“That’s what I’m hoping, Linda. In fact, I’m hoping for rather a lot from this marriage.”
Susan says that she feels a bit more ordinary somehow, for her friend’s words. She wants to dwell privately on what has been said before talking again to Linda. She knows that she needs Linda’s friendship right now in a way she has not experienced before. She says so.
Now, as the wine relaxes them, they find themselves exploring their friendship and the value of it to each of them. It has changed in the last months from being an important bolthole in each of their lives, a place where the ordinary problems of each of their lives can be shared. It is now a place that holds the deepest secrets that each of them is ever likely to have. Short of making it a dangerous place because of that, it is somehow safer. It is a place now that matters to each of them and where they can be certain that the interests of the other will be protected from outward scrutiny. It is a place that Linda knows she can trust. And it is a friendship, Susan observes, which compensates for the loneliness she has somewhere deep in her soul.
It is ten thirty or so when they leave the restaurant. They have barely noticed the food as they talked, just knowing that it was good. They leave the restaurant with their arms linked and their collars up against the first chill of autumn. Linda takes the outside, Susan falling into step beside her. They walk slowly up the one-way street towards the main road and the taxi rank up ahead of them. The pavement is uneven and takes some of their attention as they chat about ordinary domestic plans for the weekend to come.
It is Linda who turns in time to see the headlamps of a vehicle coming towards them. It takes her a split second to realize something is very wrong. The vehicle is coming straight at them. She freezes. Then, coming to her senses, she pushes Susan with all her force towards the wall. That is the last that she remembers. She blacks out.
CHAPTER 23
A dark haired, moustached man is standing over her. For just a second, she thinks that this must be another sexual encounter. But as her vision clears she realizes that she is in a hospital room and that a nurse is standing by monitors at the bedside. Bill is sitting by the bed, his hand holding hers.
She has no idea why she is here.
“What happened?” she asks of no one in particular.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asks, reaching to feel Susan’s pulse.
Bill answers her question.
“There was a car accident, Darling.”
It comes back to her now – Linda pushing her off her feet; the sight of a doorway coming towards her.
“Linda? Is Linda all right?”
“Professor Pilar is doing fine, Miss Blakely,” the dark complexioned man now comes in. “She is in the hospital here and making good progress. My name is Peter Philips – Inspector Philips, CID. We believe that the car that drove towards you did so deliberately. We intend to find out who did this and why. For the moment, there is a policewoman outside your door for your safety and I would like to talk with you as soon as you feel well enough and the doctor gives me the word.”
She is hazy still, only now wanting to know how badly she is hurt. She turns to Bill as the Inspector leaves the room.
“How bad am I?”
“Not too bad, my Darling. You were concussed and you have a lot of bruises. But the car did not hit you. You struck your head, or so they think, against a shop door. And you were in shock for a while so they sedated you. You’ve been in and out of sleep all night.”
So it is Saturday.
“But what about Linda?”
“A broken leg, a pretty bad gash on the leg where the bone came through and multiple bruises. And she is very shocked. But she will make a full recovery. You’ll see her soon.”
Susan drifts off, her last thoughts those of trying to recapture lost hours of her life. When she wakes again, Bill is not there. She looks at her watch. It is four o’clock. She must have slept all day. The policewoman rises and comes in, having alerted a doctor that Susan is awake. The doctor follows a few seconds later and Susan is aware that she is feeling better than she did earlier. She starts to sit up and the nurse comes to her assistance as she feels a piercing pain in her head that jars her eyes. The doctor examines her, Susan wanting to be the one to ask the questions but in too much pain around her head and ribcage to protest much.
In answer to her unspoken question, the doctor tells her that he is sure that she is going to be fine but that they want to do a further CT scan to make sure that there is no injury beyond the concussion. Does she feel up to talking to the police inspector? She agrees, feeling trapped and eager to be out of here and to see Linda. But she has the distinct impression from the young policewoman that she is going nowhere until she has spoken to the police. They obviously want her before anyone else speaks to her. She watches as the policewoman radios to her station and Inspector Philips seems to almost beam himself from somewhere to the bedside.
He seems a quiet and deep person, not her image of a police detective at all. His eyes search hers, as if just looking at her will tell him what he needs to know to do his enquiry. He has two sets of questions. What does she remember and who might have reason to harm her?
On the first, she has little to say. It takes her only a moment to recount the little that she saw before being knocked out. She did not see the vehicle and only realized that something was very wrong when Linda pushed her. Her only thought was to protect her face from the advancing wall. The second question is harder. She has no choice but to name Ramsey and to recount his threats. Peter Philips has done his homework. He already knows about the attempted suicide and the message on her answer phone. He listened to it before coming to see her just now. Ramsey is out of hospital. He has motive and opportunity. Why does Ramsey think that he has a grudge against her? She tells the tale of the early meeting on the island, Ramsey’s unwanted advances and his pestering of her. She tells Inspector Philips how she tried to support his poor wife, Brenda, and how Ramsey threatened her when she saw him in psychiatric hospital. All the while, Peter Philips scrutinises her face, listening hard, asking few questions so that she feels she has to explain herself more and more.
She goes automatically into role. She is a woman very much in the public eye and someone whose job and reputation are based on sound moral stands on social issues. So she did her best to help the young couple. Still he scrutinises her face. Who else might have had reason to hurt her? No one, is her genuine response. And who might want to harm Professor Pilar? Again, she is honest in her reply. No one would want to harm Linda – she is a highly liked member of her profession and social circle. It is much more likely that this was a random hit and run, wasn’t it, she queries, gathering her thoughts now and making a rear guard attempt to deflect public attention from Ramsey and herself. How could the police be sure that the attack was deliberate? Inspector Philips is quite clear – a taxi driver, sitting at the front of the queue in the rank witnessed the car accelerate straight for the two women. The taxi driver did not have time to see who was driving, but he is sure that it was quite deliberate and that the car pulled from the kerb just as Linda and she emerged from the restaurant. Could it have been a random attack, she now pushes the Inspector again, still trying to open out the range of possibilities. He concedes that it is possible, either just a case of the two women being in the wrong place at the wrong time or some stranger who had it in for a TV personality. They would explore all the possibilities, of course. If there is anything else that she remembers will she please be in touch with him via the policewoman, right away?
Of course she will. She needs protection from whoever did this and from what the press might make of it.
She pushes Philips about her privacy. He will be saying as little as possible to the press. All that the police have done so far is confirm that there has been a hit and run accident and that she and the professor are comfortable in hospital.
It now comes as an unpleasant surprise to Susan to hear that the news was the main
item on all the morning TV and radio bulletins. When she stops to think about it, she sees that it is inevitable that it is already in the public domain. Well at least, she decides, it should enhance the sympathy for her if it is handled properly by the TV Company. The newspapers will undoubtedly have the story by the evening editions and it will be in the Sundays. The police, the Inspector assures her, are keeping journalists away from Linda and herself.
Philips leaves after about thirty minutes, leaving Susan exhausted with the interview and with the pain, not to mention with grasping the ramifications of the fact that someone has tried to kill her and Linda. She can only assume that she, and not Linda, was the target and that she is inadvertently the cause of Linda being injured. She is struggling to get out of bed when Bill reappears.
“I have to see Linda,” she gasps, reaching out for his hand.
But Bill indicates that the Inspector is interviewing Linda and that he will take her along as soon as that is over.
He settles her back against the pillows, smoothing her forehead and encouraging her to rest. She is happy to let him stroke her, painful as her face is, and she listens as he talks to her about the police enquiries. The police interviewed him but they were polite and clearly seem to be following a definite line of enquiry – Dave Ramsey. Did he know Ramsey and was Ramsey a friend of Miss Blakely? And yes – the police knew about him from the time of the suicide phone call and taking the tape. Bill decided at first to say nothing about the anonymous letter but he tells Susan that he had to do so.
“I assume you agree?” He sees Susan hesitate and goes straight on, “But we don’t need to worry about this immediately.”
Susan is not at all sure that she does agree but she is too ill to do anything other than listen.
Bill tells her that he answered the Inspector’s questions as carefully as possible but decided to say nothing about engaging Shand. He told them that he knew Ramsey was a minister and that Susan interviewed him on Mull. Ramsey pestered Susan after that and she eventually had a suicide note from him. He has not met Ramsey himself; no. As far as he is aware, there was no contact between Susan and Ramsey for years and, no, Susan did see Ramsey after the suicide attempt, other than on the ward of the psychiatric hospital.
He was over a barrel, he tells Susan, when the Inspector asked him whether there was any more information that he was aware of that could help the police. He decided that he had no choice. He might be challenged, he argued, with withholding information. He told them about the anonymous letter and arranged for it to be collected later in the day when he returned to the flat. He impressed on the Inspector the sensitivity of its contents. The Inspector asked for Bill’s continuing assistance.
Susan lies there, eyes closed and feeling as if her control of her own privacy has just evaporated further.
In response to their final question, he could not think of anyone else who would wish to harm Susan and, although he only knew Linda Pilar as a social acquaintance, he had no reason to believe that anyone would want to hurt her. In turn, he asked the Inspector if it was possible that it was a random attack or that it was a car stolen by kids and out of control. The Inspector volunteered that they were satisfied that it was deliberate – the witness account certainly points to the possibility that the car was sitting idling and moved as soon as the two women left the restaurant.
Susan wonders what the Inspector will make of the anonymous letter and the stick people when he sees it. She remembers the scrutiny in his eyes. It as if she is being exposed to the world for all to see.
Bill sits with her for a while, but she persuades him to go and eat towards six o’clock. She needs to sleep again and there is still no word that she can go and see Linda. She wonders how she will face her friend. What can she possibly say to her?
When she wakes again, Ken Pilar has come in to see her. She asks for Linda. Ken is exhausted and pale. He is cool but at pains to reassure Susan that Linda is going to be fine – it will just take a little while. Linda sends her love and is hoping that Susan will be well enough to get along to see her very soon.
Ken says that the police are asking questions about Ramsey. The police, he tells Susan, seem to be unclear as to whether Susan or Linda was the target. Susan registers some surprise at this news but says nothing. Maybe they are just checking every possibility.
She drifts into a deep sleep and has no memory when she wakes the next morning of when Ken left. Bill is once again at the bedside. He has spent a restless Saturday evening and night alone in his flat. A suicide dream he had a few weeks ago about a dead man talking about his suicide came back to him but this time the man was death itself driving an open top car straight at him. He woke, drenched and afraid, wondering what the last moments of Susan and Linda’s walk were like for them. Susan takes his hand, her turn now to comfort someone affected by what happened to her.
Before coming into hospital on the Sunday morning, Bill rose reasonably early, shaken into wakefulness by the dream. He went round to Susan’s flat and packed what he could think of by way of her toiletries, a fresh nightdress and clothes for when she is discharged. He realized that her clothes of the Friday evening would not be wearable and that it was probable anyway that the police had her outer garments for any forensic matching to the impact vehicle as and when it was found. He found shoes, trousers and a sweater that he has seen her wearing for leisure around the flat on a number of their evenings together.
With all these in one of her holdalls, he added a bouquet of yellow roses to his packages and returned to the hospital at about nine. She feels nurtured and cared for; and it is a new experience for Susan to allow this level of concern from someone.
She is more alert this morning and eager to have a proper wash using her own soap and creams – hospital toiletries are basic to say the least.
“How is your head?” Bill enquires as a nurse relieves him of the flowers and heads off in search of a vase.
“Better. But I’m tired. And my neck is sore,” she responds. But her main thought is for her injured friend.
“I need to see Linda, Bill. She’s in a bad way – worse than me. This is my fault.”
Tears well in her eyes, genuine tears for the pain she feels she has inadvertently caused her friend.
“No, Susan, this is not your fault. No matter why this happened, you did not do this to Linda. The person who drove that car is responsible.”
“That’s what Linda will say,” Susan replies, not believing it herself for one second.
“She’s going to be fine, Susan. I’ll call in on her today. I just wanted to be here with you. Susan,” he asks now, “How much do you remember of what happened?”
“Not everything. Flashes, just. I remember the wall. That’s really all. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, Bill” She knows how true that is.
“It all seemed like slow motion. It took me ages to realize. They told me that Linda grabbed me and pushed me out of the way. If she hadn’t done that, Bill – if she had jumped out of the way and saved herself – she might not have been injured.”
“Susan, what Linda did was on instinct and it was on instinct to protect you. You have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself for.”
She takes comfort from his words. She is still exhausted, and Bill spends most of the time just sitting quietly in the room, well shielded from the press who, apparently are hovering outside the ward, by tight police security. He asks to speak to a doctor at one point and sees a junior houseman. He reports back to her that she should be ready for discharge within a day or two; that all the head scan tests are clear and that she is a resilient woman. He says that she will be offered tranquillisers for her return home. She knows this already. She will refuse; she decided that right away. The doctor warned Bill that she was likely to have recurrent flashbacks and to waken in the night. She can expect these reactions even though she has no memory of the accident. But Susan is determined that nothing is going to set her on the path of taking mind altering drug
s.
She limps off to shower and to change from the hospital gown into her own nightdress. For the first time she looks into a mirror. Beneath her matted hair is a face she barely recognises as her own. She is swollen and bruised with dark blue and red colour from her eyes to the base of her cheeks. How did she escape a broken nose? But, short of thinking that her injuries are serious, she realises just how fortunate she has been. That thought makes her feel faint and she has to clutch the edge of the sink. She makes a mental note in her professional mind as she showers to do more about assaulted women on her show. This is how they must feel.
In the late morning, Susan’s boss, Jonathon, comes in, awkwardly carrying a bunch of carnations, no doubt bought from the outlet in the hospital foyer. It is, she thinks, a nice gesture, none the less. She is pleased to see him and waves to Bill to stay when he offers to make himself scarce. They exchange the usual colleague courtesies of sick visiting, of how the others at work send their love and are appalled at what happened, and how they hope she will be well enough to be back with them in no time. Even Mike Moss asks to be remembered to her.
Jonathon indicates that the press are covering the accident very responsibly, not least of course the TV Company itself. The accident, he risks a laugh, is having the good effect of bringing even better publicity than they were already getting for the forthcoming current affairs programme. A programme on drugs will go ahead as soon as she is able to front it. Is there anything, he is serious now, that the firm can do?
She shakes her head and smiles. Susan is afraid that her relief is evident when her boss says he had better be going – the children are waiting for their grandfather to take them swimming. Jonathon asks Bill for a word outside. Bill reports back a few moments later.
“The Company would like me to front an interview for this evening’s late night news. What do you think? Should I do it? ‘Susan Blakely’s fiancée – devastated for her, and for her friend Linda, of course. Appealing for the person to come forward.’ – that sort of thing. Jonathon’s had a word with the police. It would be good for PR. It would be good,” he says, looking straight at Susan, “For your reputation.”
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