can’t always come to your rescue, Charlotte, however much I might wish to.”
Ignoring my confusion at that, he turned and strode away. I was left to be scooped up by the junior staff in his wake. “This way, Miss Foxcroft.”
“It’s Fox,” I said automatically. I got an inquisitive glance in reply but I didn’t feel like elaborating. I’d shortened my surname after I was chucked out of the army to distance myself both from my parents and my past, but the reasons were too long and too tedious to go into with strangers.
They took me straight down to the prep room outside the operating theatre where they were going to work on Clare. I was given plastic over-boots and a gown and told to scrub my hands before I was allowed in. I found my friend lying on a trolley amid a stack of what appeared to be retro-industrial machinery. She looked pale as milk and about eight years old.
“Charlie!” she whispered, her voice fogged and edgy with the pain. “God, am I glad to see you.”
I moved in and clutched her icy fingers, mindful of the butterfly drip plugged into the back of her hand. She seemed to be wired up to just about everything.
She was wearing a short hospital gown that left her grossly swollen and misshapen legs uncovered. Both were bathed yellow with iodine and the bruises that were already starting to bloom. My eyes skimmed over her left thigh. It looked unnervingly flattened, like a rubber moulding from which all inner support has been removed. Both kneecaps were clearly dislocated.
I tried to avoid looking at the area around her hips. At the linked thin metal rods sticking out from her abdomen that were holding her pelvis together with all the sophistication of a Meccano set. Her modesty was protected by a piece of light sterile cloth draped across her lower body that resembled a partial collapse at a Big Top.
I swallowed and flicked back to her face.
“Don’t worry, Clare. They’ll fix you,” I said, my voice fierce with unshed tears. “I promise.”
She made a sort of fluttering motion with her other hand. “Just as long as they make it stop hurting,” she said faintly.
“They’ll do that, too,” I said. I hesitated, but couldn’t put off the next question. “Where’s Jacob?”
She shifted uncomfortably, gasped as a new spasm gripped her body. “Ireland,” she managed. “Don’t know where exactly. You know how he hates mobile phones. He’s travelling. Somewhere in the south. Buying trip.”
She began to cry without seeming to be aware of it, tears spilling down her cheeks. One of the theatre nurses threw me a sharply reproachful glance.
“You’ll have to leave now,” she said.
“I’ll find him,” I said to Clare, ignoring the nurse.
“Transit van,” she murmured. “Determined sod.” Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment then snapped open like she was having to fight to stay with me. “Take care of the dogs for me, Charlie. They’ve been stuck in all day. Poor old Bonny. And don’t let—”
“You really will have to leave,” the nurse said. “Right now!”
“I will,” I said, answering both of them at the same time. I leaned forwards, urgent. “Clare, what do you mean about the van? Determined to do what? Knock you off?”
The nurse grabbed my arm but I shook her loose. Another of the surgical team seized me by the shoulder. I stopped struggling.
“All right, all right, I’m going!” I snapped, allowing them to hustle me outside.
As the doors swung shut behind me I got one last look at Clare. Her eyes were closed again and she lay still and quiet as a corpse against the white pillows.
***
The same nurse who’d ejected me reappeared after a few minutes and passed me a set of keys. I recognised the key-ring as Clare’s and realised the nurse must have been sent scurrying back up to the ward to collect it.
“Mr Foxcroft strongly suggests that you go home and get some food and some sleep,” she said. “He’ll call you as soon as she comes out of theatre.” There was a respectful note in her voice that hadn’t been there previously.
I nodded. “I’ll be at Clare’s,” I said, and left her the phone number on another scrap of paper. I seemed to be handing a lot of those out today.
I retrieved the Suzuki from the car park where, surprisingly enough, it hadn’t been either clamped or stolen. Then I rode sedately through the centre of Lancaster and back out again, heading north.
And all the time I was turning over what Clare had said. The main feeling was one of relief that, no matter what Tess might have insinuated, Jacob could not be involved. I hadn’t thought so for a moment, but being able to prove it made things so much better.
And then there was the accident itself. I appreciated that, as my father had predicted, she was pumped full of morphine, but Clare had seemed surprisingly clear about it. She’d known it wasn’t just a van, but a Transit, which suggested she might have a clear recall of exactly what had happened.
And then we could find out who was to blame.
***
I made a considerable detour back to the cottage on the way to Jacob and Clare’s place. I was conscious of the passing of time and the fact that I might be missing some vital phone call from my father, but I had to have some clean clothes or even I wouldn’t want to know me by morning.
My home looked shabby and depressing when I walked back in. The sledgehammer was still propped up against the wall upstairs where I’d left it and a thick layer of dust had settled over just about everything, like I’d
