Nameless (22 page)

And now her mother had said she looked lovely! This was rare praise indeed, coming from chilly, buttoned-up Vanessa.

Daisy loved her dress. Yes, she thought all this coming-out business Vanessa insisted upon was impossibly old-fashioned, a leftover from the fifties – a last-gasp remnant of another time. But now she was glad she had laboured through all those tortuous fittings at the House of Worth in Grosvenor Street.

The dress was a swirling floor-length primrose-yellow shimmer of lace and chiffon, suspended from a nipped-in waist and a strapless, boned bodice. She fiddled about with it. She was clumsy and quick-moving. She worried aloud that her ample bosom might escape over the top of it if she moved too suddenly.

‘Well, you
don’t
move suddenly in it, darling,’ said Vanessa. ‘You deport yourself like the lady you are. You don’t dash around like an idiot.’

Vanessa bit her lip, aware that she had been sharp with Daisy –
too
sharp. She stifled a sigh. She tried so hard, she really did, but she couldn’t seem to help the resentment that haunted her every day. This feeling of resentment over Daisy’s parentage had grown and festered over the years until it was like a solid
lump
in her chest, stifling her.

Every time she saw Daisy, she seemed to be searching for traces of Ruby Darke in her – and, oh God, the worst of it was, she was finding them too. The older and more troublesome Daisy became, the more Vanessa pushed her away. She just couldn’t help it.

Chastened, Daisy stared at the dress in the mirror. It was the colour of spring, of optimism; she loved it. Better still, it hid her big bottom. She turned away from the mirror, watching her mother anxiously.

Vanessa sighed, sitting down on the bed in the master bedroom and holding out her hands. Obediently Daisy went to her, took Vanessa’s thin cold hands in hers, and sat down beside her. ‘I remember my own coming-out ball,’ she said.

‘Where you met Pa,’ said Daisy. She’d heard the story a thousand times.

‘That’s right.’Vanessa’s pale eyes were glazed for a moment, lost in the memory. Cornelius Bray had been a force of nature, completely bowling her over. He had been her first lover – and her last.

Not that he troubled her any more with all
that.
Thank goodness all that heaving and sweating was done with now. She suppressed a shudder of distaste. She had never told Daisy how painful, how horrible all that was. She didn’t want to frighten her. Marriage – a good marriage to someone suitable – was on the cards for Daisy. She’d been to the best girls’ schools and completed a year at Egglestone being ‘finished’; now she was being introduced to proper society. This was
not
the time to start making a bold-hearted spirit like Daisy nervous of what would happen in the future. It was her job as a mother to fill Daisy with confidence, to set her upon the path of life with brightness and hope, not misgivings.

Vanessa knew and hated the fact that her feelings towards Daisy would always be ambiguous. But still, she took her responsibilities as a mother seriously. But . . . oh God, Daisy was so young. So
innocent.
She had to at least warn her, if only gently . . .

‘Look, darling . . . you will be careful tonight, won’t you?’ she said anxiously.

‘Mother
. . .’ Daisy was half-smiling.

‘Now don’t take that tone,’ chided Vanessa gently.

She knew her daughter, through and through. She knew how impetuous Daisy could be, throwing herself into this activity or that with reckless abandon. When Daisy rode a horse, it terrified Vanessa to see her daughter hurling her mount over jumps that always seemed much too high. Skiing at Klosters, she chose the dangerous black runs and rushed down them with screams of exhilaration, not fear. She might easily, Vanessa thought, throw herself into the arms of some opportunistic and – worse – unsuitable boy, just as recklessly.

‘Don’t drink too much,’ she told Daisy. ‘And – you know – be careful with the boys.’

Daisy knew what her mother meant, even though Vanessa had never once mentioned the facts of life to Daisy, not even when she’d reached puberty. She’d learned about it in giggled dorm conversations with her friends.

‘I’ll be careful,’ she promised, although she thought ‘careful’ was dull, and to be avoided at all costs. She’d led a life of pampering and luxury; it had given her a feeling of absolute safety and self-assurance, in any situation. So she liked to push against the boundaries now and again. ‘I wish you could be there,’ she said.

Vanessa shook her head. ‘Now, darling, you
know
I hate parties. Your aunt Ju will look after you.’

And who’ll look after her?
wondered Daisy. Aunt Ju, her father’s sister, went crazy when she had a couple of gins down her.

They heard the doorbell then; the car was ready.

Vanessa dropped a quick kiss onto Daisy’s smooth cheek. ‘Have a marvellous time,’ she said.

‘I will.’ Daisy picked up her stole and her bag, blew her mother a kiss, and ran from the room.

Left alone, Vanessa stared at the door. The silence of the London house closed around her. She’d come up to town specifically to help Daisy get ready for her big occasion, but she didn’t like it here. Cornelius was out, of course, dining at his club, anywhere but here, with her. She knew she bored him. And now that the sex part was over and done, what else was there to be with her for?

Vanessa rose from the bed and went down to the drawing room to spend yet another evening alone. Tomorrow, when she got back down to the country, she would start replanting the roses. She had that to look forward to. And at least she didn’t have Cornelius’s witch of a mother to bother her any more. She’d died six years ago, and Vanessa didn’t miss her at all.

His mother had never liked her. She had always believed her son could have done better – and it had been awful, her knowing about Daisy’s parentage. Well, it had been her who had instigated the proceedings. It was her who had talked Cornelius into doing a deal with that common, awful girl Ruby Darke and
purchasing
a child since Vanessa had been unable to provide one. So . . . Vanessa had her mother-in-law to thank for that. She had Daisy: her daughter.

Only she wasn’t, was she?

Not quite.

56

1962

‘You Ray Cardew?’ asked Kit of the man who was peering out of the barely open doorway at him.

It was ten to seven on the morning after his meeting with Michael Ward and his boys. Kit had thought to himself: the earlier the better, catch Cardew all unawares, half-asleep or doing the old lady.

It looked like his idea was sound, too. Cardew was a scruffy-looking porker of middle years, wearing a sagging cream-coloured vest and pyjama bottoms. His thinning hair was sticking up like he’d had an electric shock. His eyes were pale, and bewildered.

‘Who is it?’ floated down the stairs behind Cardew. A woman’s voice, harsh from fags.

‘I dunno,’ shouted Cardew over his shoulder. ‘Go back to sleep.’ He turned his attention to the tall young man standing on his doorstep. ‘Who wants to know?’ he asked.

‘Mr Ward wants to know,’ said Kit, and he saw recognition flare in the man’s eyes.

Cardew went to shut the door. Kit jammed his foot in it, and heaved. Cardew staggered back and fell onto the stairs as the door swung in. Kit pushed inside, shut the door behind him, and turned and tugged Cardew back to his feet. He stared at him from inches away.

‘You owe Mr Ward fifty sovs,’ he said flatly. ‘And he wants it. Now.’

‘I ain’t got it. I don’t keep that sort of money around the place. Who does?’ Cardew was wheezing and wriggling against Kit’s iron grip.

‘That’s what you said before. You been putting him off, and he don’t like it. Now, he wants his money.’

‘But I ain’t . . .’

‘You ain’t got it. Fair enough.’ Kit pulled the hammer out of his jacket and dragged the man along the hallway and through the open door into the kitchen.

‘What the f—’ gabbled Cardew.

Kit flung him face-first against the table. Cardew went sprawling across it. Kit grabbed the man’s right wrist and held it down on the table’s knotty pine surface. Cardew’s eyes grew round with terror. He bunched his fingers into a fist.

‘No!’ he shouted.

‘Open your fucking fingers or I’ll do your knee instead,’ Kit said. ‘You
sure
you ain’t got that money?’

‘I ain’t got it, I ain’t . . .’

The hammer came crashing down on Cardew’s index finger, right on the joint. Cardew screamed. Kit took aim on the next, Cardew’s middle finger.

‘You’ve broke my bloody finger . . .’ he wailed.

‘And I’m gonna break this one too. Then the next, then the next. Until you cough up Mr Ward’s money. You got it?’

‘Don’t . . .’ Cardew protested, but the hammer came down again. There was an audible
crunch
as the finger was shattered and Cardew groaned and sagged against the table, retching weakly, his knees buckling from under him.

Kit heard a sound behind him and turned just as a woman, puce-faced with rage and with pink curlers sticking up from tufts of dyed blonde hair, picked up the frying pan and struck him with it.

Because he’d been half-turning, it missed his head but crashed into his shoulder. It bloody
hurt,
and Kit was torn between annoyance and amusement that the old slag had the bottle to tackle him. He grabbed the pan and snatched it from her hands, throwing it onto the floor.

‘Don’t you do no more to him,’ she screamed full volume, drawing her pink quilted dressing gown around her and glaring at him in outrage. ‘Don’t you
dare.
Look.’ She went to a drawer and with trembling fingers she drew out a purse. She looked at her husband, slumped over the table. ‘Silly
sod
, I said he ought to pay, but he always has to push his luck. Here.’ She licked a finger and counted out ten fivers. She thrust it at Kit. ‘
Here’s
his filthy money, I hope it chokes him. You black
bastard.
’

Kit pocketed the fives. He’d been called worse. He slipped the hammer back into his inside pocket.

‘Nice doing business with you,’ he said, and left the weeping man and the glaring woman in the kitchen. He went back along the hall, and out the front door. Job done.

When Kit pitched up at the restaurant that night, he was shown straight into the back office. All the heavies were there, as usual. There was an unknown man there too, a big blue-eyed bastard with an air of absolute self-confidence, greyish hair and a little beard. There was a woman there, too, hanging off his arm; a gorgeous golden blonde who could have been in her thirties or early forties, it was hard to tell. Kit took the bundle of notes out of his pocket, and laid them on the desk in front of Michael Ward.

Michael put his half-smoked cigarette to the side of his mouth and counted the cash. He squinted up at Kit. He indicated the bloke with the beard. ‘You met Mr Tito Danieri, Kit?’

‘No,’ said Kit, and nodded to the man.

‘You done good,’ said Michael. ‘He kick up much?’

Kit shrugged. ‘Had to bust a couple of fingers to make him see sense.’

Michael nodded. He couldn’t give a fuck what Kit had broken. He had his money. He stubbed out his fag in an overflowing ashtray, then pushed four of the fivers back across the desk. ‘That’s for you,’ he said.

Kit nodded and tucked the money away. He hadn’t made that in a
week
on the lorries. This business was going to be a doddle. And it obviously paid like a bastard, too.

‘Thanks, Mr Ward.’

‘Use it to get yourself smartened up a bit,’ said Michael. ‘You’re working for me now. I don’t have rough-looking articles hanging round me.’

Kit looked down at his clothes. All right, he was no fashion plate. He was wearing his old frayed jeans, a T-shirt and a plaid jacket lined with fake sheepskin. He was comfortable in it. He’d never had to dress up before. Never needed to. But now he looked around at the men in the room, took in the black suits, the crisp white shirts, the black ties, the shoes polished to a mirror shine.

‘Right,’ he said.

‘Good boy.’

He went back out into the restaurant and was through there and out on the street when someone called out to him. He stopped, and turned. It was the blonde woman. Kit eyed her assessingly. She was dazzlingly good-looking and she knew it. Everything was out in the shop window. The short skirt, the tight blouse, the heels, the heavy panstick makeup and the elaborately outlined ocean-green eyes. Yeah, she was an eyeful all right.

‘What’s your name? Kit, isn’t it?’ she asked, sashaying towards him.

‘Yeah. And you are . . . ?’

‘Gilda.’ She held out her hand. The multitude of charms on her gold bracelet jingled as she moved. ‘I’m a close friend of Tito’s. He’s an associate of Michael Ward’s.’

Close? How close?

Kit took her hand and shook it briefly. ‘What, like his girlfriend?’

‘Something like that.’ She smiled and her eyes swept down over him, then up again. ‘You’re a very good-looking boy, Kit,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ he said cautiously.
And you’re hot as hell, but I’m not going there, not now, not ever.

He was used to getting the come-on from girls. And occasionally from women, too; he had no objection to bedding older ladies. In fact, he preferred it. They were knowledgeable and usually up for no-strings fun – unlike some of the younger ones, who came over all hot and heavy when you least expected it. But this one was Tito Danieri’s territory, and he wasn’t about to tread on
that
bastard’s toes over a piece of skirt.

‘If you ever need any company of an evening, you could always drop by,’ she said, and handed him a slip of paper.

He took it, opened it out. There was an address written on it.

Oh sure,
he thought.
If I ever get tired of owning a pair of kneecaps, that’s what I’ll do.

He smiled and handed the piece of paper right back to her.