If I’d had the chance to think and the ability to order my mind, I could have taken her to a better place, but do private centres take emergencies? All I can do is pray, and I’m not good at that, either. ‘Let her live,’ is all I manage.
Things get a bit blurred – well, more than a bit – when we reach the hospital. They rush Kate away and leave me with a couple of newly arrived policemen. I’m told the police at the scene have saved the SIM from her phone and are loading it into another. ‘She talked to somebody just before she got hit,’ the younger of the pair informs me. ‘According to a witness, she’d been visiting a man in Walton, so we’re going over there to question the prisoner and see what’s what.’
I tell them it was Eric Mansell and that Kate would never talk on the phone while crossing a road. ‘She’s too careful, officer. And the witness says it was no accident.’ Well, at least the thoughts are a bit clearer. ‘The car was travelling on the wrong side of the road.’
‘You didn’t see that?’
‘No. I was parked up the side road and heard the impact. The witness saw it.’
I’m in a waiting room now near ICU and ITU. I think the difference is that you get a nurse to yourself in Intensive Care, and one between two in the other place. Somebody told me that; can’t remember who and don’t know whether it’s true. The boss, a young man in a blue cotton uniform, tells me Kate’s still in theatre. He offers me a cup of tea, but I want only water. So I sit here gulping Adam’s ale while my lovely girl is being drugged past the eyeballs so that the mending can begin.
Oh, here comes the witness woman, steely hair, a big smile and a shopping bag. ‘I thought I’d find you here, love. See, take no notice of me, but I’ve fetched you some bits. I won’t stop. I told the cops what I seen.’
She places her bag on a chair next to mine.
And now I’ve got this big lump in my throat. She’s poor and I’m not. Two nightdresses from when she was younger and slimmer, a little bag of toiletries, toothbrush still in its box, a couple of clean towels and some rubbishy magazines with the likes of Beyoncé and Lady Gaga on the covers. ‘Thank you.’
‘She’ll not need nothing yet, not till she’s sat up. I’ve put some butties in silver paper for you. Oh, me phone number’s in the bottom of me bag on a Get Well card. Let me know how she’s getting on.’
I study her, and she isn’t as old as I thought. ‘Sit down,’ I say.
She chooses the chair at the other side of mine. When she takes my hand in hers, it’s too much, and I start to cry. There’s not much noise, just a load of water pouring down my face. ‘So grateful,’ I manage.
‘Oh, son, we’ve all had our troubles. I’ve three lads in Walton, three buggers who sent me grey before I hit forty. Their dad died in there, and I was glad to see the back of him. I’ve a girl, a good girl, our Joanie. Now, you listen to me. That young woman of yours has every chance because she’ll not leave you. You love the bones of each other, right?’
I dry my face with the tissues she offers. ‘I will phone you. What about your shopping bag?’
‘Keep it. See you, lad.’ She stands and kisses me on my forehead.
There’s just me now in an empty room. That might be a good thing, because if Intensive Care isn’t full, my Kate might get more attention. I suddenly feel exhausted, stretch out across three chairs and fall asleep immediately. Five minutes later, someone nudges me awake. Only it’s not five minutes, because the clock on the wall says a few minutes past eight. It’s evening, almost night.
It’s the surgeon; he looks knackered too. ‘She’s in ICU,’ he tells me.
‘How long in theatre?’ I ask.
He tells me it felt like a fortnight, but she came through with flying colours. ‘Her head and neck bled outward for the most part – not much on the brain, no sign of bad swelling. The fibular fracture hasn’t impacted on the ankle – that’s a good thing. A rib pierced a lung and we’ve dealt with that, mended her diaphragm and saved her spleen.’
I thank him.
‘She has other broken ribs, so she’ll be black and blue for a while. We’re keeping her asleep, because she’s lively.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘Very lively.’
‘Strong mind and good bones, Mr Price. In recovery, she opened one eye and accused me of not being Alex. So we’ve doped her again. She has her own nurse, and should she need help with breathing, the machinery is there. Have a quick look at her and go home. I don’t want to keep her drugged, so we need her to be still. If she sees you, she might try to come home with you.’
I can’t imagine Kate being still. Yes, I can; she was motionless when lying in the gutter . . . ‘So no harm to the brain? Concussion?’
‘The brain got rattled, yes, but no serious bleeding. There’s a coma chart just in case; that’s normal procedure. Don’t worry – she’s in the best place.’
I stand by the bed. A little nurse with red hair is checking Kate’s pulse. My girl looks as if she’s gone a few rounds with some heavyweight boxer: black eye, scrapes on her lovely face, swollen lips. She’s alive. If I’m right, she’ll be alive and kicking with one leg at least by tomorrow. I whisper to the nurse, ‘She won’t do as she’s told – never has, never will.’
The nurse looks me up and down. ‘Don’t worry – go home. We’ll let you know if there’s any change. We’re going to put her on a heart monitor just in case.’
Life is returning to my own heart, to my whole body, and it hurts. I have never before hugged a nurse, but I can’t hold my own adult baby just now. There are two other people in the unit, both on monitors, both with a million wires and tubes attached to their persons. I leave the little nurse to do her job. Kate must be in the ICU for a reason; perhaps they’re waiting for something to . . . Give it up, Price. They’re doing their job – isn’t that enough for you, master of the bloody universe?
Oh, God, I haven’t told anybody. Her mum and dad in France, my two Bees, Tim, Monica, who’s become a friend to Kate, then Kylie, Pete . . . I stand in the foyer and think about my car. It’s just a bloody car. There’s a taxi rank, so I grab the first in line and give him my address. I switch on my phone. There are ten missed calls . . .
‘You all right, sir?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Not for the first time, I also thank God for the existence of this city. The not-so-old grey-haired woman is Liverpool; this driver is Liverpool. Tears again. ‘Apologies. My fiancée was hit by a car today. Take me home, please.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he says. ‘I hope she’s better soon.’
Oh yes. Like Kate, I am in the right place.
Alex’s huge L-shaped sofa was fully occupied. Monica and Pete, both summoned by Kylie, sat with the sleeping Troy. Kylie occupied an armchair; she’d abandoned the knitting hours earlier. Brian, Brenda, Tim and Julia took up the other half of the sofa, and everyone had given up on conversation.
Thanks to the police, who had brought back Alex’s car, they knew where Alex and Kate were. Tim, alerted by the Bees, had wanted to go to the hospital, but the rest of the company had held him back, with Brenda chiding him, ‘You don’t know him as well as you think you do. Let him be; he’s a very . . . private man at times like this. The only person he needs is stuck in a bloody operating theatre.’
Untypically, Tim had been angry. ‘I’ve been his friend since he was a child. He needs me.’
But Brenda had stuck to her sub-machine guns. ‘If he’d wanted anybody, he would have phoned.’ Thus all attempts at talking had been aborted unless it came to cups of tea or was anyone hungry.
A taxi arrived. ‘Don’t rush him,’ Brenda ordered. ‘Stay where you are and let him speak if he wants. I know this lad, Tim, and I know you’ve done him a lot of good. But Kate’s his real cure. We both know that, don’t we?’
Alex walked in, pausing as soon as he saw the congregation. All noticed that he sought eye contact with Brenda. ‘Do her parents know?’ he asked her.
She nodded. ‘I told them you’d phone
as soon as you got in.’ The questions remained in her eyes.
‘Hours in theatre, now in ICU but breathing on her own.’
Brenda blessed herself. ‘Thanks be to God.’
‘She’s on a heart monitor, but she’s tough. I have to talk to her parents.’ Alex picked up the house phone and left the room. About to make the most difficult of calls, he needed solitude.
After twenty minutes he returned, shoulders sagging, suit looking as if he’d worn it for months. Standing with his back to the fireplace, he told them what he had only just discovered. ‘There are kidnappers in France looking for Kate’s daughter.’
Brenda staggered to his side. ‘What? How do you know?’
‘Kate phoned her mother just before . . . just after she left the prison. The man she visited was in her first husband’s gang. Through the grapevine, he’d received news of two pond life named Trev and Max. They got forged papers and travelled to the Loire valley.’ He ran a hand through dishevelled hair. ‘The plan was to kidnap Amelia in order to force Kate to tell them about the missing loot.’
‘But they found it all, didn’t they?’ Tim asked.
Alex nodded. ‘But do the kidnappers know that? Kate’s father is ill with a heavy cold that went bacterial and settled on his chest. He can’t travel and can’t be left alone in France. They’re trapped.’
Julia didn’t hesitate. ‘We’ll go, won’t we, Tim?’
‘Yes. Details on paper, Alex, or send me an email. I know you have to stay with Kate, so let us do what’s necessary. Phone them again and tell them to expect the Dysons. We’ll leave tomorrow and get Kate’s daughter home.’
For the fourth or fifth time today, tears poured from Alex’s eyes. He allowed Brenda to lead him into the kitchen, where she placed him at the table and stabbed at the cover on a ready meal. ‘You’ll eat, then get to sleep. Take plenty to drink. Before you drop off, write Tim’s email sitting up in bed, and phone Kate’s mum and dad from upstairs. If you want, I’ll come with you to the hospital tomorrow. If Kate’s awake, she’ll be giving them hell.’
‘Can you stop her?’
The little woman straightened. ‘Just watch me, lad. Just you watch and learn. Do as you’re told and get this sausage and mash down you, Sainsbury’s best. If you don’t eat, you’ll be no good to Kate.’
‘Yes, Other Mother.’
Brenda left him with his food and stood in the hallway with her back to the kitchen door. She looked heavenward. ‘What else are you going to let him suffer, eh?’ she whispered. Right. It was time to kick everybody out. It had been the longest day in history.
Kate had been taken off the monitor and moved out of Intensive Care because she was doing so well. She was in a surgical ward, but in the bed next to the ward manager’s office so that keeping an eye on her would be easier. Her left eye was now closed and covered by flesh in several shades of red, brown and deep purple. Her face was marked, though the surgeon had said there would be no scars as long as she left the abrasions alone.
The good eye opened and fixed Alex where he stood. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked. ‘My head is very sore, I’m black and blue all over, and—’
Brenda stepped forward. ‘Where’s he been? He’s been here with you till gone eight o’clock last night. By the time he got home, he looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. He’s been on the phone for hours and doing emails all night, because he was in a state worse than Ma Birtwistle’s flophouse worrying about you yesterday.’
‘Green car,’ Kate said. ‘It hit me deliberately. You must get Amelia. I can’t remember why just yet, but she needs to come home. She’s not safe.’ And now, she remembered why. ‘Get her out of there.’ She was becoming agitated.
‘Julia and Tim are going for her today. Your dad’s not well enough to travel, and I’m not the right person for the job. Anyway, I’m not leaving Liverpool while you’re in here.’
Kate stared into the near distance. ‘Are they still on their stay-at-home honeymoon?’
Where was she going with this? Alex scratched his head. ‘Why, Kate?’
‘Amelia mustn’t see me looking so dreadful. Remember, she was in hospital for weeks, and all she kept asking once she started to speak was, “Take me home, please. Why can’t I go home, Mummy?” We mustn’t put her through this, Alex. She’s just a little girl, my little girl. Sorry I’m a bit forgetful – it’s concussion.’
‘It’s all right, my love.’
Brenda had to stick an oar in the water, of course. ‘Not much of a honeymoon with a kiddy to look after.’
Alex turned to face her. ‘Then why don’t you and Brian go with them? Amelia needs to get to know you, anyway. I’m offering a blank cheque here, Brenda. You might go over the Pyrenees into Spain, see a different way of life. Wherever you lodge, Tim and Julia can have their own room while you and Brian mind Amelia.’ He left the ward to make some calls.
Brenda stared at Kate. ‘I’ve never been abroad,’ she said, her face paling towards the colour of new snow. ‘I don’t like aeroplanes. I don’t like foreigners what don’t talk no proper English, and I hate heat.’
Alex returned to find both women in silence. ‘What’s wrong now?’ he asked.
‘Aeroplanes, foreigners and heat,’ Brenda replied. ‘But it has to be done, or that baby will see her mam looking as if she’s got bashed up and down Lime Street twice. Kate’s right. Amelia has to be kept away till she’s better.’
He pushed some money into her hand. ‘Get a cab from the rank, go home and pack. You have an hour and a half before Tim picks you up. So you need to get your skates on, missus.’
She grabbed the money and glared at him. ‘Listen, Alex. I’m doing this for her, not you. My blood pressure has just shot up right to the top of the thingumometer. I’ve never been to France before – never been to the Isle of Man. I get seasick on the Mersey ferry.’
‘Just be grateful that I made sure you both have passports. Now, go and look at France, Spain or wherever. Bugger off and make a hole in my bank account. And look after that child as if she’s part of the crown jewels. Amelia needs close vigilance, because there are people we don’t trust looking for her.’
Brenda opened her mouth to speak, but her employer stopped her. With an index finger raised, he spoke in his meeting voice. ‘Do as you’re told for once. Who’s the boss in this crazy arrangement?’
The housekeeper’s eyes gleamed like cold steel. ‘Kate is. And don’t try denying it. She’s got twice the sense you have.’ She kissed the sensible one.
Kate held on to Brenda’s hand. ‘Keep her safe.’
‘I will, love. You just concentrate on getting better.’ She looked Alex up and down. ‘And I want to come home to that house as I leave it – clean.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He watched as she disappeared down the corridor, then collapsed in a chair. He very much hoped he’d done the right thing in sending Brenda on this mission of mercy.
‘Are you moving in?’ Kate asked. ‘I already have a police guard in the corridor.’
‘Yes, I’m staying. I’ve made a contribution towards a new scanner. I shall make sure you get decent food, too, and not a lot of it. We don’t want a full stomach pushing on your mended diaphragm, do we?’
‘You’ll get bored,’ she predicted.
‘I won’t.’ He lifted War and Peace from his briefcase. ‘I brought a little reading matter. Go to sleep.’
I stand outside the hospital for a breath of air and inhale very tasty traffic fumes. Why do hospitals keep the heating on all year round? Surely MRSA and C-diff have a better chance of winning in that airless atmosphere? We must get out of here as soon as she can be moved. And the big question has to be answered. A green car. The vehicle failed to kill my girl, so the score is one nil, a win for the NHS. Who? Why? Will a second effort be made, and will it be successful?
I glance up and notice a figure coming towards me. It’s Dr Giles Girling, and he’s almost running. ‘Alex?’
‘Yes?’
I tell him she’s on a ward and taunting me already.
He runs a hand through his hair. ‘I know Kate had trouble in London because of that vile husband and his gang, but this could be much nearer to home.’ He pauses, seems embarrassed. ‘I’ve been seeing Amber Simpson. She has fixations, and you’re one of them. Although I want rid of her, I daren’t tell her I mean to end the relationship because she’s toxic, and she hates Kate.’
I ponder for a moment. ‘Does she have a car?’
‘Not as far as I know, but the flats in her block have separate garages about fifty or so yards down the road. Hers is the second one – red doors. She has a licence – that’s all I know.’
Licensed to kill? ‘You think she’s sick enough to try to kill Kate?’
‘Yes. Her life runs as if she’s keeping pace with a metronome. Every crumb she ingests is on a wall chart, as is every calorie she uses in exercise. No cushion must be disturbed, no cup hung out of line with the rest. A drop of gravy on a tablecloth, and she’s furious. I hoped you’d be here, because I’d hate to tell Kate this; it could set her back. Amber’s using some of her holiday quotient, so she’s not at work.’
A cold finger makes its way down my spine. ‘You don’t know what’s in that garage, then? It might well be empty.’
‘It might be empty, and it might not. But she probably believes that with Kate out of the way, you’ll turn to her. Look, Alex, I’m as confused as you are. I know a bit about psychology and, at a guess, I’d say Amber had to keep herself under heavy control during formative years. That need to control has spread beyond herself, and she seeks now to be in charge of everything and everybody. That’s an over-simplified diagnosis, but she scares me to death. The nearest she can get to you is me – if that makes sense. I love Kate, you love Kate, and Amber seeks control over me.’
‘And me,’ I add. ‘If she kills Kate . . . if she kills Kate, I’ll kill her.’
‘No, you won’t. You’re not wired for killing.’
‘Is she?’
‘Possibly. Another thing – that bonus you gave her to help with the flat – I’m sure she’d get a buzz out of using it to dispose of Kate. She may well have paid somebody to do the deed.’ Giles pulls an envelope from his pocket. ‘I was going to leave this for you in case I missed you. What I’ve just told you is not for Kate’s ears or eyes.’
For the Love of Liverpool Page 22