“Excuse me,” I said, “but you can put the five of diamonds on the black six.”
The woman nearly fell out of her chair. She jumped to her feet and spun round to face me.
“Don’t ever—” she said, her face going the color of beets. “Don’t you ever dare—” Her fists clenched and unclenched spasmodically.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to, really …”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “No visiting until one-thirty this afternoon, and it’s only just gone—” She shot a glance at her watch, an impossibly tiny lump strapped to her wrist.
“I’m waiting for my cousin,” I explained. “She’s just slipped in to bring our grandmother some …”
I took a deep breath and wracked my brains for inspiration, but the only thing that came to mind—to my nostrils, actually—was the nauseating odor still leaking from the kitchen down the corridor.
“Soup!” I said. “We’ve brought our gram some soup.”
“Soup?” The woman’s voice—and her eyebrows—went up into an inverted V. “You’ve brought soup? Here? To a hospital?”
I nodded meekly.
“Who’s your grandmother?” she demanded. “What’s her name? Is she a patient here?”
“Fenella Faa,” I said without hesitation.
“Faa? The Gypsy woman?” she asked, sucking in her breath.
I nodded dumbly.
“And your cousin, you say, has brought her soup?”
“Yes,” I said, pointing haphazardly. “She went that way.”
“What’s your name?” the woman asked, snatching up a typewritten list from her desk.
“Flavia,” I said. “Flavia Faa.”
It was just implausible enough to be true. With a snort like a racehorse, the woman was off, down a wide corridor on the far side of the foyer.
I followed in her wake, but I don’t think she noticed. Still, I kept well back, hoping she didn’t turn round. I was in luck.
Without a backwards glance, she vanished into the second room but one on the left, and I heard the sound of curtains being swept open. I didn’t stop, but continued on past the open door. A single glance revealed Fenella in the farthest bed, her head swathed in bandages.
I ducked down out of sight behind a draped cart that was parked against the wall.
“All right, come out of there!” I heard the woman say, followed by the click of a door being opened—probably the room’s W.C.
There was a silence—then a low, muttered conversation. Was she talking to Fenella—or to herself?
The only word that came clearly to my ears was “soup.”
Another brief silence, and then the sound of the woman’s shoes went echoing away down the corridor.
I counted to three, then flitted like a bat into Fenella’s room, closing the door behind me. A whiff of ether told me that this must be the surgical ward.
Fenella was lying motionless on her back, her eyes closed. So frail, she looked—as if the bedsheets had absorbed the last ounce of her juices.
“Hello,” I whispered. “It’s me, Flavia.”
There was no response. I reached out and took her hand.
Ever so slowly her eyes came open, fighting to focus.
“It’s me, Flavia,” I said again. “Remember?”
Her wrinkled lips pursed, and the tip of her tongue appeared. It looked like the head of a turtle emerging from its shell after a long winter at the bottom of the pond.
“The … liar,” she whispered, and I grinned as stupidly as if I had just been awarded first prize at the spring flower show.
Licking her lips feebly, Fenella turned her head towards me, her black eyes now suddenly fierce and imploring in their sunken sockets.
“Sret,” she said quite distinctly, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Sorry,” I said, “I don’t understand.”
“Sret,” she said again. “Puff.”
A light went on at the back of my brain.
“Cigarette?” I asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
She nodded. “Sret. Puff.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t smoke.”
Her eyes were fixed upon mine, imploring.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go find you one, but first, I need to ask you a couple of important questions.”
I didn’t give her time to think.
“The first is this: Do you really believe I did this to you? I’d die if you did.”
Her brows knitted. “Did this?”
“Put you here—in the hospital. Please, Fenella, I need to know.”
I hadn’t meant to call her by her given name—it just slipped out. It was that kind of moment. Daffy had once told me that knowing and using someone’s name gave you power over them.
There was no doubt that, at least for now, I had power over this poor injured creature, even if it was only the power to withhold a cigarette.
“Please, Fenella!” I pleaded.
If this was power, I wanted no part of it. It felt dreadful.
Without taking her eyes from mine, she moved her head slowly from side to side.
“No,” she whispered at last, replying to my question.
No? It was not the answer I was expecting. If Fenella didn’t think I had attacked her, then Porcelain had lied!
“Who was it, then?” I demanded in a voice so rough that it surprised even me. Had that savage snarl issued from my throat?
“Who was it? Tell me who did this to you!”
For some inexplicable reason, I wanted to seize her and shake the answer out of her. This was a kind of anger I had never known before.
Fenella was terrified. I could see it in her fuddled eyes.
“The Red Bull,” she said, accenting each of the two words. “It was … the Red Bull.”
The Red Bull? That made no sense at all.
“What’s going on here?”
The voice came from the doorway. I spun round and found myself face-to-face with a nursing sister. It wasn’t just the white uniform and stockings that made her seem so intimating: The blue cape with its red lining and piping had turned her into a human Union Jack.
“Flavia?”
The familiar voice took me by surprise.
It was Flossie Foster, the sister of Feely’s friend Sheila!
“Flossie? Is it really you?”
I’d forgotten that Flossie had gone in for nursing. It was one of those trifles that had been mentioned at the dinner table by Feely, somewhere between the salad and the sausage rolls, and put out of mind before the plates were cleared away.
“Of course it’s me, you goose. What on earth are you doing here?”
“I … ah … came to visit a friend,” I said, making a sweeping gesture towards Fenella.
“But visiting hours aren’t until this afternoon. If Matron catches you, she’ll have your toes on toast.”
“Listen, Flossie,” I said. “I need a favor. I need a cigarette, and I need it quickly.”
“Ha!” said Flossie, “I should have known! Feely’s little sister is a tobacco fiend!”
“It’s not like that at all,” I said. “Please, Flossie—I’ll promise you anything.”
Flossie reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet of Du Mauriers and a monogrammed cloisonné lighter.
“Now light it,” I told her.
Surprisingly, she did as she was told, although a little furtively.
“We only smoke in the nursing sisters’ tea room,” she said, handing me the cigarette. “And only when Matron’s not around.”
“It’s not for me,” I said, pointing to Fenella. “Give it to her.”
Flossie stared at me. “You must be mad,” she said.
“Go ahead, give it to her … or I’ll tell Matron what you had in the hip flask at the vicar’s garden party.”
I was only teasing, but before I could shoot her a grin, Flossie had inserted the cigarette between Fenella’s dry lips.
“You’re a beast,” she said. “An absolutely horrid little beast!”