Jessie Keane - Lawless

‘The good-looking one’s coming round then,’ said her colleague.

‘Kit Miller? Yes, he’s coming along fine.’

Corinne thought that Kit was good-looking, extremely so. But he had an air about him that disturbed her. And those burly men, hanging around in the waiting room, she didn’t care for that. She’d asked Kit’s brother, the big one with the sexy khaki-green eyes about it, and he had reassured her, though not entirely. He didn’t look anything like Kit, for a start. But he’d told her Kit was an important businessman and these were his bodyguards. Still, it gave Corinne an uneasy feeling. And now Kit was coming round, the police would be here to question him. With gunshot vics, they always did.

Daisy and Rob dropped Bianca off at one of Kit’s safe houses near Lambeth – not the one where Jody and the twins were being concealed, he told Daisy, so she mustn’t start on about seeing them.

‘I won’t,’ she snapped.

‘Good.’

This enforced separation from her babies was torture, but Daisy understood that it was for the twins’ safety and that had to be paramount. Again she thought of Simon, dying the way he did. No, Matthew and Luke were safer where they were, even if it did crucify her to be apart from them.

On the way to the safe house, they picked up two of Kit’s most dependable men, to watch over Bianca.

‘Do they know what happened? That it was her…?’ Daisy asked Rob when the two men were out of earshot.

‘They know,’ said Rob. ‘All the boys know.’

‘Tell them you don’t want her hurt, or touched. That’s very important. She’s not to be let outside the door, or allowed to make phone calls. Tell them they’re to keep her in perfect health, that you’ll be very cross if they disobey you.’

‘ Very cross? ’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said.

Rob was shaking his head at her. ‘Are we sure about this?’ he wondered.

‘Perfectly sure. They’re trying to get to Kit in case he talks to the police. But now we have Bianca – and you’re going to tell them that. They’ll back away.’

‘You hope.’

‘They will. She’s our one and only bargaining chip now that Vittore’s stepping up the pressure, but we have to look after her really well. It’s vital.’

‘And never mind what’s she’s done,’ said Rob sourly.

‘Precisely. Forget that,’ said Daisy with a flash of steely determination in her eyes.

After dropping Bianca off, Daisy insisted that they call by Michael’s flat. Rob parked outside Sheila’s restaurant and led the way to the side door. He was about to put the key in the lock when he saw that it had been forced.

He paused, looked at Daisy. Held a finger to his lips.

He pushed the door gently, and it swung inward. Seeing no one there, he ran up the stairs, Daisy following close behind.

‘Christ,’ said Rob in a whisper when he found the flat door busted too. ‘Stop here a minute, Daise,’ he said quietly, and ducked swiftly inside, looking left and right at a scene of chaos.

He moved through the main lounge, into the kitchen; then into the bedroom and the bathroom. It seemed every drawer had been tipped onto the floor, every cupboard ransacked. The mattress had been slashed open, there was stuffing all over the place. The bathroom cabinets had been emptied, creams and vials and deodorants smashed on the tiled floor. The sofas in the lounge had been given the same treatment as the bed, the cushions thrown carelessly aside, the coverings ripped. Even the curtains had been pulled down from their tracks. In the kitchen, it looked as though a whirlwind had hit. There was food all over the floor, smashed eggs and spilled milk, and the refrigerator door was hanging open.

The place had been comprehensively turned over.

‘Jesus,’ said Daisy, standing thunderstruck in the open doorway. ‘Do you think they’ve taken anything?’

Rob stood in the centre of the lounge, looking around him in wonder.

‘How the fuck would I know? Look at this shit.’

Daisy moved inside, feeling a bit bolder now she knew some lunatic wasn’t lurking in a corner somewhere. She looked around, at the sofas, the cushions, the…

‘Why slash the sofas open?’ she asked him.

‘Hm? Oh. They did the mattress too.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘I dunno, Daise,’ said Rob irritably. ‘It’s been a bloody long week. And now this…’

‘They must have been looking for something,’ said Daisy.

‘What?’

‘Don’t you think so? I wonder what’s missing.’

‘Daise – I don’t know. I never did a fucking inventory of the place.’

Daisy surveyed the wreckage. ‘What were they looking for?’ she wondered aloud.

‘Fuck knows. Maybe nothing. Maybe they just smashed up the place for the hell of it.’

Rob was tired, and he was thinking that possibly they’d done a stupid thing, taking Bianca. Vittore had been beyond fury when he’d phoned him and let him know the score. His best friend was laid up in a hospital bed hovering somewhere between life and death. He’d had enough. He walked to the door.

‘Where are you going?’ said Daisy.

‘Home,’ he said. ‘I need to sleep.’

‘No, I want to look in the office downstairs.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s-’

‘What?’

‘Daise, enough.’

‘No! The office.’

‘God, you’re a stroppy cow, has anyone ever told you that?’ said Rob, thinking that he’d have to get the locks repaired and the boys in, tidy the damned place up; it was just one bloody thing after another lately.

He followed Daisy downstairs and into the restaurant where the staff were getting ready for the evening’s trade. Daisy and Rob wove their way through the bar, through the restaurant, and over to the office.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Rob.

Daisy peered past his shoulder. The door was slightly ajar. And the lock looked…

‘It’s been broken into,’ she said.

‘Oh, first prize! Give the lady a coconut,’ said Rob, and pushed the door open. He flicked on the light. ‘Damn, will you look at this? How the hell did this happen and no one see or hear?’

Daisy came in behind Rob and eased the door closed behind them. All the filing cabinets had been emptied and overturned. There were papers all over the place, the desk had been flipped onto its back, Michael’s chair – Kit’s chair – had been thrown aside, the seat slashed open, the stuffing pulled out.

Rob went over to the desk.

Daisy stared all around her.

‘Somebody’s definitely looking for something,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but what?’

‘I wonder if they found it?’

‘Daise…’

‘Maybe they didn’t.’

‘Hm.’

‘Maybe you and Kit have already taken it away. Perhaps what someone wants is the stuff that Michael was carrying around with him.’

On the way out, they stopped at the bar and questioned Terry, the head barman.

‘You seen anyone hanging about the office?’ asked Rob.

‘No, why?’

‘It’s been broken into. Turned upside-down. The flat upstairs, too.’

‘Get out of it! Really? Well, I was on last night and I didn’t notice anything. Mind you, that lock’s a pissy little thing, one good shove and it’d give. Keely!’ He called over to a brunette who was busy polishing glasses. ‘You see anyone hanging around the office yesterday or today? Someone’s been in there.’

Keely shook her head: no.

‘Bridge was on too,’ said Terry. ‘Bridge!’ he called, and a blonde girl appeared from the back, eyebrows raised in enquiry. ‘Bridge, you see anyone around the office last night or today? They’re saying someone’s been in there, and the flat upstairs.’