Jessie Keane - Lawless

‘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.’

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.

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.

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…’