In the days leading up to her shooting, I’d noticed we were being followed. Similar faces showed up in different places, and when I scoured the apartment, I discovered bugs hidden all over the place. It was fairly obvious we were being watched but I didn’t know why and I didn’t know by whom, not for sure, although I had a fairly good idea.
I employed two security men to follow Gia around. If this was my father’s doing, then it was only her that needed protecting, not me. I had a feeling nobody else would be so arrogant as to bug a footballer with enough money to sue the hell out of them.
One afternoon, Gia gave her security detail the slip to go and watch a film at the cinema, or so she said. Her text also told me: I’m okay, just had to get away from them. Back soon.
When I questioned her security detail, they told me they eventually discovered her at some guy’s apartment. Through the windows from across the street, they could see them humping.
I took away her security detail after that and said nothing to her about the guy she was screwing when she asked if anything was the matter. I told her it was me, worrying about nothing, and that security wasn’t necessary anymore.
The next day she was shot in broad daylight while she was walking from an art class to her lover’s house in the third arrondissement. They opened an inquest into her death, but months later the police told me it was ruled a case of mistaken identity—because nobody she’d known had ever had any cause to kill her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The first fractured reports of her death included details about the weapon being military grade. There was also a witness who saw a glinting object on the rooftop of an apartment building nearby when the shot that killed her was fired—yet the police put it down to mistaken identity?
She’d been cheating on me, but even I didn’t have cause to shoot her. Someone did, though. So, I tracked down the guy she’d been having an affair with and he told me that she was frightened of me. That’s all she’d told her lover about me—nothing else—just that she was frightened of me. I assured the gross specimen of humanity before me that I didn’t kill Gia and had loved her, but he didn’t accept what I was saying. He said Gia was frightened of me and that I had to have killed her. He was certain she’d cheated on me with someone normal because she was fearful of me.
I took away his words with me, fearful I’d become my father without even realising it. I thought about it though and it dawned on me that maybe she wasn’t as frightened of me as she was of the people I was related to. If I was guilty of anything, it was of unburdening myself on Gia about my dad’s growing criminal empire. I’d also confided in her about the teenage kid of my father’s friend who I suspected was my half-brother—a suspicion that’d grown in me, even though I’d never met the lad, because when we were growing up, Dad spent more time with that lad at the weekend than he did with us, his actual sons who spent their weekends shopping, seeing shows and having dinners out with Mum.
It seemed far-fetched when I first thought of it, but then I wondered if Gia had been killed because of what she knew, not who she knew. At which point I called my father and told him I just found out Gia had been cheating on me. Also, did he know she was dead?
“I think we know it’s best she was taken care of,” he said, in such a calm voice, it terrified me. “She couldn’t be trusted, you know that. Few people are cut out for the lives we lead, so don’t think of her again, she wasn’t the one for you.” I didn’t hear much else of what he said, only that he sounded like a man who took care of things he couldn’t trust, which meant that I couldn’t give him any reason to mistrust me.
Years later, I would introduce my parents to Freya over Sunday lunch. While my mother gave Freya a tour of the house and grounds, Dad took me into his study. When I declined his offer of a cigar, he looked at me like I wasn’t his. The truth was, I had been into smoking when I first started out in the football world, but that all ended when I met Gia—and the only reason she cheated on me was that she couldn’t handle the fact I was the son of a drug lord feeding the south-east of England and some of Scotland its supply of all things that come in small bags.
He sat looking all masterly in his desk chair. “Son, where did you find this one?”
“We met at a pub. We became friends. It became more.” It was a safe answer.
His eye twitched and I knew he knew more about her than I did. “She was a prostitute, son.”
I gulped. It might have been a lie, but I’d known all along she had a dark past and it was the reason for her tenacious resistance of our chemistry.
“So, what? She’s really good in bed. Probably all the practice.” If I appeared to be on his level, he could entertain that.
“Gonna get serious with her then, you think?”
“She’s got seriously beautiful tits. I think I’ll keep her around.”
He puffed deeply on his cigar before considering his eldest son carefully. “Joey the Great says she still owes him money. Something about her trying to top herself and absconding.”
Vile thoughts entered my mind. First, I wanted to drown Joey and then each of his children, but especially that conniving bitch Fiona who had always thrown a strop whenever I went cold on her. Second, I wanted to sow my father’s mouth shut, or burn it shut, either way worked for me.
“Tell him I’ll settle her debt, don’t worry about it.”
My father nodded, as if he admired my chivalry. To him, making a woman a cup of tea seemed chivalric enough.
“She can be trusted, you reckon?” He looked down his nose at me, his menacing eyes speaking a million things.
“I can keep her in line, no worries,” I assured him. “She had a taste of this world and got out, but I think she could be tempted back, when the time is right.”
He rocked his head backwards and forwards in understanding. “I’ll leave it with you, Ruben.”
That day, as we left their house, it was cemented in my mind what needed to be done. It had to be executed with utmost precision, that was all. My reason for taking her to lunch was to meet my mother, but also to gauge my dad’s reaction so I might know how to proceed.
In the few days after that, I had the team send Freddie drone shots of Debbie and Fred Snr passionately embraced in a park, writhing on the ground. The images weren’t doctored, they were real—besides, I knew Freddie would check their authenticity. By virtue of Laurent’s Legacy, which my father believed to be a charitable organisation and not a miniature detective agency, we had discovered his other filthy secret. It turned out if you hung around my father’s haunts enough, which Francesca started doing under the guise of a stoner chick, you’d overhear his colleagues talking shit about him and his secrets. It turned out my father set Freddie up with Debbie (the daughter of an acquaintance) and told his son it’d make him happy if the two got close. Little did Freddie know that as he walked his bride down the aisle, she was pregnant by someone else. In fact, she was already pregnant before they even went on their first date. Debbie was carrying Fred Snr’s spawn. It was the easiest way for him to cover it up… kids that looked like him… his alleged grandchildren. The shotgun wedding made sense to everyone when she finally admitted she was pregnant, all along… and keeping it in the family meant my father could still achieve the odd screw on the side when over visiting the ‘grandkids’. Nobody needed to know Fred Snr had a thing for teenagers. After all, my mother was eighteen when he married her, and Freddie’s mother was sixteen when she fell pregnant ‘to her teenage sweetheart’ Bob Lancaster. Given that my father was almost 70 when he died, you do the math.
Onto the matter of Dad’s death…
My team discovered Freddie had ordered Fred’s death to be carried out on a Wednesday. It was every Wednesday Fred Snr visited his favourite Irish pub in Kensington for the midweek quiz and always left absolutely blotto. I’d known Freddie wouldn’t be able to forgive a betrayal like that, not when he’d been convinced Debbie was randy for him and not some other older, uglier dude—his own dad for fu
ck’s sake. It wasn’t a surprise he was now planning to kill him—I’d been banking on it.
Fred Kitchener died in the same manner in which he’d lived… bloody, drunk on his own rhetoric and full of himself. He’d never have seen it coming. He thought he had everyone terrified of his rule, but as I’d learnt from my team’s surveillance of him, Freddie viewed money as power and didn’t care the cost of killing Fred Kitchener. Debbie could have a new house next year, not this year. He was sure she would understand…
I took Freya out of the country so we would not be around when the circus descended on my mother’s house and mine—people wanting to question us about what we thought of Dad being knifed in broad daylight.
But while in Florence, I learned of Freddie’s plan to find and kill me next, the last threat to his dominance and more than likely, the person who sent him piccies of his beloved wife and our dear, devoted daddy having it off.
I had to act quick… pay people off… organise… everything. While Freya snoozed in her Florentine bed at night, I would work away with my team via my laptop, instructing them on what to do.
The idea was to throw money at the contract killer who’d been employed to find and kill me, then stage my death. Suresh proved he was worth every penny when he found the bastard and hacked his accounts, threatening to empty them unless he played ball. Guess what? He did. Shots of me lying on the floor covered in blood were sent to Freddie’s phone and the ‘killer’ even said he would employ the Italian mafia to get the body out of the country and back to my mother, without leaving a trail—to make it even more unbearable for Alexia when she was delivered of her third coffin in three years.
We employed a fake cop to call round and break the news to Freya, but we brought my mother in on it. Mum could lose everything and survive, but not me. Not her last child. I knew she would act the part well, anyway. She’s different to Freya… more well-versed in deception.
As long as my mother and Freya could convince him of their grief, Freddie would buy the whole thing hook, line and sinker and Freya would be free to join me in Canada. A new start. A life far away from Freddie’s long and reaching arm.
When Canada didn’t go ahead, it was back to the drawing board. I had to dole out retribution to Freddie next, but the punishment would have to fit the crime. We found out which of Freddie’s gangsters had been paid to kill my father and convinced this surprisingly acquiescent thug to conjure a reason to visit Freddie’s house and then stow the murder weapon there—no fingerprints, no dishwasher nonsense, just a good old sharp knife that still bore traces of Fred’s blood. Nobody dumps their weapons these days because of forensics and hidden CCTV cameras covering canals, riverbanks, junkyards and even public waste bins—and Dad’s killer had been keeping the knife he used in his attic.
I dropped a couple of bits of evidence into the laps of the police to give them cause to search Freddie’s house—some aerial shots of big trucks being unloaded round the back of brother dearest’s, plus the photos of Debbie and Fred Snr in flagrante. The discovery of all that gear in Freddie’s cellar was just the icing on the proverbial cake.
To Freya, Freddie and his gang, I am dead, but we never went public with my death because I’m not dead. I haven’t made it so that I can’t go back; I didn’t want to put my mother in an awkward position, if it came to it. When my lawyer sorted Freya out with nearly all of my assets, I doubt she noticed the transfer was much more straightforward than if it had involved probate. Still, the only people I’ve seen in six months are my mother and my team, who are still busy in London, finding out what else they can to help the police pin the whole lot on Freddie.
So, why haven’t I returned to her, now Freddie’s in jail? Everything seems neatly tied up, I know. The truth is, I’ve tried so many times already to go back to her, and each time I couldn’t do it. She looks happier these days and light, like a pretty flower uprooted and carried on the breeze, going wherever the wind takes her.
Freddie may be in prison but he still has powers. He’s still allowed a lawyer. If he ever found out I am still alive—even now—he wouldn’t just destroy me, he’d do unspeakable things to Freya. He’d also find my mother and do the same to her, just for the hell of it.
I saw the hacked CCTV footage from the inside of his house in the aftermath of him finding out the truth about his kids… or siblings, even. He knocked Debbie clean out and waterboarded her until she sounded convincing enough about the kids really being his… that she never went with Fred Snr and Fred Snr never ever meant anything to her.
I can’t think about a man like that holding anything against Freya and doing the same to her, all because of me. All it would take is one slip… one day when my back is turned, just like with Gia, when I took my eye off the ball because I was upset about her cheating on me… and Freya would be dead.
If I stay dead, the world will be a better place for her. She can live. Be happy. She can meet someone who won’t embroil her in a game of cat and mouse. She can marry a man who’s honest with her from the start and never needs to lie to her.
If you love someone, sometimes you have to let them go… right?
I’m letting her go because it’s the right thing to do and because I caught a mad bastard and did the job of an entire police constabulary in just a few weeks. It felt good to do something that’ll save lives. I think I might look into doing more. After all, London’s police force is stretched to the limit battling terrorism and hate crime every day, they don’t have time to trouble themselves with petty crime. That’s how it started with Dad. He used to nick stuff. All the clothes I ever wore on my back growing up were nicked. Appliances and even toiletries and carpets… everything was nicked. His dealings evolved when he started selling homegrown cannabis using a ring of dealers he put together. It escalated after I gave him that money. I made him, so it was my job to unmake him. Our law enforcers don’t have time to go out and deal with the uninsured, the unlicensed, the pub brawls that put people in hospital. It’s these small wrongdoings—and getting away with them—that makes people like my father think they can keep getting away with it, and oh they do, because there are more vulnerable people in the world than ever before. You don’t say no to the Devil when the light seems to have abandoned you already.
As a ghost, I might be able to do much more to help people and go where others can’t. A spectral force for good, I might be able to save many thousands more from drugs and the destruction they cause.
Laurent’s Legacy will continue to operate until the money runs out, so it’s lucky I set aside a nice amount for the workers to stay afloat for a few more years yet.
I know my brother would be proud. I know he’d also tell me to go and get the girl.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Note
The dogs go mad for me as I arrive home in the evening, laden down with half a tarte, a few new brochures and a couple of magazines I had delivered to the gallery that I’ve brought home for perusal.
“Mush, mush. Yes, yes, I love you too. Mush, mush.” From the smell, it appears I’ve been left a couple of presents by the sliding patio doors, even though my dog walker does come in during the day.
After lumping everything on the kitchen island, I put my hands on my hips and look down on them. I’ve called them Sooty and Sweep which is unfortunate because the names are very similar and the dogs answer to one or the other, interchangeably.
“Bad boys, no poo-poo, no poo-poo!” I grab a couple of poop bags from the dog drawer and some disinfectant spray, mopping up their messes while they chase down to the bottom of the garden, do a few wees, then chase one another around as if they’re so proud of themselves for weeing on the garden—as though that makes it any better.
Once they’re done, they return indoors and start sniffing around my ankles.
“Yeah, you’ll poo on my floor again if I feed you, naughty dogs!”
Sooty, the black one, yaps and then Sweep, the greyer one, joins in.
“Fine,�
�� I chuckle, reaching into their large drawer again, this time for kibble.
Once they’re safely at leisure scoffing their faces, I take a deep breath and carve out a slab of cake for myself. I’m not ready to admit why I don’t have the energy to cook for myself tonight.
Sooty and Sweep polish off their food and immediately fall into a coma, curled up together on Sooty’s bed even though they have a bed each.
I take a glass of wine and my cake to the outside dining set on the porch. The evening is crisp and my linen clothes are not quite cutting it, so I reach into the garden storage box and pull out a couple of blankets, putting one around my knees, the other around my shoulders.
I know the tears are there, waiting to fall, and this is even before I’ve allowed myself to think about him.
I’m ready to give into tonight’s crying session when the dogs bark a lot louder than they usually would.
That’s when I see him, wandering towards me from the direction of the side entrance, which is guarded only by a flimsy gate and could easily be jumped.
I throw off everything and run as fast as my feet will carry me, the fork for my cake landing with a clang on the floor.
I run and jump into this stranger’s familiar arms, our kiss immediate and ferocious, his desire absorbing every last atom I have left to give, his broken spirit repaired by my touch.
Behind me the dogs growl a bit before giving up and returning indoors, where it’s warmer and they can rest their weary bellies.
I bury my face in his shoulder and weep wildly, something about the smell of him filling that huge hole inside of me that opened up the day he left.
“My love,” he whispers, his voice croaky.
“Don’t speak, Ruben. Just take me to bed.”
“Okay.”
He carries me inside and takes me through to my bedroom. We stand staring at one another by the foot of the bed and he shows me the note. I smile and a few more tears spill from my eyes.
Kismet Page 34
