He held me in his arms at last, wrapped me in his solid warmth. And at last I could close my eyes and rest because I had reached the end and come home.
Chapter Thirty-two
It didn’t feel good to be dead, not the way it should have done. There were bits of me that hurt and bits of me that felt sticky and bits that were bent in different directions and there was something over my face and there was an insistent electric noise that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. Everything was dim and far away and becoming dimmer. I felt something from outside and there were presences close to me and hands on me, voices. I was being roughly handled. Didn’t they know I was fragile? That I was broken inside? I tried to protest that I wanted to be left alone so I could sleep, but something was forced into my mouth and I couldn’t speak. I felt cold air on my skin and then I was inside once more and I felt jostling. Something was shouted in my ear that I couldn’t recognize, and then I did recognize it. It was my name. How did they know? And then I sank without fear or regret into darkness. Not sleep but a state of non-being with no dreams, no thoughts.
I didn’t wake up from that nothingness. I gradually found myself in an existence of feverish semi-sleep in which I sometimes saw faces around me, flickering and unsteady, like candle flames. Some were familiar: Mary, Fergus, Gwen. I tried to say sorry about her car but my mouth was full and the words wouldn’t come. Once my eyes opened to see a policeman looming over me. It took an effort to put a name to the face. Ramsay. At first I wasn’t sure if he was real. I mumbled things to him and when he had gone I couldn’t remember what I had said.
The sign of my gradual return to life, to reality, was that I started to hurt in almost every part of my body. In that period when I could still barely tell night from day, sleep from wakefulness, a doctor came and sat by my bed and talked to me slowly and patiently. He talked about fractures and rib damage and a punctured spleen and operations and about gradual recovery and patience and determination. When he had finished he paused as if he was waiting for me to ask some question. It took an enormous effort.
‘Joe,’ I said.
‘What?’ said the doctor.
‘In the car,’ I said.
His expression changed to one of professional sadness. He started talking about how they had tried to revive him and how, unfortunately, they hadn’t succeeded and how they had been waiting until I was strong enough to bear the shock.
One morning I felt for the first time that I was really waking up and that I wasn’t stuck somewhere on the brink of unconsciousness. Over by the window a man was standing, looking out. I could only see his silhouette against the brightness of the sky. When he turned and I saw that it was Silvio, I was so surprised it made me feel dizzy and tired.
‘It’s an amazing view.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I said.
He walked over to the bed. ‘I brought you flowers but they didn’t let me bring them in. They think they’re some kind of risk. I don’t know whether it’s because they spread disease or the nurses don’t want them around. Or maybe they just want to take them home themselves.’
‘Thanks for the thought.’
‘I gave them away and then I went round the corner and bought some blueberries and strawberries. I don’t know if you like that sort of thing.’
‘I do.’
‘I’ll put them on something.’ He lifted the cover off a plate on the table by my bed. ‘What’s this?’
‘I think it’s my lunch.’
‘Grey sludge.’
‘There’s some fish under it.’
I felt the weight of him on the bed as he sat on the edge and offered me the blueberries. I took a couple, put them into my mouth and chewed, feeling them burst against my tongue. ‘Lovely,’ I said.
‘Healthy,’ said Silvio. ‘Someone told me that if you have a handful of them every day, you’ll never get cancer. Or anything else.’
‘Can you give me some water?’ I said. ‘There’s a jug over there.’
He poured it into a plastic cup. I took a couple of sips. It was warm and tasted stale. I drank it all anyway and handed the cup back to Silvio.
‘Do you know everything?’ said Silvio.
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘But you know about the guy in the car with you?’
‘He died.’
‘The police said you were lucky to survive. It was in the papers. I saw a photo of the car. I don’t know how you walked out of that one.’
‘I didn’t walk out of it. How did you find out where I was?’
‘I just did what you’ve been doing,’ said Silvio. ‘Detective work.’
‘I didn’t do any detective work,’ I said. ‘Mainly I found out things by mistake.’
‘You’re like one of those women scientists.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’ve been studying history of science at school. There are these women scientists, they do all the research and the important experiments and at the end the guys come in and make the final discovery and get all the credit.’
‘What discovery?’
‘You’ve been going around stirring everything up, causing trouble.’
‘You could say that. What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Are you all right?’
He looked embarrassed; he flushed and turned to stare at the view again. ‘Yeah. I guess.’
‘I’m sorry about everything.’
‘Thanks,’ he muttered.
‘Have a blueberry.’
He popped several into his mouth. One split on his lip, leaving a dark stain. He looked about ten, angry, ashamed and full of confusion. Milena had certainly left her mark on the world she’d left behind.
Detective Chief Inspector Ramsay came to see me one more time. ‘You were lucky to survive that crash,’ he said.
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘You were wearing a seatbelt,’ he said, ‘but Mr Foreman wasn’t. I suppose there’s a moral there.’
‘I’m glad there’s one somewhere. So, is the inquiry over?’
‘More or less.’
I forced myself to think. My mind felt so slow. ‘He must have had help,’ I said. ‘Who collected the docket from the firm of solicitors? The woman who said she was me. It was Tania, wasn’t it?’
‘We’ve interviewed Miss Lucas.’
‘Did she confess?’
‘Confess?’ said Ramsay. ‘She admitted carrying out certain tasks on his behalf.’
‘Criminal tasks.’
‘She claims she had no suspicion of anything criminal.’
‘She was pretending to be me.’
‘She said that must have been a misunderstanding.’
‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘They were sleeping together, you know.’
Ramsay coughed. ‘I’ve no evidence of that,’ he said, ‘not that it would be relevant. Except possibly to show she was in thrall to him.’
‘In thrall?’ I said. ‘You mean she’s a weak woman? So she’s not to be charged with being an accomplice to murder, interfering with the course of justice?’
‘We’ve got a file but we’re not sure there’s a reasonable chance of a conviction.’
‘What about the company?’
‘It’s currently in administration, pending investigation of certain irregularities.’
‘You mean Joe was stealing from his clients. That he was up to his neck in it.’
‘That has been suggested,’ said Ramsay.
‘And presumably Tania knew nothing about that either.’
Ramsay shrugged instead of replying. That was his reply.