Jay followed and closed the door behind him, deadening the noise. Vittore sat down behind the desk. Jay sat, too.
‘So?’ asked Vittore, looking at his henchman’s ugly face, at the long scar running down his left cheek, disfiguring the mouth on that side. Jay wasn’t pretty, but he was loyal and straight.
‘You asked me to keep an eye on Fabio,’ said Jay.
‘Yeah?’ Vittore spread his hands. So?
‘It’s bad, Vittore.’
Vittore stared at Jay. This man had worked for him for a lot of years. He trusted him.
‘Tell me,’ said Vittore, and Jay did.
For days Bianca mooched around at Mama Bella’s, feeling miserable, rejected, ready to slit her throat. Then finally she thought, fuck him. He was just a man, just another fucking man, and she was tougher than this. She still had her life, her job, her family, and there were plenty of other men in the world. The last bit she told herself, over and over, but she didn’t believe it.
Tony Mobley had become her world.
But not any more. He’d dumped her; that much was completely clear. So she had to get back on the horse, get back in the saddle, carry on.
‘I’m going out,’ she told Mama Bella, and she did, touching base with old friends and getting legless at Global Village, going on a reckless round of high-end shopping for designer gear that she threw in the wardrobe, didn’t even bother to take the labels off, then off to Goldie’s with her mates for a night of dancing – until dawn and a raging hangover stopped the fun.
‘This is no way to behave,’ Mama Bella scolded her next morning, as she lay groaning in her bed. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Leave me alone,’ said Bianca, pulling the covers over her head. She thought of Tony, the rotten bastard, and the mixture of self-pity and hideous headache made her dissolve into tears. Whoever said love hurt? They were right. It did.
53
‘Hi,’ said the man, stepping out of the shadows.
Daisy was coming out of the back of Ruby’s flagship store near Marble Arch and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Ruby had asked her to come over and collect a couple of files from Joan, and she’d happily obliged. Anything to keep busy, to stop mulling it all over, thinking of how much she missed the twins, how she felt literally sick and empty and ached to hold them. It had been nearly a fortnight since Simon’s death, she still had his funeral to get through. And her nerves hadn’t stopped jangling since that horrible experience on the road with the Danieri bastards.
On top of everything else, she was devastated at the distance Rob had suddenly placed between them. He practically ignored her now. Obviously he’d made some sort of decision, and their almost-romance was clearly off. That broke her heart. She adored him. Loved him. This wasn’t just a crush, this was serious.
She was thinking of all this and coming out of the back of the store when suddenly there was this scruffy, sour-smelling man standing in front of her.
‘Oh!’ she said, startled.
He was smiling. The light wasn’t too good out here, but she could see he was somewhere in his thirties and very skinny, almost gaunt. Junkie, she thought. He had puckish features with heavy-lidded eyes under arched brows. But there were big dark shadows all around his eye sockets. His grey-flecked hair was cut very short, there was a deep cleft in his chin and his mouth was thin.
As Daisy flinched away, he held up his hands in a Hey! I’m harmless! gesture, smiling at the same time.
‘Whoa!’ The smile widened to a grin. ‘It’s OK. I’m not a hooligan.’
People were flooding past them, coming out of the store to head home.
‘Oh hello, Daisy. ’Night,’ said Doris Blanchard, walking past in a group of chattering girls. Among them Daisy saw her tormentors, Tessa and Julie. They gave her hate-filled looks. She gave them back a look of blank uninterest. Fuck them.
‘Good night, Doris,’ said Daisy, then her eyes returned to the man standing in front of her. ‘You startled me.’
‘Sorry. My fault. Are you Daisy Darke?’
‘How…?’
He gave a smile. Daisy thought it had a flaky, mad edge to it. ‘That woman just called you Daisy and it’s an unusual name. Actually, I’m looking for Ruby Darke.’
‘She’s not in today.’
Daisy had done what she came for and now all she wanted was to hurry home. She felt jittery and exposed and miserable. It broke her heart that she couldn’t go to the safe house to see the twins; Kit said it was too risky, that she might be spotted and that would place her babies in danger. But she had been allowed to speak to Jody very briefly from a phone box, only to be told that Matthew had been irritable for the past few days, feverish, coming down with a cold or something. And Luke would catch it. They did everything in tandem. And here she was, their mother, unable to see them, feed them, touch them, comfort them in any way. She hated all this, and was furious at the Danieri mob for causing this excruciating separation.
They’re going to forget I’m their mother, she thought frantically. They’re going to start calling Jody ‘Mum’, their first words to her will be ‘Mama’!
‘Gabe,’ said the man blocking her path. He stuck out a hand. ‘I’m Gabriel Ward. But everyone calls me Gabe.’
Daisy stared at him blankly. She was worried, distracted, and she most certainly didn’t know or even want to know any Gabriel Ward.
Despite her misgivings, she shook his hand. It felt sweaty and unpleasant. He definitely had the look of a cokehead or a heroin addict. She wondered at the wisdom of abandoning the safety of Ruby’s house and coming here today; maybe she should have got Reg to drive her. But she had been trying to overcome her own fears, to prove she could do it; and now look.
Everyone was leaving the store, the crowds of shop workers were thinning out, the place where they were standing, behind the big loading bays, was almost empty of life.
‘Look, I have to go…’ she said uneasily.
‘Sure! Of course,’ he said, and stepped aside. ‘Only, I don’t have an address for her, and I wanted to talk to her. She and my dad were close, I believe.’
Ward? thought Daisy.
She stopped, studied his face. ‘You’re not related to Michael? Michael Ward?’
He gave that mocking half-grin again. There was something about his eyes that she really didn’t like. ‘He was my dad.’
Daisy stared at him, thunderstruck. ‘I didn’t know Michael had any children.’
‘I’ve been away for a while. Working.’
‘Well, I’m sure Ruby would want to meet you,’ she said politely. Actually she didn’t think Ruby would like to meet this twitchy, wild-eyed person at all.
‘So if you could give me her address…’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘What?’ He gave her a look of blinding innocence. ‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t, that’s all. Sorry.’
‘But surely she wouldn’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’m Michael’s boy.’
‘I told you: I can’t.’
Gabe moved in closer. His smile had slipped. He let out a laugh, but it sounded harsh, forced. ‘Oh, come on. This is silly.’
‘No…’ Daisy felt a shiver of alarm. She glanced down at her bag. ‘Oh… oh for God’s sake, I’ve left some files in the store. I’m sorry, I really have to go.’
Daisy hurried back inside, her heart beating hard. She half-expected him to follow her, to see through the thinness of her excuse to get away. The security guard was in his office and she went to the glass panel and leaned in close. Her eyes kept flicking toward the rear exit. At any moment, she expected Gabe to come in.