‘Yes?’ A woman’s voice.
‘Er, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m trying to contact Detective Chief Inspector Brock on a very important police matter. Is he there by any chance?’
‘Who is this?’
Kathy felt a trickle of sweat run down her back.
‘I’m a colleague of his. I really am most sorry to disturb you, but this is a matter of life and death.’
‘He’s not here. Did he give you this number?’
‘Thanks. Sorry again.’ Kathy put down the receiver. ‘Shit!’ She bit her lip with embarrassment.
She didn’t know what to do, although she knew she had to hurry. She lay helpless, drumming the fingers of her left hand on the white bed linen.
At last she clenched her teeth and reached across her body with her comparatively good left hand and pulled the bedclothes back. With a grunt of effort she eased herself up into a sitting position, then swung round so that her feet could fall off the side of the bed. She saw her bandaged left knee under the hem of the white cotton gown they had given her. Her side was aching more insistently now as she began to shift into position to stand on her wobbly legs. She waited until her head was clear, then tried to stand. A wave of nausea flooded through her, and she put her weight on the side cabinet, ready to reach for the stainless-steel bowl. The feeling passed and she sat again on the side of the bed. Very slowly she bent her trunk forward and pulled the plastic carrier bag towards her, emptying it on to the bed. Inside were the clothes and shoes she was wearing yesterday. Her coat wasn’t there.
It took a painful, exhausting age to work her aching body out of the gown and into her underwear and trousers. Then she slipped her polo-neck sweater over her head. She had to stretch the right arm out of shape to get it around the plaster cast, and ease it carefully down over the pad of dressing around her right side. The laces on her shoes were the biggest problem. When she stretched forward to do them up, she gave a stifled yell as an agonizing pain shot through her side. She closed her eyes, gasping, then tried again, controlling the pain just long enough to tie the laces clumsily.
She scribbled a short note for the nurse. The pain seemed to help her to focus. She got to her feet, swayed towards the door, then stumbled down the corridor, blindly following a knot of visitors on their way out. She sensed that people were staring at her. She didn’t understand why until she passed a nurses’ station with a mirrored panel facing into the corridor, as if for visitors to fix up their smiles before facing the patients. Who is the weird woman who looks as if she’s been hit by a bus? She examined the mirror more closely. Tufts of fair hair sprouted through a swathe of bandages. The visible part of her face was mottled black and blue.
She found herself in a lift. Someone spoke to her and she mumbled a reply. Then she came to a bright foyer area, passed through swing doors and out into the cold night air. A couple got out of a taxi in front of her. She stumbled past them and collapsed into the back seat, her side on fire.
The man’s eyes in the driving mirror looked concerned.
‘What you say?’
‘Jerusalem Lane.’
‘Where’s that, then? I dunno it.’
‘Marquis Street,’ she said urgently. ‘Corner with Carlisle Street. East Bloomsbury.’
When they reached the end of Jerusalem Lane, the man had to open Kathy’s door and help her out. She screwed up her eyes with pain as she straightened her back to stand on the pavement.
‘There’s some money in the right pocket of my trousers,’ she gasped. ‘Can’t get it. My arm.’ She swung the cast helplessly.
He looked doubtful as he came round behind her right side and reached towards her pocket. Suddenly he pulled away his hand and held it up under the light that illuminated the gates to the building site.
‘Jesus! You’re bleedin’! Oh gawd!’ His mind leapt to the risk of AIDS. ‘You need an ambulance, not a bleedin’ taxi!’ He thought of the blood on his seats.
‘Please,’ she said struggling to reach into her right pocket with her left hand.
‘Forget it.’ He was already back in his cab and pulling away.
31
‘Kathy?’ Peg’s voice, mechanically distorted, sounded in surprise from her intercom. ‘Come in, dear.’ The door clicked and Kathy limped slowly up the two flights towards the diminutive figure waiting for her at the top.
‘Oh my, dear! Is that really you? What a state you are in!’ Peg clucked around Kathy who shuffled into the lounge room and sank into an armchair, gasping for breath.
‘Should I get you a doctor, dear? You look terribly white! And those bruises!’
‘No. I want to talk to you, Peg.’
‘Of course, dear. What about?’
‘About Eleanor, and Meredith. It’s time you told me the truth.’
‘Oh… I see. Are you up to it, though, dear? You really don’t look well. You’re trembling.’
‘A glass of water would be wonderful.’
‘Of course.’
Peg went off to the kitchenette and busied herself for what seemed a long time. Kathy was grateful to be able to remain still and soak up the heat from the gas fire blazing in front of her.
Peg at last returned with a glass, not of water but of a steaming brown liquid the colour of weak tea.
‘This is what you need, my dear. Our father was a Scotsman, and this was his infallible cure for any ailment, especially in the winter. A hot toddy. You get this inside you and it’ll warm the cockles of your heart.’
She stirred and then removed the teaspoon. She offered the glass to Kathy, who held the potion to her nose, inhaling the fumes of hot whisky. She sipped and almost choked on the burning spirit. She could taste the sweetness of the sugar swirling in the bottom of the glass. Gradually her throat accustomed itself to the whisky as it filled her with reassuring warmth.
‘Was it the books, Peg? Is that why Eleanor did it?’
‘Did what, dear?’ Peg asked cautiously.
‘Killed Meredith.’
All of a sudden Peg seemed filled with confusion. She ducked her head, put her knuckles to her mouth, looked this way and that, as if seeking advice from the sisters who were no longer there to give it.
‘Oh,’ she whimpered. Then she gave a long sigh, plucked a dainty handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and pressed it to each eye. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Just tell me,’ Kathy said.
‘The books…’ Peg began slowly, shaking her head. ‘They were only the final straw. Eleanor was so very upset when she discovered that they were gone. But there had been other precious things which Meredith had been taking. At first Eleanor didn’t realize. There was a letter in a frame which she kept in an old suitcase under her bed. One day she noticed that it was gone. Then later, one of her books from the bookcase was missing, and more papers from the suitcase. She was quite beside herself. She even thought she must be going senile and mislaying things, although of course she had the clearest mind of any of us. It wasn’t until she saw the book in Meredith’s flat that she realized that Meredith must have been taking them. When she confronted her, Meredith was quite unabashed.
‘How is your toddy, dear? Do you feel any better?’
‘It’s just fine, Peg. Go on.’ She had nearly finished the drink, and the warmth inside and outside her body was easing her discomfort. Even the stabbing pains in her side had diminished to a steady throb.
‘One can’t really blame Meredith. She just didn’t realize what she was doing. She had become so very worried about money in recent months, and we were very little help to her in that respect. I’m afraid that neither of us was in a wellpaid job, and we didn’t have the superannuation schemes people have now. Over the past ten years our funds had run down almost to nothing. Meredith saw the problem most clearly, and she was under so much pressure, from Terry, and then from the people wanting to buy the house. And then there were the leaks in the roof, and the wiring. I think she must have felt she was having to hold the world together entirely on her own. So when Eleanor accused her of stealing her things, she was quite brazen. She said that she had been forced to do something, and Eleanor should feel pleased to help. In any case, she said, the old things had come from our mother, and really belonged to us all. You see, she just had no idea of the value which Eleanor attached to those things. She had never been interested in the history of our family, and the things which had come down to us.’