The Consultant's Italian Knight

by Maggie Kingsley

  ‘Despite all the wars, famines, drugs, unnecessary deaths and diseases?’ he observed.

  ‘Despite even that,’ she said stoutly, and to her surprise he smiled again, but this time it was the smile which completely softened his face.

  The smile which stupidly—ridiculously—made her wish she’d made time for that hairdresser’s appointment, lost some weight, maybe even bought herself a new blouse. Something pretty, feminine, and…

  She really had to get a grip. Good grief, her divorce had only just come through this morning, and just because this man was standing close to her—so very close—and smiling that smile…

  He was probably married, with umpteen kids, and, even if he wasn’t one look at him should have been enough to tell her she’d be toast if she ever got involved with him.

  ‘Look, can we get out of this cupboard now?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This cupboard—I don’t think we need to be in here any more, do you?’

  ‘Probably not, but I was kind of beginning to enjoy it.’

  He was also enjoying wrong-footing her, she realised, seeing the glint of laughter in his blue eyes, but she wasn’t going to play. Not when she had the very decided feeling that she would lose.

  ‘If there’s nothing else, I really do have to get back to work,’ she said, reaching for the door handle only to feel an annoying jolt of sensation as her arm brushed across his chest.

  ‘There’s just a couple more things,’ he replied. ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell anybody what you’ve told me, and I’d also prefer it if you didn’t tell your colleagues that Ralph Evanton and I are policemen. The fewer people who know anything about what happened here tonight the better.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ she said but, as she opened the cupboard door, and squeezed past him, her heart sank.

  Terri was standing outside in the treatment room, and it was all too obvious from the look on her face that she’d got completely the wrong idea of what she and Inspector Volante might have been getting up to in the cupboard.

  ‘Terri, this is…’

  Kate came to a halt. If she was not supposed to say who he was, then how on earth was she supposed to introduce him?

  ‘I’m Mario Volante,’ he declared, coming to her rescue. ‘An old friend of Dr Kennedy’s. A very old friend.’

  He’d said that deliberately, Kate thought angrily, seeing Terri’s eyes glance from her to Mario avidly. He’d said that on purpose, knowing full well that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—contradict him, but she wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going?’ she said sweetly. ‘You don’t want to be late for your over forties reunion.’

  ‘Oh, nice one,’ Mario said, his face lighting up with genuine amusement. ‘She’s just kidding,’ he continued, flashing a smile across at Terri. ‘She knows very well that I’m only thirty-eight, but she’s right about me having to go.’

  ‘Must you?’ Terri protested, and he nodded.

  ‘Afraid so. See you around, Kate,’ he added, and before she could reply he’d gone.

  ‘Wow, and double wow!’ Terri exclaimed. ‘Where have you been hiding him?’

  ‘He’s a friend of mine from…from med school,’ Kate replied, improvising wildly. ‘I haven’t seen him for years.’

  ‘So, you two aren’t an item, then?’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Kate said firmly, and Terri looked disappointed.

  ‘Pity,’ she murmured.

  Not from where I’m standing, it isn’t, Kate thought as her pager went off, and she reached into her white coat to answer it. OK, so she couldn’t deny that every time Mario Volante had smiled that particular smile she’d felt odd, and hot, and totally unlike herself, but he was also rude, opinionated and arrogant, and any one of those three traits was a complete turn-off. Plus, he was also probably married, which made him a complete louse for chatting up strange women in cupboards.

  ‘You’ll never see him again, Kate,’ she murmured as she walked down the treatment room, ‘and you should thank your lucky stars you won’t.’

  ‘Did you manage to get anything out of the receptionist?’ Mario asked, pulling the parking ticket off his car windscreen, and tossing it indifferently onto the road.

  ‘Just the standard you’re-not-next-of-kin garbage,’ Ralph replied as he got into the car. ‘The one thing I did find out, though, was that your auburn-haired doctor is the consultant.’

  ‘Kate Kennedy’s head of A and E?’ Mario frowned. ‘Bright lady.’

  ‘Pretty, too,’ Ralph declared, shooting Mario a meaningful glance, but Mario ignored him.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ he said instead, extracting his notebook from his pocket and throwing it into Ralph’s lap. ‘Hamilton died before I could speak to him, but he told Dr Kennedy some very interesting things.’

  ‘Interesting?’ Ralph repeated as he read through the pages. ‘Mario, this is dynamite. Did you tell Dr Kennedy that what she heard could send down three of the biggest drug dealers in Aberdeen for a very long stretch, plus identify possible drug outlets?’

  ‘It’s better she doesn’t know,’ Mario said. ‘It’s better nobody knows for the moment.’

  ‘You think she’ll keep her mouth shut?’

  ‘I told her to, so we can but hope.’

  ‘Then, if your conversation with her was private—and I’m sure it was,’ Ralph declared, ‘we should be OK.’

  Mario had a flashback recollection of himself crushed up against Kate Kennedy in the store cupboard, of her hair smelling of flowers and hot summer evenings, and her full breasts gently rising and falling against his arm, and stamped on the image immediately.

  ‘The trouble is, her conversation with Hamilton wasn’t private,’ he observed. ‘Hospital cubicle curtains are notoriously thin, and you know as well as I do that the fixers have their spies everywhere which means I’m going to have to keep an eye on Dr Kennedy.’

  ‘Purely professionally, of course,’ Ralph said slyly, and Mario gave him a hard stare.

  For sure, it had been fun to keep wrong-footing Kate Kennedy, and to watch her large grey eyes grow more and more flustered by the minute, but it had just been a bit of fun at the end of a long and tiring day. He had no intention of taking it further. Not personally at any rate.

  ‘Ralph, all I want from Kate Kennedy is facts, and I want them while she’s still alive to give them to me.’

  ‘You think our lady doctor could be in trouble?’ Ralph asked as they pulled away from the kerb.

  Mario executed a fast U-turn in front of the hospital, completely ignoring the angry cacophony of car horns that greeted his manoeuvre, and nodded.

  ‘Yup, I do.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘HE’S’ back,’ Terri said.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Kate murmured vaguely, more intent on inserting the final suture into the badly cut hand of the young woman sitting in front of her than on what the sister had just said. ‘OK,’ she continued, straightening up, ‘I think that should do it.’

  ‘Will my hand be scarred?’ the young woman asked. ‘Not that it matters, of course, but…’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to be left with a couple of faint white lines once those cuts heal,’ Kate admitted, ‘but, considering what you fell on, it could have been a lot worse. A few centimetres higher, and you would have cut an artery.’

  ‘That’ll teach me to pay proper attention when I’m carrying bottles of wine out to a barbecue,’ the young woman said with feeling, and Kate chuckled.

  ‘Get some brawny man to do it for you in future. They like looking macho.’

  The young woman laughed. ‘I’ll remember that. Do you want me to come back to get the stitches out?’ she added, and Kate shook her head.

  ‘Your own GP can remove them for you, but don’t forget to call in at the hospital pharmacy before you leave to collect some painkillers. Once the anaesthetic wears off, I’m afraid your hand is going to feel as
though somebody’s been inserting red hot needles into it.’

  The woman rolled her eyes. ‘I’m definitely going to get some brawny man to carry the wine in future,’ she declared but, the minute she had gone, Terri cleared her throat discreetly.

  ‘I said, your friend’s back.’

  ‘What friend?’ Kate asked, rotating her neck wearily, then pulling off her bloodstained surgical gloves and binning them.

  ‘Mario Volante.’

  He was back? But she still hadn’t remembered the fourth name that Duncan Hamilton had given her on Saturday night, and Mario Volante must know she wasn’t likely to remember it two days later. Plus, she’d had a long afternoon. A very long afternoon.

  Not to mention the fact that you never wanted to see him again, a little voice whispered at the back of her head.

  Too darned right, I don’t, she thought. He’s too unsettling, too aggravating, too everything.

  ‘Tell him I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to talk to him right now,’ she declared. ‘If he’d like to phone—’

  ‘He said you’d say that,’ Terri interrupted, ‘so he also said to tell you…’ The sister’s eyes danced. ‘That the strip search offer was still on.’

  ‘Oh, did he,’ Kate said grimly. ‘Well, we’ll see about that. Where is he?’

  ‘The waiting room.’

  But he wasn’t. When Kate marched out of the treatment room, fully intending to give Mario Volante a very large piece of her mind, he was walking down the corridor towards her looking every bit as scruffy and unkempt as he had on Saturday night.

  ‘Don’t you own a suit?’ she demanded. ‘Or at the very least something that doesn’t make you look like the people you’re supposed to be arresting?’

  ‘Well, hello, and it’s nice to see you again, too,’ he said, a maddening

  smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Are you always this cranky?’

  ‘Only when people seem determined to waste my time,’ she replied irritably. ‘Look, much as I want to help, you already know everything I do, so why don’t you just run along and do some really important police work like arresting some little old ladies for jaywalking?’

  ‘I’m back because I need your signature on a transcript.’

  ‘Oh.’ Suddenly she felt stupid and, if there was one thing she hated, it was feeling stupid. ‘Of course I’ll sign—’

  ‘Plus, I have some photographs I want you to look at,’ he interrupted. ‘They’re of people you might have noticed hanging around the waiting room the night Hamilton died, or perhaps since then. ’

  She gazed up at him, hardly able to believe her ears. ‘Inspector Volante—’

  ‘It’s Mario. ’‘Whatever,’ she said dismissively. ‘Do you honestly think I have time to run out into the waiting room and stare at who’s sitting there?’

  ‘You might recognise somebody.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You might.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she insisted, and he sighed.

  ‘Dr Kennedy, I’ve had a long day, and I really want to get back to my office before midnight, so we can do this the easy way, or…?’

  She stared up into his resolute face. That he was not going to take no for an answer was plain, and if she kept on refusing he’d probably make good on his threat to take her down to the police station and that would be an even bigger waste of her time.

  ‘OK, let’s get this over with!’ she exclaimed. ‘Give me the transcript to sign and then I’ll look at your damned photographs.’

  He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Not here. It’s too open, too exposed, and somebody might overhear us.’

  ‘I’m not getting into a cupboard with you again,’ she said quickly, and his blue eyes glinted.

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘Inspector Volante—’

  ‘It’s Mario, remember?’

  ‘OK, Mario,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m having a bad day…’ Bad day, bad week, bad year. ‘…and I really don’t have time for this.’

  ‘Time for what?’ he said, all faux innocence, and she let out a huff of frustration.

  He was winding her up again, she knew he was, and she didn’t know who she was angrier with—herself, or him. Why couldn’t she effectively silence this infuriating man? She’d never had any trouble in the past. She’d always been able to inflict a crushing snub or a biting retort on anyone who dared suggest she was anything but a doctor first, and a woman second. Why was she so apparently incapable of making that clear now?

  Because she didn’t want to completely shut him up, she realised as she gazed at him and saw the glint of laughter in his deep blue eyes. Because when he wasn’t infuriating her, it was fun to spar with him, and she had to stop thinking it was fun or she was going to be in big trouble.

  ‘My office is down that corridor,’ she said frostily. ‘We’ll use that.’

  ‘Terrific,’ he said, and strode off without even waiting for her to lead the way.

  Rude, she thought as she followed him. He was rude as well as being opinionated and arrogant, but no way was she going to allow him to continually get the better of her. It was time somebody brought him down to size. Well past time.

  ‘I can give you half an hour, tops, because I have an admin meeting at six o’clock,’ she said when they reached her office. ‘If you need longer I’ll come down to your office on my day off.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He pulled a chair over to her desk, extracted a notebook from his jacket pocket, and flipped it open. ‘OK, before I give you the transcript I need to confirm your personal details against those we have on file.’

  ‘You have a file on me?’ she said faintly, and he smiled without warmth.

  ‘We have a file on everybody, Dr Kennedy. Your full name is Kate Elizabeth Kennedy. You’ll be thirty-five on the 2nd of next month, your address is 33 Union Grove, and you’re married to John Elliot.’

  ‘No.’

  A frown pleated his forehead. ‘No, to what?’

  ‘Your information is wrong on two counts,’ she replied. ‘My address is 33A Union Grove. The house is split into two, and I have the ground floor flat.’

  ‘And the second error?’

  ‘I…I’m not married any more,’ she said, trying to sound offhand, casual, but failing miserably. ‘My divorce came through on Saturday.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he declared, and there was genuine sympathy in his face. ‘It’s tough when a marriage ends acrimoniously.’

  Hurt struggled with honesty within her, and honesty won.

  ‘It wasn’t an acrimonious divorce,’ she said with an effort. ‘He didn’t leave me for somebody else. He has somebody else now, but that wasn’t why he left. He left because…because he just didn’t love me any more.’

  Probably because he hardly ever saw me, she thought miserably, and when we did meet we seemed to have run out of things to say. Unless it was to hurl angry, hurtful words at one another.

  ‘He was stupid.’

  ‘I—W-what?’ she stammered.

  ‘Kate, you’re bright, funny, attractive.’ He shrugged. ‘What else did he want?’

  ‘He didn’t…I didn’t…I mean…’ To her annoyance she could feel herself blushing. Pull yourself together, Kate. OK, so this attractive—very attractive—man has said you’re bright, and funny, and attractive, but that’s no reason for you to completely fall apart. ‘I…umm…Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he said.

  Dio, but he shouldn’t have either, he realised, as he saw a blush creep across her cheeks. OK, so she was bright, and funny and attractive, and he did think her husband was an idiot, but what the hell was he doing here? He never paid women compliments unless he was making a play for them, and he had no intention of making a play for Kate Kennedy. In fact, he’d been more than a little relieved to discover when he got back to his office on Saturday night that she was married which meant she was strictly off limits as far as he was concerned.

  S
he still is, he told himself, as her large grey eyes met his then skittered away quickly. Divorced—separated—single—it made no difference. No way was he ever going to get involved with this woman. OK, so maybe she possessed the kind of lush, full breasts guaranteed to send a man’s blood rushing to his head, and a pair of hips that simply cried out to be touched, but she was trouble. He didn’t know how she possibly could be, but he could feel it, sense it.

  ‘What can you tell me about Terri Campbell?’ he said brusquely.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ she asked in confusion, and saw his eyebrows snap down. ‘OK—All right—for some reason best known only to yourself you want to know about Terri,’ she continued quickly. ‘She’s worked at the General for more than twenty years, has been a sister in A and E for the past ten years, is married to Frank, and has two children—Neil and Lissa.’

  ‘Has she any money or family worries?’

  Kate blinked. Quite what he was trying to get at here was beyond her, but she had no intention of telling him anything about Terri’s problems with her son, Neil. That was the sister’s private business.

  ‘None as far as I know,’ she said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Don’t you trust anybody?’ she exclaimed, and his lips curled as he wrote something down in his notebook.

  ‘God perhaps, but everyone else I regard as a suspect.’

  ‘Wow, but with that sort of attitude you must have a real fun social life,’ she said without thinking, then winced as she waited for him to explode, but to her amazement his mouth twitched into a reluctant smile.

  ‘You’re right, I don’t,’ he murmured. ‘What can you tell me about Paul Simpson, your specialist registrar?’

  ‘Paul?’ she echoed, desperately trying to marshal her thoughts, and not think about why a man with looks like Mario Volante should have a lousy social life. ‘Not a lot, really. He’s worked in the department for almost a year. He’s bright, efficient, and very organised.’

  ‘And you don’t like him,’ he said shrewdly.