Nameless (32 page)

Ruby looked at her friend. Vi thought she had never seen so sad an expression in anyone’s eyes before.

‘Of course I want to see her.’

‘Why don’t you then? You could see her, perhaps even speak to her. She wouldn’t
know
you were her mother.’

‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Rubes . . .’

‘Drop
it, will you, Vi?’ Ruby managed a smile. ‘Or should I say Lady Albemarle?’

‘Do you know, I nearly purr every time I hear that,’ said Vi with a shiver of bliss. ‘
Lady
Albemarle. Isn’t it wonderful?’

Ruby smiled. ‘Is
Anthony
wonderful?’ she asked. Vi never really mentioned her relationship with the staid, rather elderly Anthony.

Vi gave her a wry look.

‘Now that really would be asking too much, don’t you think?’ she said briskly. ‘A thousand acres, a fabulous home in the country and another in town, pots of money and a ladyship . . . and then to expect your husband to be the life and soul of the party? No, darling. Anthony is . . . nice. So I think, overall, I’ve done pretty well. Don’t you?’

79

They drove down to the South of France in Michael’s Aston Martin, stopping off at Nice before proceeding to Cannes. Ruby couldn’t quite believe that she was here, cruising along the Croisette in the vivid sunshine, while Michael played his favourite audio tape of Matt Monro singing ‘On Days Like These’
.

‘That’s from the new Michael Caine film, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘
The Italian Job
?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘But the man was driving . . .’

‘A Lamborghini. Along the Grand Corniche, I think it was.’

‘Or was it the Alps? He crashed in a tunnel. The Mafia got him and pushed the wreckage of the car over the cliffs. They threw wreaths down after it.’

‘Well, we’re not going to crash,’ he said.

Ruby believed him. Michael was a great driver – smooth, considering, observant. He spoke French – not fluently, but enough. She didn’t speak a word of it, although she loved its lyrical sound. She had never driven, either.

In fact, she had never really lived. That was coming home to her now. Something deep within her was changing. She had been frozen in time after the babies were born and then so cruelly lost. All her feelings had become locked away; she had withdrawn from the world, hidden herself away behind the cool, efficient façade of the businesswoman. Forgotten about the world of pleasure, and sensation.

She glanced at him as he drove.

He was
so
good looking. His hands were strong on the wheel. The sleeves of his open-necked white shirt were rolled up to his elbows and the muscles in his arms were impressive.

‘What?’ he said, glancing back at her.

‘Nothing,’ she said, and fixed her eyes on the road instead.

She swallowed nervously. All the way down here, when they had stopped in hotels he had, without even asking her, booked two rooms, one for each of them. She liked it at first, but gradually it began to grate on her nerves. Didn’t he
want
to sleep with her? She felt at the same time pleased that he respected her wishes, and affronted that he did so.

Now he was booking them in to the Carlton. Separate rooms again.

Oh, for God’s sake
, thought Ruby, half amused, half angry.

He kissed her politely at her door as the porter took their bags, showed them their rooms.

‘I’ll see you for dinner at eight, down in the bar. OK?’ he said.

She nodded, bit her lip. Suddenly she was so furious she wanted to hit him. These were
fabulous
rooms, with endless views stretching away over the crystalline-blue waters of the Med. Rooms made for romance. But Michael just kissed her goodbye and went along the hall to the room next door.

Ruby unpacked, bathed, changed into white linen trousers and a turquoise top. Then she opened the balcony doors and walked out, inhaling the hot salty breeze and a faint sweet tang of lavender.
This is so wonderful.
But she felt unloved and resentful. She wanted to
share
this with Michael. But maybe he just saw her as a companion. Maybe – oh
shit –
he was still in love with the memory of his wife.

That thought sunk her even further into gloom. She went back into the room and flung herself on the bed. She glanced at her watch. It was only five o’clock.

Maybe he thought that she was just in this for the favours he could do her. Like getting the truth out of Charlie. And . . . wasn’t she?

Well, she had been. That had been at the forefront of her mind when she’d first called him. Three bouquets, and she had thought: all right, here’s a man with influence, a man who knows the underworld and how it works, someone who isn’t scared to break down barriers. He could help me. So – at last – she had called him, and now . . . maybe
right now,
his people were beating the details out of Charlie.

But things had changed. Being with him over the past week or so, spending leisure time with him – a completely alien concept to her before now – had begun to skew her feelings in quite another direction.

The cold, controlled Ruby was retreating. Now she was remembering the Ruby she had been as a young girl . . . but it had all been beaten out of her, first by her father and Charlie, then by that uncaring bastard Cornelius. She had been looking desperately for love, and instead disaster had befallen her.

Hadn’t she learned her lesson by now? It was dangerous to love, dangerous to trust. And she had
sworn
she would never love again. And yet . . . here she was. In danger of falling for Michael Ward.

‘Oh
God
,’ she moaned against the pillow. Three hours until she could see him again, hear his voice. She sat bolt upright.
‘Shit
,’ she said loudly.

She got off the bed, slipping on her sandals. She grabbed her key, then went to the door. She stepped out into the hall, and hurried along to his door before she had the chance to change her mind. She rapped on it.

He opened it after a few seconds. He was towelling his hair dry, and wearing another pristine white towel around his waist. Water droplets beaded his chest, rivulets running down from the dark hairs there. Ruby almost moaned. He looked startled to see her there.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

Ruby stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and lunged at him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him. She felt his whole body stiffen in surprise, then relax. He dropped the hand towel and fastened his arms tight around her waist.

The kiss lasted so long Ruby felt light-headed from lack of air when it finally stopped. She almost blurted out that she loved him then, but she stopped herself in the nick of time.

‘This is nice,’ he breathed, working his hands up under her turquoise tunic. His hands fastened over her breasts and Ruby let out a shuddering groan of pleasure. ‘No bra.’

All right, fair enough. He hadn’t said ‘I love you’ either, he was still probably hung up on his wife. Right now, Ruby didn’t even care. She was too caught up in the moment, feeling his strong hands roaming everywhere, sliding over her skin, dipping down inside the elasticated waistband of her flimsy white trousers to cup the cheeks of her behind and pull her in close.

Then he tripped her, and suddenly they were on the floor, on the carpet, and he was pushing the tunic up and over her head, throwing it aside, and pulling down the white trousers, throwing aside the towel he’d been wearing around his waist, and he was so beautiful, so strong, kneeling naked between her thighs, almost grinning down at her.

‘Why’d you take so long?’ he managed to say. ‘I’ve been dying to do this . . .’

‘I thought you didn’t want me,’ she panted, pulling him close, pulling him in. ‘Ahhh,’ she moaned as he slipped inside her.

‘You’re crazy,’ he gasped. ‘I adore you.’

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it would have to do. Now he was thrusting into her, and the pleasure was so intense that Ruby thought she was just going to die of happiness. She hugged him, murmuring endearments, until he could stand no more and he shuddered and grew still.

‘Think I’ve got carpet burns,’ said Ruby lazily, feeling so replete, so relaxed. She had forgotten how good this could be.

‘Then let’s get on the bed,’ said Michael, and they went over to the bed and sank down onto it, kissing, caressing, making love all over again, until it was eight and time for dinner. Ruby didn’t think about Cornelius or Charlie that night. Not even once.

80

Charlie Darke was hopeful of parole. He’d been careful to be on good behaviour for a while now, and here was his reward at last: he’d been downgraded to a Category C. No longer did he have to be escorted out to work, to bathe, to do any fucking thing at all. Now he had a small glimpse of greater freedom, even if he was still in stir.

But he quickly found there were drawbacks to this new arrangement. He was going out of the wing to his labour one day when a huge con coming in shouldered him hard. Charlie was a big bloke, but he was nearly knocked sideways by the impact.

‘What the fuck you doing?’ he said, and turned and whacked the cunt straight across the face.

The new man, bald, massive, with a drooping Sancho Panza ginger-brown moustache, only smiled and wiped a smear of blood from his mouth where Charlie had cuffed him. The screws went mental, hustling Charlie away, dragging the new one in the opposite direction.

Things settled down, and later in the day Charlie started making enquiries. The new man was from Maidstone, he’d arrived in Charlie’s orbit yesterday.

‘John Corah,’ his contacts told him. ‘Mean bastard. He’s in A for rape and assault.’

‘He wants to watch himself,’ said Charlie.

He was offended that this new man had treated him with disrespect. He was one of the ‘top’ cons in this place, and he wasn’t used to being treated as anything less than royalty. Everyone knew Charlie Darke, that he’d done the Post Office job during the war and the police had never recovered the haul. He was a legend. He wouldn’t tolerate anyone taking the piss.

He was in the workshop next day and Corah was there again, sneering at him.

‘What you looking at, you arsehole?’ asked Charlie.

‘Nothing,’ said Corah.

‘Watch your fucking step,’ said Charlie, and got on with his work.

‘
You
watch your step, you fucking fool,’ said Corah.

Charlie hit the roof. ‘
What you say?
’

‘Shut it, the pair of you,’ said the screw nervously.

The whole thing blew up at teatime when they passed on the landing. Despite the screws being right there on the spot, Charlie found himself hustled into a cell by Corah. He’d been expecting trouble. The screws had clearly been paid to look the other way. He was on his own, and there were three men with Corah, waiting in the cell. Suddenly they were slapping him about, kicking him.

He was furious. He was
king
of this shit heap, and here they were, knocking him around like a Saturday-night barmaid. He let the six-inch nail he’d pocketed in the workshop slip down his shirt cuff and into his hand when the next one came at him. He whacked it into a big beer-bellied bastard’s eye and felt it connect with gristle. Charlie twisted the thing and the geezer’s eye popped straight out of his head in a shower of blood and rolled onto the floor.

‘Jesus!’
bellowed the injured man, scrabbling around on the floor in agony with his hands over his face.

Charlie stamped on the bloke’s eye, pulverizing it.

The man writhed and screamed, blood streaming from the socket, splashing around the cell.

‘Get him out of here,’ said Corah, and one of the screws grabbed the injured man while the other two got the nail off Charlie and got him on the floor with more kicks and punches.

Finally, bruised and battered half to death, Charlie lay still, face down.

‘All done?’ asked John Corah, and pulled up a chair.

Twisting his head – the other two were on his back, he couldn’t move an inch – he could see Corah, sitting there grinning.

There was blood and a squashed eyeball right in Charlie’s eyeline. His head felt like shit where he’d been punched so hard.

‘Tough nut, ain’t you?’ said Corah almost admiringly.

‘You’re dead,’ grunted Charlie.

‘No, you see, that’s
you,
not me. If you don’t answer a few questions.’

‘Questions? What is this?
Take Your Pick?
Who are you, Michael fucking Miles?’

‘Yeah, funny. Now tell me all about what you did with your sister’s kid, back in the war.’

‘You
what
?’

‘The boy. Someone wants to know.’

‘The boy’s dead,’ Charlie managed to get out.

‘How. When. Who. Come on, details.’

‘You serious?’

One of the men pinning Charlie down clouted him hard in the ear. Charlie’s head started ringing like an alarm clock.

‘All right,’ he gasped. ‘You want to know? It’s nothing to me. I took him to a mate of mine in Finsbury Park. Rubbish man. Lots of the gangs used him. Bloke was a fire-watcher during the war, he had all the gear. Used to dissolve rubbish in a big vat of acid in the cellar. The kid’s long gone. You won’t find a trace. No one will. Who the fuck wants to know, after all this time . . . ?’

‘None of your business. You see the deed done?’ asked Corah, his eyes fixed on Charlie’s bloodied face.

‘I paid him to do it. He was sound.’

‘So you didn’t
see
it done?’

‘He wouldn’t have mucked me about. He wouldn’t dare.’

‘Big man, yeah?’

‘Bigger than you, shit-face,’ said Charlie, and that earned him another punch in the head.

‘This bloke’s name,’ said Corah.

‘He’ll be dead and buried by now, you’re wasting your time. Who wants to know this?’

‘Shut the fuck up and answer the question. His name.’

‘Hugh Burton. Sound. Dependable.’