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impossible to stay with him. She wanted to go back to Sussex, but her sense of duty compelled her to find somewhere near to her father, so she took the poky flat in New Cross. Yet when he died three years later, he proved how little he’d thought of her sacrifice or her future, because he left everything, the house and his savings, to his younger brother and nothing to her and his granddaughters.
    Anne got out of the bath, her eyes swimming with tears. Reg had said dozens of times that she ought to let the past go, and she wished she could, but it just wouldn’t let her. It was slowly poisoning her, making her into someone she didn’t want to be.
    Before Anne began dressing she took out the bottle of gin she kept hidden in the back of the wardrobe and drank directly from it. It burned her throat and made her eyes water but the warming effect was instantaneous, pushing back the bleakness inside her.
    Two hours later, at eight o’clock, she was behind the bar at the Station Hotel smiling and pulling pints as if she was the happiest woman in the world. The saloon bar was packed as usual on a Saturday night, as was the public bar next door, and a private party was in full swing in the function room at the back.
    Tosh, the landlord, stood at the corner of the bar with a large whisky in one hand and a cigar in the other, watching Anne. He liked to see her breasts moving up and down as she pulled pints, and the curve of her pert little arse under that tight dress, and to know that he’d have her again before the night was over.
    No one, least of all Tosh, knew how he’d got that name – his real one was Albert Bright. He was born in Stepney in 1900, and he had taken his childhood nickname with him when he turned to professional boxing. Although he’d never reached any dizzy heights in boxing circles, he had made enough money to buy a little pub in Mile End, and by branching out into black marketeering during the war, he got enough to buy this place.
    Situated on the corner of Leahurst Road, directly opposite Hither Green station, the large Edwardian premises were a little goldmine. The immediate area was short on pubs, travelling salesmen found his rooms upstairs a convenient base from which to travel to the City and the West End, and he had two function rooms he let out for parties and weddings.
    Tosh had been married, but his wife had run off with a sailor twelve years ago. He hadn’t missed her, only his pride was hurt, but it had made him wary of women ever since. He knew he wasn’t much to look at, short, stocky and balding. His nose had taken a few too many punches, his teeth were bad and he had a big gut. Yet women were always making a play for him. They claimed it was because he had style and made them laugh, but he knew only too well they were mostly only interested in his money.
    Anne Taylor was no different. She was just looking for a way out of a marriage which bored her. She was barking up the wrong tree with him, though. She might be the most thrilling screw he’d ever had, as beautiful as a May morning and ladylike to boot, but he wasn’t about to get himself saddled with two kids and a man like Reg after his blood.
    He was prepared to play the game for a little longer though. Just the thought of pushing his cock into that sexy mouth made him quiver and when he saw there was a slight lull behind the bar, he beckoned her over to him.
    ‘Want a break for a while?’ he asked. ‘Janet will come in from the public bar to take over. We could go upstairs for a drink.’
    Anne groaned inwardly for she knew exactly what Tosh really wanted, and not for the first time she regretted embarking on an affair with him. She had begun working lunch-hours at the pub last December, and Tosh made her feel good because he was always saying how beautiful she was. Before long she was staying on after the pub closed for the afternoon, and over a couple of drinks he would tell her about his boxing days, the elegant nightclubs he