Lawless

by Jessie Keane

‘That’s the line out to the flat over the garage at Ruby’s house?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Rob knew the number well; for some time, he’d stayed in the flat Reg was currently occupying.

  ‘That’s the meat market, we deal with them all the time.’

  ‘And the brewery.’

  ‘And Billingsgate, for the fish.’

  ‘That one?’ Kit pointed.

  ‘Dunno. Maybe it’s in Michael’s book.’

  Kit pulled the address book out of the drawer. ‘Leave me with this, I’ll have a look through,’ he said, and Rob left the room.

  Kit searched the address book from front to back. Lots of phone numbers in there; but not this one. Probably it didn’t matter, just some random thing. He picked up the phone and dialled a different number.

  ‘Miss Darke’s office,’ said Joan, Ruby’s PA.

  ‘Joan, it’s Kit, can I have a word with Ruby?’

  ‘Hi, Kit, putting you through.’

  There was a pause, then Ruby picked up, sounding anxious. ‘Kit? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. I have a phone number here, one that Michael called the day before his death. I was wondering if you knew whose it is.’

  ‘Oh. Let me get a pen.’ She was shuffling papers. ‘Go on then.’

  Kit gave her the number. Ruby was silent.

  ‘You know it?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I don’t. Look, let me check it out, I’ll call you right back.’

  ‘I’m at the office behind Sheila’s,’ he said and put the phone down. It might be nothing, nothing at all, but he wanted everything accounted for. He wanted to know what had been going on with Michael in the days before he died. And then, maybe, it would all start to make some sort of sense.

  Minutes passed. The phone rang, and he snatched it up on the first ring.

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me. No, I don’t have that number. But I forgot to tell you: I’ve got an address for Gabe Ward.’

  Kit sat back in his chair. ‘How the hell did you manage that?’

  ‘Through an associate of Michael’s – Thomas Knox.’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘We’ve kept in touch.’

  Kit was surprised. He thought Ruby was straight, right down the line. Granted, she’d got involved with Michael, but he didn’t think for one minute that she bought into the life he’d been involved in. She’d loved the man, that much was obvious; but she’d chosen to ignore what he truly was.

  ‘Give me the address then,’ he said, and wrote it down as she reeled it off.

  ‘Kit, take care,’ she said.

  He put the phone down.

  Thought for a moment.

  Then he dialled the mystery number and found himself talking to Lady Vanessa Bray, the widow of his own late father, Cornelius.

  64

  Ruby had been surprised by Thomas Knox’s house. She had pictured him in smoky pool halls, dingy little offices, back alleys. She pictured him roughing people up, doing under-the-table deals. She hadn’t pictured him living in a stately Georgian place in Hampstead, with comfortable, tasteful interior décor and a housekeeper who took care of the cooking, and took care of it very well, too.

  They’d eaten dinner. A very nice dinner: tender lamb and croquette potatoes and fresh beans, followed by lemon tart, all washed down with a good red wine.

  He was, clearly, a man of surprises.

  But the entire time she was eating, Ruby was thinking about what Vi had once laughingly told her about men, when she was still young and naïve.

  First they feed you, then they fuck you.

  Which was true enough, Ruby had long since discovered. Now she found herself remembering Knox’s words to her at Simon’s funeral: We’ll discuss how grateful you are.

  She didn’t doubt that he was going to exact some return for his trouble, and she wondered how she felt about that. The truth was – and she wasn’t proud of this – he intrigued her. Not too many months since Michael’s death, and here she was being wined and dined by another man. She didn’t like the thought of it. But . . . he was hellishly attractive. Too attractive. Those cold, cold blue eyes . . . she sensed that if she stared into them too long, she’d drown in them. Completely lose it. She was a full-grown woman, she was Ruby Darke the Ice Queen of Retail, she wasn’t used to feeling this way, and it annoyed her.

  Now they were sitting on a big buff-coloured sofa, the lights were dimmed, there was music playing. ‘The Look of Love’, Dusty Springfield. A classic. Yet the ambient lighting, the soft suggestive music, only added to her annoyance. She was annoyed at herself, at the way he was making her feel.

  It’s called desire, whispered a treacherous voice in her head. You remember that, don’t you?

  ‘You know what I think?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Thomas Knox, loosening his tie, leaning back, staring at her. ‘What do you think?’

  She was no fool, and it was time he was made aware of that fact. ‘I think you already had Gabe’s address,’ she said. ‘That was much too fast.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe I did.’

  ‘Did you?’

  A hint of a smile. ‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Ruby, shaking her head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re so . . . so . . .’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Mysterious.’

  He raised his eyebrows at her, took a sip of wine.

  ‘There’s nothing mysterious about me, Ruby. I fulfilled my part of the deal, that’s all. And I think it’s past time you fulfilled yours.’

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed. ‘You had that address already. I know it.’

  ‘You don’t know. You’re guessing.’

  ‘And you’re not telling.’

  No. I’m not.’ He drained his glass, put it aside. ‘I did what I said I would do. I got you the address. Now it’s your turn.’

  Ruby stared at him. ‘So what do you want from me?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, come on. We both know the answer to that one.’

  ‘Thomas . . .’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s the first time you’ve said my name.’

  ‘Hm. Well – Thomas – I have Gabe’s address now. And I’ve passed it on to Kit. I’ve got what I wanted.’

  ‘Not all of it, though.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You also want me to give Kit my backing. Which I am fully prepared to do, of course. For a price.’

  ‘Go on then. Name it.’

  Dusty had given way to something else. Sounded like Henry Mancini, a sultry tinkling on the piano, a suggestion of a muted horn. Music intended for seduction.

  Those hard blue eyes drilled into hers.

  ‘Oh, I dunno. We’ll start with the top, shall we? See how we go from there.’

  Ruby stared at him. ‘What?’ She hadn’t a clue what he meant.

  ‘The top you’re wearing.’ Again that smile, there and then quickly gone. ‘Take it off.’

  ‘I’m not a whore, Mr Knox,’ said Ruby coldly. ‘If you want one, I suggest you look elsewhere.’

  ‘So we’re back to “Mr Knox” again,’ he noted. ‘You weren’t so coy in the war though, were you? Posing nude at the Windmill. Bedding that lecherous bastard Cornelius Bray. Having his illegitimate twins, I believe, who were liquorice allsorts, one half-black – Kit – and the other white – Daisy.’

  Ruby’s mouth opened in shock.

  ‘Bray only wanted to own up to the white kid though, didn’t he,’ Thomas went on. ‘So him and his childless missus Vanessa brought up Daisy, and poor old dark-skinned Kit was stuffed out of sight – by Charlie your brother, I believe – in a kids’ home. Took you a long, long time to find Kit, didn’t it? And he still hasn’t forgiven you for letting him be taken.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Then Michael Ward helped you find your boy and you became his lover. Y
ou’re not exactly a nervous virgin, are you? You’re a woman of the world. Tough in business, I’ve been told. You must be, to have done so well with it. And you have this cool air about you. I like that, it’s sort of challenging. Yet there’s this hot sensuality in your eyes, and in the way you move. A woman like you, Ruby, needs a lover.’

  Ruby stood up. She hated the fact that, despite all her best intentions, she could feel a hard pulse beating deep in the pit of her belly. He had aroused her, talking this way. ‘Have you quite finished?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t. You know what I’d like?’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘I’d like to see you naked in my bed.’

  Ruby gulped, tried to compose herself. She felt flushed suddenly, unstable. Today had been horrible, stressful; she told herself that she was just feeling the after-effects of that, and too much wine.

  When she could trust herself to speak she said: ‘If I “needed” a lover, Mr Knox – it wouldn’t be you.’ She snatched up her bag and went to the door.

  ‘So . . .’ his words drifted after her . . .’ You don’t want me keeping an eye out for Kit then?’

  Ruby stopped. Looked back at him. ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Been called worse,’ he shrugged.

  65

  1953

  ‘Here, little bambina, look at this. Chocolate,’ said Tito, dandling the three-year-old Agneta on his knee as Gabe drove.

  Gabe didn’t know how he was driving. He didn’t know how he was managing to keep sane. What he had just seen . . .

  No. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t.

  And the little girl had been there, she’d seen it all. Gabe glanced at the girl. She wasn’t crying any more. She seemed very calm – almost dazed, he thought – and her huge turquoise eyes were gazing up at Tito’s smiling face. Her hands reached for the chocolate he was offering.

  Jesus, look at that, thought Gabe, wondering if he was going to throw up again. He didn’t think there was anything left in his stomach to bring up. Then he saw the small smear of blood on Agneta’s jacket and felt his guts heave afresh. He stopped the Jeep, pulled in quickly to the side of the road, jumped out and vomited one more time.

  Ah Jesus.

  Ah God, he couldn’t think about it, he couldn’t . . .

  His stomach heaved and he retched.

  ‘Gabe’s not well,’ Tito was telling the little girl. ‘Poor Gabe, hm? Is that nice, that chocolate?’

  Gasping, wiping at his mouth, shivering with the aftermath of the shock he’d suffered, the awful things that Tito had made him do, Gabe fell back into the driver’s seat and looked again at the little girl Tito had snatched.

  She’d sat there in silence in the pushchair while they’d done it, got the spades from the Jeep . . . but no. He couldn’t think about it. All he could think was that Dad had been right; Tito really was a monster.

  She was eating the chocolate and smiling up at Tito’s face. Numb, Gabe thought of that thing he’d heard about baby birds . . . that imprinting thing. The first thing they saw, they attached to, they loved. He looked at the child’s face, at the adoring way she was staring up at Tito.

  Jesus, was he going to be sick again? Was he going to pass out?

  He was shuddering, revolted. His eyes kept darting back, looking at that small bloodstain on the girl’s pink jacket . . .

  ‘Come on, bambina, eat up,’ said Tito at the smiling child as Gabe drove south, towards London, towards home and sanity.

  Ah God just get me there. Please get me there, thought Gabe.

  66

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Rob, as Kit drove the Bentley up to the front entrance of Brayfield House next day.

  Kit could understand Rob’s astonishment; he remembered the effect the place had had on him, back in the day when he first met Daisy. Built of glowing rose-red brick with cream stone quoins at the corners, the Elizabethan manor was a pink jewel in the morning light, set amidst an expanse of lush green watercress beds and rolling sheep-dotted fields. It had two outer gables and a smaller central one, and a stunningly beautiful clock tower stood off to one side. And this humble abode had been home to the Bray family for four generations.

  Kit steered the big car around the turning circle, at the centre of which was a huge circular stone and bronze non-working fountain, covered in algae and verdigris, depicting Neptune arising with rippling muscles and a fish’s tail from a sea of starfish and leaping dolphins.

  ‘So Daisy grew up here?’ asked Rob as Kit turned off the engine.

  ‘Yep,’ said Kit.

  ‘Oh shit.’ Rob was transfixed.

  The pieces were finally falling together: Daisy with her cut-glass accent and her impeccable manners, this place . . . He thanked God that he’d had the sense to pull back from her because, look at this. She’d grown up taking this for granted. What could he ever offer a girl like her? He’d been raised on a council estate, part of a big boisterous and not entirely honest family; it had taken him years of hard graft to work his way up to his present position: her mother’s minder – a fucking bodyguard and a head breaker. He was so far beneath her on the social scale, he was the bottom dregs of society while she was plainly an out-and-out nob.

  No, he’d pulled out of all that in the nick of time. What could it ever have brought either of them but trouble?

  Kit wasn’t noticing the house. Impressive as Brayfield was, his mind was on Michael, and what he could have been doing, phoning Vanessa Bray the day before his death.

  When he’d called the number yesterday and she’d picked up, he’d been both surprised and bewildered. Michael and Vanessa surely had nothing in common, nothing to talk about. And when he’d questioned Vanessa about the call, she’d been evasive. His request to come and see her, talk about it, had been firmly rebuffed. But he’d persisted, and finally she’d agreed.

  ‘I can’t spare you much time,’ she’d said, her accent reminding him of Daisy. The elite tones of the Home Counties, frosty from Vanessa, full of warmth from Daisy.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said.

  ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow morning then.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  She put the phone down.

  Now here they were. They left the car and went up the front steps and pulled the bell. Way back in the house, the thing chimed and echoed.

  Must be big as a fucking football pitch in there, thought Rob.

  He half-expected some tailcoated flunkey to come to the door, saying, I’ll see if the mistress is at home to visitors. Or, The tradesman’s entrance is at the back of the house.

  But no. There was a pause, and then Lady Bray herself opened the door. Small, weak-looking, with long greyhound features. Her hair was blonde, fading to grey, her deep-lidded eyes were a milky blue, and her lips were thin. She wore no make-up, and was dressed in old jeans and a workman’s shirt and black socks, no shoes. There was a hole in one, and her big toe was poking through, Kit noticed.

  ‘Oh! It’s you. Well . . . do come in,’ she said, seeming flustered that Kit had kept the appointment.

  Kit and Rob followed Vanessa down a cavernous hallway and into a room that seemed to burst with vivid sunlight. All done out in faded golds and duck-egg blue, it had big French doors that led out to a terrace and beyond that to a huge garden. The doors were wide open to admit the first faint suggestions of the coming summer. Bees hummed near the doors, and fresh country air wafted in.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Vanessa, and Kit and Rob sat like a pair of bookends on one threadbare and no doubt horrifically expensive tapestry-covered sofa. Vanessa sat opposite, on a small Victorian nursing chair covered in thinning cream velvet. ‘Well now,’ she began briskly, ‘as I told you on the phone, I know very little about any of this.’

  Kit leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely between his knees, mirroring her posture.

  ‘I have no idea why Michael phoned you, Lady Bray,’ he said. ‘It might help if you can tell us anything about the con
versation you had with him.’

  ‘Help what?’ she asked. ‘The man is dead.’

  Kit drew a breath. ‘Michael was murdered, Lady Bray. And we’re trying to find out more about the events surrounding his murder.’

  ‘Surely that’s a matter for the authorities, for the police?’ she said.

  She was stonewalling him. Kit could feel it. Could feel his irritation rising in response, too.

  ‘The police don’t seem too interested,’ said Rob.

  Vanessa turned her head and stared at Rob as if surprised to see him there. ‘And why is that?’ she asked.

  ‘Michael . . . had a reputation,’ said Kit.

  ‘Cornelius always said he was a crook. But then Cornelius liked crooks. He was fascinated by them.’

  Rob shot a look at Kit. Coming from Cornelius Bray, who’d strong-armed and shagged his way through the establishment to get himself a seat in the Lords, that was pretty damned rich.

  ‘And when crooks get themselves killed, I don’t suppose anyone is too surprised,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘Even crooks have people who care for them,’ said Kit.

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you “care” for Michael Ward?’

  ‘Yes, I did. He was like a father to me. A real one.’

  ‘Then I am sincerely sorry for your loss,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘Can you tell me what you spoke about?’

  ‘You’re looking for revenge,’ said Vanessa.

  ‘I want to find out who killed him.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Vanessa was silent, staring at Kit’s face. ‘You look very like your mother,’ she said. ‘You have that same physical look about you.’

  She sneered the words. But Kit reminded himself that this was the woman whose husband had betrayed her, fathering both him and Daisy on the beauteous Ruby Darke. Of course that must have hurt weak, barren, useless Vanessa. Of course she must be bitter.

  ‘What did you talk about that day?’ he asked. ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘He phoned to see how I was,’ said Vanessa. ‘I was quite impressed by that, actually. That he made the effort to enquire.’