by K. J. Frost
She looks up from her watch, but says nothing for a moment, concentrating on her task. Then, after another minute, she rests my hand back on the bed and says, “Yes,” quite simply, before pulling out a thermometer and placing it under my tongue, holding her finger to her lips to indicate I shouldn’t even consider replying to her for the time being. She occupies herself straightening the bedclothes and then takes the thermometer back again. “We’re just keeping an eye on things for a while,” she says, finally giving me an explanation.
“I see.”
“Are you in any pain? she asks.
“Not too much,” I reply. “Did you speak to my mother?”
“Yes,” she says, going to the end of the bed. “She was very relieved to hear that you’re alright. She said your young lady has just gone home to get dressed, but she’ll let her know right away, and they’ll come and visit this afternoon.”
I smile. I can’t help it. Not only is Amelie coming to see me, but I think I can assume that she stayed with Mother and Aunt Dotty last night. I picture her sleeping in the room next to mine, making those delightful snuffling noises, and dreaming of me… I hope.
I don’t know quite how Doctor Gascoigne expected me to get plenty of rest, considering that I don’t seem to have had more than five minutes to myself since I woke up. It’s now eleven in the morning, and I’m relieved to see Harry Thompson walk in the door. Finally, someone I can talk sensibly to.
“I know you wanted to get out of digging your aunt’s garden,” he says, coming around the bed and picking up a chair from the far side of the room, “but don’t you think this is a bit excessive? We volunteered to help already, you know.”
I smile at him as he sits down, facing me. He looks tired. Actually, he looks exhausted. “Are you alright?” I ask him
“Me? Um… I’m not the one who got stabbed, Rufus. I’m fine.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what’s happening,” I say. “Actually, I’ll rephrase that. Tell me what happened.”
“You don’t remember?” He’s surprised.
“Only fragments.” I remember footsteps, pain, fear and darkness. A terrible darkness.
He nods. “I got a call at just after ten last night, from the desk sergeant at Walton Road. He’d tried phoning you, but your mother said you were out.”
“And what did the desk sergeant tell you?” I urge.
“Just that there had been a stabbing outside The Swan.”
“They didn’t tell you it was me? Or more to the point, they didn’t tell my mother that, did they?”
“No. I think the bobbies on the scene had worked it out, but there had been some kind of communication foul up, and the desk sergeant didn’t seem to know who the victim was, which is just as well, considering that he called your mother first.” I couldn’t agree more. “Anyway, by the time I got down there, the ambulance had already taken you off, and that’s when the uniformed constable on the scene told me it was you…” His voice fades. I can sense he’s uncomfortable and know how I would feel in the same situation. My instinct, if it had been him who’d been stabbed, would have been to follow him to the hospital, but at the same time, as a police officer, and probably the most senior officer on the scene at the time, I’d have been aware of having a job to do. I’m certain he felt the same.
“Where was Amelie?” I ask him.
“She’d gone with you in the ambulance. She insisted.” He sits back again, crossing his arms. “I knew there wasn’t much we’d be able to do in the dark, so I got the local boys to cordon off the area and leave a couple of men there. I arranged that they’d question everyone in the pub before letting them go, and then I went to see your mother.”
“Oh.”
He smiles. “She took it better than I thought she might.”
“I’m glad of that, for your sake,” I reply.
“She and your aunt were listening to the wireless when I arrived and, to start with, I think they thought I was looking for you – after the earlier phone call, you know – but once I’d got them to understand the situation, they were very organised and dignified about getting ready. I’d half expected tears and panic, but they just got themselves together and did everything I suggested. Then I brought them here and they sat with Amelie… I mean Miss Cooper.” He corrects himself.
“You can call her Amelie, you know.”
He smiles again. “I telephoned the Chief Constable, because I thought he should know… and he joined us.”
“Joined you?” I query.
He nods. “We sat together in the waiting room until they’d finished your surgery. Then I took your mother, your aunt and Miss… Amelie home.”
“When was that?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Around three-thirty this morning,” he replies.
“Have you had any sleep at all?”
“No. I went back to the station. The Chief Constable had got there himself by then, and he gave me a list of instructions as long as your arm… your good arm, anyway,” he jokes, nodding to my plaster cast. “And by the time we’d done that, it was daybreak and I took a team of men over to The Swan and we started a search.”
“Which turned up precisely nothing?” I guess.
He nods. “Not yet, no. We haven’t finished. I just took half an hour off to come and see you.”
“No-one in the pub saw anything?” I ask.
“No.” He sighs. “And could you remember you’re supposed to be resting?”
At that point, the nurse comes in and gives Thompson a hard stare. “I know, I know.” He holds up his hands and gets to his feet. “I was only supposed to be ten minutes,” he whispers conspiratorially.
“Amelie and my mother are coming in this afternoon,” I tell him.
“I know. I’m going to pick them up later and bring them over.”
“You are?”
“Yes. We arranged it yesterday and your mother confirmed it this morning after she’d heard from the hospital that you were awake.”
“Thanks, Harry,” I say, with considerable feeling.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, glancing over at the nurse who’s now tapping her foot on the floor impatiently, and he takes his leave, before the she actually starts to tut at him.
I’ve managed to get a couple of hours’ sleep. They weren’t consecutive, but at least the nurse isn’t taking my temperature and pulse every fifteen minutes now. She said I was making excellent progress, and is doing it every hour instead. It seems so much more civilised.
As a reward for doing so well – at least it felt like one, anyway – the nurse helped me to sit up just a little. I much prefer that to lying down. It gives one the impression of having made a step forward.
At just after two o’clock, the door opens, and I smile broadly at the sight of Amelie, walking into my room. She’s followed by my mother, and Thompson, but I’m so focused on Amelie, I don’t really notice them.
“Rufus,” she says simply, her bottom lip quivering.
I hate the thought of her being upset, and the sight of her with tears in her eyes, and I just murmur, “Come here.” I hold out my right hand, despite the pain in my side as the stitches in my wound drag slightly, and she comes around the bed, standing beside me, letting me take her hand in mine. “Don’t cry, darling.”
“Oh God, Rufus,” she whispers, staring at me, a tear trickling onto her cheek.
To hell with it. I reach behind her, my hand on her back, and pull her down to me, letting her rest on my chest as she weeps. I stroke her hair, her wet tears pooling on my skin, her body shaking with emotion.
I’ve got no idea how long she stays like that, or how long I hold her for, but eventually she stands again. Her face is streaked with tears and she’s biting her bottom lip, looking embarrassed.
“I was so scared,” she mumbles.
“You think I wasn’t?” I say in reply. “I was terrified they’d hurt you too.”
“I
was fine, Rufus.” She sniffles.
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
I’m aware of movement to my left and then see Thompson pass a handkerchief across the bed to Amelie, who accepts it gratefully.
“You’re nearly as bad as Rufus.” She just about manages a smile as she wipes her eyes.
“No-one’s as bad as Rufus,” he replies.
Keeping hold of Amelie’s hand, I turn to face my mother. She looks worn out. “Are you alright?” I ask her and she nods, just once.
“I’ve never been so frightened in my life,” she replies, her voice a little weak, “but I’m better now.”
Thompson goes out of the room for a minute, returning with a second chair, which he places to my left, and my mother sits down, gratefully. She looks up at him. “Thank you, young man,” she says, with a tired smile.
He moves to the end of the bed and I turn back to Amelie. “You can sit too, if you want to.”
The chair is still beside the bed, where it was earlier and she turns. I sense her reluctance to move away, but she pulls the chair up as close as she can to the side of the bed and sits, clutching my hand once more.
“How are you?” my mother asks and I turn from Amelie’s pale face and look at her.
“I’m not too bad,” I reply, smiling. I’m not being entirely honest, being as I’m in quite a lot of pain still, but I know things could have been worse and I don’t want to worry them any more than they are already by telling them the truth.
Mother eyes me carefully, then shakes her head and I wonder why I bothered trying to disguise how I feel. I never could get much past her.
“Is Dotty alright?” I ask, to deflect her attention.
“She’s fine. She sends her love.” She sits forward. “She’d have come too, but we didn’t want to tire you out.” She stares at me for a long moment. “What happened, Rufus?”
“I’m not altogether sure. I heard footsteps, and then someone seemed to brush against me, and the next thing I knew was the pain in my side… and then the blood.” Amelie grips my hand tighter and I turn to her. “It’s okay,” I whisper, but she just shakes her head slowly.
“There was so much blood,” she whispers. “I didn’t see how you could lose so much and still…” She gulps in a sharp breath. “And still…” She starts to cry again, great sobs wracking through her.
“Come here, Amelie,” I say as firmly as I can manage, because I can’t really move, and she leans closer, resting her head against me. It’s not enough, but I hold onto her as best I can.
“I told you he’d be alright,” my mother says from the other side of the bed, doing her best to sound positive. “Didn’t I?”
Amelie nods her head and looks up, facing my mother across me. “Yes,” she whispers.
“We sat up talking about you,” Mother explains when I turn to look at her. “None of us felt much like going to bed when your sergeant took us home… so Dorothy made us all a drink and we sat up for an hour or so…”
“Talking about me?” I say, feeling somewhat fearful all of a sudden.
“Oh yes,” my mother replies, a smile forming on her lips. “Amelie knows all your secrets now.”
“I doubt that,” Thompson mumbles from the end of the bed and I give him a look which I hope informs him he’d do well to keep quiet. Although he has a point; not even my mother knows everything about me, even though she likes to think she does.
“And you’re still here?” I say, turning back to Amelie.
“Yes.” Her eyes lock with mine and she makes an attempt at a smile. I don’t even want to think what she’s been through in the last few hours, but I know that if our roles were reversed, if I’d had to see her lying in a pool of her own blood, not knowing if she would live or die, if she were the one in hospital, going through surgery, in any kind of pain or danger, I couldn’t cope with it. I couldn’t sit and calmly make conversation. I couldn’t do anything. God… she’s so much stronger than I am.
“Have you had any sleep at all?” I ask.
“Some,” Amelie replies.
“A little,” my mother says at the same time. “Before Amelie went home to get dressed, Dotty telephoned Gordon Templeton this morning and told him what had happened, and arranged with him that he’d call Amelie’s boss… Mr Pickton, is it?”
“Pickford.” Amelie and I speak together, and then smile at each other.
“Yes, Pickford… that’s it,” Mother continues. “We decided Amelie shouldn’t go into work today, but that she should spend the morning quietly with us, and then come here this afternoon, and that Gordon was the best one to break that news to her boss.”
“Is he at home then?” I ask, looking at Amelie. “Your uncle, I mean.”
“No, he’s in London,” she replies.
“But that doesn’t mean he can’t still be useful,” my mother adds. “And then, once Amelie came back from getting dressed, and she and Dotty had settled down to do some sketching in the sunroom, I decided to take my mind off things and get on with something I’ve been meaning to do for a little while now…” There’s an air of mystery to her statement and we all turn to look at her, and I get the impression that even Amelie doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“What was that?” I ask, mainly because I know her better than anyone else, and when my mother starts plotting, it’s usually time for me to be afraid.
She coughs, as though she’s a little embarrassed, which is most unlike her, and then sits forward just fractionally. “I went to see Jacob Snow at Walton Road Garage,” she says quietly.
“Jacob? I thought he retired years ago,” I reply.
She shakes her head. “No, he’s still there.”
I’m surprised. Jacob must be seventy if he’s a day. “Why did you need to see him?”
“Because I wanted to ask a favour of him,” she replies. I recall that, on the very rare occasions that she argued with my father, she used to tease him that Jacob Snow had once held a torch for her. How much truth there was in her assertions, I have no idea, but as a method of getting my father to concede defeat, it always worked. “And he was most accommodating,” she adds.
“Oh… was he?” I reply, loading my comment with just the right amount of innuendo for her to raise her eyebrows at me.
“Yes, he was.” She looks down at her fingernails, then back at me again. “I’ve asked him to find you a new car,” she says.
“You’ve what?” I knew I was right to be afraid. Paying for a new car is the last thing I need at the moment.
“I’ve asked him to find you a new car,” she repeats unnecessarily. “I know how much you loved your old one and… well, I wanted to do something to help.”
“Mother, I can’t afford to buy a new car.” I can, but I’m not going to explain all of that to her, because that would involve telling her my real intentions with regard to Amelie, and while I’m fairly sure she’s worked them out for herself already, I’d like to maintain at least the impression of autonomy in my private life.
“I’m not suggesting you can,” she replies. “I’m going to buy it for you.”
Now I really am stunned into silence. “No,” I say eventually. “No, Mother. That’s too much.”
She shakes her head. “No, it isn’t.” She chuckles. “It took me a while to arrange, though, mainly because I couldn’t remember the make of your car, so Jacob showed me some photographs and I managed to identify it.”
I suddenly feel worried again. “Do you remember what you settled on?” I ask her with trepidation.
“Yes,” she says calmly. “It’s an MG T.” I heave a silent sigh of relief. “He said he can’t guarantee it’ll be in red, but…”
“The colour doesn’t matter, Mother,” I reply.
“Good.” She pauses, and I know there’s more to follow. “He told me they come with a roof and windows too,” she says slowly. “It’s called a ‘drop’ something?”
“A drophead coupé,” I supply.
&nb
sp; “That’s it.” She tilts her head a little. “Much more practical in the long run, don’t you think?”
I laugh, and then stop abruptly, because it hurts. Almost as much as coughing. She’s right, of course. I can’t expect Amelie to be driven around in a car that’s open to the elements. But then, I don’t think I need to worry. Judging from the expression on my mother’s face, I’d say she told Jacob to find me a drophead coupé anyway.
“What’s wrong?” Amelie asks.
“Nothing,” I reply. “Absolutely nothing.”
“So I did the right thing?” my mother says, clasping her hands together excitedly.
“Yes, Mother. Although I still say it’s too much.”
“Then call it an early birthday present.” Her eyes twinkle with mischief.
I feel a slight movement on my right. “When is your birthday?” Amelie asks, and I turn to face her.
“The thirtieth of January,” I tell her and she smiles. “A week after yours.”
“How did you know that?” Her eyes widen in surprise.
“I noticed it in Beth’s diary, when I was searching her room. It’s another one of those pieces of information I sometimes gather during an investigation.” I smile at her.
“But that was the first time you came to the house,” she says slowly.
“I know it was.”
“And you remembered it?” She’s even more surprised.
“Of course.” I hold her gaze. “Even then, I think I knew…”
Her smile widens and her eyes sparkle with something I now know to be love, and after a moment or two, I turn back to my mother. “I still think it’s too much, but I know better than to argue with you… so thank you.”
She stops shy of preening herself, but only just. “Jacob wasn’t certain how long it would take,” she says.
“Well, I don’t think I’ll be needing a car for a while,” I point out, nodding towards my arm.
“No, I don’t suppose you will.”
“And I have a perfectly adequate driver in the meantime.” I look up at Thompson, who’s still standing at the end of the bed.
“Adequate?” he scoffs.
“Okay… satisfactory then.”
