Aubrey realised how much Marian was loved. Her accident, however traumatic for himself, had been as appalling as her death to Giles.
Aubrey cleared his throat softly. His mouth was dry. A small, pert Madonna observed him from a wall-niche. She might have aided Giles, had Marian died Giles' faith was cloudy but persistent but not himself.
He heard a door open, but it was not Marian's room. His chest seemed to slump lethargically once more.
Giles had not stirred.
Marian had sustained a broken arm, a broken pelvis and leg. A wound in her side had bled copiously, she had lost a great deal of blood before it was staunched in the ambulance. Three cracked ribs, bruising to most of her body, severe trauma.
Scalp wounds, other serious abrasions. A brain scan had been carried out.
Thankfully, there seemed nothing other than the concussion. Aubrey suppressed a shudder… a damned close-run thing. Too close-The tired anger was dismissed by the door of Marian's room opening. Giles at once looked up as the diminutive nun who was the hospital's chief surgeon came towards them, her habit rustling like a drift of leaves.
Giles stood up stiffly, towering over the doctor's slightness. His face remained ashen. The proud, bluff widower did not live his life through his child; she was, however, as much his life as she was her own.
"You will try, as her father and her friend not to disturb my patient."
It was not a question. Giles still appeared as if he were about to be asked to accompany the sister to the hospital mortuary.
"You may stay with her for five' something in his expression touched her 'no more than ten minutes. I insist. She must not be agitated—"
Giles' voice broke through his numbness like a thaw.
"She she will be alright, now? You have no reason to change your earlier assessment?"
The doctor shook her head. A small, serious face framed by her wimple.
"No. Her recovery will take a great deal of time. She must not be pressured into denying the seriousness of her accident." The young man from the embassy had sought reassurance that Marian's was a very temporary indisposition. The surgeon had banished his insouciance as witheringly as if by excommunication.
"We understand, Doctor," Aubrey murmured, smiling.
"May we—?" She nodded.
He took Giles' elbow and steered him towards the door, as if through a tight crowd of people. The doctor accompanied them, then allowed them to falter across the threshold.
Her head was bandaged. Her face was the colour of putty in places, raw liver in others Her arm was in plaster, a tent of raised bedclothes was over her lower body. Her eyes were preter-naturally bright.
Aubrey's smile faltered like an old bulb, then flickered on once more.
He gently thrust Giles towards the bed, on her free hand's side. It was lightly bandaged, badly scuffed like a worn shoe.
"Daddy—" she muttered thickly, as if her tongue had swollen.
"Oh, Tig-r Aubrey moved to the slatted blinds across the single window of the small, bright, warm room. The noise of tears did not distress him. It was politeness that moved him, the priorities of intimacy between father and daughter.
In a few moments, sniffing loudly, she said:
"Hello, Kenneth. Brought any grapes?"
He turned, chuckling, his eyes pricking. He shook his head. The shops were closed."
She winced as she blew out her cheeks in exaggerated, comic relief.
Giles blew his nose unselfconsciously loud. His eyes were damp and fierce, his mouth and jaw quivering with reaction.
"Are you alright, dear?" he asked.
"Hurts like hell everywhere," she replied. Her eyes glazed, perhaps remembering Campbell.
"God…" she breathed.
Giles' old hand lay on hers, still twice its size, even though Marion's was padded with gauze. It was the light, careful grip of a boy who had caught a butterfly.
"He—" she began, then: Tape recorder… You'll need that, Kenneth—"
She was tiring already, and he saw Giles resented his presence. He came between Giles' relief and a desired innocence. Accident without design. It would remove her from further danger.
Aubrey took from his pocket the list of Marian's personal effects that had been given him by the senior police officer. A second list described the contents of the car, Campbell's possessions. He scanned them, sensing his own lack of breathing, his utter stillness in the warm room. Eventually he nodded, then crossed towards the utilitarian cabinet in a corner of the room.
"Ben' Marian swallowed painfully 'confessed. The fraud — David's part in it."
Almost at once, she was half-asleep.
Aubrey rummaged in the black plastic bag in which Marian's possessions had been returned to her. Pulled out the tiny tape recorder and turned to Giles in triumph.
Pyott's expression was one of foreboding; then he became angry with Aubrey.
"Your confounded curiosity, Kenneth," he growled.
"Is this it, my dear?" Aubrey urged, moving close to the bed.
Her eyes fluttered open.
"Kenneth," Giles warned.
That's it…" Marian managed. She smiled briefly, as if someone had told her she had passed an examination. Then, in another moment, she was asleep.
Aubrey, despite Giles Pyott's irascible expression, switched on the tiny recorder. A youngish male voice, Campbell for sure… speaking from the mortuary.
'… the decision was David's, the planning was his… He needed people like me, Laxton he called us the European connection to shuffle the cheques from one envelope to another…" The voice was heavy with fear.
Aubrey continued to listen until Campbell's voice died away and there was a long, hissing tape noise which masked the small, distant noises of traffic. Realising the calm before the storm, he stopped the tape running.
Giles' hand gripped his wrist, the fingers of his other hand snatching the recorder from Aubrey's grasp. Angrily, his eyes glowering, he switched on the recorder.
"Look out! Ben, for God's sake, look out!' Then the screaming of the car's metal as the undoubtedly arranged accident occurred. Only then was the tape silent.
Giles looked up at him after staring at Marian for a long moment. His face was ashen, his eyes like last hot coals.
"Did he—?" he began, but his voice failed almost immediately, like a poor and distant radio signal.
"David?" Aubrey nodded gravely.
"Oh, yes, Giles he did' Giles had returned his hand to his daughter's, and pressed it ever more protectively.
"She's safe now, old friend. I promise you. David thinks he has closed the last gate behind him. He must be feeling secure. Until I confront him with this…"
Aubrey turned away from the bed. There would be nothing on the tape concerning the sabotage. Campbell wouldn't have known about it. David may have trusted people like Fraser, but never Campbell with that kind of knowledge. But… David had to pay the entire price.
It was as if he had written it on the wall of the room in huge black letters. For Marian's injuries, for Vance's ruin, for fifty and more deaths, David must pay in full. They had to prove the sabotage against him, not simply the fraud.
There had been no word from Gant. He was still out there, somewhere, like a perturbed spirit in pursuit of Strickland. He had to find him.
For fraud, David might receive a token sentence if he went to prison at all. Everyone, including most of the Cabinet and the European Commission, would want no fuss, would rather there was no evidence at all against David. Murder, however, they could neither excuse nor bury.
He turned to glance once more at Marian, pale as death, symbolising how close she had come to her demise. Mitchell, he thought, as if attempting some kind of telepathic contact… find me the proof.