Nameless (31 page)

So, Sebastian had gone to London. They hadn’t seen or heard of him since. Andrew, Sebastian’s older brother, had gone down there, searched for him, but he couldn’t be found. Their boy was lost.

But now – it was a miracle! – Sebastian had written, said he was fine, they weren’t to worry. He’d given no forwarding address, but he had enclosed a picture. He’d grown his hair long, and – good grief! – was that
eyeliner
he was wearing? But it was him. It was their boy.

‘My baby,’ cried Sebby’s mother, smiling tearfully at the photo, running her fingers lovingly over the face of her youngest child.

‘Don’t upset yourself,’ said Richard. He hated to see her cry; it made him feel helpless.

‘Who’s that with him?’ asked Andrew, peering over his mother’s shoulder. ‘That white-haired bloke.’

Richard looked at the man in the photo. He was standing right beside Sebastian, his arm around Sebby’s shoulders. Richard frowned.

This ‘white-haired bloke’ was unmistakable. It was the Tory peer, Lord Bray.

76

‘I got a new charm,’ said Gilda excitedly, as they lay in bed in another random, impersonal hotel room. The outskirts of Cheltenham this time; Kit certainly got around these days. They’d arrived after dark and would depart in the dark, separately, this morning. Fingers of light were already penetrating the gloom and Kit was getting restless. You couldn’t be too careful.

‘Look,’ she said, propping herself up so that her tits rested on his chest. She jingled her multi-charmed gold bracelet in front of his face. He wasn’t very keen on the heavy jangling thing. She wore it all the time, and it made him think of her being in chains to that bastard Tito. Which, truthfully, he supposed she was.

Gilda was indicating the new addition. It was a black heart. ‘It’s ebony,’ she told him. ‘I bought it for myself. You can’t give me gifts, I can’t wear anything you buy for me, so I bought this for myself. A tiny dark heart that will remind me of you whenever I look at it.’

Her eyes were anxious as they rested on his face. ‘You like?’ she asked.

‘I like,’ he smiled, and turned over, nailing her to the bed. He kissed her once, very gently. ‘I like very much,’ he said.

She slipped her hands around his neck and pulled him in for a closer clinch. Finally Kit drew back. ‘Time we were leaving,’ he said.

She groaned. ‘Kiss me once more,’ she asked.

He obliged.

‘I hate Tito,’ she sighed against his mouth.

Kit moved back a little. ‘What?’

‘He’s a bastard.’

‘In what way?’ Kit thought he knew in what way. He tried not to think about it. He hated to even hear Tito’s name mentioned when they were together. He couldn’t stand the thought of that fucker sliming over Gilda.

‘He’ll screw any woman with a pulse. And he likes hanging around with the aristocracy, giving himself airs. Like that pervert Bray – you seen him?The things
he
gets up to would make your hair curl, believe me.’

Kit considered this. He knew of Lord Bray. Everyone did. Could he be Daisy Bray’s father? Yes, he could. Poor bitch. No wonder she was so shot away.

‘If you can’t stand Tito, why don’t you leave him?’ he asked. It was a stupid question: he knew it. But he hated this, snatched moments with her while she belonged to that bastard. Once, he’d been cool with the situation. But now, every time he saw her with that fat fuck, he wanted to punch his lights out.

Gilda gazed at him, her expression sad.

‘He took me off the streets when I was eighteen,’ she explained. ‘He’s kept me ever since. He won’t let me go. Tito
never
gets dumped. It’s only over when
he
says it is.’ She sighed and cuddled in closer against him. ‘Kit . . . I’m so in love with you,’ she whispered.

Kit jerked back in surprise. Her eyes were steady as they held his.

‘Well, you can’t say you’re
that
shocked,’ she laughed.

Kit felt uneasy. He didn’t want her love. At the start, this had been all about fun, indulgence, happy escape. And the fact that she was tied to someone else – yes, someone
dangerous
– had only made it all the more appealing.

‘You could say you love me too,’ she prompted, half-embarrassed.

‘I love you too,’ he said obligingly. He had always firmly believed that he could never truly love anyone except possibly himself, and sometimes even
that
was a big ask. But he could see from her widening smile and her brimming eyes how much it pleased her.

‘There. Was that so hard?’ she teased.

Kit rose from the bed and looked down at her. She was quite an eyeful, and he was very fond of her. In fact, just lately, he’d been
living
for these secret meetings.

Is this love?
he wondered.

Christ. It was. He was in love with Gilda.

‘Time we were going,’ he said, and this time she got out of bed and started to dress.

77

Cornelius was just going into the upper chamber when someone caught his arm. He turned in surprise, with a quick spasm of alarm. He’d been jumpy since that incident with Sebby, starting at shadows. He felt he’d moved into some dark and dangerous place, driven there by his own moral bankruptcy.

Tito had dug him out of
that
hole. But now Tito’s demands had picked up. He called on Cornelius constantly to get his lowlife pals and employees out of trouble. Cornelius felt his own standing among his peers waning as they colluded – reluctantly – with him to cover criminal tracks. People had started to avoid him.

And a couple of journalists had been sniffing around, asking him about his association with Tito.

‘Is it really wise, Lord Bray, mixing with someone like that? Allegedly, Mr Danieri has countless criminal connections and . . .’ They’d scuttled up to him, notebooks poised, eyes hungry for a story.

‘No comment,’ said Cornelius, hurrying on.

But they persisted.

‘I have no association with Mr Danieri, he’s a distant acquaintance,’ he blurted out, once.

They persisted.

‘Consult your editor,’ he snapped. ‘This is harassment.’

Of course he knew that his network of contacts would shield him from any smear. But still . . . when Richard Dorley grabbed his arm outside the Lords, his instant reaction was,
Oh God, they’ve found me out. This is it. It’s all over.

‘Lord Bray?’ asked the man.

Cornelius stopped in his tracks and looked him over. This didn’t look like any reporter he knew. The man was shabbily dressed, grey-haired, with a haggard and desolate air about him. Cornelius flinched when he looked into the man’s dark eyes. They reminded him of Sebby’s.

‘Who are you?’ asked Cornelius, heartbeat accelerating.

‘I’m Richard Dorley, sir. My son . . .’

To Cornelius’s horror, the man’s eyes filled with tears. He blinked and fiddled in the pocket of his raincoat. Pulled out not the handkerchief Cornelius had expected, but a photograph.

‘I’m very busy,’ said Cornelius, starting to walk away. A couple of people he knew well were ambling past, looking curiously – and, he thought, disapprovingly – at Cornelius talking to this shambolic little man.

Richard caught his arm again.

‘Just look at it, will you? Please?’ he asked, brandishing the photo in Cornelius’s face.

Cornelius looked. His innards froze as he saw a couple there. Sebby smiling at the camera, and himself standing there at Sebby’s side with his arm draped around the boy’s shoulders.

‘I’m trying to find him. It’s my son, Sebastian,’ said the man. ‘He sent the photo to his brother a while ago. His mother got very upset. And I promised her that I would come to London and track him down and bring him home. Andrew – my eldest son – recognized you in the photograph and said that’s Lord Bray. He said
he’ll
probably know where Sebastian is, he’s right there with him . . .’

Cornelius stared dumbstruck at the incriminating photo. He had his arm around the boy’s shoulders, cuddling in close to him. They looked like lovers.

Jesus.

‘I haven’t seen him about in a long time,’ said Cornelius, taking hold of the photo. He’d say he would show it around, get it off this man, dispose of it.

But Richard snatched it back. ‘So you do know him?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Cornelius, flustered. ‘We met briefly, that’s all. I don’t know him.’

He walked on into the upper chamber. As he did so, he felt a bead of moisture trickle down between his shoulder blades. He hadn’t even realized it, but he was sweating.

78

1969

‘I thought I’d take a spin down to the South of France in the spring,’ said Michael to Ruby a couple of weeks after their dinner at the Connaught.

‘Oh?’

This wasn’t what she’d expected. This time they were doing lunch in the art deco Savoy Grill, and what she’d
expected
, what she
needed
, was that he would get straight down to cases and tell her what was happening with Charlie.

She was finding him increasingly attractive. He had an air of being able to handle anything, however dark, however dirty; his power was an aphrodisiac to her, and that surprised her because she had always believed that she had power enough of her own without having to find it in a man. Also, men with power over her had hurt her so much in the past.

Now she was feeling her stomach lurch a little every time she heard his voice on the phone; she was feeling that long-forgotten flush of excitement when he came into a room. But all that was a distraction, she
had
to concentrate on what really mattered here.

She had abandoned the idea of contacting Daisy. Daisy was happy, settled. Ruby knew it would be selfish of her to ruin Daisy’s stability. She hated it, but she felt it was right that she stayed away. But her boy was another matter. Charlie
had
to be tackled.

‘I thought about Cannes. It’s nice, they’ve got these great big boulevards,’ Michael was going on. ‘Palm trees swaying in the breeze. The best hotels. You’ll love it.’

‘Me?
’ Ruby nearly choked on her cocktail.

‘Yeah, you. This is an invitation to come with me on a little jaunt. Just for a couple of weeks.’

‘But . . . I don’t know. I have the business to think about.’ She was shocked that he had offered. Shocked and a bit scared. She hadn’t had a close relationship with a man in so long.
Jesus, it’s probably healed over by now
, she thought with a stab of mirth.

‘You have managers, let them manage.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ She hadn’t taken a holiday in . . . well, she had
never
taken a holiday. Not really. Sometimes she shopped or went to the park or to the beauty salon, but her mind was always occupied. Not so much with business, though: now she was becoming more and more obsessed with staying away from her lost daughter, and tracing her poor nameless son.

‘Only,’ he said, looking very serious all of a sudden, ‘there’ll be things going on, Ruby. And it’s best we slip out of the country while all that happens, do you see?’

Ruby took a deep breath. ‘You mean Charlie.’

He nodded, glancing around to be sure they were out of anyone’s earshot. ‘Exactly. Now, how far do you want me to go, in relation to that?’

‘Get him to tell you
exactly
what happened to my boy. No matter what happened, no matter how bad it is, I want to know.’

‘And if he won’t play ball . . . ?’

Ruby’s eyes grew cold. ‘Get it any way you can.’

Michael looked at her consideringly. ‘Not much love lost there, then.’

Ruby drained her drink and placed the empty glass firmly upon the table. She looked straight into Michael’s eyes. ‘I hate him.’

‘Then a little break for the pair of us, don’t you think? A nice trip down to the Côte D’Azur.’

‘All right. OK. I get the message, I’ll come.’

‘At last!’ said Vi when they met up for lunch and Ruby told her the news about the holiday. ‘I was starting to really worry about you. Who is he? Is he nice-looking? Come on, I want the details.’

Ruby smiled, but bearing in mind the motivation behind their trip – that they should be out of the country when whatever befell Charlie took place – she felt she ought not to be too specific.

‘I met him through the business. He’s . . .’ Ruby hesitated, trying to find the words to describe the sheer physical impact of Michael Ward . . . ‘very attractive.’

‘Good
girl
,’ said Vi. ‘And rich, I trust?’

‘Yes. I suppose he is.’ Ruby was torn about the trip. It might be lovely . . . but all the while she was getting her jollies, Charlie would be getting quite another sort of treatment. She shouldn’t give a stuff about that, but she did.

‘Not separate bedrooms . . . ?’ queried Vi.

Ruby snapped back to attention. ‘Of
course
separate bedrooms. Vi, I hardly know him yet.’

Vi sipped her tea and eyed her friend with cynicism.

‘Not still pining after that arsehole Cornelius, I hope?’ she asked.

‘Of course not. That was
years
ago.’

‘He’s done very well for himself. You know he’s a friend of Anthony’s? Cornelius got him into White’s.’

‘Well, good for him.’

‘I think I would have died of curiosity by now, in your place,’ said Vi.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning
Daisy
. His daughter.
Your
daughter.’

Ruby said nothing. She had been dying of curiosity and stifled love for too many years to count, suppressing the almost animal,
visceral
need she felt to see her daughter, to know her. Daisy’s welfare must come first, not her own feelings. She knew Daisy was well looked after, she knew Vanessa had longed for a child and that she would lavish care on one. So she had to rein in her impulses, and leave Daisy alone. It was hard, though.
Crucifyingly
hard.

‘Surely you’d like to see her, at least?’ said Vi.