by Neil Rowland
“How about Pixie Wright?” he said.
“She is not too bad, Clive. After the accident she is rather... slow in her thoughts. But she survived, didn’t she. She appears to be content, actually... living with her grandmother in Sussex now.”
“Then it’s true.”
“I’m afraid so, darling.” There wasn’t much feeling in the hand she was holding, as if it belonged to another man.
“Oh my God, what did I do to her?”
“They will be closing that hospital. They will no doubt be liquidating Winchurch Brothers.”
“Not the end of Viktor and his operations. He’ll still be running his fashion empire; cruising the world in his yacht, bankrolled by the carbon industry.”
“For the time being, unless we can make international law stretch. Everybody is trying to curtail him,” she insisted.
“Then how about me?” Clive asked. “Where am I now? Where do I stand?”
“I understand there’s an accusation again you.”
“Yes, love, I know what you’re referring to,” he admitted.
“Septimus didn’t bring a charge against you, did he, before. With these other, very serious charges against him... he is prepared to bring that prosecution. He wouldn’t allow that to drop. You shouldn’t worry about all that now. You have to get better. I can’t believe that you’ve come back to me!” she declared.
“There’s no mistake?” he replied.
“You should explain yourself... at the first opportunity.”
“Do they know my actions were manipulated?”
“They already ran some tests on you, actually,” Noreen explained. She took him in excitedly; her large brown eyes shining.
“Yeah, Pixie took some blood samples from me. A friend of hers...a nurse. We suspected that I had been slipped something.”
“You think they drugged you?”
“There was some chemical... hormonal or steroid influence. Pixie took that sample to an independent clinic. They tested for various chemicals. Which may have been injected into me, during that hospital stay...”
“You mustn’t allow him to go back to sleep,” announced the doctor. “We mustn’t allow him to slip back. He may not return to us.”
“The suspicion is that my levels of testosterone and adrenaline were much higher than normal,” Clive explained.
“They definitely tested this sample,” Noreen confirmed.
“Of course in my job, my old job, in the City, we thrived on high levels of testosterone. Adrenaline, natural steroids... the stress levels were amazing”
“I know, darling.”
“But we thrived on that. We loved the pressure. It was bloody in tooth and claw. The excitement. The aggression of the office. Sometimes. The incredible rush was normal. It was necessary for survival. It was a fuelled environment. But this was way above all that. I was pumped up when I attacked Emmy.”
“The sample came back slightly above normal, that’s true. But apparently your levels were within the normal range,” Noreen told him.
“Then it’s clear,” he muttered. “Isn’t it?”
“Don’t let him drift back Mrs Pitt. Keep him conscious. He must remain conscious.”
“You got a last message from Pixie. It was received on the morning before her accident. It was confused, in the way it was expressed. But, basically, she reminded you that Emmy was blindfolded. Her eyes were covered as she was attacked. She couldn’t possibly have seen the face of the guy who raped her. Do you understand the implication?”
THE END
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