Stitched
Page 20
A radio crackled and one of the men spoke into his mouthpiece. Alex, with one last glance at Bella’s prone body, started down the hill.
*
Eddie was asleep in the back of the car, snoring. Whatever Bella had given him must have drained him, the effort of coming down the hill depleting his last reserves of energy. Alex, tired himself, leaned against the car and didn’t wake him. He felt a shiver run through his body. As a soldier and doctor he’d seen some grotesque sights, but Bella’s death had shocked him. Her death, any death at such a young age, seemed such a waste, the antithesis of his own aspirations as a doctor. He sighed with the weight of his melancholia. Never could he have anticipated any of this when he’d set out in his new profession. He’d been full of ideals then but they’d come to nothing in the end.
Minutes later an unmarked police car drove up the single track and parked. DI Johnson got out of the passenger side. He strode towards Alex and glanced at Eddie in the back seat.
‘She’s given him a drug,’ Alex told him. ‘He’ll need an ambulance.’
‘One on its way,’ Johnson said, assessing Alex’s own condition with his blue eyes. ‘How about yourself. Need any medical attention?’
‘I’m still standing,’ Alex grunted.
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, you did the right thing,’ Johnson told him.
Alex looked back up the hill, squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Why the hell did she have to do it? He wasn’t worth it.’
‘Twisted sense of loyalty,’ Johnson surmised, ‘or some psychological need. Who knows? We’re all different, aren’t we? There’s shades of black and white in all of us. It’s a delicate balance, easily upset.’
Alex gave him a quizzical look. Johnson hadn’t seemed the type to set much store in psychological analysis.
‘Think so?’
‘Know so from experience. Take yourself. You’re law-abiding, self-disciplined, but you made one slip when they found a weakness.’ Johnson paused, allowed his eyes to drift over the moors with their ever-changing landscape. ‘Some might say you were justified, even. But in the eyes of the law it was a wrong action and we all need the law, don’t we?’
Alex looked glum. ‘Whatever, I’ll go to prison for it, and in one way it’ll be a relief to pay my dues.’
‘You probably will go to prison,’ Johnson said, his tone sombre. ‘But what you did today will help you. When the court knows the pressure you were under, the fact that woman was even living with you, I think they’ll be very lenient.’
‘How long do you think?’
Johnson drew in a breath, pondered the question. ‘Nothing is certain but with time off for good behaviour, I’d say a year, maybe two if you’re unlucky. Don’t take that as gospel though.’
‘I think I can manage that,’ Alex said, ‘as long as Liz and Ann support me.’
Johnson squeezed Alex’s shoulder with his big hand. ‘I’ve already talked to them. No worries there. They’re solid.’
An ambulance drove up at full speed. Two paramedics got out. Johnson pointed to Eddie. They hauled him gently out of the car and on to a stretcher. He was still asleep when they carried him past Alex and the policeman.
‘He must be a good friend,’ Johnson stated.
‘The best. We go a long way back.’
Johnson scratched his nose. ‘Don’t suppose he aided and abetted?’
‘Innocent bystander,’ Alex said, deadpan.
‘Ready?’ the policeman asked.
Alex managed a wistful smile. ‘Yes, I’m ready to be fed to the lions.’
Alex sat in the back of the car beside Johnson. As it drove away, he glanced up at the Beacon, vowed one day, in a new life, he’d come back here with Liz and Ann. Love, their love, was all that mattered, all that could endure in this crazy life where the winds of fate did not always blow gently. He’d lost that perspective for a while but he had it back now. When he’d paid his dues, he’d make it up to them. By God, would he!
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