Jessie Keane - Lawless

‘How you feeling?’ asked Rob.

‘OK.’

Kit felt about a million times better, now that he’d seen Bianca and reassured himself that she was all right. The filth had – of course – been in, asking him more questions. Who shot him? Did he see anyone? He hadn’t, he said. Sorry, officer. They told him about a bloke who’d fallen or jumped to his death from a window just down the hall, Italian guy, no one seemed to know who he was or what he was doing in the hospital – had Kit heard anything about that? Kit said he hadn’t. And the police had gone away again.

‘You feel well enough to get the fuck out of here?’ asked Rob.

Kit looked at his mate. ‘They trying?’

‘Twice.’

‘The jumper?’

‘Cops told you?’

‘They did. Hey, Rob…’

‘Hm?’

‘I kept hearing a voice when I was out of it. Ruby said it was her.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Rob looked at his mate. ‘She stayed here with you the whole time. We couldn’t drag her away – and God knows we tried.’

Kit returned Rob’s gaze. The Ice Queen of Retail, cold as fuck and putting business before her kids, had been here, talking to him, the entire time?

‘She wouldn’t leave you. All she did was stay by your bed, talking to you.’

Kit looked at him dubiously.

‘It’s true,’ Rob assured him. Then his face darkened as he moved on to the subject that had been bothering him: ‘Look, we’ve got Bianca stashed away. But these Danieri boys… I dunno. They’re crazy. They might try again, whether we’ve got her for insurance or not. I don’t want to take the chance…’

‘So I guess we go,’ said Kit.

Rob held up the carrier bag. ‘Got your clothes in here.’

‘OK, let’s do it.’

Daisy slept late next morning. Ruby had departed for the store now that Kit was in the clear, and would then go on to the hospital to see him, but here she was, still in bed. Disconsolately she slipped on her robe and wandered up to the nursery. There was only silence; a few abandoned toys, the empty cots. She went downstairs and firmly resisted the impulse to phone Jody. Kit was right. The line might be tapped, and she could betray their whereabouts without meaning to.

She showered, dressed and then phoned Rob’s flat number.

There was no answer.

Well, he was probably doing something for Kit. She knew better than to speculate as to what exactly that might entail. One thing she couldn’t put to the back of her mind was the envelope Rob had discovered last night, and the shocking images they contained.

Neither could she shove away from her brain the fact that her brother seemed besotted by a madwoman who had damned near killed him. She had no idea where they were going to go from here with Bianca. She had no idea what mad scheme Kit was going to cook up next, and she dreaded going back to the hospital to hear about it.

She phoned the restaurant; was Rob there?

‘Haven’t seen him since yesterday,’ said the bar manager.

She phoned Ruby’s office.

‘Rob? No, I haven’t seen him since last night. Check with Reg.’

Daisy then phoned Reg’s flat, all the while the tension and anxiety building in her until she felt just about ready to blow.

Reg picked up on the first ring. ‘Yes?’

‘Reg? It’s Daisy. Do you know where Rob is today?’

‘No idea,’ said Reg. ‘Have you tried…’

And so it went on. Daisy phoned pool halls, bars, restaurants, and no one had seen Rob.

Finally she gave up, put the phone down and wondered what the hell to do now.

What she was afraid of… no, she couldn’t bear to even think it, it was too awful.

But try as she might she couldn’t shake off the fear that Rob had decided to act alone on the contents of the brown cardboard envelope he’d unearthed last night.

If the man who had been searching for those photos was the same person who killed Michael Ward in that alley, then Rob could be walking into a very dangerous situation. The searcher would know Rob had seen the prints, would know the game was up, and he might decide that Rob needed getting out of the way, too.

Gripped with anxiety, Daisy gave up on the phone. Instead she tore down the stairs, ran out and got into her Mini, and drove like a bat out of hell.

She had made this journey a hundred thousand times, or so it felt. The whole route was so familiar to her that the car almost drove itself. Before long she was crossing over the bridge above the cress beds and turning into the driveway, barrelling the Mini full-pelt up the drive among the dripping rhododendrons until she reached the fountain of Neptune in front of the house.

Her fears escalated to fever pitch when she saw that Rob’s car was there, on the drive.

‘Oh no…’ she gasped as she slammed on the hand-brake and turned off the engine.

She almost fell out of the car, and ran up the steps to Brayfield’s front door and bashed her fist upon it. Nobody answered. Swearing, limp with fear, she hared off around the building to the back, heading for the French doors that led into Vanessa’s blue-and-gold drawing room. They were standing open and she could hear raised voices coming from inside.

‘I have not the faintest idea what you are talking about,’ came Vanessa’s voice, high with strain.

Daisy all but fell through the doors.

‘Daisy!’ Vanessa said in astonishment.

Rob was standing over Vanessa. And there was the cardboard envelope. It was on a low table, and the prints were spread out on top of it. They were grainy, clearly taken with a long lens, but the content was unmistakable.

One showed Ivan and Vanessa, his hand on her shoulder in the garden; they were laughing together. Another showed them up against a tree, kissing. And another – most damning – showed Ivan, full-frontal naked, drawing back the curtains in what was clearly Vanessa’s bedroom.

Jesus, it’s like something out of a D.H. Lawrence novel, thought Daisy. It’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover .

The shock of seeing the prints again was just as strong as it had been last night when Rob first discovered them. Daisy had lived with Vanessa for years, she knew how highly strung she was, always generating her own anxieties – mostly about the state of her position in society. Respectability was everything to Vanessa. If these prints should ever be revealed – if it should ever come to light that Lady Bray was having an affair with her gardener – then it would be truly disastrous for her. Her social circle would shun her, and she couldn’t bear that.

And that’s precisely why Ivan was tearing up Michael’s flat and the office to find them , thought Daisy.

Now she could see what had been happening here. Michael had been blackmailing Vanessa with these prints, threatening to show them to the press. And she thought she knew why. For all that Vanessa and Cornelius Bray had put Ruby through, tearing her children away from her, tormenting her, Michael had decided that they should pay. Well, Cornelius was out of it; but there was still Vanessa.

As a motive for murder, getting rid of a blackmailer held a lot of weight.

Vanessa looked mortified. It was bad enough, this stranger turning up here again, after she’d thought they’d got rid of him and that ghastly thug Kit Miller. But now she saw Daisy looking at the prints, and drawing her own conclusions.

‘It’s not how it looks…’ she said desperately.

‘It looks like you’re knocking off the gardener,’ said Rob.

‘Daisy, you have to believe-’ said Vanessa.

‘Believe what? That these photos aren’t genuine? I can see they are.’

Vanessa’s eyes dropped to her lap. ‘This is very embarrassing,’ she said.