…that’s why you need to unwind, be relaxed…I’ll call again.
Phones rang and were answered.
Resnick showed his warrant card at reception and he and Lynn Kellogg were pointed towards another door, a corridor, a lift.
“When was she admitted, sir?” Kellogg asked. “Early hours of this morning.”
Their feet clicked loud on the tiled floor.
“Why did it take them so long to contact us?”
“Sounds as if notification went out, but nobody made the connection to us. It wasn’t until she said herself…”
“Still took her a long time, sir. Likely more than twelve hours.”
“Who knows?” Resnick said, pushing the lift button. “Who knows what state she’s in?”
There were double doors at the entrance to the intensive care ward, the first of which was kept locked. They rang and waited for a nurse to take them through.
Wrapped inside two towels, Rachel came down with care: the heat and the alcohol had made her a little dizzy. A cup of coffee was what she needed and by then Carole should be home, it was surprising she wasn’t there already.
As Rachel was crossing the hall, the phone began to ring and, by instinct, she picked it up.
“Hello, Carole?”
“Feeling better now, away from the rigors of the working day?”
Rachel slammed the receiver against the wall, struck it, twice, against the cradle before finally forcing it down into place.
“Bastard!” she yelled. “You bastard!”
She ran back up the stairs, nearly losing her footing once; pulled on her clothes, rubbed at her wet hair; downstairs again, she picked up the local paper she had stepped over earlier, folded inside the front door. Squatting there she rifled the pages: Cars for Sale, Household Goods, Funeral Services, there, Lonely Hearts. Shaking, her finger traced down the column.
“Oh, God!”
Rachel swallowed.
Attractive Professional Woman wants to hear from imaginative men with interesting ideas to help her unwind. Rachel.
She tore at the paper, pummeled it, beat at it with her hands.
Between the bandages and the widths of tape, between the carefully arranged pillows and the sheet, it was difficult to see much that was recognizable as Sally Oakes. Where her jaw had been broken, it was clamped in a wire frame.
Only the eyes were clear, but closed.
The doctor stood with Resnick at the foot of the bed; Lynn Kellogg sat as close as the drips would allow, glucose and blood.
“She was found in the road. Taxi driver on his way back to base. Said she stumbled out and collapsed right in front of him, all he could do not to run her over. He picked her up and brought her into casualty. Better if he’d left her there and phoned for an ambulance, of course, but it’s always easy to see clearly after the event.
“Then again, he had no way of knowing the extent of her injuries. Blood about the face and clothing, there must have been a lot of that, but I suppose he thought, you know, falling, drunk. Naturally, there would have been no way, simply by looking, of knowing about the internal injuries, their extent.”
Listening, looking, Resnick said nothing.
The cats had come running the instant they heard the key turn in the lock. Dizzy-he would be the first-Pepper, Miles, and-what was the scrawny one called? — Bud. Rachel pushed the door to and bent down, favoring Bud with an especial stroke. Dizzy showed her his backside and headed for the kitchen.
Rachel hung the keyring Resnick had given her from her index finger and followed, the other cats sliding in and out of her feet. It struck warm inside the house and she felt something about it that was immediately welcoming, quite different from Carole’s home which was always oddly vacant when Carole herself wasn’t there-like a place that had been sold a long time ago and was still waiting for the new owners to move in.
This, though, was different. She felt-understanding what she was feeling, the seductive danger of it-more at home here. Remembering where the cat food was kept, Rachel spooned some into their respective bowls. There was only an inch of milk in the fridge, Charlie would probably bring some in with him when he arrived. Dizzy had bolted most of his own food already and was stealing Bud’s; when she tried to budge him away, he arched his back at her and hissed. Oh well, Rachel thought, not my business. She opened the nearest cupboard and put the keys inside.
The sergeant on duty at the station told her he was sorry but there was nobody in CID at the moment, he could transfer her to Central Police Station if she wanted. Inspector Resnick was who she wanted. The sergeant didn’t know if the inspector would be back, but if he came in then the message would be relayed. Good evening, madam.
Rachel left the phone off the hook.
“Sir! Sir!”
The yellowing eyelids flickered, stilled, flickered again; finally, Sally Oakes’s eyes stayed open and slowly tried to focus.
“You must be careful,” the doctor warned, touching Resnick’s arm as he went forward. “She’s in a critical condition.”
Resnick nodded. He sat opposite Lynn Kellogg, both of them watching anxiously as Sally Oakes’s eyes fixed first on one, then the other. Recognizing them, she began to cry.
Rachel was leaning back on the settee, stroking Bud and reading through some typed pages she had found on the table, somebody’s notes about Professor Doria, an explanation, of sorts, of a lecture he had given at the university.
Excess is essential in literature, in art as well as society, because of its power to challenge from the inside and help to dismantle traditional and hidebound structures. It is for this reason that Repression, with its opposition to Excess, is always to be fought against and denied.
She felt the cat tense against her hand and a moment later the knock at the door.
Oh, come on, Charlie! Give me your spare keys and then forget your own.
“Excuse me, little one,” Rachel said, depositing Bud on the back of the settee, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The slight hesitation of warning that Rachel felt as she was turning the handle was too little and too late.
“Miss Chaplin. Rachel. Such a surprise.”
“Professor.”
He already had one foot across the threshold. “I called to speak with the inspector.” His eyes were reaching past her. “He’s here?”
“Is it important?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. I’m afraid it is. Otherwise…” He placed his hand against the frame of the door. “…one doesn’t like to call unannounced.”
Rachel’s mind was racing too fast for her to think with any clarity. “If you wouldn’t mind call back later. An hour perhaps.”
Doria’s face slid into a lingering smile. “An hour, Rachel. What difference would an hour make now?”
“We were just going to eat.”
“He’s here then. Call him. No need for good food to go cold and spoil.”
Rachel brought the door back towards her and then pushed it forward fast, throwing all her weight against it. Doria’s arm braced and slowly started to straighten: he was surprisingly strong.
Resnick knew that within minutes the doctor would insist on their leaving and there would be nothing he could do to resist. A nurse sat with her arms behind one of the pillows, holding Sally so that her back was clear of the bed. Lynn Kellogg held a notebook in front of her, Resnick steadied the pencil as she struggled to write.
Sounds came intermittently from behind the wired jaw but unintelligibly. All they could do was share the girl’s pain as she forced letters through their crazed journey across the page.