Nameless (56 page)
Authors: Jessie Keane
She took a deep, calming breath and opened the door.
Kit was striding up the path. As he saw her standing there, he paused. Yards apart, they stared at each other.
‘I can’t forgive you,’ he said.
Ruby nodded. She didn’t dare speak. She was terrified of breaking the spell, ruining the magic that had somehow – miraculously – brought him to her door.
‘You gave me up. Abandoned me,’ he said flatly.
‘Yes,’ she said, her heart hammering so violently that it was frightening.
‘But Michael wanted me to give you a chance.’
Ruby swallowed hard. ‘I see.’
‘So I’m going to, OK? I’m going to try.’
‘Right,’ said Ruby. ‘OK.’
They stared at each other. Daisy watched them, frozen, hardly able to draw breath.
Slowly, uncertainly, Ruby opened her arms wide.
Kit hesitated. Then he stepped forward and walked into his mother’s embrace.
AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD
In 2006, I first read about mixed-race parents having twins of different colours and I was instantly fascinated. Although it’s rare, this phenomenon of twins of radically different colour can –
has
– happened, when a parent is of mixed race. If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.
This got me thinking that such an accident of birth could be the subject for a book: then I imagined blonde, fair-skinned Daisy, and black-haired, dark-skinned Kit, separated at birth but meeting up later on. This book,
Nameless
, began to take shape from that.
Jessie Keane
NAMELESS
Jessie Keane was born rich. Then the family business went bust and she was left poor and struggling in deadend jobs, so she knows both ends of the spectrum and tells it straight. Her fascination with London and the underworld led her to write the No.1 Heatseeker
Dirty Game
, followed by bestsellers
Black Widow
,
Scarlet Women
,
Jail Bird
,
The Make
and
Playing Dead
. She now lives in Hampshire. You can reach Jessie via her website www.jessiekeane.com.
Also by Jessie Keane
Dirty Game
Black Widow
Scarlet Women
Jail Bird
The Make
Playing Dead
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are so many people and sources that have assisted and/or supported me in the writing of
Nameless.
Thanks to Louise, to Judith, to Wayne, to Paul Norman at
Books Monthly
, to Lynne and Steve, to Karen and Paul.
Thanks too to Donald Thomas who wrote
Villains’ Paradise: Britain’s Underworld from the Spivs to the Krays
, and
An Underworld at War
, and to Helen Chislett for her
Marks in Time
, and to Fiona MacCarthy for
Last Curtsey.
Thanks to all my fabulous Facebook and Twitter (find me on Twitter at realjessiekeane) friends and fans, who lift my spirits every single day. And thanks too to all the newsletter enthusiasts and the visitors to my website at jessiekeane.com. Thanks, guys!
Onward and upward!
First published 2012 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-76509-2 EPUB
Copyright © Jessie Keane 2012
The right of Jessie Keane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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