In the Still of the Night

by Charlotte Lamb

  Harriet watched her curiously and, becoming aware of her gaze, Annie pulled herself together. ‘Well, sleep well. Goodnight, Harriet.’

  The door closed behind her and Harriet got undressed, thinking about Annie and what she had learnt about her tonight. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t heard it from Annie herself. People were so unpredictable – you thought you knew them and then, Wham! something like that hit you out of the blue.

  She was asleep within about ten minutes of climbing into bed, exhausted by the events of the day, but Annie lay awake, unable to sleep, agonising over the baby, wishing to God she had never given in to her mother’s insistence. Trudie shouldn’t have pressured her into it. She shouldn’t have listened. Trudie was stronger than she was, that was the trouble. She always had been; all her life she had done what her mother wanted her to do, and she sometimes resented it, even when she was grateful for Trudie’s support and belief in her. She knew her mother loved her, and she loved Trudie. But how could Trudie have been so cruel as to send Johnny away when he was in such terrible trouble?

  She groaned then put a hand over her mouth in case Harriet heard her. Oh, Johnny, she thought – how could she tell him about the baby … his baby … no, their baby? Oh, God, he’d never forgive her. She knew Johnny would have wanted that child. She would have wanted it, too. She wished she hadn’t listened to her mother. If only … she hated those words. If only. If only.

  She had half hoped he would ring her tonight. That was why she had given him her number.

  Why hadn’t he rung her? Had he met someone else now? Was he living with someone?

  No, he said he’d just got out of prison. He wouldn’t have had time to meet anyone else. Why hadn’t he rung? She had thought he would, had been sure he would want to see her again.

  Her mind was like a white mouse on a wheel in a tiny cage. Round and round it went, in frantic circles. Her mother. Johnny. The baby. Derek. The bootee with that splash of blood, oh, God, and she had touched it, got the blood on her skin. How could Derek have done that?

  She felt like screaming, but that would bring Harriet out, watching her with that quiet curiosity – she couldn’t bear that.

  She had to get up, she had to do something. Go for a walk. Get some fresh air, some exercise. Tire her body out and stop her mind.

  Annie slid out of the bed, shivered in the bitter night air, dressing quickly.

  Derek Fenn was in the bar across the street from the studio. He had been on a pub crawl and ended up there, minus a tie, his face flushed and his hair shiny with sweat.

  ‘Let me call a taxi for you, Mr Fenn,’ the landlord said politely, when he yelled for another whisky. ‘Closing time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Another bloody whisky!’ Derek snarled.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Fenn, no can do. Why don’t you be a sensible chap, go home and sleep it off?’

  Derek said something crude.

  The barman walked away to keep his temper.

  Derek banged on the small round bar table with his empty glass and roared after him. ‘Get me another effing drink!’

  The bar was crowded, people stared; he looked round at all the faces and sneered. ‘What’re you all staring at?’

  A woman halted next to the table and Derek sat, staring at the long, slim legs, the short skirt, the well-filled sweater.

  ‘Hallo, darling, looking for me?’ His eyes rose and he saw the face; took in blue eyes, a pink-lipsticked mouth, short, soft, light hair.

  ‘Annie?’ He was confused, frowned, trying to see her clearly. Was it Annie? What on earth would Annie be doing here? ‘Is it … is that you, Annie?’ He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t even see straight, come to that; maybe, after all, he had drunk too much. Oh, hell, what did it matter? You’re dead soon enough, and life was pretty depressing. Why not choose the way you go? He made a gesture across his face as if brushing cobwebs or tears away. ‘Well, well,’ he thickly muttered. ‘Nice of you to join me. Are you my Fairy Godmother tonight? Sit down, sweetie, let me buy you a drink.’

  The barman turned round. ‘Not in here, you don’t.’ He stared at the woman, frowning at something about her that tugged at his memory. Where had he seen her before? But then they often got famous faces in here, he’d lost count of the number of stars who had drunk in his bar, and she was standing in profile, he couldn’t get a clear view of her. ‘Look, lady, if you know him, take him away. He’s had a skinful and he isn’t getting any more drinks in here tonight. Sorry, but I draw the line at serving a man who can barely see.’

  He didn’t hear what she said to Derek Fenn, but a minute later the two of them had gone.

  When he left Annie’s house, Sean drove straight to Derek Fenn’s flat, but there was no answer to his insistent ringing on the doorbell. He stood outside on the pavement, staring up, but the windows were dark.

  Sean thought of sitting outside in his car, but Derek might be out all night, so he went home and rang Tom Moor, once, long ago, his partner in the City of London police force and now working as a private detective on the same patch, but more profitably since he had begun acting for merchant banks and insurance companies on very different work to the purely criminal activities he had investigated as a policeman.

  Tom’s wife Cherie answered sleepily. ‘You’re kidding, Sean! It’s late, man; don’t you sleep at nights any more? Anyone would think you were still a copper.’

  ‘Sorry, love.’ He looked at his watch and made a private face. ‘If I had a wife like you I might be in bed at ten o’clock, but I’m a miserable bachelor with nothing to keep me warm at night but a hot-water bottle. You should feel sorry for me, not shout at me.’

  ‘Oh, you poor little dear,’ she crooned with mock pity, then snappily added, ‘Come off it, you don’t get the sympathy vote from me, Sean. A lot of ladies would queue up to fill your bed, so cut the tears. Just don’t keep Tom long, OK? We have better things to do at night than chat to you.’

  ‘Lucky Tom,’ Sean teased, but it wasn’t Cherie who answered, it was Tom’s puzzled voice.

  ‘Lucky, why? Is that sarcasm? A bit late at night for that, Sean. You know me, I put my brain in a glass at bedtime. What do you want? You just ruined our bedtime cocoa.’

  ‘That’s a new name for it. But sorry about that, Tom, I won’t keep you – I just wanted to know how you were getting on with that enquiry?’

  ‘Haven’t set eyes on him yet, but we’re turning over every stone. I’ve done all the usual: checking phone books across London, credit agencies, electoral rolls. His name hasn’t shown up for years. If his ex-wife knows where he is, she isn’t seeing him and she’s not grieving. She’s out all the time, she certainly believes in putting it about. She has more men than a dog has fleas; I’ve spotted her with three in a row. In fact, she’s out tonight. I’ve got a guy on her tail. I’ll tell you what I turn up. Sooner or later she may lead us to him, but don’t keep your hopes up.’

  ‘Just a tip, Tom – have you tried repertory theatres? He’s an actor; he might have gone back to that. Try the various theatre agents, too; he might be on someone’s books. Well, thanks, Tom, I’ll let you go back to Cherie now – give her a kiss for me.’

  ‘Give it to her yourself when you see her,’ Tom said, chuckling. ‘Get yourself a good woman too, and then maybe you’ll sleep in your own bed at night, like a Christian. Come round to dinner soon, man; we haven’t done that for an age. Cherie worries about you; says you don’t eat enough.’

  ‘If she promises to make her sweet-potato pie I’ll be there!’ promised Sean, hanging up.

  Derek stumbled across the littered sitting-room in his flat and opened a drinks cabinet, got out a half-empty bottle of whisky, looked around for glasses.

  ‘Siddown, darlin,’ he grunted, lurching into the tiny kitchenette.

  He came back with two smeared glasses and set them down on his coffee table with a crash.

  ‘There y’re. Say when.’ He poured, swaying; sat down on the couch and then focused
on his companion. ‘Oh, oh, in a hurry, aren’t we?’ He licked his lips, watching as one long leg was crossed over another, then the scarlet-nailed hands slowly began unpeeling delicate black tights.

  ‘Can’t wait, eh?’ Derek breathed thickly. He was aroused, excited, although he had a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to perform; he never could when he was really drunk, but what the hell, he thought, he’d die trying. ‘Striptease, eh?’ he muttered. ‘Striptease, lovely, I’ll play.’ He had already thrown off his jacket, now he undid his shirt and took it off, aware that she had stopped undressing and was watching him. He unzipped his trousers. ‘This what you want, baby?’ He wriggled out of them and kicked them away across the room. ‘Off, off, ye lendings …’ His briefs followed them; he was naked, and he leered at her. ‘Com’on, baby, let’s do it.’ He tried to get up but swayed, fell back. ‘Dammit.’ He began to laugh, sprawled on the couch. ‘Stupid. Can’t … can’t seem to … get up.’ He held out his arms. ‘Don … worry … I’ll get it up OK, come here, baby, let’s do it here, why not?’ He sat up and then blinked because the room seemed to be empty, she had gone.

  For a second he wondered if he had imagined her. Something about it was dreamlike, a crazy, erotic dream. He’d had those before when he had been drinking, or snorting coke. Harems of women dancing naked in front of him, and him able to do it to all of them.

  ‘Where’ve yer gone, baby?’ he mumbled gloomily. He heard sounds behind him and tilted his head to look backwards. ‘Oooh, there y’are. Wha … wha’yer doing there?’

  She bent over him; he stupidly stared up at her. ‘Wha … wharra y’doing?’

  His eyes bulged.

  He made thick, choking sounds; tried to speak, tried to scream, grabbing for her hands, trying to loosen the black snake coiling around his neck.

  His legs writhed, flew upward, kicking; the glasses went, whisky splashing everywhere, on the table, on the carpet, on the couch. The bottle went, too; lay on the floor, pumping out whisky, which sank into the carpet, a brown stain spreading.

  The long ward was still dark although outside the sky was filling with pale spring light. The maze of endless corridors and wards smelt of disinfectant and stale human flesh, but there was a wild scent in the air from the bathrooms adjacent to the ward; they were like a flowershop at night, crowded with vases of flowers put there overnight and brought back in the morning; daffodils and hyacinth, pure virginal white narcissus. The ward sister had a mania about flowers using up the oxygen during the night while patients slept.

  Trudie was often awake at night; she slept during the day, doped up to the eyeballs. They had caught on to her pill-hiding and were giving her injections; she couldn’t avoid taking them, couldn’t pretend she had swallowed and then spit the pill out when nobody was looking, or hide drugs in her toilet bag where Cinders had found them before now.

  A white-capped figure slowly trod along the aisle between the beds and paused beside Trudie; watched her pale, worn face, the parted lips breathing rustily, a little hair on her upper lip breathing in and out.

  Trudie’s face seemed to be falling in on her bones, her flesh melting like candle wax, running and sinking into nothing. Even her hair had grown so thin it was as if it was being pulled back inside her scalp, hair by hair. She would be bald if it went on much longer.

  There was so little of her left. Death would come as a kind release.

  She stirred as if the intent gaze had penetrated her sleep and opened her eyes.

  Fear lit them immediately. ‘Who are you?’ She shrank back against the pillows. ‘What do you want?’ Her sunken eyes looked from side to side around the silent ward. ‘Where am I? Where am I? What am I doing here? I don’t like this place, I want to go home.’

  The nurse was carrying a white plastic kidney dish; Trudie looked at it and saw a hypodermic glisten in the half-light.

  ‘No, I’m not having that!’ she burst out. ‘I hate injections, I won’t have it, get away from me.’ She would have scrambled out of bed and fled, but she couldn’t move, her broken hip was agonising if she shifted an inch.

  The nurse ignored her, rapidly threw back the bedclothes, pushed up the white hospital nightdress, baring Trudie’s thigh; the needle went in and the old woman gave a cry of pain.

  ‘That hurt!’

  Without replying, the nurse walked off down the ward, rubber soles squeaking on the floor; Trudie watched the white uniform vanish, swearing under her breath.

  Seconds later she clutched at her chest, gasping, her lips blue and her eyes rolling in her head.

  Annie walked and walked, through the sleeping, secret streets of London, under street-lamps making yellow circles in the dark, and trees still bare and black, except where you saw a silver coin of a moon spinning through the sky above, passing in and out of the clouds. Few cars passed her and there was almost nobody else on foot in the streets tonight. She tried not to think but her brain was running like an overheated engine. Johnny had come back. She still didn’t know how she felt about that. She had spent years wondering what had happened to Johnny, grieving for him, missing him, and now that he had returned she couldn’t make up her mind about her feelings towards him.

  He had changed so much. It wasn’t Johnny who had come back. Not surprising when you thought about where he had been. She still couldn’t believe it. It would never have occurred to her that he might be in prison all that time. Johnny! Attacking a policeman? Nearly killing the man? She still found it hard to believe.

  In another way, though, he hadn’t changed at all; she could trace the sensitive, emotional boy she had loved in the man’s hard features, in those dark blue eyes. Johnny had been driven nearly mad by what she told him that night; he’d hit that policeman in a fit of rage and he had suffered a terrible punishment.

  She paused, exhausted and shivering in the cold night wind. Only then becoming aware how cold she was, she ducked into an empty bus shelter and sank gratefully down on a metal seat for a few minutes.

  She didn’t feel up to walking all the way back home, but while she was trying to decide whether or not to phone for a taxi she saw an early-morning bus lumbering towards her along the road.

  It was almost empty except for a sprinkling of workmen on their way to start their day, and nightworkers going home after a long shift. Annie had a few pound coins in her jacket pocket. She paid the fare to a stop only a short walk from her home and within twenty minutes she was safely back indoors.

  As she shut the door Harriet appeared from the kitchen, wild-eyed, her face drawn with anxiety.

  She stared, breaking out hoarsely, ‘Oh, my God, Annie, where on earth have you been? I was just going to ring the police, I’ve already rung Sean …’

  ‘You shouldn’t have!’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t at home, anyway. I only got his answerphone, I left a message.’

  ‘Oh, Harriet! Why did you do that? He’ll come racing round here thinking God knows what.’

  ‘Well, you scared me out of my wits! There was a cat fight out in the garden, they were hissing and shrieking at each other and they woke me up, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up to make myself some cocoa, then as I went downstairs I noticed your bedroom door wide open and no sign of you. I ransacked the house looking for you, and realised you had actually gone out. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to think – someone could have got in and kidnapped you, forced you to go with him … I didn’t know, did I? You half-scared me to death. Where have you been at this hour?’

  ‘Walking,’ Annie said on a sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Harriet, I just couldn’t sleep, I walked myself tired.’

  ‘You must be crazy, going out alone in the middle of the night – anything could have happened to you!’

  ‘Well, it didn’t, I’m OK, and now I’m going to get some sleep.’

  ‘It’s past midnight, your car will be here soon, and you’ll be fit for nothing. Honestly, Annie, I could kill you.’

  The phone began to ri
ng. Annie groaned.

  ‘That will be Sean returning your call! Well, you can talk to him. Explain it was all a storm in a teacup, I’m fine and he can go back to bed.’

  Harriet lifted the phone. ‘Sean, I’m sorry,’ she began, and then stopped, listening. ‘Oh, yes, she’s here, hang on.’ She stopped again, listening, her face changing. ‘I see. Yes, maybe. Right, I’ll break it to her. Thank you for ringing. Goodbye.’

  Annie was frozen on the bottom stair, her face turned towards the telephone.

  ‘What?’ she whispered, a premonition shivering through her.

  ‘That was the hospital,’ Harriet slowly told her, watching her with concern.

  Annie had known it. ‘My mother. My mother’s dead, isn’t she?’ She was white to her hairline.

  ‘No, no,’ Harriet reassured her hurriedly. ‘But she had some sort of crisis a little while ago – they aren’t sure yet what happened, or they aren’t admitting it, I got the distinct feeling there was something the sister wasn’t saying. It seems …’ She paused, biting her lower lip as if unsure how to put it. ‘Well, Annie, your mother’s heart stopped.’

  Annie whispered, ‘Stopped … but you said she isn’t dead?’

  Harriet put an arm round her, soothed, ‘Now, don’t get upset, Annie, it isn’t as bad as it sounds, they started it again – and the sister said it has steadied a good deal, your mother’s going to pull through. She’s under sedation again, but if you want to visit her you can and the ward sister said she would be in touch immediately if there was any change.’

  Annie sank down on the bottom stair and covered her face with both her hands, groaning. ‘My whole life is falling to pieces … it’s just one thing after another. I’m scared stiff, Harriet. What is happening to me?’

  7

  Annie slept deeply for six hours, her body worn out and her disturbed mind quietened by some sleeping pills Harriet had made her take. She woke up when she heard Harriet in the bathroom, showering. Annie rolled over to look at her clock and groaned.