by V Clifford
Viv sighed and, shaking her head, replied, ‘Nothing’s worth doing that . . . by the way, are we about to have a world loo roll shortage?’ She nodded towards the boxes. ‘D’you know something that the rest of us don’t?’
Karen smiled. ‘No. That’s what happens when I’m bored. The first section of a roll wasn’t double strength so I wrote to complain . . .’ She covered her face with both hands. ‘Oh boy, should I get out more!’ She shook her head and a rivulet of tint trickled down the side of her face. Viv jumped up and caught it with a tissue before it ran under her jaw. The last thing Karen needed was a striped chin.
Although it wasn’t really a question, Viv nodded emphatically, ‘Yes, you absolutely should.’
Karen leaned on the table and pushed herself up. Then, lifting a spatula from a jar of utensils prised open a high level cupboard, exposing shelves of packets of caramel wafers, ‘See this. Complaining has its uses, but I’m running out of space.’
Viv gasped, ‘That’s a serious case of Diogenes syndrome. You know the guy who lived in a barrel? Well, you’re creating your own barrel.’ She smiled and let go of a deep breath. Viv, a big fan of Tunnock’s caramel wafers, couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘I’d get through those in no time.’
Karen tossed her a pack of eight. Viv caught it and ripped it open. ‘Fancy one just now?’
Karen returned to her seat by the table. ‘No thanks, you carry on.’
Viv hadn’t ever seen Karen eating, but there was always more than enough evidence that she spent a good deal of time doing just that, not least her growing waistline.
After discussing the work that Karen was taking to the conference, and munching her way through a couple of caramel wafers, Viv decided she could sneak into the Royal, pretending to be a delegate. She examined the hair. ‘Yep. Almost there. We’ll give it another few minutes then wash it off. It’ll feel dull in comparison.’
Karen squealed. ‘Thank God! Dull would be marvellous. I couldn’t even answer the door to the postman this morning. So now I’ll have to get myself to the nearest depot to pick up a parcel.’
Viv laughed. ‘Another complaint?’
Karen shrugged. ‘Could be.’
Viv gestured toward the sink with its mixer tap. ‘Let’s get that potion off. And see what’s left of the pink.’
Karen staggered over, her breastplate almost tipping her into the sink.
‘Mind how you go. That armour could drown you before we see what’s happened to the colour.’ Viv hadn’t expected it to be perfect, but it was a vast improvement. She gently combed back the now warmish brown strands, knowing that they’d dry to a colour that would never earn a second glance. She took sections and snipped, sharpening the edges of Karen’s short bob.
When Karen checked the finished result in the mirror her face cracked into a huge grin, exposing two rows of immaculate straight white teeth. ‘Oh my God, how did you manage it?’ Clearly overjoyed, but even a bit tearful again. ‘It looks amazing. You’re a complete genius. Let me write you a cheque.’
Chuffed, Viv told her the amount as she began to tidy away her tools. ‘Where’s Pongo? I haven’t heard him.’
Karen blew into a handkerchief and pointed to the ceiling. ‘Banished to my bedroom.’
Viv frowned. ‘What’s he been up to?’
‘Nothing that you wouldn’t expect a parrot to do. I kept saying shit, shit, shit when I washed off the colour, so guess what? I didn’t want him repeatedly saying it while you were doing my repair work.’
Viv laughed and shook her head. With a kit bag in each hand she squeezed back down the hallway to the front door. There was no way that Karen could join her in the narrow space, until she opened the door and backed out, vacating the space for Karen to come and close it. Satisfied with a good job done, if it hadn’t been for her load, she’d have skipped back to the car.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Viv switched the radio on in the car. The steady beat of the midday pips were ringing out. If she set off straightaway she could be at the Royal in time for lunches being distributed by staff busy enough not to notice someone carrying out a bit of reconnaissance. She parked at the fringes of the car park. Notices indicated where she should park for different lecture halls. She marched with purpose through the front doors, and followed the corridor round to where the teaching staff had offices. The whole place felt like a hotel, or a large office. Overhead signs for lecture theatres and seminar rooms were named after famous Scots. She stopped to read a noticeboard and spotted the flyer that Karen had just shown her; there was another sheet with more detailed biographies of some of the other speakers.
One of the speakers had a ‘cancelled’ sticker across his photograph. Viv’s eyes widened as she realized it was of Stephanos Sanchez. His name hadn’t featured on Karen’s list and he certainly wouldn’t be turning up to talk now. But Viv frowned. There was no note of condolence or mention of his recent demise. She screwed up her eyes and tried peel back the sticker to read text already blurred by red ink. It looked as if his talk would have been on trans-generational memory, a subject that Viv had read a little about and on which she would have been interested to hear more.
From this corridor she followed the signs to neuroscience. She jogged one floor up and found Sanchez’ office with a blue police tape over its door. So, definitely not a heart attack. There were a number of people trickling back and forth, between their offices and what she assumed was access to their clinical work on the wards. No opportunity arose for her to check the door or nip beneath the tape. But at least there was no longer a police presence. The young female doctor, with the stethoscope that looked like a fashion accessory, came out of her office opposite to Sanchez’. She glanced in Viv’s direction but was busy fitting her ear-phones in and didn’t acknowledge Viv’s presence. She walked towards the double doors at the end, exited and turned left. Viv followed and soon found she was leaving the teaching area and entering the hospital’s clinical wards. She didn’t have any purpose there and decided to retrace her steps, but just as she was about to push open the doors into the research department she glimpsed Sanchez’ secretary, or at least the female whose big glasses and hair were unmistakable. Viv, too far through the doors to retreat, decided to carry on and nodded at the woman. Her look of surprise and confusion interrupted the conversation she was having with an orderly and she stared as Viv continued on her way. To where, she had yet to decide. Once through another set of double doors she hesitated, counted to sixty, and peeked back through the windows in the top of the door. She regretted it, as the secretary had resumed her conversation with the orderly. The orderly was facing in Viv’s direction, and the woman made such a face that the secretary spun round. Viv stepped back and took off at a pace. She hadn’t gone far when she sensed that someone was on her tail. Glancing round she saw the secretary, with one shoe in each hand, keeping a safe distance, but with a look on her face that left Viv in no doubt that she wasn’t in the least happy to see her.
In order to avoid a public confrontation Viv needed to get herself to the busiest area of A&E, then she’d be able to lose her. Acres of corridors with misleading overhead signs took her out of neurology, into oncology, urology, and other ‘ologies’ that she’d never heard of, until eventually she burst through a set of doors into a large glass foyer, like an atrium, with lots of people milling about, queueing for coffee, soothing children − the world and his wife were represented there. Viv ducked into the back of a group that looked like a school football team, complete with spotty-faced youths munching crisps and swigging Irn Bru, shouting and laughing uproariously at nothing that anyone but them could find funny. It was a risk to walk with them, because if they noticed, she was bound to become an object of ridicule. Eventually they made their way to the exit and as soon as the doors hissed open and she hit the cool air, she bolted along the side of the building and round to search for the Rav in the far car park.
Once inside the car she sat catching her breath and wonder
ing what the hell the woman was doing following her. But what the hell was she doing letting her? Why hadn’t she stopped and questioned her? Mad, she was mad. ‘Idiot!’ she banged the steering wheel. If anyone knew anything about Sanchez it was bound to be the secretary. She started the engine and cruised round to where she’d exited the building. There was no sign of the woman anywhere. Viv decided to head home.
As soon as she left the hospital grounds she thought she’d take a left up the narrow road that ran alongside the estate wall of the house with the stable block where she’d last followed the secretary. Thinking that she’d do the same as last time and leave the car on the main road and jog back she was alarmed when a dark car travelling at speed behind her bumped into her back end. She was shunted forward, before the car sidled up on her inside and forced her into the lane where a filter turned green and she had no choice but to swing right into the drive.
More angry than she’d felt in a long time, she stopped, slammed the locks on, and sat staring straight ahead until a fist banged on the window.
‘Fuck off,’ she yelled, giving in to her frustration. She stretched for her phone, not hopeful but needing to check. It was still dead. She pressed nine, nine, nine and got through to a police operator. Just as she was beginning to give her location she caught a movement to her right and quickly pulled back as something long and hard was swung at the side window. That was the last she remembered.
When she came to, she immediately wished that she hadn’t. A searing pain in her temple prevented her from opening her eyes properly. When she did manage to look out, it was under blood-encrusted lids. Lifting her right arm up to assess the damage was impossible. The piercing agony of her shoulder as she tried to raise her arm to her head made her yelp. She tried with her left hand, and recoiled when her fingertips encountered a sticky lump the size of a creme egg. She was slumped on a concrete floor inside a sort of barn, propped up against a wall. Her butt and all her other extremities were numb. She tried to push herself up but there was no way her shoulder would allow it and she screamed out as pain ripped through her again. She allowed one good eye to adjust to the darkness. The edge of a window frame on the wall farthest away was about as much detail as she could make out.
After a few moments of blinking she began to trace the outlines of ugly, rusted, gardening machinery. Major obstacles: like over-sized unloved toys that she’d have to circumnavigate to reach any view of the outside world. The window let in a sliver of light, as if it had a shutter or a curtain drawn. She rolled onto her better side and tried to stand but nausea rose up her throat and she stopped until the bile subsided, then tried again. A cold sweat and excruciating pain compelled her to take tiny movements. Bit by bit she’d find a way of becoming upright and getting out of here.
As she recovered her senses she remembered that she’d been doing someone’s hair. How long ago was that? She couldn’t have been unconscious for that long, could she? The pain in her head was like nothing she’d experienced before. For a moment she wondered if she was alone. The last time she’d woken in the dark like this she’d been surrounded by a group of frightened women, each one more terrified than her. This was no container and the earth didn’t seem to be moving. She thought she could hear the odd car engine, but nothing close by. Was her imagination playing tricks? The pale light coming through the window was yellowish, artificial, not moonlight.
She made another attempt to get herself up, but her head began to swim and she felt she would pass out. She lay curled up in a foetal position and worked on her breathing, mustering what was left of her resources before crawling toward the wall with the window. Only twelve inches wide by about twenty-four inches tall, she’d gotten through something that size when she was at uni, but then she was without any injuries. She blew into cupped hands, then continued scraping her knees over the concrete, and pulling herself towards the window. Only when she was lodged below it did she stare back into the gloom of the barn and realize she’d left a position right next to double wooden doors.
The window didn’t have a shutter, but was covered in layers of cobwebs with mummified spiders and insects. She had no intention of clearing an arachnid graveyard anytime soon. Her first attempt to hoist herself up the wall made the nausea return, but she swallowed and pushed herself until she could squint through of the edge of the window with the least web build-up. The insipid glow from a street lamp way in the distance gave her some bearing. She visualized the courtyard outside the secretary’s house, believing that she was in the old stable building adjacent; she imagined the window was facing away from the courtyard toward the big house. But she couldn’t see any building, only the shadows on a lawn-like-surface, cast by some odd shaped trees. There was little more to give her guidance, but the idea of a street lamp somewhere near by was reassuring. It was a cloudless sky with a full moon.
Viv lifted her arm again, testing how high she could get it without shrieking in pain. She raised her elbow as high as her shoulder, before she dropped it carefully. She patted her pockets. They’d taken everything except a couple of partially used tissues. Inside the heel of her boot she kept an emergency pick, like a hairgrip, only tougher. It was some consolation that they hadn’t thought to strip her of her boots. At this point she’d no idea how it might come in useful, but it was all she had and it could become a weapon. With two against one she’d have to be sure of escape before hurting one of them.
Slumped against a damp wall built of large concrete blocks, she shivered, unable to feel any sensation in her feet or the ends of her fingers. To remain overnight in this place would leave her seriously cold. She must keep moving. She scrunched her fingers, blew on them, and stamped her feet. Taking deep breaths in order to blow on her hands she thought she could smell the sea, but warned herself that the stressed mind could play weird tricks. She slid down the wall and crawled back round the old machinery towards the doors. The hinges were robust, industrial things that would take more than she could give them at present to break away from their fixings. She tried pushing against them but there was little give. There must be a padlock or a serious bolt on the other side. If she got to her feet again, she might be able to spy something through a tiny split in the wood near the top of the door on the right. Hand over hand she walked herself up the door. Viv was quite tall but the split was at least ten inches above her eye level. And with an army of stonemasons resident inside her skull, it was a stretch too far. She slid down the door and crouched hugging her knees and rocking from side to side. She’d have to find a way of staying awake through the rest of the night. No idea how long she’d been unconscious, she prayed that daylight wasn’t too far off.
In the state she was in, there was little she could do to get out of the building, so she resolved to garner her strength until her captors returned, when a bid for freedom would be her only choice. Surely by then Mac would have picked up her call. Even if he hadn’t got the message, there’d be a missed-call registered. A tarpaulin lay scrunched up in a corner and she sloped towards it. It would prevent the damp from seeping up her trousers even if it didn’t exactly keep her warm.
Try though she had to stay awake she must have dozed on and off until sunrise, and she woke feeling more stiff and in more pain than she remembered from earlier. The building wasn’t exactly light, but her sense of foreboding that came from the darkness had lifted, and she was more able to concentrate on a plan. She skulked back over the floor to the biggest of the machines, of which there were three. One, the body without its engine, an ancient Massey Ferguson tractor, another a large flat frame with spikes sticking down towards the floor, a harrow of some kind, and finally a lawnmower, the type with three gangs of rotating blades. Each piece was seriously rusted. She had a go at one of the bolts on the harrow. Not a chance of shifting it without any sensation in her hands, and the others looked in even worse condition. She stood and relying on the machines for support she made her way back to the window. This time she did clear the cobwebs and wiped at the fil
thy glass. No artificial light now, but no matter, the sky was becoming brighter by the minute. She thought she heard the sea again and this time she felt convinced, because odd shadows cast across the area in front of the tiny window belonged to a row of hardy, stunted, sea-buckthorn trees, the type that you’d find by the beach. ‘Shit! Where am I? This isn’t Liberton.’ She thought of Shirley − maybe she wasn’t such a loony after all.
There was nothing else to see but mown grass, tufted sand dunes and a blue sky; neatly mown grass, in fact it was fairway. She was on, or at the edge of a golf course, which could mean East Lothian. She tried to see to the right and left, but the fairways were nestled in the shelter of dunes and she couldn’t see the ocean. Now when she heard waves she didn’t tell herself off, but used the image of them gently breaking onto golden sand to improve her mood. She wasn’t much good in the mindfulness department but she had to try. She began tentatively to jump up and down, but the army in her head soon woke up and protested, so she skipped gently and chanted, ‘Every day in every way, I love my life’. With each round the army protested, but not so loudly. This got her circulation going and eventually a tingling sensation crept into her hands and feet. She was mid skip and chant when one of the doors shook. Her belly lurched but she continued, on the basis that you should never let the enemy know how worried you are, and it is difficult to believe someone is worried if they are skipping and chanting.
It took a few minutes for the person on the other side to release the bolt and swing the door open. Viv didn’t hesitate, and with her head down she hit the guy with her left shoulder. He staggered back, more from surprise than her strength, but managed to grab hold of her jacket and swing her to the ground. Pain shot through her shoulder and she almost threw up. But rage spurred her and she rolled over, got back to her feet and ran at him again, screaming at the top of her lungs. This time he grabbed and wrenched her head back by her hair. She screeched again, and swung for his masked jaw. The impact was enough to set him off balance so that she could catch him by the neck. She stamped on top of his foot while elbowing him in the solar plexus. Her attacker was bigger than she’d hoped and fighting back made him more determined to flatten her again. He swung a double hander at the side of her head and connected. She went down like a rock and didn’t move.