Silence follows… hideous moments when everything seems pupated and gross… the scent of rain about the officer unwelcome, his cologne vile and his breathing too loud. The whole house in fact feels disgusting and cloying and claustrophobic, as if it’s all closing in on me.
“We called his mother first, yes. She gave us this address and told us about you. She said this was where he would stay in Florence… a favourite haunt from the past.”
I’m shaking my head, horrified. All of it… stinks. It’s all… wrong.
“Why are you still here?” I bite out.
“I need you to tell me about anything suspicious that might have happened over the past few days. A murder on Italian soil of some famous Englishman… never goes down well… unless it was one of his own countrymen who did this.”
I stand up and stare him down. “Freddie. His half-brother. He did this, undoubtedly. The problem is, you will never catch him. Ever. He’s probably got people in his pockets, even here. This is a lost cause.” I notice the ring glittering on his wedding finger and stare the policeman in the eye. “Go back home to your loved ones and tell your bosses this was a dead-end, that I wasn’t even here… that I’d gone already. Trust me, it’s the only way you might survive this.”
I hustle the police officer out, all while he’s trying to hand me his card, along with a warning to not go out tonight. I nod as if I’m listening but his words won’t be heeded.
By three a.m., I’ve returned to some semblance of my former self. I’ve trashed the apartment, almost set it on fire a couple of times—and almost… almost… taken pills.
After the officer left, I rang around all the local morgues for information about my boyfriend. None of them said they had the body of a Ruben Kitchener. I had the idea that even if the body wasn’t allowed to be viewed, I’d turn up and offer my body to the mortuary assistant just so I could kiss his hand one last time and check for that mole on his foot I know he has.
I’ve been online looking for reports of a shooting in Florence today—and nothing. I even checked for reports of shootings in other Italian cities—nothing—and as a last resort, I checked there hadn’t been a shooting or knifing in London today—no.
I’m drunk on brandy and vodka and out of my mind. I can’t call anyone or speak to anyone about this. I’ll be sectioned.
This is all… wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
There are too many people involved.
Laurent, who died of drugs.
Fred, knifed outside an Irish pub.
Now allegedly, Ruben… shot in broad daylight in Italy.
I run to the kitchen sink and throw up, not for the first time today. Once I’m empty, I splash my face and one more casualty springs to mind.
Gia.
He said she died in the Bataclan attack.
I chase across the room and even jump over the sofa to get back to my laptop asap.
My fingers are moving so fast across the keys I’m not even making sense, but eventually a list of the Bataclan victims pops up.
None were called Gia. None even vaguely have names resembling Gia—names that could be shortened to Gia or even have a J in them that might have been changed to a G.
I knew it. I knew. I fucking knew. He loved someone else. He wanted revenge for her, as well as Laurent. He loved Gia and Fred killed this Gia, too.
The officer earlier seemed legit but I don’t know, I’m in a foreign country and I’m out of my mind. Maybe the authorities have covered this up… maybe they’re keeping it on the downlow.
I’m trying to think of someone to call—anyone—even Mum.
Nobody will want to know. Everyone warned me.
I’m about to go crazy.
When my phone rings.
On the screen, a withheld number.
I throw back some brandy and answer. “Who is this?”
“Freya,” a weak voice comes on the line.
“Alexia?”
“Come to London, Freya. Don’t delay. I’ve had the body released. Come to London immediately. Don’t let me down.”
Then she’s gone.
Oh my god, she’s gone.
And oh my god, I need answers.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bleak Times
London, fucking London. Back… again. Foul. Rank. Desolate.
Outside, the March air is so cold, it makes my chest ache. It was practically spring in Italy… but now I’m back to this… an Arctic wind that has swept down and covered most of northern Europe in thick snow.
Hateful.
It’s been a few days now. It wasn’t easy to get home. Flights out of Florence were fully booked so I had to get the train to Milan, and from there, a flight to Heathrow. Most flights were cancelled but I booked myself on the last one out of Italy before the snow began bucketing down, grinding London to a halt.
My first task when I landed in London was to find Alexia. I knocked at her house and spoke to her maid, but I was told in no uncertain terms that Alexia didn’t want to see anybody and had gone to her country residence to avoid the press and everybody else. I asked might she tell me Mrs Kitchener’s country address, but the maid’s response was to slam the door in my face.
After that I holed up in my hotel room, trying to figure out how I’d get an audience with Freddie and confront him without getting my head chopped off. It’s where I still am now, one whole week since the news broke about Fred.
It’s been six days since Ruben was cruelly taken. I roam my room, pacing, sometimes running on the spot—anything to while away the dreaded passage of unending, painfully torturous time. Ever since the night I learnt he was dead, it’s like there’s been a huge hole in the centre of me and there’s nothing that will bring him back.
Then, my phone pings with a text.
Miss Carter, this is Mr Kitchener’s solicitor. He asked me to contact you in the event… Anyway, please could you call me? We need to arrange to meet after the funeral. Jerome Falstead, Falstead & Son
The funeral? The funeral? My mind is racing.
I dial the man immediately.
“Hello… Miss Carter?” asks a softly spoken man.
“Yeah, it’s she. When’s his funeral? Nobody told me! I can’t believe nobody told me.”
He sighs as if he’s used to despairing relatives wailing down the phone at him, and yet it’s still as tiresome as ever.
“Tomorrow morning at eleven sharp. I understand his mother is inconsolable. Perhaps it slipped her mind.”
“I’ve been trying to call her. Do you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t. I wish I did.”
My finger begins uncontrollably tapping against the coffee table in front of me. I feel like I’m walking some wasteland, constantly stepping into boggy holes, most of my time spent trying to find my way out to the surface again.
“I shall text you the details, Miss Carter. If you’re able to attend, shall we have coffee afterwards? Somewhere private? My office… or I know a nice pub.”
“Pub’s fine,” I bite out.
“Good. Okay. Look for my text, then. See you tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
He hangs up and I’m left feeling short-changed. His text follows with details. Ruben is being cremated? In his home borough. There isn’t any mention of a wake. Maybe there won’t be one.
We never discussed such things, but I’ve always had a fantasy about being buried, side by side, with my one true love. I guess that’s not to be.
I have a horrible feeling Alexia is hiding out. Or why else would she be uncontactable? If she’s now the sole heir, Freddie will be hunting her, surely. Or maybe she really is inconsolable and she matters not a jot to him. Maybe he has all he needs to begin fortifying his empire—the simple lack of a male Kitchener threatening to undermine his authority.
I sigh and realise this might be it.
Freddie won’t be able to resist the chance to gloat at Ruben’s pas
sing.
Time to prepare.
***
London is sombre the day of the funeral. Even though there have been no reports in the media of his death, I’m convinced the peace and calm that’s fallen over the city due to the weather is actually a nod to him. I like to think so. Yes, it is strange that it hasn’t been on the news about one of England’s former players being killed, but I can’t help thinking this was a mob death and that it’s all been covered up. Nobody wants his death to get out; it’d cause a diplomatic shitstorm.
I dress carefully in the underwear he loved. I make up my face, my armour, my warpaint. Now he’s gone, I don’t need to unveil myself anymore, I can go back to being hard and untouchable—someone else. I pull on a black shift, a matching jacket and black overcoat.
I’m staying at the Ritz because it’s safe, and when I get downstairs there are plenty of eager people, ready to offer to call me a cab. My taxi driver pulls up and doesn’t even blink when I tell him where we’re going.
Before long I’m staring at the entrance to the crematorium. Nobody else is around. For a minute, I even wonder if the solicitor lied to me. I check my watch and it’s ten minutes to eleven. So where is everyone?
I leave the taxi in the same automatic, detached fashion I’ve been living the past week or so. Pushing on the black double doors before me, I find one side opens inwards and I’m swallowed into a very old flagstone entrance. As my feet take me, it’s akin to being accepted into the bowels of hell.
There’s a small corridor, then a door, and a room where I presume the service will take place.
There are only three people inside. On one side of the pews, there’s Freddie and Debbie. On the other side, there’s a tiny man with a bald head and a moustache, staring back at me. That must be the solicitor.
Where’s Alexia?
Where are all of Ruben’s friends?
Don’t they know?
Up front, there’s a placard with his face on it and his full name Ruben Theodore Kitchener, plus the dates he lived.
What the hell is going on?
I take a pew second row from the back.
I can’t stand to let Ruben down, but I won’t be any closer to that vile creature than I need to be.
A celebrant appears at the front and checks her watch. She’s holding a few sheets of paper, meaning she’s been given instructions… but by whom?
I check my watch and discover it’s one minute to eleven. If Alexia still wants to be here, she’d better hurry up.
The bells of a church nearby begin to chime and the celebrant patiently waits for them to finish. She’s about to begin when the door I came in earlier opens and clangs shut.
Clacking heels follow and I pray it’s her. I pray so hard, my wringed hands burn.
Her perfume precedes her, then when she stops to my side, I look up.
Make-up exaggerated and wrapped in a huge fur coat, she peers down at me through thick black glasses. Two vile widows, together, finally.
“Freya, don’t be shy,” she commands, and I’m hot on her heels, hoping she might hold the answers I crave, if nothing else. There’s no denying a command from a woman I believe would protect me from Freddie, if it came to it.
Once we’re seated, side by side, the celebrant waits a few seconds more, just in case there’s anyone else coming. There’s only silence.
“Welcome, everyone. We’re here today to celebrate the life of Ruben Theodore Kitchener, to give thanks for his contributions and to remember him…”
I zone out after the first few sentences, only catching bits here and there. She talks about how he rose to superstar footballer, all the little knocks and setbacks he endured along the way, including a torn hamstring he never told me about. The man who’s described isn’t the man I knew. The Ruben I knew was full of passion, yearning and desire; he wanted so much to be married and to have a family. His achievements as a sportsman hardly came up when we were together. All I remember is that in the quiet moments, he was full of sadness and despair and rage. He would’ve given anything to keep me safe, including I suspect, his life. Ruben was full of doubts about all sorts of things, but never about me. I know that now. I know that he strove this past year or so to make it possible for us to be together. I know that if he’d lived, we would’ve stayed together forever. We’d have had problems, we’d have struggled, but we would have been married, had babies and been happy, all the same.
It’s the thought of all of that and what we might have had that kills me and I start to cry, silent tears washing down my face beneath the sunglasses.
Perhaps Alexia hears my pain because suddenly she reaches over for my hand and squeezes. I look to my side to see her, but she’s facing dead ahead, her expression frozen. The only way you’d know she was still a living, breathing human and not a waxwork is that she just took my hand. Aside from wanting to help me, I think she’s given up on everything else, including herself.
Then, I suddenly realise where Ruben’s body is. There’s a curtain, and behind it, the casket. It’s lovely, mahogany, already bolted down. Better we not see what lies inside.
After a lot of hot air from the celebrant, there’s music, including Einaudi, Enya and weirdly, Florence and the Machine. I don’t know what music he liked, to be fair, but I’m guessing it was none of those. Good music, but most likely picked out by Alexia. At least this assures me Ruben never organised his own funeral—he never knew any of this was coming.
Perhaps I should be happy that we got time together at all. Had I never been with Ruben, I probably would’ve continued at the hotel, screwing random dudes and never thinking twice about the toxic atmosphere at home. At least Ruben died having known love, too. I hope I gave him a good few weeks, at least; something to carry alongside him, wherever he goes next.
I’m expecting the woman to ask if anyone wants to say any words, but she doesn’t. She draws the curtains fully around his casket and commits his body, whatever that means. I start to rise from my chair but Alexia squeezes my hand. “No. We don’t open the floor and give the wrong people airtime; we keep him in our hearts, Freya.”
I almost gasp but rein it in. She seems so dignified in grief, so strong, but maybe it’s all just a show, I don’t know. She keeps her head held high and nods in thanks when the celebrant shuts her folder and takes a step back, walking away.
I wait, on tenterhooks, wondering what the hell might happen next. Alexia doesn’t move. I almost decide she’s stopped breathing. Then, there are footsteps, two people coming closer.
I don’t lift my head to them, neither does Alexia.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Freddie says, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever really heard him speak. I attended his wedding of course, but I was sitting at the back of a church and couldn’t hear. Dad did all the talking for me and Mum that day, while we hid in the background, forced to attend against our wishes, not interested in cousin Debbie or her vile new husband.
“Sorry?” asks the woman next to me, aghast, still without meeting his eye. As far as I can tell, she has her head down just like me.
“This wasn’t me and you know it, Alexia,” says Freddie, whose voice reveals he smokes heavily.
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?” she snarls.
“I don’t know, but why would I do this? Ruben was no threat, not to me anyway. I don’t want anything from any of you. Fred made it clear I meant nothing to him when Laurent died. I’m glad everything I am now is because of my own willpower and nobody else’s. Me and Ruben shared that. Going it alone. Doing our own thing. It’s a crying shame about him, it really is.”
I see out of my peripheral vision as she raises her eyes to his and I can’t help but look, as though a spectacle may unfold any minute now.
“I don’t ever want to see you again,” she growls. “Not even over my dead body.”
I turn and catch his eye. He catches mine. I see evil incarnate emanating from the same green eyes he shared with Ruben—Fred’s
eyes. When he gives me a sly wink, it makes a shiver run down my spine and it’s like a serpent just crawled over my skin.
“Good luck to you, Freya,” he says.
Alexia almost jumps from her seat but I put my arm out and jump up first, meeting him eye to eye. Debbie steps between us, all five foot two of her, muttering, “It’s a shame, ain’t it? But then I think people always get what they deserve.”
I have a million things I would say to these people, but only one sentence springs to mind right now.
“Who killed Laurent? Tell us that, won’t you?”
Freddie sighs with boredom. “He killed himself. All his money frittered on women and booze and drugs. Ruben, you see, he knew how to do it without getting in trouble. He knew how to curb it. But baby brother, he didn’t. And when big brother went to France and baby brother was left to his own devices, well… maybe Laurie killed ’imself, maybe Ruben did… by leaving him.”
I almost punch him but Freddie’s hands are on my arms before I can do anything. He looks at me with nothing but loathing and hatred and I recoil, because if Ruben wanted anything, it was for me not to get tangled up with his sort again. I step back and seat myself next to Alexia, who is now weeping openly, a tissue to her eye.
“Rot in hell, Freddie,” I warn, shaking my head.
I take Alexia’s hands in mine and she turns into me, crying.
He and his repulsive wife take themselves off, leaving the crematorium and our lives, hopefully for good.
Alexia cries her tears against my coat, but the moment she’s done, two new feet appear before us. I look up into the eyes of the tiny bald man.
“His solicitor,” I mumble, when Alexia wonders who he is.
Ruben’s mother looks confused. Why would Ruben’s lawyer attend his funeral? Maybe they were good mates.
“I told nobody about the funeral. Nobody. How is it that he found out… and you?”
“My name is Jerome Falstead,” he begins, “and I was contacted a number of months ago with specific instructions in the event of Mr Kitchener’s death.”
“Yeah? What instructions?” I ask, fearing yet more bad news.
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