Nameless (42 page)

‘Dad said she was a disgrace.’

‘Come on, Ruby. His old lady had been giving the ride to a black jazz-club trumpet player.’

‘Only because
he
mistreated her.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I knew
him.
He mistreated me too, remember?’

‘Yeah.’ Joe looked almost shame-faced for a second. ‘He loved her, Rubes. But he hated her too. She’d made a public fool out of him by presenting him with a half-black baby. How d’you suppose he must have felt about that? And then it just got worse, didn’t it? All that anger between them, it was never resolved. She died having you. Complications. So all that rage in him just went on . . .’

‘And was directed at me,’ finished Ruby, her eyes angry. ‘I know.’

Joe sat down on the bed with a sigh. ‘It’s all past and done now, Rubes. All that bad blood, all that bad feeling. It’s done. It’s gone.’

Ruby closed the folder gently and clutched it to her breast. ‘Can I keep this?’ she asked, feeling choked. Her mother had looked so young, so hopeful in the picture. Just like Daisy did today.

‘’Course you can.’ Joe stood up. ‘Come on then, let’s get back down there. I suppose we’d better show willing.’

107

When Ruby got back to Marlow that night she felt wrung out. It had been a hard day, making nice and smiling pleasantly when people told her time and again what a ‘diamond geezer’ Charlie had been. She was so pleased to get home – but that pleasure was roughly cut short when she went to unlock the front door.

Suddenly she was shoved violently from behind. Reeling with shock and from the savagery of the impact, Ruby fell forward into the hall, striking her elbow and the side of her head on the polished marble floor.

Pain rocketed up her arm. Her head literally spinning, she looked up in abject terror and saw a man standing over her, dressed in dark clothes, gloved up, his face hidden by a knitted mask. She could only see his eyes, which were piglike and mean.

She was being burgled.

‘I don’t have any money here,’ she blurted out, her heart rocketing in her chest, trying to crawl away.

He knelt down, grabbed her hair and whacked her head down against the floor.

Ruby shrieked.

‘I don’t want your money, cunt,’ he growled. ‘I’m delivering a message.’

A what?
Ruby, eyes watering, her face twisted with fear, could hardly understand what he was saying. His accent was thick Glaswegian, and further muffled by the mask.

‘I don’t understand . . .’ she managed to get out.

‘Oh, you will.’ He whacked her head once more against the floor. ‘I
said
, I’m delivering a message. You keep away from Daisy Bray, or trust me,
bitch,
you’ll get more than a bang on the head next time. You got that?’

‘What the . . .’

‘
Got it?
’

Her head where he was gripping her hair so hard was agony. But despite the pain, despite her terror, fury started to stir in her. Daisy was
her daughter. V
anessa and that bastard Cornelius, what right did they have to do this, to try to stop her having contact?

‘Say it.’

‘I’ll . . .’ Her voice was wobbling, trembling. Tears of anguish were flooding down her cheeks. She didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to stay away from Daisy. She
couldn’t.

‘
Say it, bitch
.’ He shook her head. She felt strands of hair coming loose from her scalp, wondered if she was bleeding.

‘I’ll leave Daisy alone,’ she gulped out.

‘Good. Make sure you do.’

He thumped her head back down against the floor. Pain exploded once again, she screwed up her eyes and thought
Stop, please just stop.

When she opened her eyes, there was no one there. The front door was standing open, admitting the cool, still night air. She was laid out on her hall tiles, shuddering with rage and crying in pain.

Her attacker was gone.

108

‘And that’s all he said? Just that – “Keep away from Daisy”?’ asked Michael, chain-smoking with ferocious concentration.

She’d phoned him moments after her attacker had gone. He’d come straight over, two of his boys arriving with him – she recognized Kit, and Rob – and she had never seen him looking so angry.

Ruby sat there with him in her own home and thought she would never feel safe again. Her head ached, but more from tension than from the impact with her hall floor. The man had pulled out a chunk of hair from her scalp, and yes, it had bled a little. Her elbow was throbbing, but she thought it would be OK. She would live. But would she ever again feel safe here?

‘That’s all he said,’ she murmured.

‘What was he like? Can you describe him?’

‘Mean piggy eyes. A thick Scottish accent. He had a mask . . .’ Ruby shuddered and ground to a halt.

‘You think this is Cornelius?’ asked Michael.

Ruby looked him dead in the eye. ‘Of
course
it’s Cornelius. This is my fault. I was getting close to Daisy. I went to Brayfield with her, I was just going to the gatehouse, that was all, and I thought Vanessa was away, but she wasn’t. Daisy insisted we go up to the house to call in on . . . on Vanessa.’ She had nearly said
her mother.
But Vanessa wasn’t Daisy’s mother.
She
was. ‘I could see that Vanessa was furious. And she would have told Cornelius.’

‘And so he got someone to pay you a visit,’ said Michael, pacing around the room.

He felt sick to his stomach at the thought of anyone having the gall to do this to Ruby. If this was Cornelius, then damned sure it was one of
Tito’s
boys who’d done the job on Ruby.

Fuck it.

This situation was getting out of hand. He did business with Tito, they were tied together in all sorts of ways and also on a new deal on the London Docklands Strategic Plan. He wished to Christ they weren’t, but there was no way of getting out of it now.

The old docks, once a prime target for Hitler’s weapons during the war, were now largely defunct because the new giant container ships couldn’t get up the river. They had to stop at Felixstowe. This meant that everyone who was willing to buy in – and there were huge government incentives to do so – was now sitting on eight square miles of prime building land. There were fortunes to be made. Tito and Michael were on their way to becoming millionaires.

But . . . now this. Michael felt soiled by his links with Tito. He’d always disliked the man, who swaggered around town puffed up like a toad on his own self-importance. But there was no way, at this late stage, to extricate himself from the deal. And there was no way he could break his word, his solemn promise to his dead wife. He
couldn’t.
He turned, stared at Ruby. She looked subdued and vulnerable.

‘You shouldn’t be here on your own. It isn’t safe.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Ruby. She wasn’t, not at all; but she liked her independence. Hell for her would be moving into that flat of his. She’d bought this big Victorian villa and furnished it with care. This was her
home.
She’d worked hard for it, she loved it. She wasn’t about to be scared out of it by Cornelius Bray.

‘Ruby . . .’ Michael was looking at her as if she was crazy.

‘Stay the night with me,’ she said.

‘Of course I will. But after tonight . . .’

‘Let’s think about that tomorrow.’

And it was nice, sleeping in his arms, waking with him; she knew she could get used to it.

She awoke early – she always did – and he was still there, sleeping soundly beside her, brown-skinned, muscled, but somehow almost vulnerable in sleep. She slipped quietly from the bed, feeling the twinge of resistance in her arm from yesterday. She touched her head, was aware of soreness there, but nothing too bad. It could have been so much worse, she knew that.

Ruby pulled on her dressing gown and crept out of the master bedroom and downstairs to the kitchen. Dawn was breaking, spilling multicoloured light onto the hall floor through the stained-glass panels on either side of the front door.

She found herself looking at everything differently now. She loved this house so much, but perhaps she should have stayed in her apartment over the store. Maybe she needed better locks; maybe those exquisite stained-glass panels beside the front door would have to go.

But then – how could she have stopped what happened? Her attacker had been hiding outside, somewhere in the shrubbery; she’d been taken completely unawares.

‘Oh!’ Someone was in the kitchen. She clutched a hand to her chest as she saw the tall, muscular dark-skinned man standing there, his white shirt hanging open, wearing black trousers and a tousled look as he paused in pouring hot water onto a mug of instant coffee.

‘Sorry,’ said Kit. ‘Did I startle you?’

‘No, you’re fine,’ said Ruby, although he had. Her heart had burst into a gallop when she’d seen him there; but it was just Kit, after all. ‘Can you do me one of those?’

‘Sure.’ He took down another mug from a hook on the dresser. Then he looked at her. ‘Sorry. I wake early, just needed a drink.’

Actually, he hadn’t slept properly ever since the Tito thing with Gilda. He still missed her, and mourned her bitterly, and was wracked with guilt over her death.

‘It’s OK, make yourself at home,’ she said, and went over to the big marble-topped island in the middle of the room and perched up on a stool, pulling yesterday’s paper towards her and scanning it briefly. Evonne Goolagong had beaten Margaret Court in the women’s singles at Wimbledon, and some Russian cosmonauts had died in their Soyuz spacecraft. Tens of thousands of people had turned out in Red Square to pay their respects. And the submarine HMS
Artemis
had sunk in Portsmouth harbour, trapping three sailors on board. The same old mixture of misery and glory.

‘Did Rob stay the night too?’ she asked Kit, pushing the paper aside.

He nodded, busy with the coffee.

‘You both sleep OK?’

‘Fine. You take it black?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Sugar?’

‘No.’

He brought the two mugs over to the island and put them down, pulled up a stool.

‘Feel a bit better now?’ he asked, his eyes scanning her face.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘The boss was very upset. Someone trying that on you.’ Kit took a sip of the coffee. ‘So what was it about? You got any idea?’

Ruby thought of saying it was nothing. She didn’t particularly want to relive it right now. But she liked Kit, and she knew Michael trusted him implicitly.

‘I was being warned off contact with Daisy,’ she said.

‘What?’ Kit stared at her. ‘You mean
crazy
Daisy – Daisy Bray?’

Now Ruby had to smile. ‘Why’d you call her that?’

‘Because she’s a fruit loop.’ He grinned. ‘A nice girl, but mad. Why would anyone warn you to keep away from her?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She definitely wasn’t going into all that. She sipped her coffee and started to feel stronger.

‘Well, it must matter.’

‘No. It doesn’t. Michael said you’re still looking for the baby,’ she said, trying to sound casual but failing. ‘Are you having any luck?’

‘Maybe. I don’t want to get your hopes up too much, but it looks like we might have a lead on that.’

Ruby nearly choked on her coffee.

‘Steady,’ said Kit.

Ruby’s eyes were dead serious as they stared into his. ‘You mean that? You might really find him?’

Kit shrugged. ‘We might. We’re certainly trying.’ He looked at her steadily.

‘What?’ asked Ruby.

‘Nothing.’ Kit glanced away.

‘Come on, what?’

He looked back at her, his expression sheepish. ‘It’s just that I can’t understand it. A mother, giving up her child. No, wait. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You must have had your reasons . . .’

Ruby felt the pain of it all over again, like a knife in her chest.

‘I did,’ she said. ‘I did have my reasons.’

‘Only . . .’ His eyes were troubled. ‘. . . I don’t see how that boy could ever forgive you for it, for giving him away, for not caring what happened to him.’

‘I did care what happened to him,’ said Ruby. ‘It tortured me every day. It still does.’

Kit looked straight at her.

‘Go on,’ said Ruby. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, just spit it out.’

‘Maybe he won’t want to know you. After all this time. Maybe . . . I’m sorry, but I got to say this . . . maybe you won’t ever get your boy back, not really. Not even if we do track him down.’

Ruby felt her eyes filling with tears.

‘Hey,’ said Kit hastily, reaching out a hand. ‘Me and my big mouth.’

‘No, it’s OK. You’re right. He might never forgive me for giving him up. And I’d understand that.’

There was silence while they both drank coffee.

‘What about Daisy?Why were you being warned off her?’

‘Michael hasn’t told you?’

Kit shook his head.

‘They were twins. The boy and the girl. Daisy’s father took her because his wife couldn’t have children.’

‘Cornelius Bray,’ said Kit. ‘You and he . . . ?’

‘We had an affair during the war.’

‘So Cornelius kept Daisy, but your brother took the boy.’

‘Michael told you about that?’

‘Yeah, he did.’

‘I hope you find him,’ said Ruby. ‘I really do.’

Kit nodded. It was weird, Ruby being Daisy’s mother. She was the wrong
colour,
for a start. But he hadn’t questioned Michael over it, and he wasn’t about to step on Ruby’s toes, either.

‘And what about Daisy?’ he asked. ‘You see a lot of her these days, don’t you? She doesn’t
know
. . . ?’

‘No. She doesn’t.’

‘Are you going to tell her?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘And are you going to stay away from her, like he wants you to?’

Ruby took a deep breath. ‘I don’t see how I’m going to be able to do that,’ she said.

‘But you said you would.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cornelius Bray ain’t going to be very happy with you.’

‘No.’ Ruby picked up her mug and took a sip. ‘He’s not.’