by Jo Bannister
She had a hand on the back of her seat, ready to rise. She looked up - at the ceiling, at nothing - blinking away tears. Her other hand was on the edge of the bed.
A cool touch made her start almost out of the chair, banged her heart against the inside of her ribs and drove a wordless gasp between her teeth. Brodie looked down in alarm; but there was nothing to be afraid of. Daniel Hood’s slender hand, the one with the canula taped into the back, had crept over her own, lay cupped over her knuckles, the grip of his fingers as frail and stubborn as for twenty-four hours his hold on life had been.
Brodie tore her gaze away from his hand and looked at his face. His cheeks were still pale, his lips bloodless. But his eyes were open. Pale grey except where the whites were muddied with blood, half-hooded as if the effort of opening them wide had defeated him, uncertain and unquiet, they found Brodie’s face and fastened on it like a child clinging to its mother’s skirts.
A breath of a voice lay on his lips. “Please,” whispered Daniel Hood. “I don’t know where I am.”
Chapter 5
Brodie went on staring, more in horror than delight. She’d come here, opened her heart to him, in the belief that his physical presence was all she’d have to deal with. Confessing to an unconscious man hadn’t offered the catharsis she’d sought but it was all she was prepared for. If she’d known he was awake she wouldn’t have come; if she’d known he was about to wake she wouldn’t have stayed. Now she was trying desperately to remember how much she’d said, how much of that he might have heard.
Daniel Hood woke in a place he’d never seen before, surrounded by instruments he couldn’t identify, under the appalled gaze of a woman he didn’t recognise. It was an unreassuring renaissance for a man who’d lived a terror and died in blood. White lips in the white face trembled. “Please …”
With a jerk like slapping her own face Brodie pulled herself together. Whatever her regrets, right now his needs took precedence. “You’re in hospital,” she explained quietly. “You were hurt but you’re getting better. Everything’s going to be all right.” Which was a little sweeping but kinder than the unexpurgated version.
“Who are you?”
She hesitated a moment. But her name was the least of what she owed him. “Brodie Farrell. We haven’t met before. I came to see how you were.” She smiled carefully. “You look better than you did this morning.”
Daniel was getting left behind. “Hospital?”
Brodie nodded, wondering how far this was going to go, how much she’d have to tell him. She wouldn’t lie to him, but in the pit of her soul she was praying she wouldn’t have to tell him the truth. Let Deacon do that; let a doctor, let a priest. Not her. Let her not have to watch his face as she told him what had been done to him, and whose fault it was.
“You’ve been here a couple of days. You’re on the mend now. Are you in pain? - shall I call the nurse?”
He had to think about that for a moment, then he shook his head. Or rather, lacking the strength to lift it, turned it on his pillow. The fair hair made a halo around his face. His lips moved again. “My chest …”
“Yes. You were -” She hesitated. She wasn’t sure she should tell him. But he was bound to find out sooner or later, and evading his questions could only increase his anxiety. “You were shot. But you’re on the mend now. Listen, it’s late. Go back to sleep. You’ll feel stronger tomorrow. Someone will tell you the whole story tomorrow.”
Even this abridged version was more information than Daniel could take in. “Shot?”
Brodie looked at her trapped hand, aching to be free. There wasn’t enough strength in his fingers to hold a butterfly against its will. But to pull away would be to take advantage of what had been done to him, and she would not benefit from the actions of his tormentors even to that degree. She suffered his touch to keep her there. Raising her other hand she dropped a featherweight fingertip to the dressing on the left side of his chest. “There. Don’t worry, it’ll heal before you know it. You’re sure you don’t want the nurse?”
“I feel - strange.”
“You’ve been unconscious. The best thing you can do is sleep it off.”
But he was afraid of sleeping, aware at an instinctive level that the last time he went down that road he’d had trouble getting back. His brow creased, the grey eyes anxious. “No. I need -” His breath was coming quicker, ragged in his throat. “I need to know what happened.”
The easy thing would be to call Deacon, make him wait till the policeman arrived. But if Brodie Farrell didn’t consider herself a brave person she had too much pride to be a coward. If he needed to know she would tell him. “Where shall I start? What do you remember?”
He tried to think, to make sense of the snap-shot images twisting in his mind like dust motes at a window, now bright, now gone. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Or -” His eyes flew wide, galvanised by flashback. “God! Was that real? A dream?”
She could have fobbed him off, agreed it was probably a bad dream. But she’d have left here feeling like a worm. She folded her free hand over the top of his. “I’m afraid not. Daniel, I can’t tell you everything, there’s still so much we don’t understand. We’re hoping you’ll be able to tell us what it was all about. But what happened is” - she took a deep breath - “someone hurt you. Burned you. Then they shot you and left you for dead. I’m sorry.”
His eyes had filled with tears and he was gently nodding. “I remember. Dear God! - I thought I dreamt it. I thought it was a bad dream and I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t move. And it went on and on …”
She tightened her hand on his, ashamed of her inadequacy. She knew that what he needed was what Paddy needed when the night terrors came: holding, hugging. Partly concern for his injuries, but more a fear of trading on his ignorance when she knew the link between them and he didn’t, made her reluctant to offer any more than her hand and a banal reassurance. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”
But Daniel didn’t feel safe. Even unconsciousness had been scant defence: awake he felt his vulnerability eating at him like acid. If the dreams were real, waking was no respite. “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Who were they? Why would anyone do that to me?”
Brodie bit her lip. In her heart, and in her head, she knew that Selma Doyle wasn’t real and probably nothing she had said had been real either. But while any possibility remained that a genuine grievance lay behind the atrocity, that Daniel Hood had in some measure contributed to his own tragedy, Brodie would not entirely give up hope. If he was only a little guilty then she was a little less so. “Something to do with a racehorse?”
She knew, before he said a word, from the bewilderment in his eyes, that that last hope was illusory. Whoever tortured him, it wasn’t a vengeful woman from whom he’d stolen more than her money. It was all a lie.
“What racehorse?” he mumbled.
Brodie shook her head and tried to smile. “It was just a thought. I don’t know why. The police are looking into it. They’ll get you some answers.”
His meagre strength was failing, the bruised lids drooping over his eyes. He wasn’t taking in what she was saying. “Who did you say you are?”
She told him again. He nodded, but she knew he wouldn’t remember. There was no point trying to explain further, he couldn’t stay with her long enough. She’d have to leave it to Deacon or whoever spoke to him next. She squeezed his hand. “Just remember you’re safe now. Nobody can hurt you any more.”
He was already asleep. She slipped out of his grasp, careful not to rouse him, but then stayed a moment longer looking down at him. It was an odd sensation, watching a stranger sleep. Lovers apart, generally you only ever see other adults when they’re awake and vertical. Unaware of her scrutiny, fragile and dependent, Daniel Hood looked like an exhausted child.
Brodie waited until the nurse returned and explained what had happened. Then she went home. She wasn’t sure what her visit had achieved. But she slept, and no nightmares came.
>
Jack Deacon got the message as soon as he arrived at his office the next morning. He didn’t take off his coat: he went straight round to the hospital.
He found Daniel Hood, propped up on pillows, studying the marks on his body as though he might read there the story of his misadventure. He looked pale and weak, but it was clear that he was going to live. He was going to talk.
Deacon introduced himself, curt in his impatience. He thought he was seconds away from understanding, perhaps only minutes from a resolution.
So Daniel’s first words came as a bitter disappointment. “Can you tell me why?”
Deacon shook off his raincoat, pulled up the chair. He studied the young man’s face, looking for signs of dissemblance, but there were none. Daniel was watching him as intently as he was watching Daniel, waiting for an answer. Never mind, Deacon told himself, this was only the start. This time yesterday he hadn’t known if the boy would recover. It was too soon to expect a full and rational account from him. “How much do you remember?”
“Inspector, I remember everything.” Daniel’s voice wavered. His hands, rigid at his sides, were knotted in tight white fists. “Everything that happened. They asked me questions, and they hurt me when I didn’t know the answers. But I don’t know who and I don’t know why.”
“What questions?”
“Where is she?”
Deacon blinked. “Who?”
“That’s what they asked: where is she? Where have you taken her? I said, I don’t know who you mean, and they hurt me.” A shudder ran the length of him and his eyes strayed once more to his daisy-mottled skin, drawn by a compulsion he could not resist. His voice fell, half reproachful, half apologetic. “She said you’d find out why.”
But not the same she. “Who did?”
“The woman who was here last night. I don’t know who she was.”
Warning signals rang in Deacon’s head. But if they’d found him they’d have killed him. “Describe her.”
“About thirty. Tall, slim; brown eyes. A lot of dark curly hair.”
The inspector let out his breath in a sigh of relief. He should have thought of Brodie Farrell: he himself had told her she could return.
Now he debated with himself how much to say. The brutal truth or discretion? The first might cost him the woman’s co-operation, for what it was worth. Perhaps more to the point, he wondered if Daniel was ready for the whole truth. He was hanging onto his equilibrium by his finger-nails: anything that added to the burden could break his grip. Then the doctors would sedate him and it would be days before Deacon could talk to him in any meaningful way.
He opted for tact. “Mrs Farrell. She’s been helping us. What else did she say?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t stay awake. Something about a racehorse? I didn’t understand.”
Deacon shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect you to. The racehorse was a red herring. The people who hurt you … Mrs Farrell was given to understand … There was this woman, who said …” It was too difficult: he gave up. “I’ll explain when you’re stronger. But the racehorse wasn’t real. Mrs Farrell just hoped it was.”
Though Daniel struggled to make sense of what Deacon was saying, talking was helping to clear his mind. For the first time since the floor of his flat came up to hit him he felt like more than a helpless bystander at his own fate.
He’d been at other people’s disposal - one lot of faceless unknowns hurting him, another healing him, neither of them giving him a say in what they did - for so long he’d all but forgotten there was another way. But he wasn’t tied and blindfolded now, he wasn’t unconscious or drugged, and the only thing keeping him in this bed was his own weakness. It was time to start asserting himself.
“Explain it now,” he said softly. “I need to know what it was all about.”
Taken aback, Deacon sniffed. It was like giving someone the kiss of life only to have them complain about your mouthwash. “So do we, Mr Hood. So do we. I’m sorry if Mrs Farrell gave the impression that we know more than we do. I was hoping you could tell me what happened.”
“I can. I can’t tell you why it happened.”
“Do you a deal,” offered Deacon. “You tell me what, I’ll try to find out why.”
Daniel wrestled the memories into some sort of order. His problem was not their paucity but their overwhelming power: when he tried the door they flew at him. Deacon saw him wince but said nothing. It was a door that, sooner or later, he had to force open and go through, and it might be easier now than after his mind had thrown up barricades around the hurt. He waited.
Somehow Daniel weathered the hailstorm of images and sensations, and found his way back to the start. Beads of sweat broke on his lip and his brow furrowed with effort. “They were waiting when I got home. Friday evening. What’s today?”
“Wednesday. You’ve been here since early Monday. We think they shot you on Sunday night.”
Daniel swallowed. “Two days. It went on for two days?”
“Didn’t you realise?”
He didn’t know how to answer that. “It felt like my whole life. At the same time it was just then, there was nothing else. It might have been two hours or two weeks. Then they said they weren’t getting anywhere, they were going to kill me. I heard them arguing about who should do it.”
Deacon’s voice was hard. “And who did?”
A fractional shake of the yellow head. “I don’t know. I don’t know who any of them were.”
“Come on, Daniel,” growled the policeman, “you must know something. They had you for two days. They tortured you for two days - and they didn’t tell you why? They didn’t tell you what they wanted?”
“I told you. They were looking for someone. They thought I knew where she was. But I didn’t. I don’t even know who she was.”
Daniel’s breathing was growing distressed. Deacon found himself watching the dressing that ran at a rising angle from below his left nipple into his armpit. At the first spot of blood he’d have to stop this and call for help.
“She - a woman? What was her name?”
With everything else that was acid-etched on his brain, that he couldn’t remember. “I did know. Every time they asked they said it - ‘Where is she? Where’s … ?’ Sonia? Sylvia? I can’t remember. Dear God, I can’t remember! Every time they asked they hurt me, and I can’t remember her name!”
His voice soared out of control. Deacon grasped his shoulders with strong hands, anchoring him in time and space. “Easy, Daniel. Take your time, it’ll come.”
More than the pressure, the unexpected kindness wrung his heart. Tears welled. He dashed them away with the back of his wrist in the gesture Deacon recognised from the photograph. “But it’s so stupid! The one thing I could tell you that might cast some light on this, and I can’t remember. Why not? What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. At least, nothing that won’t heal. You’ve been hurt. You’ve been frightened and hurt, and your mind couldn’t deal with it any more. It started shutting down, and what hurt most it shut down first. It associates that name with what was done to you, and thinks if you can’t remember you can’t be hurt any more.
“But you’re right, the name is important. I need you to remember as much detail as you can. I want these bastards, Danny. Whatever it was about - a racehorse, a woman - whatever you did to provoke it, I won’t have them running an inquisition in my town. The only one who conducts interrogations in Dimmock is me.”
Another tremor ran through Daniel’s narrow frame. Even the word hurt. “Inspector, I didn’t do anything to provoke it. Nothing they said made any sense. I never understood what it was they thought I’d done.”
“Tell me what happened. From the start.”
It started on the Friday, after school. He walked home across town, let himself into his flat a little after five.
“Except I didn’t have to turn the key. The door wasn’t locked. I thought, ‘That was careless’ - but that’s all I thou
ght. That I hadn’t shut it properly that morning. I never thought there was someone waiting for me.”
But there was. Though he didn’t feel the blow that felled him, there was a moment in which he knew something shocking had happened, that he was falling and couldn’t seem to stop himself. Then the darkness took him.
He woke to a voice saying his name, a hand flicking his cheek, but no face. He thought he was blind. When he tried to raise a hand to his eyes he couldn’t. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. His head ached, he felt muzzy, but at that point he wasn’t badly hurt.
He was, however, afraid. This wasn’t a prank that had gone too far. He didn’t know what it was instead, but he knew it was deadly serious. He knew he’d been kidnapped, that he was bound and blindfold, and from the cold along his skin that he was naked. He didn’t know what was coming next. He whimpered like a frightened child. “Who are you? What do you want?”
As time went on he came to realise it was not just the two of them in the room. But most of his dealings were with the man who spoke then. “Where is she? Where have you taken her?”
He swore he didn’t know. The man didn’t believe him. He was part of it; he’d been seen. Where was she? The more Daniel protested his innocence, the rougher the questioning became. He was struck in the face and, more persistently, in the belly, measured rhythmic blows that he could neither avoid nor absorb, that seemed to turn him inside out. He hadn’t even the freedom to curl around the hurt. He vomited blood.
Of course he knew, the man said, his voice breathy with effort. He was the look-out. Where had they taken her? He’d talk in the end, he might as well save himself some grief and do it now. But he couldn’t.
