‘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.
91
Rob drove Daisy back to Kit’s house and they let themselves in, relieved to find that the lock was intact and inside the place was, apparently, untouched.
‘Well, thank fuck for that,’ said Rob.
Daisy walked over to where Michael’s belongings were still spread out on the side table. Rob joined her. They both stared at the bits and pieces there. The gold Dunhill lighter, the cigarette case, the comb, the Krugerrand set in the ridged heavy gold mount of the ring, three matchbooks, a Rolex, a wad of twenty-pound notes and some change in a plain black wallet.
‘Is this all? I mean, were there any other items that Michael was carrying, that Kit would have kept for himself?’ asked Daisy. Rob shook his head. ‘Kit was so sure that Tito killed Michael,’ she said.
‘Bella Danieri says not. Not Tito, and not Fabio or Vittore either.’
‘Motives, then. What motive would anyone else have for doing that?’
‘Money and honey,’ said Rob.
‘Hm?’
‘Money,’ said Rob. ‘That points straight to Gabriel Ward. He found out he wasn’t getting a bean, and killed his dad in a rage.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Honey?’
‘That’s possible too.’ Daisy thought of her mother. ‘Rob… what do you know about Thomas Knox?’
‘Tom Knox? He’s a hard man, a real face. In charge of a firm. Like Michael was. Like Kit is now.’
‘I think Ruby’s been seeing him. He was outside the church after Simon’s funeral, waiting to speak to her. The way he looks at her…’
‘What?’ asked Rob, when she hesitated.
‘Just he seems… as if the normal rules don’t apply to him.’
‘Daise – they don’t. I didn’t know Ruby was involved with him.’
‘I’m thinking aloud, that’s all… Honey, you said. Michael dies and suddenly there’s Thomas Knox, making moves on Ruby. Knox could have wanted Michael out of the way. To clear the path to her.’
‘Possible.’
Daisy was frowning. ‘Did Michael strike you as secretive?’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh… hiding things. You know.’
‘No, I don’t know. What sort of things?’
Daisy looked at Rob. ‘I don’t want this going any further,’ she said. ‘This is just between us.’
‘What is?’
‘Apparently Michael had another woman. A secret woman. Thomas Knox told Ruby about it.’
Rob looked astonished. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Neither did I, but it’s true.’
‘Bullshit. Maybe he cooked up the secret woman to turn Ruby off Michael’s memory?’
‘Maybe.’ Daisy picked up the Krugerrand ring and turned it over in her hand. ‘But I’m looking at this inscription: I’m Still in Love with You. Ruby didn’t give this to him. Michael didn’t wear rings, as a general rule. We don’t think his wife gave it to him…’
‘There’s no way of knowing that.’
‘Why would she give him a ring? She knew he wouldn’t wear it. And why was it in his pocket, instead of in a drawer somewhere? Why was he carrying it around with him?’
‘Jesus,’ said Rob. ‘I don’t know.’
Daisy put the ring down. ‘So what else is there?’ she asked.
‘Well…’ Rob glanced around the flat. ‘There’s Michael’s record collection, Kit kept that.’
Daisy knew that Kit was into modern stuff with a hard aggressive beat, but Michael’s taste had been for the music of the fifties, the era he’d grown up in – Billy Fury, Bobby Darren, artists like that. The music of a bygone age.
Rob stood up and went over to the stereo, opened a door and lifted out a thick wodge of LPs. He took them over to the sofa.
‘Well, here we are,’ he sighed.
Daisy spread the covers out and took a look. ‘That’s Kit’s,’ said Rob, and tossed Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack to one side. ‘That too,’ he said, shuffling past an old dog-eared copy of Their Satanic Majesties Request by the Stones. ‘These are Michael’s.’ Now they were into Michael’s era: some Tony Bennett and Vic Damone, a little Johnny Rae, a soupçon of the big O.
‘Roy Orbison,’ said Rob, and sighed again, heavily. ‘That’s one of the newer ones for Michael, but he liked the Big O. Always said that man could really sing.’
Daisy was looking at the cover. ‘The title on the cover: I’m Still in Love with You,’ she said. ‘That’s odd, isn’t it? The same as the ring.’
Now she was pulling out the white inner sleeve. ‘Oh, look at this!’ she said, and her voice was full of excitement. ‘Look, Rob.’
Rob looked. There was handwriting in the bottom right-hand corner. It read: I’m still in love with you. ‘What about the writing?’
‘I don’t recognize it,’ said Daisy, squinting hard at it. ‘This album was released last year, but that’s the same inscription as the one on the ring.’
‘So if this is from that same person, the same woman, that’s not his wife Sheila’s handwriting. It can’t be.’
‘Maybe it’s Ruby…? I don’t think so, though. Oh…’
Rob looked at her. ‘Oh what?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said vacantly.
‘Do you know the writing? Daise?’
‘No, but I just thought of something.’
‘Well, go on then.’
‘It’s too stupid.’
‘I said go on.’
‘Michael phoning Vanessa to see how she was…’
Rob stared at Daisy’s face. ‘Oh, come on. You’re kidding! Michael and her ladyship? Don’t make me laugh.’
‘She’s a lonely rich widow,’ said Daisy.
‘Daise – the woman’s as dried-up as a nun’s twat,’ said Rob.
‘Rob!’
‘Come on. It’s the truth.’
Daisy was flushed with sudden temper. ‘It might be, but I don’t want to hear it! She was all I knew as a child, and she loved me. She did her best for me. So don’t talk about her like that, OK?’
Rob shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said.
Daisy heaved a sigh. Michael and Vanessa as lovers? Vanessa buying Michael rings and LPs, little love tokens? Surely not…
‘No, Vanessa hates popular music. She’s into Dvořák and Holst, a little Wagner,’ said Daisy.
They both fell silent, staring at the sleeve of the LP.
‘But someone wrote that,’ said Rob. ‘Looks like the same person who had the ring inscribed, too.’
‘Yes,’ said Daisy. ‘I don’t think it’s Ruby’s writing, though. And I don’t think it’s Vanessa’s hand either. Too loopy.’
‘Well, whose is it?’
‘Don’t know… But, Rob…’
‘Hm?’
‘I’ve had a thought about Bridge’s skinny bloke with the beard.’
92
Bianca was being kept in comfort but she was still in a state of misery. She was lying on a bed in a strange house, thinking of Kit gravely ill in hospital. Her big fear was that her brothers would get to him, finish him off. She knew it wasn’t beyond them to do that.