Troubled Blood

The elderly occupant was bent almost double in an armchair beside the window. In the minute that had elapsed since the nurse left him, he’d fallen fast asleep. Robin let the door close quietly behind her, crept across to Ricci and sat down on the end of his single bed, facing the one-time pimp, pornographer and orchestrator of gang-rape and murder.

There was no doubt that the staff looked after their charges well. Ricci’s dark gray hair and his fingernails were as clean as his bright white shirt collar. In spite of the warmth of the room, they’d dressed him in a pale blue sweater. On one of the veiny hands lying limp on the chair beside him glistened the gold lion’s head ring. The fingers were curled up in a way that made Robin wonder whether he could still use them. Perhaps he’d had a stroke, which would account for his inability to talk.

“Mr. Ricci?” said Robin quietly.

He made a little snorting snuffle, and slowly raised his head, his mouth hanging open. His enormous, drooping eyes, though not as filmy as Betty Fuller’s, nevertheless looked dull, and like his ears and nose seemed to have grown while the rest of him shrank, leaving loose folds of dark skin.

“I’ve come to ask you some questions,” said Robin quietly. “About a woman called Margot Bamborough.”

He gaped at her, open-mouthed. Could he hear her? Could he understand? There was no hearing aid in either of his overlarge ears. The loudest noise in the room was the thumping of Robin’s heart.

“Do you remember Margot Bamborough?” she asked.

To her surprise, Ricci made his low moan. Did that mean yes or no?

“You do?” said Robin.

He moaned again.

“She disappeared. D’you know—?”

Footsteps were coming along the corridor outside. Robin got up hastily and smoothed away the impression she’d left on the bedspread.

Please God, don’t let them be coming in here.

But God, it seemed, wasn’t listening to Robin Ellacott. The footsteps grew louder, and then the door opened to reveal a very tall man whose face was pitted with acne scars and whose knobbly bald head looked, as Barclay had said, as though something heavy had been dropped on it: Luca Ricci.

“Who’re you?” he said. His voice, which was far softer and higher than she’d imagined, made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. For a second or two, Robin’s terror threatened to derail her carefully worked out contingency plan. The very worst she’d expected to have to deal with was a nurse. None of the Riccis should have been here; it wasn’t Sunday. And of all the Riccis she would have wanted to meet, Luca was the last.

“You his relative?” Robin asked in her North London accent. “Oh, fank Gawd! He was making a weird moaning noise. I’ve just been visiting my gran, I fort he was ill or somefing.”

Still standing in the doorway, Luca looked Robin up and down.

“He doesthn’t mean anything by it,” said Luca, who had a lisp. “He moanth a bit, but it don’t mean nothing, do it, eh, Dad?” he said loudly to the old man, who merely blinked at his eldest son.

Luca laughed.

“What’th your name?” he asked Robin.

“Vanessa,” she said promptly. “Vanessa Jones.”

She took half a step forwards, hoping he’d move aside, but he remained planted exactly where he was, though smiling a little more widely. She knew he’d understood that she wanted to leave, but couldn’t tell whether his evident determination to keep her inside was done for the simple pleasure of keeping her momentarily trapped, or because he hadn’t believed her reason for being in his father’s room. Robin could feel sweat under her armpits and over her scalp, and hoped to God that her hair chalk wouldn’t come off.

“Never theen you around here before,” said Luca.

“No, it’s my first time,” said Robin, forcing herself to smile. “They look after ’em well, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” said Luca, “not bad. I usually come Thundayth, but we’re off to Florida tomorrow. Gonna mith hith birthday. Not that he knowth it’th hith birthday—do you, eh?” he said, addressing his father, whose mouth continued to hang open, his eyes fixed vacantly on his son.

Luca took a small wrapped package from under his jacket, leaned over to the chest of drawers and laid it on top without moving his large feet so much as an inch.

“Aw, that’s nice,” said Robin.

She could feel the sweat on her breastbone now, where it would be visible to Luca. The room was as warm as a greenhouse. Even had she not known who Luca was, she’d have known what he was. She could feel the potential for violence coming off him like radiation. It was in the greedy smile he was giving her, in the way he was now leaning up against the door jamb, reveling in the silent exercise of power.

“It’th only chocolateth,” said Luca. “Who’th your granny?”

“Great-granny, really, but I call her ‘Gran,’” Robin said, playing for time, trying to remember any of the names she’d passed on the way to Ricci’s room. “Sadie.”

“Where’th she?”

“Couple of rooms that way,” said Robin, pointing left. She hoped he couldn’t hear how dry her mouth was. “Promised my mum I’d pop in and visit her while she’s on holiday.”

“Yeah?” said Luca. “Where’th your Mum gone?”

“Florence,” Robin invented wildly. “Art galleries.”

“Yeah?” said Luca again. “Our family’th from Napleth, originally. Innit, Dad?” he called over Robin’s head at the gaping old man, before looking Robin up and down again. “Know what my old man uthed to be?”

“No,” said Robin, trying to maintain her smile.

“He owned thtrip clubth,” said Luca Ricci. “Back in the old dayth, he’d’ve had your pantieth right off you.”

She tried to laugh, but couldn’t, and saw that Luca was delighted to see her discomfort.

“Oh yeah. Girl like you? He’d’ve offered you a hothtess job. It wath good money, too, even if you did have to blow thome of Dad’th mateth, hahaha.”

His laugh was as high-pitched as a woman’s. Robin couldn’t join in. She was remembering Kara Wolfson.

“Well,” she said, feeling the sweat trickling down her neck, “I really need—”

“Don’t worry,” said Luca, smiling, still standing firmly between her and the door, “I’m not in that game.”

“What do you do?” asked Robin, who’d been on the verge of asking him to move aside, but lost her nerve.

“I’m in inthuranthe,” said Luca, smiling broadly. “What about you?”

“Nursery nurse,” said Robin, taking the idea from the children’s daubs on the wardrobe door.

“Yeah? Like kidth, do you?”

“I love them,” said Robin.

“Yeah,” said Luca. “Me too. I got thix.”

“Wow,” said Robin. “Six!”

“Yeah. And I’m not like him,” said Luca, looking over Robin’s head again, at his gaping father. “He wathn’t interethted in uth until we were grown up. I like the littl’unth.”

“Oh, me too,” said Robin fervently.

“You needed to get knocked down by a car to get hith attention, when we were kidth,” said Luca. “Happened to my brother Marco, when he wath twelve.”

“Oh no,” said Robin politely.

He was playing with her, demanding that she give him appropriate responses, while both of them were equally aware that she was too scared to ask him to move aside, afraid of what he might do. Now he smiled at her feigned concern for his brother Marco’s long-ago car accident.

“Yeah, Dad thtayed at the hothpital with Marco for three weekth tholid, till Marco wath out of danger,” said Luca. “At leatht, I think it wath Marco he wath thtaying for. Might’ve been the nurtheth. In the old dayth,” said Luca, looking Robin up and down again, “they wore black thtockingth.”

Robin could hear footsteps again, and this time she prayed, please be coming in here, and her prayer was answered. The door behind Luca opened, hitting him in the back. The flat-footed blonde nurse was back.

“Oh, sorry, Mr. Ricci,” she said, as Luca stepped aside. “Oh,” she repeated, becoming aware of Robin’s presence.

“’E was moaning,” Robin said again, pointing at Mucky, in his chair. “Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve—I fort he might be in pain or something.”

And right on cue, Mucky Ricci moaned, almost certainly to contradict her.

“Yeah, he does a bit of that, if he wants something,” said the nurse. “Probably ready for the bathroom now, are you, Mr. Ricci?”

“I’m not thtaying to watch him crap,” said Luca Ricci, with a little laugh. “I only came to drop off hith prethent for Thurthday.”

Robin was already halfway out of the door, but to her horror, she’d walked barely three steps when Luca appeared behind her, taking one stride to her every two.

“Not going to thay goodbye to Thadie?” he asked, as they passed the door of Mrs. Sadie O’Keefe.

“Oh, she fell asleep while I was in there, bless her,” said Robin. “Flat out.”

They walked down the stairs, Luca slightly behind her all the way. She could feel his eyes, like lasers, on the nape of her neck, on her legs and her backside.

After what felt like ten minutes, though it was barely three, they reached the ground floor. The almost life-size plaster Jesus looked sadly down upon the killer and the impostor as they headed toward the door. Robin had just placed her hand on the handle when Luca said,

“Hang on a moment, Vanetha.”

Robin turned, a pulse thrumming in her neck.