The Ambleside Alibi: 2

by Rebecca Tope

  Nicola stood up. ‘Yes,’ she said, as if needing to placate everyone. ‘That’s right.’

  Simmy watched them go with some interest. There had been something pleasingly old-fashioned about the visitation. In Dickens’s time, it would have been entirely unremarkable. Underoccupied middle-class women would pack a basket full of good things and call on the sick without a moment’s hesitation. Gwen was a throwback, if not quite to Dickens’s time, then to the 1930s, where spinsters abounded and formed sisterhoods of numerous sorts. Nicola had hinted that this was something of a habit, and that Simmy was not being especially singled out for attention. And the bedsocks really were lovely. She stroked them as they lay on her chest, and savoured the warm softness of them.

  After tea there was another gruelling session on the crutches. The intensive training ran counter to the somewhat sporadic and inefficient service that Simmy had vaguely pictured as being the norm. Either she really was an unwanted inmate, with her aura of victimhood, and therefore to be bustled off the premises as soon as was humanly possible – or things were very much better than the general public perception believed.

  But it still seemed unkindly early to be forcing her to walk so soon after her latest operation. In fact, as she began to take more notice of the people around her, there was a wholesale lack of kindness on all sides, now she was on an ordinary ward. Brisk, encouraging, patient – yes. But barely a smile, certainly no friendly touch or warm reassurance. Was it because of her circumstances, or were they like this with everybody, she wondered? Some hint of irritation just below the surface made her suspect the former. She had not suffered from a random accident – she had been deliberately attacked. And it was automatic to look for reasons why a victim could be blamed. Because, she understood dimly, otherwise anybody could become a victim at any moment. And that was an insupportable thought.

  The next day, they promised, would have more of the same. By the end of Thursday she would be swinging along as if she’d been born to it. First thing Friday, all being well, she could be despatched to Windermere and left to her own devices.

  ‘What about my head?’ she asked. Then, ‘What about my rib? And the bruises? Does the plate in my pelvis stay in for ever?’

  ‘Ask the doctor tomorrow,’ they told her. ‘He’ll run you through it all.’

  Before she could ask if they’d heard any news about her bag or her car, they were gone, and two more visitors were peering through the door in search of her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A man and a woman came hesitantly towards the bed. Simmy had time to feel moved, intrigued, surprised – a jumble of emotions that brought a smile to her face. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘How nice of you to come.’

  Julie bent down to kiss her. ‘What are friends for?’ she said. ‘You’d do the same for me.’

  ‘And Ninian.’ She stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. None of the questions she wanted to ask seemed quite polite. Such as What gives you the right to show up like this? She didn’t mean anything quite so confrontational, anyway. She just wondered, and the wondering refused to go away.

  ‘I saw the note on the shop door,’ he explained. ‘And wanted to find out what had happened to you. I knew Julie was your friend, so I called her and asked.’

  ‘And I had no idea, so I called Melanie,’ Julie contributed. ‘And then we – me and Ninian – decided we should come and see you. Melanie wanted to come as well, but she’s got a party to go to this evening, and we weren’t sure we’d get her home in time.’

  Simmy had to keep reminding herself that she was in Barrow-in-Furness, which was something like an hour and a half round trip from Windermere, and not a place people went to on a whim. ‘You’re ever so kind,’ she said, trying not to whimper.

  ‘Well, I must admit I wasn’t too impressed at not being told about it.’ Julie stared at a point across the ward, without a smile. ‘Melanie said she assumed I would have seen it on the local news, but I hadn’t.’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone,’ Simmy defended. ‘I haven’t made any calls at all. And you always watch the news.’ She looked again at Ninian, who seemed no more comprehensible than before. ‘You two know each other, then?’ She could recall scraps of a conversation with Julie, in which she had not claimed any real acquaintance.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Julie, with a smile. ‘In a casual sort of way.’

  ‘It took me a while to remember that you two were friends,’ said Ninian. ‘But I have seen you once or twice together.’

  This only increased Simmy’s confusion, turning it closer to suspicion. ‘When?’ she demanded.

  ‘Come on, Sim,’ Julie protested. ‘We all know each other, don’t we? There’s nothing sinister about it. You’re the talk of the town now. Everyone’s trying to guess what really happened to you.’

  ‘So you came to see for yourself.’

  ‘Actually, I came because I owe you an apology,’ said Ninian. ‘I never showed up when I said I would. I haven’t got much of an excuse – just distractions mainly connected to my kiln and its temperamental ways. I didn’t dare leave it in case it decided to blow the roof off the house.’

  ‘Sounds dramatic,’ said Simmy, a trifle dryly. ‘But you were in Kendal, according to my mother. You sent a message through her, remember?’

  ‘So I did,’ he agreed easily. ‘That was the next day, though, wasn’t it?’ He frowned in puzzlement and Simmy could well believe he regularly forgot what day it was, as well as what he might have promised to do.

  ‘So – how are you?’ Julie interrupted. ‘What happened to your head?’

  ‘Cracked skull. They don’t seem worried about it. I can think more or less normally, anyway. The worst thing is my pelvis. I won’t be able to walk or drive for ages.’ The words still failed to summon any kind of reality for her. ‘They keep making me practise with crutches, which isn’t much fun.’

  ‘So you’ll be at your mum’s, then.’ Julie spoke as if it was an obvious, and not very interesting, conclusion to draw.

  ‘Not much choice, apparently.’

  ‘What about the shop?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’ll stay closed till the New Year, at least.’

  ‘I could run it for you,’ said Ninian, so carelessly that Simmy wasn’t sure she’d heard him.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I could open up, and take deliveries and arrange the stock, and sell things to customers. I’ve done it before. And the girl – Melanie – would be there as well, I imagine. Easy-peasy,’ he finished with a boyish grin.

  ‘What about orders that come in on the computer? Funerals, birthdays – all that stuff? You’d have to take flowers all over the place – or turn the orders away.’

  ‘I’d manage,’ he said bravely.

  ‘You wouldn’t, Nin,’ Julie said. ‘You haven’t got a car.’

  ‘But she’s got a van – I could use that.’

  ‘No car? So how were you planning to bring me your vases?’ wondered Simmy.

  ‘In a massive great rucksack on my back, all bundled up in bubblewrap. That’s the way I always do it, if people won’t come to collect. They generally do, actually.’

  There were people like this, Simmy realised. People to whom everything came easily, who regarded life as little more than a wholesale joke. And yet Ninian had endured some sort of breakdown, according to Julie. That could hardly have been amusing or particularly easy. Perhaps he was now on some medication that removed all anxieties or complications. Could such a person be trusted to conduct business on another person’s behalf?

  ‘It’s weeks away yet,’ she prevaricated. ‘I don’t have to decide about it now.’

  ‘It’s hot in here,’ Julie observed, apparently at random. ‘And those two don’t look like very exciting room-mates.’ She eyed the old ladies consideringly.

  ‘They don’t talk to me,’ Simmy agreed. ‘I’m not sure they’ve properly noticed I’m here.’ Simmy’s bed was closest to the door, at a different angle from the o
thers. ‘There was a policeman outside guarding me – did you see him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ nodded Julie. ‘Scary or what? We had to give him about fifty personal details before he’d let us in.’

  ‘But you’re not being watched,’ Simmy noted. ‘Not like the last people. I wonder why?’

  ‘I mentioned Melanie’s Joe, which might have helped. And they seem a bit busy out there. Do they think somebody’s going to have another bash at killing you, then?’

  Simmy groaned. Everything her friend had said so far brought unwelcome and demanding new trains of thought. She wanted to forget her shop, her parents and above all the cause of her injuries. She resisted the sense of being dragged back into all the responsibilities of her life, where she would have to make decisions and answer questions. ‘You’re as bad as Officer Moxon,’ she complained. ‘You’re making me feel tired.’

  Julie’s eyes sparkled. ‘So it was attempted murder!’ she crowed.

  Simmy met Ninian’s eyes, and read an unexpectedly warm sympathy in them. ‘Shut up, Julie,’ he said.

  ‘You’re worse than Melanie and Moxon put together,’ Simmy told her. ‘You all seem to want me to be scared.’

  ‘No! But you have to admit it’s a bit of a drama.’

  Simmy laughed weakly. ‘I admit that,’ she said. Then she saw two more faces at the door. ‘Oh, there’re my parents. I think you’ll have to go. They’ll never let me have four visitors at once.’

  ‘The car’s going to expire soon, anyway,’ said Julie. ‘It took us ages to find which room you were in.’

  Simmy had no notion of conditions outside the walls of her ward. How her visitors found somewhere to park was far beyond her sphere of interest. Even the weather had ceased to concern her. The room had no window – for all she knew there was a blizzard blowing outside. She was institutionalised, she thought, with no sense that this was a bad thing. She waved to her parents, wondering how much of the wider world they were going to force onto her attention.

  Her mother handed her a sheaf of folded paper even before she sat down. ‘Letter from Ben,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t appear to understand about envelopes.’

  Simmy unfolded the papers and began to read. There were four printed pages, containing lists, observations, cross-references and lengthy explanations. Names were underlined and asterisks indicated ‘Hard Evidence’, which was listed on a separate page. It was a disappointingly short list. ‘Heavens!’ she said weakly. ‘It’s a dossier.’

  ‘We didn’t like to look at it,’ said her father, with a glance at his wife. ‘But we’re not sure it’s a good idea to give it to you, while you’re still not right.’

  ‘I think he’s given a copy to the police,’ said Angie. ‘Which means you don’t need to do anything. It’s just for information.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ said Simmy, unable to take her eyes off it. ‘He’s got everything here.’ She flipped from one sheet to another, looking in vain for a paragraph headed ‘Conclusion’. ‘But he doesn’t seem to have actually solved the case.’

  ‘He’s got more sense,’ said Russell, admiringly. ‘They’re more likely to take notice if he just puts the facts.’

  ‘He’s done more than that, look.’ Simmy waved a sheet under his nose. ‘He’s quoted everything Melanie’s gran told us, almost word for word.’

  ‘Melanie’s gran?’ echoed Angie, and Simmy remembered how little she had conveyed to her parents about the killing of Nancy Clark and her summons to give the Kitchener man an alibi.

  ‘Never mind. Listen – you don’t need to come in tomorrow. It must be an awful hassle. They say I can go home on Friday, and I presume they’ll want you to collect me.’

  Angie rolled her eyes. ‘Oh yes, I remember how that goes. I had to fetch my friend Hilda after her hip replacement. They told me she’d be ready at nine-thirty, and we finally got out two hours later. They’d forgotten to do the final x-ray or something. They think nothing of keeping people hanging about in these places.’

  ‘Well, we won’t let that happen,’ said Russell stoutly. ‘We won’t set out until we know Simmy’s all ready for us.’

  ‘Hilda?’ Simmy asked. ‘Who’s Hilda?’

  ‘It was about nine years ago,’ her father explained. ‘She lives in St Albans now. I expect hospital procedures have changed since then.’

  ‘Don’t rely on it,’ said Angie darkly.

  The conversation drifted into plans for Christmas, the weather – which was gathering itself for something ominous, apparently – the progress of the injured cat and other minor domestic matters. Simmy found it blissfully restful to let them prattle on, nodding and smiling and making minimal comments.

  They stayed for fifty minutes, having paid for an hour in the car park. It was more than long enough. Simmy had exhibited her new bedsocks and offered the chocolates – twice. They had all watched in fascination when a bent old man stumbled in to visit the old lady who snored all night, and who had still said nothing at all to Simmy. He sat beside her and held her hand and they murmured quietly together like a pair of doves. Simmy felt suddenly and hopelessly sad. A small tragedy was taking place right there in the room with her, and everybody was pretending it was all right. Was this how it always ended, then? Would one of her parents miserably attend the slow demise of the other in a hospital ward where nobody could be expected to genuinely care? It was the plain fact of abandonment that brought tears to Simmy’s eyes. The old man could not fully trust that his wife would be reassured and comfortable, here in hospital. Whatever acute problem had brought her here, it was unlikely to go away. She had to be close to ninety. A broken hip would never properly recover. A replacement joint at her age – which Simmy vaguely supposed was what had happened – would surely prove bewildering and painful. She was a large old lady, too. ‘Isn’t it sad?’ she whispered to her parents.

  ‘Don’t despair,’ urged her father, patting her hand. ‘I’ve seen old birds at least her age get up and carry on for a good few years after they’ve had a new hip. It’s miraculous sometimes.’

  ‘Is that what she’s had?’ Simmy had dimly observed him, on his first visit, strolling over to the other two patients and reading the charts that still hung at the foot of the bed. He would know a lot more than she did about her room-mates and their medical condition.

  He nodded. ‘And the other one’s got a new knee,’ he said. ‘I’m appalled that you need me to tell you.’

  ‘They don’t talk to me. It’s quite busy in here most of the time. I’ve had non-stop visitors, as well as two horrible lessons on how to walk with crutches. Plus they take me to the loo, just like you with your cat.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ groaned her mother. ‘Am I going to have to do that when you come home?’

  ‘I’ll try to get the hang of it,’ Simmy assured her. ‘But it does need two pairs of hands at the moment.’

  Finally they were gone and Simmy heaved a long sigh. It was hard work having visitors, she was discovering. They brought whole new swathes of things to think about, just when she rather preferred not to think much at all. Ben’s notes lay at her side, waiting for a careful perusal. And now here was supper on its way, with, she hoped, a good-sized cup of tea. Yet again, she was thirsty.

  The meal was unprecedentedly good. It was delicious, and she wolfed it down voraciously, despite the awkward angle. Her shoulders were too low, her arms too bruised and stiff for proper movement. Nobody seemed to be available to make the desired adjustments. It was cottage pie, with plenty of meat and onion, the mashed potato nicely crisped on top. The broccoli and carrots with it were plentiful and not overcooked. The whole meal was hot. A fruit salad containing figs, cherries and mango, as well as the usual pineapple and tiny sections of baby satsumas, followed, adorned with a very decent cream.

  ‘Has the cook just come back from holiday?’ she asked the woman who came to collect her plate. The blank look made it clear that jokes were neither understood nor appreciated when it came to hospital food. It hadn’t even
really been a joke. She did want to know what had changed. After a brief meditation on the subject, the idea occurred that it might have been her own state that had improved. Until then, she had not been hungry. Now the trauma was at last receding, and she could eat with enjoyment again.

  It was the end of the day. Lights were already being dimmed and an atmosphere of packing away and finishing off prevailed. Simmy was taken in a wheelchair on the laborious trip to the lavatory by two tired-looking nurses. ‘Can’t I just have a bedpan?’ she whined, as she tried to manoeuvre onto the seat.

  ‘It’s good for you to be ambulant,’ recited one of them. ‘Tomorrow you can do it on the crutches. It’s mainly just a matter of balance.’ Ambulant seemed a funny word to use for being wheeled to and fro, but she understood that it had a wider meaning here than was normal. On the way, she had a chance for a proper look at the police guard on the door. Until then, she had glimpsed a shoulder when the door opened, but had not properly looked at him. It seemed impossibly dramatic to have him there all day – and perhaps all night as well – vetting all her visitors and poised to leap into action if anybody made a threatening move. Who, after all, would dare try and kill her in the Furness General? She threw him a look of apology and commiseration, which he did not seem to observe.

  She was settling down with Ben’s notes when another visitor came in. For a moment, she was too absorbed in her reading to look up, and when she did, Moxon was only a foot away. ‘Are you allowed in at this time of night?’ she asked.

  He cocked his head. ‘It’s ten to seven,’ he said. ‘Hardly the middle of the night.’

  She was amazed. She’d been sure it had to be well past nine. ‘But they’re putting us to bed!’

  ‘They do that in these places. I think you can ask for a TV, if you want one.’

  ‘It’d disturb the others.’ The two old ladies appeared to be dozing, as they so often did. Neither of them had been taken to the toilet, which raised uncomfortable questions about what happened instead.