I lifted my arms and saw the swollen fingers and the purple and green discolouration.
Cassells looked distraught. “This is too bad, too damn bad! Look, Daniel, I’m not having this. I’m going to press charges on your behalf, even if you did put up a bit of resistance, eh? No need for this level of response. Dammit.” He was genuinely angry. I was almost touched.
“It’s a waste of time, Gerald. My word against theirs. But just to make it clear: I didn’t resist arrest. I got beat up. There’s a certain evil sod who’s got it in for me. In fact, it’s probably not just me. He’s just plain rotten.”
He looked at me intently. “Wilson the name? Detective Inspector Wilson? Big chap?”
“That’s the man.”
Cassells smiled. “Nasty bit of work. Wanted to see your file. Told him not a chance. Security and all that. But tell you what, you might not have been resisting arrest, but someone gave him a super black eye and bloody nose. Good for you, old man.”
I wondered if my wee bit of retaliation had been worth it, and whether I’d still have intact ribs if I hadn’t had a go. But then I was certain… I was bloody glad I’d fought back, no matter how feebly. There was no chance before, in that other cell. It had left me feeling ashamed. That I’d become someone who lets folk do what they like to me. So it was a small grim satisfaction to have landed a couple on Wilson, no matter the cost.
They let me out in a couple of days. I was stiff and sore and looked like an early piece of work by Frankenstein, but I could walk and move about pretty well. Bending or lifting was hard even with my ribs tightly bandaged. I had to stop a couple of times on the way up my stairs. It was on the last landing below mine that I heard her call out from above me.
“Thank god! Oh, Danny, where have you been? What have they done to you?” Val sailed down the stairs to me, her spindly limbs flying, and would have hugged me, I’m sure, if I hadn’t warned her back, pointing to my chest.
“I’m fine. Just a bit bruised round the ribs. So no jiving for a while.” I grinned at her flushed cheeks and her wayward hair.
“Your poor face! Look at your poor face!”
“You mean I’ve lost my good looks?”
She led the way to my room as if she was clearing a minefield; opening doors, moving a chair. She made me sit in the broken old chair while she fussed and made tea and put the fire on. Now I knew how my Dad felt after a day down the pit. Val sat on the rug in front of the fire and tucked her legs under her in an impossible contortion.
“Right. I’m listening. You tell me every little thing that’s happened. And none of your manly keeping it all to yourself, mind. I want all the details.”
I told her. I told her nearly everything. But I didn’t, couldn’t, tell her about the accusation of murder in my files. I didn’t want her to fear me, or loathe me. I was managing that pretty well myself.
She asked questions at first but grew silent as I told her of Wilson and how it had brought back the memories of the Gestapo. She drew her knees up under her chin and hugged them to her, and gradually she buried her face in her knees, as though she couldn’t bear to hear any more. All I could see was the mass of her hair tumbling over her bony knees. I stopped and let the quiet envelop us.
Outside it was getting dark, but already I noticed that the light was fading later each day as the year edged forward. But there was a long winter still ahead. I stopped. She raised her face and looked at me seriously.
“What’s wrong, Danny? What did you find in your file?”
Her dark eyes knifed through me. How in god’s name could I tell her? But her frank gaze held mine and wouldn’t let go until I did.
“I need a Scotch.” I retrieved it from my desk and poured a couple of fingers.
After a big slug I looked into the fire and told her the rest. She kept her gaze on me until I ran out of words. I didn’t try to fudge it. No point protesting my innocence. I didn’t feel innocent. The silence hung for a while. I was scared to look at her.
“Do you think you did it?” she asked matter-of-factly.
I turned my face to her. “I don’t know, Val. I just don’t know. That’s the god’s honest truth.”
“Do you think you’re capable of it?”
That made me pause. “No. I like girls. Always have.” I smiled ruefully. “But I don’t like being messed around…”
“Do you hit women who mess you around?”
“No! Once. I’m not proud of it. But a slap in anger is a long way from sticking a blade in someone. Isn’t it?”
Was it? Always, always there’s the naked body with the hole punched in the back of her head and a red pool around her like a bloody halo. And I’m standing holding a bloody blade… I cut off the image, scared what else I might see.
“Do I mess you around?”
“God, no! Don’t even think it! You’re different. Not like other girls. But I don’t mind that. I like seeing you. I’m happy that we’re pals. I’d like it if we were something… more. But we know where we stand, don’t we? Or where we stood,”
I added with a hint of desperation.
“Nothing’s changed. ’Cos I don’t believe it,” she said defiantly.
A wave of relief swept over me, but it was only temporary. I shook my head. “I can’t prove it. Not with Caldwell dead. I can’t very well go back to France and poke around, can I?”
She shook her head. “You can and maybe you should. But shouldn’t you see your trick cyclist first? “My…? Oh right. I’m due for my monthly session anyway in a couple of days.” Then I stopped.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m scared, Val. Really scared. What if I tell him and he thinks I might have done it?”
She was quite firm. “You didn’t. That’s all. So go see him. And in the meantime, I’m going to look after you till you’re properly on your feet. And then…”
“Then?”
“Then I think you need to ask Miss Kate Toffee-nose for an explanation. What were Caldwell and her up to, that’s what I want to know?” “Me too, Valerie. Me too.”
FOURTEEN
Val came and went. I was mobile but stiff and it was good to have company. Apart from her and the cat, I only had visits from Mrs White who muttered and mumbled to herself as she took my dirty clothes away and returned them clean and pressed within an inch of their lives. She affected not to see Val, having on more than occasion voiced her thoughts on post-war morality and boys and girls living up with each other without the blessing of a minister on their union.
We just talked, Val and me. I told her how my mother used to read to me and my dad some evenings, her soft low voice making pictures in my head, and how it had started me off. That was it; Val wouldn’t rest till she had me reading to her.
We raided the Camberwell Green library. I gave her stories of Africa from Rider Haggard and tales of spies and British bravery from John Buchan. And I sent her mind flying high with notions of time travel from H G Wells. Sitting there, in front of a flickering fire, with her curled up on the rug, big-eyed like a child, I felt a contentment so rare that at times my voice caught and I had to hide behind a swig of whisky.
She came with me to the hospital to get the stitches out of my face, and lied when she told me how much better I looked. She left me each night and came back each morning for four days, until the day of my monthly trip to see Doctor Thompson.
The peace and calm Val had induced in me lasted for most of the train journey to the hospital. I’d begun to enjoy these trips when the Doc told me they wouldn’t be doing any more shock therapy. Now they seemed like wee holidays and Doc Thompson usually helped me see things better, get things in perspective. But by the time I got to Didcot, Caldwell’s written accusations were haunting me. I was in a blue funk and thinking seriously about catching the next train straight back. But the taxi was waiting, so I climbed in and sat jolting in the back as we made our way into the cold grey hills around Cirencester.