by Jessie Keane
Ruby’s head was drooping. It was soporifically hot in intensive care, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. It was late, she’d been here for days, and now all she wanted was to sleep. She was exhausted from all this talking, from looking at Kit so hopefully, praying for a sign, however small, that he was coming back to her. She had run out of words, out of hope, out of strength. She was . . .
A hand grabbed her shoulder, shook it.
Ruby started awake from a half-doze, looking around, realizing that she had almost fallen asleep.
‘What?’ She dragged a hand through her hair, and gazed up at Corinne, the little blonde nurse.
‘Look,’ said Corinne, nodding to Kit.
Ruby looked. Nothing had changed. She felt crushing disappointment.
‘Look at his eyes,’ said Corinne.
Ruby looked. Kit’s eyes were still closed, no change there. Except . . . well, something had changed. Just a little. Beneath the closed lids, Kit’s eyes were flicking back and forth, like someone dreaming. This was different. She glanced at Corinne, then back at Kit. His eyes were closed, but yes, they were moving.
‘Is he . . . ?’ asked Ruby.
‘He’s beginning to come round,’ said Corinne.
‘Come round,’ said a voice that floated past in the teeth of the gale. The greyness was lifting, and with it came a vague discomfort, but this was better than the blackness, the icy blast of the wind that numbed his flesh and clawed at his skin. This was better than the tunnel, too, even if there had been that enticing light at the end of it. He wasn’t ready to go there, not yet. Or at least he didn’t think so.
‘Is he . . . ?’ asked another voice.
Female voices.
They gave him no comfort, females. Deserted him, abandoned him, caused him pain.
Now he felt it, in his heart, in his chest.
Ruby
Bianca
Ah no, Gilda, he couldn’t think about her. Too much pain.
Oh Jesus, it hurt.
‘What’s the matter with him, is he all right?’ asked Ruby.
Kit was twisting in the bed now, as if fighting restraints; his eyes, beneath their closed lids, were flicking back and forth frantically, and his mouth was open in a silent scream.
‘It’s something he has to go through,’ said Corinne reassuringly. ‘This is a good sign. Wait outside now, if you would. We’ve things to do.’
What things?
Ruby stumbled to her feet.
‘Outside,’ said Corinne, and Ruby went, dazed and distressed, into the waiting room where Fats loitered, watching everyone with suspicious eyes. Ruby took refuge in the women’s toilets, where she could be alone and cry her heart out in peace.
Fats was waiting for his replacement but the guy was late, silly bastard. Bladder bursting, he had to give in at last and respond to a call of nature. He strode off down the corridor, past the nurse’s station, past the endless wards. He got to the men’s toilets, hurriedly relieved himself, washed his hands. Then he made his way back as fast as he could.
There was a squat man with scarred, pockmarked red cheeks and black hair standing at the nurse’s station, asking about his nephew Kit Miller. Fats knew that Kit had only two uncles, and one of them was long dead. The other was out at Chigwell, almost too old and infirm to walk, let alone make hospital visits. This bloke looked all wrong. He was too young. Too Latin. And he had a face like a pizza. He looked like someone had played join-the-dots on his face with a lit cigarette.
Tensing, Fats walked straight on past the man and dived into one of the sidewards. Instead of beds and bleeping monitors and hospital equipment it was full of decorators’ gear, and the window was open wide to get rid of the smell of fresh paint. Fats stood there peering through the crack in the door, waiting.
Soon, the man came past, limping slightly. So much the better.
Fats stepped out quietly behind him, glanced around to check that he was unobserved, and kicked the man hard in the back of the knee. His weight took him down. Fats clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a yell. Then he dragged him backward, off-balance, into the side ward and let the door swing closed behind them.
‘Kit Miller might have an uncle, but you ain’t it,’ snarled Fats, running the man across the room to the window.
‘NO! ’ the man tried to yell through the hand gagging his mouth, his legs scrabbling uselessly as Fats got him over the edge of the windowsill. For a moment he swung like a pendulum, then his weight and a hefty push took him over and out. A thin cry escaped him; then he was gone. When he hit the ground far below, he barely made a sound.
It was awful, a suicide like that. Not that it was the first time such a thing had happened within the hospital grounds, but still, it was shocking. Poor man jumping to his death, how low would you have to feel, to do that to yourself?
Corinne and a couple of the other ICU nurses heard about it within the hour.
‘It’s terrible. So sad,’ said Corinne, on her coffee break.
‘The good-looking one’s coming round then,’ said her colleague.
‘Kit Miller? Yes, he’s coming along fine.’
Corinne thought that Kit was good-looking, extremely so. But he had an air about him that disturbed her. And those burly men, hanging around in the waiting room, she didn’t care for that. She’d asked Kit’s brother, the big one with the sexy khaki-green eyes about it, and he had reassured her, though not entirely. He didn’t look anything like Kit, for a start. But he’d told her Kit was an important businessman and these were his bodyguards. Still, it gave Corinne an uneasy feeling. And now Kit was coming round, the police would be here to question him. With gunshot vics, they always did.
88
Daisy and Rob dropped Bianca off at one of Kit’s safe houses near Lambeth – not the one where Jody and the twins were being concealed, he told Daisy, so she mustn’t start on about seeing them.
‘I won’t,’ she snapped.
‘Good.’
This enforced separation from her babies was torture, but Daisy understood that it was for the twins’ safety and that had to be paramount. Again she thought of Simon, dying the way he did. No, Matthew and Luke were safer where they were, even if it did crucify her to be apart from them.
On the way to the safe house, they picked up two of Kit’s most dependable men, to watch over Bianca.
‘Do they know what happened? That it was her . . . ?’ Daisy asked Rob when the two men were out of earshot.
‘They know,’ said Rob. ‘All the boys know.’
‘Tell them you don’t want her hurt, or touched. That’s very important. She’s not to be let outside the door, or allowed to make phone calls. Tell them they’re to keep her in perfect health, that you’ll be very cross if they disobey you.’
‘Very cross?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said.
Rob was shaking his head at her. ‘Are we sure about this?’ he wondered.
‘Perfectly sure. They’re trying to get to Kit in case he talks to the police. But now we have Bianca – and you’re going to tell them that. They’ll back away.’
‘You hope.’
‘They will. She’s our one and only bargaining chip now that Vittore’s stepping up the pressure, but we have to look after her really well. It’s vital.’
‘And never mind what’s she’s done,’ said Rob sourly.
‘Precisely. Forget that,’ said Daisy with a flash of steely determination in her eyes.
After dropping Bianca off, Daisy insisted that they call by Michael’s flat. Rob parked outside Sheila’s restaurant and led the way to the side door. He was about to put the key in the lock when he saw that it had been forced.
He paused, looked at Daisy. Held a finger to his lips.
He pushed the door gently, and it swung inward. Seeing no one there, he ran up the stairs, Daisy following close behind.
‘Christ,’ said Rob in a whisper when he found the flat door busted too. ‘Stop here a minute, Daise,�
�� he said quietly, and ducked swiftly inside, looking left and right at a scene of chaos.
He moved through the main lounge, into the kitchen; then into the bedroom and the bathroom. It seemed every drawer had been tipped onto the floor, every cupboard ransacked. The mattress had been slashed open, there was stuffing all over the place. The bathroom cabinets had been emptied, creams and vials and deodorants smashed on the tiled floor. The sofas in the lounge had been given the same treatment as the bed, the cushions thrown carelessly aside, the coverings ripped. Even the curtains had been pulled down from their tracks. In the kitchen, it looked as though a whirlwind had hit. There was food all over the floor, smashed eggs and spilled milk, and the refrigerator door was hanging open.
The place had been comprehensively turned over.
‘Jesus,’ said Daisy, standing thunderstruck in the open doorway. ‘Do you think they’ve taken anything?’
Rob stood in the centre of the lounge, looking around him in wonder.
‘How the fuck would I know? Look at this shit.’
Daisy moved inside, feeling a bit bolder now she knew some lunatic wasn’t lurking in a corner somewhere. She looked around, at the sofas, the cushions, the . . .
‘Why slash the sofas open?’ she asked him.
‘Hm? Oh. They did the mattress too.’
‘Yes, but why?’
‘I dunno, Daise,’ said Rob irritably. ‘It’s been a bloody long week. And now this . . .’
‘They must have been looking for something,’ said Daisy.
‘What?’
‘Don’t you think so? I wonder what’s missing.’
‘Daise – I don’t know. I never did a fucking inventory of the place.’
Daisy surveyed the wreckage. ‘What were they looking for?’ she wondered aloud.
‘Fuck knows. Maybe nothing. Maybe they just smashed up the place for the hell of it.’
Rob was tired, and he was thinking that possibly they’d done a stupid thing, taking Bianca. Vittore had been beyond fury when he’d phoned him and let him know the score. His best friend was laid up in a hospital bed hovering somewhere between life and death. He’d had enough. He walked to the door.
‘Where are you going?’ said Daisy.
‘Home,’ he said. ‘I need to sleep.’
‘No, I want to look in the office downstairs.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s—’
‘What?’
‘Daise, enough.’
‘No! The office.’
‘God, you’re a stroppy cow, has anyone ever told you that?’ said Rob, thinking that he’d have to get the locks repaired and the boys in, tidy the damned place up; it was just one bloody thing after another lately.
He followed Daisy downstairs and into the restaurant where the staff were getting ready for the evening’s trade. Daisy and Rob wove their way through the bar, through the restaurant, and over to the office.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Rob.
Daisy peered past his shoulder. The door was slightly ajar. And the lock looked . . .
‘It’s been broken into,’ she said.
‘Oh, first prize! Give the lady a coconut,’ said Rob, and pushed the door open. He flicked on the light. ‘Damn, will you look at this? How the hell did this happen and no one see or hear?’
Daisy came in behind Rob and eased the door closed behind them. All the filing cabinets had been emptied and overturned. There were papers all over the place, the desk had been flipped onto its back, Michael’s chair – Kit’s chair – had been thrown aside, the seat slashed open, the stuffing pulled out.
Rob went over to the desk.
Daisy stared all around her.
‘Somebody’s definitely looking for something,’ she said.
‘Yeah, but what?’
‘I wonder if they found it?’
‘Daise . . .’
‘Maybe they didn’t.’
‘Hm.’
‘Maybe you and Kit have already taken it away. Perhaps what someone wants is the stuff that Michael was carrying around with him.’
On the way out, they stopped at the bar and questioned Terry, the head barman.
‘You seen anyone hanging about the office?’ asked Rob.
‘No, why?’
‘It’s been broken into. Turned upside-down. The flat upstairs, too.’
‘Get out of it! Really? Well, I was on last night and I didn’t notice anything. Mind you, that lock’s a pissy little thing, one good shove and it’d give. Keely!’ He called over to a brunette who was busy polishing glasses. ‘You see anyone hanging around the office yesterday or today? Someone’s been in there.’
Keely shook her head: no.
‘Bridge was on too,’ said Terry. ‘Bridge!’ he called, and a blonde girl appeared from the back, eyebrows raised in enquiry. ‘Bridge, you see anyone around the office last night or today? They’re saying someone’s been in there, and the flat upstairs.’
‘No, I haven’t. Sorry.’ Bridget turned away, then she stopped and looked back at them. ‘Wait on, I saw a bloke with a beard loitering near the side entrance yesterday evening. But he was that skinny, I wouldn’t have thought he could break the lock. Didn’t look like he had an ounce of strength in him.’
At that moment, Ashok appeared in the restaurant doorway. He saw Rob and came straight over.
‘We had some trouble at the hospital,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to risk telling you over the phone, so I’ve been driving all over—’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Another one tried to get to Kit.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Daisy.
‘It sorted?’ asked Rob.
Ashok grinned. ‘Bloke had a nasty accident, decided to end it all.’
89
When he took the call at the club, Vittore couldn’t believe it. This was not a day for good news. ‘Pizza-face’ Donato had fallen to his death from a hospital window and then Miller’s right-hand man had the brass neck to tell him that he should call his dogs off, because they had Bianca.
A bluff?
He phoned Dante’s in Southampton and asked Cora, was Bianca there?
She wasn’t. Days ago, she’d said she was going up to London, and no one at the club had seen or heard from her since.
First, he had to tell Mama. She wailed and screamed like a madwoman.
‘What will they do to her?’ she sobbed. ‘My baby!’
‘They’ll do nothing, Mama,’ said Vittore. ‘She has to be kept safe, or else what do they have left?’
But Bella went on with her hysterical breast-beating.
Fabio came into the kitchen, alerted by all the noise. ‘What’s going on?’
Vittore filled him in.
‘We can’t allow this,’ said Fabio, clenching his fists.
‘It’s done,’ said Vittore, watching his younger brother with cynical eyes. Like he cared about Bianca. Not that Vittore did either, not really, only insofar as her behaviour reflected upon him and the Danieri name. She was becoming a liability. He couldn’t have her telling the world she was in love with that bastard Kit Miller. He couldn’t have Miller scoring points over them. No way. And it wasn’t as if Bianca was truly blood, he reminded himself.
‘What do you mean? We stand by? Do nothing?’
‘Yeah, we do nothing. For the time being. What else can we do? Now shut up and get out of my way.’
Fabio glared at his older brother. Who was he, telling him what to do? He had his own business now, he didn’t have to answer to Vittore any more. He had even tupped the mama’s boy’s wife. And still Vittore thought he could tell him what to do?
Fuck him.
But then he remembered that bricked-up cellar door, and Maria, gone God knew where, and that smell. And suddenly the fear was back, crawling up his spine as he looked at Vittore.
He’s going to get me, thought Fabio.
And then he had another thought.
Unless I get him first.
90
/> Someone was calling his name, right by his ear.
The voice was so close that it startled him. All the sounds before had been distant, ethereal, ghost-echoes of his own thoughts. But this was a definite, firm, Kit.
It was grey, light-grey now, and he could hear things beeping, monitors or something, and it was like being talked up from hypnosis or some such bollocks; he was coming up and he would wake when someone went click with their fingers.
Three . . .
Coming awake, coming back to the land of the living . . .
Two . . .
. . . stretching, feeling that he’d had enough of that other world with its blackness and its chilling winds . . .
One.
His eyes flickered open. Owwww. Bright in here. Lights all over the place, and someone leaning over him, a blonde pigtail tickling his collarbone, his heartbeat accelerating, what the fuck . . . ? A kind face, young, pretty and that blonde was straight out of a bottle . . .
‘Kit?’ she said, and smiled and put a soft warm hand to his face. ‘Hello, Kit. You’re fine, you’re in hospital. Just rest there for now, everything’s going to be OK.’
What happened? he wanted to say, but even as his brain formed the words, it came back to him. Dinner with Bianca. Outside in the rain. The gun in her hand. The terrible ripping pain in his chest, and then nothing.
The nurse’s face withdrew and he saw Ruby sitting there. She was holding his hand and she was crying and laughing at the same time.
‘You’re back,’ she was saying. ‘Thank God, you’re back.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, but he made no sound. He felt so tired, like he’d run a mile.
The nurse’s face floated into view. ‘Rest now. You’re doing so well,’ she said.
He was exhausted. His eyes drooped, and closed again. No wasteland this time, though. This time there was only the warm familiar darkness of sleep.