And that was Deverill, probably seeing nothing through the muck and the murk and the flaring light; and not one of us tried to answer him. I was too busy breathing, and trying to crawl; his minder, my new friend, my new hero Dean or possibly Oliver was too busy grunting encouragement as he inched along beside me, above me, between me and the catastrophe, hanging over me with the mattress spread like protective wings, like a shield; and the other in the room, the lackey Oliver or possibly Dean, he was too busy screaming.
I crawled across broken brick and splintered wood, blundering towards the light until at last I was grabbed at, I was seized and dragged out into the corridor, and Dean or Oliver came after. They tried to haul me immediately away, but I fought their hands off for a second, with more strength than I’d found to save myself; and I turned to look back into the room, just a moment I had to do that before someone stepped between it and me; and I saw a fiery hell in there, I saw a crumpled lorry parked in my bedroom and ablaze.
And I saw Oliver, unless he was Dean, trapped in his corner and dancing, a figure sewn entirely of flame.
o0o
He wasn’t screaming any more, but I think I screamed for him. I’m not certain; they gave me an injection and took me away, and things were very muddled in my head for a while after.
I woke up or came round in another room, another part of the hospital. By the light that found its way around and between and through the curtains, it was also the beginning of another day.
There was a policewoman sitting beside my bed. Protecting me or waiting for me, I couldn’t tell which. Both at once, perhaps. When she saw that I was awake, she put her head outside the door and spoke to someone in the corridor.
A senior officer came at her summoning, a man whose name and rank I forgot as soon as he mentioned them, because I was too busy looking to listen. He smelled of smoke and wet ash, he’d had a wash but his clothes were rank with it; and he looked achingly, up-all-night-with-a-bad-job weary.
He asked politely if I felt up to answering a few questions; behind him, the nurse Simon pulled faces at me, say no if you feel like it, I’ll get a doctor in to back you up...
But I wanted rid of this, all I wanted was escape and that clearly wouldn’t be allowed until the questions had been asked and answered. So I shrugged an acceptance and he started in, with the WPC staying as note-taker and Simon fading out with more unspoken messages, just buzz if you need me, I’ll come and scare them away.
Questions, questions. I told him everything I thought he’d need to know, about what happened last night; then he made me tell him again, everything I could remember. Nothing changed the bones of it, though: that Vernon Deverill had stood recklessly exposed in a lighted window; that his minder Dean had warned him away, and at the time I’d wondered how much risk there was, whether his ego actually stood in more danger than his physical self if he went unwarned, unguarded; that I was answered a minute later, when a truck came crashing through the window, right where he’d been standing.
That I didn’t think it a coincidence, no, not at all.
The policeman nodded, scratched his nose, finally admitted that I might possibly be right about that. The truck had been legitimately parked on hospital grounds; it belonged to a contractor working on the new wing, and he’d been in the habit of leaving it on site for the last few weeks. Indeed, he had definitely left it at the top of the slope that ran down towards my former room. But he maintained that he had left it in reverse gear and with the handbrake full on, no chance of its running away; and there were other factors, the policeman said, that suggested it had been deliberately aimed at my window.
“Such as?” I asked.
“Well, the contractor didn’t leave the lights on, for a start. Says he didn’t, at any rate, and why would he? But someone steering that truck down the hill in the dark, got to bump it up over the kerb and then hit one window out of a dozen, he might well want the lights on, yes?”
I nodded, remembering. “They were on, for sure. Everything looked strange...”
“Right. And Dean thinks he saw someone jumping free, a couple of seconds before it hit. As soon as they were sure it wouldn’t swerve off line, I guess. Whoever did that was brave, mind, though he was stupid with it.”
“Why brave? It wasn’t going that fast, surely?” A flat-bed truck wouldn’t have picked up much speed, rolling down a fairly gentle hill with no engine. Wouldn’t need speed, momentum would be plenty to smash it through a window wall.
“Petrol,” he said. “We’re not certain yet, the labs are still checking, but we think the whole cab was soaked in petrol. That fire was too fierce, and too far forward. The diesel tank wasn’t actually ruptured in the crash, there must have been another accelerant. So this guy’s been splashing petrol all over, his own clothes would’ve been wet with it and the cab would’ve been full of fumes, and he turns the truck’s lights on? Stupid. One spark from the electrics and ka-boom, the wrong guy gets fried.”
The wrong guy had got fried anyway, though I didn’t want to remind him: it was the lackey Oliver got caught in the inferno, not Deverill.
“Is Dean all right?”
“He’s fine. Well, minor burns on his arms; that mattress was on fire before he got you out. But that’s what saved your life, that mattress. He’s a quick-thinking lad, yon Dean.”
“Yes.” Saved my life, saved his boss’s; and was probably feeling bitter over Oliver, thinking himself a failure for not getting us all out and the briefcase too.
Briefcase. On the table by my bed were some crumpled, dirty sheets of paper. The policeman saw my eyes find them and said, “You had that in your hand, when they pulled you out. Held so tight you didn’t let go until they’d jabbed you, the doctor says.”
I shrugged. “Must’ve been instinct, it’s not that important.”
“No,” he agreed. “We checked. Just a report from a Sunday paper. What’s your connection with Lindsey Nolan, Mr Marks?”
“Christ knows,” I said, heartfelt and honest. “I don’t even know what my connection is with Vernon Deverill. Ask the doctors; I can’t remember a bloody thing.”
“Mmm, they said that. Nor about the accident that put you in here in the first place, I understand?”
“That’s right. Why?”
“Well, our colleagues in Penrith need to put in a report on that, and there are no witnesses that they can find, so they were hoping you could throw some light on what happened. But more than that, I’m curious myself now. This makes two apparent accidents in a week, either one of which might have killed you; and we’re fairly certain that the second was a deliberate attempt at murder, so naturally that raises questions about the first, do you see?”
Oh, I did, I did see very clearly; but, “That would mean I was the target last night? Not Deverill?”
“That’s right.”
“No, that’s nonsense. It must be. Why would anyone want to kill me?”
“We don’t know, Mr Marks. That’s another question I wanted to ask you, actually. Work as a solicitor, you’re going to make enemies, but does anyone particular come to mind just now? Had any threats, perhaps?”
“No, none. Not that I remember,” added quickly, as I remembered how much I’d forgotten. “But I don’t know what’s happened to me since January. If you, if you ask at my office, they might be able to tell you...”
He looked at me a little oddly, said, “We tried that, but they weren’t very helpful. Nothing they knew about, they said; but it not being your office any more, and legal matters being privileged information, there wasn’t much they were prepared to tell us. We should take a look at your new employer, they said.”
“Wait a minute. Not my office...?”
“You left,” he said, “at the end of January. Very suddenly, and without notice. Hasn’t anyone told you that?”
No. No one had told me that. Another mystery, another question; another significant danger to life as I knew it, as I used to live it and wanted to again. My new empl
oyer presumably was Deverill; which was probably—properly—death, as far as finding another job was concerned.
Right now, though, being unemployable hereafter was if not the least, certainly a minor among my many worries. And nothing much I could do about it anyway, from a hospital bed. Phone up and apologise, perhaps? Promise to do better, try harder, sweat my little socks off for the company’s good, if they’d only take me back?
I didn’t think so. I didn’t generally do things without a reason; if I’d done weird things, logically there ought to be weird reasons for them. Weird, but valid. I wasn’t saying sorry for anything, until I knew why I’d done it in the first place.
Well, maybe one thing. No more than that; but one thing I thought no motive could excuse.
Meanwhile, if you want to know the time, ask a policeman. So I did that, and he told me: for a wonder it was good and early yet, barely seven in the morning, and so much for its being always later than you think. I had a dose of Rip van Winkle’s jet-lag, not tuned in to the season yet, seeing April light through the curtains and timing it for a January dawn.
I grunted, and shifted uncomfortably on the bed; mirabile dictu, the policeman took the hint. He left me his card, “I’ll keep in touch with the hospital in any case, keep tabs on your progress, but call me if you think of anything useful. Anything at all. And tell the staff at once if you see anyone hanging around.”
I nodded, promised, waited till he went away. And then waited just a minute longer, and in came Simon, as I’d expected.
“How was it, then? Third degree?”
“Nah, no more than second.”
“Well, that’s all right, then, you can take another question. What would you like first this morning, a cup of tea or a wash?”
I grimaced. “Simon, tell me something.”
“Sure, if I can. What?”
“What am I doing here?”
Just for a moment, he was utterly still; then, “Don’t say you’ve forgotten? Not since yesterday?”
“No, of course not. I had a car smash, I know that. But that was, what, six days ago now. What I want to know is, why am I still in hospital? Do I need to be here?”
“Well, let’s see, now. You were in a coma for three days...”
“Sure. I’m out of it now.”
“You took a terrible crack on the head...”
“...Which has been scanned and X-rayed and poked about every which way you know, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Except that you’ve lost your memory.”
“Which I am not going to recover lying here, am I? There’s no treatment for that, you can’t give me a memory-pill and hey presto?”
“No, I suppose not. What are you saying, Jonty?”
“I want out.”
“Oh, come on. I saw you when you came back yesterday afternoon, you were dead on your feet.”
“That’s just bruises and weakness, nothing major. My first time out of bed. I don’t need to convalesce in hospital, I can do it just as well outside; and I’d rather.”
“Why?”
Many reasons; but, “I don’t like being beholden to Vernon Deverill,” I said, “And I especially don’t like being a sitting target for anyone who’s got a grudge against the man. I bet there’s still a policeman on this corridor, isn’t there?”
“Well, not a policeman, no. Private security bloke. Working for Mr Deverill, I think.”
“Right.” And the window opened on an inner court, no access: safe enough, they must have thought, or they wouldn’t have brought me here. Or left me alone. “I’d rather go somewhere I don’t need protecting.”
Simon sucked air worriedly through his teeth, and said, “You can’t go without seeing the doctor.”
“Bullshit. Of course I can.”
“You haven’t even been checked over properly after last night,” as he scanned the notes at the foot of my bed. “Honestly, Jonty, you can’t just walk out of here...”
“Honestly, Simon, I can. I’m going to. Are you going to help, or what?”
o0o
In the end, he helped. He still fussed, but he disappeared for five minutes and came back with a trolley: breakfast on top, clothes on the lower shelf. Not mine, of course—or not those that Sue had said were mine, the sensuous stuff of yesterday. Those were all gone in the ruin of my former room. What was in the drawer had been salvaged, though, they’d put the fire out pretty quickly, Simon said, before it got through the wood; so my keys and purse and other things were sitting on a tray beside my bed, smelling of chemicals and char but otherwise okay.
Simon wouldn’t say where these new clothes had come from, whether he’d raided doctors’ lockers or the morgue; but he’d found jeans that fitted well enough, a loose sweatshirt and some deck shoes I could squeeze into if I didn’t bother with socks. A tattered denim jacket to go over the top and a baseball cap to protect my abused head a little; I’d be fine, I assured him. Looked like a nice day out there, and I didn’t have far to go.
Where was I going? I was going home, of course. As soon as I’d eaten and had a proper bath. The fire had left its tang on me also.
What about the security man in the corridor? He couldn’t stop me any more than Simon could, he didn’t have the right; but just to be sure he didn’t try I had a little ruse in mind, if Simon was prepared to help me further...
Which he was, bless him. A policeman might have been a different matter, but Simon wasn’t worried about private muscle. He took me to the bathroom in a wheelchair, in my pyjamas and a dressing-gown; and the crop-haired ape in uniform with Scimitar Security shoulder-flashes didn’t bat an eyelid as we passed. I clearly wasn’t fit to go anywhere under my own steam; I was under the aegis of hospital staff; and he had his orders and another room besides mine to keep an eye on, because Dean had been kept in overnight, Simon had told me, and his room was just across the corridor from me.
As soon as the bathroom door had closed behind us, I was levering myself carefully up onto my feet. Clothes are okay as a cushion, but the deck shoes were not so comfortable under my arse. Besides, I wanted to prove—to myself and to Simon, in case either one of us suffered a change of heart—that I could stand up for myself.
Could, and did: stiff and sore for certain, but nothing worse than that, that I could feel. No pain worth hospitalising, at any rate. And the ache in my head had subsided also, the residue no worse than a hangover, and I could surely live with that. So we peeled off the pressure bandage that swathed my skull and found that whatever piece of mangled metal had come into contact with my head, it had torn the scalp every which way. The greater shock was finding wide tracks of my floppy blond hair shaved down to stubble, where the doctors had put seams of ugly black stitching.
While the bath was running I persuaded Simon to show off his barbering skills again, trimming what was left of my hair to a sort of chopped velvet all over. It was an improvement, of sorts, though the stitches stood out more; I was going to be grateful for that cap. Then I shucked off dressing-gown and pyjamas, to stand buck naked in front of the full-length mirror. The bruises looked better than ever, fading to browns and yellows around the edges now while their hearts were still purple and black; sunset glories I carried on my skin. But another night’s rest had eased them, so that they looked far worse than they felt. I was more concerned with the dressings on my arms and legs and what might lie beneath them, what secret damage I’d taken.
But it was six days now since the accident, and I’d always healed fast; and again nothing felt too bad, bending and stretching. I started to pick at sticking-plaster, wincing as it lived up to its name; behind me, Simon chuckled.
“Get in the bath, Jonty. They’ll come a lot easier after you’ve soaked them.”
True enough. I subsided, into a few inches of water at the sort of temperature you wash a baby in; and snarled and sat up again, to turn the hot tap full on.
Lay back in currents of heat, my eyes closed and my mind drifting in the steam, my s
kin stinging and my muscles relaxing and my throat sighing and moaning in gentle pleasure despite Simon’s laughter.
Never had any bath been so necessary, or felt so good; never had any man been more reluctant to move than I was then.
But it had to be, I didn’t have the time to waste. I sat up long before I was ready to do that, and soaped myself all over to show again how much improved I was since yesterday; soaped my head also as there was no point using shampoo, but I worked up as much lather as I could with fingers that dug like cruel nails into a scalp still far too tender to be treated like this, only to show that I could.
Do so much to myself, I thought, and I could surely take anything the world was going to do to me...
Then it was up and out of the water in a surge, splashing everything, the wheelchair and my new clothes and Simon included; and then that surge was reflected inside my head like a tidal suck, draining strength and will, leaving me giddy and weak and clutching at a grab-rail to keep from toppling over.
“Knackered now, aren’t you?” I heard Simon’s voice say distantly, echoing in my mind like in a tunnel, hollow and leading nowhere. But I could hear his grin too, though my eyes were too dizzy to see it; you didn’t fool me with all that visible energy was what he was really saying. “It’s okay, you just stood up too fast. You said it yourself, you’re convalescent; you’ve got to go easy for a while. Don’t rush your fences. Now hang on, while I do this...”
And then I yelled, as he ripped the first dressing off my arm; and no, soaking it hadn’t noticeably helped at all. But my vision cleared, at least, and my mind stopped swirling. Nothing like a little superficial pain to focus you right there in your body, good and sharp.
Simon methodically stripped off every plaster and every pad of lint. He sucked his teeth over a couple of significant gashes, that were carrying stitches; those he put new dressings on, and told me to get them looked at in a few days’ time. The remaining scabs and scrapes would heal better for some air, he said, and left them uncovered.
Bending over made my head spin again, so he dried my legs for me while I patted a towel gingerly at all the sore places I could reach. Then he helped me dress, and we argued cheerfully over the wheelchair until I put a stop to argument by opening the door and walking out of there.
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