‘What about the girl?’ Now he was looking more closely at Tito he could see scratch-marks on his boy’s face. ‘What is this?’
‘I thought I’d have a little fun with her, that’s all. Fuck her, maybe.’
Astorre stared at him. ‘You kiss your mother with that mouth?’ he snapped.
‘The little bitch fought, scratched me – look, you see the marks?’ Tito indicated his face.
‘You weren’t supposed to have fun with her,’ said Astorre. ‘You were to keep her safe until her father killed Corvetto, that was all.’
‘Papa, what can I say? I’m human and the girl was pretty.’
Astorre’s mouth dropped open. ‘Was?’
Tito shrugged. ‘She fought me,’ he said. ‘There was no need for that. And it was hot, I forgot about covering my face. Foolish of me, but there it is: she’d know we were behind this. The girl was dead anyway, Papa…’ Tito’s voice trailed away and he made a twisting motion with his hands.
Astorre thought that there had been every need for the girl to resist; Luisa Lattarullo was a decent girl, a virgin no doubt. And Tito had clearly raped then strangled her. Or maybe he had choked her to death while he was taking his pleasure, who knew? It was entirely probable that Tito had left his face uncovered quite deliberately, simply for the thrill of combining sex with a kill. Astorre himself was no angel, but sometimes Tito chilled him to the core. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard about his son being dangerously rough with women. But this time… this time Tito had gone the full way toward depravity. Astorre felt sick. He made war on men, yes: but women? Never.
‘You disposed of the body?’ he asked his son.
‘Of course, Papa. It won’t be found.’
Astorre had to think this over. The girl and her unfortunate father apart, he knew that Corvetto had many friends, and they knew, they all knew, that Astorre had sworn vengeance on the man. From a camorristi, such a threat was never an idle one.
And now Lattarullo’s family would be anxious to discover why their formerly placid kinsman had sliced Corvetto’s throat from ear to ear – and what had become of his only daughter, who would soon be reported as missing.
Someone was going to link it all to him, he knew it. And when that happened, the Danieris were finished; they’d be hanged, every last one of them, in the local square, Bella included. The Carabinieri would turn a blind eye as a lynch mob beat their door down, dragged them out one by one, and killed them.
He had known this would be a possibility, this outcome. His hometown was no longer as he remembered it; the place had been ravaged by war, wrecked by it, with desperate beggars in the streets and out in the countryside. There was no such thing as safety in Naples these days. So Tito’s rash input had made Astorre’s decision easier. The whole family – Astorre and Bella, twenty-two-year-old Tito, fourteen-year-old Vittore and Fabio, Bella’s despised boy-child – would have to flee.
39
‘I have to go back soon,’ said Kit sleepily, lying in Bianca’s bed with her – both of them naked and clinging to each other.
He kissed her silky white-blonde hair. He didn’t want to move from this bed in a century, that was the truth. After losing Gilda, then Michael, he had felt cursed: but here tonight in Bianca’s arms, he felt blessed. This was so peaceful, so right, a time outside of reality. But he could feel that reality starting to press upon him. Soon, very soon, he would have to go back, pick up the reins again.
Find out who did that to Michael.
Yes, he had to do that.
‘Up to London,’ said Bianca, her eyes closed.
‘Mm.’
‘No! Stay here,’ she said, a frown forming between her brows.
‘And do what?’
‘Dunno. Be my willing sex slave. Anything. Don’t care.’
‘Honey, I am your willing sex slave.’
He’d never known anything like this, as intense as this. They’d spent the past couple of days mooching around town, then they’d fallen into bed at night to feast on each other like wild animals. He had never felt so tired, or relaxed, or completely happy as this before. And he felt like an arsehole too, because he still hadn’t told her his real name; some slight remnant of his usual caution refused to let him enlighten her in that respect. To her, he was still Tony.
And he hadn’t checked she was on the Pill. He’d broken his own rule, hadn’t used a condom with her once. Crazy. He thought about it and found that he could shove it to the back of his mind in a compartment marked don’t care. He knew very little about her and she knew nothing about him, but what the hell? If she got pregnant, he’d marry her. He wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a moment.
‘If you go, you won’t come back,’ she said, and her eyes opened and gazed sadly into his.
‘Yeah, I will.’ I couldn’t keep away.
‘Will you give me your number?’ she asked, kissing his shoulder, inhaling the scent of his skin.
‘Nah, I’ll phone you. And I’ll be back as soon as I can, OK?’
Bianca heaved a sigh. ‘OK.’
Kit turned to her. ‘Don’t be sad,’ he said, nuzzling his nose into her throat. ‘This is only the beginning, you silly mare.’
‘Talk’s cheap,’ said Bianca, wrapping her arms and legs around him, holding him to her.
‘There are things I have to do,’ said Kit, feeling the excitement building again. He just couldn’t get enough of her. ‘Important things. But listen. Nothing comes between you and me. You got that? So shut up for fuck’s sake, and kiss me,’ he murmured against her mouth.
Bianca smiled, and obeyed. She didn’t want this magical time to end. She had a fear of abandonment, of being left. She’d often wondered where that fear had come from, because it didn’t make sense. She was a strong, self-sufficient woman. Whenever she probed her memory, trying to account for the fear, the same hazy images came to her: a blonde woman, smiling; a strong, tanned arm furred with blond hairs, holding her. Some sort of foreign language. Lefse, she thought. Was that even a word? What did it mean? And aquavit.
Now she looked at Kit and felt that old deep-buried fear all over again. Would she lose him, like she’d lost her darling Tito? She was so afraid that he would turn out to be just another man, taking his pleasures and moving on. And she wasn’t even on the Pill.
Bianca dismissed the fear, kissed him, gave herself up to the emotion of the moment all over again, and refused to think about the future, because this was so good it couldn’t be real, it couldn’t last. She knew it.
40
Almost a week after Simon’s death, Daisy bought a bouquet of flowers. Then she drove to the white house in Berkshire where for a while she had shared married life with Simon. She didn’t want to go up to the house, she couldn’t bear to see the garage where it had happened, so she parked up the Mini at the bottom of the drive and got out.
For days she’d been wanting to come here and pay her respects but it had taken her until now to gather up the courage. The lane was very quiet. She could hear a robin singing high up in the huge bare willow beside the gate. With a heavy heart she walked over to the verge. The wind gusted, and she pulled her mac more securely around her as there came a spattering of cold rain. Shivering, she took the bouquet and laid it on the ground beside the gate.