She should not have looked at it, but she had never seen anyone get shot, let alone in the head.
When she had heard the door burst open, her intuition had told her that something was going to happen. Because nothing ever happened in this pub and guests usually made more noise when going out drunk than when entering. So she had leaned over her head from the chairs on which she was taking her break, and she saw him, that imposing man in his three-piece suit, with a crazy look behind his large glasses, with fingers loaded with gold rings and with gominated brown hair, plated back.
He had pointed his gun directly to the other man's face as he approached, then fired. Even if she had wanted to avoid it, she had already seen too much: the man and the weapon. Even if she had turned her eyes earlier, she had heard too much: the shot and the name, Ronnie Kray.
At her boss's panicked attitude, she realized that this man was bad news.
So when she saw several men coming to the pub again to intimidate the annoying witnesses, well before someone decided to tell the police, she took the opportunity to discreetly hit the road and never go back.
The advantage of being relatively new to the neighborhood was that no one really knew her, and she had not worked there long enough to be thought of as a witness, at least that was what she hoped for.
But when, one evening when she got home from her new job in another pub, she saw a man in an elegant dark suit leaning against the red brick wall of the house where she was staying, her blood ran cold. The hope of having gone unnoticed vanished as quickly as emerged the certainty of having entered into a crushing knot.
Lowering her head, she continued on her way, as if the path she was taking was really hers, but she did not really know where to go. Turning around the corner, out of sight of the man in the suit, she had accelerated the pace. Crossing several passers-by, she did not realize that he had followed her until he had reached her.
"Hi there" he had said, a cigarette between his lips, clinging to her back before grabbing her arm and pulling her down the dark alley that separated two houses.
Taken by surprise, she had opposed no resistance, and found herself pressed against the wall. In front of a stranger whose only profile was dimly lit by the lights coming from the main street, she took a few seconds to recover.
"What's wrong with you ?!" she protested in the face of the man standing right in front of her, one hand in one pocket of his pants, the other nonchalantly carrying his cigarette to his mouth.
Seeing his face, her heart missed a beat and a cold sweat grabbed her neck. He looked almost exactly like Ronnie Kray, but it was not him. He did not wear glasses and his hair was styled differently, but most importantly, his eyes were not crazy but charming. Damn, he's hot… she thought. He emanated self confidence and charisma, which disturbed her immediately, more than she let it appear, trying to figure a way out of this situation.
The whole point at that moment was to make him believe that she was not the person he was looking for, but the task seemed difficult; he did not seem to be of the credulous kind.
"As if you don't know what this is about, honey?" he said, looking down at her and blowing his smoke at the corner of his lips, parted in a slight smirk.
She took an outraged look with frowned brows "Excuse me, sir, I don't know who you think I am but you must mistake me for someone else ! " she replied, parting from the wall and trying to walk out of the alley, hoping he would swallow her vexed reaction.
But he didn't. The man stretched an arm to the wall at the moment she tried to pass him by, blocking her way out so suddenly that her chest bumped against it.
He tilted his head to the side, looking at her with an amused face while she awkwardly stood there, not daring to move again.
"My husband must be worried now, it's getting late…" she resumed, trying to hold his gaze, while she was the one getting really uncomfortable by the proximity of the man.
"Is that so?" he retorted in a breath, throwing his cigarette on the ground. He leaned a little more over her, bringing his face closer to hers.
"Well, you can tell him that Reggie Kray wants to talk to him."
Trying to recoil her face, her head almost hit the wall. He wouldn't let her put space between them; she could feel his breath on her face. For a little instant she looked at his well defined jaw and smooth looking cheeks with full lips and forgot what she was supposed to say, troubled by his attitude, unsure if he was threatening or seducing her. She barely realized that he and the crazy looking murderer had the same name.
"About what?" she finally said, trying to restrain the heat she felt was rising to her cheeks.
"About what his wife shouldn't have seen and who she shouldn't talk to about it…" he replied, his tone heavy with innuendo, "and how she behaves with strangers in the streets…"
She first thought I'm fucked, but then, at his last words, she ended up with a perplexed look on her face.
"What?! You… What are you implying, sir?" she stuttered, outraged.
"I'm not implying, I'm saying I wouldn't like my wife to flirt with other men the way you do" he said, with a falsely innocent look on his face, visibly amused by her reaction.
Her mouth opened in astonishment before she could find anything to say.
"Oh you… You've got some nerve Mr. Kray! I'm not the one who grabbed you and pinned you to a wall!" She retorted angrily.
The man slowly got closer to her, bending his arm above her head and leaning against the wall. She found herself stuck to the wall again. He wouldn't stop glancing at her from head to toe, his large chest now almost flicking her breasts and his mouth dangerously close to hers. She held her breath as her heart raced but could not restrain from flushing this time.
"I haven't seen much resistance from you though…" he teased her, slowly licking his lips.
"It's just… I don't want to touch you…" she muttered in a breath, lowering her head, trying to avoid the intense look of the man and cursing herself for being so weak-willed in front of him. Why did he have to be so handsome?
"I'm not like the easy women you seem used to patronize…" she added, lying to him and mostly to herself. He was exactly the type of men that had made her take bad decisions all her life.
"Really?" he retorted, his smile widening. Kray could feel she would be his with a snap of his fingers.
"Is everything okay, Madam?" suddenly interrupted a man's voice. "Is this man annoying you?"
Reggie Kray recoiled to see a police officer standing a few steps from them at the entry of the alley, his hands on his belt.
"The lady wasn't feeling good officer" he replied with the confidence he never seemed to lack of. "She had…trouble breathing. But she's feeling better now." he added, looking back at her with a piercing gaze where she could finally perceive the dangerousness lying beneath the good looks.
"Is that right, Madam?" insisted the policeman, approaching and purposely turning to her, making Kray understand she was the one he was addressing to.
She strongly hoped the red on her face would have faded a little before she looked up. Her eyes successively met the officer's eyes and then Reggie's.
"Yes… I'm better now, officer…" she eventually said in a less confident voice she would have liked. "Hum… Thank you, sir" she added addressing to Reggie who put on a satisfied smirk.
"All right then… You can go now." concluded the policeman, looking at Kray with insistence and suspicion.
"Sure, I've done my part here officer, I'll leave Ms. Porter In your hands." he said, with a last glance at her, and an expression of defiance on his face, making her understand that he knew more about her than she thought and that she better not do or say anything stupid, in case it wasn't already clear.
After he left, passing by the officer with his hands in his pockets, rolling his shoulders like he owned the place, she finally allowed herself to breathe.
For the next days, she would always take different ways and different hours to go home. Watching her back and carefully approaching her house, she was always expecting to see that tall and broad silhouette next to her door. To her own discontent, she would not have known if she would be frightened or excited to see this happen.