Dispossession (12 page)

“Right. And Dean thinks he saw someone jumping free, a
couple of seconds before it hit. As soon as they were sure it wouldn’t swerve
off line, I guess. Whoever did that was brave, mind, though he was stupid with
it.”

“Why brave? It wasn’t going that fast, surely?” A flat-bed
truck wouldn’t have picked up much speed, rolling down a fairly gentle hill
with no engine. Wouldn’t need speed, momentum would be plenty to smash it
through a window wall.

“Petrol,” he said. “We’re not certain yet, the labs are
still checking, but we think the whole cab was soaked in petrol. That fire was
too fierce, and too far forward. The diesel tank wasn’t actually ruptured in
the crash, there must have been another accelerant. So this guy’s been
splashing petrol all over, his own clothes would’ve been wet with it and the
cab would’ve been full of fumes, and he turns the truck’s lights on? Stupid.
One spark from the electrics and ka-boom, the wrong guy gets fried.”

The wrong guy had got fried anyway, though I didn’t want to
remind him: it was the lackey Oliver got caught in the inferno, not Deverill.

“Is Dean all right?”

“He’s fine. Well, minor burns on his arms; that mattress was
on fire before he got you out. But that’s what saved your life, that mattress.
He’s a quick-thinking lad, yon Dean.”

“Yes.” Saved my life, saved his boss’s; and was probably
feeling bitter over Oliver, thinking himself a failure for not getting us all
out and the briefcase too.

Briefcase. On the table by my bed were some crumpled, dirty
sheets of paper. The policeman saw my eyes find them and said, “You had that in
your hand, when they pulled you out. Held so tight you didn’t let go until they’d
jabbed you, the doctor says.”

I shrugged. “Must’ve been instinct, it’s not that
important.”

“No,” he agreed. “We checked. Just a report from a Sunday
paper. What’s your connection with Lindsey Nolan, Mr Marks?”

“Christ knows,” I said, heartfelt and honest. “I don’t even
know what my connection is with Vernon Deverill. Ask the doctors; I can’t
remember a bloody thing.”

“Mmm, they said that. Nor about the accident that put you in
here in the first place, I understand?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Well, our colleagues in Penrith need to put in a report on
that, and there are no witnesses that they can find, so they were hoping you
could throw some light on what happened. But more than that, I’m curious myself
now. This makes two apparent accidents in a week, either one of which might
have killed you; and we’re fairly certain that the second was a deliberate
attempt at murder, so naturally that raises questions about the first, do you
see?”

Oh, I did, I did see very clearly; but, “That would mean I
was the target last night? Not Deverill?”

“That’s right.”

“No, that’s nonsense. It must be. Why would anyone want to
kill me?”

“We don’t know, Mr Marks. That’s another question I wanted
to ask you, actually. Work as a solicitor, you’re going to make enemies, but
does anyone particular come to mind just now? Had any threats, perhaps?”

“No, none. Not that I remember,” added quickly, as I
remembered how much I’d forgotten. “But I don’t know what’s happened to me
since January. If you, if you ask at my office, they might be able to tell
you...”

He looked at me a little oddly, said, “We tried that, but
they weren’t very helpful. Nothing they knew about, they said; but it not being
your office any more, and legal matters being privileged information, there
wasn’t much they were prepared to tell us. We should take a look at your new
employer, they said.”

“Wait a minute. Not my office...?”

“You left,” he said, “at the end of January. Very suddenly,
and without notice. Hasn’t anyone told you that?”

No. No one had told me that. Another mystery, another
question; another significant danger to life as I knew it, as I used to live it
and wanted to again. My new employer presumably was Deverill; which was
probably—properly—death, as far as finding another job was concerned.

Right now, though, being unemployable hereafter was if not
the least, certainly a minor among my many worries. And nothing much I could do
about it anyway, from a hospital bed. Phone up and apologise, perhaps? Promise
to do better, try harder, sweat my little socks off for the company’s good, if
they’d only take me back?

I didn’t think so. I didn’t generally do things without a
reason; if I’d done weird things, logically there ought to be weird reasons for
them. Weird, but valid. I wasn’t saying sorry for anything, until I knew why I’d
done it in the first place.

Well, maybe one thing. No more than that; but one thing I
thought no motive could excuse.

Meanwhile, if you want to know the time, ask a policeman. So
I did that, and he told me: for a wonder it was good and early yet, barely
seven in the morning, and so much for its being always later than you think. I
had a dose of Rip van Winkle’s jet-lag, not tuned in to the season yet, seeing
April light through the curtains and timing it for a January dawn.

I grunted, and shifted uncomfortably on the bed;
mirabile dictu
, the policeman took the hint. He
left me his card, “I’ll keep in touch with the hospital in any case, keep tabs
on your progress, but call me if you think of anything useful. Anything at all.
And tell the staff at once if you see anyone hanging around.”

I nodded, promised, waited till he went away. And then
waited just a minute longer, and in came Simon, as I’d expected.

“How was it, then? Third degree?”

“Nah, no more than second.”

“Well, that’s all right, then, you can take another
question. What would you like first this morning, a cup of tea or a wash?”

I grimaced. “Simon, tell me something.”

“Sure, if I can. What?”

“What am I doing here?”

Just for a moment, he was utterly still; then, “Don’t say
you’ve forgotten? Not since yesterday?”

“No, of course not. I had a car smash, I know that. But that
was, what, six days ago now. What I want to know is, why am I still in
hospital? Do I need to be here?”

“Well, let’s see, now. You were in a coma for three days...”

“Sure. I’m out of it now.”

“You took a terrible crack on the head...”

“...Which has been scanned and X-rayed and poked about every
which way you know, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Except that you’ve lost your memory.”

“Which I am not going to recover lying here, am I? There’s
no treatment for that, you can’t give me a memory-pill and hey presto?”

“No, I suppose not. What are you saying, Jonty?”

“I want out.”

“Oh, come on. I saw you when you came back yesterday
afternoon, you were dead on your feet.”

“That’s just bruises and weakness, nothing major. My first
time out of bed. I don’t need to convalesce in hospital, I can do it just as
well outside; and I’d rather.”

“Why?”

Many reasons; but, “I don’t like being beholden to Vernon
Deverill,” I said, “And I especially don’t like being a sitting target for
anyone who’s got a grudge against the man. I bet there’s still a policeman on
this corridor, isn’t there?”

“Well, not a policeman, no. Private security bloke. Working
for Mr Deverill, I think.”

“Right.” And the window opened on an inner court, no access:
safe enough, they must have thought, or they wouldn’t have brought me here. Or
left me alone. “I’d rather go somewhere I don’t need protecting.”

Simon sucked air worriedly through his teeth, and said, “You
can’t go without seeing the doctor.”

“Bullshit. Of course I can.”

“You haven’t even been checked over properly after last
night,” as he scanned the notes at the foot of my bed. “Honestly, Jonty, you
can’t just walk out of here...”

“Honestly, Simon, I can. I’m going to. Are you going to
help, or what?”

o0o

In the end, he helped. He still fussed, but he disappeared
for five minutes and came back with a trolley: breakfast on top, clothes on the
lower shelf. Not mine, of course—or not those that Sue had said were mine, the
sensuous stuff of yesterday. Those were all gone in the ruin of my former room.
What was in the drawer had been salvaged, though, they’d put the fire out
pretty quickly, Simon said, before it got through the wood; so my keys and
purse and other things were sitting on a tray beside my bed, smelling of
chemicals and char but otherwise okay.

Simon wouldn’t say where these new clothes had come from,
whether he’d raided doctors’ lockers or the morgue; but he’d found jeans that
fitted well enough, a loose sweatshirt and some deck shoes I could squeeze into
if I didn’t bother with socks. A tattered denim jacket to go over the top and a
baseball cap to protect my abused head a little; I’d be fine, I assured him.
Looked like a nice day out there, and I didn’t have far to go.

Where was I going? I was going home, of course. As soon as I’d
eaten and had a proper bath. The fire had left its tang on me also.

What about the security man in the corridor? He couldn’t stop
me any more than Simon could, he didn’t have the right; but just to be sure he
didn’t try I had a little ruse in mind, if Simon was prepared to help me
further...

Which he was, bless him. A policeman might have been a
different matter, but Simon wasn’t worried about private muscle. He took me to
the bathroom in a wheelchair, in my pyjamas and a dressing-gown; and the
crop-haired ape in uniform with
Scimitar Security
shoulder-flashes didn’t bat an eyelid as we passed. I clearly wasn’t fit to go
anywhere under my own steam; I was under the aegis of hospital staff; and he
had his orders and another room besides mine to keep an eye on, because Dean
had been kept in overnight, Simon had told me, and his room was just across the
corridor from me.

As soon as the bathroom door had closed behind us, I was
levering myself carefully up onto my feet. Clothes are okay as a cushion, but
the deck shoes were not so comfortable under my arse. Besides, I wanted to
prove—to myself and to Simon, in case either one of us suffered a change of
heart—that I could stand up for myself.

Could, and did: stiff and sore for certain, but nothing
worse than that, that I could feel. No pain worth hospitalising, at any rate.
And the ache in my head had subsided also, the residue no worse than a
hangover, and I could surely live with that. So we peeled off the pressure
bandage that swathed my skull and found that whatever piece of mangled metal
had come into contact with my head, it had torn the scalp every which way. The
greater shock was finding wide tracks of my floppy blond hair shaved down to
stubble, where the doctors had put seams of ugly black stitching.

While the bath was running I persuaded Simon to show off his
barbering skills again, trimming what was left of my hair to a sort of chopped
velvet all over. It was an improvement, of sorts, though the stitches stood out
more; I was going to be grateful for that cap. Then I shucked off dressing-gown
and pyjamas, to stand buck naked in front of the full-length mirror. The
bruises looked better than ever, fading to browns and yellows around the edges
now while their hearts were still purple and black; sunset glories I carried on
my skin. But another night’s rest had eased them, so that they looked far worse
than they felt. I was more concerned with the dressings on my arms and legs and
what might lie beneath them, what secret damage I’d taken.

But it was six days now since the accident, and I’d always
healed fast; and again nothing felt too bad, bending and stretching. I started
to pick at sticking-plaster, wincing as it lived up to its name; behind me,
Simon chuckled.

“Get in the bath, Jonty. They’ll come a lot easier after you’ve
soaked them.”

True enough. I subsided, into a few inches of water at the
sort of temperature you wash a baby in; and snarled and sat up again, to turn
the hot tap full on.

Lay back in currents of heat, my eyes closed and my mind
drifting in the steam, my skin stinging and my muscles relaxing and my throat
sighing and moaning in gentle pleasure despite Simon’s laughter.

Never had any bath been so necessary, or felt so good; never
had any man been more reluctant to move than I was then.

But it had to be, I didn’t have the time to waste. I sat up
long before I was ready to do that, and soaped myself all over to show again
how much improved I was since yesterday; soaped my head also as there was no
point using shampoo, but I worked up as much lather as I could with fingers
that dug like cruel nails into a scalp still far too tender to be treated like
this, only to show that I could.

Do so much to myself, I thought, and I could surely take
anything the world was going to do to me...

Then it was up and out of the water in a surge, splashing
everything, the wheelchair and my new clothes and Simon included; and then that
surge was reflected inside my head like a tidal suck, draining strength and
will, leaving me giddy and weak and clutching at a grab-rail to keep from
toppling over.

“Knackered now, aren’t you?” I heard Simon’s voice say
distantly, echoing in my mind like in a tunnel, hollow and leading nowhere. But
I could hear his grin too, though my eyes were too dizzy to see it;
you didn’t fool me with all that visible energy
was what he was really saying. “It’s okay, you just stood up too fast. You said
it yourself, you’re convalescent; you’ve got to go easy for a while. Don’t rush
your fences. Now hang on, while I do this...”

And then I yelled, as he ripped the first dressing off my
arm; and no, soaking it hadn’t noticeably helped at all. But my vision cleared,
at least, and my mind stopped swirling. Nothing like a little superficial pain
to focus you right there in your body, good and sharp.

Simon methodically stripped off every plaster and every pad
of lint. He sucked his teeth over a couple of significant gashes, that were
carrying stitches; those he put new dressings on, and told me to get them
looked at in a few days’ time. The remaining scabs and scrapes would heal
better for some air, he said, and left them uncovered.