Jessie Keane - Lawless

‘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.

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?’