by Jessie Keane
Maybe somewhere Michael heard him.
Maybe not.
But he hoped so.
148
The launch of the select docklands development was going with a bang. At eight in the evening, nearly five hundred people were crammed into the marquee out on the square. There was a model of the whole thing, set out in the entrance lobby of the refurbished cotton warehouse, and VIPs were cooing over it, then going up and down in the lifts to marvel at the apartments with their stunning river views.
It was planned that later there would be designer shops, restaurants, a docklands railway – all the things needed to live the ‘café society’ life. There were drinks, nibbles and hostesses shimmying around among the jostling crowds, handing out smiles and nourishment. The noise and laughter both inside the building and out was deafening.
All Kit had to do was wait in the shadows, and watch.
He was watching Tito. Tito was surrounded by his heavies. Kit recognized some of them. Particularly the black-haired one, too bulky to move very fast, who had been there on the night Gilda died and Tito burned him.
All Kit had to do was wait. Drink would be taken. This was a social occasion, after all. No danger here.
By eleven thirty things were getting sloppy. People falling around the worse for drink. That was good.
Kit waited.
Now the crowds were dispersing, everyone heading home. Giggling and stumbling on the cobbles, they were making for their cars, for taxis, for the Tube.
Twelve fifteen.
No Tito.
Twelve twenty.
Ah. There he was.
Kit, dressed in a black tracksuit with the hood pulled up, adjusted the black scarf over the lower half of his face. His heartbeat picked up as he moved forward, on a straight line of interception with Tito.
Tito’s minders – three of them – were moving ahead. Tito himself, fat and prosperous-looking, was following yards behind, smoking a cigar and pulling on his coat. Kit saw the bright glint of Tito’s grey beard and his crew-cut hair in the dim sodium glare of the overhead lights, then Tito passed into heavy shadow. The minders were chatting, unheeding, up ahead.
Now.
Kit moved in fast. Tito was confronted suddenly by a black figure, standing right in front of him. His eyes widened in shock. His mouth opened. Kit struck, driving the thin stiletto blade straight up between the third and fourth ribs, right into Tito’s heart. Tito’s mouth fell open further, his eyes stretching wide in his head.
‘Not smiling now, are you, Tito?’ whispered Kit, then he yanked the knife free.
Before Tito even hit the ground, Kit was gone, running flat-out, away.
Behind him, he heard Tito’s boys start to shout.
Too late, boys. About a lifetime too late.
He ran all the way back to his car, parked over a mile away. Got in. Started the engine.
Job done.
EPILOGUE
Spring was coming. Birds were singing, the trees were in bud, the bright yellow daffodils were flowering in the garden. But in Ruby’s heart, it was winter. She missed Michael so much. Even work, the thing that had sustained and absorbed her for so many years, seemed to give her no solace any more.
As usual, she went to the cemetery on Sunday to lay flowers on his grave. Daisy went with her. After she had come to Ruby’s when Simon had attacked her, Daisy had never left. Rob had driven them to the cemetery. Jody was at home, with the twins.
‘Come on,’ said Ruby, taking Daisy’s hand. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’
While Rob waited at the gate, the two women walked over to a far corner of the graveyard. Ruby stopped in front of a moss-covered headstone.
‘Look,’ she said to Daisy.
Daisy read the wording on the stone. ‘Alicia Darke?’ she said aloud. ‘Ted Darke?’
‘Your grandmother and grandfather,’ said Ruby.
She stared at the grave. All those years ago, it had been Ted’s express wish that he be buried in the same grave as the wife who’d betrayed him. He must have loved her, somehow.
‘Wow.’
‘I never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me.’
‘That’s awful.’
Ruby looked at her daughter. So pretty, and so precious to her. She squeezed Daisy’s hand.
‘You look so like her.’
Ruby stared at the gravestone. Poor Ted. Cheated on by his young, flighty wife. Doomed to look a fool. Doomed to act like one, too. But Ruby couldn’t feel angry about her sad upbringing any more. It had, after all, given her something to kick against, and look where that had taken her. Now she was Ruby Darke, head of an empire of her own making. And she had a wonderful daughter who might one day want to become involved in the business – maybe even take it over.
No Michael though.
And no Kit.
She had been in love just three times in her entire life. Once with Cornelius, then with her babies – and she had Daisy back, it was a miracle, but she had lost Kit and would never have another chance with him – and finally, blissfully, with Michael Ward.
Oh, Michael, I’ll never forget you.
She had been cursed, but also very blessed. Kit’s absence from her life was a constant nagging pain. But there was nothing to be done about that. His mind was made up.
Ruby let out a sigh. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home.’
Rob had gone over to his flat above the garage block, and Jody had settled the twins down for their afternoon nap upstairs. Daisy and Ruby were in the small sitting room at the front of the house, watching an old Stewart Granger film and drinking tea. When they heard the car engine and the wheels crunching on the gravel outside, it was Daisy who stood up, stretching and yawning. She went to the window to see who it was.
‘Oh,’ she said, staring.
‘What? Who is it?’
But Daisy just glanced at her and said nothing.
‘Come on, don’t keep me in suspense,’ said Ruby, standing up and joining her at the window.
Ruby’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the Bentley parked there. And then the driver got out and locked the car up.
Daisy was grinning now. Ruby felt as though all the breath had left her body.
‘Well, aren’t you going to open the door?’ demanded Daisy.
Somehow Ruby got the use of her legs back. Her heart thudding in her chest, she crossed to the door, and went out into the hall. Sunlight was pouring through the stained-glass panels on either side of the front door, peppering the marble floor with blues, reds and golds. She was aware of Daisy following.
She took a deep, calming breath and opened the door.
Kit was striding up the path. As he saw her standing there, he paused. Yards apart, they stared at each other.
‘I can’t forgive you,’ he said.
Ruby nodded. She didn’t dare speak. She was terrified of breaking the spell, ruining the magic that had somehow – miraculously – brought him to her door.
‘You gave me up. Abandoned me,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes,’ she said, her heart hammering so violently that it was frightening.
‘But Michael wanted me to give you a chance.’
Ruby swallowed hard. ‘I see.’
‘So I’m going to, OK? I’m going to try.’
‘Right,’ said Ruby. ‘OK.’
They stared at each other. Daisy watched them, frozen, hardly able to draw breath.
Slowly, uncertainly, Ruby opened her arms wide.
Kit hesitated. Then he stepped forward and walked into his mother’s embrace.
AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD
In 2006, I first read about mixed-race parents having twins of different colours and I was instantly fascinated. Although it’s rare, this phenomenon of twins of radically different colour can – has – happened, when a parent is of mixed race. If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.
This g
ot me thinking that such an accident of birth could be the subject for a book: then I imagined blonde, fair-skinned Daisy, and black-haired, dark-skinned Kit, separated at birth but meeting up later on. This book, Nameless, began to take shape from that.
Jessie Keane
NAMELESS
Jessie Keane was born rich. Then the family business went bust and she was left poor and struggling in deadend jobs, so she knows both ends of the spectrum and tells it straight. Her fascination with London and the underworld led her to write the No.1 Heatseeker Dirty Game, followed by bestsellers Black Widow, Scarlet Women, Jail Bird, The Make and Playing Dead. She now lives in Hampshire. You can reach Jessie via her website www.jessiekeane.com.
Also by Jessie Keane
Dirty Game
Black Widow
Scarlet Women
Jail Bird
The Make
Playing Dead
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people and sources that have assisted and/or supported me in the writing of Nameless. Thanks to Louise, to Judith, to Wayne, to Paul Norman at Books Monthly, to Lynne and Steve, to Karen and Paul.
Thanks too to Donald Thomas who wrote Villains’ Paradise: Britain’s Underworld from the Spivs to the Krays, and An Underworld at War, and to Helen Chislett for her Marks in Time, and to Fiona MacCarthy for Last Curtsey.
Thanks to all my fabulous Facebook and Twitter (find me on Twitter at realjessiekeane) friends and fans, who lift my spirits every single day. And thanks too to all the newsletter enthusiasts and the visitors to my website at jessiekeane.com. Thanks, guys!
Onward and upward!
First published 2012 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76509-2 EPUB
Copyright © Jessie Keane 2012
The right of Jessie Keane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Macmillan Group has no responsibility for the information provided by any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites’). The inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content, products, advertising or other materials presented on such sites.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
BOOK ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
BOOK TWO
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
BOOK THREE
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
EPILOGUE
