She hated him, but she loved him too. She was so torn over Kit Miller that she thought she might go mad.
He probably killed Tito.
Yes, that was true. But… she loved him.
He lied to you.
Also true. No denying it.
Are you mad?
Yes. Maybe she was.
There was a knock on the door. She heard the key turn in the lock and one of the men entered, the slim, cold-eyed one, bringing her dinner on a tray. She was a prisoner here, confined. Oh, she had a comfy bedroom, a television, a radio, her own bathroom to use. But she was a prisoner nonetheless. Which was really no more than she deserved, after the awful thing she’d done.
What if he dies? she wondered.
If he did… then she might as well be dead, too.
If he didn’t, if he lived, then he could grass her up to the police, and it would all be over for her. Maybe these people – his people – would simply hand her over to the law, let them deal with her. Or maybe they would deal with her themselves.
Unsmiling, not speaking, the man put the tray down on a low table. She saw the food there. Fish and chips. The thought of eating anything made her guts heave.
She didn’t thank the man.
She turned her back on him, faced the wall. Presently she heard him leave the room, heard the key turn in the lock once more.
93
Kit was out of intensive and into high care within a week.
‘He’s a strong one,’ said Corinne to Ruby.
‘Yes, he is,’ said Ruby. She was so relieved that Kit was getting better, and she stayed with him as much as she could. Fully conscious now, growing stronger day by day, he moved his hand away when she tried to hold it.
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ he said at one point.
‘I want to,’ said Ruby.
‘Was that your voice I heard when I was out of it?’ he asked.
Ruby was startled by the question. So he had heard her. ‘I expect it was. I stayed here, I talked to you. The nurses said it would help.’
It had helped. Even though he might deny it to anyone who asked, Kit knew that Ruby’s voice had comforted him in the bleak blackness of unconsciousness, had wormed its way through, like a single bright thread tethering him to the earth. But was she telling the truth? Would she really have taken the time, the trouble?
He looked at her. His mother. She looked shitty, not her usual elegant self; she looked like she’d been through the mill.
‘You been to see Uncle Joe yet?’ asked Kit, thinking of that dark place with its screaming winds, that tunnel he had glimpsed but not gone through. Pretty soon, he knew that Uncle Joe was going to make that same trip, and he wouldn’t be coming back.
‘No.’ Ruby looked awkward. ‘We fell out some years ago. Or at least, me and Betsy did. So Joe took her side – of course he did – and the whole thing got sort of lost and forgotten. We exchange cards at Christmas. And I keep them all, every one, which I suppose is stupid. That’s about as far as it goes these days.’
‘Fuck Betsy,’ said Kit. ‘Go and see him. Say goodbye, if nothing else.’
Rob and Daisy came in, all smiles because they could tell he was on the mend.
‘Hiya, mate,’ said Rob.
‘Kit! You’re looking better,’ said Daisy, planting a kiss on her brother’s cheek.
‘I’m feeling it,’ said Kit. ‘Why don’t you and Ruby slip outside while I have a chat to Rob.’
‘Oh God. Man talk. Come on, Mum,’ sighed Daisy.
‘So how the fuck are you?’ Rob asked Kit.
‘Pretty much OK,’ said Kit. They were still dosing him with morphine for residual pain, but the wound was healing and he could feel himself getting stronger, day by day.
‘I understand you’ve been lumbered with Daisy,’ said Kit.
‘She’s a good kid. And bright.’ Rob went on to tell Kit about Bianca trying to bust her way into the ward, and Daisy’s plan of holding her for insurance purposes. About the ‘suicide’, and about the other one who’d come in, claiming to be a relative. ‘The Bill spoken to you yet?’
‘Yeah, they have. And I didn’t see anything, can’t remember anything – you get the picture.’ Kit was frowning. ‘I don’t want Bianca touched, you understand?’
‘She won’t be.’
‘Make sure of it.’
‘I will.’
‘You looking after Daise?’
‘Goes without saying. Listen, have you got somewhere in the office at the restaurant or in Michael’s flat where you’d hide something worth a bob or two, something someone might want to find and take back?’
Kit looked at Rob. ‘What you telling me?’
‘Michael’s flat was turned over. And the office behind the restaurant. It’s OK, I’ve had it all tidied up. But somebody was searching for something. Maybe they found it, who knows? Would you have left anything about the place that was, I dunno, sensitive?’
‘Nothing that I know of,’ said Kit.
‘Well, where would you hide something like that?’ asked Rob. He’d spent days puzzling over this and had been back to the flat for a second look, but had drawn a blank. He’d been even more stumped when Daisy told him her theory about the identity of the bearded man seen loitering outside Sheila’s. ‘Where would Michael have put something like that?’
‘There’s a cubbyhole under the carpet beneath the desk,’ said Kit, lowering his voice. ‘A couple of the floorboards are loose, and Michael used to tuck anything really valuable in the back there. I don’t use it. You could try that. Why? What are you thinking you’ll find?’
Rob shrugged. ‘Haven’t got a fucking clue. But I’ll take a look.’
Kit wondered what he would do without Rob. Good, solid, dependable Rob – you could always rely on him to pick up any slack. He hated being laid up like this. It sounded as though all sorts of shit was happening and here he was, unable to do a thing about it.
‘You got Bianca safe?’ he asked.
‘Course.’
‘Rob, I want her kept that way. No funny business.’
‘After what she did to you?’
‘She could have killed me. She didn’t.’
‘She gave it a bloody good go.’
‘She pulled to the left. Missed the heart.’
‘Didn’t know you had one.’
‘Then she was looking down at me, the gun pointing straight at my head. She could have pulled the trigger and finished me – she didn’t.’
‘Must be love,’ scoffed Rob. ‘Mate, she damned near killed you and here you are saying what a peach she is and not to harm a hair on her head. You mad?’
‘You wouldn’t know, you berk. You never been in love in your life. Oh, and incidentally…’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘I want to see her.’
‘Fuck’s sake!’
‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Daisy when she and Ruby had bought their coffees and seated themselves at a table in the canteen.
‘Oh? You want sugar in yours? No? OK. Go ahead.’
‘Thomas Knox.’
‘What about him?’ Ruby sipped her drink.
‘Are you… very involved with him?’
Up to the hilt, thought Ruby. Her mind kept running through everything Thomas had told her. That shocking thing about Bianca Danieri. And about Michael, and his son Gabe.
Aloud, she said: ‘A bit. Why?’
‘Rob and I were discussing who would have had a motive to kill Michael.’
‘And…?’
‘I think that Thomas might have had a motive.’
‘What?’ Ruby was staring at Daisy’s face.
‘I know you won’t want to hear this,’ said Daisy.
‘Hear what?’
Daisy took a breath. ‘Mum, he’s been pursuing you. He’s made no secret of the fact that he wants to get close to you, am I right?’