They had him on his back and she reached for the knife, a dull-looking thing in Harry’s pale-palmed hand and she said, ‘Someone roll up a cloak or something big. I need a hard cushion under his shoulders.’
It was Harry again who responded, swift, deft and unflappable, and she took it from him, a hard little bunch of fabric, and thrust it beneath Collop’s shoulders. His head lolled back, the jaw drooping, and she said, ‘Harry, hold it up, out of the way.’
She’d never done the job before, had only ever seen it done once and then under controlled circumstances in a hospital operating theatre. But it had to be done so she did it; feeling round the larynx, very aware of the indrawn hollow at the root of his throat just below, choosing a point, pushing the knife along the skin.
Bridget had begun to wail now, and someone was trying to hush her; everyone else was very still, but Hattie was very aware of them all standing there around her as she pushed the knife harder. The skin bowed beneath it but didn’t part and almost pettishly she pushed harder on the handle, and this time the point of the scalpel went in. Blood blossomed, deeply crimson, round the point, and there was Harry again, a towel in his hand, a rather grubby cloakroom towel but a towel all the same, dabbing the blood away, and she moved the knife carefully against the cut edge — for all the world, she thought crazily, like cutting a tough-skinned tomato: it won’t let you till you make the first break in — and pushed. The hole deepened, opened into a dull red gap and she pushed further, and then it happened; air went whistling past her hand, the hollow beneath the larynx filled as suddenly as though someone had poured flesh into it, and she felt the chest move against her thighs.
‘Artificial —’ she began, and Harry, still calm, still ahead of her in everything, pushed the forceps he’d been holding into her hand and came round behind her and began to pump on Collop’s chest, a rhythmic careful movement that sent the air whistling past her hand again, this time as she set in place the forceps and kept open the hole she’d made.
And there they all stayed, she crouching over Collop, lying on the floor with a pair of old and probably filthy forceps in his windpipe, and Harry leaning forward, then back, steadily beating air into the lungs through the hole she had opened. Silence everywhere except from the creak of Harry’s movements against the wooden floor and the breathing of the watching children.
This time she didn’t hear the ambulance siren. They were just there, the men with their stretcher and box of equipment, and gladly she handed over to them and sat back on her heels, watching as they moved with immense deftness and set a tube in Collop’s throat and tied it in place with a length of bandage, muttering at each other as they worked. ‘We’ll take him to Old East,’ one of them said as she stood up at last and they lifted Collop on to a stretcher. ‘He’ll be all right, won’t you, old man.’
Amazingly Collop’s head moved, his hair rumpled against the red blanket-covered pillow, and Hattie moved closer to look down at him. He tried to move his lips, which were now immensely swollen, and she shook her head, hushing him.
‘Don’t try to talk. You’ll be fine. You know where you are? What happened?’
He moved his eyes as though to look around and then at her, and there was an expression in them, knowledge and anger and fear, and she managed a smile of sorts.
‘As long as you’re fully aware of it all, then you haven’t had too much damage. We managed to be quick enough.’
‘Bit of a miracle-worker this one, my friend,’ the ambulance man said heartily as he bent and unhooked the wheels so that they could push Collop out of the hall. ‘If she hadn’t done what she done you’d be a goner. Got you fast, she did. Well done. Trained first-aider, are you?’
‘I used to be a Sister at Old East,’ she said almost absently, still staring down at Collop, and the ambulance man said, ‘Ah!’ in a sound that carried all the understanding in the world in it.
‘ ’Nuff said. Best girls in the world there. You ought to come back. You can do stuff like this, they need you down in A and E, take it from me. They’re a dead loss these days. We’ll be off, then.’
And they were gone and she was left standing in the hall with a gaggle of frightened children and just a puddle of water on the floor where Collop had lain.
It was later, much later, before she could really think about it all. She’d kept them all there at the school, feeling obscurely it was the right thing to do, but not wanting to call the police, although she felt perhaps she should, and sent instead to the Headmaster, getting Harry to phone him. Harry had become her prop and stay and she was passionately grateful to him, deferring to him in all his suggestions. It was he who shepherded the younger members of the cast off to a form room to settle down to wait, he who found one of the night cleaners to come and tidy up the mess in the hall, especially the water which was bleaching the floor (or was it the acid which had done that? She didn’t want to think about that), he who managed to find the makings of hot coffee for her in one of the kitchens.
And after the Headmaster had come and talked to them all, checking on their stories, hushing the anxious younger ones and assuring them all it had just been an accident — a most unfortunate accident — and sent them off to meet the parents who had arrived to collect them after the rehearsal, it was Harry she talked to.
‘Isn’t he going to call the police?’ she said almost fretfully, watching the Headmaster at the other end of the hall, talking soothingly to the girls who stood there waiting to go. ‘How can he not call the police?’
‘Bad for the school,’ Harry said and smiled at Genevieve who was standing close beside him. ‘They don’t like things getting outside the school here, do they, my dove?’
Genevieve just giggled. She seemed strangely undistressed by it all, happy as long as she was with Harry, and Hattie looked at him curiously and without stopping to think said, ‘How long have you two been an item?’
‘What an expression, Mrs Clements!’ he said and laughed fatly, a happy laugh. It sounded extraordinary after all that had happened in the hall that evening. ‘Downright indelicate! Quietly, I think, for some time, since you ask. Now we’ve decided we can’t stay secret any longer. She’s my gal, I’m her guy. Ain’t that sweet?’
‘It is rather,’ Hattie said. ‘You’ll be good for her.’
‘She’ll be much better for me,’ Harry said and there was an intensity in his voice that made it impossible for Hattie to ask any more questions.
‘Shouldn’t he call the police?’ she said then, fretful again, and Harry laughed.
‘Ask him,’ he said. ‘He’s coming over.’
She did and Roscoe looked at her, his eyes fixed on her face as she chattered at him about how awful it had been, a dreadful business, it had to be investigated, and then sighed.
‘My dear, you were quite, quite wonderful, I’ve been told. Saved poor Martin’s life. I do congratulate and thank you, indeed I do. No need for the police, my dear. Bad enough a prank went wrong. Why further upset?’
‘A prank?’ Hattie stared at him. ‘A — prank? How can you say it was — I mean, he could have died, he might still —’
‘Prank, a dreadful wicked stupid trick that went wrong,’ the Headmaster said firmly. ‘We need no further investigation apart from that which I am well able to carry out. And I assure you I shall. Now, my dear, you should go home and recover. You had a dreadful shock.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Hattie said. ‘This was a criminal act, surely?’
‘How do we know?’ the Headmaster said with all reasonableness. ‘Mistakes can be made. The bottle was unlabelled. Foolish Martin kept it in his bag, where no doubt he kept other things. Mistakes can be made.’
‘A mistake or a prank?’ Hattie said then, sharply. ‘It can’t be both.’
‘Either is bad enough. We don’t have to compound it with police meddling, whichever it is. Bad enough we had the other business. We really must be allowed to deal with this matter ourselves. Look, Mrs Clements’ — he had ta
ken her to one side and sat down with her to talk earnestly in her ear, holding her shoulder in one warm hand, very avuncular — ‘let me suggest this. I’ll investigate. If it turns out to be a criminal act, then of course I involve the police. But haven’t these children of ours suffered enough already tonight and in past weeks without us bringing further stress to them with police interrogation? We all know the police these days aren’t the jolly caring public servants of the dear old Toy Town days! It could do more harm than good to have them marching in here with their heavy boots and even heavier methods. We’ve all read our Guardian articles, surely, we all know the harm that’s done when police get involved in matters due to, shall we say, any internal problems. They explode families, damage children deeply, demanding they go into court as witnesses, and to what end? Please, I do beg you, dear Mrs Clements, let me sort this out in house, and then we’ll see where we go from there.’
And, tired as she was, she had agreed, and worse still promised faithfully she would say nothing outside the school without the Headmaster’s express permission, and had gone home to bed stunned with exhaustion and fit only to fall into bed.
Judith had come in once she’d sent Inge back, obviously anxious, and bursting with questions.
‘My God, what’s happening? Inge said you came in looking like death, and she’s right.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Hattie said. ‘Not tonight. Let me sleep. Just let me sleep. Please. Let me go to bed …’
And Judith, silenced for once, helped her shower and put her to bed with a cup of hot chocolate and then went away to let her sleep. And she would have done if she hadn’t remembered, suddenly, Arse kneeling in the hall beside her and Collop. And Arse wasn’t in the play and had no need to be there, and Arse had put pepper in the Cadets’ bullets to hurt them and Arse …
After that she slept very little.
Twenty-eight
‘Staff meeting,’ said Wilton, and stood back from the notice board, peering at the paper he’d just fixed there. ‘Five-thirty. Trust him to make us stay late.’
‘What’s it about?’ Dinant looked up from the pile of sketchbooks he was working on, holding them in a precarious pile in his lap, perched on one of the common room’s most uncomfortable chairs. ‘Do we have to stay? I have a karate class.’
‘You’ll need it if you don’t show. He’ll scupper you,’ Wilton said. ‘No, I don’t know what it’s about. I just got grabbed by his secretary as I came in.’
Hattie stood at the door and looked at him and then round the room. Bevan was as usual in the big armchair, half asleep, and Steenman was standing in a corner talking to Richard Shuttle; it was just like any other morning and she closed her eyes, which felt hot and sandy, and thought muzzily, Am I still asleep? Did I dream it all?
Wilton caught sight of her and looked at her and his face changed and he pulled a chair forward. ‘Heavens, what’s up with you? You look awful.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said huskily and coughed to clear her throat. ‘I’m all right.’ But she came and sat down all the same.
‘Do you know what the meeting’s about?’ Dinant persisted. He looked worried. ‘I really don’t want to miss my class unless I truly have to. I spend a lot of money on them, and they still charge you if you don’t go. Do you think I could go and ask the Headmaster to let me off? I’m so new and only Art anyway, so it won’t make much difference, I don’t suppose.’
‘It’s important,’ she said and her voice was still husky. ‘I think you’ll find it is important. If it’s what I think it is.’
‘And what’s that?’
She turned her head and looked up to see Sam. She hadn’t heard him come in and now he looked at her and his face too changed as he saw her in the clear light from the window. ‘Good God, Hattie, what on earth’s the matter?’
‘You haven’t heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘I suppose there’s no reason why you should have.’ She rubbed her face with one hand. It was odd; as though the hand and the face belonged to two different people, neither of them herself. Is the rest of me numb too? she wondered and then shook her head to clear it of woolliness. ‘There was an accident last night.’
Sam had pulled a chair forward for himself next to her and he sat down heavily. ‘Oh, God. Not another.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Another. Only worse. No, not worse. I mean, he’s not badly hurt. Well, he is hurt, of course, but he’s not unconscious. He knows who he is and where — I called the hospital you see, first thing this morning.’
They were staring at her in puzzlement and she knew she had to explain but it was extraordinarily difficult to be concise. ‘I had to know, and they said he was as comfortable as could be expected but that he’d suffered no brain damage in spite of the anoxia and that —’ She stopped and shook her head again. ‘I’m not explaining very well, am I?’
‘No,’ Sam said gently and put one hand on hers. It felt warm and very comfortable there. ‘Try again.’
‘Sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It was Martin Collop. Last night at the rehearsal. He did his trick of drinking out of his bottle in mid-air. You know what I mean, the Spanish way. And someone had put — I mean acid had got into it.’
There was a total silence in the room and then Bevan said loudly. ‘What was that? What did you say?’ He was sitting bolt upright, or as upright as so fat a man could sit, and staring at her in blank amazement. ‘What did you say?’
‘Someone put acid in Martin’s bottle of drink,’ Hattie said wearily. ‘He tried to drink it, before the rehearsal started. After the technical rehearsal but before — Anyway, he did. And he had to have a tracheostomy and then the ambulance came.’
‘Tracheostomy? You mean you did that?’ Sam said, and his hand tightened on hers. ‘You opened his throat?’
‘It had to be done. The acid had blocked his mouth, gone down to the nasopharynx, I imagine. I’ve been thinking about that, and it must have. I mean he had no airway, not till I put the knife in under his larynx.’
‘Good God,’ Bevan said shrilly and began to shake. They could see it right across the room, his head trembling on his fat neck, his arms and legs seeming to shimmer with movement. ‘Oh, God, they’ll get all of us, you see if they don’t, every one of us —’
‘Give him some coffee, someone,’ Sam said firmly. ‘Wilton, take care of him. Listen, Bevan, you just stop it right there. We’ve got enough going on here without you getting hysterical on us. Hattie, tell me, what did the police say?’
Hattie shook her head. ‘He won’t call them. The Headmaster. I asked, but he said —’ She shook her head. ‘He won’t.’
Again there was a silence and then Steenman said, ‘Well, that’s a comfort.’
Hattie looked at him, her forehead creased, and he lifted his brows at her.
‘Well, isn’t is? Bad enough we had to have them last time something went wrong. That was because it was guns, I suppose. At least this time it doesn’t have to turn into a public side show. That has to be better.’
Sam ignored him. ‘Why not, Hattie? Did he say?’
Hattie lifted one shoulder in a gesture of incomprehension. ‘I asked the same thing as you did. But he said it was a prank. Or an accident.’
‘A prank? Acid in a bottle of drink? My God!’ Sam had closed his eyes and now he opened them and went on. ‘Does he mean one of the boys, or one of us, or —’
‘Who can say? I just don’t know. I imagine that’s what the meeting is about.’ Hattie lifted her head as the bell began its clamour outside the door, and as soon as it finished got a little shakily to her feet. ‘I have a class of sorts. Only the girls, fortunately. They all know about it, most of them are in the cast and were there. They’ll need to talk about it. And I’ll have to soothe them somehow. One or two were pretty agitated.’
‘You look as though you could use some soothing yourself,’ Sam said in a low voice and then lifted his head. ‘Listen, Wilton, put your head round the fifth
-room door, will you? Tell them I’ll be there in ten minutes and God help them if they’re not already head down in work. They know what they’re supposed to be doing. Cut along, will you? Go on —’ as Wilton showed a tendency to linger. ‘You’ll be late for your own class.’
The others were going too, Bevan stomping along at Steenman’s side; he didn’t look at Hattie as he passed her, but Hattie looked up at him and saw the sweat on his cheeks and smelled the rankness of the fear in him and felt a sudden wave of pity as sharp as it was unexpected. The old man was terrified, and she thought, I’ll try to talk to him later, see if I can help; and then closed her eyes at her own foolishness. Would she never get rid of this trained reaction those years at Old East had left with her, the knee-jerk desire to get involved with every unhappy or sick person who passed her way? It was ridiculous; she couldn’t look after everyone. She’d got enough to do to look after herself and the people she was already worried about. Oh, Arse, she thought somewhere deep in her mind. Arse, did you meddle with that bottle? Did you?
Sam was still sitting beside her as the last of the masters went and his hand was still on hers.
‘You had a bad time.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘And you’re still very upset about it.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Of course. It must have been horrific.’
‘It wasn’t just the accident. Or whatever it was. It wasn’t just seeing the damage the acid did, or even doing the tracheostomy. I was a bit high after that, I think. Does that sound awful? I felt, well, pleased with myself.’
The hand tightened even more. ‘You’re entitled.’
She sat there looking down at his hand and then said abruptly.
‘This is a change.’
‘A change?’
‘To the way we’ve been.’
‘Oh.’ He was silent and then said again, ‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Does Martin Collop have to burn himself with acid before —’
Dangerous Things Page 30
