‘I must go, I’m a little late.’
Taking a hold-all from the back of the vehicle, Tamiko said a hasty goodbye to Daniel and hurried towards the impressive, pillared front entrance where she was met by the neatly dressed, grey-haired woman Daniel had seen when they drove past. The woman glanced incuriously in his direction and moments later, she and Tamiko had disappeared inside.
Having been informed that he would be left to kick his heels for at least an hour, Daniel locked the car and went for a walk, once more keenly feeling the absence of the German shepherd at his heels. The area was well kept, expensive-looking and exclusively residential. Daniel had to walk over half a mile to find a small enclave of retail outlets and amongst them a café where he could buy a coffee. He was back at the house and waiting, ten minutes before Tamiko re-emerged.
‘It is strange,’ she said when they were back on the road. ‘I find out my client was first wife of Boo’s husband, Dennie Travers; the one that died. I didn’t know it before but I mentioned they have names alike. Stella is Stella Travers-King although she mostly just calls herself King, now. When I tell her I have been to give back the martingale, she tells me she is not at all a friend of Boo. She says they were married for twenty-five years when Dennie left her to marry Boo. I think she is very bitter. She got quite upset and called her a bitch. It was very awkward. I wished I hadn’t said anything but some clients like you to talk while you are doing a treatment. I think some they are lonely.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ Daniel said. ‘It happens. Poor you – you’ve had quite an afternoon of it, haven’t you?’
The following day, Tamiko had no early clients, so she and Daniel took the horses out in the cool of the morning, riding through the lanes, down a grassy bridleway and into the woods beyond. As Taz was more than happy to run at the horses’ heels, it was a great way to see the countryside and exercise him thoroughly at the same time.
Tamiko was very companionable now she had shed her initial shyness and he was discovering a sense of humour lurking under the often deadpan exterior. This morning, however, something was troubling her and after a while, he invited her to share her thoughts.
‘It’s Hana,’ she admitted. ‘Last night while we talk, she had several messages on her phone and she seemed …’ She paused, searching for the right phrase. ‘Not there?’
‘Absent-minded? Pre-occupied?’
‘Yes. She wasn’t listening much to what I say. I ask her if it is Samir on the phone and she finally say yes. I tell her to ignore him and she say she will, but I’m not sure.’
‘Why didn’t she say something before? Was he threatening her?’
Tamiko shrugged.
‘I’m not sure. She wouldn’t let me see the messages. She say she will delete them but I don’t think she has.’
‘You don’t think she’d go back to him?’
‘I don’t know. I do know she is worried about where she will go and what will happen to her and Jahan. I think she hoped they could stay here but now she realises it wouldn’t work. The house is too small, for one thing. I’m worried that if Samir makes promises to her, she might believe him because she wants to believe him.’
‘Because it’s easier,’ Daniel said.
‘That’s it!’ Tamiko seemed relieved that Daniel understood. ‘My sister isn’t very strong. She’s always needed someone to lean against. For a long time it was me but then, when I met Jo-Ji, she looked for someone else, and Samir was there. If she thinks she can’t be with me, I’m afraid she’ll go back to him.’
Daniel sighed.
‘It’s a common pattern in abusive relationships. It’s sad but sometimes, however much you try, you just can’t save people from themselves.’
‘But the little boy! Jahan. He’s such a sweet child and she adores him. How could she put him at risk? After the way Samir behaved the other night, too.’
‘Do you want me to try and talk to her?’ Daniel made the offer reluctantly; he had a strong feeling Hana might resent his intrusion. ‘Or maybe Jo-Ji would be better.’
‘Could you? Hana has always been jealous of Jo-Ji. She feels he took me away from her.’
‘OK. I’ll see what I can do.’
Any thoughts Daniel may have had about tackling her sister immediately upon his return to the cottage were frustrated by the news, somewhat apologetically imparted by Jo-Ji, that Hana had gone out and taken Tamiko’s car.
‘I slept in,’ he admitted. ‘I woke up when Karen arrived, and heard her talking to Hana before her first client came, and then fell asleep again. Sorry.’
‘But where has she gone? And to take my car without asking. I can’t believe she is so stupid!’
‘I asked Karen if she knew anything but she didn’t. Apparently Hana said she wouldn’t be long, and she’s left Jahan with her.’
‘She is planning to come back, then,’ Daniel put in. ‘That’s something, I suppose.’
‘Well, I hope so.’ Jo-Ji was a little more cautious.
Tamiko rounded on him, eyes flashing.
‘Oh, no! I know you don’t think much of my sister, but even she wouldn’t run away and leave Jahan behind!’
‘Unless she thought it was best for him, perhaps,’ Daniel suggested cautiously.
‘How long is she gone?’ Tamiko wanted to know.
‘Only about half an hour, I think, from what Karen said. I guess all we can do is wait and see.’
‘I’d offer to go looking for her, if we had any idea where she might have gone,’ Daniel said.
‘You don’t think she’s gone to meet Samir?’ Tamiko asked anxiously.
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘Surely even she wouldn’t be that stupid,’ Jo-Ji said.
‘I find out last night he sends her text messages,’ Tamiko told him. ‘I’ll try to ring her, now.’
Daniel wasn’t very surprised when neither her call nor a text was answered, and with the arrival of Tamiko’s first client, all attempts to reach her sister had to be shelved for the time being.
Halfway through the morning, Jahan had grown tired of sitting quietly with a book in Karen’s small treatment room, and Daniel offered to take the small boy for a walk with Taz. Even though he gave the boy a piggy-back for the greater part of the expedition, progress was slow as Jahan was entranced by the woods they passed through and wanted to be set down to explore. By the time they returned, Karen had gone home and Tamiko’s last client had left, but Hana still hadn’t returned and the mood in the cottage was tense.
Tired, Jahan began to be fretful at the absence of his mother and wasn’t soothed by their promises that he would see her soon. Tamiko made him a hot chocolate and turned the TV on.
‘I hope she doesn’t do anything stupid,’ Tamiko said quietly, coming back into the kitchen. She picked up her mobile from the table, located a number and called it.
‘Well, she already has,’ Jo-Ji stated uncompromisingly. ‘She doesn’t have a car of her own so, for a start, she almost certainly hasn’t got any insurance, and come to that, we don’t even know if she’s got a driving license. But if you’re right, and she has gone to meet Samir, she must be absolutely crazy.’
‘She still doesn’t answer her phone,’ Tamiko said worriedly, adding softly, ‘What if Samir has hit her again? Attacked her? He has a temper. We don’t know if she could be lying somewhere, badly hurt.’
‘Surely she’d be sensible enough to meet him somewhere public, wouldn’t she?’ Daniel said, equally quietly. He cast a look at Jahan but the boy seemed engrossed in a program about a wildlife park.
‘I hope so, but … I don’t know. She is trusting too much, my sister. But how will she know where to go? Here it is all new to her.’
‘I can’t believe she’d even think of meeting Jafari, after what happened the other night,’ Jo-Ji said. ‘I suppose we must just be thankful she had the sense to leave the kid behind.’
Daniel had been thinking about what Tamiko had said.
‘Wha
t if she went back to the shopping centre? It’s the only place she knows and it’s well signposted. It might be worth me going out there to see.’
Jo-Ji was just agreeing to this plan when the doorbell rang.
‘Oh, thank God!’ Tamiko exclaimed, hurrying to answer it.
‘Tami, wait!’ A glimpse of a familiar pattern of blue and green squares through the sitting room window made Daniel urge caution, but she was too swept up in her relief to heed him.
Throwing the door open, she came face to face with a tall, middle-aged police officer.
‘Miss Yoshida?’ At her nod, the man took his peaked cap off and tucked it under one arm. ‘Detective Sergeant Walters. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Do you have anyone with you?’
Tamiko gasped.
‘Oh no! My sister! Please tell me what happen. What has he done?’
‘I’m afraid your sister has been involved in a serious accident and has been taken to hospital. I can take you there now, if you’d like that.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Tamiko’s voice caught on a sob and Jo-Ji, reaching her side, put his arm round her.
‘How?’ he asked. ‘I mean – what happened?’
‘It was a road traffic accident. The car she was driving was hit by another vehicle. I’m sorry.’
A little behind them, Daniel felt a small hand catch at his trouser leg and looked down to see Jahan’s dark head peering through the open doorway.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ he asked in a small voice.
FIVE
The drive to the hospital seemed endless. Tamiko and Jo-Ji left straightaway in the waiting squad car, but Daniel offered to stay behind and lock up, following on a few minutes later with the boy and thus giving the other two time to see how the land lay.
The officer had no detailed information as to Hana’s condition, except that she was in a bad way, but his grave face implied that things were indeed extremely serious. They had told Jahan only that his mother was poorly and had gone to see a doctor, which had provoked tears and renewed demands to see her. However, placed on a cushion and strapped into the passenger seat of Daniel’s car, he sat in silence throughout the journey to the hospital save for the occasional, doleful sniff. Daniel had a feeling there might have been many times in his young life when being quiet and unobtrusive had been the safest thing, and the thought saddened him.
The hospital and its environs were familiar to Daniel. In his ten years at the Bristol Met, his duties had frequently taken him there and, as now, those occasions had rarely been pleasant.
Parking the car with doubtful legality in a nearby side street, he lifted the little boy onto his hip and headed for the main entrance and A&E.
Inside, there existed the usual bustle and highly charged atmosphere of A&E departments everywhere. Daniel headed for reception, still carrying Jahan. When he enquired as to Hana’s whereabouts, the permed and heavily made-up woman behind the plexi-glass wanted to know if he was a relative. Daniel said he was and after favouring him with a doubtful look, the woman gave him directions.
Heading for the door she had indicated, Daniel was aware of a dozen or more minor casualties dejectedly nursing various parts of their anatomy or merely looking miserable. As he lifted his hand to press the door release, he suffered a shock as his glance fell on a pretty young woman with a cloud of dark hair, holding a wad of blood-stained fabric to her face. She was deathly pale and leaning against an older woman, who stroked her shoulder lovingly.
As the door hissed open Daniel was for a brief moment held immobile by the searing clarity of the flashback that hit him. The incident that had led to his resignation had ended in such a way, and it had haunted his dreams for months.
A doctor hurried past, turning sideways to avoid him, and he pulled himself together. That was then; this was now, and the drama of the present was too great to indulge in guilt trips into the past.
He hurried on down the shiny corridor, his soft-soled shoes squeaking on the polished vinyl tiles. Jahan was clinging to him tightly, the thumb of his free hand stuck into his mouth for comfort. They rounded a corner to find Tamiko standing outside a cubicle with drawn curtains.
‘Hi. How is she?’ Daniel asked, but Tamiko just shook her head and shrugged, the strain showing in her eyes.
‘Nobody tells us anything. We see her for a few minutes but then the doctor comes and we have to leave. They say she needs surgery.’
‘Where’s Joey – er, Jo-Ji?’
A brief smile touched her face. ‘It’s OK, I know you call him Joey. He’s gone to fetch me a coffee. It’s not that I want it but he needs to do something.’
‘Where’s Mummy?’ Jahan asked, looking at Tamiko.
‘The doctors are looking after her. We have to wait here,’ she told him, finding a smile for the boy and stroking his arm.
‘Is Mummy poorly?’
‘She is, Jahan-chan, but the doctors will make her better,’ Tamiko said.
‘I want to see her.’
‘In a minute, maybe.’
To Daniel’s surprise and relief, the little boy seemed to accept this and subsided into silence, once more.
Beyond the curtain, there were sounds of activity and much urgent discussion. From other cubicles came occasional sounds of moaning and demands for attention or help. Occasionally a curtain would twitch aside and a nurse would come bustling out, heading down the corridor on soft-soled shoes, gaze determinedly centred so as not to invite attention from the scattering of anxious relatives waiting for news. To one side an elderly man was lying on a trolley, eyes closed in a white face and skeletal hands clasping the thin blanket that covered him. The atmosphere, as always, was a mixture of fear, worry, boredom and frustration; the soundtrack the continual, monotonous beeping of countless electronic monitors, the trilling of telephones and the murmur of voices discussing other people’s destinies.
Jo-Ji reappeared with two lidded, paper coffee cups but even as Daniel greeted him, the mood beyond the curtain underwent a sudden change. There was a flurry of activity, the vocal exchange became more urgent, and a man’s voice barked a series of orders including a demand for theatre space. This was obviously not met with the desired response, because moments later he was heard to snap, ‘I don’t care! We don’t have time for that. Tell them we’re on our way.’
Tamiko turned a shocked face to her fiancé and, anticipating Hana’s emergence from the cubicle, Daniel carried Jahan away down the corridor that he might be spared a view that might upset him further. Glancing back, he saw the trolley bearing the boy’s mother, attended by nurses and at least one doctor, being wheeled away with a drip stand pushed along beside it, before it passed from sight round a corner, with Tamiko and Jo-Ji hurrying in its wake.
‘Shall we go and find you a chocolate drink?’ Daniel asked the little boy, who nodded solemnly in reply, and he set off for the café. At the entrance to the department, they met DS Walters going in the other direction. He showed every sign of walking straight past them until Daniel hailed him.
‘They’ve taken her to theatre,’ Daniel said. ‘Hana – Miss Yoshida, that is. I gather things have become critical. I imagine it’ll be some time before she’ll be well enough to be questioned.’
‘I saw you at the house,’ Walters said. ‘You are …?’
‘Daniel Whelan. A friend of Joey and Tamiko’s. This is Hana’s son.’ Daniel would have liked to question the officer about the circumstances of the accident but the boy’s presence precluded that.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ Jahan said, hearing his mother’s name.
‘She’s with the doctors,’ Daniel said bending down. ‘We’re going to get a chocolate drink, do you remember?’
‘Daniel Whelan …?’ the sergeant said on a reflective note. ‘Not PC Daniel Whelan?’
‘Not anymore,’ Daniel responded flatly, turning away. ‘We’ll be in the café if you want us.’
It was in fact Tamiko who found them in the hospital café, over an hour and a half later, by which
time Jahan had consumed not one but two hot chocolates and a doughnut, and was now leaning sleepily against Daniel.
‘Any news?’ Daniel asked quietly, folding up the paper he’d been reading.
Shaking her head wearily, Tamiko slid into a seat on the other side of the table. ‘She is still in the operating theatre. They say she has injuries to the head and much bleeding. Jo-Ji is waiting there, talking to the Sergeant Walters. I come to see if you are OK with Jahan. Jo-Ji will text if there is news.’
‘Has Walters said anything about the accident?’
‘Not much. He says it was very bad. A bigger car – a 4×4, they think – hit her from the side. My car it is very broken – smashed. They are looking for people who see what happen. He tells us there will be another one, soon, who will answer our questions.’
‘An FLO – Family Liaison Officer.’ Daniel nodded. ‘I’ll get you a drink. You look shattered.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘You’ll need energy, though. Have something sweet.’ Daniel made as if to move.
‘No.’ Tamiko put out her hand. ‘Don’t disturb him. I’ll get it, and for you?’
‘Thanks. Another latte. Better make it a decaff this time or I won’t sleep for days!’
Placing the drinks on the table a minute or two later, she slid into the seat opposite Daniel, bowed her head and rubbed her face and eyes with her hands.
He reached across and touched her arm.
‘You OK?’
She looked up. ‘Yes … No. I feel so guilty, Daniel.’
‘I don’t suppose it will help to say that people nearly always do in this situation, but it’s true. It’s also nearly always irrational, but that won’t help either. But think about it; what more do you think you could have done?’
She shrugged.
‘I don’t know. Listened a bit more? I think maybe if I try harder to stop Hana getting involved with Samir at the start … I never liked him. I knew he was no good for her. If I play the big sister and tell her no, none of this would have happened.’
‘And you have a crystal ball, do you? Besides, could you have stopped her? I’m sure she knew you didn’t like him but people have a right to live their own lives and make their own mistakes; it’s difficult to accept, but true. You didn’t ask her to follow you to England in the first place.’
Nothing But Lies Page 7
