by Jessie Keane
‘Up to London,’ said Bianca, her eyes closed.
‘Mm.’
‘No! Stay here,’ she said, a frown forming between her brows.
‘And do what?’
‘Dunno. Be my willing sex slave. Anything. Don’t care.’
‘Honey, I am your willing sex slave.’
He’d never known anything like this, as intense as this. They’d spent the past couple of days mooching around town, then they’d fallen into bed at night to feast on each other like wild animals. He had never felt so tired, or relaxed, or completely happy as this before. And he felt like an arsehole too, because he still hadn’t told her his real name; some slight remnant of his usual caution refused to let him enlighten her in that respect. To her, he was still Tony.
And he hadn’t checked she was on the Pill. He’d broken his own rule, hadn’t used a condom with her once. Crazy. He thought about it and found that he could shove it to the back of his mind in a compartment marked don’t care. He knew very little about her and she knew nothing about him, but what the hell? If she got pregnant, he’d marry her. He wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a moment.
‘If you go, you won’t come back,’ she said, and her eyes opened and gazed sadly into his.
‘Yeah, I will.’ I couldn’t keep away.
‘Will you give me your number?’ she asked, kissing his shoulder, inhaling the scent of his skin.
‘Nah, I’ll phone you. And I’ll be back as soon as I can, OK?’
Bianca heaved a sigh. ‘OK.’
Kit turned to her. ‘Don’t be sad,’ he said, nuzzling his nose into her throat. ‘This is only the beginning, you silly mare.’
‘Talk’s cheap,’ said Bianca, wrapping her arms and legs around him, holding him to her.
‘There are things I have to do,’ said Kit, feeling the excitement building again. He just couldn’t get enough of her. ‘Important things. But listen. Nothing comes between you and me. You got that? So shut up for fuck’s sake, and kiss me,’ he murmured against her mouth.
Bianca smiled, and obeyed. She didn’t want this magical time to end. She had a fear of abandonment, of being left. She’d often wondered where that fear had come from, because it didn’t make sense. She was a strong, self-sufficient woman. Whenever she probed her memory, trying to account for the fear, the same hazy images came to her: a blonde woman, smiling; a strong, tanned arm furred with blond hairs, holding her. Some sort of foreign language. Lefse, she thought. Was that even a word? What did it mean? And aquavit.
Now she looked at Kit and felt that old deep-buried fear all over again. Would she lose him, like she’d lost her darling Tito? She was so afraid that he would turn out to be just another man, taking his pleasures and moving on. And she wasn’t even on the Pill.
Bianca dismissed the fear, kissed him, gave herself up to the emotion of the moment all over again, and refused to think about the future, because this was so good it couldn’t be real, it couldn’t last. She knew it.
40
Almost a week after Simon’s death, Daisy bought a bouquet of flowers. Then she drove to the white house in Berkshire where for a while she had shared married life with Simon. She didn’t want to go up to the house, she couldn’t bear to see the garage where it had happened, so she parked up the Mini at the bottom of the drive and got out.
For days she’d been wanting to come here and pay her respects but it had taken her until now to gather up the courage. The lane was very quiet. She could hear a robin singing high up in the huge bare willow beside the gate. With a heavy heart she walked over to the verge. The wind gusted, and she pulled her mac more securely around her as there came a spattering of cold rain. Shivering, she took the bouquet and laid it on the ground beside the gate.
The robin stopped singing. Suddenly, there was only silence. Was Simon here, watching her?
‘I never meant to be such a rotten failure as a wife,’ she murmured. ‘And I think I almost loved you, once.’
No answer came.
Of course not. Simon wasn’t here, he was dead and gone. He’d killed himself. She hated the thought that he’d been so miserable, that he’d had no one he felt he could turn to. She swiped angrily at the tears on her face. God, she was so fucking hormonal; half the time she didn’t even know what she was crying about. At least today she did. She was crying for Simon, for their sons, for all the hopes and dreams that now would never be.
She could hear a car coming along the lane from the direction of the town, the same way she’d just come, and it sounded as if it was travelling quite fast. Daisy stepped onto the verge so that it could easily pass by.
The car that approached was long and dark with tinted windows. And instead of passing, the driver pulled in on the verge about ten paces from where Daisy was standing. She felt a prickle of unease, but told herself this must be someone who’d known Simon and was coming to pay their respects, just as she was. She braced herself to make polite conversation, to receive commiserations. She didn’t want to, but one had to be polite.
The car’s powerful engine fell silent. Then all four doors opened, and four bulky men got out, dressed in heavy black coats. Daisy’s heartbeat picked up speed. These weren’t mourners, they didn’t carry any flowers. They looked like thugs, like the men she often saw hanging around Kit, and around Michael when he was alive. She knew what Kit was into, the life he led. In the past, she’d experienced frightening things in his company. Yes, she knew what he was, what Michael had been too, and what Rob was, and it did alarm her – but, at the same time, it fascinated her too, and excited her more than she cared to admit.
Slowly, the men walked towards her. The driver hung back, as did the man who’d been in the front passenger seat, though he was close enough for her to see that his face was hideously scarred. The two men who’d got out of the back of the car kept walking until they were standing right in front of her. They were both dark-haired, but one of them was square, blockish, with a sinister vulpine look, while the other was thinner, taller, younger with film-star good looks, marred by vicious intent in his eyes and the cruel smile on his face.
What is this? she wondered in a paroxysm of fear. What do they want?
She was out in the middle of nowhere, utterly alone. The Mini was twenty yards away. If she ran, right now, would they try to stop her? But Daisy didn’t think she was capable of running. She felt frozen with terror.
The handsome mean-eyed one moved in closer. Daisy took a stumbling step backward, her breathing unsteady. Then the other one, the bulky one who seemed to be in charge, spoke.
‘Daisy Darke, right?’ He gave a smile that chilled her to the bone. ‘Formerly Daisy Bray, then Daisy Collins, and after the divorce you changed your name, didn’t you? To Darke. Same as your birth mother, Ruby Darke.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ asked Daisy shakily. She had never felt so vulnerable. Oh my God the twins, she thought. If anything happens to me, they’ll have nothing left. No parents at all.
‘He’s Vittore Danieri,’ said the younger one, who was standing too close, unnervingly close, to her. ‘And I’m Fabio, his brother. Such a pity about your ex-husband,’ he said, smirking.
Daisy felt her mouth go dry as dust. ‘How do you know about what happened to Simon?’
This amused all four of them greatly.
‘How do we know about what happened to Simon Collins?’ Fabio asked his brother with a grin.
‘You mean the Simon Collins who was the brother-in-law of Kit Miller?’ asked Vittore.
‘That’s the one,’ said Fabio, striking his head as if it had just come to him in a flash. His eyes grinned into Daisy’s as he came in even closer to her.
Daisy shrank back. They were going to hurt her, she was sure of that now. She was powerless to stop this. These were Tito’s brothers, and they wanted revenge.
‘Simon Collins was father to Miller’s nephews, too,’ said Vittore, looking straight into Daisy fear-stricken eyes.
‘Such a shame, what hap
pened. Hung himself, didn’t he?’ said Fabio.
He leaned in till Daisy could smell his breath, could feel the heat and the hatred radiating off him like poison gas. She glanced behind her: she was on the outside edge of the verge, there was nowhere left to go but the ditch. She could run up the drive, but there would be no one in the house to help her. Simon had lived here alone after they split up.
They were going to attack her. She knew it. They’d followed her out from the town to this place, where Simon had killed himself.
But had he?
For days it had been tormenting her, the sheer weirdness of Simon’s death, given his fiery aggressive nature, his business successes, his clear and very genuine delight in his twin sons. She’d been struggling to believe that he could have taken his own life. And now . . . these men. These horrible people. They knew how he’d died.
Because he didn’t hang himself: they murdered him. They must have forced him to write that suicide note . . . how? Threatened his parents? Threatened to harm the twins? Yes. Then he would do whatever they told him to. And then . . . they killed him, and made it look as if he’d killed himself.
Daisy swallowed hard. She knew she daren’t let on how terrified she was. You didn’t show fear when you dealt with wild dogs; you faced them down.
The robin started singing again, high up in the tree. Was that the last sound, the last beautiful thing she would ever know, that haunting birdsong? She hardly dared breathe. She was afraid she was about to faint, drenched as she was in cold sweat and sick with fear. The four men were silent, watching her. She felt they could smell her terror, like pheromones drifting in the gusty spring air.
Then Vittore spoke: ‘This time, you can go,’ he said.
‘But maybe not next time,’ said Fabio with a grin. And he leaned in closer, closer.
Daisy shrank into herself. But he wasn’t reaching for her. Instead, he was bending, snatching up the bright bouquet of flowers, the one she had laid there for Simon. With a final triumphant sneer, he whacked the bouquet against the trunk of the tree, scattering the blooms, shredding them, killing them. Daisy flinched. Then he tossed the remnants of the bouquet onto the verge. Gave her a twisted smile. And turned away.
Vittore touched his fingers to his brow in an ironic salute. The four men left her standing there, and got into their car. One of Vittore’s heavies started the engine, then the car shot forward, missing her by inches. Soon it was gone, roaring away into the distance.
The minute it was out of sight, Daisy fell to her knees on the mud-churned verge, clutching her hands to her face, amazed that she was still in one piece. Breathless with fright, she crouched like that for long minutes until the fear started to grip her again, the fear that they might come back, change their minds, do dreadful things to her.
Like they did to Simon.
Simon’s death hadn’t been an accident: Vittore had wiped Simon out, and in so doing he had deprived Matt and Luke of their father.
Somehow she managed to drag herself to her feet and stagger back to the Mini. She had to get home, to where she was safe.
But would she be safe? Could she be safe anywhere now?
They must have followed her out here. They’d been watching and waiting their chance with Simon, and they’d got it. And now they were watching her.
She started the engine and drove, very carefully, trembling like a leaf in a high wind, back to Ruby’s place.
41
‘Where the fuck did you get to?’ demanded Rob, hurrying across the minute Kit showed up at Sheila’s restaurant, said hi to the head barman and ordered a pineapple Britvic.
It wasn’t the welcome Kit had been expecting. He blinked in surprise. Rob looked agitated, and that was a surprise too. Rob was solid, usually. The barman set down the juice in front of Kit.
‘There you go, boss,’ he said.
‘Get you something?’ Kit asked Rob, watching him curiously.
Rob shook his head and the barman moved off to polish glasses.
‘I told you,’ said Kit. ‘I’ve been down on the coast, taking the air.’
‘For a couple of days, wasn’t that the deal? Not a fucking week.’
‘Things came up.’ He thought of Bianca. ‘Important things.’ He wasn’t ready to tell Rob about her, not yet. Rob had a stick up his arse, best let him get that out of the way first. ‘You get the car fixed up?’
‘What?’ Rob stared at him.
‘What’s wrong with you? The cunting car. I asked you to fix it.’
‘Right, yeah, that.’ Rob swiped a hand through his hair as if the car was the last thing on his mind. ‘Yeah, it’s done. It’s over at the yard, locked up tight. Didn’t want to risk parking it out on the street again and having to do the same damned job a second time.’
‘Good.’ Kit sipped his juice, still staring at Rob. ‘Anything else I should know about? You tapped up our boys in the Bill, got some stuff about Michael?’
‘Yeah, I did that. I’ll talk that through with you later, OK?’
‘Sure.’
Kit glanced around the restaurant. It was packed: Saturday night. The tills were ringing. All was right with the world. Except he wasn’t where he wanted to be. Soonest, he was going to get Bianca up here with him. She could get a manager in at Dante’s, and then they could be together properly. He was completely smitten. He was half-smiling, wanting to ask Rob, You ever been in love, mate? But he didn’t want to make himself look like a soft-centred cunt. He had his image to protect.
‘So, everything else running smooth?’ he asked.
And then Rob told him about Simon, and how Daisy had been approached on the road, scared half out of her wits.
Kit’s smile died on his face. He grew very still.
‘You got Reg out at the Marlow house, right?’ he said at last.
‘Reg and two more of the boys. Taking no chances. Daise and Ruby have been climbing the walls.’
‘Let’s get over there then,’ sighed Kit.
‘My God, where have you been?’ asked Daisy frantically when Reg ushered Kit into the sitting room. She and Ruby had been sitting huddled by the fire. They were wearing black, both of them. Ruby, it suited. Daisy, without her usual sunny array of bright colours, looked dreadful.
Kit was beginning to feel bad. There he’d been, having a sexual marathon with Bianca, happy as a pig in shit, and all this had been kicking off.
‘I’m home now,’ he said, and Daisy rushed forward and hugged him, hard.
Kit pushed her back a step. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
‘You OK, Daise? They didn’t touch you?’ he asked, thinking that if any of the Danieri bastards had laid a hand on his sister then they’d be sorry.
Daisy shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine. I was so scared, that’s all. The instant I got back here, I called Rob, told him what happened, and he came straight over. Kit,’ Daisy’s voice trembled, ‘we’ve had to send Jody and the twins away. Rob said it would be safest. I didn’t want to do it. I can’t believe it’s even necessary. But—’
‘Rob’s right,’ said Kit.
‘They’re stashed in one of our safe houses,’ said Rob.
Daisy didn’t know what was happening to her normally secure, orderly world. Suddenly it seemed to have tilted, spilling her over into chaos. A new year and a new job in Mum’s store, she’d thought: well, she’d blown that. Then Simon, dying. Hideous, the shock of it. And almost worse, horrifically painful, she was being parted from her babies. She felt like she was going mad. She literally hurt when she thought about them. She was coming to realize what it truly meant, to be Kit Miller’s kin.
‘Could I at least phone through, check they’re OK?’ she pleaded.
Kit shook his head. ‘Better not, Daise. It’s too bloody easy to put a tap on a line, and who’s to say there isn’t one on this house phone? Safest to keep your distance. For you, and for them.’
He glanced at Rob, who gave him a bleak look in return. ‘Poor Daisy was fucking tra
umatized,’ he said. ‘They must have been watching her all along. Maybe Ruby too, and this house. And who’s to say they’ll stop at scaring them, next time?’
Only then did Kit look beyond Daisy to where Ruby sat. His mother. Michael Ward had loved her, and he remembered the letter Michael had left for him, to be opened in the event of his death: Don’t be an arsehole. Give your mother a chance.
‘You all right?’ he asked her roughly. To his annoyance, he found that he actually cared. He didn’t want her frightened, or hurt.
Ruby nodded. She was made of tough stuff, he knew that. Well, she must be hard as fucking nails – after all, she’d abandoned him, her own kid, when he was even younger than Daisy’s twins.
‘It was suicide, right? Rob filled me in,’ said Kit, going over to his mother and sitting down beside her. He didn’t reach out, touch her hand, kiss her or anything.
‘What we’re thinking now is it wasn’t suicide at all,’ said Ruby, her face taut with suppressed anger. ‘It could just as easily have happened when the twins and Jody were at the house with him. Do you think the Danieris would care?’
‘You haven’t told anyone about this . . . ?’
‘No. We were waiting for you to come back. We’ve been going out of our minds here, and Rob didn’t have a number to reach you on . . .’
‘I know.’ He felt like shit about that. There he’d been, happily getting his end away, and Daise and Rob and Ruby had been suffering a shedload of grief.
‘They did it,’ said Daisy, pacing around, her colour high with agitation. ‘Kit, they killed him.’
‘They said that?’ asked Kit. ‘They rigged it to look like suicide?’
‘They made it obvious. And the implication was that they could just as easily kill me, too. I thought they were going to. I really did. God, Kit, it’s been absolute murder. I’m a wreck, I haven’t slept,’ sobbed Daisy. ‘He was the boys’ father.’
Kit was struggling to take all this in. That his brother-in-law had got himself wasted was a big shock. Granted, Simon Collins was a prick, but the poor bastard hadn’t deserved to die. And Daisy . . . the thought of the Danieri boys cornering her, throwing such a scare into her made him livid.
