‘Wait-’
‘You got anything to say, you say it to me. I been hearing you’re not happy with my situation. That’s tough. Understandable but tough.’
‘But-’
‘Listen, cunt.’ Kit shook Gabe. ‘Did I ask you to speak?
No. So just listen. Your dad trusted me. We were close. He wanted me to benefit when he wasn’t here any longer. That was his decision. I didn’t force it. I couldn’t. You and him, you fell out years ago. Now you come around here, wanting what I’ve worked for, slaved for, poking your stupid nose in where it’s not wanted, frightening my sister, thinking you’re going to be allowed to throw a scare into my mother – you cheeky little prick.’
Gabe was silent now, panting, blood trickling down and dripping onto the front of his shirt. He was shaking like a sick old man.
‘You got something to say then?’ asked Kit, while Rob stood by, watching.
‘Have you?’ Kit jammed his fist further into Gabe’s throat.
‘No. No!’ Gabe wheezed out. ‘Don’t, you’re…’
‘Throttling you?’ Kit suggested. ‘Listen, you turd, come near my family again and I won’t play at this like I’m doing now, you got me? I’ll finish the fucking job – and you with it.’
Kit stared at Gabe. This had frightened Daisy? All he saw was a pathetic wreck, more to be pitied than anything else. He let Gabe go, and the man sank down onto the grubby floor and stayed there.
Kit pointed a finger at him. ‘What do you know about
Michael’s death, you tosser?’ he demanded.
‘What…?’
Kit yanked him back to his feet. ‘What do you know? ’ he yelled in Gabe’s face.
‘I don’t know anything!’
‘You got out of stir a week before he died, and you were pissed off because you knew he was leaving everything to me, not you. That the truth?’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘But what? Did you meet him in that alley, shoot him when he turned his back? Was that it?’
‘You think I did that, killed my own father?’ Gabe almost laughed.
‘You wouldn’t be the first.’
‘No! Not me.’
‘You didn’t, uh?’ Kit stared hard at Gabe’s face. ‘I don’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth,’ he said.
‘It’s the truth!’
‘Don’t give me that. You wouldn’t know truth if it bit you up the arse,’ said Kit, and nodded to Rob. Rob handed him the knife.
‘No…’ said Gabe, eyes crazy with terror.
When Kit raised the knife, Gabe shrieked. Someone next door started banging on the wall, yelling at them to keep it down. Kit stood there, looking at the mess of a man in front of him. Gabe was wearing tattered jeans and a sweat-stinking grey T-shirt; Kit could smell his fear, could see the needle-marks criss-crossing his scrawny arms like blue cheese.
Slowly, he lowered his hand; gave the knife back to Rob. Then he grabbed Gabe’s head, brought those madly swivelling eyes to meet his own.
‘Here’s the deal, so listen carefully, OK?’
Gabe was shuddering and crying.
‘I said OK?’ yelled Kit.
Gabe nodded frantically.
‘Good. Real hard nut, ain’t you? Now this is it: I hear you been trying to get close to my family, or doing anything that I find even a little bit annoying, I am coming for you and I am not going to fuck around nicely like I’ve done this time. I am going to kill you. Do you understand me?’
Tears, snot and blood mingling on his face, Gabe nodded.
‘Say you understand.’
‘I understand,’ he gulped.
‘Not so brave when you’re not trying to scare women, are you?’ said Kit. He gestured to Rob. ‘What I’ll do, if I need to call on you again, is I’ll let Rob work on you. And then I’ll finish you off. You got that?’
‘Yeah… I got it,’ said Gabe.
‘First and last warning,’ said Kit, and let him go. Then he walked out of the flat with Rob following close behind.
71
Somehow, Ruby found herself thinking more and more about Thomas Knox. She kept asking herself, Would he be that much of an advantage onside anyway? But she knew he would. And she had to think of Kit.
Ah yes, but is that really your only concern here? Hmm?
Ruby always tried to be honest with herself. And she was being honest now when she acknowledged that she was very attracted, physically, to Knox. She might dislike his methods, she might mistrust him – and oh, she did, she really did – but there was no denying that, when he looked at her, something happened. Something that hadn’t happened since Michael was gunned down.
So, when Thomas Knox came to the store, presented himself at Joan her gatekeeper’s door and asked to speak to Miss Darke, she knew she was in for a bumpy ride. That this was going to happen, whether she actively encouraged it or not.
‘There’s a man out here,’ said Joan, coming frowning into her office and pushing the door closed behind her. ‘He says his name is Thomas Knox, and that you’re expecting him. There’s nothing in the diary. You want me to call security?’
Well, she had been expecting him, sooner or later. She had known from the start that whatever obstacle she put up between Knox and herself would be swiftly broken down. And right now, she wasn’t sure whether that frightened or delighted her. A bit of both, maybe.
‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ said Ruby. ‘Show Mr Knox in, will you, Joan?’
And there it was, the instant he came in the room and fixed her with those eyes. That feeling. She had thought all feeling was past and done, when Michael died. But no: there it was. She was still alive, still a fully functioning woman, after all. And now she realized how miserable she had been, how low she had sunk since Michael’s death. In the brief time she had been coming under the influence of Thomas Knox’s powerful aura, that misery had abated.
‘You’re a hard woman to track down,’ he said, taking a seat and looking around her office with interest. There were awards on the walls. Best British Retailer. Businesswoman of the Year. And there were pictures of her shaking hands with royalty and celebs.
‘That isn’t true,’ said Ruby. ‘You’ve been tracking me for some time, Mr Knox. I suspect you know where I am, what I’m doing, every moment of every day.’
‘You calling me a liar?’ It seemed to amuse him.
‘Yes, I am.’
He put a hand to his chest. ‘I’m wounded,’ he said.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘Yes, I am. Last time we met you called me a bastard and walked out on me.’
‘You are a bastard.’ They were flirting and she was finding it hard not to smile.
‘I was just doing a bit of business.’
‘And trying to combine it with rather a lot of pleasure, as I recall.’
‘Businesswoman of the Year, uh?’ His eyes met hers. ‘This is where you feel safest, am I right? Here at work. In control of things. You know it’s Saturday, Ruby? It’s the weekend, and here you are – working.’
‘The store’s open on a Saturday,’ said Ruby.
He eyed her for long moments. ‘You know, I look at you, sitting there behind your desk, and I begin to see you more clearly.’
Ruby cocked her head to one side and returned his stare. ‘All right, what do you see?’ she asked, amused.
‘I see…’ He pursed his lips, his eyes never leaving hers… ‘I see a woman who hides from the world because the world once hurt her. I see a woman who buries her sexual nature beneath all this work stuff.’
‘Really.’
‘Yeah, really. That’s what I see. Now let me buy you lunch. There’s a hotel in Covent Garden, chef there does the best poached salmon I’ve ever eaten.’