by J G Alva
*
CHAPTER 12
THURSDAY
The building was a ruin.
It had been an old stone three storey structure, perhaps one of the main hospital buildings, but what was left now was only a sorry memory of the former erection. Three walls remained upright, but the fourth had collapsed inward, bringing down the roof with it.
Sutton was perfectly content to leave it behind.
Painfully, he made his way through Barrow Gurney; it was a long walk from the bulk of the main hospital buildings to civilisation. The exhilaration he had felt escaping his prison was starting to leak away, and in its place was only a deep lethargy. Somewhere, he could hear heavy traffic on the A370, but other than that – and birdsong – there was silence; it would have been eerie if he hadn’t been in so much pain. Residential housing bracketed the southern end, but all the cottages were abandoned; it was like he was the last man on earth. He traversed the winding, tree lined streets, and after an hour began to despair that he would ever meet another human being…until he came to a B road, and slightly further on an old farmhouse with smoke rising from its lilting chimney.
Struggling, he made his way toward it.
Knocked on the door.
An old woman answered. Her face was cross at the interruption, and even crosser at his condition.
“Do you have a phone I can borrow?” Sutton asked.
*
While Sutton waited to be collected, Mrs Twickenham did her best to attend to him.
She gave him the water he asked for – two pints, which he drained almost immediately, and which seemed to lessen some of the pain in his head – made him a cup of tea, wrapped a knitted shawl around his shoulders and ordered him to sit by the fire. She was a stern woman with little sympathy. She was old enough to have seen the last war; he supposed his condition wasn’t much in comparison.
Sitting was difficult, but the fire was good. He didn’t realise how cold he’d been.
He told her he photographed ruins for an architectural magazine, and that in taking one shot he had stood on some rotten boards and fallen through them. He wasn’t sure she believed him.
“My son used to work at the hospital,” she said. She offered biscuits out of an old misshapen tin, and Sutton took one. “He got a lung infection, almost died. That place is cursed.”
He didn’t argue with that.
The biscuit was very good.
“Where’s your camera?” She asked suspiciously, fussing in the kitchen.
“I lost it when I fell.”
It was almost an hour before a knock came at the door.
Sutton rose with difficulty as Mrs Twickenham went to answer it. He took off the shawl and left the cup on the mantelpiece.
Diane went white at the sight of him.
“What happened to you?” She said, looking him over.
*
“You have to go to the hospital,” she insisted, for the third time. They were in her car, travelling, despite protest, on the A370 back to Weston.
“No.”
“You have to!”
“Dr Waverley,” he said, trying not to breathe too much. “Take me to Dr Waverley.”
“Oh God, you’re bleeding,” Diane said.
Sutton looked down at his side.
There had been a nail, and part of it was still sticking out of his side. As he tentatively put pressure around the edges of it, fresh blood appeared, mixing with old dried blood. He couldn’t quite suppress a groan.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Diane said.
“Don’t.”
“You smell.”
“Sorry.”
He couldn’t remember when he had last had a tetanus shot.
“Will you tell me what happened to you?” She asked.
He told her, briefly. She looked shocked all over again.
“I thought you’d given up,” Diane said, looking aghast. “I didn’t think…” She looked at the wound, and then at his face. She swallowed. “Fin insisted you wouldn’t. He wanted to call the police. I think he would have, except he didn’t know where you were. Neither of us did. He kept ringing your mobile, and your flat. We didn’t know where else to look.”
Underground, Sutton thought; underground, and terrified, and looking at himself anew.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s definitely not okay,” Diane said, her neck strained and sticking forward like an aggrieved turkey. It amused Sutton to see it. “We need to go to the police and tell them about this Grace Chapel. That woman deserves to be behind bars for what she’s done to you.”
“It wasn’t just her.”
“What?”
“She’s too physically weak to move me by herself,” he explained. “So she must have had help.”
“Who?”
“Well. That’s the question, isn’t it.”
“The police will find out.”
“No.”
There was a pause, with Diane failing to react…and then a shocked jerk in her seat as what he had said finally pierced her thoughts.
“What?”
“No police.”
“But you know who did this-“
“I know who, but I don’t know why,” Sutton said. “So no police until I know more.”
Diane did not seem convinced.
His side burned. Every breath was a struggle.
Least the headache was gone. No brain haemorrhage after all.
“No police,” Sutton reiterated, looking at that stubborn jaw.
No response.
He sighed.
“Diane? Promise me.”
She shook her head, but then said, “fine. I don’t care. Do what you want.”
“And don’t tell your uncle either.” She seemed even more sour at this last remark, and was silent for some moments.
“You’re as stupid as he was,” she burst out suddenly, surprising them both.
“Who?”
He didn’t think she meant her uncle.
She looked as if she regretted her outburst.
“Who?” He pressed.
“No one.”
“Who?”
She paused, changing gear on an incline, and then looked at him and said scornfully, “Houdini.”
*
“You were healthy,” Dr Waverley said, examining the wound. He stood back to take in the whole of him. “Good God man, what have you been doing?”
“Rock climbing,” Sutton said, and Dr Waverley took this with a pinch of salt.
“Right.” He shook his head.
“Thanks for seeing me so quickly,” Sutton added.
Waverley flapped his hand dismissively, his attention on what remained of the rusty nail.
“You said it was an emergency.”
“Hm.”
“I’m going to take this out, and pack the wound, and stitch you up. But be warned: it’s going to hurt.”
“Fine.”
With humour, he said, “it will be no less than you deserve.”
Surprised, Sutton said, “for what?”
“Tomfoolery. Or whatever it is you did wrong to get in such a mess.”
Pride, Sutton thought. Pride and arrogance.
Waverley picked up an old leather bag from behind his desk and began rifling through it. It looked old, and beaten up; much like the doctor himself.
“You should be able to move about. But just don’t move about too much, or you’ll pull your stitches out. When was your last tetanus shot?”
“I can’t remember.”
“I’ll give you one of those too. And a prescription for antibiotics.”
“Okay.”
Waverley retrieved metal tongs from the bag and held them up for him to see.
“Are you ready?”
Sutton nodded, bracing himself.
It did hurt.
*
Diane stood by her car and watched him as he crossed the road to join her.
“You’re walking l
ike an eighty year old man,” she remarked.
“I’m fine.”
She did not move, and they stood staring at each other beside the car, in some kind of silent battle. It was Diane that broke it, when something seemed to soften in her expression.
“I’ll call and reschedule our meeting with Dr Bodel,” she said.
“No. I’ll see him.”
She looked exasperated all over again.
“You’re in no fit state-“
“I told you, I’m fine. If you’ll drive? And stop by my flat so I can clean up first?”
She looked mad enough to start crying, but in a moment shrugged angrily and walked around to the driver’s side and got in.
It was going to be a long ride back to Bristol.
*
“Do you know who it was?” Fin asked, after Sutton had told him where he’d been for the last few days. “That put you in there?”
Sutton held Diane’s mobile phone closer to his ear.
“A lady called Grace Chapel.”
“That bitch.”
“Well.”
“What are we going to do about her?”
Sutton smiled at the “we”. Fin was not a man who could physically do much, with his waif-like frame and his dubious state of health.
“I need you to find out all you can about her. Finances, family, friends, foes, everything.”
“I’m on it.”
He thought.
“And the other people on Gavin’s list. It would be less than prudent to continue knocking on their doors without any forewarnedness.”
“Forewarnedness. Is that a word?”
“It is now.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“And can you find out about my car? I drove it to Grace’s, but I’m assuming they moved it and perhaps disposed of it somewhere. It would be nice to know if it’s salvageable, or if I have to buy a new one.”
“I’ll see if I can find out. I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Thanks, Fin.”
“No problem. Oh, and Sutton?”
“Yeah?”
“Let somebody know where you’re going next time,” he suggested. “So we know if we should start dredging the river for you?”
*
Sutton pondered that, as they neared Bristol.
“Do you still sail?” He asked.
Diane frowned at him in inquiry.
“I saw the photographs in your office,” he explained.
“Oh. Yes.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes.”
This would be a difficult woman to get to know, Sutton thought. But at the same time there was something admirable about her stoicism. If she and Gavin had been involved with each other, then perhaps she was the one woman who might be able to tackle him on his stubbornness. She did have the tenacity of a limpet.
At his look upon her, she said, “my father took me out for the first time when I was six. I’ll never forget it…it was a horrible day, all wet and windy, but out on the water it was majestic. Magical, almost. The speed you seemed to be going…and the wind and the smell of the sea…”
“Sounds fun.”
She checked him, to see if he was poking fun at her, but then convinced he wasn’t, she nodded and returned to the road.
“I go as often as I can. My father has a boat moored out by Knightstone island.”
There was silence a moment in the car.
She began haltingly, “can I ask you…”
“What?”
She quickly looked at him and then back at the road.
“Why did you call me? When you finally managed to get out.” She looked at his face again. “Surely you have friends you could have called.”
Sutton didn’t answer immediately, and she continued, “I know why you didn’t call Fin, he told me, he can’t drive, because of his epilepsy, but surely there are other people you could have called? Besides me, I mean.”
Sutton cleared his throat. He looked out of the window, at the passing scenery.
“There are other people I could have called,” he admitted. “But it would have meant too many questions. And…”
He stopped.
She said, “what?”
He sighed and said, “and I don’t want them to look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”
“And how am I looking at you?”
“Like I’m mad.”
She actually smiled at this. Her smile was good, and made her seem softer overall. He didn’t know why she didn’t smile more often…but he supposed that, if she were carrying a torch for Gavin, perhaps there wasn’t that much to smile about in her life.
“You are mad,” she said humorously.
“I don’t expect people to understand what I do,” he continued. “But I don’t want to have to justify it all the time either.”
Diane nodded, understanding.
But then she said, “maybe you need to justify it. It’s dangerous.”
Carefully, he said, “sailing can be dangerous too.”
“It can,” she admitted. “That’s why we wear big bright orange lifejackets.”
“How about you being my lifejacket.”
She looked surprised.
“What?”
“While I was down in that…hole, I had time to think about what an idiot I’d been. It’s possible to get a little enamoured with oneself, with how good you are at what you do…enough so that you can get complacent. I went knocking on doors with no idea of what I was getting into, and that’s just foolish. I behaved like an amateur…and I always like to think I’m not an amateur. So, if I decide to carry on with this to its end, it would be sensible of me to have a lifejacket. Someone I talk to about what I’ve found, what conclusions I’ve come to…and where I will be heading next. So if something happens to me, you know where to look. I want you to be that lifejacket.”
Diane was silent while she debated this.
“Why me?” She asked.
“Because you are sensible to the point of insensibility. And perhaps I could use that feet-flat-on-the-ground mentality. You know. To keep me grounded.” He hesitated and then said, “that is, of course, if you start working with me, and not against me.”
Diane’s eyes went wide.
“I haven’t-“
“You have,” he said. “We both know it. I don’t know if you somehow blame me for what happened to Gavin, but even though you have been respecting his wishes to the letter of the law, you’ve let me know in every other way possible that you don’t want me involved. I need your help…not your hindrance.”
Diane’s eyes searched the horizon, possibly for a response…but more than likely she was searching inside herself.
“Diane?” Sutton said softly, to coax her into responding.
“I have,” she admitted guiltily; it was a good stab at courage.
“It’s not a crime,” he said lightly.
“I know. But it’s the sort of behaviour I’d like to think was beneath me.” She gave him a grim smile, which quickly died. “Do I blame you? Yes, I do…but I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t. That in the end, Gavin made his own decisions…and you couldn’t have been responsible for them, only he can.” She sighed. “I think it’s because of you that he didn’t tell me what he was doing. He told me about you, of course, the things you do, your curious…job. I thought he was exaggerating, but…maybe not.” Her guilty eyes flashed at him. “He said that Sutton Mills isn’t afraid of anything. I think he thought that if you could do it, so could he. Play detective, I mean.”
Not afraid of anything…if only Gavin had seen him a couple of hours ago.
“But he couldn’t do it, could he,” Diane continued. “Because he’s dead. Stupid, stupid man.”
She looked upset.
“I think you loved him very much,” Sutton said.
Her bottom lip quivered, and she brought a hand up to cover it. One tear spilled from her left eye, but that was it
.
“I did,” she said, “but…you know what he was like. So stubborn…so proud…He was…he was a hard man to love.”
There was a moment of silence in the car.
Then Diane said, “I will help you. Not hinder you.”
It was a promise. Or perhaps an apology.
“Are you going to carry on?” She asked him.
She saw something in his face then.
“Of course you are,” she said, and to her credit she tried not to sound too judgemental.
*
Dr Archibald Bodel had an office on the 5th floor, not lavish, or big, or particularly modern, but tidy, comfortable and warm. His desk sat next to a window that looked out on the grey line of buildings marching up the hill behind the BRI. Behind his desk, floor to ceiling bookshelves were crammed with medical journals of one type or another. On the wall behind the door was another set of floor to ceiling shelves, but these were devoted to loose papers, files, one potted plant on a plate, and an ornamental microscope. On the wall facing his desk was a collage of impressive accolades and certificates, and one or two anatomical models sat in a corner, gathering dust. Sutton could pick out the eye in its dislocated pieces, and a model of the human brain, each lobe moulded in a different colour.
It was the office of an impressive man, an achiever, a man who has found his purpose and has put all his energy in to it, but it also had heart: on a cork noticeboard above the desk various renderings from young hands had been pinned, and on each was a THANKS DR BODEL or HAPPY CHRISTMAS ARCHIE in black crayon. The room also indicated an orderly mind; Sutton had no doubt that Dr Bodel could put his hand directly on to whatever he happened to be after. Everything would be filed numerically, alphabetically, and not one tome would be out of place.
As both Diane and he waited in his office for the doctor to finish whatever task kept him, the image that formed in Sutton’s mind of Dr Bodel was one of a tall, frail Lincolnesque man, with wise eyes and a warm manner.
But when Dr Bodel finally entered the room, the reality was altogether quite different.
“Diane,” he said pleasantly, and she stood and clasped both of his hands. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Dr Bodel.”