by Jo Verity
She shivered. What if she forgot about Irene Tovey and slipped away? She had no need of treatment and she doubted whether she could make a useful contribution to the enquiry. Irene was a grown woman. She would manage.
An intercom squawked and she turned to find that the policeman had come out to join her.
‘Feeling better, Miss?’ he said. He seemed more approachable now as if, with her as the only observer, he could lower his mask of inscrutability.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you can do this for a living.’
‘You get used to it. Or rather you work out a way of dealing with it.’
‘I feel a fraud,’ she said. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Like I said, I’m just here keeping someone company. I’d never met her until…this.’
‘Very kind of you, Miss. I’m sure the lady appreciates it. In my experience, this sort of thing brings out the best in people.’
‘I’ll be getting back,’ she said. ‘I promised I wouldn’t be long.’
‘Well you make sure you have a cup of sweet tea when you get home.’
More people had arrived in the waiting area. Every seat was taken and newcomers were standing or sitting on the floor. Irene was nowhere to be seen.
Vivian went to the desk. ‘I’m looking for Irene Tovey.’
The receptionist ran a finger down a list. ‘She’ll be outside one of the treatment rooms if you want to join her.’ She pointed towards a corridor to her right.
Vivian, still feeling queasy, realised that venturing down that corridor would increase the likelihood of her seeing something grisly. ‘I’ll wait here,’ she said.
The policeman had mentioned that she would have to make a statement. It would be sensible to note down what she’d seen whilst it was fresh in her mind. If nothing else it would pass the time. Finding a wall to lean against, she took her notepad from her bag and turned to a clean page.
‘You’re still here.’
She might not have recognised the man had he not been clutching a handbag, the clasp shaped like a cat. She hadn’t had time to study him in the chaos but now she could see that he was a little older than she’d thought.
‘Where’s…?’ He held out the bag.
‘Irene. They’re seeing to her now.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘More scared than anything.’ Vivian nodded towards the handbag. ‘You found it.’
‘It was on the pavement, right where we were standing.’ He looped it over his shoulder.
A doctor approached them, hand raised. ‘Hey, Gil. They called you in?’
‘I was heading for my bus when it kicked off. What’s the story back there?’
The doctor glanced at Vivian and she guessed that he was censoring his reply. ‘We’re coping,’ he said. ‘Everyone stayed on and anyone who could get here came in. I’m on my way to grab a coffee then I’ll get back to it. Nice handbag, by the way.’ He grinned as he hurried off.
Vivian noticed the ID tag on a cord around Gil’s neck, half-hidden by his jacket. ‘You work here?’
‘I do.’ He held out the tag for her to read.
‘“Gil Thomas. Medical Photographer.”’
‘That’s me.’ He inspected her front, as if expecting to see a similar tag, frowning officiously. ‘And you are…’
‘Vivian Carey. Architect.’
He raised his eyebrows and nodded as if her reply explained something he hadn’t previously understood.
‘I’m not very good with blood,’ she said. ‘But I suppose you’re used to seeing nasty things.’
‘I guess so. I usually get to look at the patient’s file beforehand – know what to expect. Mind you an atrocity like this gets to everyone, no matter how used they are to seeing “nasty things”.’
‘Did the biker…?’
He paused a second, holding her gaze. ‘It wasn’t looking good. They’re working on him now.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes. Most of the casualties are here.’ He jerked his head towards the rear wall of the waiting room. ‘The ambulance bay’s out back. That’s one good thing about it. It couldn’t have happened closer to a hospital.’
A headache that had been building at the base of her skull, began to throb in earnest. She’d not eaten since lunchtime – a feta and bean-salad wrap which Ottilie had fetched from the sandwich bar around the corner. That was eleven hours ago and now she was feeling both sick and ravenous at the same time.
As if he could read her mind, Gil took a packet of crisps from his pocket and offered them to her. ‘You look as if you’re going to pass out. You need to eat.’
Thanking him, she tucked into the greasy crisps.
‘You should drink something too.’ He produced a bottle of mineral water from another pocket. ‘Here.’
She took it, noting that the bottle had been opened, a little of its contents gone, but, after what had just taken place, it seemed absurd to fret about hygiene. ‘Thanks.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘why don’t I see if I can speed things up? After all, you’re only here because I wished what’s-her-name on you.’
‘Thanks. You’ll be her hero when she sees the bag.’
She watched him cross the room. He wasn’t much taller than she was. Skinny. Grey hair – too long to be stylish, too short to be ‘cool’. Baggy cords. Black Doc Martens. Australian? New Zealander? Nice smile. Nice voice.
7
Gil was surprised that the girl – Vivian – had stuck around. She didn’t look the Good Samaritan type. He’d imagined that, having offloaded her charge in the hospital, she would grab the chance to escape.
Injuries sustained in explosions were brutal and his suggestion that she escort screaming Irene to A&E had been primarily to protect both women from sights that would haunt them forever. After they’d gone, he’d ventured across the road to the traffic island. One glance at the bodies, slumped and inert, had confirmed his fears. The only blessing was that the pedestrian route was some distance – perhaps ten yards or more – from where the car had stopped. When he’d returned to the biker, he’d spotted the lower part of a leg, its foot still encased in a trainer, lying close to the burning car and he’d been thankful that Vivian and Irene hadn’t seen it.
The hospital had been one of many involved with treating the injured on 7/7. That was before Gil’s time. Over a few pints not long after he’d started the job, Kevin had told him how bad it had been. ‘Worst I’ve ever seen,’ he’d said. The events of that day had highlighted failures in communication and coordination. As a result, procedures had been reviewed and revised. Dealing with the unexpected would never be easy but at least this time it was above ground and, as he’d mentioned to Vivian, it couldn’t have been closer to a hospital.
He found Irene sitting in the corridor outside one of the treatment rooms. As predicted, she was delighted to be reunited with her handbag and clutched it tight as if expecting a passing doctor to snatch it from her. He reassured her that Vivian was still there, then that he’d had a few words with the nurse in charge and she was next to be called.
‘Could you tell Vivian I shouldn’t be long?’ she said.
‘Sure,’ he said.
On his way back to the waiting area, he bumped into a nurse he knew quite well. She told him that the explosion had been heard, and felt, throughout the hospital. It was easy to imagine the panic that must have broken out amongst the patients, some of them a dozen storeys up, many, no doubt, recalling the Twin Towers as the wards were put on ‘code red’ should evacuation be necessary. He was glad he hadn’t been the one who had to call it.
Vivian Carey was concentrating on a notebook, unaware that he was watching her. She was an unusual-looking young woman. Tall and rangy. Her shiny hair made him think of the lacquered box that his mother used for her stationery. It was so black that he might have suspected that she dyed it were it not for pure white hairs here and there at the temples. It was cut in a severe bob, the short fringe exposing her forehead and acce
ntuating her eyes, which were a little too far apart. She wore a rust-red velvet coat, tight black jeans and boots. No jewellery. No makeup. Her look – her style – said take me or leave me.
As he approached she looked up. ‘Will she live?’
‘I think so. Will you? You look very pale.’
‘I’ve got a headache. I’m beyond tired. And I have a terrible craving for a fry-up.’
‘That’s me, every Saturday night,’ he said.
The statement – unfounded as it happened – would have gone down well with Kevin but not with this grave young woman who probably had, in that instant, labelled him a misogynistic roué.
Two police officers – a man and a woman – were working their way around the room, asking people exactly where they had been, and exactly what they had seen, when the car blew up. When it was their turn, Gil explained that he’d been fifty yards away and had only witnessed the aftermath.
‘Anything you saw, no matter how insignificant you think it is, may be vital,’ the woman said patiently.
Gil told them as much as he could and then gave his contact details.
She turned to Vivian. ‘What about you, Miss?’
Vivian said that she’d been waiting to cross the road. ‘I thought it best to jot down a few things.’
The policemen nodded approval. ‘Well done, Miss.
‘D’you need anything else?’ Vivian asked when she’d finished going through her story.
‘Not at the minute. Someone’ll be in touch within the next twenty-four hours about making a full statement. If we could just have your details.’
She gave an address a couple of miles from Gil’s own. But London was like all cities, changing from affluence to just-scraping-by within the space of a block or two. Belsize Park was for the well-to-do whilst Kentish Town – his part, anyway – wasn’t.
‘Notes, eh? I’m impressed,’ Gil said when they were alone again. No one else had been so prudent, so focused, he would put money on that. ‘You’re very observant.’
‘Yes, I am,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘But don’t forget I was alone. If I’d been with someone we’d have been talking and my mind would have been on other things. Not that there was much I could tell them. The fact that I noticed that it was a pale-coloured car – white or silver – makes no difference because they can see that for themselves.’
‘Maybe. But it validates anything else you tell them.’
She frowned. ‘The lights were red. I don’t know what made me wait.’
Gil could see that Vivian Carey expected things to make sense.
The waiting area was less crowded now and they were able to find adjacent seats. Gil checked his watch. Midnight. The police had their own forensics team but, as anticipated, the medics had wanted him to take pictures too. He’d texted Feray to let her know where he was and that he was hanging on for a while in case he was needed again. He’d been in two minds about telling her. He’d mentioned that he might go to the movies after work but if she were listening out for him, sooner or later she would start to worry. The last thing he wanted was to add to her concerns. She already had enough on her mind what with the kids, her job and her ex-husband’s unreliability.
‘What will you do when Irene shows up?’ he asked.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘I get the feeling that she’s counting on you.’
‘What for?’
‘Well, I can’t see her jumping on a night bus and heading back to…wherever.’
‘Upton Park,’ she said. ‘Now she’s got her phone back she can call her sister. Or she must have a friend.’
‘I don’t want to alarm you but I think you may be her new best friend.’
Irene emerged from the corridor, hands and knees bandaged. Her face lit up when she spotted them.
‘So, are we finished here?’ Gil asked.
‘Yes,’ Irene said. ‘I told a nice policewoman everything I could remember. She said they’ll need to talk to me again. And I can get these dressings changed at my surgery.’ She patted Vivian’s arm. ‘Thank you so much, dear. I wouldn’t have coped without you.’
‘I’m sure you would,’ Vivian said.
Gil noticed that, although she’d allowed Irene’s arm to rest on hers, she’d pulled back a little, as though preparing, at any second, to break away.
Irene turned her attention to him. ‘And I can’t thank you enough, Gil, for finding my bag.’
‘My pleasure.’
This was where he could bow out. Go home and maybe sneak into Feray’s bed and snuggle against her. Forget all this until tomorrow. Vivian Carey and Irene Tovey were nothing to him. Okay. The orbits of their lives had briefly overlapped but that was all. Nevertheless, he felt responsible for lumbering Vivian with this pathetic yet oddly determined woman. And he had to confess that he was becoming fascinated by this solemn girl whose hair he had a yen to touch.
‘Let’s put our minds to getting home,’ he said.
‘They don’t need you?’ Vivian said.
‘No. There’s nothing more for me to do tonight.’
Keeping the media at bay after a major incident was hospital policy. The rear access lane to the ambulance bays had been cordoned off and police were preventing unauthorised individuals from getting anywhere near incoming casualties.
It was a different matter on the Euston Road side of the building. Despite police officers being strategically stationed outside entrances to both A&E and the main reception area, journalists had congregated on the pavement and were accosting anyone entering or leaving. During their interviews, the police had asked them not to talk to anyone. Dream on, Gil thought. Chequebooks would soon come out and make resistance impossible.
‘C’mon, ladies,’ Gil said, ‘best head in that direction.’ He pointed east, away from Warren Street.
Shepherding the two women down the steps, he forged a way through the clamouring journalists. A couple of them made as if to follow but they soon gave up, returning to join the rest of the pack. Taking Irene firmly by the arm, he began walking briskly away from the hospital, Vivian following a few paces behind.
He could walk home from here in forty minutes and he guessed that Vivian would have no qualms about sorting herself out. But Irene? Upton Park wasn’t an easy place to get to at this time of night. Underground services stopped around midnight – not that he could see her braving the Tube after ten – and night buses weren’t pleasant places for solo women.
‘Okay,’ Gil said. ‘We’ve shaken off the paparazzi. What next?’
‘Should we try and find cabs?’ Vivian said. It was freezing and her vapourising breath was caught by the street lights.
‘Oh, dear,’ Irene murmured.
Gil guessed that splashing out thirty quid or more for a taxi would leave Irene short for the rest of the month. ‘Do you know anyone living around here? Someone who might put you up? Given the circumstances, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind being woken.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘You don’t work around here?’ he persisted.
‘Our office is at London Bridge. I was up this way visiting a girl from work.’ She lowered her voice as if it were an embarrassing secret. ‘She’s had a big op.’
Gil looked at Vivian in the hope that she might come up with something but she shrugged and shook her head.
He shivered, suddenly desperate for a leak. ‘We need to get out of the cold,’ he said. ‘We could try the station. Or there’s an all-night caff just off Eversholt Street.’
He would have put money on the girl turning down his suggestion. A cab would get her to Belsize Park in twenty minutes if she were keen to get home to someone.
‘Do they do fry-ups?’ Vivian asked.
‘Famous for ’em,’ he said.
As they crossed Euston Road, Irene – who was in the middle – linked arms with them both as if they were friends out on the town and, thinking what a bizarre night this was turning out to be, he steered this three-linked hu
man chain towards its destination.
He’d frequented this particular greasy spoon when he’d been working at The Cock Tavern, often stopping for something to eat after a late night, much as they were doing now. But that was several years ago and he was thankful to see that the place was still in business.
The three of them ordered the ‘full English’, Irene coyly opting out of the baked beans – ‘they don’t agree with me.’ When the food came, he was surprised how well she coped considering that her hands were bandaged.
‘Those journalists were despicable,’ Vivian said.
‘It’s what readers want. Instant news and to hell with anyone’s feelings. I worked on a newspaper for a while and I’m ashamed to say I was as bad.’
‘Which paper was that?’ Irene asked.
‘Coffs Harbour Gazette.’
Irene frowned. ‘Coffs Harbour?’
‘Yep. Half way up Oz, on the right hand side.’
‘I’ve been there,’ Vivian said.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No. I worked in Sydney for a year. Before I came back I drove up as far as Mackay. I stopped off in Coffs Harbour and I’ve got photos of the Big Banana to prove it.’
Irene looked bewildered and Gil explained that forty-odd years ago some bright spark had dreamed up the notion of erecting a giant-sized banana to encourage motorists to stop at his roadside banana stall. ‘It’s a ridiculous great thing but it did the trick. Everyone who drives down the Pacific Highway knows the Big Banana.’ Gil turned his attention to Vivian. ‘You didn’t make it to Cairns?’
She grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I got bored.’
He was delighted by her honest answer. ‘Same here. So when was this?’
‘Two thousand and one. April.’
‘Don’t suppose you can remember where you stayed?’
‘The Comfort Inn.’
He must have looked surprised because she added, ‘I said I had a good memory.’
‘My sister Louise worked there when her kids were young,’ he said. ‘She did split shifts to fit in with school hours.’ He made a quick calculation. ‘It must have been around that time. She might have booked you in. Tall woman? Red hair?’