Nameless (35 page)

‘What’s going on . . . ?’ she asked, blinking, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

Tito was waking too, sitting up. He saw the two men there.

‘You ready then, boss?’ asked Biffy, his eyes glued coldly to Gilda.

She felt her skin start to crawl. She clutched the sheet to her, her fingers cold with sudden fear.

Tito turned his head. His ice-cold eyes bored into hers.

‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice rising in panic. ‘What’s happening?’

Tito let out a sigh. ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

‘What? What about?’ she asked, dry-mouthed.

‘About you.’

‘What?’

‘You and Kit Miller,’ said Tito. Then he looked away from her. ‘OK, boys,’ he said.

Gilda was dragged naked and screaming from the bed. Tito watched dispassionately as the two men hauled her out of the bedroom. The door slammed behind them and he could still hear her screaming. He sighed and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower to deaden the sound. It annoyed him.

89

‘Shit – you again.’

Kit couldn’t believe it. Daisy Bray really was the most audacious little mare he’d ever come across. She’d shown up once and he’d bought her dinner – out of pity. Straight after that, when she’d moved in for a smooch, he’d pushed her away and laid it all out for her –
again –
in plain English.

‘I’m involved with someone, I told you,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘So back off, Daise, for God’s sake. What are you trying to do? Have a bit of fun, slumming it with dodgy geezers like me?’

‘No! And are you telling me you’re faithful to her? Because I don’t believe it. There’s no such thing as a faithful man. There’s only a man who doesn’t get the offers.’

That amused him. ‘You’re so cynical,’ he smiled, wishing now that he
hadn’t
bought her dinner, thinking that she’d seen it as encouragement, when he had only been trying to let her down gently.

It wasn’t that she was unfanciable. She was. It was just she was such a
child.
She was like Tigger, bouncing around being lovable. And being bloody irritating at the same time.

Daisy shrugged as they stood outside in the rain, waiting for a taxi to pass by.

‘My father has affairs all the time,’ she said.

Kit looked at her. So she knew about all that. He couldn’t tell whether this hurt her or not. She was looking pugnacious, like she didn’t care. He thought her not caring was a thin veneer, nothing substantial.

‘That’s rough. I’m sorry,’ he said.

Daisy let out a brittle laugh. ‘Oh, it doesn’t bother
me
,’ she returned. ‘I feel sorry for Ma, of course. He’s always up here in London, hardly ever goes home. But then, it doesn’t seem to really trouble her too much either. Sometimes I think she’s glad of it, that it stops him bothering her. She’d rather hoe the long borders than get into bed with him, that’s my feeling.’

Kit absorbed all this with interest. Hearing the intricacies of family life always fascinated him. Daisy’s didn’t sound like a happy family. Kit wondered if there
were
happy families. There must be. Somewhere out there.

The orange light of a taxi was emerging from the gloom. The rain was coming down harder, and Daisy, in her thin little Laura Ashley milkmaid’s outfit, was starting to shiver.

‘This isn’t going to happen,’ Kit told her more gently, hailing the taxi, which swerved into the kerb. ‘Now go home.’

After that, he thought she’d got the message. But now, here she was again, waiting for him at the bar in Michael’s place.

‘Pleased to see me?’ she asked with a grin.

‘This has got to stop.’

‘You bought me dinner, and I thought I’d reciprocate.’

Kit glanced at his watch. He was meeting up with Gilda out of town at eleven thirty.

‘One dinner,’ he relented. ‘Then that’s it. OK?’

They ate in the restaurant. She told him more about her family.

‘Pa’s in the Lords. Tell me about your folks.’

‘Don’t have any,’ said Kit.

‘What?’ Daisy paused, a forkful of food halfway to her mouth.

‘I don’t have any family.’

‘But you must.’

‘Sorry. Nope.’

‘But who brought you up . . . ?’

‘I was brought up in a kids’ home.’

‘Oh God.’ Daisy put down her fork. ‘You poor thing.’

Kit shrugged. ‘It wasn’t so bad. Soon as I could, I got out, started earning.’

‘No family at all . . .’

‘None.’ Kit gestured around him. ‘My workmates are like a family, sort of. And Mr Ward, who owns this place. He’s been real good to me.’

‘I think I saw him earlier. There was this man, very handsome, middle-aged, everyone was being very polite around him.’

‘Dark greyish hair? Grey eyes?’

‘Yes. Very
penetrating
eyes.
Extremely
attractive. He was with a dark-haired woman, she was lovely.’

Kit nodded. Everyone knew that Michael Ward had a new squeeze, this career-lady Ruby Darke person he seemed to dote on. And why not? He’d been through a sad time, his wife Sheila dying of cancer. Having found his own slim slice of happiness with Gilda, Kit was glad that Michael had found a bit too.

Daisy chattered away as the meal progressed; and, true to her word, she picked up the tab at the end of it. They rose and left the restaurant, and he hoped she wouldn’t move in for the goodbye kiss again, and spoil what had, despite his expectations, been a pleasant evening.

Daisy didn’t. She was horribly disappointed, but Kit clearly didn’t fancy her in the least; so she had to put up with it.

‘Goodnight then,’ she said, and put out a hand. ‘It’s been nice.’

‘Yeah.’ He took her hand, gave it the briefest, tiniest shake, then dropped it.

‘She’s very lucky, this whoever-she-is you’re so devoted to.’

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say
devoted
,’ he smiled. But it was true. He was. It was an entirely new feeling for him. His stomach clenched with excitement just at the thought of seeing Gilda, tonight.

‘She’s lucky, anyway.’

Kit saw a cab approaching and raised his hand; but before the cab got there, a long black car swerved around it and screeched to a halt right beside them. The doors were flung open and three heavies got out and flung themselves at the couple. Kit, taken unawares, was forced into the car. And so, shrieking in shock, was Daisy.

90

‘Just shut the fuck up,’ said one of the huge bruisers when Daisy carried on screaming. He had black crew-cut hair and a big tanned face with small, mean features.

‘I
said
, shut up,’ he roared in her face.

Suddenly, Daisy was silent.

The man turned his attention to Kit. ‘Tito ain’t very happy with you. He wants a word.’

Kit’s mouth went dry.

Tito.

Gilda.

Shit. Tito knew.

But they’d been so careful.

Daisy was crying now, terrified out of her wits.

‘This is nothing to do with her,’ said Kit. His heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to come straight through his chest wall. ‘She’s nothing, just a stupid kid, let her go.’

‘You don’t want to be laying the law down here,’ said the big black-haired one while his two companions sneered at Kit and eyed up Daisy with interest.

‘She’s a fucking nuisance, that’s all,’ said Kit. ‘Gives me nothing but earache. Do me a favour, eh? Kick her out the bloody car.’

The black-haired one stared at Kit’s face, smiling all the while. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was the smile of someone who holds all the aces. He reached around and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

The car stopped. The black-haired one nodded. One of the others flung open the door. Kit thought of going for it, trying to get out, to run, but he couldn’t. They were half-sitting on him and there was a knife being shoved hard up against his ribs. One of the men grabbed Daisy by the arm. She set up a fresh shriek of fear as he tossed her out of the door. She landed in traffic, car horns blaring, brakes screeching as drivers swerved to avoid hitting her.

Daisy rolled over in the road, blinded by headlights. The impact of the fall from the car had jarred all the breath from her body. She lay there, winded, blinded, expecting at any moment that she was going to be hit, killed, finished.

She heard the car door slam shut; the engine revved hard and the car roared away. She opened her eyes and saw it shooting off into the distance. Sobbing in terror, she crawled to her knees. Another car roared towards her, then a red double-decker, headlights blazing. Not even knowing which direction she was going in, she scuttled aside, feeling her shoulder throb, feeling her knees stinging where the tarmac had scraped the skin away.

Somehow she reached the pavement and crouched there, shuddering, beside a lamp post.

‘Stupid drunk, silly
bint
,’ shouted a car driver from his open window, and roared onward.

The world spun. She grabbed the post and held on. Shit, she mustn’t pass out. She took deep breaths, staggered to her feet, held on tight to the lamp post to stop herself from falling flat on her face again.

Everything hurt.

She looked around hazily, tried to get her bearings. She saw the huge flashing multicoloured adverts all around her on the buildings. PLAYERS. GORDON’S GIN. LEMON HART. WRIGLEY’S. She saw the statue on the fountain in the centre. Eros. She was in Piccadilly Circus. She tottered back into the road as a taxi approached, its light like a beacon of hope in a world of sudden, shocking disaster.

She gave the driver her address. Her teeth were chattering now, she felt very strange indeed. ‘And please . . . hurry.’

They took Kit to a room over Tito’s club. They bundled him up the back stairs and into the big, grandly appointed room with its cosily roaring fire, sat him down in a Victorian nursing chair covered in gold-coloured velvet. They got out ropes. Kit surged to his feet, and they smacked him about until he sat down again. They tied him to the chair.

Kit groggily looked around the room, blood streaming from punch-cuts on his lips and nose, and it was only then that he saw Gilda, in the far corner.

‘
Christ
,’ he said aloud, unable to stop himself.

Gilda the beautiful, Gilda the chic and gold-laden, with her sea-green eyes and fabulous, fuckable body was beautiful no more. She was bundled up in the corner like a discarded rag doll, and even from some distance away, Kit could see that she was dead. Her throat was a ragged, open wound. But he could see – ah shit, he didn’t
want
to see it, but he could see it anyway – that before the bastards had killed her, they had ruined her looks. Her nose had been slit, and her eyes, her beautiful eyes . . . they’d been dug out. All that was left were two bloody sockets. She was still wearing her gold lucky-charm bracelet. He could see the dark heart there, the one she had bought to remind her of him.

His stomach turned over and he had to look away or throw up with the horror of it. And now, the door was opening. And Tito Danieri was entering the room, looking at Kit tethered there; and he was smiling.

Daisy had paid off the cab, and staggered half-fainting, shaking like a leaf in a high wind, into Michael Ward’s bar and restaurant. The bar was crowded, and she had to push her way in, force herself past bulky bodies. When the barman came near, she reached across and grabbed the front of his shirt. He looked at her, startled.

‘Mr Ward! I have to see him right now!’

‘I was here before her,’ said a man next to her.

‘It’s about Kit!’ she yelled, ignoring the man and directing her desperate pleas to the barman.

The barman looked at her white, deranged face. He moved to one side, Daisy still clinging on to the front of his shirt. He looked over her head. Daisy twisted round, and saw a young muscle-bound man with treacle-coloured hair and khaki-green eyes back there in front of a door. She let go of the barman’s shirt and shot across the room, knocking over a trolley of desserts as she went.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she muttered, stepping on trifle, nearly slipping, navigating her way on trembling legs around waiters and diners, heading for the man, the door, staggering, almost falling. She reached him.

‘Miss?’ Rob was looking at her curiously. She was very pretty, but she was obviously just another bloody drunk who couldn’t take her booze and was out on a Saturday night playing havoc while people were trying to enjoy a quiet evening.

‘I need to see Mr Ward, it’s about Kit,’ she said.

‘Look, miss,’ he started.

She could see it in his eyes. He thought she was spaced out on something. Maybe he had seen her here, with Kit. Maybe Kit had said to him what he had said to the men in the car. That she was a fucking nuisance, always sniffing around him.
Just a silly kid
, he’d said. That stung. She wasn’t that at all. And she
had
to get help.

‘Kit’s in trouble,’ she said urgently, hardly able to get her breath. ‘Three men snatched us out on the street, they got us into a car . . . they threw me out . . . oh, Jesus, please believe me . . . please get Mr Ward,
please . . .
they’ve got Kit, they said. . .’ She tried to remember what they’d said. About Kit upsetting someone. Couldn’t remember the name. ‘They said he’d crossed someone, they wanted a word.’

The name. Why couldn’t she remember the name?

‘Who?’ asked the man.

I can’t remember.
‘Please let me see Mr Ward.’

‘What’s going on?’

The door had opened and it was him. It was Michael Ward, looking at the minder and then at her.

‘She’s saying Kit’s in bother,’ said Rob.

Michael was staring at Daisy, noting her bedraggled clothing and her bloodied knees.

‘Bring her inside,’ he said, and the minder ushered Daisy into the room behind the restaurant.

91

Kit knew he was going to die, and die bloody, here in these gracious surroundings. He thought with sick horror of Gilda, and what she must have suffered before death released her at last from the pain of it all. Now it was his turn.