Exposure

by Avril Osborne

  Susan understands completely, and agrees. She has confidence in Jonathon. And her fiancée appealing for witnesses should enhance her respectable image.

  Somewhere in the mid afternoon, Susan is allowed along to see Linda for the first time. She is well enough to walk unaided but the policewoman and the nurse insist on accompanying her, leaving her at the door to Linda’s room. She finds Ken, Kenny and Angela sitting around the bed and Linda sitting up looking remarkably well despite the bed cage that somehow dominates the scene. The family look very close. Ken has Angela on his lap and Kenny, admittedly awkward when Susan arrives, has been holding his mother’s hand.

  She almost cries with the relief of seeing Linda looking so well and with the emotion of greeting her. But Linda is composed and knows without anything being said that Susan is the one carrying the guilt. All she says to her friend as they hug is a whispered, “this is not your fault”. As she speaks, Linda strokes Susan’s face gently as if willing it better.

  Susan stays with the family for about a half an hour, a long time to be round a hospital bed, but she plays her part in reassuring the children that Linda is well on the way to recovery. Linda, again obviously for the children’s sake, protests how much better she feels today. She hopes to be moved home with nursing care as quickly as possible. If Ken can’t organize it, who can?

  She laughs but Ken does not return her smile and just says,

  “We need to get you home as soon as possible.”

  Susan sees Linda give Ken a long look.

  She stays a little while longer, leaving when Tina arrives to see Linda and to take the children back to the Pilar house to cook for them. Susan and Linda can talk later when they are alone. For now, Susan is just glad that Linda does not appear to blame her.

  She walks stiffly back down the corridor, vaguely disturbed by what she has seen in the cold look from Linda to Ken but not dwelling on it. She decides to stop off at the hospital canteen and to have a coffee, feeling like an escapee from nurses and policewomen as she does so. The smell of food makes her hungry for the first time since she hit that shop door and, glad that she brought her purse with her from her room, she buys her favourite childhood comfort food – a bacon sandwich.

  As she approaches her own room once more, the policewoman is not sitting outside. She is probably off looking for her errant patient. A thankless task, Susan thinks to herself, feeling no guilt at all. The door is ajar, though, and she comes to the doorway to see the tall, dark and distinguished form of Alberto sitting by her bed. She is momentarily panicked at the sight of him and her first thought is to dispatch him before Bill appears. He rises and kisses Susan on each cheek. She does not return the kisses but she does not stop them. The man smiles gently, and with obvious affection. His fury when she left him after their last meeting in the hotel bedroom is obviously gone. He turns to assist her into bed and is about to say something when he almost walks into Bill. Susan has no energy to do anything other than watch and wait.

  “Who are you?” Bill asks abruptly, his usual courtesy forgotten. Alberto just looks at him, taking Bill’s measure and deciding how to respond. Alberto is assertive, certainly not aggressive, and certainly not intimidated as he replies,

  “I am a friend of Miss Blakely,” he says with a pronounced accent that Susan knows will immediately identify him as Italian.

  Bill turns to look at Susan who is feeling caught off-guard.

  “This is Alberto. Alberto, Bill.”

  Alberto stands and nods in Bill’s direction, clearly deciding whether to say something. Then he turns to Susan with,

  “I shall see you again. Be better, very soon.”

  He gives a smile to Susan, and the slightest of bows to Bill. A bouquet of mixed flowers stands in a water bag on the cabinet. The bouquet far outmatches the flowers from Bill. Bill just looks at Susan.

  “A friend, that’s all, Bill.” Then, as Bill starts to protest, she comes back again, wearily this time, “Not now, Bill. Please.” She sighs and closes her eyes.

  “You can’t address issues like this when someone is ill,” she thinks. “Bill has no choice but to let the matter drop.” In any event, Susan reasons, she has many acquaintances and Bill should not assume the worst every time he meets some man in her social circle. He has long since given up trying to follow who all her acquaintances are – she knows so many people in her line of work. This should be no different.

  He seems to put it from his mind and he sits with Susan who has little to say but she holds his hand. She enjoys his silent presence and is genuinely sorry when it is time for him to leave for the TV studio. They talk again about the interview he will give and agree that he will confirm that he is her fiancée and deeply concerned that the perpetrator of this act against the two women should be brought to justice as quickly as possible.

  “If it was Ramsey, Susan, he is going to have to be dealt with as soon as possible.”

  Susan groans at the prospect of the publicity that will now be inevitable. But she has to agree with Bill’s logic. The man will have to be dealt with. This was a serious and life threatening attack. Bill leans towards her.

  “Susan, were you honest with me about Ramsey?”

  Her eyes are closed and she leaves a long, still silence before she replies.

  “I told you before, Bill. I told you the truth.” She makes her voice as icy as she can muster.

  “Right,” he lets the matter drop, leaving shortly afterwards to drive his BMW to the television station. He does not seem convinced.

  Susan is silently livid. Bill is hardly in a position to take the high moral ground. He deceived her. He engaged Shand. He was hardly honest in his approach to her about that. Can they live in a marriage with the level of dishonesty that exists between them? “I suppose so,” she reflects, as she turns on the television set to catch the interview on the news. “I think so.” At the end of the day, she knows that the greater deceit is hers. As long as she has the upper hand in matters of what is true and what is not, it will be OK.

  Susan watches the TV interview. Despite the fact that it is predictable to her professional eye, she is unsettled to see her personal situation and not her public persona portrayed to the world at large.

  Rankled, she tries to settle to sleep. But Bill rings her towards nine o’clock. The press have just contacted him, and he thought that Susan should know. It was a Sarah King. She rang from the Journal Daily. Susan groans inwardly. The Journal Daily is a particularly sensationalist national tabloid and a far cry from the local City Tribune. The King woman saw the television appeal for the man responsible to come forward. Was it correct that Bill is Susan Blakely’s partner? Is he going to marry her? Does he know that there is a question mark over Miss Blakely’s private life?

  Despite his wrath, Bill was not about to give Sarah King the satisfaction of reacting to her last questions.

  “Miss Blakely and I are engaged as the programme said. I have no further comment.”

  And, he tells Susan, he has another worry. It dawned on him that he too could now be a suspect. A lover or partner who engages a private detective would have to be considered as having motive to harm. He was on his own on Friday night when the accident happened and cannot prove what his movements were. He wonders whether and when he will hear from the police again.

  “Nonsense,” Susan reassures him. “There is nothing for Shand to find out about Ramsey and me. So what motive could you possibly have? The police will see that for themselves. If the police ask anything about why you engaged Shand, you say that we were both worried after his last phone call to me. Say that we should, of course, have gone to the police when Dave Ramsey started to threaten me but we decided that, before we did that, we needed to find out for sure that he posed some sort of threat.”

  Bill accepts her advice. She tries to settle to sleep but the noise of the ward keeps her awake. So does the niggling reality that the Journal Daily is on to her. Tonight, Susan has to ask a nurse for something to help h
er to sleep.

  CHAPTER 24

  Flashback is one of the hardest things to deal with after a near-death experience. Linda is sure that it was indeed just that – a near-death experience. She could have died on Friday night. Day and night, she recalls pushing Susan and the impact of the car, and then a cold terror stops her in whatever she is doing or wakes her from sleep. She cannot control these flashbacks and the only thing is to wait till the fear subsides. Her personal nurse told her that she could expect the flashbacks to continue but to lessen over time.

  Flashback is one thing; recall is another. She remembers the crash quite clearly. Susan screamed as Linda pushed her out of the way. Even in the split second after she saw the headlights coming towards her and until the impact, Linda knew that she was going to be struck. The moment of waiting for the inevitable will stay with her forever. The impact itself was a pain she will never forget and she remembers falling to the ground. She must have passed out then and she came to, she now assumes, a few moments later. She knew that her leg was broken – nothing else could hurt that much. She was on the pavement and Susan was at her side, very still. Two people were kneeling over them and one of them was wrapping a scarf around one of her legs. There seemed to be blood everywhere. She remembered wondering if it was her own.

  “The ambulance is coming,” she heard a man’s voice say.

  “Susan. How is Susan? How’s my friend?”

  “She is comfortable. Lie still now.”

  She registered that Susan had been put into the recovery position. The ambulance siren heralded its arrival. Men and women in uniforms, police amongst them, surrounded her. She had a sense of a crowd gathering. She was given an injection and heard someone telling her the pain would begin to ease. It did in just a few minutes. Moments later she was lifted into the ambulance.

  She lost sight of Susan.

  It seemed almost immediately that a doctor asked her if she felt up to answering a few questions. In reality, she has no idea how long it was before she was on the ward. A policewoman came in with a man who introduced himself as Inspector Philips. She told him what she did remember. No, she had not seen the car against the headlights nor who was driving it.

  “It was an accident, wasn’t it?” she said. “Was someone drunk or something?”

  “We don’t think it was an accident, Mrs Pilar,” the Inspector said. “There was a witness who seems to think that the car drove towards you both deliberately. It was probably sitting with its engine running and its sidelights on and it moved when you appeared out of the restaurant.”

  “But why?” was all she could think of to say.

  “We don’t know yet. Do you know of anyone who might want to harm you?”

  “No. No, I really don’t.” Her answer was genuine.

  The Inspector pushed her gently and learned something of her family and professional life.

  Then he asked her about Susan – did she have enemies? She knew that the Inspector saw her hesitate and she covered this with the fact that Susan was very much in the public eye. It was entirely possible that she did have enemies.

  The Inspector asked about Dave Ramsey – the police knew that Susan had some trouble with him earlier in the year. Linda stuck to the script that she had agreed with Susan on the night she went round to Susan’s flat in the middle of the night.

  After the policeman left, she drifted off to sleep again. When she woke befuddled and then suddenly alert, Jane was by her side.

  “Jane,” Linda whispered. “You came. How did you know?”

  “Of course. I love you.”

  Linda had no energy but she felt Jane take her hand and she tightened her fingers around the younger woman’s hand.

  “My leg,” was all she could think of to say.

  Jane nodded. “I know. The nurse told me. I thought it might be a lot worse when I heard the news. It was on the radio this morning. That’s why I came. They didn’t say how bad you both were. I had to come, Linda, even if Ken is here. I know that I shouldn’t have.” She looked around as she said this.

  “He’s gone to get the children,” Linda reassured her. “He’ll be a little while. I’m glad you are here.” Linda could not help it – she felt herself drifting off to sleep, her hand still in Jane’s.

  From somewhere far away, she heard Ken’s voice, snarling almost, and the words, “What are you doing here?” Then she heard the Inspector’s voice and Ken saying that this was the American woman he told the police about. She struggled to regain consciousness and saw Jane being taken out by the policeman and the police sergeant. They seemed to lead her to a room down the corridor. As she drifted off, the door shut behind Jane and the police officers.

  When she woke again, it was afternoon and Ken and the children were coming into the room. Whatever drugs she had been given had worn off and she felt remarkably clear headed, as if waking from a haze of recent memories. She was incredibly relieved to see the two children. They were distressed but reassured to be with her. She was going to be fine and would be home just as soon as Ken could organise some help for her at home. Tina’s presence, a wheelchair and a home care worker to look after Linda’s personal care were all that would be required on a day-to-day basis. With a community nurse to dress the wound, she would have all she needed.

  It was easy to give her love and reassurance to Susan when she came into the room, looking as if she had just done ten rounds in the ring with a heavyweight champion. She knew that Susan would blame herself for all this, if it did turn out to be Ramsey who had driven at them. That was by no means certain yet and no matter what, Susan was not to blame.

  Later, she thought about Ken. Jane would not have as easy access to their house as to a hospital ward. That was why he wanted her home. It confirmed in her mind that her marriage would now only be an outer semblance of their previous relationship. She lay in bed, angry at his controlling her in this way and angry too, that she was now in a bigger trap than ever by virtue of her injuries. Added to that was the fact that it could be weeks before she would resume any sort of ordinary work at the University.

  Seeing Jane was so good. How did she pluck up the courage to just walk in past Ken and the policewoman to see her? Linda knew now, not that she needed any reminder, just where her emotional connection lay – it was with Jane. A nurse reassured her. Jane was released.

  Ken behaved like a possessive angry brute when he saw Jane at the hospital. And he must have suggested to the police that Jane would have motive to attack Linda – presumably as a jilted lover. How dare he? That was unforgivable. Surely he could not believe that of Jane and he was simply being vengeful? She would not forget this day. She would not forgive this day either. He must assume now that he has won and that he forced Linda to send Jane packing. He was obviously very angry when he saw Jane. Later, as soon as the children were out of earshot and off to buy some drinks for themselves, he demanded to know what ‘that woman’ thought she was doing. Linda was tired, and sarcastic.

  “What do you think? Seeing if I’m all right.”

  She closed her eyes and left him to exit from the room. If I weren’t ill, she thought, he would probably have slammed the door.

  What is really clear to her as she lies on the hospital bed is the fundamental change in the relationship between her and Ken. The vignette where he said “We have to get you home quickly” comes to her again and again and it epitomises the change for her. Just six months ago, they were equal partners, pulling together despite their diverse life interests. And their shared direction was the children. Now everything except the joint concern for the children has changed. The relationship is based on power exerted and control established, by Ken. It is no longer equal.

  She is the one who triggered the change. She has no one to blame, if that is the word, but herself. Ken may well have been deeply troubled by the accident, but the gulf between them is not going to close. The accident will not change that. They both know it and neither of them is using the time in hospital to chan
ge it. Linda concludes that it is too late: if she was the one who sowed the seeds of the end of the marriage, Ken is the one who watered them.

  Linda is still not convinced that the car incident was other than a rogue event. She simply cannot believe that anyone would want to hurt her. Jane certainly would not. That was nonsense on Ken’s part and mischievous nonsense at that. It was outrageous that he had Jane questioned by the police. It might just have been Ramsey – that was the only conceivable link to Susan that she could think of. Even then, Dave Ramsey did not strike her as being as aggressive and violent as to attack two women with a car.

  She is amused to discover on the Sunday evening that the police also interviewed Ken. Never in a month of Sundays would Ken do anything like that – no matter his wrath at her relationship with Jane. Ken was too strong, too stable and ultimately, too devoted to the children. But the notion that the police must have worked out that he too would have motive to harm Linda – to take revenge over her relationship with Jane – struck her as poetic justice and as cause for wry amusement.

  She is so angry that Jane has been questioned. They simply do not know her gentleness. Nor would they know from Jane, or from herself, about their relationship. Ken will have told them – he will have told the police about his wife’s admirer. Ken refused though, to tell her what he said to the police and she only asked once. One thing she is all but certain of – she was not the target of the car attack.

  Many times as she lies in bed, her thoughts turn to Angela and Kenny. They have obviously been very traumatised by the accident – there is no other way to describe the looks on their faces when they came to see her on Saturday afternoon. Angela could not help crying when she saw the bed cage and all the paraphernalia of tubes and machines around the bed. Even Kenny looked shocked and for once did not hesitate to come to his mother for a hug. It took all her level headedness not to cry herself when she saw them. She found it in herself to crack jokes about what it was going to be like having a broken leg in the family. They would be one leg short for a while. Making as light as possible of the accident and its aftermath calmed the two youngsters.