by Jessie Keane
He handed the photo back. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
Romilly waved it away. ‘Keep it. Show it around, it might ring a bell with somebody.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help more.’
Romilly handed him her card. ‘If you think of anything else, contact me. However trivial you think it is, please do that.’
‘Of course.’
She shook his hand and stepped away. Then the shots from the lanes began in a fearful volley. Despite herself, Romilly flinched. A nice sport, but a dangerous skill to have. And in the wrong hands – deadly.
Romilly left the club and drove on to the next one on her list. It was the one beneath London Bridge, the Stock Exchange Rifle Club. Kit Miller was standing there at the entrance.
‘Something I can help you with?’ she asked him.
‘Oh, come on. All right, I’m looking around gun clubs. We’re both doing that.’
‘No, you come on. I’ve told you to keep your nose out of police business.’
‘Jesus! You’re touchy.’
Romilly gave him a glare and turned and walked away.
After a moment’s pause, Kit followed and caught her up. Truth to tell, he was half annoyed and half pleased to run into her, and he was also irritated that Fats had apparently missed one or two clubs off his list. Good job he’d checked around himself. He’d be having words with Fats about that. He hadn’t been inside this one yet, and with the DI in this mood, it didn’t seem like a wise move to do that. Not right now. Later.
‘What you up to, Mr Miller?’ she asked him. ‘Showing the rifle club people the spent shell you nicked from the crime scene?’
‘Let me buy you dinner. There’s a good Italian in Leadenhall Street. We can walk it.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘We can talk it all over. Compare notes.’
Romilly halted. ‘I thought you didn’t know anything. I thought you were pure as the driven snow?’
‘My friend just died,’ said Kit. ‘So I have an interest in this. A big one.’
‘I know that. I’m trying to track down whoever killed him.’
‘You hungry?’ Kit asked.
‘Oh, don’t give me that.’
‘What?’
‘The I’m-so-fucking-irresistible crap you’re so good at.’
His face lit up in a grin.
Christ, he was annoying! But she was tired, and yes, she was hungry. All that was waiting for her at home was a cold empty house and a TV dinner she’d have to heat through herself. That, and a lot of dead memories.
‘OK,’ she said.
86
Daniel was glad to fall into bed in the room Vanessa had provided for him that night. All day he’d been keeping a watchful eye on Daisy and the twins as they romped around the grounds of Brayfield. He couldn’t help thinking that when she wasn’t half out of her mind with grief, Daisy was a great mum to those two boys. A playmate, a friend. A great hugger.
Tomorrow morning, they were going back to Marlow, leaving the twins here with Jody and Vanessa. It had been an eye-opening experience for him, coming here. Given him a better insight into Daisy, and her relationship with Rob.
It was a different world, this place. He’d had lunch in the kitchen, home-made parsnip soup and sandwiches supplied by the housekeeper, and had eaten with silent, surly Ivan there at the kitchen table. Daisy had told him a bit about Ivan – that he was ex-SAS, tough and wiry as a terrier. That Ivan and Rob had clashed once or twice.
Rob and Ivan.
Christ, he would have bought tickets to see that.
Daniel lay in the cosy, chintzy half-light of the bedroom. The moon was full tonight, and he hadn’t closed the curtains. Out here in the country, the sky was navy velvet, studded with stars, the moon so white it dazzled. You never saw a sky like that in the city.
He thought of Daisy, in the room next to this one. Daisy, naked by the pool. Daisy in tears. Daisy, laughing with the twins. And now she was starting to depend on him, to lean on him. And in a way he liked that, it fulfilled a thousand fantasies, but it also creased him up with guilt. Shit, was he glad Rob was gone, out of the way?
No. Of course not. He’d loved his big bruv so much. He’d worshipped him.
Yeah, but Leon’s right, ain’t he? Now you’re lusting after his lady.
Daniel knew he was going to have to step back, step away from her. Truth was, he’d always been half in love with her and if he got any closer he was going to get hurt, because she was still in love with her dead husband, of course she was.
Step away.
Step back.
Yeah, that was what he had to do. With his mind made up, he closed his eyes, and was soon asleep.
87
The restaurant was pure Italian cliché. There were red-and-white checked tablecloths, bottles coated with candle wax, and piped mandolin music. It almost made Romilly smile. It was busy in here, packed with customers, but when Kit Miller strolled in a table was – miraculously – found, at once. That sort of killed the humour for her. That, and the way the staff hovered around him, made sure he had the best of everything.
Because they pay him protection? Because he scares them?
Probably both. Christ, was she mad, having dinner with him?
Well, it was only dinner. She reassured herself with that. She ordered the penne, you couldn’t go eating spaghetti on a . . . no, it wasn’t a date. Only dinner. That was all. In fact, what she was doing – really doing – was interviewing a witness.
‘Squaring it with your conscience?’ asked Kit, when she was quiet, thinking.
That jolted her. So he was handsome, brave, scary – and intuitive. ‘There’s nothing to square.’
‘You’re having dinner with me.’
‘The alternative’s a microwave meal for one, so this has its attractions.’
They had wine, breadsticks and chunks of warm focaccia bread to dip in oil with balsamic vinegar while they waited for their mains.
‘So prickly,’ said Kit, shaking his head and smiling.
‘While I have you here, I may as well ask you some questions,’ said Romilly, dipping bread and scarfing it down.
‘Like?’ Kit sipped his wine.
Romilly was chewing – the bread was heaven – but her eyes were fixed on his hands. ‘Like, what’s with those?’
Kit put down his glass and turned his hands over. Both palms were silvered with scars, the skin pulled so tight it looked almost opaque.
‘Played with fire,’ he said. ‘Got burned.’
‘Care to elaborate?’
‘Not really.’
‘Got any more interesting marks about your person?’
‘Yeah, I have. Got one where a bullet hit me in the chest. Missed my heart by this much.’ He demonstrated with a movement of thumb and forefinger.
‘Wow. So’ – she grabbed more bread – ‘tell me about yourself.’
‘Christ,’ he marvelled, watching her eat. ‘Do they starve you down the nick?’
‘Try this bread, it’s great.’
Kit looked at the sad-looking crumbs on the plate between them. ‘There’s not a lot left. You want me to tell you about myself? No need, is there. Most of it you already know. You’ve looked into my history pretty damned thoroughly, I’m sure.’
‘That’s true.’ Romilly selected a breadstick and crunched the end between her teeth while she stared at his face. ‘Let’s see. Kit Miller. Abandoned and raised in a succession of children’s homes. Reunited in adulthood with your mother, Ruby Darke, but you’d already been christened Kit Miller and you’ve stuck with that. Your sister Daisy was raised by Lord and Lady Bray, but she changed her name back to Darke when she was reunited with her birth mother. That’s interesting, that Daisy did and you didn’t. Indicates she’s closer to her mother. That maybe you resented Ruby for abandoning you as a child. Whereas Daisy – who had a much easier ride, I believe – didn’t.’
‘Go on,’ said Kit, beckoning the waiter for more bread. ‘Th
is is fascinating.’
‘Borderline criminal . . .’
‘Borderline?’ Kit echoed. He sounded offended.
‘Oh, come on. You used to work as a breaker for Michael Ward, who was a big noise in criminal circles. A real face. Just like Rob Hinton worked as a breaker for you.’
‘I run a legitimate business. Security and loans,’ he reminded her.
‘Isn’t that a cover for a lot else?’ said Romilly.
‘Can you prove this wild accusation, detective?’ asked Kit.
‘It’s detective inspector. And that isn’t an accusation, it’s a question.’ Romilly chomped the last of the breadstick down and took a glug of wine. A waiter hurried over with more focaccia, and she pounced on it. ‘I expect I could prove it, if I could spare the manpower to start digging deeper.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Look, here’s the thing.’ She waved a wedge of bread at him to illustrate her point. ‘You ever repeat this and I’ll say you’re a damned liar. But when they banged up a load of big Mafia dons in New York a while ago, you know what happened? Young punks were running loose on the streets, free to do whatever they wanted without the dons’ say-so. It led to complete chaos. A massive hike in unregulated crime. People living in fear. All because someone was super-keen to see those five dons sent down. A year, two years later? New York’s finest were wishing they had the dons back, because what they had without them was pure pandemonium.’
‘So what else do you know about me?’ He was smiling.
‘Oh, lots. You had a run-in with Tito Danieri over a girl called Gilda May, who went missing. Her folks never heard from her again.’ She nodded to his hands. ‘About the time you got the burns, right? I’m guessing Gilda wound up dead.’
Kit stopped smiling. His lips tightened to a thin line and his teasing expression suddenly shut down to hard blankness. ‘That’s private stuff,’ he said.
‘Touched a nerve?’
Kit glanced around at the other patrons. ‘You wish.’
‘And Bianca, Tito’s sister. You were linked with her five years ago but she vanished too.’
His eyes drifted back to hers. ‘Was I?’
‘You were. And Tito wound up dead. That was unfortunate.’
‘Certainly was, for him. Look, I hate to disappoint you, but there was nothing mysterious about Bianca “vanishing”. She took off to find her family.’
‘Tito was her family, surely.’
‘I mean her real family. Norway. You know about this, I expect.’
Romilly nodded. They were fencing back and forth with words. Parry and thrust. She was almost enjoying it. Then their mains arrived. There was the ceremonial peppering of the penne, some shavings of parmesan, before the waiter departed with a buon appetito. God, she’d been starving hungry. Limp and weak with it, literally. As often happened, she’d grabbed a quick bite of toast at breakfast on the way out of the house, and eaten nothing for the rest of the day.
‘This is so good,’ she said, necking penne.
‘You got a good appetite,’ said Kit.
‘I forget to eat sometimes. Like today. Too busy.’
Kit started eating, while watching her. All that wild, curly dark hair, it was pretty. She was pretty, with her solemn, super-intelligent brown eyes, big arched brows, long nose and decisive mouth. He could see she had a good body, despite the unflattering navy trouser suit she wore. She was tall, legs all the way to heaven. Put her in a mini dress, she’d blow your socks off.
Shit, here he was again though. If Rob was still here, he would say, What the fuck you doin’, boss? Girl’s a DI. Dedicated to the point of obsession, you can see that. She’s bright as a button and quick on the uptake. You won’t run rings round this one. You think I’ve been living on the edge? Well, so are you. Right now. And you’re in danger of going over it.
Only Rob wasn’t here. Kit wished to fuck he was, if only so he could kick his arse and ask him what the sodding hell he thought he’d been playing at, running drugs out of the manor, and not even having the decency to give his boss a heads-up, never even offering him a taste of the action.
Of course, Kit would have turned that down. Drugs was the one thing he wouldn’t touch, and Rob knew that. He knew how Kit would feel about it. It hurt and angered him all over again when he allowed himself to think about it, the stark betrayal of trust, the rotten feeling that he’d never really known his own best friend at all.
‘What?’ she asked, catching him staring at her face. ‘I got sauce on my chin?’
‘A bit.’ He leaned over and wiped it off with his thumb. It was an unexpectedly intimate gesture, and Romilly looked flustered all of a sudden.
‘So, no husband?’ he asked.
‘That’s private stuff.’ She returned her attention to scooping up the penne.
‘You don’t mind discussing my private stuff.’
Romilly looked up at him. ‘All right. No husband. He left. I caught him in bed with another woman and he acted like it was all my fault. He said I was married to the job and he was fed up with it.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yup.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Romilly shook her head. ‘So was I. For a split second maybe. But it was getting tired, anyway. And too restrictive. I need to keep my mind on this job. Let it flow, you know what I mean? Give the pieces a chance to fall into place. I can’t be thinking about dinners and laundry and who last did the hoovering. I guess he didn’t like that.’
‘No kids?’ he asked.
‘None. You?’
Kit shook his head.
‘Then we’re both footloose and fancy-free,’ she said, and scooped up the last of the penne and wiped her plate with the last bit of bread. She gave him a bright smile. ‘Ain’t life grand?’
‘Oh sure. My best pal just died. It’s great. And then all this stuff with him, things I didn’t know about. The money in the lock-up, for example.’ Kit put his fork down and looked at her. ‘You know, I always thought Rob told me everything. And he always had my back. Always. Now, this. It’s as if I didn’t know him at all.’
Romilly paused. ‘Rob Hinton was your minder, wasn’t he? Maybe someone’s thinking, take out the wall and everything behind it’s wide open.’
‘They could have got me on the same day they got Rob.’
‘That was probably the intention. But you got away.’ She looked at him. ‘Aren’t you scared?’
Kit sighed. ‘What’s the point of living your life in fear?’
‘There were three shots fired at the church. The one with your name on it ended up in the church door. Our firearms experts say maybe the shooter got distracted. Or a sudden gust of wind. Something like that.’ Romilly returned his level stare. ‘Three murders. All connected. Loosely. Your mate and the photographer. I would have treated those two as a separate deal if not for the fact that the man who killed them also appears to have killed Crystal Rose, and was last seen in your mum’s club.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘He was target-shooting near Crystal’s grave site.’ She paused, considering. ‘It seemed cruel. Don’t you think?’
‘What?’
Romilly shrugged. ‘Your friend could have been shot anywhere, at any time. But no, they went for the wedding day. Inflicting the most hurt. On you, and your mother and your sister Daisy, and on Rob’s family. There’s two married sisters, isn’t that right?’
Kit nodded, ploughed on with the pasta. What she’d said was spot on. It had been cruel. And like ripples in a pond, the hurt from it was still filtering outward. Daisy scoring drugs and trying to drown herself. Rob’s mother, his brothers and sisters, gutted, bereft. And him. Losing his best mate on a day that should have been so happy.
Yeah, cruel summed it up.
‘And there are two younger brothers, who both work for you, correct?’
‘Daniel and Leon. That’s right.’ He put his knife and fork down. ‘Look, lay off Daisy, will you?’ said Ki
t. ‘She’s in bits. Devastated. Leave her alone. You want anything else to eat? Coffee?’
‘Not for me. I’ve got to go. And we’ll see as to whether or not I have to question Daisy again.’ Romilly gathered her bag and stood up. ‘And Mr Miller – I haven’t forgotten what happened at the funeral.’
‘What did happen at the funeral?’ he asked, all innocence.
The kiss.
It hung between them, unspoken.
‘And I haven’t forgiven it, either. Be warned. Thanks for dinner.’
Kit shrugged. OK. He watched her cross the busy restaurant at a brisk pace and leave. He was half smiling.
Stupid.
But he liked her.
88
Now this was interesting. The killer had been following Miller and now Miller was with that detective inspector woman. They’d gone into an Italian restaurant. Sitting out-side at one of the tables, he sipped a coffee and watched them. They were seated way back in the place in one of the banquettes, best seats in the house. Well, of course. For Kit Miller, what else?
He always liked to get to know his targets thoroughly. He’d followed Rob Hinton quite a few times, and Clive Lewis too. Kit Miller interested him most of all. Because the man had presence. And unless the killer was very much mistaken, that female DI was looking at him in a way that was not disinterested. A DI and a villain like Miller? Well, these things could happen. But he hoped the DI wasn’t too committed yet, because if she was, she was going to get her brittle little copper’s heart broken into a thousand tiny pieces, because Kit Miller was already as good as dead.
The killer had sussed out the place to do the job. He’d tested it. Declared himself satisfied with it. Now all he had to do was wait until the moment was right. And it wouldn’t be long before he could finish the job once and for all, get his pay, and move on.
The woman was standing up now, hefting her bag onto her shoulder and coming across the restaurant to the entrance. She came out of the door and passed right by the killer’s table, then walked off along the road. He looked in at Miller, one last time. Miller was smiling after her.
