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kept an apartment over one of the clubs – she didn’t want to know about that , or about what he got up to when he was there, God forbid. Fabio, her youngest boy, still lived here with his Mama, and why not?
    And Vittore!
    Bella’s lip curled. Her favourite boy, the middle son, had shocked and upset her by insisting on marrying that whore Maria. He’d been ready to break his mama’s heart by moving out, setting up his own household with the slut.
    Bella soon put a stop to that. She had cajoled, pleaded, cried, clutched at her chest. ‘I am losing my son!’ she wailed.
    In the end, Vittore had relented, as she had known he would. Now Vittore and Maria had their own set of rooms – lounge, kitchen, wine cellar, bathroom, bedroom, even their own little patch of garden – in the big family home, and there was no more talk of them moving out.
    The rain battered against the window and Bella gazed out at the dark sky, the lashing rain. She sighed then, and cursed the weather in this country. In Napoli, sweet hot Napoli, people sat outside, sharing grappa with their neighbours and laughing at the problems of the world under a brilliant, scorching sun. Here, they huddled indoors even in the summer months, and the air was never dry, it was always damp, humid: everyone went out in raincoats to dodge the showers. But there could never be any going back for the family; she knew that. This had become their country, their home.
    Once it had seemed that nothing could touch them here, nothing at all: and then it happened. Her son Tito, walking out of the renovated Docklands one night. An assassin, lying in wait, striking when it was least expected. A single thrust with a long, narrow blade, and her precious boy, her eldest, was dead.
    With trembling fingers Bella placed her long-dead husband’s picture back on the mantelpiece. She was so tired of it all: the fight, the struggle. Tired to death; all she wanted was peace. No reprisals, no beatings. She’d told the boys and she meant it. Tito was gone, nothing was going to bring him back. Let him rest.
    Blinking back tears, she focused on her reflection in the mirror. Why not admit it? Her husband might have been no looker, but she wasn’t either. Years of sophisticated company, high-end dinner parties, charity galas, and still she looked like what she was: an Italian peasant woman, her greying hair scraped back in a bun, her face a pallid network of wrinkles, her sallow complexion not flattered by the unadorned black dress she wore, her eyes stricken with grief.
    ‘Mama?’
    Bella turned. It was her Vittore. Her beloved boy. He too was showing signs of age: his hairline was receding, forming a widow’s peak at the front. It gave him a sinister look, wolfish.
    Vittore had always been her favourite, the one she had nursed at her breast for longest, the one she doted on the most. Now he was the eldest living boy and head of the family. He came forward, looking at his watch. It was nearly ten thirty. He kissed her dutifully on both cheeks, held her close for a moment, then pushed her back.
    ‘ Finally he comes to see his mother,’ Bella sniffed.
    ‘Shouldn’t Bianca be here?’ asked Vittore, ignoring her remark. He was used to such things.
    Bella gave a shrug; Bianca was a law unto herself. She smiled faintly and patted his cheek. Vittore was her special one, that would never change.
    She thought of the old English rhyme: A boy’s your son till he takes a wife, a girl’s your daughter all your life. Bella’s heart clenched with pain as she thought how Vittore had gone against her wishes and wed Maria. She had warned him about dirty girls and their seductive ways, but what could you do? Men had their needs, and that bitch Maria had snared Vittore despite all Bella’s efforts to prevent it.
    But Bianca was completely hers. And she was proud of her. Bianca was intelligent, incisive – she was a true daughter of the Camorra. Bianca had adored Tito ever since she’d arrived on