Lawless (31 page)

Tito told her that Daddy Astorre was Camorra from the streets of Naples, but there’d been big trouble and they had to flee or die. Now, there was peace. There was church on Sundays and at least an illusion of security.

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 . . .

Vittore had drained his glass and was now looking at the empty bottle of wine.

‘Go down and get me another bottle of this,’ he said to Maria.

Anything to keep you happy, you pig,
she thought, and she went through to their small kitchen – nowhere near as grand as Mama’s – and opened the cellar door. It was then that she heard movement behind her, and started to turn as she stood at the top of the cellar steps, her hand reaching for the light switch. Below her, darkness yawned like the mouth of hell. She
hated
the cellar, it gave her the creeps.

The crashing blow on the back of her head was so hard that it was a sheer sickening impact, she felt barely any pain at all. She teetered forward, her feet slipping from underneath her, and went hurtling end over end down the steps, crying out just once, very briefly; then she was silent.

The poker still in his hand, Vittore flicked the switch. Light flooded the cellar, showing the neat rows of bottles stored down there – and Maria, crumpled in a heap at the base of the steps. Vittore descended the stairs slowly. When he got to the bottom he bent over Maria. Her eyes were wide open but they didn’t see him. Where he’d struck her, there was no blood; nothing at all. He reached down, felt her neck which was bent at an extreme angle. Not a pulse, no sign of life.

‘
Basta!
’ he cursed her, and just to make sure he hit her head once more, as hard as he could, with the poker, hearing the
crunch
as her skull split open.

Then, panting, he made his way back up the stairs, flicking off the light behind him, closing the cellar door. He went through to the lounge, put the poker down on the hearth; then he phoned Jay, and told him what he wanted done.

75

Gino’s was a small Italian place not on Kit’s manor and not on the Danieris’ patch either. He took a table near the door so he could keep an eye out for Bianca in case she showed. He thought that maybe she wouldn’t; that he’d blown all his chances with her, and maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. But . . . he couldn’t wait to see her again. Stupid, self-destructive though that might be, it was the truth.

When she came in through the door he felt that same dry-mouthed, heart-thumping excitement he’d felt the very first time he’d seen her. She was dressed in white, taking off her thin summer coat to reveal a crocheted white minidress. It had some sort of flesh-coloured lining, so that you could almost think she was naked underneath, but she wasn’t.

He stood up and she turned, her eyes meeting his. Her expression was very serious, her face paler than ever. Carrying a small clutch bag, she came over to where he sat. Kit kissed her on the mouth. The waiter hurried to hold out her seat.

‘Thank you,’ she said, sitting down.

‘You OK?’ asked Kit. She looked washed out, as if she’d been crying.

‘Bad day,’ she said with a little twist of a smile.

‘Well, let’s have a good evening, take the sting out of it,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ she said, her eyes holding his. ‘Let’s.’

The waiter came, brought bread and water, took their drinks order, gave them menus.

‘Actually, I don’t think I’m very hungry,’ said Bianca, perusing the appetizing treats on offer. She felt that if she ate a single morsel, she would throw it straight back up. Sitting across the table from him seemed surreal. She could still hardly believe it. This was not Tony. This was
him.
The evil creature who might have stolen Tito’s life away. The one who had insulted their entire family. The one who had wounded Vittore.

‘You sure you’re OK?’ Kit frowned at her. She looked sickly, as if she was coming down with something. Jesus, she could be pregnant for all he knew. Carrying his baby. The thought of it was so sweet and at the same time so painful, given that he knew such a thing could never be.

‘I’m fine. As I said, bad day.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Might help.’

‘Trust me. It won’t.’ She went back to studying the menu. ‘I’ll have the carbonara,’ she said, putting it aside. She wouldn’t eat it. She couldn’t. She felt sick to her stomach just being here, just looking at him, just breathing the same air. She couldn’t believe she’d been weak enough to sleep with him again, even when she
knew
who and what he was; she hated herself for it.

‘Me too.’ Kit put his menu on top of hers. The waiter came back, took their order. Kit was watching her. She didn’t look him in the eye.

‘Bianca? We have to discuss this.’

‘I can’t. Not right now,’ she said, and sat there in stony silence until their meals arrived. At which point she said: ‘I can’t eat this.’

Kit hadn’t even picked up his knife and fork.

‘Were you ever planning to tell me you’re not Tony Mobley?’ she asked. ‘If I hadn’t seen you at Vito’s, would you ever have told me the truth?’

Kit felt his guts turn over as she spoke the words.

Ah shit,
he thought. ‘I didn’t know you were part of that family.’

‘My brothers think you could be the one who killed Tito.’ Now her voice shook with stifled emotion. ‘I
loved
Tito. When I was a girl, I could always turn to him. I adored him.’

‘Jesus . . .’

A tear escaped, spilled over and ran down her cheek. She stared at him, eyes red-raw with pain. ‘I loved him so much!’

‘Bianca, wait—’

‘No! I think you
knew
who I was, right from the start.

And then – what? – I suppose you thought you’d have a game with me? Not content with wrecking my family, you thought you’d have even more revenge on us? You weren’t finished there. You thought,
I know, I’ll fuck the brains out of the sister too, I’ll make her believe I love her and shag her senseless
– is that how it was?’

‘No,’ said Kit. ‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know you were a Danieri. I
didn’t.
’

‘Then why the lie about your name? Come on. I would really like to understand.’