by Joanna Neil
‘Would you like to have some supper with us?’ she asked. ‘It won’t be much, because I don’t have a cooker that works as yet. I made a salad, though, and there are crusty bread rolls, and I was going to heat up some soup in the microwave. I just need to unpack the soup bowls from the box.’
‘Thanks. I’d appreciate that. I’ve been out with the cave rescue team all day, and I’d only just arrived home when you appeared in the garden.’
‘Cave rescue?’ Sarah started to ask him about that when Emily decided to join the conversation.
‘Mummy forgetted to bring the plates and knives and forks,’ she told Ben earnestly, ‘so we couldn’t eat our lunch. We had to go and get fish and chips from the village for our lunch.’
‘Did you?’ He widened his eyes. ‘Well, you know, fish and chips are good.’
Emily nodded. ‘I like them.’
Ben glanced around the kitchen. ‘It looks as though you have some plates and cutlery now.’
‘Auntie Carol bringed them.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘You have a sister who lives nearby?’
She could almost feel him thinking, There are two of you? ‘Actually, no,’ she murmured. Seeing his confusion, she added drily, ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Ah.’ He inclined his head to one side. ‘I should have known. You seem to live quite a complicated life, one way and another.’ He made to stand up. ‘Shall I give you a hand with the meal?’
‘No, that’s all right. It will only take me a minute or two to get things ready. Sit tight.’ She glanced at him. ‘You mentioned cave rescue. What’s that all about?’
‘It’s something I do. I’m on the roster with the cave rescue team, so I tend to be called out every so often. I’ve been down near Castleton today. There was a report that some youths were late coming back from a trip down one of the caves. Their parents called it in because they were worried that they might have been hurt.’
Sarah could imagine how concerned the parents must have been. ‘Did you manage to find them?’ She covered the wooden table with a cloth and began to lay out a bowl of salad, along with quiche and grated cheese.
‘We did. The entrance to the cave is low and wide, but the pathway narrows as you go along and there are several passages leading from the main one. I think the boys were intent on looking at the fossils down there. A section of the river trickles down through the limestone and widens out at one point, so there was always the worry that they had got themselves into difficulty.’
‘Had they?’
‘Yes, but not because of the water—well, indirectly, they did. As the water passes through the rock, there is sometimes a freeze-thaw effect that tends to widen the crevices as time goes on. That seems to have happened in this instance because there was a collapse of rocks in the tunnel and they were blocked in.’
Sarah was faintly horrified to hear this. ‘Those poor boys must have been terrified. Did you manage to get them out? Were they hurt?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, we brought them out, eventually. There were five of them altogether. They had cuts and bruises, and all of them were very cold, but one young lad was suffering from hypothermia. He had fallen into the water, and the cold had affected him so much that his heart rate was slow and weak and he appeared to be slipping into unconsciousness.’
Sarah frowned. ‘So, if you’d reached him later, things could have been much worse? What did you do? Were you able to bring him round?’ She called to Emily to come and have her hands washed, but she scarcely took her eyes off Ben, anxious to hear the outcome.
‘We did eventually. We took off his wet outer garments and covered him with special insulating blankets and then lifted him out to the ambulance. As soon as we were able to, we gave him oxygen that had been heated a little, and gradually he started to come round. All of the boys are fine now.’
Sarah lifted Emily up and sat her on the worktop, washing her hands with a flannel. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. Settling Emily down on a chair, she handed her a mug of soup. ‘I’ve cooled it down for you, but you should drink it slowly,’ she told the child.
Turning to Ben, she said, ‘Help yourself to food. I’ll pour the tea for you, and you can help yourself to milk and sugar.’
Sitting down opposite him a minute or two later, she said, ‘Do you know what happened to the people we saw in the accident the other day? I rang the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell me very much.’
He smiled teasingly. ‘I expect they were wary of reporters.’
She sent him a quick glance. ‘There was nothing wrong with my article. If anything, it might serve as a warning to other people not to overtake on a bend or the brow of a hill.’
‘Yes, I read your piece. I must say, it was very well written, and you were very careful not to lay the blame anywhere, but just quoted what other people had said.’ He tasted the soup, and remarked softly, ‘This is good.’
‘I’m glad you like it. Not that I had anything to do with making it—I don’t really have the facilities as yet.’ She continued to look at him, waiting to see if he would enlighten her on the condition of the patients.
He broke a corner off one of the crusty rolls and bit into it before going on. ‘As to the injured people, they are all doing reasonably well. The driver whose car was hit had a broken rib but was otherwise fine, and the driver of the black car was kept under observation for a while before being sent home. His knee will be in a splint for quite a while.’ He paused to take another bite of the bread.
‘And the motorcyclist? I know that he was badly injured.’ Sarah helped Emily with her bread, and the little girl gave both of them a smile, with greasy smudges either side of her mouth from the butter and an upper lip that was outlined with soup.
‘Yes, he was. He had a head injury, but he regained consciousness in hospital, and then he went for surgery on the leg. They expect that he will make a full recovery.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
He nodded. ‘It was probably because of you that he survived. At the hospital the driver of the car that hit him told me that he saw you take off your jacket and use it to stem the bleeding.’
‘I just did what I felt was right.’
‘You did well.’ He studied her. ‘So, how long have you been working for the local paper?’
‘Just a couple of months. I started by doing the occasional article, mostly about events around the town and villages, but then I discovered that I had a knack for writing medical features. I’ve been sending them more and more pieces lately, and a few weeks ago they gave me a weekly column. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to keep the wolf from the door.’
Ben speared grated cheese with his fork. ‘That must have been a happy event for you. What did you do before the newspaper work?’
Sarah didn’t answer right away. Instead, she busied herself wiping Emily’s face, and then she quietly told the little girl that she could get down from the table. ‘I want you to go and get ready for bed,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll come up and help you in a little while. See if you can manage your pyjamas by yourself.’
Emily was happy to oblige, and skipped off to climb the stairs.
Sarah turned her attention back to Ben and pulled in a slow breath. They were going to be neighbours, and sooner or later he would begin to wonder about certain aspects of her life.
‘The truth is,’ she told him, ‘I don’t know what I did before journalism. I was taken to hospital after a head injury, and I have no knowledge of what went before.’
He frowned, not taking his gaze off her. ‘Do you know how you came to have a head injury?’
‘I only know what they told me at the hospital. Apparently, I was with Emily, and it looks as though we were on a journey together. I had stopped off at a shop to buy a snack, and I asked the shopkeeper about hotels in the area. I said that we weren’t going to be able to reach our destination before nightfall, and I had decided that we would stop somewhere overnight.’
S
he hesitated, taking a moment to sip her drink and allow time for her feelings of agitation to subside. Ben remained quiet, waiting patiently for her to go on.
‘I went outside the shop, and I must have decided to use a phone box to call one of the hotels, but I didn’t get as far as doing that. It looks as though someone must have tried to snatch my bag and my car keys, and apparently I put up a fight, because I was knocked to the ground and I hit my head on a wall as I fell. Whoever did that to me made off with my car and all my belongings.’
‘So you had no identity on you, nothing that would give any clue as to who you were or where you were going?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘There was nothing. There wasn’t even any CCTV footage to show the car that I was driving. The only thing they knew was that I had a child, because Emily stayed with me, and when the paramedics came she said, ‘Mummy hurt…bad man hurt Mummy.’
She winced at the scene she pictured in her mind of Emily waiting beside her, alone and frightened.
‘Did they never find the car or the man?’
‘No, they didn’t.’ She grimaced. ‘I don’t suppose they ever will now.’
He stared at her. ‘It must have been a bad head injury, if you remember nothing. Do you remember anything at all?’
‘It was bad enough that I was in hospital for a few weeks. As to remembering anything, I have images in my mind sometimes, but they come and go before I can latch onto them. I told the doctors and the police that my name was Sarah Hall, because that was the first thing that came into my mind. Emily seemed to know her name and that ought to have confirmed it, but they haven’t found any records to show that’s who I am.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘Emily said my name was Sarah, so I guess that must be right, at least.’
Ben finished eating and carefully pushed his plate to one side. ‘What happened to Emily while you were in hospital?’
‘Social Services found a foster-family for her—Carol and Tom. They have been very good to both of us. Emily was traumatised by what had happened, so much so that she could barely speak about it, apparently, and Carol did everything she could to help her through that difficult time. Then, when I came out of hospital, they helped me to get back on my feet.’ She pulled in a shaky breath. ‘I stayed with them for several months, but I began to feel that I had to find my own way. That’s why I made the decision to come and live here, even though Carol thought it wasn’t a good idea. She was worried that I wasn’t ready.’
‘I think I agree with Carol. A head injury that causes you to lose your memory to such an extent is very serious. You need somebody with you while you learn about who you are and how to cope with everyday life. I expect you must have all sorts of problems on a day-to-day basis.’
Sarah stood up and began to clear away the crockery. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll get by.’
His gaze flicked over her. ‘It’s not enough to get by, though, is it? Especially when you have a small child with you. And it’s certainly too much of a responsibility for you to be taking on a property like this one.’ He came to his feet.
‘I don’t think so,’ she told him. ‘I made the decision, and I’m going to stick by it. I have to start somewhere to make a life of our own.’ She sent him a cool, assessing look. He was going to be a thorn in her side, she could feel it as surely as he was standing there, facing her.
‘I’ll help you with the dishes,’ he said, but she shook her head.
‘No… Thank you, but…no. I have to go upstairs and put Emily to bed. I’m sure you have other things that you should be doing, so I’ll say goodnight to you. Thank you for helping me to find Emily.’
He looked at her as though he was going to give her an argument, but after a moment or two he must have decided otherwise because he inclined his head briefly and said, ‘Goodnight, then, and thank you for the supper. I’ll leave you to yourself.’
She watched him go, her mind sparking with all kinds of doubts and uncertainties. He was like all the rest, believing that she would make a mess of things. What would it take for her to prove everyone wrong?
CHAPTER FOUR
RAIN was falling steadily outside, a dreary, relentless downpour that swamped everything in its path, and more than matched Sarah’s mood.
She frowned as she looked about the kitchen. Where on earth would be the best place for her to start? Taking on this cottage had seemed like a good idea at the time, but that had been before she had actually moved in and realised the full extent of what needed to be done.
This morning, as she prepared to take Emily to nursery, she had decided it was the ideal opportunity for her to make some headway with putting the place to rights. Of course, she hadn’t been expecting the health visitor to drop by and since then her plans had changed. The health visitor had been there to look into the welfare of children under five in the area, and hadn’t realised that Emily would be at the nursery that morning.
Now Sarah’s priorities were all mixed up, and she was torn between continuing to scrub the Aga or whether she should be stripping the wallpaper from Emily’s room, ready for decorating. It was bad enough that Carol, her child’s foster-mother, and Ben, her neighbour, believed she wouldn’t be able to cope, without having the doubts of the health visitor ringing in her ears.
A knock at the kitchen door brought her sharply out of her introspection. What now? Was this someone else ready to write her off as incapable?
Heaving a sigh, she went to open the door and found Ben standing there. For a moment she simply frowned. She hadn’t seen much of him these last few days, and she had wondered if he had been staying away deliberately. No matter. That suited her well enough.
‘Is it that bad?’ he said, giving her a narrowed look from under his dark lashes. ‘Only I saw that your car was outside and I guessed you were back from dropping Emily off.’
So he knew where she had been. Was he keeping an eye on her from a distance and contenting himself with watching her every move? Or maybe she was becoming paranoid and under the illusion that the whole world was conspiring against her. Perhaps that was yet another symptom of the aftermath of a head injury.
She pulled the door open wider and waved a hand towards the kitchen. ‘Would you like to come in? I was just about to make some coffee, if you’d like some.’ The last thing she needed right now was a visitor, but it would have been churlish to send him away.
‘Thanks.’ He stepped inside the room and she closed the door behind him.
‘Everything’s a mess,’ she said. ‘I started to try to clean up the old range cooker but there was an interruption and now I haven’t the heart to go on with it.’
He glanced around. ‘Actually, you’ve made a good job of it so far. I didn’t imagine it would come up looking anywhere near as good as it does.’ He went to take a closer look. ‘It hasn’t been used in years because the burners were blocked and Alfred didn’t do much proper cooking, but from the look of things you’ve managed to sort them out.’
‘Well, hopefully I have, but I’m not quite ready to put it to the test.’ She set about making coffee for both of them and then sent him a cautious look. ‘Was there something you particularly wanted to see me about, or are you just being neighbourly?’
His mouth quirked. ‘A bit of both. I’ve been having a clear-out, and I just thought you might find some use for these curtains I found in the airing cupboard. They look to me like good quality but, of course, you might not agree. I could always throw them out.’
Sarah inspected the bundle he produced. The curtains were made of fine linen, and were softly patterned in a pale rose that would look beautiful in the living room.
‘You shouldn’t throw them out,’ she said. ‘That would be a total waste. They’re lovely…but as to me using them, I don’t know what to say. According to the health visitor, this place isn’t particularly suitable for Emily, with the damp and the cold bedrooms, and now I’m so on edge about everything that I don’t know what to do. I feel as though I ought to lea
ve, but I’ve just signed a six-month lease.’
He frowned. ‘Has she said that you shouldn’t stay here?’
‘No. It was just an opinion she gave me, and she seemed to agree that it could probably all be put right within a few weeks.’
‘Well, that’s true enough. It’s only damp in the kitchen, and that could be attended to.’
‘Yes, but the landlord, Alfred’s son, isn’t prepared to act on it, and I can’t afford to deal with it.’
She straightened, sucking air into her lungs, and made an effort to get a grip on herself. Hadn’t he told her that she wouldn’t be able to cope just a few days ago? Wasn’t she just playing straight into his hands? ‘You caught me at a bad time,’ she murmured. ‘Forget what I said. Of course I’ll sort it out. I’ll get a couple of heaters in and see if that will solve the problem.’
‘Actually, I don’t think it will,’ he said. ‘I think the trouble stems from an inadequate damp course in one part of the outer wall. It needs expert treatment.’
Sarah’s chin lifted. ‘Then I’ll just have to get someone in, and hope that I can sell a few freelance articles elsewhere.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll have a word with the landlord as I know the family, and make sure that something is done about it. In the meantime, I’ll send someone round to take a look at the situation.’
Sarah stared at him. Did nothing ever faze him? He seemed to have an answer for everything.
‘That’s very good of you—but I don’t want you to feel that you have to help me out. I may look helpless, but I’m not.’
He gave a wry smile. ‘I think I’m beginning to realise that,’ he said. ‘You certainly took things into your own hands when you found that the estate agent had given you the wrong key, and as to the accident the other day, I thought you did a great job of dealing with the injured.’
Her spirits lifted a little at his words. So he didn’t think that she was a hopeless case after all?