The Italian Girl

by Patricia Hall

  “I’ll get this straight to forensics, then?” he asked, holding out his hand for the package which Thackeray still held in a grip which was unaccountably white-knuckled. The chief inspector seemed to shake himself slightly before he replied.

  “And see whether Amos Atherton’s got the results of those blood-tests yet, will you? I’d like to know just how much resistance Danny O’Meara could put up when someone took him down onto that railway track.” Mower hefted the heavy spanner speculatively, his eyes as hard as Thackeray’s now.

  “I reckon it wouldn’t make much difference, guv, if this if what they hit him with. He wasn’t a big man. He wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lorelei Baum sat in the foyer bar of the Clarendon Hotel, little black skirt hitched Wimbledon high, long thin legs twined above platform shoes, almost but not quite oblivious of the admiring glances she was attracting. Her own gaze was fixed intently on the revolving door from the street. She had been waiting, propped on a tall bar stool, facing the entrance for a good half hour, but she had not noticed the passing of time.

  While the comings and goings of the busy foyer swirled around her, she had been reliving her recent encounter with John Blake, an encounter which had left her emotionally humiliated and physically bruised. It had started with a not unexpected but still devastating phone call from Los Angeles which she had taken while Blake had been out at lunch with Keith Spencer-Smith. With the suddenness of a tropical storm blown off course across the Atlantic, she had been told of major problems with the financial backing for Jane Eyre. Blake, riding back to the suite on a cloud of alcohol and euphoria, had not wanted to hear what she was telling him.

  Plunged into one of the black rages for which he was notorious, he had blamed Lorelei for the threatened collapse of his plans, knocked her across the room and pushed her out of the door with instructions to boost his profile on this side of the Pond to encourage their British supporters or look for another job.

  Lorelei had called the Bradfield Gazette and arranged to meet Laura Ackroyd for a drink. While she waited she considered the choice which faced her. She was very tempted to throw Blake to as many wolves amongst her contacts in the Press as she could tempt with a putrid morsel or two - and she reckoned she had a rank selection to choose from - before decamping for home. She opened her bag cautiously to check that she had her passport and tickets with her. Alternatively she might make one last effort to save him and his project from disaster.

  She sat stroking the darkening bruise on her arm and it was not until she saw Laura Ackroyd whirl through the revolving doors, red hair flying, face flushed from running, her shocking pink shirt coming adrift from her short black skirt, that she decided that she’d be damned if she would give John up at this stage to this unkempt Limey bitch.

  “Laura, honey,” she cried, unravelling her long limbs from the stool and causing at least four elderly Bradfielders at the bar to choke into their Scotch as they took in the combined charms of two unequivocal bobby-dazzlers at once.

  “What will you have, honey? The drinks are on me. I’ve got you just the greatest exclusive, a story to die for.” She put her arm around Laura, dug bony fingers into her shoulder until she flinched and whispered in her ear. “I can tell you now who’s going to play Jane. And I promise you, you will not believe it.” Laura looked at Lorelei sceptically.

  “I thought John wanted some unknown little English actress,” she said. “It’s not a part for some glamorous Hollywood star, is it?”

  “We-e-ll,” Lorelei said seriously. “I guess you might think that. But you know how these deals go? They need someone bankable. It’s true, John was thinking English - one of your gorgeous young women, Helena, perhaps, or Imogen, you know? But the name in the frame over there is better than that.”

  Laura racked her brains to think of a bankable Hollywood actress who might get away with playing a plain English governess in her late teens and had to admit to failure. The more she heard about the film the more dubious the whole enterprise sounded.

  “Does this mean that your backers don’t think John Blake is bankable enough”? she asked waspishly. Lorelei’s eyes glittered for a moment though Laura was not sure whether the emotion which briefly cracked her mask-like make-up was anger or distress.

  “Why, sure, he’s bankable,” Lorelei said quickly, lowering her voice. “But we’ve got a generation thing here, haven’t we? Let’s face it, my mother wet her knickers for John Blake, for God’s sake. But we need to get the kids in to films these days, the late teens, early twenties. So how do you feel about Gwyneth?”

  “Gwyneth?” Laura said slowly. “Emma? That Gwyneth? Well, it’s certainly an interesting idea, though Emma’s a bit different from Jane Eyre. Is it definite?”

  “As good as, honey, as good as,” Lorelei reassured her. “When does your piece appear in Sunday Extra?”

  “In two weeks time,” Laura said. “I need to finalise it next weekend.”

  “Right, you’ll be the first to get the confirmation,” Lorelei said. “And no-one else hears about it until the magazine comes out. OK?”

  “Fine,” Laura said, with more certainty than she felt. “Let me buy you a drink.” But as they made their way to the bar through the crush of dark suits and admiring glances, she could not help wondering what Lorelei wanted in return for an exclusive which most of the show-business reporters on the national newspapers would give their expense accounts for. She had a nasty feeling that she had been bought and that she would not like the price when she discovered what it was.

  Joyce Ackroyd woke from a deep refreshing sleep half way through the afternoon, her head clearer than it had been for days. She allowed herself a small, grim smile and felt under the pillow where she had secreted the two pills which had been given to her after lunch. In the game of cat and mouse she had been playing with the care staff this was an unequivocal victory. But today her plans went much further.

  Pushing herself painfully up against the pillows she sat motionless, listening. She knew she did not hear as well as she used to do but she was sure that the silence of The Laurels was real. The place was still deep in its drug-induced mid-afternoon slumber. If she was to get away with what she and Alice had planned, she knew she had to move quickly. And given the handicap of the heavy, itchy cast on her leg she knew that was going to be difficult.

  With infinite patience she eased her legs over the side of her bed, using her hands to manoeuvre the plaster cast onto the floor. She had been helped - shoved, more like, she thought to herself angrily, fingering a bruise at the top of her arm - into bed unwillingly, in her underwear. Her skirt and blouse lay across a chair on the other side of the room and her crutches were propped up against the wall by the door. She looked at the five feet which separated her from her clothes and bit her lip in frustration. It took far longer than she had anticipated to make her way on one good leg from the bed, inch by inch around the wall, hanging grimly onto the furniture, and then back again even more precariously to the bed with her clothes in her hand.

  By the time she had got her skirt awkwardly over her head and eased it down into something approaching its normal configuration, and slipped on and buttoned up her blouse, she felt exhausted and her leg was beginning to throb with pain.

  “Damn it and blast it,” she muttered under her breath as she began to edge her way carefully around the room again towards the door. With a crutch under her left arm it was easier to stand but as she eased the door of her room open the second crutch, held precariously under her elbow while she manipulated the door handle, fell to the floor with a clatter. For what seemed like minutes, although she knew it could be no more than seconds, the sound echoed down the cheerless corridor outside and she waited, heart thumping, to see whether it had disturbed anyone. If Betty Johns came storming from her office to investigate, Joyce knew all was lost. There was no way she could get back to her bed in time to pretend to be asleep. But the silence was total.

 
“It’s like the bloody Marie Celeste,” Joyce said to herself with a malicious smile of satisfaction. “You could sneak in and cut everyone’s throats and no-one would be any the wiser.”

  Even more cautiously she tucked her second crutch under her arm and swung her way slowly out into the corridor, closing the door of her room behind her. The air was cold and rank. She puckered her nose fastidiously. The pungent smell of disinfectant only just concealed the biting odour of incontinence with which she had reluctantly become familiar.

  She turned left towards the end of the corridor furthest away from the reception area and Betty Johns’s office. Alice Smith’s door was closed but the handle turned sweetly in Joyce’s arthritic grip and she inched her way awkwardly into the dimly lit room and closed it behind her.

  “Alice,” Joyce said in a sharp whisper. “Alice, wake up. It’s time to go.” There was no response from the huddled figure under the blankets. Joyce swung herself across to the bed and shook her friend’s shoulder. Alice did not move and as Joyce let her hand rest lightly on the slight figure in the bed, her heart seemed to freeze and she drew a sharp breath in alarm. Gently she pulled the bed-clothes back and touched Alice’s gray and wizened face, half buried in the pillows. She lay there like a crumpled bird tossed aside by a cat. Her skin felt cool and Joyce could feel no pulse when she ran her hand lightly across her neck.

  “Has Dracula’s daughter got you, then, love?” she asked quietly, choking back fierce emotion. “I’ll have her for this, I promise you Alice. She’ll not get away with this.”

  Slowly and painfully she turned away from the bed and swung herself back out into the corridor, closing the door behind her. To her right the fire door required only a firm push before it swung open, letting in a gust of fresh air and a flood of sunshine. Taking a deep angry breath Joyce swung her crutches out through the door and made her way to the front of The Laurels and out into the street.

  A couple of hundred yards down the road towards the centre of Bradfield she stopped for a moment. Her arms were aching and her breath was coming in painful gasps. She watched the traffic speed past her, oblivious to her distress as she looked in both directions for the familiar red of a telephone box. Cursing the wayward telephone company which had made its facilities too hard for elderly eyes to distinguish at a distance she suddenly saw salvation in the form of a cruising taxi. She waved a crutch urgently and the lavender Vauxhall bounced to a halt at the kerb. The young Asian driver leaned across and looked at Joyce dubiously.

  “I’m private hire, luv. I’m not supposed to ply for trade on t’street….”

  “Never mind that. Take me to the police station, “ Joyce said sharply, pulling open the car door and half falling into the back seat with a huge sense of relief, dragging her crutches behind her.

  “What’s up, gran’ma?” asked driver with a grin, half turning in his seat. “You look like tha’st seen a ghost.”

  “I have, lad, I have,” Joyce said. “And someone’ll swing for it, an’all.”

  The first message on her answer-phone had Laura cursing her father, who had again failed to get on a flight to London. The second sent Laura running in a panic from the flat before she had even had time to slip off her jacket. She had got home early and refreshed, her hair still damp from an after-work swim at the pool she used as regularly as she could find the time. She had tossed a bag of shopping onto the kitchen workbench and casually switched on her messages only to be rivetted by Thackeray’s voice, her heart missing a beat when she heard what he had to say.

  “I missed you at work,” he had said, no trace of emotion to take the edge off the cool, almost official tone. “Your grandmother’s been taken to the infirmary. She’s unwell. I’m not sure how seriously. Can you get there?” There was a long interval of hissing tape before the machine spluttered into life again and Laura realised she had been holding her breath as various nightmare scenarios flashed in front of her eyes.

  “Laura, I’m sorry,” Thackeray said. “All hell’s broken loose here. I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”

  Laura could not remember later how she had driven the Beetle through the rush hour traffic or where she had parked. Sick with anxiety, she forced her way through groups of anxious and dishevelled people clutching unhappy children or injured limbs to the reception desk in casualty and was directed to a cubicle where a nurse looked round in surprise when Laura flung back the curtains. She found Joyce lying on the high bed, looking deathly pale and infinitely fragile against the pillows, though sufficiently aware to greet her grand-daughter with a smile which still had something of her indomitable spirit in it.

  “Nan, what have you been doing to yourself?” Laura asked, her voice sounding unreal.

  “Don’t you fret, pet,” Joyce said. “They say it’s nobbut a twinge, nothing to worry about.” The nurse looked up from the chart she was filling in, hardly needing to be told that the visitor with her red hair and anguished green eyes was a relative.

  “You must be Laura,” she said. “Mrs. Ackroyd’s been telling me about you.”

  “What happened?” Laura asked hoarsely.

  “Your grandmother’s been over-doing it a bit this afternoon,” the nurse said dryly. “Some chest pains, nothing too serious, but the doctor would like her to stay in overnight as a precaution.”

  “You’re sure…?”

  “A touch of indigestion,” Joyce said firmly but the nurse shook her head with just as much determination.

  “A bit more worrying than that,” she said. “She needs some tests.”

  “Nan, what have you been doing?” Laura said, bewildered but the nurse did not allow time for a response.

  “The doctor wants her to rest,” she insisted.

  “Can I see him? The doctor?” Laura demanded.

  “He’s very busy. He’s with another case just now,” the nurse said. “But he’s admitted her and we’ve a bed waiting upstairs. I’ve no doubt your grandmother’ll be able to tell you all about it tomorrow. But I think it would be better if you left her to rest now.” Laura put her arms round Joyce and kissed her.

  “It was Alice,” Joyce said in a voice so faint that Laura had to lean close to catch the words. “Poor dear old Alice.”

  “Tell me tomorrow, darling,” she said. “And do what the doctor tells you.”

  “Aye, well, it’ll keep, I dare say,” Joyce muttered almost to herself. “I did what I could.”

  Reluctantly Laura allowed herself to be ushered out of the cubicle as two porters came in and began to wheel Joyce’s bed out after her and push it towards the lifts at the end of the corridor. Feeling dazed, Laura made her way back towards reception, where she was surprised to see Kevin Mower heading purposefully towards her.

  “Laura,” he said, evidently as surprised as she was. “I was coming to see how your grandmother was. We’ll be wanting a statement.”

  “A statement?” Laura repeated, feeling stupid and close to tears. “Why on earth do you want a statement? Anyway you can’t see her. They want her to rest. They won’t even let me stay with her.”

  Mower took in Laura’s still damp hair which was hanging loose in ringlets around a face drained of colour and eyes clouded with bewilderment and recognised a case of shock when he saw one. Tentatively he put an arm round her shoulders and guided her towards the cafeteria on the other end of the reception area, sat her in a chair and bought her a cup of hot, sweet tea.

  “She’s going to be OK, you know,” he said. “Michael was on the phone to check her out before he sent me down here. They think it’s a touch of angina brought on by stress. Nothing that can’t be treated.”

  “What stress?” Laura said. “She’s supposed to be convalescing in a nursing home, for God’s sake. She shouldn’t be under any stress. And why are you and Michael involved? I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  So Mower told her how Joyce Ackroyd had hobbled into the central police station two hours earlier demanding money to pay the young taxi driver who
had ushered her solicitously up the steps and in through the swing doors to report a murder at The Laurels.

  “Alice Smith,” Laura said dully. “Is that who she meant?”

  “She’s in intensive care,” Mower said. “We told social services and they and uniformed went down there mob-handed. Alice wasn’t dead but she’s in a coma. It looks like an over-dose of whatever sedative it is they’ve been using. Your grandmother brought a couple of pills in with her so it shouldn’t be difficult to prove. Betty Johns has been arrested and social services are moving all the residents into temporary accommodation while they clean the place up. And just to add to the excitement it turns out that Alice’s son is Keith Spencer-Smith, your head honcho at the tourist board.”

  “Of course,” Laura said softly. “It was him I saw rushing in to The Laurels that day. I only got a glimpse of him but he looked familiar and I couldn’t place him. Drives a BMW?”

  “I think he does, yes,” Mower said.

  “Of course with that beard of his he doesn’t look anything like the photographs my grandmother has, does he? But why didn’t he come forward when you found Mariella’s body? What’s he got to hide, the devious bastard?” Laura said.

  Mower sipped his tea reflectively, knowing that these were the precise questions Michael Thackeray would be asking Smith at this very moment. He was intensely aware of Laura’s closeness, which had always disturbed him, and now it stirred a deep anger at the deviousness of other people of their acquaintance. The sense of power his knowledge gave him was intoxicating but the temptation to use it faded as he watched Laura struggle to come to terms with what had just happened. He was filled with sadness at the idea that she could, indeed almost inevitably would, be hurt by what he knew some day. But he also realised, with a certainty that took his cynical soul by surprise, that he was not capable of striking that particular blow.