Gangland

by Jessie Keane

Genres: Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

The Darke family and their associates are under attack. Ruby's burlesque club has been razed to the ground. Her son Kit's closest associate, Rob Hinton, is dead. And when Ruby's lover, gangland boss Thomas Knox, is blown to pieces by a car bomb, everyone suspects a rival gang. But is that the truth?

As Kit and Ruby trawl the mean streets of London in search of answers, Daisy, Rob's bereaved young widow, cannot control her grief and soon she is attending illegal raves, picking up strangers and attending seances, while Rob's younger brother Daniel is handed the unenviable task of keeping her safe.

DI Romilly Kane is also on the case and her investigations into these horrifying events takes her deep into the underworld, where she crosses swords with mad, bad Fabio Danieri, the London boss of the Naples Camorra. And soon she is face-to-face with Kit again. The gangland underworld is deep and dark and dangerous, like their never-to-be-repeated passion.

All they have to do is stay alive and outwit someone who seems hellbent on revenge ...

Release date: February 27, 2025

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

prologue

1975

The man drove to his home deep in the pitch-dark ­Berkshire countryside, his mood lifting as he turned the BMW into the drive. He loved his house. It was big, white, impressive. His wife had hated it, called it ‘The Mausoleum’, said it was miles from anywhere and cold as the Arctic Tundra.

No matter. She was the past, anyway. Of course, he would like to meet someone new, someone who could be a proper mother to his kids, not like her. Some lovely docile woman who adored being at home, who would be there waiting for him at the end of the day with the house all warm and welcoming, a hot meal cooked, ready to listen to his woes; that was his dream.

As he pulled up outside the garage block he gave a sharp sigh, seeing the house in total darkness – there was no warm, accommodating woman waiting for him. He’d heat something up for himself, or maybe not bother, just grab a whisky and a sandwich. In the headlights’ glare he could see that the damned gardener had left one of the garage doors open again; he had told the bloody man about that on more than one occasion. There were thieves out here, and some valuable stuff was stored in the garage. Why didn’t the fool listen?

He switched off the engine and all was suddenly blackness and silence, but for the ticking of the engine as it started to cool. He got out, locked the car, stalked over to the open garage door, muttering in annoyance.

‘Hey!’ said a voice to his left.

He literally jumped. The shock of hearing someone in this place, in this dense, dark country silence, was immense. He whirled around, his heart in his mouth. Saw a shadowy shape, moving.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded.

The fluorescent strip light that hung from the beams inside the garage flickered on. He saw two men inside, big burly men in black coats. One of them, older and taller than the other, had a long puckered purple knife scar running the length of his left cheek. It was hideous. The scarred one was pushing an old chair into the centre of the concrete floor. The other one . . .

The man felt his bowels grow loose as he saw what the other one was doing.

He turned to run.

The man on his left moved in, grabbed him; another came from the right. He started to resist, but to his shock one of them drew a gun and held the muzzle crushingly against his head.

‘Shut up,’ he said, and the man instantly stopped struggling.

‘What’s this about?’ he panted out. ‘If it’s money—’

‘It’s not money,’ said the one with the gun.

Between them they nudged him toward the garage, toward the scarred one with the chair – and the other one with the rope that he had thrown over one of the beams.

It was tied in a noose.

1

day one

1982

The explosion occurred at seven o’clock on a summer’s evening, outside a large London house. It blew out every downstairs window in the building, scattering spine-sharp slivers of glass and metal shrapnel away from the central blast point. It was lucky no one was walking in the street, or they could easily have been killed. The police said that, afterwards, when they assembled to pick up the pieces – what little pieces remained, anyway.

It was a car that had blown up, a top of the range BMW. The force of the first explosion was so extreme that it lifted the entire thing into the air. And then the petrol tank blew. The noise was so massive that people immediately ran out of houses up and down the road to stare in horror at the flaming wreckage. Alarms on cars blared, rocked by the blast. Someone had the sense to go back indoors and phone the authorities, but most people just stood there, disbelieving.

This was Hampstead.

Things like this didn’t happen here.

One mother ushered a small child away, averting her own gaze from what she had seen – because beyond the flames, beyond the mangled wreckage, there was a skull-like face behind what remained of the wheel of the car. Burned bones and a roaring inferno. It was horrifying. She had to turn away, had to go back indoors to safety, to normality, because this just couldn’t be happening.

She knew – well, practically everyone knew – the man who’d just got into the BMW and started the engine on this sweet balmy summer’s evening. He was one of her near neighbours. Always polite but reserved. A bit scary, actually, she’d always thought. Not someone you would easily pass the time of day with. You read about Thomas Knox sometimes in the papers. He was always squiring some glamorous young thing or other about town. One of those girls was now, apparently, his wife. Yes, Chloe. That was her name.

As the police and fire engine sirens came blaring ever closer, Chloe Knox came stumbling out of the door of the house, to where the car sat ablaze on the driveway; the double explosion had rocked the house, sent glass flying out from its shattered bay window. Her face was cut, and blood snaked down in rivulets from several small gashes, staining her pink T-shirt. She saw the car, scrapped and burning, saw black smoke pouring up into the sky. Saw the remains of Thomas – her husband – sitting behind the wheel of it.

Chloe fell to her knees.

Presently, she started to scream.

2

day one

2 hours earlier . . .

Ruby Darke was sitting in the office behind her Soho burlesque club, Ruby’s. She’d been toying for some time with the idea of turning the upstairs stock room into a small flat for herself. Some weekdays, she stopped overnight at her son Kit’s place rather than schlepp all the way back to genteel Marlow, but the arrangement wasn’t ideal. Kit had women in sometimes, and it was embarrassing, bumping into them in the kitchen in the mornings, most of them wearing very close to fuck-all. At least she hadn’t spotted that copper among them, that DI Romilly Kane. That particular bout of madness appeared to be long over, and that was, to Ruby, a huge relief.

Out in the main body of the club two of tonight’s acts were warming up. ‘Hey! Big Spender’ was shrieking out through the speakers. Her office was barely quieter. The door was open and she could see the stage from where she sat. A woman dressed as a Bengal tiger was bouncing around the front of the stage, cavorting with a man clothed as an electric blue snake. Their choreographer was shouting at them in agitation. Behind them was a copper bath, and a girl dressed in a French maid’s outfit was bending over the fake bubbles it contained, saucily testing the heat of the bath water and sending coquettish glances back at her ‘audience’ of cleaners, bar staff and arriving hostesses.

Ruby was reading the letter spread out before her, the envelope discarded. The letter had been hand delivered through the club’s front door this morning, not sent through the mail. She read it once, twice, three times, poring over the words, letting them sink in.

I’ve been a damned fool. Can we try again?

I miss you. Eight o’clock tonight? The usual place?

I’ll be waiting.

With a sudden movement, Ruby crumpled the letter and threw it forcefully into the bin. Then she sat there, breathing hard for no good reason.

Thomas bloody Knox! She thought she’d seen the last of him and now here he was again, crawling into her head, forcing images of him to spring back to life when she had been convinced that all that was dead; finished. The straight, thick dark blond hair. The hard ice-blue eyes. The face, strongly chiselled; a real hard man’s face. His tough, solid body, and – oh! – the feel of his skin beneath her fingers. Swimming naked with him in the indoor pool at his house. Making love with him.

But all that was supposed to be done with. Hadn’t they agreed that? Yes. They had. Now he had a young wife, and the last Ruby knew there had been a baby on the way, which could almost have made her laugh if she hadn’t felt so inclined to cry over it. A baby, and Thomas in his very late fifties. It would drive him nuts.

Still, he’d called it off with Ruby and said he wanted to make a go of it, properly, with – what the hell was her name? Big Tits, Ruby remembered that was what she’d always called her. Ah yes. Chloe. What she did recall, much more easily, was dinners with Thomas at the Savoy in the American bar. Then nights spent with him in a river-view suite. That was their place, hers and Thomas’s. And he was going to be there at eight o’clock tonight, waiting for her.

She wasn’t going to turn up, of course. She didn’t want to be that sort of woman anymore; the mistress, the other woman, dancing to attendance whenever her married lover whistled, deceiving the poor bloody cow who was his wife, betraying the ‘sisterhood’.

No. Of course not.

Didn’t she have enough in her life to feel guilty about, after all? Her son Kit laundered dodgy cash through this very club and she let him. Once, she’d been a legitimate businesswoman. Now? Not so much. She had a minder – Brennan, who was outside the door of her office right now, idly watching the rehearsals – because Kit’s way of life made that necessary; washing a little money was the least of it.

Although Kit didn’t get into the real nasty stuff like drugs or trafficking, what he did do was run an extremely lucrative protection racket, taking money off traders all around his manor while using several legitimate businesses as cover for his illegal operations.

Sighing, Ruby got the letter out of the bin. Uncrumpled it. Read it again.

Not that she was going.

Not that she cared.

Of course not.

But . . . sod it. She knew she was already mentally trawling through her wardrobe, selecting just the right thing to wear. Thomas had always said that she moved like a jungle cat; he loved her trim body displayed in fire-engine red, loved the heat of it against her dark skin and thick black hair.

But she wasn’t going.

No way.

Once again, she threw it in the bin. This time, she let it stop there.

3

day one

The curtains were drawn, shutting out the remains of the bright summer daylight, plunging the cheaply furnished little room into gloom. Daisy Darke, Ruby’s daughter, blinked, adjusting her eyes to the low light level, making out the shapes of the others seated around the table with her. A spasm of misgiving shot through her, but she breathed deeply, calmed herself. She wanted to do this. She could do this. She was, after all, not only the daughter of the famous Ruby Darke but also of big, blond and long-deceased ­Cornelius Bray, and she looked every inch his daughter. Daisy had the healthy complexion, golden-blonde hair, blue eyes and robust build of a Valkyrie – and she had the guts to go with it.

They had met, five of them, total strangers, in this tiny Bermondsey flat high up in a tower block, not far from the Rotherhithe Tunnel, overlooking the river. Mrs Chamberwell, the flat’s elderly resident, had greeted them all at the door, given them wine and cakes.

Really, the woman seemed normal enough. She was exceptionally tall, her thin blonde hair scraped back into a purple net that matched her purple cardigan. She wore a white ruffled blouse, a cameo brooch at the throat. She looked like something maybe out of a Victorian painting. But she spoke in a low East End accent, its tone coarsened by a lifetime of cigarettes, and very quickly put them all at ease.

Most of them had arrived anxious, questions on their lips to which they had never been able to get answers. Now, wine and cakes despatched, they sat down in Mrs Chamberwell’s miniscule front room at the circular table, and a hush fell.

‘Sometimes, they don’t come,’ Mrs Chamberwell said. ‘You mustn’t worry about that. But no sudden movements please, no loud noises. Quiet now.’

Daisy was seated opposite Mrs Chamberwell. She saw the dim outline of the woman grow still. There was a moment’s hush and then the woman held out her thin, long-fingered hands. ‘Join with me please, everyone.’

They held hands. The very fat man beside Daisy had sweaty palms. The woman on her other side had a grip so cold that Daisy almost recoiled. But she wanted to do this. She had to do this. She’d lost Rob Hinton, her husband for far too brief a time, last year. She wanted to know he was okay.

She saw Mrs Chamberwell’s head go back. The woman took several deep, shuddering breaths.

Daisy suppressed a shiver. Of course it wasn’t growing colder in the room. She told herself that, very firmly. She was imagining it. Mrs Chamberwell’s breathing grew louder, louder. It was all a bit stupid, theatrical, and she found herself having to suppress an uneasy laugh. Thank God that Daniel her minder – and Rob’s younger brother – wasn’t in here. He was waiting outside. He would have pooh-poohed the whole thing, scoffed at it, maybe even laughed out loud and offended the poor old dear.

‘Is there . . . ?’ she started.

There was silence all around the table.

‘Is there anybody there?’ she went on.

Silence.

They all held their breath.

Then Mrs Chamberwell shook her head, reached out to her left and turned on a rose-patterned standard lamp. It cast a faint creepy glow over the room.

‘As I said, sometimes the spirits are reluctant to co-­operate,’ said Mrs Chamberwell. ‘We’ll try the board instead. All right?’

There was a murmur of approval. The black spirit-­hunting Ouija board was already set out on the table, its neat lines of white letters and numbers clearly delineated, an upturned glass in its centre.

‘Index fingers on the glass, please, everyone,’ said Mrs Chamberwell.

Everyone obeyed.

‘As I say, sometimes—’ started Mrs Chamberwell, and then with a tiny jerk the glass started to move.

Because Mrs Chamberwell is pushing it, thought Daisy.

The glass juddered sideways, skimming over the surface of the board.

Someone gasped.

The glass settled on D.

‘Quiet, everyone,’ hissed Mrs Chamberwell.

It was moving again. It scudded across C, then B, and then it settled on A.

‘Who’s doing that?’ asked the woman seated beside Daisy, a nervous laugh edging her voice.

‘A spirit,’ said Mrs Chamberwell, and took her own ­finger off the glass as if to prove it.

It was colder in here now. Daisy knew she wasn’t imagining it. And the damned glass was off again. Now it raced over and landed on I. Daisy could feel her heart thudding in her chest like a brass band. Christ, this wasn’t funny. Maybe the thing really was moving on its own accord.

It skittered across to S.

Then E.

‘Daise,’ said Mrs Chamberwell. ‘Would that be Daisy? Is there a Daisy here? Is anyone trying to get in touch with a Daisy?’

Daisy had to swallow hard, work some spit into her mouth. She felt like all the blood had rushed out of her head and straight down to her feet. Finally, she managed to say. ‘My name’s Daisy.’

But the thing was off again. It was racing back through the alphabet, racing back . . .

‘Whoever is doing this, it’s not funny,’ said the cold-handed woman sitting beside Daisy. She took her finger off the glass, scraped her chair back, stood up.

‘Shhh,’ said Mrs Chamberwell.

The thing was still moving.

It settled once again on D.

Then it raced away and skidded to a halt on O.

Slipped back and landed on N.

Then went to T.

There it stopped.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Daisy.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me that. Is the message what you expected? Hoped for?’

If it was Rob, Rob who’d been shot and killed last year, what was he trying to say to her?

The thing had spelled out a simple message.

Was it Rob who’d done that, somehow reaching out to her from the other side? Or was it simply a trick, was it that Mrs Chamberwell had one of her stooges sitting here, shoving the glass about, making it spell out Daise. But she hadn’t told Mrs Chamberwell her name – or any of the other attendees, either. She’d given a false name at the door, paid cash, there was no way any of them could know her true identity. And it had spelled out more than simply her name. It seemed to be a warning.

The glass had spelled out DAISE DON’T.

Don’t what?

And there was the other thing, of course. The thing that made her shiver.

It was the fact that it was usually only ever Rob who called her ‘Daise’.

And how the hell would anyone else here have known that – except her?

4

day one

Kit Miller, son of Ruby Darke and in his mid-thirties, was the unlikely-looking twin brother of Daisy. Kit and Daisy were a rare phenomenon born out of Ruby’s mixed-race heritage; Ruby’s eggs had contained a mixture of gene coding for both black and white skin and – to her and everyone else’s amazement – she’d given birth to blonde, blue-eyed Daisy – and at the same time to black-haired, dark-skinned but blue-eyed Kit.

It was a tough time for Ruby way back then. Kit did appreciate it, he understood it, although it had taken him a long, long time to come to terms with it all. She’d had no husband to support her. A career as a Windmill girl and then a reckless affair with Cornelius Bray had resulted in her pregnancy with himself and Daisy. Cornelius’s barren wife Vanessa had snatched up Daisy, who was the dead spit of white, blue-eyed, blond-haired Cornelius – for a fee – while dark-skinned Kit had been left to kids’ homes and then, later, he’d got lost on the mean streets of London.

Kit knew his mother’s life had been a struggle. For years Ruby had been running the family store, expanding, turning it into a nationwide chain, losing all contact with her children. But she had regained that contact. Got them back, and not without difficulty. Kit had hated her for quite a long time, felt abandoned by her, forgotten. He’d suffered but he’d grown tough and eventually – slowly – he’d forgiven her. She’d been in a difficult situation; it hadn’t been her fault. He could see that now.

Time did heal. But now there was this problem with Daisy. Kit was annoyed, frustrated about Daisy’s inability to let go, to accept that Rob’s untimely death last year was not his fault. Daisy was wasting her time, chewing over the past, and where the hell did that ever get you? Right now he knew she was in a Bermondsey flat, trying to get in touch with her dead husband Rob Hinton – who had also been Kit’s best friend.

Kit was sitting in the office at the back of Sheila’s ­restaurant in the heart of the city, idly watching the news on the TV. From Sheila’s, Kit ran his thriving protection business that stretched its tendrils all around the east of the city and even extended up to the west. He had numerous shell companies on the go – clubs, car parks, car wash firms, all generating legal sources of income; their spare capacity was used to clean his illegal cash. Fats – skinny as a rake – was counting out monies from the various businesses that paid out to Kit, handing over bundles and thick wedges of cash. Young Ashok was lounging against the wall by the TV, cleaning out his fingernails with a penknife when there was a rap at the door. Ashok opened it and Daniel, Rob ­Hinton’s younger brother, came in.

Kit looked up. ‘Problems?’

‘She’s a fucking lunatic,’ said Daniel. ‘I got nothing else to say.’

‘She went, did she? She see that woman over Bermondsey way?’ asked Kit.

‘She’s up there now. Calling back for her in half an hour.’

Kit shrugged. ‘If it helps . . .’

‘How the fuck can it?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘Supposing Rob appeared and said he was fine, what difference would it make? The poor bastard’s dead.’

Kit could understand Daniel’s exasperation. After all, Daniel was the one who’d been appointed – by Kit himself – to look out for Daisy, to act as her chauffeur and minder, keep her safe. And it wouldn’t be an easy job, because Daisy had a wild side and Rob’s death seemed to have somehow made that wildness even worse.

Daniel was pacing around in small, irritated circles. Kit watched him, thinking that Daniel, despite his gripes, was patient enough for the task in hand. He was a good, safe pair of hands for crazy Daisy. Daniel might be immaculately groomed in a Savile Row suit, tailored shirt and Italian leather shoes, but he could cut up rough in an instant whenever force should be required. Like his old boss Michael Ward before him, Kit wouldn’t allow scruffs on his team and Daniel toed that particular line beautifully. He had the super-clean and finely drawn looks of a perfect specimen of manhood. His blond hair was tightly trimmed, his khaki-green eyes – so like his brother Rob’s – were sharp as razors; his broad, solid body, shorter than Rob’s, squatter, was taut and ferociously fit.

‘I think she still blames me,’ said Kit. ‘For Rob.’

‘She’ll come round,’ said Daniel.

‘Yeah? When?’ Kit gave a wry smile.

‘Listen,’ said Ashok suddenly, indicating the TV.

It was then that they heard the news.

5

day one

‘Another glass of champagne Miss Darke?’ asked the waiter, smiling.

Ruby looked up. ‘No. Thank you, I’m fine.’

Thomas – the bastard – was late. She’d drained her drink and as the waiter withdrew she glanced at her watch again. Eight-thirty now. And here she was, waiting for him, wanting to see him. Kidding herself – oh, she was good at that – that she really didn’t care one way or the other whether he actually showed up.

Thomas fucking Knox.

The American bar at the Savoy was full of happy chattering diners, and she was sitting here at his usual table, marooned in an ocean of silence, alone. Had he played her? Fed her a line, tried her out? Said, I want to see you, but not meant it? Or . . . had Thomas himself sent the note? Maybe he hadn’t. Had his bitch wife imitated his hand writing, put it through the door of the club, and was now going to show up herself and say . . .

Well, say what?

Ruby stood up, feeling a fool.

She’d worn the red Chanel gown, the one he loved. And the fucker had stood her up.

Briskly she snatched up her gold clutch bag from the table and marched out of the restaurant, collected her coat. Then she turned around and to her surprise found her son Kit standing there.

‘What . . . ?’ she asked, surprised. She walked forward, kissed his cheek. ‘You eating here tonight?’

‘No.’

‘I was supposed to be meeting someone. They didn’t show up,’ said Ruby.

‘I know that. I went to the club to find you. I found the note in the bin. I thought that was over, you and Thomas?’

Ruby heaved a sigh. ‘So, what are you doing here then? Is this an intervention? Are you here to save me from myself ?’ She smiled grimly. ‘Too late. I am already saved. He’s obviously had a rethink.’

‘You’d better come over here and sit down,’ said Kit, taking her arm, leading her across to a deep, comfy couch.

Ruby sat, feeling a stab of alarm. ‘What is it?’

‘It was on the news,’ said Kit, sitting down beside her.

‘What was?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kit.

‘For what? Come on, you’re scaring me now. What did you see on the news?’

‘He’s . . . there’s been an accident. Well, not an accident. There was an explosion.’

‘What?’ Ruby stared at his face. ‘You’re talking about Thomas? Is he hurt? An explosion? For God’s sake, you mean I’ve been sitting here cursing him and he couldn’t come? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Mum.’ Kit grasped her shoulders, stared into her eyes and at that point Ruby knew that this was going to be really, really bad. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

‘What . . . ?’ Ruby’s voice tailed away. She could see the answer in Kit’s eyes. ‘Oh . . . no,’ she said weakly.

‘I’m sorry as hell.’

‘No . . .’ Ruby felt the world sway around her. ‘No, no . . .’

‘Thomas is dead.’

6

day one

It was a lovely evening in London. Summer celebrations in full swing. Rooftop shindigs in sky-high gardens. Parties at the V&A. Dances by the river. Champagne corks popping, everyone having fun. People lighting their barbeques in back gardens, music playing, the whole city glorying in the all-too-brief beauty of English summer days. And here was DI Romilly Kane, attending a scene of disaster. Of murder.

Romilly was a tall woman of thirty-two with a shock of wild dark curls tied back with black cord. Her eyes were brown and serious, set in a perfectly ordinary pale oval face. Her body was fit and well toned, because she worked hard to keep it that way.

‘I hate this job,’ she told Derek Potts the dapper bearded pathologist when he pitched up. She’d been at her parents’ little celebration for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. And then the call had come and now she was here.

There was a big white tent covering the remains of the BMW, which had been literally blown up and had then burst into flames that had ignited the fuel tank. All around, there were scorch marks, broken windows, shards of glass being swept from the pavements now that SOCO had recorded the s. . .