An owl hooted in the woods. Nothing else could be heard.
Had she dreamed it?
Then it came again. Knocking. Someone was at the front door. Her heartbeat picking up, she grabbed her robe and put it on, shuffled her feet into slippers and went out onto the landing to find her mother at the top of the stairs, flicking on the light. Ruby’s face was anxious.
‘Should I call Reg?’ asked Daisy. Maybe Reg, who was staying in the flat over the garage that was usually occupied by Rob, hadn’t heard a car pull up. But Daisy peered down into the gloom of the hallway and could see flashing lights, blue lights. ‘I think it’s the police,’ she said, and hurried down there, switching on lights as she went, Ruby following close at her heels.
Daisy was unlocking the door when Ruby stayed her hand. Ruby was thinking of Vittore, threatening Kit. You and yours, he’d hissed. She didn’t think Rob had relayed the full version to her, but she knew enough to be wary. What if these weren’t real policemen?
‘Who’s there?’ she called out.
‘Police, can you open the door please?’
Ruby hesitated. Where the hell was Reg when you needed him? She wished Rob was here instead. Rob would have been on the spot the instant anyone showed up. Then she heard other voices outside: Reg was out there. Better late than never. There was another knock at the door.
‘Open up, Miss Darke, police are here,’ said Reg’s foghorn voice.
Ruby glanced at Daisy, who looked as alarmed as she felt. Nothing good could ever come of a police visit at this early hour, they both knew that. She unlocked the door and opened it.
Reg was standing there in pyjamas and dressing gown, his white hair standing on end, with two uniformed police, one male, one female. Their patrol car was on the drive, lights still flashing, a radio blasting out intermittent, undecipherable words.
‘You’re Miss Darke?’ asked the woman. Ruby didn’t think she looked big enough or old enough to be a girl guide, let alone a police officer.
‘Yes, I’m Miss Darke,’ she said, swallowing hard.
‘Is there a Mrs Collins here? A Mrs Daisy Collins?’
‘I’m Mrs Collins – or I was,’ said Daisy. ‘What’s this about?’
‘Can we come in, please?’
Ruby led the way into the sitting room, followed by Daisy, Reg and the two officers. They all sat down.
‘There’s been an incident,’ said the male police officer.
Kit, thought Ruby in sudden terror. She knew how low he’d been the past few months. ‘Oh God,’ she said.
‘Do you know a person who lives at…’ he got out his notebook and reeled off the address of the white house in Berkshire, where Daisy had spent her brief and unhappy marriage with Simon.
Daisy stared open-mouthed at him. She felt the colour drain from her face. Felt her head start to hum. She looked at Ruby. ‘That’s Simon’s house. My husband’s,’ she said, forgetting about calling him her ex.
The female officer cleared her throat. ‘Your name and this address were in a notebook we found on him. I’m sorry,’ she said gently. ‘I’m afraid your husband is dead.’
33
Kit checked into a hotel overlooking Brighton seafront, then unpacked the essentials, opened the minibar, looked inside, closed it. He phoned Rob and told him about the Bentley.
‘Shit,’ said Rob.
‘Yeah,’ said Kit, looking out of his window and the rolling grey white-flecked breakers roaring in, driven by a fierce wind. Time off in sunny England, he thought. Should have taken himself off to the Costas.
‘I’ll see to it,’ said Rob. ‘You think it was Vittore?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Mm.’
‘Watch your back.’
‘You watch yours, Kit.’
‘I’ll phone again in a couple of days, OK?’
‘Yeah. Or you want me to phone you?’
‘No, I’ll be moving around.’
Kit had another look at the contents of the minibar after he put the phone down. Then he picked up his jacket and went out into the rain to play tourist. He’d never been to Brighton before. Who knew? Maybe he’d enjoy it.
He joined a bunch of people trailing a guide around the Pavilion, and heard all about George IV and his mistress. Then he got a bite to eat and wandered the Lanes, browsing the antique shops. Maybe he should take Daisy something, and Ruby… nah. Why should he bother with her? He thought that it might be nice to have a normal relationship with your mother, a real close mother-and-son bond, but they didn’t have it and he wasn’t about to fool himself that they ever would.
Far too much water had flowed under that particular bridge.
Because it had been Michael’s dying wish, he’d promised her this Christmas past that he’d make an effort to forgive and forget, but fuck it to hell, it was too hard. The truth was, he despised his mother. Wanted nothing to do with her. Could never forgive her for abandoning him as a baby.
After he’d bought a present for Daisy – a silver necklace with a titanium butterfly pendant that flickered with rainbows like oil on water – he made his way back to his hotel room. Again he gravitated towards the minibar, taking a long look at the contents before closing the door on it and going out for the evening.
He took in a club, listened to the music – Barry White, Queen and Sweet, all booming out in time to the flashing strobes – and he picked up a girl. He’d done this many times in London; he was good-looking and could turn on the charm when needed, it was easy. As always, he adhered to the bachelor’s code all his boys followed, and gave a false name. For tonight, he was Tony Mobley. Him and the girl ended up back in his hotel room having frantic, impersonal sex. Frantic or not, Kit was careful to use a Durex. Raised as an unwanted and fatherless child himself, there was no way on God’s earth he was going to inflict that fate on some other poor bastard.
By the time he checked out two days later, he’d looked inside the minibar eight times – he’d counted – but so far he hadn’t touched a drop.
From Brighton he caught the train into Chichester, and there he finally started to relax a bit, to lose that feeling of being under a cloud, being watched, being pursued.
On top of that, his head was clearer. So was his tongue when he looked at it in the morning after long, peaceful nights of sleep lulled by the sound of waves on a shoreline. He ate well, drank tea or water, took walks along the beach, and began to feel almost human again.
I needed this, he thought. I didn’t know it, but I did. Rob called it right.
He stopped off in Portsmouth for a night, took in the Victory, Nelson’s flagship, then moved on to Southampton to stay in the Skyways hotel. This would be his last night of freedom: tomorrow he would return to the Smoke, stop behaving like an arsehole, take charge again.
No more drinking himself into a stupor.
No. What good did it do, after all? When you sobered up, the problems were still there. And you felt like shit into the bargain.
No more of that.
So what he was going to do on this, his last evening, was take in one of the clubs. The girl on reception at the hotel told him there was a new one that was pretty good, just around the corner. He’d have a half pint of shandy, that was his limit – and thank Christ none of the boys were here to see him doing that, sipping watered-down beer like a cunt – maybe chat up a bird or two, then back to bed and out of Southampton Central tomorrow morning, home to London.