by Jessie Keane
She might have been used to it, but that didn’t mean she liked it, or accepted it. In fact, it enraged her. She knew she was capable, sensible, tough enough to run this place. When she put herself forward for it, her brothers been taken by surprise; it was obvious that they wanted to say no, but Mama had backed her. They all knew Mama was the boss, so Tito had said OK, why not? All the time expecting Bianca to make a bollocks of it.
And here it was, Vito checking up on her, proof that they thought her inadequate; a mere female and not even one of them. She was adopted, not proper Danieri blood.
She waited patiently for him to say the words: Everything OK, Sis? Need a hand?
Expecting – almost hoping – that she would say, Yes, someone’s giving me trouble, can you help me please, Vittore?
She would rather choke than say any such thing. She was tough, through and through. She carried a .22 calibre gun in her handbag, she looked you straight in the eye and dared you to look back. She was Tito Danieri’s little sister. She was Camorra.
‘Vittore!’ she greeted him warmly as she sat behind her desk, elbow-deep in paperwork. Fucking paperwork. ‘What can I do for you?’
It’s more what I can do for you, Sis. I’m here to help you out of whatever trouble it is you can’t handle.
And all the while he’d be mocking her in his head, thinking, Knew it. She can’t cut it, not like us boys.
Well, she was going to show them.
‘Sis . . .’ he hesitated. Vittore’s face was somehow . . . changed. No confident sneer today, and his mouth looked tight, strained.
Bianca felt alarm spiral up through her core. Felt that soul-draining weakness that comes with the certainty that something nasty is coming, something bad.
‘What is it?’ she said, rising to her feet.
‘No. No. Sit down, Bianca. This is bad news. I’m sorry.’
Bianca sank back into her seat. ‘Is it Mama?’ she asked, dry-mouthed.
He was shaking his head.
‘It’s Tito,’ he said. ‘It happened last night, when he was at the new place in Docklands.’ Vittore swallowed hard, and Bianca was horrified to see that his eyes shone with tears. ‘He’s dead, Bianca. Tito’s gone.’
6
‘Are you sure about this?’ Daisy asked her mother on the day of Tito’s funeral.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Ruby. ‘But I’m going.’
‘Then I’ll come with you,’ said Daisy, her face looming up in the mirror at Ruby’s shoulder.
Ruby glanced at her watch. Ten to eleven. She felt a shiver of apprehension run right through her. The sort of shiver that told your senses Just don’t, OK? But she sent her daughter’s reflection a smile. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. Stay here with the babies.’
Daisy’s eyes, blue as cornflowers, stared into her mother’s. She thought that Ruby’d had more than enough upsets over the past few months. She wished she wasn’t being so damned obstinate about this. But then, Ruby was obstinate about nearly everything: Daisy supposed that was how she came to be such a success in life.
Could she look any less like me? wondered Daisy, watching her mother straighten her pearls in the hall mirror. It never failed to amaze and amuse her when she looked at Ruby. Daisy herself had the healthy tanned complexion, golden-blonde hair and robust build of a Valkyrie. There was certainly no question who Daisy’s father was: she was every inch the daughter of big, blond Cornelius Bray. She looked nothing like exotic, dark-skinned Ruby – unlike her twin, Kit.
Daisy didn’t even sound like her mother. Ruby’s voice still held a hint of the East End she’d grown up in; when Daisy spoke it was with the beautifully rounded vowels of the Home Counties, as befitted the daughter of Lord and Lady Bray. But Lord Bray hadn’t wanted to know about his dark-skinned son; Kit had been raised in a succession of uncaring state orphanages. And she had always felt so guilty about that.
In fact, Daisy felt that lately she passed her days consumed with guilt, not only about Kit but about her babies too. She loved her boys desperately, but being a stay-at-home mum had left her feeling restless, a little frustrated, a little bored even. Did that make her a failure as a mother? She felt that she was. And having abandoned her babies – and every waking minute spent away from them was torment – had she now compounded her failure by being a complete washout at her job?
‘How’s it going?’ Ruby asked.
‘Hm?’
‘At the store.’
Shortly after Christmas, Daisy had asked her mother if she could perhaps work in the Darkes flagship Marble Arch store. Ruby had been surprised, but gratified. She had dreamed of her daughter following in her footsteps one day. But she insisted that if Daisy was going to work in the store, then she was going to have to learn the trade from the bottom up, just as she had. And Daisy had agreed, even though it wasn’t what she’d envisaged. She’d pictured herself doing a little clerical work in Ruby’s office, helping out Joan, her mother’s PA. She liked Joan, who was a merry-eyed matron and kindness itself.
The trouble was, nothing had turned out the way she’d imagined – least of all store work. And on top of that there was the agony of leaving the twins in Jody’s care. Daisy felt shaky and near to tears, hyper-emotional every time she had to leave them. Plus she was still breastfeeding, which meant she had to express milk for their feeds, and wear pads inside her bra because her breasts leaked. Granted, the boys were gradually being weaned on to formula feed so she wouldn’t have to do it that much longer, but each day it seemed more of a struggle. Maybe Simon, her ex, was right: maybe she was a bad mother. True to his usual form, Simon had flown into a rage when she’d told him she planned to start work in the store, accusing her of abandoning the boys. Much as she hated the thought of doing anything that would please him, it was so, so tempting to throw in the job.
‘It’s going OK, is it?’ Ruby persisted. ‘At the store?’
Daisy gave a smile. ‘Oh yes. Great.’
Ruby studied her daughter’s face; she suspected that Daisy was lying, probably to spare her feelings, to avoid worrying her when she had enough on her plate as it was.
I’m so lucky that I’ve found Daisy again. That she’s here with me, she thought. All the pain she had been through over the years, all the anguish, was softened by Daisy’s presence. Her relationship with Daisy, after almost three decades apart, had fallen almost easily into a comfortable, loving mode. But her relationship with Kit was never going to be so simple.
Ruby heaved a sudden sigh.
‘What?’ asked Daisy, watching her mother curiously.
‘I was thinking about your brother,’ said Ruby.
‘Well, he won’t be at the funeral, that’s for sure. He hated Tito!’ Daisy snorted. ‘And you don’t have to go either. Not if you really don’t want to.’
But Ruby knew that was not true. She did have to be there. Because of Bella, Tito’s mother. And because of the phone call.
Blood will flow.
What could Bella have meant by that? Was it a threat? Or a warning? Ruby shuddered to think of that voice on the phone, trembling yet full of determination.
She had no choice. She had to find out what Bella was talking about.
7
‘Honey, wake up! Wake up!’ squealed a voice in Kit’s ear.
‘Wha . . . ?’ he groaned, deep in a dream where a woman jangling with gold smiled at him with flirtatious sea-green eyes.
An alarm was going off. Someone was shaking his shoulder.
Ah shit no. Lemme sleep. Let me go back to her . . .
‘Wake UP!’ shouted the female voice, shaking him harder.
Kit opened his eyes. A shadowed face was leaning over him, hair tickling his face. For a moment he thought it was her. But then he realized it wasn’t. Felt the numb deadness crush him again. ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ he mumbled.
‘It’s ten o’clock. You said not to let you sleep past ten, remember?’ said the girl, sounding annoyed.
Kit came properly awake.
No, this wasn’t Gilda. It was . . . damn. Couldn’t remember her name. His head ached, he’d drunk too much last night and fallen into bed with her, one of the hostesses maybe? One of the dancers? Who knew? Who cared? He’d been in a club, drinking. Which club, he didn’t know. His mouth was parched and sour, his eyes gritty.
Ten . . . Why had he asked her to wake him at ten? He couldn’t even remember doing that, and he knew that was bad. This whole drinking thing was bad.
The alarm was still blaring away. He reached out, thumped the switch to off. Silence fell, except for the steady background hum of traffic out on the main road. And then it came back to him, all of it. Today was the day of the funeral. Today was the day that Tito Danieri got planted.
‘Coffee,’ she said, and slapped a mug down beside the alarm clock.
Kit pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbed his hands over his face. He looked at them, briefly. Both his palms bore pale ugly scars, but they were as much a part of him now as his teeth or his hair. He was used to them. Then he looked around the bedroom. It was flooded with light, fabulous and airy just like every other room in his house, which was a tall and fiendishly expensive Georgian place a stone’s throw from Belgravia. No more poky bedsits for him: he’d made it. Or rather, Michael had made it, and then had made him. Once he would have been so thrilled with all this. His own house, after growing up in rat-hole council orphanages and then making his own way out on the streets. Now, he barely even cared.
He reached for the coffee.
‘So what are your plans for today?’ asked the girl, sitting there naked on the edge of the bed. She was pretty, blonde, but he still couldn’t remember who the hell she was.
I have to stop this, he told himself. The drinking. The women. Maybe after today, I’ll be able to. Who knows?
‘Going out,’ he said, wincing as scalding-hot and sour-tasting instant coffee scorched his lips. He put the mug down. Looked at her.
‘Only I thought maybe we could spend some time together? I’m not on till eight.’ Her tone was hopeful.
One of the dancers? Oh yeah. And her name is . . . Susie.
‘Sorry, Susie,’ he said. ‘Busy.’
The girl’s cheeks coloured. ‘I’m not Susie,’ she spat. ‘My name’s Alison.’
‘Sure.’
‘I just thought . . . after last night . . .’ she said, her voice trailing off. She was wounded by his indifference. She looked at the man in the bed, so handsome, so well-muscled; he was like a hard-looking version of that famous actor, Omar Sharif. His skin was the colour of warm caramel, his face very still in repose, as noble and serene as an emperor’s – but his eyes, unlike Omar’s, were that fabulous, unexpected bright cornflower blue. She was already halfway in love with him, and he didn’t even know her name . . . and now, looking at him, she didn’t think he remembered that they had made love last night either. And maybe they hadn’t. For sure, she had been making love: but now she could see, with painful clarity, that for Kit it had been anonymous, mindless sex.
Alison got off the bed. ‘You know what? You’re a bastard.’
‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘Yeah! Tell it to the fucking marines,’ she said, and hurried off into the bathroom.
Kit sat there in the bed, alone, and thought of the day ahead.
The day of Tito’s funeral.
Something to look forward to, after all.
8
‘Well, Astorre, how are we going to get through this?’ Bella Danieri asked the framed black-and-white photo of her late husband on the mantelpiece. No answer came. Of course it didn’t. Astorre had been gone for ten years now, he didn’t have to go through the excruciating pain of burying their eldest child, his favourite son, Tito. She was thankful for that.
Bella picked up the photograph and kissed the still, silent face. He’d been no looker, her Astorre. Bulging-eyed and over-excitable, Astorre had been a bruiser of a man, bludgeoning his way through life. He was camorristi, one of the much-feared Camorra, a powerful Naples urban underworld organization. And he’d been doing well in the city of his birth until the feud with Corvetto forced the Danieris out of the district of Villaricca.
Astorre had dragged himself and his Italian émigré family from those dangerous Naples gutters to the even meaner streets of London, pushing aside all those who would attempt to hold him back from enjoying his due: a comfortable life of crime.
He had achieved his goals too; he’d mixed with the best of the best. The resettled Danieris had dined with MPs, celebrities and minor aristocracy. Their eldest son Tito had taken over the reins after Astorre’s passing, extending their criminal empire still further. Tito had proved himself a skilled puppet-master, building on Astorre’s talent for business, blackmail and subtle mayhem, ensuring that the family would always be safe. Too many people in high places stood to lose their easy life of privilege should the authorities ever bring trouble to the Danieri family door.
Bella stood and looked around at this room, stuffed full of the possessions accumulated over a lifetime. The Danieri family had thrived in exile. At first, of course, life had been a struggle, but now they owned this big town-house with its many rooms, placed squarely and elegantly here in Little Italy, in the heart of Clerkenwell. They were safe, secure, among their own kind, and reasonably content with that.
Bella preferred to keep her family close, under her control. She didn’t like Bianca being away so much, down on the south coast, but she kept her adopted daughter’s room just as she left it, so that it was always ready for her return.
Why should her sons and her daughter find places of their own when there was this big house here, with plenty of space for them all? Of course, Tito had kept an apartment over one of the clubs – she didn’t want to know about that, or about what he got up to when he was there, God forbid. Fabio, her youngest boy, still lived here with his Mama, and why not?
And Vittore!
Bella’s lip curled. Her favourite boy, the middle son, had shocked and upset her by insisting on marrying that whore Maria. He’d been ready to break his mama’s heart by moving out, setting up his own household with the slut.
Bella soon put a stop to that. She had cajoled, pleaded, cried, clutched at her chest. ‘I am losing my son!’ she wailed.
In the end, Vittore had relented, as she had known he would. Now Vittore and Maria had their own set of rooms – lounge, kitchen, wine cellar, bathroom, bedroom, even their own little patch of garden – in the big family home, and there was no more talk of them moving out.
The rain battered against the window and Bella gazed out at the dark sky, the lashing rain. She sighed then, and cursed the weather in this country. In Napoli, sweet hot Napoli, people sat outside, sharing grappa with their neighbours and laughing at the problems of the world under a brilliant, scorching sun. Here, they huddled indoors even in the summer months, and the air was never dry, it was always damp, humid: everyone went out in raincoats to dodge the showers. But there could never be any going back for the family; she knew that. This had become their country, their home.
Once it had seemed that nothing could touch them here, nothing at all: and then it happened. Her son Tito, walking out of the renovated Docklands one night. An assassin, lying in wait, striking when it was least expected. A single thrust with a long, narrow blade, and her precious boy, her eldest, was dead.
With trembling fingers Bella placed her long-dead husband’s picture back on the mantelpiece. She was so tired of it all: the fight, the struggle. Tired to death; all she wanted was peace. No reprisals, no beatings. She’d told the boys and she meant it. Tito was gone, nothing was going to bring him back. Let him rest.
Blinking back tears, she focused on her reflection in the mirror. Why not admit it? Her husband might have been no looker, but she wasn’t either. Years of sophisticated company, high-end dinner parties, charity galas, and still she looked like what she was: an Italian peasant woman, her greying hair scraped back in a bun, her face a pallid network o
f wrinkles, her sallow complexion not flattered by the unadorned black dress she wore, her eyes stricken with grief.
‘Mama?’
Bella turned. It was her Vittore. Her beloved boy. He too was showing signs of age: his hairline was receding, forming a widow’s peak at the front. It gave him a sinister look, wolfish.
Vittore had always been her favourite, the one she had nursed at her breast for longest, the one she doted on the most. Now he was the eldest living boy and head of the family. He came forward, looking at his watch. It was nearly ten thirty. He kissed her dutifully on both cheeks, held her close for a moment, then pushed her back.
‘Finally he comes to see his mother,’ Bella sniffed.
‘Shouldn’t Bianca be here?’ asked Vittore, ignoring her remark. He was used to such things.
Bella gave a shrug; Bianca was a law unto herself. She smiled faintly and patted his cheek. Vittore was her special one, that would never change.
She thought of the old English rhyme: A boy’s your son till he takes a wife, a girl’s your daughter all your life. Bella’s heart clenched with pain as she thought how Vittore had gone against her wishes and wed Maria. She had warned him about dirty girls and their seductive ways, but what could you do? Men had their needs, and that bitch Maria had snared Vittore despite all Bella’s efforts to prevent it.
But Bianca was completely hers. And she was proud of her. Bianca was intelligent, incisive – she was a true daughter of the Camorra. Bianca had adored Tito ever since she’d arrived on the scene, and her affection had been amply returned. It was Tito who had taught the girl how to shoot, how to do business.
‘She said she would be here,’ said Bella. ‘Or maybe she’ll go straight to the church.’