The Ambleside Alibi: 2

by Rebecca Tope

  When a hand was placed firmly on the back of her neck, her first fleeting impression was that some friend had crept up behind her, to surprise her. She waited for an explanatory voice, unable to turn round, even if she tried. But she did not try. She waited trustingly even when the hand pushed her head and shoulders forward. Then another hand somehow scooped her legs, below the knee, and lifted them high. Then she tried to kick and twist. Her hands tried to grip the stone, only to slither over its smooth cold surface. She was moving forward, horizontally, to the edge, the drop. It wasn’t possible, her brain insisted. It was a joke, a game. The concept of a deliberate act, in which an innocent woman could be pushed over a ledge into a dark, cold river, was beyond acceptability. She sailed head first onto the hard rocks of the river bed still unable to process the idea. No protest, no fear or attempt to save herself had time to surface. She was still asking herself who it was, and what unthinkable dislocation in the pattern of the universe could be taking place, when she lost consciousness. She never even noticed how cold the water was, as it carried her downstream towards the town’s main car park.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She did feel cold some time later. She was aware of violent shivering, inside the impossibly heavy coat. Her head hurt with a pounding agony that wouldn’t let her think. There was something hard pushing against her chest, and her feet were rising and falling in a fractured rhythm that brought a sweeping black terror with it. She was nothing but a powerless, tormented body. Pain and fear swamped everything else. No questions formed; no determined efforts to survive. She lay inertly, all movement created by external forces. Until she found her fingers. They were curled tightly against her chest, trapped by the hard object, and cold. But they moved when she wanted them to. They twitched and twisted, and finally opened. They were bare of gloves, stiff and sore, but they worked. She used them to push, and found herself moving bodily as her arms straightened, a frightening floating movement. Volition brought dawning consciousness with it. She could still use her own will, which meant she must be alive. Where, when, why, how, who – they were all still beyond her reach, but she could sense them approaching.

  Water. She was in cold running water that had hard things in it. There were sounds somewhere close by. An engine. A voice. There were yellow lights, one of them directly above her. So her eyes and ears were functioning, she noted with astonished relief. She must be breathing, then. Her heart must be beating. Such fundamentals acquired immense significance, and acted like magic to repel the towering pain in her head. She made a faint gurgling sound of pure joy, which was cut off when it turned into a choking cough and an understanding that there was water inside her where it ought not to be.

  ‘Mummy – there’s a person in the water,’ came a clear angelic voice, miraculously close by.

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling.’

  ‘There is. Look! Right there.’

  So Mummy looked, and screamed and slowly recruited people who felt equal to the arduous task of wading into the shallow edge of Stock Ghyll and heaving the sodden object that was Persimmon Brown onto the comparatively dry surface of the Ambleside main car park.

  She coughed again, and stretched her arms, but uttered no words. More people appeared, after a long cold time, who lifted her into a warm vehicle and removed her ruined coat. They wrapped her in shiny stuff that made her think she must in fact be dreaming. Then, after another long time, in which she shivered so much her teeth clattered together loud enough to frighten her, she was in a room, full of voices and machines and faces that came and went in a strange dance that formed no comprehensible pattern. Somebody asked insistent questions, but her head was too painful for there to be a chance of processing an answer. Her main worry continued to be Where? It was a hospital, she understood – but which one? It mattered immensely to her, to know where in the world she had been taken. The nearest town of any size was Kendal, which did have a hospital. Somehow she knew that, deep beneath the awful pain. People died there. People dying was the main thing she knew about hospitals – not people being wrapped up warmly and given injections and asked impossible questions.

  But the pain was becoming more muffled, subdued by the attentions of the people. It turned into a rhythmic throb that felt as if it should hurt, but strangely didn’t. ‘Tell us your name, dear,’ urged a new face. ‘We need to tell your family where you are. They’ll be worrying about you.’

  ‘Simmy,’ she croaked. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Sammy? Samantha? Is that it? Or Jimmy?’

  She shook her head hopelessly, inwardly blaming her mother for giving her such a ridiculous name. ‘P’simmon,’ she whispered. ‘P’simmon Brown.’

  ‘Brown!’ The young woman – more than ten years younger than Simmy – latched onto the syllable with relief. ‘And you live in Ambleside, right?’

  ‘Troutbeck. Where am I?’

  ‘Ms Brown from Troutbeck,’ announced her inquisitor to the room in general. ‘Is that enough to go on? I couldn’t catch the first name. Sounded foreign.’

  Simmy experienced a powerful wish for Ben Harkness to materialise. He would explain everything to these people. He would understand what had happened to her, much better than she did herself. Gradually, the word forensic came into focus, followed by a murky idea that nobody knew how she had come to be in the water. They might think she jumped in on purpose. It mattered that they should not think this, but they had other things on their minds, it seemed.

  ‘Miss Brown – your pelvis is broken, and your skull might be cracked. Now the hypothermia is under control, we need to x-ray you.’ It was a Chinese man speaking. His accent was soothingly sing-song, the words entirely unworrying as a result. X-rays didn’t hurt, after all. And a cracked skull sounded almost funny. Like an egg, she thought. Already she had forgotten the part about her pelvis.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. It sounded pleasingly clear inside her muffled head. ‘Yesss,’ she said again, lingering on the sibilance.

  They wheeled her, bed and all, into another room. There was then some disagreeable manoeuvring that taught her how limp and unresponsive much of her body had become. She still had no idea where she was, or what time it might be, or which detail should be the most concerning out of a host of possible candidates.

  After that she fell asleep and missed a lot of procedures. She finally woke in a different room, with something tight round her head. Just about everything she had ever known was lost and forgotten, including the worrying questions. Her throat was dry and scratchy when she tried to swallow. There was a stabbing pain in her hand. When she tried to wiggle a foot, it only minimally obeyed. It was a while before it occurred to her to open her eyes. When she did, she saw a small window high on a pale-green wall, revealing a pale-grey sky. ‘Is it morning?’ she gasped.

  A woman was standing by her feet. ‘Hello,’ she smiled. ‘Don’t worry – you’re doing fine.’

  She hadn’t known she was doing anything. ‘Am I?’ she said, in puzzlement. ‘I need water. Please.’ The words scraped their way through the sore throat and swollen tongue. She did not expect them to have the desired effect.

  But by some magic, they did. The smiling woman brought a plastic cup to her lips and carefully poured some drops into her mouth. ‘Better?’ she asked.

  Simmy tried to nod, but the tightness around her head made it feel dangerous. ‘Tell me,’ she pleaded.

  Again, by a miracle, her request was answered. ‘You’re in Barrow-in-Furness. They brought you here last night, after you were found in the ghyll in Ambleside. You had hypothermia, severe bruising, a broken pelvis and a fractured skull. You had surgery to alleviate the pressure on your brain, and to put a thing called a fixator around your hips – and you were then sedated for the rest of the night, to give everything a chance to settle down. You’ll probably need another operation on your pelvis in a day or two.’

  She had never been to Barrow-in-Furness, despite its being only thirty miles or so from Windermere. She had been to Kendal, Whit
ehaven, Keswick and Carlisle – but the big coastal town to the south remained unvisited. She imagined it as somewhat smoky and uninviting. ‘How will I get home?’ she whimpered idiotically.

  The woman laughed. ‘Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get you home – and in plenty of time for Christmas, too. Now, listen – there’s somebody here to see you. He’s been waiting quite a while. I’m going to go and tell him you’re awake, and he can stay ten minutes. Okay?’

  Ben. It would be Ben, she knew. She was about to nod when she remembered the effect it would have. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  It wasn’t Ben, but a much older man. He swept into the room like a doctor on an urgent errand, and stood looking down at her. His face was foreshortened, the chin too big and the hair scarcely visible. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

  It was DI Moxon. The voice confirmed it. She sighed at the prospect of more questions, the answers to which barely concerned her. She didn’t care enough to make the necessary effort. ‘I don’t know,’ she breathed. ‘Could you sit down, do you think?’

  He narrowed his eyes, and nibbled his lower lip, and went to fetch a chair from a corner of the room. When he spoke again, it was with obvious restraint. ‘We think you must have gone into the water somewhere upstream of the car park, to get so many bruises. And the most likely place is the bridge just above the Giggling Goose. Do you remember that? Did you fall in by accident?’

  ‘A person threw me in,’ she said regretfully.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over that ledge. Where you said. I don’t remember much.’

  ‘Do you know what time that was?’

  ‘About five, I think. Evensong.’

  He smiled uncertainly. ‘You went to evensong? Where?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Mrs Joseph might have done. I thought she might. She wasn’t in.’

  ‘You were in the water for an hour, then. It’s incredible you survived.’

  ‘It was cold,’ she agreed. ‘With hard rocks.’

  ‘Do you know who it was? Who’s Mrs Joseph?’

  ‘She’s an old lady. It wasn’t her. I don’t know who it might have been. Just a pair of hands. They tipped me over. Like a doll. Or a model from a shop window. You know? I just shot right over. I can see myself.’ She frowned cautiously. ‘Like a doll.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Did they say anything? Was there any noticeable smell? Perfume, or cigarettes, or alcohol? Can you remember?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Your parents will be coming soon. We managed to let them know what had happened late last night.’

  ‘Oh.’ She gave this some thought. ‘That could have waited until the morning. Did you wake them up?’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘Very probably.’

  ‘But this is Barrow, isn’t it? They won’t want to come to Barrow.’

  ‘It’s the nearest A&E department. Only forty minutes or so from Windermere. Some people get taken to Lancaster. That’s twice as far.’

  ‘I broke my pelvis. They don’t seem to think that’s very serious.’ As she spoke, she wondered where that impression had come from. Her lower half was invisibly encased in a sort of cage, and she had not yet attempted to test how much she could move.

  ‘I think it’s quite serious,’ he argued mildly. ‘They’ll be worried about internal damage, as well.’

  ‘Really? I suppose I bashed it on a rock, same as my head. I can wiggle my toes, though. That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ask the doctor,’ he evaded. ‘I could tell you all wrong. My job is to find out why somebody tried to kill you.’

  ‘Is that what they did?’ She felt nothing but weariness at the idea. Everything that was happening was utterly exhausting, including answering a detective inspector’s questions.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He shook his head in something that looked like despair. Then, he took a deep breath and raised his chin. ‘Who’s Mrs Joseph?’ he asked again.

  The realisation of how much he did not know drained Simmy even further. Scraps of conversation from the previous afternoon returned to her, with connections and suspicions that floated away when she tried to capture them. She felt sorry for the policeman in his blinkered quest for the killer of Miss Clark. And her sympathy stirred her to an effort. But first she needed to adjust her position. Something somewhere was stiff, another area was aching. Pressing her elbows into the bed, she began to haul herself further up the pillows.

  A vicious pain shot through her, radiating north and south from her hips. ‘Aarghh!’ she shouted, before a great trembling gripped her. All her deepest organs were quivering from the attack. She felt as if she was helplessly dissolving into a watery sludge, which would never function as a body again.

  ‘Nurse!’ yelled DI Moxon.

  Much later, she was restored to something more human, thanks to chemical intervention, and her parents were sitting on either side of the bed. She remembered her father’s cat, whose pelvis was also broken. ‘Can you nurse me as well as Chucky?’ she asked weakly.

  Her mother put on a grimly cheerful manner and pointed out that the timing could hardly be better. She said there would be no B&B guests for the next two weeks at least, which left her perfectly free to take care of her daughter. ‘You’ll have to use the playroom,’ she sighed. ‘You won’t manage stairs for ages.’

  The ‘playroom’ was a well-stocked lounge, specifically for the use of guests. It had games, a TV, books and spare clothes for wet walkers. There was no space for a bed without major reorganisation. Glimpses of the implications of her condition gave Simmy reason to quail and whimper. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she wailed.

  Angie had never taken easily to the inevitable disturbances that came with parenthood. She had snarled dreadfully every time little Simmy had fallen ill and stayed off school. She made great commotions when the bus was late returning from a school trip, causing her such inconvenience. She had moaned about the impossible decisions over curfews and boyfriends and which A levels to take. Russell had gone unheard when he tried to remind her how lucky they were – how Simmy had been an extraordinarily easy daughter compared to most.

  But now Angie was doing her utmost to rise to the occasion. She meant it when she said the timing was good. She pointed out that a small bed could quite easily fit into the corner where the clothes chest stood. Hardly any major shifting around would be needed. She attempted to reassure her daughter that it would all work out quite well. ‘And if there’s more snow, you won’t have to worry about driving up and down the road from Troutbeck,’ she concluded.

  Neither parent seemed much interested in the cause of Simmy’s injuries. The absence of questions struck her as unnatural. ‘Have you been speaking to Mr Moxon?’ she asked them.

  ‘Who?’ said her father.

  ‘The detective investigating the murder of Nancy Clark.’ The sentence tired her, by taking her back to the complications and threats that formed a thick, dark backdrop to everything else.

  ‘Who?’ repeated her father blankly.

  If he was acting, he was doing it well. She tried to see into his mind, testing him for subterfuge. ‘What have they told you?’ she finally asked. ‘About what happened to me?’

  ‘They don’t want you to get upset,’ said Angie uncomfortably. ‘We’re to keep things positive.’

  The surge of anger was almost as disabling as the earlier pain had been. She wanted to express it, but couldn’t find the words. Instead she made a sound that was part growl, part moan. A silence followed that seemed to be full of effort and resentment. ‘What about my shop?’ It was the first time she had given it a thought. Now it seemed like a safe and not-very-important subject.

  ‘Melanie’s putting a sign on the door saying it’s closed until the New Year,’ said Russell.

  ‘But there are orders for next week. She’ll have to find someone else to do them, and check the computer every day for new ones.’

  ‘She says she can do that from hom
e. Lots of businesses will be closing for Christmas, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ She trailed off, not caring about lost orders or flowers left rotting in the storeroom. Melanie might have the wit to cancel further deliveries, she supposed.

  ‘I wish Ben would come and see me. Will you ask him?’

  ‘Who?’ said her father for the third time.

  ‘That boy,’ Angie told him quickly. ‘P’simmon’s geeky friend – you know. The one who got so involved last time.’

  Last time. The words swelled significantly in Simmy’s head. It had of course occurred to her that she was currently entangled in a second murder investigation, but the details and circumstances were so different that she had refused to link them in her mind. To do so was to admit the dreadful possibility that there could perhaps be a next time as well. And this time was turning out very badly indeed.

  ‘Ben can’t come all the way to Barrow,’ Angie told her. ‘School doesn’t finish until the end of the week.’

  ‘The play!’ she bleated. Ben’s play was the only engagement she had in her metaphorical diary for the foreseeable future. He had given her a ticket. She wanted to go and see him perform. ‘Will I be able to go to the play?’

  Angie’s eyes widened. ‘When is it?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said her mother flatly. ‘Friday’s the absolute earliest they’ll let you out of here, according to the doctor.’

  ‘We brought you a couple of nighties, pyjamas and a book and the local paper,’ offered Russell, rummaging in a plastic carrier bag at his feet. ‘Your mother didn’t know which was best – nightie or jim-jams. We’d better go now. You’ll be having more tests and things soon. They’ll tell you everything. We told them you’re a big grown-up girl and can take the truth, whatever it is. We’ll phone to see how you are this evening, and be back tomorrow.’