right now.’

‘But, Kerry – you have lived a different life.’

‘Well, I live this one now,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a quick learner. So bring me the people I can trust, and get me some intelligence on who I go for first. That’s all I ask.’

‘Who you go for? It’s not a playground brawl, Kerry.’

‘No. And I’m no kid, Marty. Just get me the people and we’ll meet here later this afternoon. Before my mother comes home.’ She could feel herself shaking, and her voice quivering a little. ‘I want my revenge, Marty. Even if Mickey was an asshole who brought us all to this day. And if we can afford to live in the splendour we do now and have all the money you’re going to tell me I have, then we can afford to find out exactly what happened. No matter what it takes, what it costs, I’m taking all of them down, one by one.’

Kerry stood up on shaky legs.

‘We’ll meet back here at three,’ she said as she turned and left.

Marty stood up and she could feel him watching her all the way out of the room.

There were five of them seated around the kitchen table when Kerry walked in. They got to their feet, and in turn came forward to embrace her. Uncle Danny was first, and as he hugged her close she could feel his pain next to hers. He said nothing, but his face had somehow lost that easy charm and twinkle he was famous for. She’d always known there was a darker side to Auntie Pat’s husband. A brutal, angry side that he never displayed to his family or children, but her mother had told her it was there, and that he was not a good enemy to have. Next was John O’Driscoll. She remembered John from when she was a teenager and he was in his thirties, already moving up the ranks with his father. He had always been quiet, watchful, with the blackest eyes expressionless under dark heavy brows. He never had much to say about anyone or to anyone. There was something of the quiet danger about him. But he would do anything that was required of him by Tim Casey or anyone belonging to him.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Kerry,’ was all he said as he embraced her.

Jack Reilly stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting to greet Kerry. He must be in his forties now, she thought, a snapshot of him as a young man in the firm flashing up in her mind. She knew that her father trusted him as though he was his own son, and he was the favourite of all the crew. Jack, an ex boxer, was clever as well as handy on his feet and with his fists. As he came forward, part of her was almost overcome by the gentle, quiet respect of these men who she knew were hard, raw individuals whose loyalty was without question. None of what happened in the last few days, and especially yesterday, would break them. They were men of violence. But she could see they were shaken. They had all grown up together, their fathers villains through the years with her father, and the younger ones with Mickey. They all enjoyed the wealth that came to them from the firm, and they never flaunted it. But now, with the events of the past few days, they seemed to be on the losing side.

Frankie Martin stood behind them, his dark hair slicked back, shining in a charcoal-grey suit, ever the sharpest dresser on the block who had always looked like he spent more time at the mirror than anyone. He was Mickey’s best friend and most trusted sidekick, who had more or less lived with them since he was twelve. Growing up, Kerry had been a little bit in love with him when she was thirteen, but he was twelve years older than her, and never saw her as anything other than an annoying little sister. Now he looked rich, prosperous, and he was. He took her in his arms.

‘So sorry, Kerry. Your mother was a great lady. And Mickey . . .’

His voice trailed off as he broke away from her, and Kerry looked him in the eye. The uncomfortable truth was that he was part of the problem, because he was Mickey’s closest associate. He must have been involved in everything Mickey was doing, so he was part of what had brought them all to this. He was with Mickey when he was murdered, but he had told everyone he had no idea who had shot him. It had been a routine business meeting, he said. Someone must have ordered the hit. They had plenty of enemies – it went with the territory. That was all Kerry was told by Danny, but her gut told her there was more to it. But she had asked Marty for the most trusted people, so here they were.

Marty remained seated at the table, and Kerry sat down next to him as they all took their places. She waited to see if Marty was going to speak, but he looked at her. She was in charge now, and all of the faces were waiting for her. She cleared her throat.

‘Gents. Thanks for your condolences.’ She self-consciously touched her face. ‘These are hard days, the hardest of my life. But I know they’re hard for all of us. I need everyone, now more than before, to be tighter than ever with each other, with everyone they work with. Do you understand what I mean?’

She glanced at each of them momentarily and they nodded in agreement. She turned to Marty.

‘Marty and I had a talk this morning about the business, and I’m dealing with some things, looking over papers and stuff. As you know, I’ve been away.’ She paused, knowing they were hanging on her every word. ‘This was not my li