Lawless

by Jessie Keane

  With love to Cliff, as always.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Camorra is Naples’ equivalent organization to the Mafia. It came into existence in the eighteenth century, about a hundred years before its Sicilian counterpart.

  Now it is a huge political and economic force in southern Italy, and its tentacles stretch out even further, well beyond Italy’s shores . . .

  THE DARKE FAMILY

  ‘What’s gone and what’s past help

  Should be past grief.’

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  The Winter’s Tale

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  103

  104

  105

  106

  107

  108

  109

  110

  111

  112

  113

  114

  115

  116

  117

  118

  119

  120

  121

  122

  123

  124

  125

  126

  127

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  1975

  It happened one night as Reg drove Ruby Darke home to Marlow on the edge of the Thames. And really, was she even surprised? For weeks there had been such stress, such an atmosphere of dread surrounding her that the final thing, the last act in this horrible play, was almost a relief.

  She was a strong woman. Tough in business, uncompromising, used to cutting deals and making her mark. After years of graft, she was now not only Ruby Darke the once-despised mixed-race child from the East End, she was also known as the Ice Queen of Retail, owner of the Darkes chain of department stores.

  Ice Queen, she thought to herself. What a joke.

  She had never felt as weary or as vulnerable as she did at this moment. Michael, her great love, had been murdered, Kit was in trouble – and now there was Thomas Knox who had come into her life and tipped her world upside-down, ruined everything. And these awful people, this merciless Italian clan who seemed intent on damaging the Darke family any way they could.

  As the Mercedes turned into the drive leading up to her small Victorian villa, she sat up and stretched in anticipation. A hot bath, a warm bed. She needed both, then she’d start to feel a bit better.

  But . . . there should have been two men on the gate.

  The thought sprang into her brain and with it Ruby felt a bolt of fright shoot from her feet right to the top of her head. The family was under threat, so Rob had been taking extreme measures to keep them all safe. Instead of leaving it to Reg, her chauffeur and minder, to protect her, he’d assigned two men to guard the gate . . .

  But they weren’t there.

  ‘Reg . . . ?’ she started, alarmed, her heartbeat quickening.

  Reg said nothing. He kept driving.

  Ruby reached forward and tapped his shoulder. ‘There was no one on the gate. Where are they?’

  Reg didn’t answer. He brought the car to a halt outside Ruby’s front door. In the white glare of the headlights she could see people moving about. But not Kit’s people. These were men she recognized, with a shiver of foreboding.

  She lunged across the seat and threw open the far door, getting ready to run. But someone blocked her path and leaned in. As the interior lights came on, she saw Fabio Danieri standing there grinning at her.

  Then the other rear door opened, and Vittore Danieri got in and sat beside her. Ruby shrank back. Fabio got in too, so that she was caught, helpless, between the two of them.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Darke,’ said Vittore, turning his dark vulpine gaze on her.

  Jesus, they were going to snatch her. They really were.

  She thought of Kit, the son who still resented her, hated her for giving him up all those years ago. He had said he would try to forgive her, but he never had; she knew it. Now her heart clenched as the bitter realization hit her. If they thought he would pay them even a single penny to get her back, they were mistaken. He wouldn’t.

  But maybe this wasn’t a kidnap at all. Perhaps this was it, the end: perhaps they just intended to kill her, not bargain over her. As if reading her thoughts, Fabio drew out a knife and held it almost casually against her throat.

  Panicking, straining away from him, terror gripping her, she could only think of Thomas’s last angry words: that there could be bits of her daughter Daisy sent through the post to her, bits of Daisy’s children if this feud with the Danieris wasn’t brought under control. But he’d got it wrong. She realized that now.

  It wouldn’t be bits of Daisy, or her kids.

  It would be bits of her.

  ‘Now, Ruby Darke,’ said Fabio. ‘You choose. Where should I cut you first?’

  1

  Earlier in 1975

  The late Michael Ward and Tito Danieri had been business partners, barely tolerating each other but rubbing along well enough as they poured their own money and a big government grant into the refurbishment of a group of derelict cotton warehouses in the Albert Docks. Now it was the evening of the launch, and all the VIPs were assembled there, cooing over an elaborate model of the projected finished article.

  There would soon be designer shops, restaurants, a docklands railway – everything that was needed for smart young execs to live the ‘café society’. Everyone was impressed. There were drinks, nibbles and hostesses shimmying around among the excited crowds, handing out smiles and nourishment.

  It was a fun night, and Tito pressed a lot of flesh and charmed a lot of women with his bulky prosperous silverback looks, ice-blue eyes and dashing grey beard. Michael Ward – his business partner – of course, wasn’t there, because Michael Ward was dead.

  Tito gave the nod
at around twelve-fifteen, and one of his boys hurried off to fetch his coat. He made his way outside into the damp night air with his three minders moving ahead of him. It had been a good night, he thought with satisfaction, puffing on a freshly lit Cohiba. And there would be more to come. He was a millionaire now, a situation that could be improved upon still further. Tito had big plans.

  Sorry, Michael, you didn’t live to see this, our night of triumph, he thought.

  A shame, really, but they’d never got on. Tito’s friendship with the Conservative peer Cornelius Bray – and other things – had grated on Michael Ward, who was firmly in businesswoman Ruby Darke’s corner. And Ruby and Cornelius . . . well, there was bad blood there. Lots of it.

  Suddenly there was someone standing right in front of Tito, between the boys and himself. He couldn’t see a face, not even in the sickly sodium glare of the street lights. The face was covered. Tito’s eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened to say, What the fuck . . . ?

  But there was no time for that. A piercing, awful pain in his chest whipped the breath out of him, crushed any facility for speech.

  Stabbed I’ve been stabbed what are they doing why are they such fucking fools . . .

  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t shout to his minders for help. His mouth drooped open further, the cigar falling to the ground in a small shower of sparks. Tito felt blackness descend like a thick curtain as his legs started to buckle beneath him.

  ‘Not smiling now, are you, Tito?’ the figure whispered, and then there was more pain, unbelievable pain, as something was yanked from his chest.

  It was Miller’s voice! It was him, that cunt Kit Miller!

  Knife . . .

  He clawed at Kit, but he was already gone, running off into the deeper shadows. Tito folded almost gracefully to the ground. He barely had time to hear the shouts as his boys realized what had happened, then he closed his eyes and died.

  2

  One of Tito’s less experienced boys, one of the three who’d been with him at the Docklands launch, was sent to the favourite family-owned nightclub – which Tito had grandiosely named Tito’s in his own honour – to find Vittore, Tito’s brother, while the other two, each of them trembling with shock, said they would call on Tito’s mother Bella, break the bad news. They’d had to leave the scene when the ambulance and the police came. What the fuck – it was too late to do anything for Tito, anyway.

  It was gone one in the morning, and downstairs Tito’s was quiet, a man tinkling away a bluesy few notes on a piano, the lighting low and drifts of cigarette smoke creating a drowsy miasma around the couples talking softly at the tables as the hostesses slowly circled them. Donato went through the main body of the club and straight upstairs. One of the boys was on the door there, and he took one look at pudgy Donato’s face and let him through without a word.

  Inside the flat it was less tasteful nightclub, more Roman orgy. There were chandeliers and Aubusson carpets, deep sofas and a roaring fire. Five men, all big faces from around Little Italy, were being fawned over by a mob of girls – all of them beautiful, all scarcely wearing a thing.

  Everyone was laughing, drinks were being filled and refilled. A fat swarthy-skinned man with his trousers pushed down was in a corner with a blonde woman between his legs, her mouth full of cock. Another man had a girl on his lap, squeezing a handful of naked tit. And another – ah, Jesus, there was Fabio! – he was lounging there with one of the women, a luscious nude brunette, nibbling at her neck, whispering in her ear.

  Donato went straight over to him.

  ‘Fabio!’ said Donato. He was a cruel-eyed youngster, short, stocky, always up for a fight. Now, he looked like a kid who’d had his favourite toy snatched away. He looked like he was about to cry.

  Fabio glanced up, still smiling, a curl of smoke coming from the cigarette held loosely in his hand. The voluptuous naked girl with him stared up at Tito’s boy with dead-eyed disinterest. With Fabio distracted, she raised her glass and took a long drink of champagne.

  ‘Donato?’ asked Fabio, half-smiling, thinking that he’d fuck the girl very shortly. She’d be only too happy to open her legs for powerful Tito’s handsome baby brother; they always were. Across the room was a large gilded mirror, and Fabio could see himself reflected in there: he’d been admiring himself all evening, his glossy black hair, his perfect nose, his olive skin. He was a very good-looking young man, and he loved mirrors.

  ‘Is Vittore here?’ asked Donato.

  As if Fabio hadn’t been hearing that all his life! Is Tito here? Is Vittore here? Always looking over Fabio’s shoulder as they said it, searching for the older brothers, the ones that could be relied upon for good sense – never for Fabio, the youngest. It hurt him, every single time. Like it had hurt him when his mother and father took in his little sister, Bianca, a white-blonde miniature usurper, just three years old, who had instantly become the centre of his parents’ universe. He’d been seven when that happened, and for him it had been a disaster. At least, before she came along he’d been the youngest, the baby of the family. After Bianca arrived on the scene, what was he? Not even that, not any more.

  ‘Can you see Vittore here?’ snapped Fabio. Stupid cunt.

  ‘Fab, it’s Tito . . .’ Donato yanked out a chair and seemed to collapse into it. His face was bleached of colour. He looked like a man in turmoil.

  ‘What about Tito?’ asked Fabio impatiently when Donato said no more.

  Donato’s eyes came up and met Fabio’s.

  ‘He’s fucking dead, Fab. He’s dead.’

  Fabio felt time freeze. He looked at Donato. There were actual tears making tracks down Donato’s face now. Donato the hard nut. Not very bright. Not bright enough to see that he’d been made a patsy by two much smarter players, that was for sure. He was sitting there blubbering like a child.

  ‘What . . .’ Fab felt the smile, the one he had used to such effect on the girl – fuck knew what her name was – stall on his face. The smile stayed there, but the life had gone out of it. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Tito’s dead,’ said Donato. And he told Fabio about it then, through sobs and hitches and gasps.

  About halfway through, the girl got up. Fabio grabbed her arm. ‘Where you going?’ he asked.

  ‘I . . .’ she started.

  Fabio yanked her back down.

  ‘Ow!’ she complained. People were turning, staring. Fabio still held her arm, crushing it.

  ‘No, you don’t run off and tell everyone the news like it’s a freak show,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You stay here.’

  ‘You’re hurting—’ she said.

  ‘You stay here,’ he said, and this time she remained silent. His returned his attention to Donato. He was thinking Tito, dead? No. Not possible.

  Tito had been there all his life, an absolute and uncaring despot; ruling the roost after Papa went, with Vittore waiting in the wings, ready to take over when his turn came. Fabio’s turn at being head of the family was way off. It had been set in stone for so long, this fact, that Fabio had almost come to accept it. Almost. He’d always known he’d have to attend two funerals before his turn came. Two graves to stand by, and then all hail King Fabio! He’d always thought that, even as a small boy.

  ‘And where the fuck were you when all this was happening?’ he asked.

  ‘We were right there with him,’ said Donato. ‘Right there. This bastard came out of nowhere and did it.’

  ‘Right in front of your eyes,’ said Fabio.

  ‘Yeah. Just like that.’

  Fabio let go of the girl and stood up. He was nodding, his head bent. Then without warning he lashed out, grinding the glowing tip of the cigarette hard into Donato’s cheek. Donato shrieked; so did the women in the room. The stink of scorched skin drifted up, and a faint repulsive sizzling. Everyone was suddenly on their feet, knocking chairs over, backing away, yelling and screaming. Donato was sobbing in agony. He had fallen to the floor and was holding his hands to his burned face.


  ‘You were there when it happened? And you didn’t stop it?’ roared Fabio, leaning in and jabbing the glowing cigarette against Donato’s face again, then again. Donato screamed.

  One of the other men made as if to intervene. Fabio saw the movement and lifted his arm and pointed a rigid finger at him.

  ‘I really wouldn’t,’ Fabio hissed. Then he turned to the room at large and shouted: ‘Place is closed, folks. Everyone out now.’

  No one moved. Everyone stared at the stricken Donato.

  ‘Off you fuck!’ yelled Fabio, full volume.

  They started moving then, the women gathering up their clothes, grabbing handbags, edging away, their eyes still on him, the way you would keep your eyes on a dangerous animal that could turn and attack.

  Fabio pressed the point harder: ‘Get out of here! Show’s over!’

  Slowly, everyone started to move toward the door. Fabio stood glowering until the last guest closed the door behind them, leaving him alone with the cowering Donato.

  ‘You stupid cunt,’ he said, and grabbed a heavy marble candlestick from a table and waded in.

  Then, when he had seen to Donato, taught him a lesson he would never forget, Fabio went through to the office next door. With hands that shook with a mixture of excitement and terror, his knuckles sore and bloodstained, he phoned his brother Vittore. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew that Vittore would. And the irony of this did not escape him.

  3

  This is a nightmare, thought Bella Danieri. She couldn’t believe that she wasn’t asleep and dreaming this horror. Her boy Tito was dead. In the small hours of that same morning, she sat with Fabio and Vittore in her kitchen. Maria had come in, briefly – she knew she wasn’t welcome, she was never welcome at any family occasion – and she’d hugged Bella and said she was so sorry about Tito, was there anything she could do?

  ‘Go to bed,’ said Bella, shrugging off her daughter-in-law’s embrace as if she were an annoying insect to be swatted aside.

  Maria stiffened, glanced at Vittore; he nodded and she left the room. Presently they heard the door across the hallway close loudly, and Bella slopped brandy into three glasses.

  ‘Who did it?’ said Vittore into the sudden silence. ‘That’s what I want to know.’