Then there came the incident, and Bianca discovered how thin the illusion was, how insubstantial. That was when she realized that this family’s secrets were darker and their ways more dangerous. They had power on the streets; and that meant they also had enemies.
She called Joey in from the garden one day, and he didn’t come. She searched for him everywhere, she opened the gate into the back yard, she looked upstairs in the house, downstairs too. He was gone.
Bianca was in tears. Then there was a commotion inside the house, in the hall. She ran through from the kitchen, smiling because this meant they’d found Joey, that he was all right. Her father was shouting, the boys were clustered around the open doorway, there was something…
Bianca ran forward and her mother caught her. Bella looked shocked, strained.
‘No! No, darling, come back…’
Bianca was still surging forward. Tito grabbed her arm, held her, but she could see…
There was blood. Something there, on the front doorstep.
It was…
Bianca felt a scream building in her throat, building and building…
It was Joey.
It was just Joey’s head.
Someone had cut her puppy’s head off, and placed it right there on the step.
Bianca never asked for another pet, not after that.
73
Kit, Rob and a couple of the boys turned up as promised at the Barton restaurant at eight o’clock sharp. Kit had decided to give it an hour, time for a snack or something, a small drink, then his duty would be discharged, everyone could see that the Barton family’s protection was right there on the spot and that any little tossers causing trouble here had better think again.
The family were effusive in their gratitude.
‘You want steak? Aberdeen Angus, the finest, the sweetest steaks in the world,’ offered Mr Barton.
Rob and the boys had the steak, Kit settled for the prawn starter, he’d be eating later with Bianca – assuming she showed up. The restaurant was packed and everyone seemed to be enjoying their meals. Then a couple of tough-looking young lads started to loudly complain about the food, playing up to their tarty-looking girlfriends.
‘This the best you can do?’ one was saying, loud enough for everyone in the place to hear. ‘I can get slop like this off my old mum, any day of the week.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. Can I bring you something else from the kitchen?’ the waiter asked, red-faced as the other diners fell quiet, listening.
‘I wouldn’t risk eating anything that came out of that rat-hole. I heard you put cat food in your pies, the health people found a load of empty tins in the bin round the back.’
‘Please, sir, if you can just keep your voice down…’
Samuel Barton was hovering anxiously by the till now, and his wife was starting to come over. Kit gave her a small headshake, and she stopped walking.
This them? he mouthed to her.
She nodded.
Kit stood up; so did Rob. Together they walked over to where the lads and their girls were sitting.
‘You want to keep it down a bit, pal?’ asked Kit of the one with laughing dark eyes, who seemed to be the ring-leader.
The waiter stepped back.
‘Who the fuck invited you to join the party?’ sneered the dark-haired one.
Kit eyed him steadily. His smile slipped a notch.
‘Yeah, fuck off, mate,’ said the other one, and the girls giggled.
‘You’re disturbing the other diners,’ said Rob.
‘So?’
‘So, you ought to stop.’
‘Yeah? Make me,’ said the bolder one, standing up.
Kit shot out a hand and grabbed a rough handful of Big Mouth’s testicles, and Big Mouth let out a noise somewhere between a bellow and a scream. Kit’s other hand gripped the back of his jacket, and he marched him out the door.
Rob hauled Big Mouth’s partner in crime to his feet and followed. The two girls jumped up and started shouting as they trailed after their two ejected escorts.
Outside, Kit threw Big Mouth onto the pavement. Rob dumped the other one down beside him.
‘Watchoo doin’?’ shrieked one of the girls.
‘Yeah, what the hell?’ demanded the other one.
Big Mouth was hugging his groin. He yelled as Kit dragged him back to his feet. Rob took hold of the other one, and they yanked them both around the corner, out of sight of the main street.
‘You don’t come near this place, ever again, understood?’ Kit told Big Mouth.
‘There’s no need for this,’ shouted the other lad, sounding scared. Suddenly, this wasn’t such a big laugh any more.
‘There’s every need,’ said Rob, and punched him in the head.
When Kit and the boys left at ten to nine, the Bartons waved away all offers of payment, gave them bottles of wine and almond cakes wrapped in napkins, and thanked them for their time and trouble.
‘No trouble,’ said Kit. ‘You need any help, you call us, OK?’
The boys drifted off to their cars, Rob and Kit to the Bentley.
‘You drive. Drop me off at Gino’s,’ said Kit.
74
Vittore said nothing to Maria about what he’d heard from Jay, about the club drugs stroke Fabio had tried to pull on him, or about her and Fabio meeting up in a backstreet hotel for sex. It had happened several times, Jay said, and it made Vittore sick to think that he could have been screwing his wife after Fabio had been there.
Not that he screwed her much, not any more. Like the whores in the club, he despised her. Now he knew that Mama had been right all along: these women were filth, not to be trusted. Look at the way she had been taking those contraceptive pills, and keeping him in ignorance. He should have known, then and there, that she was a dirty putta.
Well, he would see to Fabio later. But first, he would sort out Maria.
He waited for the dust to settle. Maria was treading very carefully around him, and he just bet that Fabio had told her that he was on to them. He also bet that Fabio had ditched her straight away. Fabio had good looks and a swaggering way about him, but he was no one’s idea of a knight in shining armour. If it came down to his skin or a woman’s, then the woman would catch it, every time.
Well, let the bitch sweat it out. Let her think that she might have got away with it.
‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said to his wife after supper one evening. She’d cooked rigatoni pomodoro, it was good; she wasn’t a bad cook. Not in Mama’s class, of course. He’d got one of his favourite reds from the cellar to wash it down with.
Maria had cleaned away the dishes and returned to the dining room, where Vittore was still swigging back the wine.
He’s drinking a lot, she thought with a little niggle of fear.
Ever since Fabio’s phone call, she had been on tenter-hooks. But perhaps… perhaps Fabio had been mistaken, because Vittore was acting normally, like everything was fine. And slowly, inch by inch, she had begun to relax. Tonight, she thought that he would want to make love. He might knock her around a bit first – this was Vittore, after all – but she was used to that. Then he would screw her, and fall into a disgusting drunken sleep, after which she could do what she usually did and go off to the spare bedroom to sleep in peace instead of having to listen to him snoring.
She’d wake tomorrow with a few bruises, but all would be well, all would be the same, with Mama hollering at her to help out in the kitchen, and Vittore being his usual cold self, and maybe… maybe Fabio hadn’t meant what he’d said, maybe he’d just been scared that night. And so perhaps soon they could resume their love-making, and be a bit more careful, of course, a bit more cautious, so that Vittore would never suspect again…