Lawless

by Jessie Keane

  Ruby opened her mouth to speak, then shut it like a clamp when she saw the determination on Rob’s face. She turned on her heel and stormed off.

  ‘You know what?’ Fats was holding court in the office with two other members of the Miller crew. ‘That arsehole had so much blubber that he must have bounced three feet off the fucking ground when he hit.’

  Everyone laughed; they stopped when Rob came in.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘That Eyetie trying to sneak in on the boss at the hospital. Big boy. I always say a boy like that’s easy to take down. His weight’ll defeat him. Got him in the back of the knee and—’

  ‘Fats,’ said Rob. ‘Shut the fuck up. You think it’s funny – one of the Danieri crew throwing himself out of a hospital window when Kit’s in a room a few doors down? You reckon the Old Bill’s laughing? Do you have any idea the trouble I’ll have to go to, to see that it’s buried?’

  Fats shrugged uneasily. He’d done his job, hadn’t he? Stopped that wop bastard dead.

  ‘Soon as Kit came round the police were in there, questioning him about the shooting. He handled it; we were home clear. All that could change if they find out the guy who took a high-dive from the window had a helping hand. You think Kit needs any more crap, you dumb fuck?’

  The boys were silent. Rob turned away from them in disgust.

  ‘I’m not happy with any of this,’ he said, and stalked out of the room.

  ‘No shit,’ muttered Fats.

  Next evening, Rob took a pale, silent Bianca to the hospital. Throughout her enforced stay at the Lambeth safe house, she had been biddable, subdued, and her demeanour didn’t change even when they entered the maze of corridors and wound their way to the private room Kit now occupied.

  Ashok was on guard.

  ‘All OK?’ Rob asked him.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, glaring at Bianca.

  ‘Go on home,’ said Rob, and Ashok departed.

  Rob glanced at Bianca. ‘You OK for this?’

  She nodded: didn’t speak.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ said Rob, ‘but I need you to spread your arms.’ And there in an empty waiting room he frisked her with cool expertise.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said when it was done.

  Rob led the way into Kit’s room. The moment they walked through the door, Kit’s eyes fastened on Bianca and stayed there.

  Bianca and Rob stopped at the foot of the bed.

  ‘Rob, you can go,’ said Kit, his eyes still fixed on her.

  ‘I’d rather stay,’ said Rob. The woman was a crazy Danieri, who knew what she was going to pull? She might grab a syringe, stick Kit with it. She was capable of anything.

  Kit’s eyes flicked to meet his. ‘Go,’ he said.

  Rob sighed and started towards the door. He groaned when he saw Ruby appear there, about to come in and no doubt kick off. He’d told her to stay away. But she was looking past him, arrested by the scene at Kit’s bedside.

  Rob paused beside her in the doorway and looked back too.

  ‘Come to finish the job off?’ Kit asked Bianca.

  Bianca bit her lip and shook her head as she approached him. Tears filled her eyes as she stared down at his face.

  ‘I want to hate you,’ she gulped out. ‘But I can’t.’

  She moved closer and slowly reached out a trembling hand. Kit grasped her hand, twined his fingers into hers. Suddenly the tears overflowed and poured down Bianca’s cheeks. The strength left her and she fell to her knees beside the bed.

  ‘Oh God,’ she managed to say. Over and over, she kissed his hand, sobbing and murmuring that she was sorry, she was so, so sorry. Kit placed his other hand on her head, smoothing her silky white-blonde hair.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said to her. ‘Really. It’s all right. I’m sorry too.’ Sorry for Tito. Sorry I caused you pain. Sorry I lied to you.

  ‘I can’t hate you,’ sobbed Bianca. ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You don’t know. You can’t.’

  ‘You pulled to the left. Like the rabbit, right? You could have finished me, shot me straight through the heart, but you didn’t. And when you were aiming at my head, you couldn’t do it then, either.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, I’m so . . . did it hurt?’

  ‘Stung a bit,’ he said.

  Rob and Ruby stood in the doorway. They looked at each other. Then Rob took Ruby’s arm. ‘Let’s give them a minute,’ he said, and led her out to the waiting room.

  ‘I don’t understand any of this,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Join the fucking club,’ said Rob.

  95

  Outside the hospital, Thomas Knox was waiting for Ruby.

  He knew I was here because he watches me, all the time, she thought. Once it had made her shiver with lust, that thought. Now there was fear, too, and a cold hard stab of dread.

  ‘You got Reg here with the car?’ Rob asked her.

  ‘Just over there.’

  ‘Good. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow then, OK?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’

  Rob went back inside.

  Reg had the Merc parked up and he was standing, leaning against the bonnet, watching her.

  ‘Hey,’ said Thomas, coming forward and kissing her cheek.

  He wanted Michael out of the way to get to you, said Daisy’s voice in her head.

  Ruby stiffened.

  Thomas drew back, stared at her face. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  Ruby shook her head. ‘Nothing, it’s just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’ he prompted when she hesitated.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t think I can do this any more. You and me. I can’t.’

  He was still staring at her, trying to fathom her reasoning.

  ‘Something happened?’ he asked. ‘Is Kit all right?’

  ‘He’s fine.’ He’s crazy and he’s got that lunatic girl who nearly killed him at his bedside, but he’s fine.

  ‘Then what? What’s changed your mind all of a sudden?’

  ‘Nothing. But I don’t want to go on with this.’

  Now his eyes were fierce. He grabbed her arm. ‘Bullshit. Something’s happened.’

  Yeah, I’ve found out that you might have killed Michael just to have me, and you know what? That makes me feel sick, like I may as well have pulled the trigger and killed him myself.

  Reg was coming toward them now, his face anxious.

  ‘Nothing’s happened. It’s over. That’s all.’

  ‘Not until I say.’

  ‘No! I say it’s over,’ said Ruby angrily. ‘And it is.’

  She pulled her arm free and barged past him, towards Reg.

  ‘All right, Miss Darke?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine, Reg.’ She glanced back, just once, and Thomas Knox was still standing there, watching her go. She turned away, and told Reg where she wanted to be taken next.

  The last time Ruby had been to Joe’s big house in Chigwell, she had been attending her eldest brother’s funeral after Charlie died drunk in a hit-and-run. She remembered the day vividly; she hadn’t wanted to come, but Charlie was her brother, blood was thicker than water and all that sentimental bullshit. And she recalled the way Betsy – who long, long ago had been her best friend – had lorded about the place while hosting the funeral tea, showing her grandly embellished palatial home and her swanky new pool house off to all the East End faces and their wives, letting them know how much better than them Joe was doing with his business dealings.

  Poor bloody Joe, thought Ruby as Reg stopped at the gates and announced her arrival into the intercom. He could have done a lot better, a lot nicer, than Betsy, but there you go. Who knew what brought people together?

  That train of thought led her back to Thomas Knox, and she pushed it aside. She’d done the right thing. Finished it. Kit was safe enough with his boys around him; she should never have got involved with Thomas, never asked him to find Gabe’s address or anything else. The thought that he c
ould have killed Michael tormented her.

  Was it possible he’d been so determined to have her that he’d have stopped at nothing, even removing Michael from the scene?

  She was afraid that she had caused Michael’s death. It made her feel nauseous to consider it as a possibility, but there it was, right in front of her. Her own guilt.

  A squawking voice emerged from the intercom, and Reg answered it. The gates started to open, and Reg got back in the Merc and drove up to the house along a deep dark avenue of shrubbery, the headlights forging a path. Reg parked the Merc in front of the house and Ruby peered out at it, lit by the porch light. To her eye, then as now, the place looked tacky, like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t. There was a white van parked up on the drive, and the sound of hammering was coming loud and clear from inside the house. Someone was working late.

  Reg waited in the car and she stepped up onto the porch and rang the bell. The door swung inward. Instantly the sound of hammering and drilling was louder. Betsy stood there in white high-heeled mules, a filmy turquoise beach cover-up that clearly showed a bikini beneath. She was holding onto a lunging German shepherd by its rhinestone-studded collar. The dog was wagging its tail madly.

  ‘Jesus, it is you,’ said Betsy. Seeing the direction of Ruby’s gaze, she shrugged. ‘Just got out of the pool. I like a swim in the evening.’

  And there she was, Ruby’s friend from when they were kids, Ruby’s best friend in those days – before she became attached to Betsy’s older sister Vi when they worked together at the Windmill Theatre.

  Straight out of the pool or not, Betsy was wearing a lot of make-up, an extremely deep tan and a very expensive tiger-striped blonde hairdo. Her eyes were pale blue and still fiercely acquisitive, her mouth open in a fake smile that revealed a set of startlingly white crowns. Ruby could feel Betsy’s eyes moving up and down her body, assessing her shape and itemizing the value and the brand of every bit of clothing she wore.

  No change here then, thought Ruby.

  Life was one long bitching contest to Betsy, it always had been. Whatever anyone else had, Betsy wanted it – only bigger and better. It drove her crazy that her sister Vi had married into the aristocracy, outdoing her in the marriage stakes.

  ‘Yeah, it’s me. Thought I’d pop in.’

  ‘What, after all this time?’

  ‘Kit told me Joe’s not well.’

  Betsy’s lip curled. ‘He never fucking is, these days. I suppose you’d better come in. Prince, basket.’

  The dog dived obediently for its basket at the side of the hall.

  ‘Come on. He’s in the conservatory, he lives in there, loves it,’ Betsy threw back over her shoulder as she sashayed through the hall and into the big glass structure at the rear of the property. As they passed the kitchen, Betsy flashed her fake glittery smile that way. A scene of apparent devastation greeted Ruby; all the units had been ripped out and as she glanced in there, the integral oven was being lobbed out the door onto the terrace by two burly men.

  ‘I’m having the kitchen refitted,’ said Betsy with a triumphant smirk. ‘Walnut units this time; nice and tasteful.’

  Ruby didn’t comment; she knew of old that Betsy had the decorators in every six months, that she was never satisfied with any improvement to her property for very long. Ruby thought of her own small Victorian villa, a far less opulent place than this, but infinitely more homely.

  ‘Here’s a visitor for you,’ said Betsy, and Ruby entered the conservatory.

  In amongst the scrambling bougainvillea, the grapevine and the datura with its big peachy trumpet flowers, sat Joe. It was hot in here, and the darkness outside seemed to press in against the glass.

  God, he’d changed! Ruby couldn’t believe that big, beefy Joe, once the scourge of the East End with brother Charlie at his side, had come to this. Now he looked thin, like the flesh was hanging off him. His features were gaunt, but his eyes were the same, a warm brown above the oxygen mask he had clamped to his face. But they had a frail and frightened expression in them that broke Ruby’s heart.

  ‘Joe?’ she whispered, hardly believing it.

  ‘Ruby!’ he let out a rasping breath.

  She was looking at the oxygen mask, the tubes, the bottle at the side of his chair.

  ‘Hello, Joe.’ Trying to hide her shock, Ruby came forward. Hesitantly she dropped a kiss onto his thin cheek, and pulled up a chair.

  ‘Hello, girl. You all right then?’ he asked, clasping her hand in one of his. It was icy cold and she nearly flinched away.

  ‘I’m fine. Kit told me you’re not well, so I’ve come to see you.’

  Joe gave her an ironic look. ‘Fuckin’ bastard, innit? I’m dyin’ on my feet here.’

  ‘Emphysema,’ chimed in Betsy. ‘It’s them bloody fags, rolling his own all those years. Too much fucking Old Holborn, that’s what this is.’

  ‘And all this noise going on,’ complained Joe.

  ‘They got to make a noise,’ said Betsy. ‘They’re fitting a kitchen, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah? Well go and make them some tea – lazy gits have only had ten cups so far today, may as well stand them another. Make us some too, while you’re at it.’

  Betsy flounced off to the kitchen. After a couple of seconds they heard her tinkling laughter mingling with men’s voices and the crashing, crunching sounds of the kitchen being pulled inside out.

  ‘She always was a bloody flirt,’ said Joe. ‘Sauntering about the fuckin’ place with her arse hanging out and all those blokes in the sodding kitchen. Thinks I don’t know, I suppose. Or don’t give a shit if I do.’

  ‘How you feeling, Joe?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Fuckin’ awful – how do I look?’ Joe let the oxygen mask drop to his blanketed lap and gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Does me good to see you though, Rubes. Keepin’ all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Glad one of us is. Not too long now, there I’ll be – sitting on an effing cloud along with Charlie.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  A fresh peal of laughter came floating through from the kitchen.

  ‘Why not? It’s the truth. And I’m not sorry. Had a goodish life, really. Only one real regret . . . and you know what that is?’

  ‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘Go on, tell me.’

  Joe cocked his head toward the kitchen. ‘Aside from the fags? My one regret is that I wasted my time marrying that selfish cow.’

  ‘Joe . . .’ She didn’t want to hear this. Ruby had always known that Joe could have done better for himself but she had hoped, up until this moment, that he was at least moderately happy in his marriage. It hurt her to see that he was not.

  ‘Come on, Rubes, you know it’s true. I was always second-best for Betsy, wasn’t I? It was always Charlie for her. When he got sent down after the mail-van job, she settled for me.’

  ‘Joe, come on . . .’

  ‘What you mean, “come on”? I’m speaking the truth here. Drove me nuts for years, she did, saying why didn’t I go and get my cut of the robbery – money-grubbing bitch. Currency changed, see, times changed. This is how she has her revenge on me, spendin’ my fuckin’ money non-stop.’ Joe’s watery eyes grew distant. ‘Poor old Charlie, eh? He got done good and proper. It broke him you know, all that time in stir. He was never the same man after that. And then he steps out in the road drunk, and some fucker ploughs in, and that’s him finished. Well, now I’m finished too.’ Joe heaved a sigh. ‘Could have got myself a nice warm woman, could have had my pick, they were all after me. Lord of the streets, I was. Not now, though. Too late.’

  ‘How’re the kids?’ asked Ruby. It was an easier subject than Betsy and everything that had gone before. It was all old stuff, dead stuff, it didn’t matter. While Ruby had been minding the shop, Charlie and Joe had taken to a career as criminals; she’d always known that there wouldn’t be a happy ending to their saga.

  ‘Nadine’s getting the hump with everyone. Ten years old and already you
can see she’s her mother’s daughter. Billy’s a real live wire. It’s bad for them, seeing me like this. Thank Christ they’re at boarding school, takes them out of the way most of the time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe.’

  ‘Good to see you though, girl. You’re a tonic. Now where’s that cow with the bloody tea . . . ?’

  96

  When Ruby got back to Marlow, there was a familiar car waiting on the drive. The Jag’s headlights swept over it, showing Thomas Knox standing by the bonnet. Ruby felt her heartbeat pick up in panic, felt a wave of revulsion engulf her. He wasn’t going to let this go.

  ‘You want me to have a word with him, Miss Darke?’ asked Reg, pulling up, switching off the engine.

  Ruby thought that Thomas wouldn’t stop this unless she gave him an explanation. She felt weary to the bone, but she had to sort this out, right now.

  ‘No, that’s OK, Reg.’

  Ruby got out of the Merc and Reg drove it round to the garage which was some distance from the main house. She walked over to where Thomas lounged against his car.

  ‘I want answers,’ he said flatly, as she came and stood within two feet of him.

  ‘I know. Come inside, it’s cold out here.’

  He followed her into the house, into the small sitting room at the front. Ruby kept her coat on. So did Thomas. She didn’t offer him a seat. She stood several paces away from him and they confronted each other like strangers.

  ‘I want answers too,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Oh? To what?’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  Ruby hitched in a breath. ‘Kill Michael. Was it you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You wanted to get to me. But you couldn’t, could you? You knew I was with him, that nothing was going to come between us.’ Suddenly her eyes were full of tears. ‘So did you do it?’

  Thomas looked at the floor. Then he glanced sharply at Ruby. ‘You think I did?’

  ‘I want you to tell me. Did you? Because if you did, this is my fault. Michael would be alive today if not for me.’

  ‘You seriously think I’d do that?’

  Ruby stared at him. Thought of all the things he’d said to her, how completely he’d seduced her.