Nameless (37 page)

Vanessa was waiting for him in the gold-and-eggshell-blue morning room with the French windows that led out onto the garden. It was exquisite out there, the lawns manicured, the long borders overflowing with an artfully themed blend of pinks, mauves and whites. Vanessa poured all her love into that garden, and it showed. He went to where she sat on the love seat, seed catalogues spread out all around her.

‘Oh – hello, darling,’ she said, looking distracted as he bent to kiss her cheek.

‘How are you?’ he asked. It was like looking at a stranger. Once, he knew he had loved this woman. But there had never been a strong physical bond between them. For such an intensely sexual man as him, that had rung the relationship’s death knell. The sad truth was, her sex drive had always been low; and his was very high indeed, even in middle age.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, and he could see that she was having to tear her eyes from the catalogues, having to wrench her mind from the garden and the following season. ‘You’re here about Daisy?’

Cornelius nodded and told her all that his contacts had told him.

Vanessa listened, thin-lipped, while he spoke.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked when he finished speaking. ‘I’m worried about her. I don’t know what she’s going to do next.’

‘I think it’s best we give her a project. Distract her. I thought Mama’s gatehouse.’

‘But will she leave London? What if she’s in love with this . . . common awful person, this thug Kit Miller?’

‘Daisy may be a bit wild, but she’s not stupid. There’s no future in it. He could never keep her in the manner she is accustomed to. And that would finish it before it started. She’s used to a certain level and although she may be enjoying a touch of slumming now, it won’t last.’

‘You sound very sure,’ said Vanessa doubtfully.

‘I know Daisy. Please – just forget it.’

94

Richard Dorley was on the Rotherhithe ferry when it occurred to him that he was being watched. Twice before, he had felt that when he left his digs he was being followed.

Now, he could see two men standing by the rail, chatting. Every so often, one or other of them would lift his head and look straight at Richard. He knew he wasn’t imagining it.

He had hoped to have heard from that newshound Sammy Bell by now, and he was just killing time. A thick mist rose off the river this morning, foghorns calling mournfully. The sun was a tiny butter-yellow dot high up in a pall of grey cloud. He could see his breath in front of his face. Autumn was coming and still he had nothing to tell his wife. He was killing time, riding the ferry, taking in the sights and smells of the river.

But now . . . these two.

They
were
watching him.

They were going to mug him, that was it. Take his money. This was a big city, he knew things like this could happen. They’d rough him up, snatch his wallet. He felt a stab of fear as one of the men glanced at him. The man’s face was expressionless, like a statue’s: there was no feeling there. No mercy.

The ferry docked and Richard hurried down the walkway, shaking, his legs unsteady, trying to get some distance between him and them. He walked as fast as he could, head down, not daring to look back, carefully keeping among the bustling crowds. Suddenly, the two men were walking on either side of him.

‘
Hello
, Tony,’ said the bulkier one loudly, smiling, grabbing his arm.

‘We ain’t seen you in ages,’ said the other.

‘Christ, we ain’t seen you in
years
, you old dog,’ said the bulky one.

Richard stiffened.

‘Keep walking,’ hissed the smaller one close by his ear, and he felt something –
Oh, Jesus, was that a knife? –
pressing into his side.

He kept walking. Didn’t know what else to do. The crowd was thinning around them. He was too afraid to cry out for help. They hustled him along, chatting away as if he was an old acquaintance.

‘Let’s get a drink, shall we?’ said the bigger one, and suddenly they were peeling off, away from the crowds, and then they were in an alley, restaurant businesses backing onto it, big industrial-sized bins lining it, huge silver chimneys already exhaling steam into the still morning air.

‘Look,’ started Richard.

Suddenly they were hitting him. He tried to run then, but they knocked him over and he fell to the ground, jarring all the breath out of his body. He curled into a ball on the cobbles and then they started kicking him. The pain was monstrous, never-ending.

Richard thought with startling clarity:
I’m going to die here.

His whole body throbbed with pain. A steel-capped boot struck his jaw and he felt a distinct
snap. A
howling crescendo of agony enveloped his head.

‘No . . . please . . .’ he groaned, hardly able to get the words out.

But it went on. And on.

Finally he lay there, bloody, broken: finished. Too hurt even to plead for mercy. Consciousness was flickering in and out like a faulty light switch. He was retching weakly.

The big one grabbed his hair, jerked his head up. It felt like his head was exploding. He saw a face swimming in front of his eyes.

‘Now listen,’ said the man. ‘You drop this, OK?You been bothering a friend of ours, you know what I mean?’

Richard nodded faintly. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t
believe
this was happening to him.

‘You know.’The man was nodding too. ‘So let it go, right? Be a good boy. Walk away, while you still got legs to walk with. Understood?’

‘Please . . .’ Richard muttered. There was blood stinging his eyes, and he could taste it. His whole torso was afire. It was agony.

‘It stops here,’ said the man. ‘You got it?’

‘I got it,’ panted Richard, and passed out.

95

It was a long hard haul but eventually they moved Charlie to Acklington, an old RAF Base where Hussein of Jordan had trained to be a pilot. It was a semi-open prison in Northumberland and he was still graded as Category C; no longer seen as an escape risk, no longer so readily inclined to violence.

For Charlie it was a revelation. He had freedom for the first time within Acklington’s walls. Authority was relaxed. There were no dog patrols, no walls, only a single wire fence. Charlie was given work in the prison canteen, but he preferred to be outdoors so applied for work in the gardens and was soon given a try.

All the while, he was thinking about parole. Every time he was given his F75 – an assessment of suitability for release and behaviour in prison – he answered honestly. He’d done his time well, kept his head down. There had been a couple of minor rucks, and his run-in with John Corah, but overall he’d behaved himself, worked hard, passed a couple of GCE exams in maths and geography, shown that he could become a good citizen once more.

‘Suppose someone shoved you in a bus queue,’ came the question as one day he stood before the board. ‘What would you do?’

Charlie, spivved up to the nines, his thin wiry hair combed, his face washed, his prison garb neat and clean and freshly pressed, looked around at the board. The governor was there, and a doctor, a psychiatrist, an education officer, welfare officer, works instructor and prison officer, plus the probation officer, Mrs Mason, who had been his staunch supporter over his last couple of years inside.

‘I wouldn’t shove them back,’ he said, and smiled slightly. ‘I’d value my freedom too much for that.’

He knew what they wanted to hear. He knew this was an elaborate game, like snakes and ladders. Answer correctly, toe the line, be nice, and you might ascend the ladder to freedom. Say something wrong, and you’d slide down the snake and be stuck in this pesthole until you died.

‘Where will you live?’ prompted Mrs Mason, her eyes saying,
Go on.

They’d discussed this before; she’d guided him through the sort of things they’d be asking and told him they’d be very concerned about where he would live, what he was going to do with himself, once released.

‘I have close family,’ he said. ‘They’ll put me up until I can find my feet.’

Joe had continued to visit him inside. Good old Joe. The screws and even the governor knew that he had a brother. He never mentioned his sister. After that single visit, Ruby hadn’t come near, the cow.

It took nearly a year. The board recommended Charlie to the Local Review Committee, which would be made up of the entire review panel who had sat before, plus a magistrate, a judge, a Home Office official and a high-ranking police officer.

That obstacle surmounted, Charlie’s case was recommended to the Joint Committee. It ruled in his favour, and then the whole thing was assessed again by the Parole Board. Finally, a recommendation was made to the Home Secretary.

In the end, Charlie was left feeling depressed by the length and intricacy of the process. He became withdrawn, certain that it wouldn’t work, that he’d end his days inside. The medics gave him some pills. Six months dragged by, then another six. Then, just before Christmas, he was called into the governor’s office. A welfare officer and his probation officer were there.

They were all smiling at Charlie.

The governor handed him a piece of paper.

On it was his release date: 1 June of the following year.

Charlie didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry.

He was getting out. At last.

And when he
did,
God help that bitch sister of his.

BOOK THREE

96

1971

At ten past nine on 1 June Charlie was called down to the office after a sleepless night to sign for his bank book and for the few possessions he’d had when he’d been arrested all that long time ago – his clothes, a little cash, comb, a bunch of keys, some photos, an old watch and chain, and Rachel’s hair slide.

He dumped the old clothes straight in the bin – he’d been out of the hostel with his probation officer already, and was wearing new. The assistant governor came down and told him that he had to report to his probation officer today, without fail. He had signed his lifer’s licence. When the assistant governor had gone, he sat on his bed and looked at the hair slide, seeing her all over again – Rachel Tranter, the only woman he’d ever loved, and lost so brutally during the war.

Now he had only Joe and Betsy to rely on; they’d agreed to take him in. And he had a score to settle.

‘That’s not a return ticket, I hope?’ the prison officer joked with him as he went to walk out the door of Maidstone with his train ticket in his hand.

‘Not effing likely,’ said Charlie, and the PO laughed.

Charlie walked down County Road to Maidstone East station, and waited for the train that would take him back to his old life.

97

It was all progressing fine at Ruby’s latest London project. Soon there would be another Darkes department store open for business. The main shell of the building was up and now the builders had almost finished excavating the spoil to lay the foundations for the warehouse at the back of the store. Ruby was proudly showing Vi around the place.

‘I’m not wearing a hard hat, it will
ruin
my hair,’ said Vi when Ruby met her at the polythene-sheeted entrance clutching two of them.

Ruby had to smile. Vi was still as chic as a fashion plate, her attire faultless, her hair exquisitely cut and vividly coloured. Her nails were long and painted scarlet, to match her lipstick. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl. Vi moved, as always, in a cloud of Devon Violets.

Ruby felt a surge of real affection for her old friend, and compassion too. She knew that the young ‘companions’ Vi had enjoyed so much over the years were getting thin on the ground now. Yes, she was ridiculously wealthy; but for many of those hard-hearted young stallions who’d once feted her, she was now – quite simply – too
old.

‘Put it on. It’s for safety,’ insisted Ruby. Grumbling, Vi did so. Ruby led the way through the windy, echoing building’s emerging skeleton, pointing out to Vi what would go where.

‘Ground floor’s for the food hall, plus women’s, children’s, and men’s clothing.’ Ruby pointed upward. There were staircases, but as yet no escalators. ‘First floor, that’s home furnishings, china, bedding, that sort of thing. Second floor, the offices.’

Vi was looking around, nodding.

‘What do you think?’ asked Ruby when she didn’t speak.

‘What I
think
is you’ve come a bloody long way from an East End corner shop.’

Ruby’s smile widened. ‘Do you think it’s OK for Lady Albemarle to have a friend who’s in trade?’

‘More than OK,’ said Vi, and gave Ruby a quick, impulsive hug.

Daisy met Kit for dinner. It was almost a year since the night when Tito had burnt him, and his hands were better. There were scars, but they would fade. The ones that showed, anyway. He still mourned Gilda. He still wanted to slit Tito’s throat.

Since that horrible night, every time he saw Daisy she made him spread out his hands so she could look at the damage.

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘It still looks so bad.’

‘It’s nothing.’ Kit retracted his hands. ‘I’m sorry you got involved, that’s all.’

‘Well, if I hadn’t, you’d have been in even bigger trouble than you were.’

‘You’re right.’ Kit hadn’t filled Daisy in on the finer details of what happened that night. He’d told her it had been a misunderstanding over a woman, and that Mr Ward had sorted it. That was all she needed to know.

But he couldn’t get Gilda and her awful fate out of his head. It was
his
fault she’d died, he was weighed down with guilt. And one day, he would have his revenge on Tito. But for now, he was back at work, heading up Michael’s work-force as usual, and tomorrow he would resume what he had been looking into for Mr Ward before the ruck – this kid that Charlie Darke had been trying to dispose of during the war. Actually, he had no real idea how to proceed with that. So he was going to retrace his steps, see if he’d missed anything.