Henry looked up. He was portly and avuncular, and he smiled when he saw Daisy standing there.
‘Help you, Miss Darke?’ he asked, coming over.
‘If anyone comes in asking for me, I’ve gone out the side entrance, OK?’ said Daisy quickly.
‘Sure. You all right?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Just got some things Mum wants me to do up in the office. Don’t need any interruptions.’
‘OK.’ He was looking at her dubiously.
Daisy went back along the labyrinthine, echoing corridors and up to Ruby’s den on the top floor, passing through Joan’s empty office. The store was almost deserted now, and suddenly she didn’t like the feeling at all. She opened the inner door with her spare key, locked it behind her, and then went over to the desk, picked up the phone, and dialled.
He was there within half an hour, tapping at the locked office door.
‘Daise? You in there?’
Daisy unlocked the door. Rob was standing in the hallway.
‘What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Daisy composed herself. She was Lord Bray’s daughter, she was the fabulous Ruby Darke’s daughter, she absolutely was not going to fall to pieces. But she was getting so tired of feeling under threat all the time. The Danieri mob outside Simon’s house – she’d nearly died of fright that day. And now this junkie stopping her at the back of the store, at first smiling, charming, then turning suddenly hostile.
‘Do you know a Gabriel Ward?’ she managed to get out.
Rob’s attention sharpened. ‘Kit’s Uncle Joe was telling us about him. He’s Michael’s son. Got out of the big house not long ago.’
‘Big house?’ echoed Daisy.
‘Prison, Daise.’
Not working then. ‘He was here earlier. Waiting for me outside.’
Rob stared at her. ‘Did he speak to you? What did he want?’
‘He wanted Ruby’s address. And when I wouldn’t give it, he sort of… well, got aggressive in a pushy, smiley, spooky way. I think he may have been on something. You know, drugs. He looked spaced out.’ Daisy took a breath. ‘What was he in prison for?’
‘Grievous.’
‘What?’
‘GBH. Grievous Bodily Harm.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Christ, Daise.’
‘I came straight back inside and phoned you.’
‘You did right.’ Rob was frowning. ‘Fuck’s sake, Daise, will you please stop pissing around and stay where you’re safest? We’ve got ourselves a situation here, you know that. You should have got Reg to drive you, you shouldn’t have come in on your own.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ snapped Daisy, irritated because she knew he was right, she’d been stupid to do it.
‘I’ll talk to you any way I fucking-well like,’ said Rob. ‘Kit’s the guvnor and he says I have to keep you safe. So whether you like that or not, I’ll do that.’ He took a breath. ‘There was nobody hanging about the back entrance when I got here.’
‘Good.’ Daisy eyed him sulkily, stung by that rebuke. ‘I didn’t know Michael had a son.’
‘Neither did any of us, until Kit and me went to talk to Joe. Joe thinks this Gabriel is spitting blood over Kit getting the firm. And it sounds like Joe’s right. That’s fucking annoying, him trying to come in sideways, starting with you and Ruby. Come on, Daise. Let’s get you home.’
54
‘Boss?’ Scar-faced Jay put his head around the door of the office over Vito’s. Downstairs, the club was humming and someone was hammering out a bouncy song that was pounding the floorboards beneath Jay’s feet.
‘What?’ asked Vittore, who had been sitting behind his desk puffing on a thin cheroot and sipping a glass of wine from his own cellar, a very fine Chablis; he had a good palate and he appreciated things like that.
He’d been thinking about his brother and his wife and all that family shit, and trying not to. To distract himself, he had opened the bottle and then the post – just bills as usual. Then he’d tossed the letter-opener aside and begun leafing through the day’s paper; inflation was riding high at 21 per cent, the Russians had put two more cosmonauts into space to link up with the Salyut 4 space station and Sinatra had successfully sued the BBC over some programme that had linked him to the Mafia.
‘You are never gonna believe who’s downstairs in the club asking for a meet.’
Vittore sat up. ‘Who?’ he asked, stubbing out the cheroot in a red Murano glass ashtray, a gaudy remnant of Tito’s reign.
Jay told him.
‘You’re right,’ said Vittore, standing up. ‘I don’t believe it.’
What Kit was thinking was this: he would talk with Vittore, work out some sort of deal with the bastard if he could, have a proper sit-down. It grated on him, the thought of doing this; the Danieris were scum. But this whole thing was getting out of control. Simon’s death, and then Daisy being so badly scared… he didn’t want that. If Vittore had a problem, it was with him – not his family.
So he’d come over to Vito’s with Rob for backup, and he’d ignored his own misgivings.
The last time he’d been in this place, inside this building… he thought about it, then tried to shove it back out of his mind.
The last time…
Gilda, lying dead
Tito’s men, holding him down
And, ah shit, the pain, the God-awful pain
But that was then and this was now. This time, there was Rob to mind his back, and this time Tito was six feet under and he was dealing with Vittore, so maybe this could come out right. He’d caused all this crap, now it was down to him to sort it out.
‘There he is,’ said Rob, leaning in to Kit’s ear. ‘And this is a bad idea – did I already say that?’
Rob had said it at least a dozen times, but Kit wasn’t listening. The place was packed and the noise of the sound system was awesome. People danced, drank, crowded at the blue-lit bar. Beyond the bar was a roped-off stairway, and it was down these stairs that Vittore was now coming, with the tall knife-scarred man behind him. Vittore’s eyes were casting around in the dim lights and the flashing strobes.
He saw Kit. For a moment Vittore paused there; then he gestured for Kit to come over.
Once they were all upstairs in Vittore’s office and Jay had checked that neither of them was carrying, Jay shut the door and leaned against it. Rob stood off to one side. Vittore sat down behind his desk, and Kit took a seat opposite.
‘What you come here for?’ asked Vittore, eyeing Kit coldly.
‘To talk,’ said Kit.
‘So talk.’
‘I don’t like what’s happening,’ said Kit.
Vittore glanced up at Jay, back at Kit. ‘And what is happening?’ he asked.
‘My ex-brother-in-law died,’ said Kit. Gloria Gaynor was vibrating the floorboards under their feet with ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’.
‘That’s very sad, I’m sorry,’ said Vittore.
‘Killed himself, that’s the story,’ said Kit.
‘Tragic,’ shrugged Vittore.
‘But see, I think it’s just that: a story. He was a stroppy little cunt, but one thing you could say in that fucker’s favour, he was always up. Never down. He had a good business, a family, everything to live for.’
‘Shit happens,’ said Vittore, nodding sympathetically.
‘Don’t it though. There was even a suicide note – nice touch.’
‘Nice in what way?’ asked Vittore.
‘Nice in the way that it made the picture complete. Man commits suicide, leaves note saying he can’t go on.’ Kit was eyeing Vittore without blinking. ‘Thing is, this was a little tit who could go on for England. This cunt would go on when everyone else had fallen by the wayside and gone down the pub for a beer. Giving up, giving in? Not an option for this fucker.’