‘You got Reg here with the car?’ Rob asked her.
‘Just over there.’
‘Good. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow then, OK?’
‘Fine. Thanks.’
Rob went back inside.
Reg had the Merc parked up and he was standing, leaning against the bonnet, watching her.
‘Hey,’ said Thomas, coming forward and kissing her cheek.
He wanted Michael out of the way to get to you, said Daisy’s voice in her head.
Ruby stiffened.
Thomas drew back, stared at her face. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
Ruby shook her head. ‘Nothing, it’s just…’
‘Just what?’ he prompted when she hesitated.
‘It’s just that I don’t think I can do this any more. You and me. I can’t.’
He was still staring at her, trying to fathom her reasoning.
‘Something happened?’ he asked. ‘Is Kit all right?’
‘He’s fine.’ He’s crazy and he’s got that lunatic girl who nearly killed him at his bedside, but he’s fine.
‘Then what? What’s changed your mind all of a sudden?’
‘Nothing. But I don’t want to go on with this.’
Now his eyes were fierce. He grabbed her arm. ‘Bullshit. Something’s happened.’
Yeah, I’ve found out that you might have killed Michael just to have me, and you know what? That makes me feel sick, like I may as well have pulled the trigger and killed him myself.
Reg was coming toward them now, his face anxious.
‘Nothing’s happened. It’s over. That’s all.’
‘Not until I say.’
‘No! I say it’s over,’ said Ruby angrily. ‘And it is.’
She pulled her arm free and barged past him, towards Reg.
‘All right, Miss Darke?’ he asked.
‘Fine, Reg.’ She glanced back, just once, and Thomas Knox was still standing there, watching her go. She turned away, and told Reg where she wanted to be taken next.
The last time Ruby had been to Joe’s big house in Chigwell, she had been attending her eldest brother’s funeral after Charlie died drunk in a hit-and-run. She remembered the day vividly; she hadn’t wanted to come, but Charlie was her brother, blood was thicker than water and all that sentimental bullshit. And she recalled the way Betsy – who long, long ago had been her best friend – had lorded about the place while hosting the funeral tea, showing her grandly embellished palatial home and her swanky new pool house off to all the East End faces and their wives, letting them know how much better than them Joe was doing with his business dealings.
Poor bloody Joe, thought Ruby as Reg stopped at the gates and announced her arrival into the intercom. He could have done a lot better, a lot nicer, than Betsy, but there you go. Who knew what brought people together?
That train of thought led her back to Thomas Knox, and she pushed it aside. She’d done the right thing. Finished it. Kit was safe enough with his boys around him; she should never have got involved with Thomas, never asked him to find Gabe’s address or anything else. The thought that he could have killed Michael tormented her.
Was it possible he’d been so determined to have her that he’d have stopped at nothing, even removing Michael from the scene?
She was afraid that she had caused Michael’s death. It made her feel nauseous to consider it as a possibility, but there it was, right in front of her. Her own guilt.
A squawking voice emerged from the intercom, and Reg answered it. The gates started to open, and Reg got back in the Merc and drove up to the house along a deep dark avenue of shrubbery, the headlights forging a path. Reg parked the Merc in front of the house and Ruby peered out at it, lit by the porch light. To her eye, then as now, the place looked tacky, like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t. There was a white van parked up on the drive, and the sound of hammering was coming loud and clear from inside the house. Someone was working late.
Reg waited in the car and she stepped up onto the porch and rang the bell. The door swung inward. Instantly the sound of hammering and drilling was louder. Betsy stood there in white high-heeled mules, a filmy turquoise beach cover-up that clearly showed a bikini beneath. She was holding onto a lunging German shepherd by its rhinestone-studded collar. The dog was wagging its tail madly.
‘Jesus, it is you,’ said Betsy. Seeing the direction of Ruby’s gaze, she shrugged. ‘Just got out of the pool. I like a swim in the evening.’
And there she was, Ruby’s friend from when they were kids, Ruby’s best friend in those days – before she became attached to Betsy’s older sister Vi when they worked together at the Windmill Theatre.
Straight out of the pool or not, Betsy was wearing a lot of make-up, an extremely deep tan and a very expensive tiger-striped blonde hairdo. Her eyes were pale blue and still fiercely acquisitive, her mouth open in a fake smile that revealed a set of startlingly white crowns. Ruby could feel Betsy’s eyes moving up and down her body, assessing her shape and itemizing the value and the brand of every bit of clothing she wore.
No change here then, thought Ruby.
Life was one long bitching contest to Betsy, it always had been. Whatever anyone else had, Betsy wanted it – only bigger and better. It drove her crazy that her sister Vi had married into the aristocracy, outdoing her in the marriage stakes.
‘Yeah, it’s me. Thought I’d pop in.’
‘What, after all this time?’
‘Kit told me Joe’s not well.’
Betsy’s lip curled. ‘He never fucking is, these days. I suppose you’d better come in. Prince, basket.’
The dog dived obediently for its basket at the side of the hall.
‘Come on. He’s in the conservatory, he lives in there, loves it,’ Betsy threw back over her shoulder as she sashayed through the hall and into the big glass structure at the rear of the property. As they passed the kitchen, Betsy flashed her fake glittery smile that way. A scene of apparent devastation greeted Ruby; all the units had been ripped out and as she glanced in there, the integral oven was being lobbed out the door onto the terrace by two burly men.
‘I’m having the kitchen refitted,’ said Betsy with a triumphant smirk. ‘Walnut units this time; nice and tasteful.’
Ruby didn’t comment; she knew of old that Betsy had the decorators in every six months, that she was never satisfied with any improvement to her property for very long. Ruby thought of her own small Victorian villa, a far less opulent place than this, but infinitely more homely.
‘Here’s a visitor for you,’ said Betsy, and Ruby entered the conservatory.
In amongst the scrambling bougainvillea, the grapevine and the datura with its big peachy trumpet flowers, sat Joe. It was hot in here, and the darkness outside seemed to press in against the glass.
God, he’d changed! Ruby couldn’t believe that big, beefy Joe, once the scourge of the East End with brother Charlie at his side, had come to this. Now he looked thin, like the flesh was hanging off him. His features were gaunt, but his eyes were the same, a warm brown above the oxygen mask he had clamped to his face. But they had a frail and frightened expression in them that broke Ruby’s heart.
‘Joe?’ she whispered, hardly believing it.
‘Ruby!’ he let out a rasping breath.
She was looking at the oxygen mask, the tubes, the bottle at the side of his chair.
‘Hello, Joe.’ Trying to hide her shock, Ruby came forward. Hesitantly she dropped a kiss onto his thin cheek, and pulled up a chair.
‘Hello, girl. You all right then?’ he asked, clasping her hand in one of his. It was icy cold and she nearly flinched away.
‘I’m fine. Kit told me you’re not well, so I’ve come to see you.’
Joe gave her an ironic look. ‘Fuckin’ bastard, innit? I’m dyin’ on my feet here.’