by Jessie Keane
She waited until Sir Bradley had composed himself and was ready to leave, walked with him to his car to make sure he was OK, then returned to the sitting room. Daisy was pacing up and down, arms wrapped around her body as if for warmth.
Ruby went to her, gently led her to the couch, then sat down beside her. She’d been putting off having this conversation, but it couldn’t wait any longer.
‘I keep thinking over and over that this is a nightmare, that I’ll wake up,’ said Daisy, shaking her head. ‘Simon, killing himself? I can’t take it in.’
‘Sometimes people can’t admit to anyone else that they’ve got problems. You’re a bit like that yourself.’
Daisy looked at her mother. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Doris Blanchard told me what happened at the store. About Tessa and Julie . . .’
Daisy had given no explanation as to why she wanted to leave the store, and the shattering news of Simon’s death had prevented Ruby from raising the matter with her daughter, but yesterday she’d had to spend a few hours at Darkes dealing with some matters that couldn’t keep and she’d taken the opportunity to speak to Daisy’s section leader. She was shocked when Doris Blanchard told her that Daisy had assaulted two members of staff.
‘She did what?’ Ruby had asked Doris in disbelief.
‘I saw it, Miss Darke. I’m sorry, I don’t doubt there was provocation – Tessa and Julie can be a right pair of madams – but they’re talking about pressing charges . . .’
‘Send them up, will you?’
Doris had done so.
Tessa and Julie, no longer so full of cocky swagger, had come into Ruby’s office and told her that Daisy had laid into them over nothing, a bit of teasing, that was all.
‘Teasing?’ asked Ruby.
‘Just a bit. Nothing serious.’
‘What sort of teasing?’ asked Ruby, watching them with cold eyes.
Tessa swallowed hard. ‘Nothing, really . . .’
‘Nothing? Are you sure about that?’
‘It’s her voice. Her accent,’ blurted out Julie.
Tessa shot her a shut up look.
‘What about it?’ asked Ruby, but she could see it now. Daisy sounded ‘posh’, and she was the boss’s daughter. These two had decided to make her suffer for it. ‘Look – do you think that was a kind thing to do?’ she said, fixing them with an icy stare. ‘Mock someone over the way they speak? Do you?’
‘No,’ said Julie meekly.
‘No,’ echoed Tessa.
‘I ought to sack you both on the spot.’ Ruby was furious; she hated the thought of Daisy being victimized in this way.
‘Oh, don’t. Please. We’re really sorry,’ said Tessa.
Ruby stared at them for a long, frosty moment.
‘Get back to work,’ she snapped, and they scuttled out of the office.
‘Why didn’t you tell me they were picking on you?’ said Ruby now, arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘Am I really that unapproachable?’
‘No. It’s just that I wanted to manage it on my own, that was all. And in the end I didn’t. I lost my temper.’
Ruby was silent for a beat. ‘You could come back, work in another department, if you wanted to.’
‘I don’t know.’ She’d been so relieved when she quit, and until Simon’s death had blighted everything she’d been relishing the prospect of spending time with the twins. But now her mind was in such turmoil, trying to come to terms with his suicide, that she couldn’t concentrate on much else.
Resolving to drop the subject for now, Ruby sighed and glanced out onto the drive where Reg was patiently polishing the Merc. ‘Reg does his best, but I miss Rob about the place. Don’t you?’
Daisy could only nod. Oh yes, she missed Rob. So much. But with Kit away, Rob was busy filling in for him, keeping the business running smoothly. Rob had more important things to worry about than two bereaved women.
‘Rob’s Mr Sensible,’ said Daisy bracingly. ‘He’ll look after everything until Kit gets back. He can rely on Rob.’
Still, she wished both Kit and Rob were here. The world seemed a safer more secure place when those two were about. Even if Kit was reeling around drunk, or being rotten or neglectful to Ruby – and he often was – she wanted him here.
‘Rob said Kit would only be gone a few days, but it’s nearly a week now,’ Daisy fretted.
‘He’ll be back,’ Ruby insisted. But she felt a tiny shiver of unease as she said it, Vittore Danieri’s words reverberating in her mind: You and yours.
36
Bianca was moving ahead of Kit up the stairs as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing, her legs feeling shaky beneath her, her mind focused totally on what was to come. How often did she do crazy things like this, take a complete stranger up to her flat with the full intention of going to bed with him?
Never, that was how often.
She was wary of men. With good reason. They always tried to screw her over in business, she was used to that. And her brothers Vittore and Fabio – resentful, she knew, of this little principessa who had suddenly been brought into their exclusively masculine conclave – had made her painfully familiar with jokey male put-downs of the female species from an early age. Not Tito, though. He alone had been kind to her.
What she absolutely never did was act impulsively. She didn’t know this man. All she knew was that she had seen him once, fleetingly, and thought Oh my God, will you look at him? Now by some miracle he was here, and she couldn’t let this moment pass by. She was moving as if in a dream, her mouth dry with apprehension, her body weak. She had never, not once in her life, felt this way before.
Kit was kissing her before she even had the door open, his tongue exploring her mouth, his teeth nipping at her lips. They all but fell through the door, Kit slamming it shut behind them. Blindly, Bianca reached out and shot the bolt. Gasping, panting, they kissed and clawed at each other like adversaries, Kit struggling with the zip on her dress and then giving up, fuck the dress, and instead he did what he had been dreaming of all evening since that moment when he’d accidentally thrown his drink down her front; he pushed the damned dress up, out of the way, saw the lacy panties there, white, of course they were white, and he ripped them off her, paused, saw the swansdown powder-puff of white-blonde curls. It was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen.
‘Jesus, Bianca,’ he groaned, turning, pushing her back against the closed door.
She was pulling at his belt, unzipping him with trembling fingers. He helped her, tugging his pants out of the way, letting his cock spring free. Bianca touched him, and he felt he was almost on the point of losing control. He shoved her hand away, lifted her, spread her legs, felt her wetness with the tip of his cock and, groaning, he thrust up and in, deep in, and she cried out, locking her legs around his waist, while he drove himself furiously into her.
‘Oh God, yes, yes,’ she moaned, half-crying, and that was it, that was enough.
Kit came, the exquisite sensation of orgasm shaking his entire body. Bianca wrapped her arms tight around his neck, muffling her scream of delight against his throat.
Oh Jesus what was that? Kit wondered, coming back down to earth. His breathing slowed, steadied.
No Durex. I bloody forgot to use a Durex. What the hell . . . ?
He didn’t care. Maybe she was on the Pill, anyway. He felt euphoric. Nothing on earth had ever felt as good as this. Still lodged inside her, he carried her over to the bed and sank down on it with her wrapped tight in his arms. Slowly he kicked off his shoes and socks, slid off his trousers and pants, moved away from her to get rid of his shirt, tie and jacket.
Naked, his hands now steady enough to do it, he unzipped her dress and Bianca knelt up and wriggled out of it.
‘No, let me,’ he said, when she reached back to unclasp her white lacy bra.
Her hands fell and Kit reached behind her, undid the bra, pulling it off and down her arms.
‘Christ,’ he murmured, staring at he
r. She was so beautiful – full-breasted but with tiny nipples of the softest shell-pink. He cupped one breast in his hand, feeling the weight and coolness of it, and the contrast between his dark skin and hers, so white, was starkly erotic. She moaned at his touch and he felt her nipple harden.
He felt himself harden too, so quickly. Kit pushed her back, opened her legs and entered her again. This was heaven on earth. Which was kind of funny, when you considered where they were, in a club called Dante’s, all painted red and black like an inferno – like hell.
But this wasn’t hell. This was bliss. He felt he’d die of it, just before he came again, emptying himself into her carelessly, without thought, without a single solitary qualm.
37
Fabio’s break into big-time drug dealing came when a Jamaican business acquaintance approached him and said he’d been stitched up.
‘In what way?’ asked Fabio, all ears. This boy was a big dealer in the Camden Lock area, well respected; Fab couldn’t imagine anyone trying to go toe-to-toe with him. Cross him and he’d be at you with a ruddy great machete, splice your head wide open and use it for a cup to drink out of.
‘Guy stole a kilo of coke off me.’
‘That’s bad,’ said Fabio. ‘Disrespectful.’
‘It is. And I want it back.’
‘So why you coming to me?’
‘He’s one of your lot.’ Meaning an Italian immigrant, like Fab and his family, someone who lived in the Italian quarter around Clerkenwell Road or Farringdon or Rosebery Avenue.
‘What’s his name?’
The Jamaican told him the man’s name. Fab knew the family; most of the people from the old country knew each other; Italians were warm, generous people, community-orientated. Seeing a chance to do himself a favour and make a profit, Fab took some of his boys round to the house where the man’s mother lived. Politely, Fabio announced himself and said that he had come to see Georgio.
The woman made an exasperated gesture, a puffing-out of the cheeks. ‘He’s in there,’ she waved them through, calling after them: ‘Not that you’ll get any sense out of him.’
Mama was right. Georgio had been busy snorting what should have been the Jamaican’s profits. He was out of it on the sofa, the TV bellowing out canned laughter while four idiots in Doctor on the Go played at being medics. Fabio thought that this cunt was going to need a doctor for real, very soon. He turned it off. Georgio’s eyes flickered open. Fabio looked at the boy in disgust. Fabio prided himself on keeping fit, on maintaining his perfect physique, but this wreck was pot-bellied, wearing a mouldy old tracksuit, his hair uncombed, a two-day stubble on his unwashed chin.
‘I was . . . watching that . . .’ said Georgio, looking around in bemusement at the men staring down at him.
Fabio got straight to the point.
‘You’ve thieved off an acquaintance of mine. I’m not happy. What, you sniffed all the stash up your stupid nose?’
‘No, I—’
Two of the boys lifted him off the sofa. He let out a squawk as they jammed him up against the wall, rattling the brass crucifix hanging there. It fell off the wall and hit the carpet with a thud.
‘Don’t!’ he shouted. ‘I still got most of it.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Fab.
Georgio indicated the sideboard. Fabio threw open the door and sure enough, there it was, all packaged up. Fabio grabbed it and weighed it in his hand. Georgio hadn’t done it too much damage. He thought there was maybe still around thirty-seven ounces left.
Mama, alerted by her baby’s shout, was now standing in the open doorway into the hall, a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. Fabio glanced at her, nodded to his boys. They dropped Georgio, and he sat down hard on the floor beside the crucifix and started crying.
‘I’m taking this now and be grateful I don’t have them rip a chunk out of your arse too,’ Fabio told him. Then he slipped the stash into a bag he’d brought along for the purpose, nodded respectfully to Mama, and led the way outside.
Back at home, he called his Jamaican friend and told him he had the drugs in his possession.
‘That’s great. There’ll be a reward for you, of course.’
‘Too right there will,’ said Fabio. ‘I’m keeping half the stash in payment for its collection.’
There was stunned silence from the other end.
‘You what?’ yelled the Jamaican. ‘Man, don’t you mess with me. I was going to give you ten thou for fetching it back.’
‘That’s not good enough. I take half. That’s the deal.’
Fabio had already worked out that a full kilo of the stuff was worth a thousand per ounce. The maths was simple: he had thirty-seven thousand pounds’ worth of goods in his hands.
‘Look, be grateful. You get half your stuff back instead of none,’ said Fab.
‘You thieving spic!’ said the Jamaican.
‘Hey! It’s business, my melanzana pal. No offence. And you came to me, remember – I didn’t ask for the job. Going there to get it, handling the goods – I took all sorts of risks for you.’
The Jamaican was quieter now.
‘A quarter,’ he offered.
‘No. I’m keeping half. My boys will bring your share back to you today.’
Fabio put the phone down, feeling the adrenaline buzzing through him. There was a big grin on his face. He could shift the stuff easily in the Danieri clubs. Everything was coming together for him at last. He went home, got washed up, then went and met Maria in the secret place they’d agreed. So much for Mama’s ‘good old days’! These new ones were pretty fucking good, too.
38
Naples, 1947
The satisfaction of Astorre’s final revenge on Corvetto was short-lived. When word filtered back to Astorre that the deed was done, he contacted Tito, his eldest son, who was holding Luisa in safety until Lattarullo did as Astorre commanded.
‘You can free the girl now. God knows she’s got a world of pain coming to her, the loss of her father.’ Astorre gave an extravagant shrug. ‘But what could I do? Twenty years I’ve waited to make Corvetto pay for what he did. At last he’s in hell where he . . .’
Instead of celebrating with his father, Tito was acting strangely, not meeting his father’s eyes.
Astorre stiffened as he looked at his son’s face. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘The girl . . .’ said Tito. He spread his palms.
‘What about the girl?’ Now he was looking more closely at Tito he could see scratch-marks on his boy’s face. ‘What is this?’
‘I thought I’d have a little fun with her, that’s all. Fuck her, maybe.’
Astorre stared at him. ‘You kiss your mother with that mouth?’ he snapped.
‘The little bitch fought, scratched me – look, you see the marks?’ Tito indicated his face.
‘You weren’t supposed to have fun with her,’ said Astorre. ‘You were to keep her safe until her father killed Corvetto, that was all.’
‘Papa, what can I say? I’m human and the girl was pretty.’
Astorre’s mouth dropped open. ‘Was?’
Tito shrugged. ‘She fought me,’ he said. ‘There was no need for that. And it was hot, I forgot about covering my face. Foolish of me, but there it is: she’d know we were behind this. The girl was dead anyway, Papa . . .’ Tito’s voice trailed away and he made a twisting motion with his hands.
Astorre thought that there had been every need for the girl to resist; Luisa Lattarullo was a decent girl, a virgin no doubt. And Tito had clearly raped then strangled her. Or maybe he had choked her to death while he was taking his pleasure, who knew? It was entirely probable that Tito had left his face uncovered quite deliberately, simply for the thrill of combining sex with a kill. Astorre himself was no angel, but sometimes Tito chilled him to the core. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard about his son being dangerously rough with women. But this time . . . this time Tito had gone the full way toward depravity. Astorre felt sick. He made war on men, yes
: but women? Never.
‘You disposed of the body?’ he asked his son.
‘Of course, Papa. It won’t be found.’
Astorre had to think this over. The girl and her unfortunate father apart, he knew that Corvetto had many friends, and they knew, they all knew, that Astorre had sworn vengeance on the man. From a camorristi, such a threat was never an idle one.
And now Lattarullo’s family would be anxious to discover why their formerly placid kinsman had sliced Corvetto’s throat from ear to ear – and what had become of his only daughter, who would soon be reported as missing.
Someone was going to link it all to him, he knew it. And when that happened, the Danieris were finished; they’d be hanged, every last one of them, in the local square, Bella included. The Carabinieri would turn a blind eye as a lynch mob beat their door down, dragged them out one by one, and killed them.
He had known this would be a possibility, this outcome. His hometown was no longer as he remembered it; the place had been ravaged by war, wrecked by it, with desperate beggars in the streets and out in the countryside. There was no such thing as safety in Naples these days. So Tito’s rash input had made Astorre’s decision easier. The whole family – Astorre and Bella, twenty-two-year-old Tito, fourteen-year-old Vittore and Fabio, Bella’s despised boy-child – would have to flee.
39
‘I have to go back soon,’ said Kit sleepily, lying in Bianca’s bed with her – both of them naked and clinging to each other.
He kissed her silky white-blonde hair. He didn’t want to move from this bed in a century, that was the truth. After losing Gilda, then Michael, he had felt cursed: but here tonight in Bianca’s arms, he felt blessed. This was so peaceful, so right, a time outside of reality. But he could feel that reality starting to press upon him. Soon, very soon, he would have to go back, pick up the reins again.
Find out who did that to Michael.
Yes, he had to do that.
