Fats nodded. He was tall and skeleton-thin but strong as a whip. Everyone called him Fats; it was a standing joke. He ate like a horse, never gained a single pound.
‘Who’s on the milk round this week, Rob?’ asked Kit. The milk round was collecting all the protection money that was paid into Kit’s pocket from the shops, arcades, massage parlours, clubs and restaurants on his manor.
‘Paulie,’ said Rob, busy cleaning his fingernails with a flick knife.
‘He’s doing well with that. No problems?’
Rob shook his head. Paulie was built like a brick shit-house, no one ever gave him problems. Or if they did, they soon wished they hadn’t bothered.
‘Kit, the Bartons have asked me if you would show your face down there,’ said Ashok. He was a handsome black-bearded Indian youngster, full of attitude and sharp as a tack. He reminded Kit of himself, at that age. Ashok’s father and grandfather had served in the Indian army, and his own bearing was very upright, almost military.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Kit. The Barton family had run their restaurant for years, it was a decent establishment, and he was paid to keep trouble from their door.
‘Some rough elements been showing up. Two big lads and their girls, taking the piss, making a nuisance of themselves, saying the food’s shit and trying to get it for free. Fridays, Saturdays, they turn up. The Bartons will stand you a good meal, of course: whatever you want.’
‘Sort out a date, OK?’ Kit looked around at the assembled men. ‘Anything else?’
They all shook their heads.
‘All right,’ said Kit. ‘Off you go then.’
The boys departed. Rob shut the door after them, then took a seat across the desk from Kit, continuing with his manicure while Kit perused the post. There was the usual wad of bills, plus a large packet from the accountant’s office, all the year’s paperwork bundled up and returned. He tipped the stuff out on the desk and then had a sudden thought.
‘Hey,’ he said to Rob.
‘Hm?’ Rob paused, looked up from his nails.
‘Phone bills, right? People Michael phoned on or near the date of his death. Might help us.’
Rob narrowed his eyes. ‘You got ’em there?’
‘I got everything here.’ Everything legit, anyway. He sifted through the papers and there they were, quarterly bills for the office phone, all crossed through with Michael’s looping hand, Paid and the cheque number and the date. The flat phone bills were here, too: but no calls had been made from that phone, except to Ruby’s number.
Kit stuffed the rest of the papers back into the bag and pored over the phone bills. Each call was itemized. He studied the dates. Michael had been killed in November last year. There was a list of numbers here, and the length of each call, and the charge made for it. He found the fortnight before the date of Michael’s death, started looking through the numbers he’d dialled from this office.
‘Take a look at these. You know any of them?’
Rob came round the desk and looked at the numbers. ‘That’s Joe Darke’s, right there. He called Michael, that’s what he said, and Michael phoned him back. There it is.’
Kit nodded. ‘That’s Ruby’s work line. And her home line too.’
‘That’s Fats’s place.’
‘That’s the line out to the flat over the garage at Ruby’s house?’
‘That’s the one.’ Rob knew the number well; for some time, he’d stayed in the flat Reg was currently occupying.
‘That’s the meat market, we deal with them all the time.’
‘And the brewery.’
‘And Billingsgate, for the fish.’
‘That one?’ Kit pointed.
‘Dunno. Maybe it’s in Michael’s book.’
Kit pulled the address book out of the drawer. ‘Leave me with this, I’ll have a look through,’ he said, and Rob left the room.
Kit searched the address book from front to back. Lots of phone numbers in there; but not this one. Probably it didn’t matter, just some random thing. He picked up the phone and dialled a different number.
‘Miss Darke’s office,’ said Joan, Ruby’s PA.
‘Joan, it’s Kit, can I have a word with Ruby?’
‘Hi, Kit, putting you through.’
There was a pause, then Ruby picked up, sounding anxious. ‘Kit? Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I have a phone number here, one that Michael called the day before his death. I was wondering if you knew whose it is.’
‘Oh. Let me get a pen.’ She was shuffling papers. ‘Go on then.’
Kit gave her the number. Ruby was silent.
‘You know it?’ he asked.
‘No. I don’t. Look, let me check it out, I’ll call you right back.’
‘I’m at the office behind Sheila’s,’ he said and put the phone down. It might be nothing, nothing at all, but he wanted everything accounted for. He wanted to know what had been going on with Michael in the days before he died. And then, maybe, it would all start to make some sort of sense.
Minutes passed. The phone rang, and he snatched it up on the first ring.
‘Ruby?’
‘Yes, it’s me. No, I don’t have that number. But I forgot to tell you: I’ve got an address for Gabe Ward.’
Kit sat back in his chair. ‘How the hell did you manage that?’
‘Through an associate of Michael’s – Thomas Knox.’
‘I know him.’
‘We’ve kept in touch.’
Kit was surprised. He thought Ruby was straight, right down the line. Granted, she’d got involved with Michael, but he didn’t think for one minute that she bought into the life he’d been involved in. She’d loved the man, that much was obvious; but she’d chosen to ignore what he truly was.
‘Give me the address then,’ he said, and wrote it down as she reeled it off.
‘Kit, take care,’ she said.
He put the phone down.
Thought for a moment.
Then he dialled the mystery number and found himself talking to Lady Vanessa Bray, the widow of his own late father, Cornelius.
64
Ruby had been surprised by Thomas Knox’s house. She had pictured him in smoky pool halls, dingy little offices, back alleys. She pictured him roughing people up, doing under-the-table deals. She hadn’t pictured him living in a stately Georgian place in Hampstead, with comfortable, tasteful interior décor and a housekeeper who took care of the cooking, and took care of it very well, too.
They’d eaten dinner. A very nice dinner: tender lamb and croquette potatoes and fresh beans, followed by lemon tart, all washed down with a good red wine.
He was, clearly, a man of surprises.
But the entire time she was eating, Ruby was thinking about what Vi had once laughingly told her about men, when she was still young and naïve.
First they feed you, then they fuck you.
Which was true enough, Ruby had long since discovered. Now she found herself remembering Knox’s words to her at Simon’s funeraclass="underline" We’ll discuss how grateful you are.
She didn’t doubt that he was going to exact some return for his trouble, and she wondered how she felt about that. The truth was – and she wasn’t proud of this – he intrigued her. Not too many months since Michael’s death, and here she was being wined and dined by another man. She didn’t like the thought of it. But… he was hellishly attractive. Too attractive. Those cold, cold blue eyes… she sensed that if she stared into them too long, she’d drown in them. Completely lose it. She was a full-grown woman, she was Ruby Darke the Ice Queen of Retail, she wasn’t used to feeling this way, and it annoyed her.
Now they were sitting on a big buff-coloured sofa, the lights were dimmed, there was music playing. ‘The Look of Love’, Dusty Springfield. A classic. Yet the ambient lighting, the soft suggestive music, only added to her annoyance. She was annoyed at herself, at the way he was making her feel.