StillWaters:Book4oftheSophieGreenMysteries (30 page)

“No, of course not. You’ll be fine.”

“I
am
fine,” I said, and Luke stared at me like I was the crazy one.

“You need to stay still,” he said, pressing me back against the sofa, but I pushed him away.

“Luke Sharpe, will you listen to me? I am not dying! I have no stab wounds! She didn’t get through the bone. They’re just cuts. I might need stitches but I don’t need an ambulance.”

He stared at me. I got to my feet to prove it. “See? Not dying.”

Luke’s face was sharp and scared. I reached out and touched one cheekbone with a bloody hand and he grabbed me, crushed me against him, kissing my hair, yelling at me that I’d bloody terrified him.

All I could think was that his new sweater was hand wash only. It’d take forever to get the blood out.

Thus, when the ambulance men and police arrived, suspiciously quickly, they found Luke crying into my hair and me babbling about hand wash only, in a villa soaked all over with blood. Caroline, unconscious and bloody, was carried out to the ambulance; I was pried away from Luke and checked over.

“None of them are severe,” the paramedic said, “but they will need attention. You’ll need to come with us.”

One of the policemen travelled in the ambulance with me, taking notes of all the things I said, and Luke came up in his own car. When he located me at the hospital, I was having the cuts on my arm attended to.

“Look at all my stitches,” I said proudly. I think the anesthetic was having an effect on me.

“Lucky you,” Luke said, looking exhausted. He took my hand and smiled. “She will be okay?” he asked the doctor with the needle.

“She’ll be fine. The wounds will need to be kept clean and dry for twenty-four hours, and she’ll need a lot of rest as she lost quite a bit of blood—”

“Does she need a transfusion?” Luke asked, and I half expected him to plunge a needle into his own arm there and then.

“No, no, it wasn’t that bad.”

When I was discharged, Luke steered me out to the car park and took me to his car. But before he let me get in he wrapped his arms around me and held me so tight I thought he was going to break my stitches.

“Okay, choking here,” I said, and he released his grip on me a little, still holding me close enough that I could smell the blood that clotted his clothes.

“Don’t you
ever
do that to me again,” he said fiercely, his voice shaking.

“Do what? I didn’t do anything!”

“You nearly got yourself killed. I thought you were dead.”

“Yes, well, that wasn’t my fault,” I sulked.

“I know.” He kissed the top of my head. “Well, we’ve got her now. I never even thought of Caro. At least we can rule out the others.”

“Do you make a habit of going out with complete psychos?” I asked, as he opened the car door for me.

“I wasn’t going out with her. And I’ve never been with anyone else half as crazy.”

“What about me?”

“Oh yeah.” He smiled a little. “I suppose you qualify.”

Back at the villa, Luke insisted on undressing me and bathing me, and I had to remind him that I was supposed to be resting so his bathing had better not get too exciting. He reheated breakfast even though it was way past time and made me eat a lot to keep my strength up.

“You know, you’re almost unbearable as a nurse,” I said.

“What, because I take care of you? At least I actually do things for you. As I recall when I had my arm in a sling you refused to even cook because you weren’t hungry.”

“Yeah, well, I was hurt too.”

“Oh, you had one little cut on your face—”

“And a huge great big one on my leg!”

We were off, bickering and arguing, and I felt a warm happy glow that may have been to do with the drugs I was on, but also was possibly because I was back with Luke, and things were good again.

“So I guess going to see Eleanor went out of the window,” I said, glancing at the sky, which was getting dark.

“Yep. We could take a walk up there now, if you want?”

I thought about it. Yeah. A walk might do me some good.

The bandage around my cut wrist was tight enough that I couldn’t quite fasten my coat, so Luke had to dress me like a child. Well, not quite like a child, because he’s incapable of even putting a coat on me without feeling me up somewhere, but you get the idea. Gloves went on over my sore, itchy hands, he wound a scarf around my neck and put my big squashy velvet hat on my head, and we were off, hand in gloved hand, walking down the road towards the sports centre.

My phone rang, and Luke got it out of my pocket for me. “Don’t know the number,” he passed it over, “it looks foreign…”

I snatched it eagerly. “Mum?”

“Happy Christmas, darling! I’ve been trying to ring you all day but I couldn’t get through.”

That’ll be because my phone has been switched off while I had dozens of stitches put in me.

“Yeah, I think the network was busy.”

“Are you not at home? I tried calling you there.”

“No, I—” I floundered, unsure of what to tell her. Then I went for broke. “I’m not at home. Luke brought me to Eden.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Mum?”

“Oh,
love
. Are you back together?”

“Well, yes. We sort of are.”

“No ‘sort of’ about it,” Luke muttered.

“Oh, Sophie! Oh, I’m so pleased. Guess what?” she said to whoever was listening in Down Under, “Sophie and Luke got back together! When did this happen?” she asked me.

I fudged together an answer of “some time before we left” and distracted her with questions about Christmas in Australia. Mum said they’d had a barbie on the beach and spent the day in the sun. She sounded very merry and I worked out that it was past midnight over there. How long had they been drinking?

“Anyway, love, I just called to say Happy Christmas and we wish you were here. Have you done anything nice? Is anything happening there?”

I glanced up at Luke and tried to keep a straight face.

“Uh, well, nothing exciting…”

But when we got to the sports centre the whole place was surrounded by police tape. No one was going in or out.

“What the fuck?” I said. “Did Caro make a stop here?”

Luke was looking around warily. “Do you have your wallet?” he asked, and I knew what he was thinking.

“You’re with me,” I said, and got my ID out of my purse. “What is going on here?” I asked the nearest copper in his hi-vis jacket.

He looked over the card, and his posture straightened. “Murder,” he said. “One of the employees.”

And I bet I could give him a shortlist as to who it was.

“What happened?”

“Strangled. Found this morning by two holidaymakers. She was an aerobics teacher.”

Eleanor.

“Any leads?”

“Not as yet. The murder weapon appears to have been a skipping rope.”

“And they say it’s good for your health,” Luke muttered. “Can we see?”

“Who are you?”

“He’s with me,” I said. “Forgot his ID.”

The copper didn’t look too convinced, but my ID was strong enough to carry us both inside the sports hall and around to Eleanor’s studio. There was a chalk line on the floor, outlining a slender form. “Coroner has the body,” we were told. “Had to get it out of here pretty sharpish. Christmas Day is no time to be shutting down a holiday park.”

“Will they be opening this up tomorrow?” I asked.

“Probably all of it but this studio,” we were told.

Outside, a knot of staff were still sitting around in the cold. I spied Jonathan amongst them and waved to him.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, coming over. “What are you doing here?”

“Out for a walk,” I said, and widened my eyes, thankful our police escort had faded away. “I heard it was a murder.”

“Yeah.” His eyes were pink.

“Did you know the, er…?”

He nodded. “Eleanor? I knew her. She came to Cornwall with us. You might have seen her—pretty girl, brown hair…? God…” I could see tears pricking his eyes. “This is so unbelievable. Like a curse or something, you know? Who’s gonna be next?”

“I’m sure you’ll all be fine,” I said. “Probably it was random.”

“Like Molly was random?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.

“What happened to your face?”

Automatically, I touched the clips holding the cut closed. “I, er, kitchen accident,” I said. “I’m really clumsy.”

“Can’t take her anywhere,” Luke said, smiling rather coldly. “Come on, love, time for tea.”

He steered me away.

“What was that about?” I asked, waving back at Jon, who sat down with the others, still looking sort of dazed.

“Well,” Luke said, and I could tell by that one word he was going to launch into a whole lot of sarcasm, “there’s a dead body back there and there was a dead body in Cornwall and it seems to me that it’s more than likely it was one of the remaining four who made them both dead.”

“Did you have to be so abrupt?”

“I’m cold. And I’m hungry. And there’s a pizza at home with my name all over it.”

“What about my name?”

“That’s picked out in pineapple.”

Back at the villa, I made hot chocolate, feeling cold even with the heating on.

“So I guess we can’t rule them all out,” I said.

“Nope.”

“Damn. And there was me thinking Caro was the only dangerous one around here.”

“Yeah,” Luke said as I slid onto the sofa next to him and handed over his mug of chocolate, “but when you think about it, how likely is it that she was in Cornwall? I mean, someone tried to kill you there and I’d be very surprised if it was her.”

I sipped my drink and looked over the new sofa the Eden maintenance team had brought in while the old one was cleaned up. The carpet had been scrubbed and a big rug placed over the bloodstains. Pretty efficient for Christmas Day. “So you don’t think it was just me falling over and hitting my head any more?”

“Well, there will always be that possibility—” he kissed me, “—but in light of recent events I am quite willing to believe there’s someone else out there who wants you dead.”

“Great. Bringing the grand total up to six. Luke, why doesn’t anyone ever try to kill you?”

He took my hand and put it in his hair, feeling the scars on his skull. “They did, remember? And you thought they’d succeeded and went off and left me there, which, by the way, I have still not forgiven you for.”

“Cheers.”

“But you could make it up to me,” he suggested.

Damn, there goes my hot chocolate.

“Oh,” Luke said, later, after my rest period had been properly violated, “I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

He got out of bed and went down the stairs, and I lay back on the (clean) pillows and held my arms up in the air, looking at the bandages on my wrist and opposite elbow. There were dressings taped to my chest, placed to ruin a low-cut top, but not low enough to annoy Luke.

I’d thought I might have finished with the constant injuries when I left the spying business. No more car crashes, buildings falling down, people running me over, shooting at me, injecting me, trying to burn down my flat or blow up my car…

Luke came back up and told me to close my eyes and put my hands out. I did, wondering what filthy thing he was going to do, but he just put a parcel in my hands.

“Happy Christmas.”

I stared at the gift wrapped box, then at him. Then at the box again.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“You bought me a present?”

“Actually, no, that last orgasm was your present. This is just something I picked up. A stocking filler.” He sat down beside me, and I carefully opened the wrapping. No ribbons: I somehow didn’t think Luke was the type for ribbons. Actually, I was amazed he’d had any wrapping paper at all. Who else was he going to buy presents for?

Inside was a leather box. I caught my breath. If it was jewelry I might faint.

I opened the box, and my head went light.

“Do you like it?” Luke asked anxiously.

“Oh God. It’s beautiful.”

“Really?”

“It’s what I always wanted. Oh, Luke,” I threw my arms around him, and he hugged me in return.

“Try it on,” he urged, “I’m pretty sure it’ll fit, but…”

I lifted the silencer out of the box and weighed it in my hand. See, and you thought it was going to be a ring! I dug my gun out of my suitcase and fixed the suppressor on the end.

“Oh, it looks so good.”

“I’d say fire it,” Luke said, “but I think this place has taken enough damage for now.”

I pulled him to me and kissed him. Does this man understand me, or what?

We cooked the pizzas and sat in bed eating them, watching Bond films on the TV downstairs, paying little attention to them. Okay, so someone tried to kill me this morning, and there was a strong possibility that someone else out there wanted me dead, but here in the villa, in the glow of the TV and the tree lights and the fire in the little chimney, pizza grease on my fingers and Luke’s arms around me, I felt safe and happy.

I called my friend Evie and asked her how Tammy was doing, and the reply was that even after eating a full leg of turkey, my tiny, little, baby kitten still came after the double cream on the Christmas pudding.

“What pudding?” I asked, confused. “Did you take her some?”

“No, sweetie, I brought her up here for today. I didn’t want her to be on her own at Christmas.”

Ahh. What a sweet girl she is. What an adorable little tabby Tammy is. What a fabulous day I’m having.

Well, obviously without the stabbing and hospital and dead suspect bits.

“So about Eleanor Duvalle,” I said as Dr. No went off (see, Luke’s prophecy almost came true).

“What about her? You reckon we could get you one of those white bikinis?”

“I think someone’s in fantasy land,” I said. “Concentrate. The copper said Eleanor was strangled.”

“With a skipping rope. Which may have prints on it…”

“But we’re never going to find out whose. Who would kill her?”

“An aerobics pupil who had just had enough of those damn sit-ups?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“You sounded murderous enough on Tuesday.”