Missing lunch, he’d slipped out of his room and had run across the gardens towards the woods, apparently undetected by Dr Petrie and had made his escape from the clinic’s grounds using the gate suggested by Samantha.
Once in Ambleside, they’d found the post office in the centre of the small town on the corner of Ryedale Road, directly opposite the war memorial. Donald had bought a book of twelve first class stamps and paid for them out of the small allowance Dr Monroe had given him, before he’d left Cromarty.
Whilst Donald had been buying his stamps, Samantha had unbeknown to him popped next door into the small jewellers and had caught up with him just as he was slipping the cream envelope into the welcoming jaws of the red box.
“The next collection is at five this afternoon, so I guess she should get it tomorrow.” He said as the letter disappeared into the bowels of the large oval post box.
“Well now we’ve done that boring job, how about I buy us both afternoon tea?” Samantha asked in a very dismissive way, as she grabbed hold of Donald’s hand and dragged him across the road towards the bus stop.
“There’s a swanky new hotel on the outskirts of the town, which I’ve been dying to visit.” The worry lines that criss-crossed Donald’s face, like a map of the London underground, brought a smile to Samantha’s face.
“Don’t worry so much Donald. The hotel is on the way back to the Ambleside so we won’t be late and definitely not missed. I can assure you that Dr Woodrow won’t send the dogs or Petrie out looking for us… remember we’re guests and can leave at any time….” She tried to sound like the clinic’s director but her affectation fell on deaf ears, as Donald searched the timetable attached to the bus stop to see when the next bus would arrive. Now he was really confused. Last night she’d told him that they had to sneak out without being seen, but now it didn’t seem to matter who saw them.
“Which stop do we need for the hotel?” He asked worryingly, as his finger ran up and down the lists of times.
“The one where we get off.” She teased, pulling his finger away from the columns of bus numbers and times. “Look, Dr Woodrow told me that we didn’t have to rush back… he actually told us to enjoy ourselves, said it was all part of the recovery process.” She lied with an eloquence that Donald couldn’t fail to believe, although with each new lie, he became just a little more confused.
“What do you think he meant by that?” She added as an afterthought, to give her white lie more a little more gravitas.
“I think he expects his guests to recover their memories with as little intervention from him or his colleagues as possible. What I can’t decide is if his Partnership Therapy is there for his own financial benefit or whether it actually works. I was reading a paper he’s written the other day, whilst I was in the library, and I was amazed at some of his claims. Do you know…?” Samantha was relieved to see the bus turn the corner and pushing the sleeve of her red jacket up above her elbow, she poked out her arm and waved furiously for the bus to stop.
For the briefest of moments, she had an urge to silence Donald’s whining and explanations once and for all, but the spot was too pubic and anyway she’d not given up on turning the soppy idiot away from his true love. He deserved better… he deserved her in fact and she was determined that no man would abandon her again, whatever the cost.
“Donald!” She shouted so loudly that the old lady hobbling past nearly collapsed with fright. “This is our bus, come on or you’ll still be explaining me the theory of Partnership Therapy long after we’ve all been cured of whatever it is that’s stopping our brain’s functioning properly.”
As the bus pulled away, she just caught sight of the man who had run out of the jewellers and was searching the pavement for whoever it was that had just stolen the pair of two carat diamond ear studs, which he’d just taken out of the locked display case to show another customer. He’d not managed to see the woman’s face but he’d remember her red coat anywhere.
They jumped off the bus directly outside the gates to the Egremont Hotel. The newly painted sign drew Donald’s eyes, like two wasps attracted to a sticky jam pot. Underneath the hotel’s name in bold, gold lettering was painted…
Part of the Fitzgerald Hotel Group
“C’mon it’s only a short stroll up to the hotel and the last one there is buying the…” She turned round to gloat at the fact that she was already way ahead in the race for the cream cakes, but was surprised to see Donald stood on the pavement daydreaming.
“Donald! What are you waiting for? I’m dying for a cup of tea and the cakes here are supposed to be dreamy.”
He caught her up just as they reached the front door of the hotel.
“What kept you?”
“It was the name Fitzgerald… on the sign next to the gate… it’s the same name as Martha’s old boss.” Donald sounded confused. He couldn’t put the coincidence out of his head and the nagging doubt that it all must be connected with his loss of memory. Samantha on the other hand merely pulled a sour face at the mention of Martha’s name, as far as she was concerned they’d wasted enough time today posting the stupid letter. What was it about some women she thought that they couldn’t see when they were being used… she’d been used and so she should have felt some sympathy for the girl but she’d decided, as she lay in her hospital bed recovering from the crash, that in future she’d always come first and everyone else… male or female could go whistle.
They ordered tea for two with a selection of cream cakes… the tea was served in a silver teapot with Wedgewood bone china teacups and the cakes were beautifully presented on a doily covered cake stand.
“Oh my look at this, real tea. Not a tea bag in sight, I can’t remember the last time I had real tea that needed to be strained. I feel like royalty, what about you Donald? Have you had real tea before?” Samantha asked whilst attempting to be mother and pour the tea. Unfortunately, she found the clinic’s tea bags easier to control and managed to pour most of her first attempt over the pristine white cloth.
“Try to get some tea in the cup.” Donald said with a grin. All thoughts of Martha and Fitzgerald had been momentarily forgotten. “There’s more on the tray than in the cup… look at the mess you’ve made.”
Donald started to organise the tray and had already moved some of the pieces of the tea set onto the mahogany side-table, when the card caught his attention. It had been left on a saucer, together with two mints and another piece of paper with instructions for the use of the hotel’s Wi-Fi.
“What have you got there?” Samantha asked, as she finally managed to master the teapot and strainer.
“It’s a card with the code you need to be able to use the hotel’s Wi-Fi… it’s identical to the one I have here.” Donald felt inside his shirt pocket and pulled out his own talisman. “Look the picture’s the same… only the number is different.” He said placing the two down on the table side by side. “I guess I must have been here before… before I was attacked.” He said hopefully.
Samantha had the look of someone who was just about to tell their best friend that they’d flushed their goldfish down the toilet by mistake.
“You can’t have Donald… the hotel didn’t open until the week after you arrived at The Ambleside.”
~~~~~
About twenty miles further along the road, in the glare of the headlights, Rachel saw the desperate figure of a man staggering along the side of the road. With a dark desolate road behind her and Patrick’s unexplained vanishing act still fresh in her memory, she was in two minds whether to slow down and go round the drunk, who was now wildly waving his arms above his head, or simply run the man down and be done with it. Surely, she told herself, no jury in their right mind would condemn her for claiming not to have seen him until it was too late and knocking him down would definitely be the safest course of action… but then how would she explain driving Patrick’s car, especially if it turned out that Patrick was lying dead in a ditch somewhere nearby.
No she
decided, as she pressed down harder on the accelerator, the answer to her conundrum was simple… she couldn’t risk hurting the man, but she could certainly try and avoid him.
Thirty yards from the shadowy figure, the car’s powerful headlights lit up the man like an actor caught in a theatre’s spotlights and like any good actor, the man was determined to stay firmly in the limelight. Showing little concern for his own safety, he stumbled into the middle of the road and raised his arms into the night air. With no obvious way around the man and with little appetite to add another death to her conscious, Rachel jammed her foot down hard on the brake and skidded sideways, until finally the car came to juddering halt.
As the adrenaline surged through her body, the pent up fear, which had been building since Patrick’s sudden abduction, broke free from its corporeal shackles, causing her body to shake violently. Unable to hold back her frayed emotions, she emptied her bursting lungs with such an anguished scream that sent even the bravest night predator scurrying for cover.
Finally, as the tidal wave of nervous energy dissipated, she opened her eyes.
“What the hell happened back there?” Rachel demand angrily, as she jumped from the car and launched herself into the full glare of the headlights and confronted the bedraggled figure.
“Do you know how scared I was? …I thought you were dead… I thought…”
Patrick walked passed Rachel, climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for her to join him in the car. As the passenger door slammed shut, he floored the accelerator and drove away at speed into the night.
“You were fucking scared?” He said contemptuously without taking his eyes off the road. “I was the one who was invited for a midnight chat with that bloody maniac, in the middle of nowhere, whilst his two thugs sat drooling at the prospect of putting a bullet in my brain… and you reckon you were scared! Well let me tell you, I was shitting myself.”
Patrick’s heightened and excitable state took Rachel by surprise. Normally she’d found him to be such a confident and assured person, who seemed unflappable whatever the provocation or trouble.
But as they sped back towards Padstow, in the glow of the occasional passing headlights and the odd fluorescent street lamp, she could see that he’d been visibly shaken by his dark encounter… that he was still scared… and that strong emotional reaction sent a frisson of excitement coursing through her body.
Watching the silent world outside race by, Rachel couldn’t help but feel cheated that she’d not seen more of the mysterious Mr Dickens and whether it was the excess of adrenaline that was still pumping round her system or the eclectic mix of other hormones feeding her imagination, she knew that they had to pull over.
“Quickly…” She demanded, pointing to the dark opening in the hedgerow. “Pull down that lane… yes that’s the one there, on the right.” Patrick, obeyed without question and like an automaton on Valium, turned down the deserted dirt track.
“I… I didn’t notice that we were being followed.” He stuttered shakily, as the car slewed to a halt at the side of the deserted track. Nervously, he looked back towards the main road searching for their pursuers. Dickens’s threat had been clear and unequivocal… ‘Pay up or next time I won’t play so nice. You never know I might even let the boys here take your wife for a ride.’
“We weren’t.” Rachel said calmly. “But I didn’t think you were in a fit state to drive. Look at you, I’ve never seen you looking so nervous, yours hands are shaking. What you need to do is relax…” Rachel said sultrily, like some madam in a high-class brothel. Without waiting for an invite, she leant across the seat and locked her lips around Patrick’s mouth, administering her own kiss of life, and whilst her tongue massaged his lips, her hands skilfully sought out the zip of his trousers and brought the rest of him back to life.
“Helen, is anything wrong?” Rachel had asked guiltily. Her first reaction on hearing Helen’s trembling voice had been to think that she’d found out about her and Patrick… maybe Clarence Dickens had decided to heap a little more pressure upon Patrick’s shoulders and had spilled the beans about their late night drive.
“Not really, it’s just… I want your advice. You once told me that you always thought Tom was messing around long before you found the evidence of his infidelity.”
“Yesss.” Rachel added out of politeness and inquisitiveness. Surely, she thought, if Helen wanted her advice, then she must be in the clear.
“Well I think Patrick is having an affair.” She whispered in the best tradition of a village gossipmonger. The cup of tea, which Rachel had just poured herself and had taken her first sip, shot from her mouth like an express train leaving a tunnel, whilst the cup tumbled from her grasp and shattered on the cold tiled floor of the restaurant’s kitchen.
“An affair?” She shouted down the telephone a little too loud for comfort.
“Please Rachel, don’t say anything to Henri or anyone else. I could be wrong but he’s been behaving very strangely recently… look let’s not talk about it now come over to the hotel for a coffee and we’ll talk then.” Helen pleaded.
Rachel couldn’t answer immediately. Helen’s hypocrisy in feeling hurt because she thought Patrick was having an affair, when all the time she was bonking Henri senseless at every opportunity they got, took her breath away.
“He’s having a fucking affair? …that’s rich you cheating bitch!” Rachel mumbled to herself, whilst covering the mouthpiece of the telephone with her free hand, to ensure her vitriolic condemnation remained private.
“Sorry what did you say Rachel? …Will you come over?” Helen asked desperately.
“Of course I will, you poor thing. Look I’m sure it’s nothing… with Tom it was mostly my overactive imagination and jealousy, but I know what it’s like once you get a thought stuck in your head. Can you make it about twelve, perhaps we can get a spot of lunch as well.” Rachel’s doting performance was flawless and perfectly convincing.
“I’ll look forward to it. Perhaps afterwards we could drive out to the house… I’m dying to show you around.”
“That’ll be lovely, I can’t wait to see the place.” Rachel purred like they were the best of friends, whilst inside her stomach churned like a tumble dryer… the bitch had been fucking Henri and now had the audacity to ask her for help in screwing a divorce out of Patrick. Well she had news for her Rachel thought, as she carefully replaced the receiver, she had her own plans for Patrick and they didn’t include Helen or Henri.
“How did you explain getting back so late?” Patrick asked furtively, as Rachel walked boldly through the hotel’s reception looking for Helen. He’d not really expected her to turn up so soon after their encounter with Dickens and certainly not flounce into the hotel, as if nothing had happened.
“I told Henri that the inquest had been delayed and it didn’t finish until late, by which time I’d then missed my train and the other connections. Anyway, he wasn’t really interested in my comings and goings, as he’d been too busy fucking your wife whilst we were away… the only part of the day he was really interested in was the verdict… sadly the deluded fool thinks I’ll hand over my hard earned windfall to him so that he can invest more money into his business… and then unbelievably… get this… Helen phoned me a couple of hours ago and suggested we have a chat… guess what, no don’t bother because you never will, it’s absolutely unbelievable… she thinks you’re having an affair! I know, the audacity of the woman… that cheating whore thinks you’re doing the dirty on her, whilst all the time she’s busy moaning and groaning with Henri…can you believe that?” Rachel explained without drawing breath and certainly too loudly for Patrick’s comfort.
Roughly grabbing hold of her arm, he unceremoniously yanked her into the hotel’s small library and reading room. Angry at her shabby treatment and mad that Patrick hadn’t immediately seen the injustice of Helen’s accusation, Rachel pulled her arm free from Patrick’s grasp and glowered at him until the foul taste of betrayal had settled
down and she’d regained her self-control.
She’d made herself a promise after finding out about Tom’s last indiscretion with the Parisian tart, that she’d never be the one being cheated on or abused again.
“Do you think she suspects us then?” Patrick asked, more concerned at what a messy divorce might mean for his business and his tenuous relationship with the psychotic Mr Dickens, than any thought for Rachel’s feelings.
“Christ I hope not… I’ve got big plans for Henri’s restaurant and anyway his pastries are simply out of this world.” Rachel replied, easily shaking off any last vestiges of anger. If she was going to protect herself and all that she’d worked so hard to keep hold of, she knew that she’d have to play the game and play it in a way that no one would realise what she was doing.
“If he found out we’d been fucking each other behind his back, God knows what it would do to his baking.” She added with her tongue pressed firmly into her cheek.
Patrick looked dumbfounded… there was logic and then there was female logic, he thought, but Rachel’s logic confounded both.
“I think we’ve got to cool it Rachel.” Patrick said regaining his sense of rational thought. “I can’t afford Helen to start divorce proceedings… not with that madman Dickens breathing down my neck. If the courts don’t shaft me, he will. Look, whatever happens you have to persuade Helen that she’s imagining it all… tell her anything to throw her off the scent.”
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