Kit’s heart was thudding hard in his chest, he could feel the steady beat of a headache restarting over his right eye.
Just a little taster, right, Vittore?
he thought.
He wasn’t going anywhere in the Bentley tonight. He would phone Rob later, get him to sort it. He walked further along the road to the junction, expecting to be jumped at any moment, wondering would he be sorry or relieved if that should happen? But it didn’t.
Not this time.
He saw a black cab coming, its golden light aglow. He flagged it down, and got in.
28
Three weeks into learning how the store worked from the ground up, and Daisy was still stacking shelves and serving customers and smiling very sweetly while her co-workers abused her.
‘And how
is
her ladyship this mawning?’ asked Tessa as Daisy loaded up with stock in the stores, counting packs.
Shit.
Daisy didn’t answer. She just kept loading the products into her hand basket.
‘Ooh, she’s not talking to us,’ said Julie, mouth turning down in mock offence. ‘Thinks she’s
above
us, I suppose.’
She was so sick of these horrible cows.
‘Well, she is. The heir-apparent to this whole shebang, that’s what her ladyship is.
Far
too good to
parse
the time of day with the likes of us.’
Daisy stopped loading her basket and turned to them.
‘A dog in the street’s too good for that,’ she said.
Tessa’s mouth dropped open. ‘
What
did you say?’
‘You heard,’ said Daisy, and swept past her tormentors.
Or at least she started to. One of them – she thought later that it must have been Julie – stuck out a foot, and Daisy went sprawling to the concrete floor. The basket handles came off her arm, spraying the contents over the floor. One of the packs burst open, and purple bubble bath splashed out in a glutinous arc, spattering the nearby pallets.
Searing pain lanced through Daisy’s knee and her elbow. Wincing, she lay there, winded. Then she looked up. Tessa and Julie were smirking down at her. At that instant, something snapped in Daisy’s head. She lunged to her feet, hardly feeling the pain. She ran at them, grabbed them both by the hair, slammed their heads back against the partition wall. Saw two pairs of eyes open wide with shock in the instant before she took a firmer grip and banged their heads together in fury.
Both girls squawked then, and Tessa started yelling that she couldn’t do this.
‘No? Bloody well
watch
me,’ hissed Daisy.
‘What’s going on?’ asked someone nearby.
Daisy, panting, turned her head. Doris Blanchard was standing right beside her.
Suddenly Daisy became aware that her arm was sore, her knee was throbbing.
Everything
hurt. But the hot rage that had flooded through her had blanked it all out. Slowly, she came to. Saw the fright on the faces of her two tormentors. Julie was crying. Tessa was saying she’d
get
Daisy for this.
She let them go. Doris was staring at her.
‘We’d better clear up this mess . . .’ said Doris, looking around her and then back at Daisy, like she’d never seen her before.
‘These two can do that.
Can’t
you, girls?’ said Daisy.
‘Don’t want anyone slipping on this, do we?’ asked Doris nervously. ‘Come on, Daisy, you can give us a hand . . .’
‘Actually, I can’t,’ said Daisy. She pulled off the Darkes uniform and threw it on the floor. Then she went straight up to Ruby’s office to tell her that she was done with working here – but Ruby had already gone home.
Daisy piled gratefully into her Mini and headed back to Ruby’s place in Marlow. She saw Ruby’s Mercedes on the drive, saw the hose there and the moisture on the driveway. Rob was washing the car. She got out of the Mini, locked it, and went over to where Rob was, behind the Merc’s bonnet.
‘Hi . . .’ she started to say, then Reg straightened up, thirty years older than Rob, white-haired and pug-nosed and sporting a matching set of cauliflower ears from his days punching it out in the boxing ring.
‘Oh!’ she said in surprise.
‘Sorry, were you expecting Rob?’ he asked. ‘He’s helping Kit out, he had some jobs for him. I’ve taken over driving Ruby.’
‘Oh,’ said Daisy, her guts creased with disappointment. She’d had the day from hell, she was going to have to break it to Ruby that she was quitting the store, and now no Rob.
‘Will he be doing that for long?’ she asked.
Reg shrugged. ‘Who knows.’
‘Oh. OK,’ said Daisy, feeling her heart sink all the way to her aching feet.
Then her eyes fell on the other car parked up on the drive, a red BMW. Of course. Simon was bringing Jody the nanny and the twins back from their day with him. Daisy and Simon had argued about this – every conversation with Simon ended in an argument – but as usual he had won. Daisy thought the twins far too young to be removed from the familiarity of home. But of course, Simon disputed that.
‘They’re
my
kids,’ he’d raged. ‘And for God’s sake the nanny will be with them.
One fucking day.
Is that too much to ask, you bitch?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Reg, his eyes following hers. ‘Your husband’s here.’
‘Ex-husband,’ said Daisy, and trudged on indoors.
29
At first Maria had asked Tito to intervene, but Tito had been indifferent to her pleas.
‘Come between a man and his wife?’ he had scoffed at her. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
A man and his wife.
That phraseology told Maria everything she wanted to know about Tito’s attitude; that it wasn’t a mile away from Vittore’s own. Tito was dead now but it was clear what his opinion of women had been. The man was important:
the wife
was not. The wife was an appendage, to be treated as the man chose within the sanctity of marriage, within the privacy of
his
own four walls.
The beatings were the worst thing. The pain and indignity. And he seemed to
need
to hurt her; only then could be become aroused enough to mount her. She knew how much Vittore wanted a family, kids – to prove himself a man, presumably – but she had got the Pill from her doctor and she’d been careful to take them, and even more careful to keep them hidden away in the little place behind the bath panel. But he’d found them, destroyed them. And he’d said he would
kill
her if he found any more, that it was a sin against the Catholic faith, against
nature.
Then he beat her again – more carefully this time, avoiding her face – to make her understand the error of her ways.
The last thing she wanted was a child of
his.
Impotent anger boiled inside her. She started to spend his money feverishly, on things that didn’t matter, things she bought, unwrapped and then discarded, because it was a way of hurting him, of having some small revenge.
And then she thought that there could be bigger, better vengeance against her hated husband. Not divorce, of course. They were Catholic: there could never be divorce. But there were other ways.
So Maria went to Fabio. She knew the family all discounted Fab, thought him the weak, vain baby, not bright enough to run the family, and they all thanked God for Vittore, who was dull but sensible.
Maria’s lip curled in instinctive dislike every time she so much as
thought
about her husband. She loathed everything about him: his square body, his dull, menacing brown eyes. The truth was, she’d never loved him. She married him because she needed a meal ticket, a way to escape her own miserable family background. Even back then, the very thought of him touching her made her want to puke. Not that he did
that
very often. He was hung like a worm and seemed to have little appetite for sex, except after he’d given her a beating – and she tried as best she could not to give him an excuse to do that.
She had to bide her time, waiting until she was certain Vittore was busy about town and would not be home until late, and Bella was in her own part of the house watching TV – Bella never stirred in the evenings, thank God. Only then did she ask Fabio if they could have a talk.
‘A
talk
?’ said Fabio, astonished to be approached by Maria. She had always been the quiet dutiful little wife, always in Vittore’s shadow. At family gatherings, she barely uttered a word. And now she wanted to
talk
?
Fabio had a lot of stuff going down. He didn’t have time for chats with Maria, he couldn’t see any advantage in it.
‘I’m busy . . .’ he started.
‘I know you are. Of course you are. I just need to speak to you, please, Fabio, on a family matter.’
Family matter?
He was puzzled. But she
was
family, and he was flattered. No one ever sought his opinion about anything.
‘Meet me tomorrow, in the park,’ he said.
What would Vittore say if he knew she had been in contact with his younger brother about a
family
matter? He’d be seething mad about it, Fabio knew. And that appealed to him, the fact that he was going to lend a sympathetic ear to Maria over something she didn’t want to discuss with know-all Mama’s favourite Vittore.
So he walked over to the park next day, and there she was – though he almost didn’t recognize her at first. Around the house, his sister-in-law was always close-mouthed, eyes permanently downcast. He barely noticed her; she was more part of the furniture than part of the family.
But today she looked different.
She’d done her hair, brushed it until it shone in the watery spring sunlight. She was wearing a little make-up and a form-fitting purple dress instead of the black shapeless garments she usually covered her body with.
‘Thank you for coming,’ she said to him.
Fabio had to admit that Maria was a nice-looking girl, although obviously cowed from her marriage to Vittore. He wondered about that, how it was with the two of them. Despite Mama’s objections to the union, the marriage seemed to have stuck. There were no children, true, but she seemed to be a devoted wife.
But now, this. A secret meeting! He was intrigued.
‘Hi, Maria,’ he said, and sat down with her on a bench. ‘What’s all this about then?’
Maria stared at his face. Then, unsmiling, she indicated her own. ‘It’s about this, Fab.’
Fab peered at her cheek. Beneath the film of make-up, it looked faintly blue.
‘What? That bruise there? You fell against the fireplace, you said.’
‘I know. I lied.’
Fabio frowned. ‘How did it happen, then?’
Maria gulped down a breath. ‘Vito hit me. He hits me all the time.’
‘He
what
?’ This was the first Fabio had heard about it.
She nodded. ‘It’s true.’
Fabio was silent.
‘I asked Tito to have a word with him. He wouldn’t.’
Fabio shrugged. ‘Maybe you should tell Mama. She has more say with Vittore than anyone.’
‘Mama Bella hates me. She always has. Do you think I don’t know that?’ Maria sniffed. ‘I think you’re a bigger man than your brother, Fabio. I think
you
could speak to Vittore for me, warn him off.’
Fabio looked at her. He was flattered that she was confiding in him, but this wasn’t his business. If he dared speak to Vittore about it, Vittore would be livid. He had no intention of provoking his brother, knowing what he was like when he flew into one of his rages. Still, she had come to him; of course she had. He was getting to be a big man now, a businessman in his own right, and clearly she respected him enough to entrust him with this.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. He’d do nothing.
‘You will?’ Maria smiled. She was really quite pretty, he thought.
She reached out, put a small hand on his thigh. ‘You’re so nice,’ she said, smiling into his eyes.
Things were
really
looking up.
30
Naples, 1947
Astorre’s opportunity had come at last. Patience had triumphed. The baker Lattarullo was heard in his shop moaning about how when he took fresh bread into Corvetto’s compound every day, Corvetto always insisted on coming down to the kitchens and prodding the produce, asking, Is it stale? Are you bringing me yesterday’s bread, not fresh like I ordered?
‘The man’s a pig,’ said Lattarullo to anyone who would listen. ‘He insults me.’
Bella, who’d been in the shop buying what little bread she could afford, went home and reported this to Astorre.
Astorre knew that Lattarullo was a decent, hard-working man. He was also the widowed father of a beautiful daughter, whom he adored.
It pained Astorre to do it. But he knew he had to, to avenge his dead father Franco’s soul. Here Tito played his part, spiriting the girl Luisa away to an isolated place, a little falling-down hut near the family’s home, and kept her there.
Meanwhile, Astorre called upon the baker Lattarullo and told him that unless he performed a certain task on Astorre’s behalf, his daughter would be killed.
The man started gabbling away, begging for his daughter’s safe return.
‘That is guaranteed,’ said Astorre, making calming motions with his hands. The poor bastard was doomed, he just didn’t know it yet. ‘All will be well, I promise you. But first you have to do something for me.’
Lattarullo passed a desperate night in his bakery, Astorre standing at his side. The baker worked, kneading the dough, flour misting the air. All the time he prayed for his child to be returned to him unharmed.
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Astorre. ‘So long as you do this for me.’
In the morning, as usual, Lattarullo drove out to the Corvetto compound in his truck, the covered section at the back piled high with bread for all the estate workers. The guards let him in, holding the snarling dogs tight on their leashes.