‘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.’