Dying Fall (22 page)

I couldn't bear the heat any longer. I was screaming for help. But I couldn't leave Khalid. And then he and I were both lifted clear by strong hands that came with Brummie voices. I took in the yellow Day-Glo jackets but didn't care what the words on the backs were. Some must be ambulance men. I was soon hunched away from Khalid.

I crouched near the gates and threw up all the champagne. I could hardly wipe my mouth, I was dithering so much. Someone – a teenager whose jacket insisted he was in the police but whose voice kept cracking with panic – called me miss and tried to get me to stand up.

At long last my brain seemed to clear. If he was panicking, someone had to do something. I invigorated him with Chris's name, agreed to sit in his panda and sent him to find a blanket.

What about Khalid? A couple of figures left the little knot surrounding him. At last I could see – yes, they'd set up a drip. I could see him try to lift his head. But they came with a stretcher. I was torn: should I go with him or wait for Chris?

I had to speak to him anyway. Gathering my blanket, I set off, only to find the heel coming off my shoe. I gave it a final wrench and slung it at the wrought-iron gates, still implacably shut. It clanged back towards me.

‘Can I speak to him?' I yelled, hopping inadequately.

‘He says he won't go till he's spoken to you,' the driver said, dryly.

Stepping into the ambulance was like reaching the stage after the darkness of the pit. Khalid, the star, was far from recumbent. He reached for my hand and shook it gently from side to side.

‘You mix with some bad types, Sophie,' he said eventually.

‘Just these Datsuns don't hold the road like your Montego. How are you, Khalid?'

‘Even they say there's not all that much wrong. Can't help passing out if I see blood. Specially my own. Tell you what, they say I won't be driving for a couple of days. You get all that computer stuff – right? Might as well have a go at it while I've got the time.'

‘Could lead you into more danger.'

‘Who are you going to tell? Don't be daft! Besides, I'd like to fix the bugger that did that to my poor old Monty.'

One of the ambulance people checked his drip rather ostentatiously.

‘They want to be off, love. Shall I tell your mum? Still in Victoria Avenue?'

‘Number 10. Sophie, I don't want the Bill scaring her.'

‘I'll go myself. Promise.' I kissed his cheek lightly.

I staggered as I stepped down, which prompted the medic to invite me to go along. I insisted I had to wait for the police.

‘But they'll find you easy as wink up at the Acci, love. And you've got some burns need looking at. No? Not got the sense you were born with?'

Maybe I hadn't. I hadn't. What was I doing here, amid all this mess, among all these people? What had been going on? I wanted to sit in the gutter and cry.

Then I saw another car, a big Peugeot, nosing its way purposefully through the cluster of emergency vehicles.

I lurched towards Chris as he got out. I'd rather not have landed in his outstretched arms. I couldn't bear it if he started being nice to me. But he grinned, ironically, and said, ‘My word, you have been having an eventful evening, haven't you?'

‘You've no idea how exciting the ballet can be,' I agreed, steadying myself and stepping back.

‘Oh, I have. I've just been watching you. Who was it,' he continued, dropping his voice, ‘who hopped forty paces in a public street?'

I had to get rid of that tender note. ‘Someone who'd easily pass for forty-three in the dusk with the light behind her!' I said, surprised I could remember Gilbert and Sullivan at that time of night. ‘And I don't suppose she was swathed in a National Health blanket at the time. No wonder it's short of money.'

‘Why didn't you do the sensible thing and go off to Casualty?'

I didn't know. I stood on one foot looking for a reason.

‘I wanted to remember what happened,' I said at last. ‘And in what order it happened. Because there was something odd.'

‘Odd?'

‘The way things happened. There was a definite order. And it happened surprisingly slowly.' I put up a hand to stop him interrupting. I focused on Khalid's burnt-out Montego first. Then on the Datsun. The Datsun driver had fired, then stopped, then the Datsun had caught fire, then the Montego when he'd fired again. It didn't make sense. Nothing was making sense.

The top of my head lifted clear of my brains.

‘Put those bloody things away,' I said, fending off another attack from his smelling salts. ‘Let me just think.'

‘Think on the way home. Your teeth are chattering again.'

He held open the car door, and I allowed myself to collapse on the front seat. He let himself in the other side.

‘One thing about being in charge of this lot,' he said over his shoulder as he reversed whence he had come, ‘is that you don't have to spend your entire night on your hands and knees searching for –'

‘For clues? Do say clues! I've never heard you use the word yet!'

‘Clues,' he said, obligingly.

It wasn't quite light as Chris turned into Balden Road but there was a very strong sense that it was going to be, at any moment. Certainly there were joggers already popping out of double-glazed porches, and my milkman was awake enough to wave to some of them. Out loud I promised myself a long, hot bath, and wondered if Chris might turn his hand to toast. And then I panicked at the thought of the day's teaching: there was preparation left undone, and God knew how I was to keep my eyes open anyway. But I ceased to be tired as soon as I opened my front door.

‘How may people,' Chris asked, surveying the mess, ‘knew you were planning a night on the tiles?'

I could scarcely take it all in. Whoever had broken in had certainly wanted something very badly. Every one of my books was on the floor, and all my drawers and their contents tipped on top. Two china vases had been smashed, but not a cut-glass bowl. The grate had been pulled from the wall.

Chris spoke with barely controlled venom into his radio. I wondered if I was brave enough to look into the other rooms. I dragged myself back into the hall and towards the stairs.

‘Stay where you are,' Chris rapped, still holding his radio.

I stayed.

‘It'll be as bad as this everywhere, you know, and there's just a chance there may be something –'

‘What sort of something? Not another bomb?'

He smiled grimly: ‘I was thinking more along the lines of dust from shoes, a thread from clothing. I have to ask you: do you know what they were looking for?'

‘I haven't anything worth nicking. No jewellery or anything.' He waited. ‘You don't mean that sort of thing, do you? You mean Wajid's notes? Something like that?'

‘Good job they're safe with us,' he said.

And a good job the photocopies I'd made were secreted in the entrails of my college filing cabinet.

Chris took me back to his house, a detached modern one not all that far from Jools's flat, in one of the more expensive parts of Edgbaston. He reached me a thick towel and promised that when I emerged from the bath I'd find something I could wear. This turned out to be a tracksuit that made me look as if I'd shrunk in the wash. The only shoes I'd been able to retrieve were the ones I cycle in, still in the polythene carrier in my hallway. He made me eat toast as we drove to Khalid's house in Moseley.

It was a semi, from roughly the same era as mine but a little smaller, with an awkward triangular garden at the back. The front garden was looking a little depressed: Mrs Mushtaq's arthritis must have stopped her tidying up over the winter, and it looked as if Fatima was no more a gardener than her brother. It was Fatima who opened the door, sleek in a silk dressing gown. Her mother was behind her, fully dressed. Chris waited behind me. They wouldn't ask what I was doing there until they'd invited me in, I was sure of that. So I said, ‘I've got a message from Khalid – he gave me a lift last night, and he wanted me to tell you myself.'

The women exchanged glances, but stood back, smiling politely. As soon as I was over her threshold, Mrs Mushtaq reached for my face, cupping it gently for a moment. When I introduced Chris, she hitched her
dupatta
more firmly over her hair, and shook hands.

She would not sit until we were seated. Then she took a hard chair. I moved as close to her as I could, took her hand and explained. Occasionally she'd fire a question in Punjabi at Fatima, who stood beside her.

‘I promise you he's not badly hurt,' I repeated. ‘But they may keep him in hospital for a day or two. So he'll want pyjamas and shaving things.'

‘And books,' Fatima added, laughing. ‘I'll go and sort things out.'

Her mother too excused herself. Chris and I were left with the walls and each other to look at. Chris peered closely at the holy pictures and the texts from the Koran. They'd made the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, since I was here first.

‘Nice people,' said Chris, eventually.

‘They could do without this business,' I agreed.

Fatima reappeared first, with Pakistani tea and some viciously sweet biscuits. I ate from hunger, Chris, to judge from the careful nibbles, from politeness. We talked about Khalid's degree and Fatima's job. She taught Law at Birmingham University, and was sour about the increase in student numbers without corresponding cash injections. I thought darkly a spell at William Murdock might be a salutary experience, but I could hardly say that. And at last Mrs Mushtaq came back, carrying a small sports bag. She gave it to Chris. She gave me a small paper bag. ‘Halva, Sophie. Home-made.'

And I had led her son into such danger and proposed to lead him into more. I hoped my guilt didn't show.

Back to Rose Road to make another statement, and to consume another breakfast packed with cholesterol.

And then some shopping.

I'd have thought Chris a bit elevated to accompany me to Marks and Sparks – we were the first through the doors – but he insisted that he wasn't going to let me out of his sight until he could hand me over to Tina, who came on duty at ten. And I had to have clothes, we agreed on that. Even my insurance company conceded that I could spend enough money to render me decent and warm until the police had finished what Chris promised would be a microscopic examination of my house. I consoled myself with the thought that while I might have to spend a long time tidying up, the place would get one hell of a spring-clean and I could enjoy my Easter holiday doing something less killing.

What we didn't agree on was what I would do in my new clothes. My theory was that I should go and teach. Chris – and Tina, when we met up at her flat – thought a day off would be more sensible.

‘Doing what?' I demanded. ‘And more to the point, where?'

‘Better kip down on my sofa,' said Tina.

Chris agreed, so quickly and with such an edge to his voice that I wondered what had upset him. But he hadn't had much sleep either. Perhaps that was it. Otherwise I might have suggested I bed down in the more spacious and civilised surroundings of his house, which would be guaranteed pop-free, whatever else. At last, I shook my head firmly. ‘Work,' I said.

I got through the morning on automatic pilot, and thought I was doing all right with the afternoon class. But quite suddenly I found myself terribly close to tears, and dared to leave the room and hurry upstairs without warning Tina. She was furious when she caught up with me.

‘OK, so I climbed three flights of stairs without you. What could you do, anyway, if anyone set on me?'

I suppose I rather expected her to declare she was the Midlands karate champion ready to kick an assailant downstairs. Instead, she looked at me steadily for a moment. ‘Didn't Chris mention this?'

‘This' was a handgun small enough to fit into the pocket of the bulky tops she always favoured.

‘Ah,' I said.

Since Tina's reign – and the letter bomb, of course – my colleagues had been much more punctilious about keeping students out of the room. If they wanted one of us, they had to wait outside. There were a couple of lads there now, asking, if I would send Shahida out. It was about a bus pass – really urgent.

I let myself in and told Shahida, who looked as if she too had had precious little sleep the night before. She pressed her hand to her stomach as she walked to the door; I felt sick with fear for her.

But when she came back in she was shaking with laughter: in the middle of his desperate plea for financial help her tutee had broken off. Another, more important matter had claimed his attention. On his mobile phone.

We were enjoying a giggle and a cup of tea when Winston arrived. As usual he waited by the door; as usual I waved him in. This time I could see the reason for his reticence. In his left hand, the hand he uses for bowling those devastating in-swingers he was clutching a cellophane-wrapped rose.

‘This is for you, Sophie,' he said, shoving it forward.

‘Winston! How lovely of you!'

‘No, Sophie: this came for you.'

So he wasn't holding it gingerly because he was bashful but because he was scared.

‘Put that bloody thing down,' Tina snapped

‘Tina – please!' It's not every day I get a rose, after all.

‘You stupid bitch, don't you realise –'

I realised all too well. I'd no idea how large a disguise an explosive device might need, but I had seen on TV how much damage a so-called controlled explosion can do. And I didn't reckon there'd be much left of my rose.

‘Isn't there some way we could check?' I said. ‘To see if it's authentic?'

In the end I managed to persuade her to phone the firm who'd delivered it, its name brightly stamped all over the delivery paper. And yes, they'd delivered a rose. They were terribly concerned: was there anything wrong with it? They assured us they used only the very best floral materials.