Jessie Keane: Lawless

‘Twelve,’ she said.

There was a brief, freezing silence.

‘Don’t even think about being bloody funny,’ said Bianca. ‘Carpet fitters are coming in today, and they’re late too, so get on the sodding phone and hurry them up, capisce ? And you keep an eye on them when they get here, I don’t want to see any joins in awkward places, I want this to look the business.’

‘And what will you be doing?’ asked Tanya. It wasn’t her job to balls around looking at carpets. She was supposed to be in charge of the waiting staff, wasn’t she?

Bianca looked at her. ‘You got a hangover?’

‘A bit.’

‘Then I’ll make allowances. Not that it’s anything to do with you, but I’ll be interviewing doormen, if that’s all right with you, Tanya?’

Tanya shrugged. Sure.

‘OK, get on with it then, the lot of you. I’ll be up in the office.’

Bianca went upstairs. Cora and Claire looked at Tanya.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘You don’t half push your luck,’ said Claire. ‘She ain’t in the mood for fun and games.’

‘She never flaming is,’ said Cora.

‘She’s on edge with all the decorating and stuff going on. She wants the place to look right. Tito’s trusted her with it, and she wants to impress him.’ They all knew how Bianca worshipped her eldest brother, Tito. Claire took a long pull at her cigarette, then stubbed it out in a black ashtray on the bar. ‘Let’s get on then, shall we…?’

Half an hour later, the carpet fitters arrived. And half an hour after that, Vittore Danieri showed up.

‘Bianca here?’ he asked the three women, who were pausing by the bar for a fag and a coffee.

Vittore had an authoritative way about him, like Bianca; he was big, blockish like Tito, robust and tough-looking and ugly with a hooked nose, receding black hair and bulging dark brown eyes. There was a stillness, a hardness about him – and he looked somehow polished like Tito too, in the way that rich guys did.

‘Why hasn’t he got a neck?’ they’d joked between themselves when they first set eyes on him. Vittore’s head was set low on his shoulders and it poked aggressively forward; he didn’t seem to have a neck, it was true, but then he didn’t seem to have a sense of humour either, so they maintained a show of respect in his presence.

‘Bianca’s upstairs,’ said Tanya, her eyes catching his.

She thought of it as turning on the headlights. She turned them on now, gave him full beam, eyelashes fluttering, You want some of this? She knew he was married, but she didn’t give a toss about that. Of course, she would prefer to have Tito, but Vittore would do. The family was loaded, and all the brothers – even that vain little tit Fabio who’d come down here once trying to chuck his weight about – had an aura of power that appealed to her.

‘Right,’ said Vittore, and passed by all three of them without a second glance.

‘Shit,’ said Tanya, shaking her head. ‘Am I losing it, or what?’

‘Girl, you never had it to lose,’ laughed Cora.

‘Yeah, funny,’ said Tanya, and Claire gave a smirk.

‘Come on,’ sighed Claire. ‘Work to do…’

Bianca wasn’t particularly surprised to see Vittore show up unannounced. She was thrilled that Tito had entrusted her with the start-up of Dante’s, after she had spent several years learning the business up in London; but she was under no illusions. He was expecting her to fail, to need bailing out at any moment.

She was used to this. With three older brothers, she was always the one standing on the sidelines, the one nobody consulted or enquired after, because she was a girl and in their eyes that made her something less than a man, someone less likely to get things properly done. She had kicked against it for most of her life, but it was there , always staring her in the face: the testosterone wall.

She might have been used to it, but that didn’t mean she liked it, or accepted it. In fact, it enraged her. She knew she was capable, sensible, tough enough to run this place. When she put herself forward for it, her brothers been taken by surprise; it was obvious that they wanted to say no, but Mama had backed her. They all knew Mama was the boss, so Tito had said OK, why not? All the time expecting Bianca to make a bollocks of it.

And here it was, Vito checking up on her, proof that they thought her inadequate; a mere female and not even one of them . She was adopted, not proper Danieri blood.

She waited patiently for him to say the words: Everything OK, Sis? Need a hand?

Expecting – almost hoping – that she would say, Yes, someone’s giving me trouble, can you help me please, Vittore?

She would rather choke than say any such thing. She was tough, through and through. She carried a.22 calibre gun in her handbag, she looked you straight in the eye and dared you to look back. She was Tito Danieri’s little sister. She was Camorra.

‘Vittore!’ she greeted him warmly as she sat behind her desk, elbow-deep in paperwork. Fucking paperwork. ‘What can I do for you?’

It’s more what I can do for you, Sis. I’m here to help you out of whatever trouble it is you can’t handle.

And all the while he’d be mocking her in his head, thinking, Knew it. She can’t cut it, not like us boys.

Well, she was going to show them.

‘Sis…’ he hesitated. Vittore’s face was somehow… changed. No confident sneer today, and his mouth looked tight, strained.

Bianca felt alarm spiral up through her core. Felt that soul-draining weakness that comes with the certainty that something nasty is coming, something bad.

‘What is it?’ she said, rising to her feet.

‘No. No. Sit down, Bianca. This is bad news. I’m sorry.’

Bianca sank back into her seat. ‘Is it Mama?’ she asked, dry-mouthed.

He was shaking his head.

‘It’s Tito,’ he said. ‘It happened last night, when he was at the new place in Docklands.’ Vittore swallowed hard, and Bianca was horrified to see that his eyes shone with tears. ‘He’s dead, Bianca. Tito’s gone.’

‘Are you sure about this?’ Daisy asked her mother on the day of Tito’s funeral.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Ruby. ‘But I’m going.’

‘Then I’ll come with you,’ said Daisy, her face looming up in the mirror at Ruby’s shoulder.

Ruby glanced at her watch. Ten to eleven. She felt a shiver of apprehension run right through her. The sort of shiver that told your senses Just don’t, OK? But she sent her daughter’s reflection a smile. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. Stay here with the babies.’

Daisy’s eyes, blue as cornflowers, stared into her mother’s. She thought that Ruby’d had more than enough upsets over the past few months. She wished she wasn’t being so damned obstinate about this. But then, Ruby was obstinate about nearly everything: Daisy supposed that was how she came to be such a success in life.

Could she look any less like me? wondered Daisy, watching her mother straighten her pearls in the hall mirror. It never failed to amaze and amuse her when she looked at Ruby. Daisy herself had the healthy tanned complexion, golden-blonde hair and robust build of a Valkyrie. There was certainly no question who Daisy’s father was: she was every inch the daughter of big, blond Cornelius Bray. She looked nothing like exotic, dark-skinned Ruby – unlike her twin, Kit.

Daisy didn’t even sound like her mother. Ruby’s voice still held a hint of the East End she’d grown up in; when Daisy spoke it was with the beautifully rounded vowels of the Home Counties, as befitted the daughter of Lord and Lady Bray. But Lord Bray hadn’t wanted to know about his dark-skinned son; Kit had been raised in a succession of uncaring state orphanages. And she had always felt so guilty about that.