‘Yes. . thank you. . I think I will enjoy them, and thank you again for coming, you were the only person I could think of to call. They put me in a private ward as you see. . well, it’s not really a private ward. . it’s a little room off the main ward. They exist because some patients need isolation. . what’s the term? Barrier nursing. . if they have a contagion.’
‘Yes, that’s the term, “barrier nursing”.’
‘And the rooms are also useful so battered women like me don’t get stared at by the other patients, so they shove us in here. I prefer it really. I am just not in the right frame of mind to spend the day chatting to other women.’
Hennessey thought the room was best described as ‘cosy’. It had room for just the one single bed, and the cabinet and the visitor’s chair. Windows on each wall above waist height ensured that it was well lit by natural light. A small radio with headphones was mounted on the wall behind Tilly Pakenham’s head.
‘So what happened?’ Hennessey asked. ‘I mean apart from the obvious. Perhaps I should ask, “how did it happen?”’
‘I told you he was in the town. .’
‘Yes.’
‘I told you that I sensed him being here in York. Was I right or was I right? So he found me last night. . he followed me home, followed me back to my little drum and jumped me just as I opened the door, pulled me back and shoved me into the alley beside the house. . but I scratched him good. I have never done that before but I have read about DNA so I knew what to do.’
‘They scraped your nails?’
‘Yes. . it was a bit uncomfortable.’
Hennessey nodded. ‘Yes, it can hurt a bit but our officers are taught to be as gentle as possible. . we need the evidence.’
‘I understand. Thank you again for coming.’
‘My pleasure. So now he’ll be arrested, we now have the evidence to put him away for this. . he won’t like that at all.’
‘Yes. This time I am going to stand up to him.’
‘Good. .’ Hennessey smiled, ‘good for you. So where now? I mean after you are discharged.’
‘Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere?’
‘I mean I have nowhere else to go. . I want nowhere else to go. It’s time for me to stop running.’
Hennessey smiled warmly at her. ‘York is a good city to live in, although I always find it too small. I am a Londoner myself. You can’t hide in York like you can hide in London; you can really lose yourself in the smoke.’
‘Yes, I noticed your London accent. I’ll settle here. . and no more of that.’ She indicated her tin whistle which lay atop the bedside cabinet close to where Hennessey had placed the box of chocolates. ‘I’ll keep it though. . it’ll remind me of the gutter.’
‘What will you do? Do you have any plans?’
‘Get educated. Just lying here or sitting here you cannot do anything else but plan. So I’ll get an education.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I’ll build on what I already have and I have quite a bit I’ll have you know, George.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I have university entrance level qualifications and I can operate a word processor. So I can work to pay my way if I have to.’
‘And you ended up sitting in a doorway wrapped up against the cold playing a tin whistle?’
Matilda Pakenham closed her eyes. ‘Yes.’ She opened them again. ‘Yes. Quite a fall from grace wouldn’t you say? But it’s a question of self worth. If you are battered often enough and told that you are no good often enough you come to believe it. After a while all you think that you are worth is a doorway and a tin whistle and a plastic coffee cup for folk to drop their kindness or their pity into. But it was you that began the turn round for me.’
‘I did? I only met you once.’
‘But what a once. . took me to lunch instead of dropping a coin into my plastic cup. I went straight home after that, and that night I combed my hair for the first time in many days. . I mean properly combed it. I even tidied up my little flat. So, thanks, George, I really owe you one. . and you also gave me the confidence to stand up to him. I’ll give evidence this time.’ She paused and looked down at the bed sheets. ‘I imagine you have a lady in your life?’
‘Yes. . yes, I do.’
‘She’s very lucky.’
‘I am very lucky. I know how fortunate I am.’
‘You should marry her.’
‘Perhaps. . one day. . but that’s a joint decision.’
‘Yes, don’t I know it? So you’ll arrest him?’
‘We will. I won’t. . our officers from the Female and Child Abuse Unit will do that.’
‘I see,’ again she paused and looked at the bed sheets, ‘so, my future. .?’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s a university here, isn’t there? In York I mean?’
‘Yes, a very good one.’
‘I’ll apply there. I’ll be a mature student, thirty-seven now, forty or forty-one before I get a degree, which I should have had at twenty or twenty-one, but I fell for the charms of Noel Sigsworth. Imagine swapping a classy sounding name like Pakenham to become Mrs Sigsworth. . what a silly sounding name, but I did it. We made such a handsome couple but I came back from my honeymoon with a bruise the size of a football on my back.’
‘And you remained with him?’
‘Yes, women do. . the apology, the promise it will never happen again. . the remorse. . the charm, and with that comes the feeling that it was somehow my fault all along.’
A silence descended. It was broken by Hennessey who said, ‘Well, we’ll arrest him and this is the first day in the rest of your life.’
Matilda Pakenham smiled. ‘The first day in the rest of my life. . I like that, and you’re right George, it starts fresh from here.’ She bit her lip and looked thoughtful. ‘George, can I ask you something and tell you something?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Have you ever come across a guy, and I mean a criminal, called Malpass? He and his wife, Mr and Mrs Malpass?’
‘The name rings no bells. . criminal or otherwise. Why do you ask?’
‘Because you didn’t meet me when I was at my worst. . I’ve been lower. I once had a bad drink problem.’
‘Oh. . but quite understandable.’
‘The reason I ask is that I met someone at the AA meeting and they invited me to join their private alcoholics club, meeting in cafes just to pass the time to keep each other off the booze. So I went one evening, the Malpasses were there, sort of like Lord and Lady among the alcohol lowlifers with no money. The Malpasses always paid for the coffee and nibbles to eat. They were suave, charming, just like hubby was suave and charming and so I was on my guard with them.’
‘Yes. .’ Hennessey leaned forward slightly.
‘So I went to their meetings a few times. . claimed to be dried out alcoholics but I don’t think they were. They said, “Look at us, we’ve cleaned our act up, so can you.”’
‘I see.’
‘But as I just said, I was suspicious because of my marriage. Anyway, one day they invited me to go with them for a day trip to the coast and when I declined they looked crestfallen. . I mean more than disappointed. . and also they looked angry. Maybe I am being paranoid or maybe it’s women’s intuition but I got the feeling that if I had accepted their offer of a trip to the coast I wouldn’t have come back.’
‘That is interesting,’ Hennessey replied with a serious tone to his voice.
‘I wouldn’t have been missed. I was socially isolated and there was another woman who used to attend and suddenly didn’t any more.’
‘Oh?’
‘And when I asked about her they said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about her, she’ll have moved on. . it happens.’
‘Malpass, you say?’
‘Yes. Ronald and Sylvia Malpass.’
Thomson Ventnor glanced in an interested manner to his left and right as Marianne Auphan drove slowly along Scott Drive, Letitia Heights. He saw small detached houses built with brick up to a height of approximately two feet and thereafter the walls seemed to be made of aluminium sheeting, as were the roofs, and all painted a uniform dull green colour. Each house had a small porch in front of the front door and each porch seemed to him to have a white plastic chair upon it. Any car that was parked in the short driveway of the houses or at the kerb appeared to Ventnor to be elderly and of indifferent value. Again, he noticed that no one was seen in the area, no pedestrian upon the sidewalk, no one addressing garden or home maintenance for example. It seemed the norm to him that no one was ever seen in suburban Barrie, unless they were driving a car or were a bus passenger. ‘Frost. . Kipling. .’ he observed.