The Actuary's Wife

by K T Bowes

  Orange flashing lights strobed into the night from a distance and Emma’s heart clenched. “What now?” she panicked, opening her eyes and slurring her speech.

  “Tractor,” Ray reassured her. “It’s nearly spring so the farmers will be out with the newborns. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  The tractor turned into a gateway, bearing wrapped bails of silage for a herd of cows huddled near a hedge. Ray navigated its back end and continued up the road. “Emma, listen to me.” He slapped her thigh and she groaned. “I heard a scuffle and investigated, finding Captain Andreyev and the Triads dealing with the Russians. I waded in and between us, we dispatched them.”

  “You killed them.” Emma’s voice sounded flat and the effort of speaking seemed to sap her remaining energy.

  Ray shook his head. “Knocked them out. They’ll wake up and disappear, hopefully before the police arrive. Those Triads fight like machines.” He smiled, admiration in his square face as the headlights from an oncoming vehicle lit the car’s interior. “I didn’t know the Captain spoke Mandarin,” Ray commented and Emma rolled her eyes.

  “Something else I never knew,” she muttered, sealing her right hand over the wound. Warm blood trickled over her fingers and she panicked. “It’s bleeding again,” she sobbed. “And I don’t feel well.”

  “Not far now,” Ray confirmed. “Just listen to my voice and focus on that.” He indicated and turned again. “I couldn’t risk using the front doors because of the noise, so I crept in the side. I met the dog in the porch and told him to stay there. They were arguing, so I managed to slip around the rear pews and make my way forward. I saw you doing the same and felt the overwhelming urge to tan your bloody, disobedient backside!” Ray looked sideways at Emma to see if she registered the rebuke. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled on her chest, held up by the seat belt. He swore and shook her. “Miss! Miss! Don’t go to sleep until I’ve looked at that wound.”

  “Rohan,” Emma slurred. “Rohan.”

  Ray slapped her thigh again and moved his hand quickly as Farrell growled and bared his teeth, his irises glinting blue in the reflected light from the headlamps. “Steady on, boy,” Ray breathed. “I’m trying to help her.” He made the turn onto the main road struggling not to panic, indicating and driving normally, despite the pounding in his chest. “Emma!” he shouted and she stirred and turned to face him, her eyes drooping. “Rohan stayed outside the church with the Triads and I didn’t see him come in. What you did was brave, miss, really brave. Stay awake, please. Meeting you and getting this job is the best thing that’s happened to me in years. Please, miss. Stay awake!”

  Ray indicated right and bounced into the turning circle before the high iron gates of Wingate Hall. Met with the keypad he realised he didn’t know the number. “Miss! What’s the code?” He tried to wake Emma without touching her, the dog’s growl threatening every time his fingers crossed the centre aisle.

  The gates crept open before him, the motor giving a high pitched hiss in the silent night air and Ray grappled to close his driver’s window against further danger.

  “Where’d you go?” Rohan’s irritation was apparent as he emerged from the shadows, his brow furrowed. “We’ve been back ages.” His blonde head poked through Ray’s window and he observed Emma’s slumped form. “Get her up to the house, now!”

  Ray powered through the gates and drove up to the main house, hearing gravel spit from the wheel treads behind him. The Mercedes nosed from between the trees in his rear view mirror and reversed onto the drive, following Emma’s car up the hill.

  Emma woke as Ray cut the engine, pushing her door open and falling sideways. Farrell shot straight out, taking Emma’s legs with him. The gravel came up to meet her but the seat belt kept her pinned, embracing her like a sling. She saw Rohan’s strong forearms in her blurred vision and sighed with relief. “I think I’m dead,” she slurred and heard the low rumble of his laugh. Light streamed out from the house and for a moment, the horror of the night threw her back in time to the burning Scottish mansion and the loss of Christopher.

  Emma panicked, scratching Rohan’s fingers as he tried to release her. “Christopher’s dead too!” she wailed.

  “Don’t be daft, woman!” The Irishman’s laugh cut into her fog as he leaned across her to unfasten the seatbelt. “Yer window’s open,” he said, directing the jerk of his head at Ray, who turned the key and restarted the engine. Emma heard the whirr of the window closing. “This rain should wash away any traces we left outside the church.”

  “This is too freaky,” Emma breathed, fighting to regain her sanity as huge drops of rain pelted the top of her head. As the belt released her, she slid into Rohan’s welcome arms and he cradled her against him like a child and lifted her into the air.

  “Want me to take her?” Christopher asked as Rohan limped towards the front steps and breached them with great difficulty. Emma heard the rumble through Rohan’s chest wall as he swore at the Irishman in Russian, the old rivalry alive and well. She pushed her face into his shirt and closed her eyes to avoid the sight of the damp blood stains, not wanting them to be his; but equally afraid they might be hers.

  Rohan heaved himself onto a kitchen chair and kept Emma on his knee, tutting as Ray and Christopher argued their way into the room behind him. “Why’d yer do a bloody tour of the country?” Christopher asked, his Irish accent making worry into humour.

  “Because of the cops!” Ray defended his actions, putting shaking hands on his hips. “Another car flashed me in the high street and I didn’t want to get pulled over!”

  Emma felt Rohan’s sigh through the side of her head but Christopher’s exhalation was more vigorous. “You eejit!” he snapped. “He was probably tryin’ ter tell yer to put your headlights on!”

  Ray shook his head. “I did have them on!”

  Rohan’s voice sounded calm as Christopher crashed around in a biscuit tin containing first aid supplies. “You had side lights on; you didn’t click the lever fully.”

  Ray used a dirty expletive too awful to repeat and turned away from the men to give himself time to collect his face. Rohan rubbed Emma’s shoulder and sat her up. He offered her a bright smile in his pale face and she felt a wave of nausea overtake her stomach as she reached an upright position. “I feel sick!” she announced, grabbing at the plastic pudding bowl Christopher slid across the table.

  “You will,” Rohan replied with calm assurance. “You lost blood but not enough for a transfusion.” He tipped her face towards him, ignoring the presence of the pudding bowl. “We’ll get you sorted and then you can sleep. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the hospital and get you checked.” His hand strayed across the signs of pregnancy, caressing her swollen abdomen and knitting his brow. “I need to make sure my doch’ is well.”

  “She’s kicking,” Emma whispered and Rohan smiled with relief. She felt so exhausted it was an effort even to hold the pudding basin up to her face, but after a couple of hearty retches she conceded nothing would happen.

  “Did you eat today?” Ray asked, ignoring Christopher’s nasty glare as he spewed bandages and tape onto the table.

  Emma shook her head and he nodded. “Then that’s part of the problem.” Ray shot a nervous look at Rohan. “Do you want me to deal with her wound?”

  “Why?” Christopher roared. “How come a bloody grounds man is suddenly the expert in everything? He can’t even drive home without drama! Just call the usual guy.”

  “Shut up!” Rohan’s calm voice broke with irritation. “He was a medic in the army and a good one. And I’m not calling the Ukrainian to my wife.” His hands clamped around Emma’s upper arms as she began to struggle. “I promised.” Rohan glanced across at Ray. “Just do it, man. Where do you want her?”

  Ray jerked his head towards the table and Emma squeaked as the men lifted her onto its wooden surface. Rohan slipped his blood stained jacket off and rolled it up, laying it under Emma’s head as a pillow. Breathing heavily, Ray used antisept
ic wipes to isolate the cut from the blood. Emma closed her eyes at the cold, stinging sensation and Ray saw. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry for not keeping you at the house and for the round country ride too.”

  “Bit late for that!” Christopher snapped in the background and Emma tensed, sensing an explosion.

  Ray sighed as the tendons in Emma’s neck flexed and he stood up, sounding exasperated. “You’re making things worse!” he bit, focussing his anger on the Irishman. “Yeah, I made some mistakes tonight but I’m trying to put it right and you’re not helping.”

  “Take the van back.” Rohan’s low voice cut across the brewing argument, commanding and definitive. “Sort out the gear and get some sleep.”

  “But...” Christopher began, waving his arm at Emma’s body, prone on the kitchen table.

  “Hack!” Rohan warned. Relenting, he offered, “I’ll text you when she’s fixed up. Ok?”

  With a grunt, Christopher left the kitchen and Emma heard his steps thudding along the corridor to the main doors. Farrell’s claws clicked on the tiles and then floorboards as he decided to accompany the Irishman outside. With the tempestuous Hack gone, Ray relaxed into his role as medic, his hands shaking less as he cleaned around the cut on Emma’s neck. Rohan stood near Emma’s face, holding her hand and passing wipes to Ray as he requested them. “It’s a mess,” Ray breathed, glancing nervously at Emma as he made the tactless remark. She closed her eyes and fought the nausea again.

  “Do you need an IV line in?” Rohan asked. “We’ve got the gear.”

  Ray gave a heavy sigh. “Captain, I haven’t done this stuff for more than a decade. I came out of the army when I was forty.”

  “But you can put a line in?” Rohan demanded, his tone urgent.

  “I don’t know!” Ray’s voice cracked with the strain and Rohan nodded.

  “I understand,” he replied.

  Emma heard movement and recognised Rohan’s heels on the floor of the corridor outside as he moved away. She opened her eyes and stared towards the open doorway, panicking. “Where’s he gone?” she asked, feeling weak.

  Ray shook his head, his face white. “I don’t know, miss. He’ll come back.” His hand shook as he wiped along the ridges of the cut and Emma hissed with the pain.

  “Sorry I passed out,” she whispered. “It hurt.”

  “And you’re dehydrated,” Ray said, his face close to hers. “Stop trying to look at me and keep your head turned that way.” He pushed her temple, so she faced away from him and resumed his cleaning. “That’s better.”

  “You didn’t say you were a medic,” Emma said, watching the kitchen cupboards swim around the room like a weird psychedelic trip.

  “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “You must have told Rohan,” Emma said, her voice weak.

  “Nope,” Ray replied. “Stop talking, miss. Save your energy.”

  Emma closed her eyes and heard Rohan return. He walked through a mist in her brain carrying a bag of clear fluid and a plastic box of complicated pipes and items she couldn’t identify. “I don’t want that,” she tried to say, hearing her voice slur and laughing at how drunk she sounded.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Ray said, sounding anxious.

  “That’s ok; I can,” came Rohan’s reply.

  Emma felt something cold in the crook of her left elbow, then a sharp scratch which made her jerk. An odd sensation worked its way up her arm, spreading out like an icy touch. Then nothing.

  Chapter 42

  “What’s happened to Mummy?” Nicky’s shrill voice carried through the bedroom and Emma groaned as she moved her head. Her right hand sought the crook of her left elbow, feeling for the thing which disturbed her repeatedly during the night. The skin ached when she pressed it but the needle wasn’t there anymore. Emma glanced upwards to where the bag of rehydration fluid spent the night hanging above her head, attached to the top of the four poster bed with a length of string. Nothing.

  “I’m fine, Nicky,” Emma said, her voice sounding cracked from disuse. “I had a silly accident but I’m all better now.”

  The little boy ran to the side of the bed, looking down on her with a worried expression. He pointed to the white medical pack on her neck. “Is that an operation?” he asked.

  Emma pushed herself to a sitting position. “Kind of, baby.” She put her hands up to touch the sore spot and winced. Rohan shook his head to warn her to leave it. “How was school?” Emma asked, dropping into her maternal role with relief. “Was Mo back?”

  Nicky shook his head with sadness in his wide, blue eyes. “No. His dad found them so Mel had to leave and take New Mo somewhere else. I asked Mrs Clark, but she just said, ‘He’s safe, Nicky, don’t you worry.’ But I cried until playtime anyway ‘cause I was worried. What if the bad mens find him? What then?”

  Emma smiled at her son’s impression of his gentle hearted teacher and cradled his head against her chest. She stroked the soft blonde hair and kissed the top of his head, sensing his agony and knowing words were futile. Emma closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of her son, jumping as the unborn sibling in her womb began its frantic movements. “Baby’s talking to you,” she whispered, smoothing Nicky’s hair back from his forehead.

  “To me?” he asked, looking up at her and jabbing her collar bone with his chin.

  Emma nodded and took his small hand, placing it over her stomach. “Can you feel?” she whispered.

  Nicky shook his head and a deep furrow appeared in his forehead. He opened his mouth to complain and then beamed. “Yeah,” he said, his eyes widening in childish delight. “What’s she sayin’ to me?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma laughed. “That’s between you both. But remember it might not be a girl.”

  “It is,” Nicky replied, sounding cocky as the small movement fluttered against his palm. “It’s Stephanie.”

  Emma raised her eyebrows, feeling the pinch of the wound at her neck as she peered down at her son. “What if it’s a boy?”

  “Then I’ll call him Mo,” Nicky answered insolently. “And you won’t like it.”

  Emma sighed, tiredness paralysing her body. “Definitely not, thanks. I think we’ve had more than enough boys called Mo in our lives for a while.”

  “Boys called Mo are nice though,” Nicky argued. “They make amazing friends.”

  “They sure do.” Emma smiled at her son. “There’s cake in the tin in the pantry. Why don’t you get some?”

  “Yummy!” Nicky said, pulling away from his mother and unwittingly causing pain in his carelessness. He skipped to the bedroom door. “Oh, Mummy, I like that new man, Ray Barker. He mended my skateboard.”

  “Cool, that’s awesome, baby.” Emma lay back against the pillows as her son departed, bounding along the hallway towards the stairs. She sighed as the inevitable sounds of his palms squeaking against the bannister reached her ears. “Don’t slide down the bannister!” she called, but her voice carried no further than her husband’s smiling face.

  Emma lifted the sheets and peered at her body. She heaved a relieved breath and lay back against the pillow again. “I thought for a horrible moment I was still covered in blood,” she said. “Thanks for changing my clothes and cleaning me up.”

  “It’s fine.” Rohan sat on his side of the bed and swung his left leg up, his right one following with the aid of his hand. “I enjoyed it,” he said with a small laugh.

  “Pervert!” Emma replied.

  Rohan reached to clasp Emma’s hand in his. “Your neck’s fine but it will be scarred, devotchka. Ray did a good job once you passed out.”

  “Did he do big ugly stitches?” Emma asked, wrinkling her nose and raising her hand to touch the white tape.

  “Na, we glued it and he butterflied the top. Neater than stitching.”

  Emma snuffed. “But what if something was wrong inside and you just glued over it?” she complained.

  “Trust Ray,” Rohan soothed. “He spent years patching p
eople up. He checked inside and made sure it was clean. The blade went through a few fatty layers and could have been nasty, but the Contessa ended that possibility.”

  Emma put her hands up to her face and breathed deeply. “It makes me feel ill.” she muttered through her fingers.

  Rohan squeezed her thigh through the sheets. “It’s over now. We can live our lives in peace.”

  “I keep seeing it happen over and over. I see the knife flying through the air and...” Emma’s body tensed and the wound on her neck tightened, producing a dull ache. She banished the image of the dying men as she had in the Scottish mansion. Placing a hand on her gullet, Emma saw the knife slicing through Adam Jameson’s throat and gasped. “Mikhail could’ve cut something major,” she breathed. “I might have died.”

  “He almost did cut something important.” Rohan pulled Emma’s hand away from her throat. “But he didn’t. Mikhail was good at making money but always rubbish with his hands.”

  “This isn’t funny!” Emma bit her lip and faced her husband. Rohan looked chastened, but she recognised his desire to change the subject. “What if Paul Barker wants to come back and talk to me about the man who died at the gate?” Emma panicked. “How can I cover this?” She flapped her hand towards her neck. “It feels like a mess so it probably is.”

  “Nyet. It’s fine. If you make a big fuss you’ll draw attention to it. Wear one of those jumpers that go right up your neck.”

  Emma shuddered and gave a huge sigh. “Who discovered the bodies? I hope it wasn’t a poor little old lady with a heart condition.”

  “Freda,” Rohan replied.

  Emma turned to her husband with a look of amazement. “What? How?”

  “She does the flowers for the Sunday service. I rang her and warned her there’d be unusual items in the church and she did the rest. She’s playing the sobbing old lady card right now and enjoying the attentions of Detective Barker.”