“I suppose I could maybe raise a mortgage, pay you off.”
“Not me, you can’t pay me off because you don’t owe me anything. It’s Robert you owe or really Robert’s memory. Look I’m absolutely whacked and you must be as well. Let’s just go and get some rest and then later when things are a bit calmer we’ll talk again; what do you think?”
Chapter 27
Phillipa lay in her comfortable king-sized bed, the pillows billowed and the duvet cuddled her as she listened to the sounds of the nursing home starting the day. Yesterday had been ghastly and the night had been pure torture. She had not seen Giles again, he had gone to his room and the staff reported that he had slept for most of the day and then had gone for a walk before retiring for the night.
Where had he been? At first she was convinced he had gone to the authorities and she panicked at the sound of every car that stopped in the drive. After a couple of hours when nothing horrible happened she relaxed slightly and did her nightly rounds. The nurses were concerned by her haggard expression and she told them that she was unwell but not to worry, she was self-medicating. She went back to her flat and self-medicated with half a bottle of brandy.
The night was a waking nightmare, she was too hot, threw off the covers, became chilled and got out of bed. Made a cup of tea and threw it away, tried to read, and of course she couldn’t concentrate and on and on it went – endless creeping hours of worry and indecision.
She had convinced herself that the patients that she had “helped out” were all senile, in pain and wanting to die. That she had made this decision for them was simply an extension of her nursing duties. The only time that she had benefited was from the treasure trove hidden in the old plastic handbag belonging to Mrs Bowling. The good she had been able to do as a result of that surely must count for something. The fact that a great deal of the good had come winging directly to her bank account was something to be glossed over in the deep darkness of the night.
She heard the staff knocking quietly on the patients’ rooms as they delivered the breakfast trays and the cars of the daytime staff crunched the gravel on the drive. Looking around at the tasteful decorations, the shining dark wood furniture and the beautiful curtains, her eyes filled with tears of frustration and sadness. No matter what, there was no way she could give this up. It just wasn’t fair. Today she would find a way to sort this out.
She threw back the covers and lowered her feet onto the Axminster. She squared her shoulders, set her expression into the professional friendliness she wore for work and prepared for war.
Chapter 28
The nursing staff had detected the frisson between Matron and the lovely new male patient and the comings and goings, real and imagined, had them twittering like a cage of canaries at every coffee and meal break. That said, it sent another flutter of thrill through them when Nurse Gabot reported that Matron had taken the breakfast tray out of her hands and said that she would serve Mr Giles’ breakfast herself.
Talk of weddings and canapés, bridal gowns and bubbly filled the various empty moments for them for the rest of the morning.
In the meantime Phillipa had bearded her particular lion in his den, well, in his tastefully appointed bedroom at least, and she had asked him to come down to the flat as soon as he was up and dressed in the newly-washed but still shabby outfit which seemed to be the only clothes that he possessed.
Hearing the knock she braced herself – this was going to end now. Enough was enough. “Come in Giles, sit down please.” She leaned in as if to sit and then remained standing, an old trick but foolproof – he was forced now to lean back to look up at her. “I expected to see you again yesterday.”
“Yes, sorry. I am not always as well as I would like to be and I slept for rather a long time and then I needed to go somewhere.”
“Are you ill?”
“I suffer from the after effects of rather a nasty form of malaria and it leaves me weak at times.”
A light went on in her mind. “Well then surely that could answer our present problem. You could so easily take a long term room here. We could care for you, make you comfortable and you wouldn’t need to worry about anything. All at no cost of course.”
“You just don’t get it do you? I’m not trying to blackmail you here; I don’t want anything from you, not for myself. I just want to carry out my duty as I see it to the memory of Robert. I’m quite able to take care of my own life, thank you. Anyway as you seem to want to discuss the situation now I will tell you that yesterday I went to see an old friend who’s a solicitor. Before he died Robert made a will and in that he made perfectly plain that in the event that he should die before he came into his inheritance then it was left so that I could carry out his wishes.
“Obviously I didn’t tell Peter the whole situation but I told him that you’d been managing this place and he seemed to feel that we could sort all this out without involving the authorities. The Bowling Clinic will be renamed The Robert Bowling Memorial Clinic and it will offer care for disadvantaged persons needing respite care. It will operate as a charity and you can remain here in the flat and help to run it, if you want.”
He sat back, a calm yet firm expression on his face. He had spoken in such a manner that Phillipa saw he had it completely sown up.
Her whole being became action and re-action as she lost all sense of reality and reason. She grabbed up a bronze statuette which stood on a side table. With a cry that was part animal, part human and all anguish she launched herself at him lashing out frantically with the heavy ornament.
He leapt to his feet dodging sideways. Swinging his arm instinctively he knocked her towards the settee. She staggered past him propelled with the force of her fury. The sound as her head struck the door edge was sickening, a thud and then a crack as the skin split, the bone splintered and brain matter thudded against the inside of her skull.
She slithered to the floor, in her world there was blinding light, searing pain and then darkness, never-ending suffocating darkness. In the lovely living room her figure lay twisted and broken against the side of the door. Giles picked up the telephone, his hands shaking, his voice quivering as he called for an ambulance.
Chapter 29
It was warm, the darkness was velvet except when occasionally it receded and was replaced by beams of brilliant searing light insulting the comforting gloom. It was quiet, though sometimes an insistent voice called to her. “Can you hear me? Open your eyes. Can you squeeze my hand? Phillipa.” She didn’t want to answer or squeeze or think, she didn’t want to leave the dark and the warmth. It was a nest, a cocoon…
The light was too bright, it hurt her eyes, she hadn’t opened them, they had been opened by an outside force. Stop it, turn it off, take the light away. The noises were louder, waves of noise and the horrible light. She wanted the dark, she wanted to scream, leave me in the dark…
A face hovered above her, frustratingly it was just out of the range of comfortable viewing. All she could see was the lower part of a jaw and the top of a uniform. One of the nurses. No, not her nurses. She had to find out what was going on, sit up. Nothing happened. Her brain told her body to move. There was no answer from her muscles. Her body wasn’t stiff or sore, it just wasn’t there. She couldn’t feel anything except the sharp pain in her eyes. Again she told herself to move, just one hand, a finger even, but she wasn’t there in her body. Where was she? Really afraid now she started to cry. Her eyes filmed up as the tears gathered and then cleared as the water ran down her face. She couldn’t feel the wetness on her cheeks. Panic took over, where was she? What held her, why couldn’t she move? She screamed, nothing changed, and there was no scream.
There was a beeping, an insistent annoying electronic noise. It was getting faster, more urgent. The face moved down and looked into her eyes.
“Oh, now there you are. Welcome back. No, no don’t upset yourself, don’t cry. I’m your nurse. You’ve been asleep a long time Phillipa, over two months and there you are bac
k with us now. Come on now, I’ll wipe your tears and then doctor will be in to speak to you. Let me just wipe your face and ring for some help.”
She tried to speak the thoughts screaming out in her frantic brain but they were stuck there, she couldn’t hear the words escaping her mouth, didn’t feel her throat move or her tongue forming the syllables. More tears clouded her vision.
Another face appeared above her. He moved around until she could see him quite clearly. A man in a white coat. Okay, a doctor. “What is going on doctor, let me up, why am I restrained?” Again the words were only in her head, there was no sound.
“Now then Phillipa, try to keep calm. I see that you are very agitated and that’s not a good idea. Maybe we can give you something, put you back to sleep, but I would rather just talk to you. Do you understand? Can you blink? If you can, blink once?”
The light flicked off and on again, so yes she could blink.
“Excellent, now then I need you to listen to me very carefully and please try to be calm. You had an accident Phillipa, you fell at home in your flat and you banged your head. You banged it very badly and I’m afraid you did a great deal of damage. You have been with us for eight weeks now. Do you remember anything? No? Well, I’m not surprised.
“You are going to have to be very brave now my dear. What you are suffering from is what we call ‘locked-in syndrome’ – I’m sure you know about it. You will know that there may be a chance that you will improve sometime but we just don’t know. I am so sorry my dear. Do you understand? Blink again if you do. We have some wonderful therapists here, we will take great care of you. You are probably going to be with us for quite a long time but we’ll keep you as well and as comfortable as possible.”
She couldn’t breathe, her chest was tightening, panic was building, she was screaming her silent brain scream.
“I think we’d better let Phillipa have a sleep, nurse.”
The darkness took her back, back to the nest…
“Good morning dear, how are you today?”
“How am I? You moron I’m paralysed, I can’t speak, I’m cold and I hate you.”
“Now then let’s just have a little look at things here, ooh my goodness your urine bag is full and your nose is running. First though I must check your breathing tube, this big machine is keeping you alive now, so first things first, eh? Not to worry dear we’ll soon have you all cleaned up and fresh again. It’s an exciting day today, we are moving you to your new room. It’s a lovely two-bedder. Not home I know, not like your own place but there we are, we have to accept, don’t we? You’ll have a sweet old lady, Mrs Carter, for a roommate and she’s very quiet, sleeps most of the time. There is a lovely view from the window, you’ll be able to see the trees and the birds. There we are my dear, all clean and neat and now you have a visitor.”
Giles stood at the end of the bed his eyes downcast, his look sombre. “Hello. Well, you must be getting better, they wouldn’t let anyone in to see you before now, with you not having family and all. I am really sorry about this. I feel so bad, do you remember what happened? This is so difficult I really don’t know how to talk to you. They said that you can blink, is that right?”
She was damned if she was going to blink.
“Well, all I wanted to say was I’m sorry. I also wanted to let you know what else has happened. I don’t know whether it will help you or not but I thought you should know.
“The nursing home is doing well, the charity is formed and we already have patients in. We’ve put in quite a lot more beds to make better use of the space and the work is going brilliantly. I hope that makes you happy but of course I don’t know, I imagine not. I did wonder if they would let you come back there, but they say that really you are better here in the hospital where they have all the facilities should you have a crisis or anything, and you need such a lot of care, twenty-four hour they say. I suppose it may be a little cruel anyway, and above all I wouldn’t do that.
“I kept on all your staff, I’m sure that’s what you would want. They were all very pleased. Your personal things are in storage, I don’t think you can have them here... Look I don’t know how to do this. I’m really sorry it turned out this way. Do you want me to come back again?”
He watched her eyes carefully. Nothing…
He raised a hand as if to touch her and then thought better of it. He took one more embarrassed glance at the bed and then turned and walked away…
“There we are, that’s your bed bath finished. Lovely young man, your visitor. Now is there anything else? I think we’ve done it all and you’re nice and comfy and clean again. I hope you like your new room.
“You being a nurse you know that there is nothing for you to worry about, no need to feel embarrassed about anything, we can take care of it all for you. We do understand it’s a terrible thing to have to get used to, but it’s amazing just what we can endure if we have to, isn’t it? Night night now deary, I’ll see you again tomorrow we’ll get to know each other really well over the months, you’ll see. Shall I turn out the light for you?”
She screamed her silent scream.
The End
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MRS BOULTON?
Prologue
Mildred fidgeted in her seat and sighed. She sighed quite loudly and then glanced at the tiny gold watch around her slender wrist. Breakfast was late. There was marmalade, there in the pot, but where was the toast, the tea, and where on earth was Mrs Boulton?
This was a strange and unforeseen deviation from the norm, unlooked for and inexplicable. Mildred wasn’t sure what she should do. She lifted the napkin from her lap and laid it beside her plate. She pushed the chair away from the table. All of this was done slowly, if she did it slowly enough then there was the chance that Mrs Boulton would appear, the universe would rotate seamlessly back into its allotted place and life could continue without further disturbance.
By the time she had pushed herself upright and turned, little quivers of disquiet were slithering through her insides. There was no help for it, she was going to have to put her head around the kitchen door. She had done this once before at breakfast time, the occasion was still vivid in her mind. The outraged expression on Mrs Boulton’s face wasn’t something that she could ever hope to expunge from her memory. The resultant tutting and slamming and general air of huffiness lasted for days.
Eventually they had been forced to, “Have it out.”
“Mrs Boulton, I am sorry if I upset you.”
“Sniff.”
“I was only looking for the tea strainer. It wasn’t on the table. There was no criticism intended, I assure you.”
“Humph.”
“Truly, I do apologise if I inconvenienced you in any way.”
“Wouldn’t have never happened in your mother’s day.”
“Well, no of course, but you see, I truly did need that tea strainer.”
“Yes, well, can’t be remembering everything. The fish man had come early, without so much as a word of explanation and that’d upset me good and proper.”
“Oh, I do see but can’t we just let it go now? I will try my very best not to come into the kitchen at breakfast in the future and I would like it so very much if we could just, well, you know get back to normal. What do you say?”
“Sniff.” That had been the end of that.
The housekeeper had been a solid presence ever since Mildred could remember. Her stoicism and calmness during the recent troubles, Mummy and Daddy dead and her brother effectively beyond reach, she had been a precious port in the storm, the mooring that held her fast. Mrs Boulton, always there, always steady.
Now things had settled into what was, for the time being at least, the new norm. The older lady had backed off, re-established boundaries, and so it was that today in the face of this strange occurrence Mildred was hesitant to act.
She took several tentative steps across the fading red blooms of the dining room carpet. She paused for a moment, her head tilted to one side, listenin
g, “Now this won’t do, will it Mildred,” she addressed herself aloud, albeit sotto voce. “Come on now, this is your house, just pop in and say good morning.” With this stiffening little speech she squared her shoulders and strode a little more deliberately through the doorway, down the short hallway and paused, arm slightly raised before the kitchen door. She listened again – nothing.
She pushed the wood slowly before her and it swung inwards with a slight squeak. She coughed quietly and then, leaning the top half of her body through the gap, she peered around the room. The electric bulb in the ceiling was illuminated, the fire in the Aga stove was lit and on the table there was a plate holding two kippers. A toast rack sat alongside the plate of fish, four half slices of toasted bread stood in true soldierly fashion, their crusts upright.
“Mrs Boulton, erm hello.” She paused. There was no answering tut to cause her pattering heart to judder even louder. She stepped fully into the room. The scullery door hung open and Mrs Boulton’s outdoor coat was on the hook. Her small brown leather handbag was slung on top of it. There was no hat but that wasn’t surprising, Mrs Boulton rarely removed her head gear.
“Mrs Boulton, hello, it’s Mildred, shall I just take the toast? Oh yes, and the kippers. Shall I take them with me?” Her hands shook at the nerve of the suggestion but now that she was in close proximity to her breakfast she did feel rather hungry. There was still no answer.
The kitchen teapot rested on the top of the stove ready for Mrs Boulton’s after-breakfast cup, but the kettle was on the draining board, cold and empty. Of the housekeeper there was no sign. Mildred moved to the table, her brow creased with puzzlement. She stretched a finger to the plate of kipper fillets, they were barely warm and the toast was cold as she lifted a piece from the rack and nibbled it thoughtfully.
YOU'RE DEAD: Three Gripping Murder Mystery Suspense Novels Page 6