The Consultant's Italian Knight. Maggie Kingsley

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