by Jessie Keane
‘You asked me to keep an eye on Fabio,’ said Jay.
‘Yeah?’ Vittore spread his hands. So?
‘It’s bad, Vittore.’
Vittore stared at Jay. This man had worked for him for a lot of years. He trusted him.
‘Tell me,’ said Vittore, and Jay did.
For days Bianca mooched around at Mama Bella’s, feeling miserable, rejected, ready to slit her throat. Then finally she thought, fuck him. He was just a man, just another fucking man, and she was tougher than this. She still had her life, her job, her family, and there were plenty of other men in the world. The last bit she told herself, over and over, but she didn’t believe it.
Tony Mobley had become her world.
But not any more. He’d dumped her; that much was completely clear. So she had to get back on the horse, get back in the saddle, carry on.
‘I’m going out,’ she told Mama Bella, and she did, touching base with old friends and getting legless at Global Village, going on a reckless round of high-end shopping for designer gear that she threw in the wardrobe, didn’t even bother to take the labels off, then off to Goldie’s with her mates for a night of dancing – until dawn and a raging hangover stopped the fun.
‘This is no way to behave,’ Mama Bella scolded her next morning, as she lay groaning in her bed. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Leave me alone,’ said Bianca, pulling the covers over her head. She thought of Tony, the rotten bastard, and the mixture of self-pity and hideous headache made her dissolve into tears. Whoever said love hurt? They were right. It did.
53
‘Hi,’ said the man, stepping out of the shadows.
Daisy was coming out of the back of Ruby’s flagship store near Marble Arch and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Ruby had asked her to come over and collect a couple of files from Joan, and she’d happily obliged. Anything to keep busy, to stop mulling it all over, thinking of how much she missed the twins, how she felt literally sick and empty and ached to hold them. It had been nearly a fortnight since Simon’s death, she still had his funeral to get through. And her nerves hadn’t stopped jangling since that horrible experience on the road with the Danieri bastards.
On top of everything else, she was devastated at the distance Rob had suddenly placed between them. He practically ignored her now. Obviously he’d made some sort of decision, and their almost-romance was clearly off. That broke her heart. She adored him. Loved him. This wasn’t just a crush, this was serious.
She was thinking of all this and coming out of the back of the store when suddenly there was this scruffy, sour-smelling man standing in front of her.
‘Oh!’ she said, startled.
He was smiling. The light wasn’t too good out here, but she could see he was somewhere in his thirties and very skinny, almost gaunt. Junkie, she thought. He had puckish features with heavy-lidded eyes under arched brows. But there were big dark shadows all around his eye sockets. His grey-flecked hair was cut very short, there was a deep cleft in his chin and his mouth was thin.
As Daisy flinched away, he held up his hands in a Hey! I’m harmless! gesture, smiling at the same time.
‘Whoa!’ The smile widened to a grin. ‘It’s OK. I’m not a hooligan.’
People were flooding past them, coming out of the store to head home.
‘Oh hello, Daisy. ’Night,’ said Doris Blanchard, walking past in a group of chattering girls. Among them Daisy saw her tormentors, Tessa and Julie. They gave her hate-filled looks. She gave them back a look of blank uninterest. Fuck them.
‘Good night, Doris,’ said Daisy, then her eyes returned to the man standing in front of her. ‘You startled me.’
‘Sorry. My fault. Are you Daisy Darke?’
‘How . . . ?’
He gave a smile. Daisy thought it had a flaky, mad edge to it. ‘That woman just called you Daisy and it’s an unusual name. Actually, I’m looking for Ruby Darke.’
‘She’s not in today.’
Daisy had done what she came for and now all she wanted was to hurry home. She felt jittery and exposed and miserable. It broke her heart that she couldn’t go to the safe house to see the twins; Kit said it was too risky, that she might be spotted and that would place her babies in danger. But she had been allowed to speak to Jody very briefly from a phone box, only to be told that Matthew had been irritable for the past few days, feverish, coming down with a cold or something. And Luke would catch it. They did everything in tandem. And here she was, their mother, unable to see them, feed them, touch them, comfort them in any way. She hated all this, and was furious at the Danieri mob for causing this excruciating separation.
They’re going to forget I’m their mother, she thought frantically. They’re going to start calling Jody ‘Mum’, their first words to her will be ‘Mama’!
‘Gabe,’ said the man blocking her path. He stuck out a hand. ‘I’m Gabriel Ward. But everyone calls me Gabe.’
Daisy stared at him blankly. She was worried, distracted, and she most certainly didn’t know or even want to know any Gabriel Ward.
Despite her misgivings, she shook his hand. It felt sweaty and unpleasant. He definitely had the look of a cokehead or a heroin addict. She wondered at the wisdom of abandoning the safety of Ruby’s house and coming here today; maybe she should have got Reg to drive her. But she had been trying to overcome her own fears, to prove she could do it; and now look.
Everyone was leaving the store, the crowds of shop workers were thinning out, the place where they were standing, behind the big loading bays, was almost empty of life.
‘Look, I have to go . . .’ she said uneasily.
‘Sure! Of course,’ he said, and stepped aside. ‘Only, I don’t have an address for her, and I wanted to talk to her. She and my dad were close, I believe.’
Ward? thought Daisy.
She stopped, studied his face. ‘You’re not related to Michael? Michael Ward?’
He gave that mocking half-grin again. There was something about his eyes that she really didn’t like. ‘He was my dad.’
Daisy stared at him, thunderstruck. ‘I didn’t know Michael had any children.’
‘I’ve been away for a while. Working.’
‘Well, I’m sure Ruby would want to meet you,’ she said politely. Actually she didn’t think Ruby would like to meet this twitchy, wild-eyed person at all.
‘So if you could give me her address . . .’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘What?’ He gave her a look of blinding innocence. ‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t, that’s all. Sorry.’
‘But surely she wouldn’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’m Michael’s boy.’
‘I told you: I can’t.’
Gabe moved in closer. His smile had slipped. He let out a laugh, but it sounded harsh, forced. ‘Oh, come on. This is silly.’
‘No . . .’ Daisy felt a shiver of alarm. She glanced down at her bag. ‘Oh . . . oh for God’s sake, I’ve left some files in the store. I’m sorry, I really have to go.’
Daisy hurried back inside, her heart beating hard. She half-expected him to follow her, to see through the thinness of her excuse to get away. The security guard was in his office and she went to the glass panel and leaned in close. Her eyes kept flicking toward the rear exit. At any moment, she expected Gabe to come in.
Henry looked up. He was portly and avuncular, and he smiled when he saw Daisy standing there.
‘Help you, Miss Darke?’ he asked, coming over.
‘If anyone comes in asking for me, I’ve gone out the side entrance, OK?’ said Daisy quickly.
‘Sure. You all right?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Just got some things Mum wants me to do up in the office. Don’t need any interruptions.’
‘OK.’ He was looking at her dubiously.
Daisy went back along the labyrinthine, echoing corridors and up to Ruby’s den on the top floor, passing through Joan’s empty office. The store was almost deserted now, and suddenly she d
idn’t like the feeling at all. She opened the inner door with her spare key, locked it behind her, and then went over to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialled.
He was there within half an hour, tapping at the locked office door.
‘Daise? You in there?’
Daisy unlocked the door. Rob was standing in the hallway.
‘What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Daisy composed herself. She was Lord Bray’s daughter, she was the fabulous Ruby Darke’s daughter, she absolutely was not going to fall to pieces. But she was getting so tired of feeling under threat all the time. The Danieri mob outside Simon’s house – she’d nearly died of fright that day. And now this junkie stopping her at the back of the store, at first smiling, charming, then turning suddenly hostile.
‘Do you know a Gabriel Ward?’ she managed to get out.
Rob’s attention sharpened. ‘Kit’s Uncle Joe was telling us about him. He’s Michael’s son. Got out of the big house not long ago.’
‘Big house?’ echoed Daisy.
‘Prison, Daise.’
Not working then. ‘He was here earlier. Waiting for me outside.’
Rob stared at her. ‘Did he speak to you? What did he want?’
‘He wanted Ruby’s address. And when I wouldn’t give it, he sort of . . . well, got aggressive in a pushy, smiley, spooky way. I think he may have been on something. You know, drugs. He looked spaced out.’ Daisy took a breath. ‘What was he in prison for?’
‘Grievous.’
‘What?’
‘GBH. Grievous Bodily Harm.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Christ, Daise.’
‘I came straight back inside and phoned you.’
‘You did right.’ Rob was frowning. ‘Fuck’s sake, Daise, will you please stop pissing around and stay where you’re safest? We’ve got ourselves a situation here, you know that. You should have got Reg to drive you, you shouldn’t have come in on your own.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ snapped Daisy, irritated because she knew he was right, she’d been stupid to do it.
‘I’ll talk to you any way I fucking-well like,’ said Rob. ‘Kit’s the guvnor and he says I have to keep you safe. So whether you like that or not, I’ll do that.’ He took a breath. ‘There was nobody hanging about the back entrance when I got here.’
‘Good.’ Daisy eyed him sulkily, stung by that rebuke. ‘I didn’t know Michael had a son.’
‘Neither did any of us, until Kit and me went to talk to Joe. Joe thinks this Gabriel is spitting blood over Kit getting the firm. And it sounds like Joe’s right. That’s fucking annoying, him trying to come in sideways, starting with you and Ruby. Come on, Daise. Let’s get you home.’
54
‘Boss?’ Scar-faced Jay put his head around the door of the office over Vito’s. Downstairs, the club was humming and someone was hammering out a bouncy song that was pounding the floorboards beneath Jay’s feet.
‘What?’ asked Vittore, who had been sitting behind his desk puffing on a thin cheroot and sipping a glass of wine from his own cellar, a very fine Chablis; he had a good palate and he appreciated things like that.
He’d been thinking about his brother and his wife and all that family shit, and trying not to. To distract himself, he had opened the bottle and then the post – just bills as usual. Then he’d tossed the letter-opener aside and begun leafing through the day’s paper; inflation was riding high at 21 per cent, the Russians had put two more cosmonauts into space to link up with the Salyut 4 space station and Sinatra had successfully sued the BBC over some programme that had linked him to the Mafia.
‘You are never gonna believe who’s downstairs in the club asking for a meet.’
Vittore sat up. ‘Who?’ he asked, stubbing out the cheroot in a red Murano glass ashtray, a gaudy remnant of Tito’s reign.
Jay told him.
‘You’re right,’ said Vittore, standing up. ‘I don’t believe it.’
What Kit was thinking was this: he would talk with Vittore, work out some sort of deal with the bastard if he could, have a proper sit-down. It grated on him, the thought of doing this; the Danieris were scum. But this whole thing was getting out of control. Simon’s death, and then Daisy being so badly scared . . . he didn’t want that. If Vittore had a problem, it was with him – not his family.
So he’d come over to Vito’s with Rob for backup, and he’d ignored his own misgivings.
The last time he’d been in this place, inside this building . . . he thought about it, then tried to shove it back out of his mind.
The last time . . .
Gilda, lying dead
Tito’s men, holding him down
And, ah shit, the pain, the God-awful pain
But that was then and this was now. This time, there was Rob to mind his back, and this time Tito was six feet under and he was dealing with Vittore, so maybe this could come out right. He’d caused all this crap, now it was down to him to sort it out.
‘There he is,’ said Rob, leaning in to Kit’s ear. ‘And this is a bad idea – did I already say that?’
Rob had said it at least a dozen times, but Kit wasn’t listening. The place was packed and the noise of the sound system was awesome. People danced, drank, crowded at the blue-lit bar. Beyond the bar was a roped-off stairway, and it was down these stairs that Vittore was now coming, with the tall knife-scarred man behind him. Vittore’s eyes were casting around in the dim lights and the flashing strobes.
He saw Kit. For a moment Vittore paused there; then he gestured for Kit to come over.
Once they were all upstairs in Vittore’s office and Jay had checked that neither of them was carrying, Jay shut the door and leaned against it. Rob stood off to one side. Vittore sat down behind his desk, and Kit took a seat opposite.
‘What you come here for?’ asked Vittore, eyeing Kit coldly.
‘To talk,’ said Kit.
‘So talk.’
‘I don’t like what’s happening,’ said Kit.
Vittore glanced up at Jay, back at Kit. ‘And what is happening?’ he asked.
‘My ex-brother-in-law died,’ said Kit. Gloria Gaynor was vibrating the floorboards under their feet with ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’.
‘That’s very sad, I’m sorry,’ said Vittore.
‘Killed himself, that’s the story,’ said Kit.
‘Tragic,’ shrugged Vittore.
‘But see, I think it’s just that: a story. He was a stroppy little cunt, but one thing you could say in that fucker’s favour, he was always up. Never down. He had a good business, a family, everything to live for.’
‘Shit happens,’ said Vittore, nodding sympathetically.
‘Don’t it though. There was even a suicide note – nice touch.’
‘Nice in what way?’ asked Vittore.
‘Nice in the way that it made the picture complete. Man commits suicide, leaves note saying he can’t go on.’ Kit was eyeing Vittore without blinking. ‘Thing is, this was a little tit who could go on for England. This cunt would go on when everyone else had fallen by the wayside and gone down the pub for a beer. Giving up, giving in? Not an option for this fucker.’
Vittore sat back in his chair. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting there was something suspicious about this man’s death?’ he asked.
‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m stating a fact. Simon Collins wouldn’t kill himself. Now on to Daisy, and you showing up with your boys when she goes to her ex-husband’s place to pay her respects, trying to frighten her – I’m really upset about this, Mr Danieri, very upset.’
‘Oh, you are?’ said Vittore.
Kit nodded. ‘I am. OK, so I may have stepped on your toes a little—’
‘A little?’ Vittore was smiling. ‘No. A lot. You offended me deeply, Mr Miller, turning up at my brother’s funeral like you did.’
‘I realize that. But we’re both reasonable men, business men. Let’s cool this down a bit, eh?’
Kit shook his head. ‘Tito had plenty of enemies.’
‘Yeah. He did. You were one of them, you made that obvious. So now I’m wondering, were you the one who took Tito from us, his family?’
‘Tito’s gone,’ said Kit. ‘My ex-brother-in-law is gone. These are sad times for both our families. But if that’s your view, then maybe we can say that we’re even. That enough’s enough.’
This time it was Vittore’s turn to shake his head. ‘No, Mr Miller.’
Kit stared at him. ‘No?’
‘Let’s wrap this up, shall we?’ Vittore stood up and leaned both hands, palms down, on the desk’s tooled leather surface. His eyes gleamed with fury and the thin veneer of civility dropped away like a discarded mask. ‘You shitting me, coming here? You think I give a fuck about anything you and your tribe are going through? My family concerns me. Mine. And you’ve insulted them and maybe worse, who knows? What I do know is that you’re a dead man walking.’
Kit stood up too. He leaned in on the other side of the desk. Smiled thinly.
‘I’m trying to be the bigger man here,’ he said.
‘You? You fucking schifoso!’ yelled Vittore suddenly. ‘Get the fuck out of my club!’
‘Yeah. I will,’ said Kit, and snatched up the letter-opener and thumped it down, skewering Vittore’s hand to the desk.
55
‘Leave the bottle,’ Bianca told the barman over the heavy thrum of the music in Vito’s. Her friend Shula, who she’d known since school, was there with her at the bar for another night of fun, drink and dance. She was going to enjoy herself tonight if it bloody well killed her.
The barman poured champagne into two flutes, and left the bottle just like Bianca said. Shula was looking around, spying out the eye candy. Bianca couldn’t bring herself to bother. She grabbed the flute and drank down the bubbly, then poured another.
‘Steady with that,’ shouted Shula, leaning forward to make herself heard. ‘We got all night.’