Lawless

by Jessie Keane

  ‘Who saw you together tonight?’ he asked, scratching at his bandaged hand. It was healing, and it itched like crazy.

  ‘She’s tired, let her—’ started Bella.

  ‘Who?’ shouted Vittore.

  Bianca flinched. ‘People in the restaurant. Gino’s. The waiter. I don’t think anyone actually noticed us.’

  Vittore looked at his adopted sister. Bianca never passed unnoticed anywhere; she was far too striking for that. But maybe they could scrape their way out of this.

  ‘We were near a pub, there was a jukebox playing very loud. No one would have heard the . . . the shot. And there was no one about, it was raining.’

  ‘That was lucky,’ said Vittore. He was thinking fast. It would be even luckier if Miller was pronounced dead at the scene. If not, things could get a little untidy. The bastard might recover, might name Bianca as the shooter. That outcome had to be prevented at all costs. He’d get some of the boys out, check the hospitals.

  ‘She’s very upset,’ said Bella, patting Bianca’s hand.

  ‘I should have cleared this up sooner myself,’ said Vittore. ‘Then Bianca would never have got involved with any of this. You see, Mama? Sometimes action is necessary.’

  Bella nodded grimly. This was what she had been trying to avoid. A child of hers or of Ruby Darke’s ending up on a slab. But despite all her best efforts, she’d been unable to prevent it.

  ‘Have a bath, Bianca. Scrub your fingernails in case there’s cordite on your hands. But first bag up all the clothes you were wearing tonight and give them to me – I’ll burn them.’ Vittore eyed his sister dispassionately. ‘You did good. Tomorrow, you go back down to Southampton and you stay there. Don’t worry about it. That bastard deserves to fry in hell.’

  78

  The ambulance came, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, the medics piling out into the rainy night: a crowd gathered, interested, as people always are, in death and disaster. They watched the medics check to see if Kit still had a pulse – which amazingly he did – then they checked his blood pressure.

  The onlookers watched them give him oxygen as the police arrived, and Wendy stepped forward and told them she and Sammy had found him out here on the pavement. As the medics attached an IV line and fastened an oxygen mask over Kit’s face, Wendy said that no, she didn’t know the man, Sammy didn’t either, they’d just come out of the pub and nearly fallen over him lying there on the pavement, that was all.

  ‘Someone stab the poor bastard?’ asked Sammy.

  ‘It looks like a bullet wound so far as we can ascertain, sir,’ said the policeman. Another one came up, had a look at Kit.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said.

  ‘You know him?’ asked his partner.

  ‘Looks like Kit Miller – local businessman.’ The officer knew Kit. He knew Kit’s boys. He fucking well ought to, he was on their payroll.

  The medics were wrapping the victim in blankets, lifting him carefully onto a gurney, strapping him in, loading him into the back of the ambulance. There was blood on the spot where he’d lain, but now the rain started to wash the pavement clean. Soon, it would be as if he’d never been there at all.

  ‘We’ll need a statement,’ said the first policeman to Wendy as the medics slammed the ambulance doors and the siren started up.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ said Wendy, thinking that this was what it was like, scum on the streets these days. People getting themselves shot, for Christ’s sake.

  It was indeed Kit Miller who nearly got himself wasted that night. There was a driver’s licence in his coat pocket and a handful of belongings – a wallet stuffed with more money than most of A&E had seen in a year, comb, a red card with Dante’s emblazoned across it in gold, a handkerchief, not much else.

  ‘An inch to the right and he’d be in G4,’ said the surgeon as he fished around for the bullet that had smashed through Kit’s chest wall before being deflected by one of his ribs, just missing his heart. It had embedded itself in his upper left arm, tearing an artery in the process. G4 was the morgue, down in the bowels of the building.

  ‘Clamp,’ he barked, and the nurse hurried forward, stemmed the bleeding. ‘Ah, look. Here it is.’ The surgeon held a tiny pellet of silver in his bloody gloved hand. ‘Small calibre, you see? Any bigger and it would have killed him right then and there.’

  ‘Blood pressure’s falling,’ said a nurse, and alarms sounded as Kit went into cardiac arrest.

  PC Halligan, the second policeman to show up at the scene of the incident, put through a call to a number he knew very well; Rob answered. Within fifteen minutes, Rob had phoned Ruby, dressed, and was on his way to the hospital.

  ‘Can you tell me how Kit Miller’s doing?’ asked Rob when he got to the hospital and stood at the receptionist’s desk.

  ‘Kit Miller?’

  ‘He was brought in by ambulance. Gunshot wound. Maybe an hour ago?’ Rob was saying these things, but he could scarcely believe they were coming out of his mouth. Kit had been shot in the chest. It looked bad. That was all Halligan told him on the phone, apart from the fact that he’d been found collapsed on the pavement outside a pub near to Gino’s, where he’d asked Rob to drop him off earlier.

  ‘Are you a relative?’

  ‘His brother,’ lied Rob.

  He was asked to wait. Ten minutes of anxious pacing later, he was told: ‘Your brother’s in surgery. If you’d care to take a seat . . . ?’

  Ruby and Daisy arrived half an hour later, having been driven from Marlow by Reg. Their faces were drained of colour and life, their eyes desperate. He got to his feet and Ruby flung herself into his arms, sobbing. He looked over her shoulder at Daisy.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  He shook his head. ‘They’re operating now.’

  ‘You said a gunshot wound?’ Daisy’s eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back, swallowing hard. Trying to keep it together.

  ‘He took a shot in the chest,’ said Rob. ‘It could be bad.’

  Ruby stepped back, looked up at him. ‘No! I can’t lose him,’ she cried.

  Daisy reached out and hugged her mother. ‘Kit’s tough. He’ll pull through,’ she said, managing to get some conviction into her voice.

  ‘Course he will,’ said Rob. ‘Sit down, I’ll fetch us some coffee.’

  ‘You know the worst thing?’ Ruby said to Daisy as the minutes drifted into hours in the dingy little waiting room. People had been coming and going the whole time they sat there, but it was quietening down now. This was the middle of the night, the time when people died if they were going to.

  ‘No. What?’ asked Daisy. Rob was sitting opposite the two women, arms folded, keeping watch.

  ‘He still hadn’t forgiven me for abandoning him when he was a baby. And now . . .’ Ruby was shaking her head, more despairing tears slipping down her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ said Daisy, squeezing Ruby’s hand. ‘He’s going to get better. And if he has any hang-ups about the past, he’s going to get over them. It’s all going to be fine.’

  Platitudes. The sort of thing that everyone says to people sitting in hospital waiting rooms. Ruby knew Daisy’s words for the comforting lies that they were. But she was grateful for them. Daisy cared. Daisy loved her. Kit, he’d not been able to . . . yet. She’d been hoping, over these last few months since Michael died, that it would all come right somehow. But the gap between them seemed too wide; unbridgeable.

  And now she was thinking about Thomas Knox, who had promised her he would watch over Kit. And he had let this happen.

  ‘Mrs . . . Miller?’ asked a tall, thin, tired-looking man, suddenly appearing at the door in a green surgical gown, his mask pushed down around his neck. There was blood on the front of the gown. Kit’s blood, thought Ruby. Oh, Jesus . . .

  ‘I’m Kit Miller’s mother,’ she said, stumbling to her feet.

  The man paused, looked at Daisy, at Rob.

  ‘His brother and sister,’ said Ruby.
‘How is he?’

  ‘I’m afraid his condition is critical,’ said the surgeon. ‘The bullet missed his heart, smashed a rib, did a fair bit of collateral damage . . .’

  Ruby felt her legs dissolve like water. She sank back down into the chair.

  ‘. . . but he’s still with us. He’s not out of danger. He’s suffered a severe trauma and serious loss of blood. We’re keeping him deeply sedated for the time being and we’ll be monitoring him closely in ICU for the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘When can we see him?’ asked Daisy, pale as milk.

  ‘Not yet. Go home, get a few hours’ sleep. Come back tomorrow; hopefully his condition will have improved by then. In the meantime, there’s nothing you can do here. You’ll be better off at home.’

  Ruby and Daisy looked at Rob. ‘I’ll stay here in case I’m needed,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go find Reg downstairs, get you two home.’

  ‘I want to stay,’ said Ruby.

  ‘No. The doc’s right, time to go.’

  The surgeon departed, and Rob escorted Daisy and Ruby downstairs and out to the car park where Reg was waiting with the Merc. Having got them safely inside, Rob went back into the hospital, found a payphone and called Ashok. He told him what had happened, and to get himself to the hospital at eight a.m. to take over. Then he returned to the now deserted waiting room, took off his jacket and made it into a pillow, and laid himself out across four of the chairs to try to get some sleep.

  79

  Someone was knocking on the door of Thomas Knox’s Hampstead home.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he asked of no one in particular. He sat up, switched on the bedside light. It was four in the morning, and someone was out there playing silly buggers. He slipped on his robe, and went over to the window. There was a black Mercedes parked up on the drive, he could just about make out a grey-haired bloke sitting at the wheel.

  He made his way downstairs, flicking on lights as he went. Flung the front door open. Ruby shot inside like an Exocet, slamming the door shut behind her. Since leaving the hospital, she’d been fulminating with rage against Thomas Knox. He’d promised he was going to look out for Kit, and now Kit was in intensive care. So she’d dropped Daisy off, and then she’d got Reg to drive her over here, because she was so devastated, so furious, that she felt if she didn’t get some of this rage out then she would explode.

  Ruby strode straight past Thomas and into the sitting room. She flicked on the lights in there. He followed her, his eyes curious, as she stalked around the place like a caged panther.

  ‘You promised,’ she spat out at last, coming at him with eyes full of fury, poking him hard in the chest with one finger. ‘You promised you were going to watch out for him.’

  Thomas stared at her. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know? You’re supposed to know everything, aren’t you? But you don’t know my boy’s laid up in hospital with a bullet wound in his chest!’

  ‘When did all this go down?’

  ‘Last night. He got shot.’

  ‘Jesus! Who?’

  ‘Who shot him? I have no idea. Nobody seems to know. But you didn’t even know he’d been shot, and you should. You’re supposed to be on the ball.’

  ‘Ruby, I said I’d keep an eye on him and I’ll stick to that, but I can’t stop harm coming to him twenty-four hours of the day – how could I?’

  Ruby rounded on him in fury. ‘Are you serious? You seduced me and promised me . . .’

  Now Thomas’s eyes hardened. ‘Hey! As I recall, you didn’t seem too reluctant. You were panting for it like a fucking porn star.’

  Ruby’s eyes flared with rage. She slapped him, hard, across the face.

  To her surprise, Thomas slapped her right back in return and pushed her until she hit the wall. More startled than hurt, she glared at him as he held her there, pinned, immobile.

  ‘Oh, now this is the real Ruby Darke,’ he hissed against her mouth. ‘This is the East End alley cat, not the cool business lady. This is the genuine article.’

  ‘Why was I so stupid as to get involved with you, to believe what you said?’ she gasped out. It shamed her, mortified her, that she had been cavorting with Thomas Knox in expensive hotel rooms, swimming naked with him in his pool, while Kit had been going through some sort of awful crisis.

  ‘While we’re on the subject of stupid, what about Kit fucking the Danieri sister – how’s that for stupid?’

  Ruby grew still, staring at him. ‘What are you talking about?’ she whispered.

  ‘I been hearing about it around town. I got people on the streets. They were starting to notice, Kit and Bianca Danieri. So if you’re looking for someone with a good reason to shoot your boy, I’d look to Vittore or Fabio, since Kit was busy turking their baby principessa. If you think they were going to be happy when they found that out, you’re off your head.’

  ‘Bianca . . . ?’ Ruby repeated numbly. ‘I didn’t know they had a sister.’

  ‘She runs a club down south, I heard. Dante’s.’

  Ruby’s eyes grew distant. Kit had been away on the south coast, and he’d been late coming back to London; she and Daisy had been frantic over Simon’s death, they’d needed Kit to be there. Was this Bianca the reason he hadn’t been? For God’s sake, if that was true, how could he have been so foolish?

  ‘There’s much more to that girl than meets the eye,’ said Thomas. ‘More to that family, too. The story was that they adopted her, but Michael told me something different.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tito – did you know him?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘That’s good, because he was a real bad bastard. Mike was tied to him in business and there was a family connection because of Sheila – but he hated the guy. And Mike’s boy Gabe was like Tito’s lapdog. Mike hated that, too. Told the boy to keep clear. But Gabe wouldn’t. He hung around Tito, and saw more than he wanted to see. Came home one day, Mike told me, all shot to pieces. Gabe was never the same after that. And he confessed to Mike that he’d seen Tito snatch a little girl from her parents, and kill them. Bianca wasn’t adopted like everyone thinks she was. She was taken.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Ruby, and slumped against the wall. ‘And this Bianca, she doesn’t know?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘She believes she was adopted. She idolized Tito. And she don’t remember a thing about him offing her folks.’

  Ruby was shaking her head at the ghastly picture he’d just painted. ‘Poor girl,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Thomas.

  Ruby closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. ‘We could lose him,’ she moaned. ‘We could lose Kit. He could die.’

  ‘Hey! You won’t. He’s tough as old boots, that one. Like his mum.’

  ‘I love him, and you know what? He’s never believed it.’

  ‘You got time to work on that.’

  Ruby let out a thin, sad laugh. ‘I might not have. He’s seriously hurt. He could die. Oh God, I’m sorry I hit you.’

  They looked at each other. Then Thomas opened his arms and Ruby went into them, hugging him, feeling shattered from the horrors of this night and wondering where the hell they could all go from here.

  ‘You want to stay here tonight?’ he asked, kissing her forehead.

  ‘I can’t. I have to go home, in case the hospital phones.’

  ‘He’ll be all right.’

  She didn’t dare allow herself to believe that.

  ‘Ruby?’ he murmured against her brow.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s something else. There are things I should have told you before, but didn’t. I want to tell you now, but I’m worried you’re so screwed up over Kit that it will be too much for you . . .’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ruby, drawing her head away from his so she could look into his eyes.

  ‘Nah. Let’s leave it for now.’

  ‘No. Whatever it is, tell me.’

  Thomas stared into her eyes
for a long time. Then he said: ‘It’s about Mike.’

  ‘Michael? What about him?’

  ‘Ruby – I’m sorry. I heard he was unfaithful to you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘From dependable sources. He was seen with another woman. They were close, if you get me. That’s all I know. More than that, I can’t tell you.’

  Ruby’s eyes were anguished as they stared at his face. ‘No,’ she said faintly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruby. It’s true.’

  80

  They were back at the hospital at two o’clock the following afternoon. Ashok was there, keeping watch, and when Rob arrived he headed off home with nothing of interest to report.

  Rob, Daisy and Ruby went into intensive care to see Kit. He was out of it, fastened up to tubes and pumps and monitors, and his skin had a greyish tinge; he looked nothing like his usual robust self, and his chest was heavily bandaged, a drain attached to the left-hand side of it. Ruby started to cry the minute she saw him. Daisy hugged her. A dark-haired, bushy-browed nurse passed by, all kind smiles and compassion. ‘Talk to him,’ she said. ‘He might hear you.’

  Talk to him about what?

  ‘When will we be able to speak to the doctors?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘They do their rounds at three thirty, they’ll see you then,’ said the nurse.

  Rob patted Kit’s hand, where the IV line ran in. ‘All right, mate?’ he said, having to swallow hard. It hurt him to see Kit like this. It hurt him that he hadn’t been there to stop it.

  Daisy wiped at her eyes and sat down beside Kit’s bedside and spoke to him. ‘You gave us all a terrible scare,’ she said. ‘We can’t wait for you to get better. If only so we can shout at you to take care of yourself in future.’

  Ruby could only stand there and watch. Her beautiful boy! Seeing him like this was agony. Daisy’s bravery left her in awe, but then Daisy had been brought up to believe in the stiff upper lip, noblesse oblige; her class of woman – Vanessa’s class – never crumbled.