‘I am presuming this wasn’t a random shooting,’ he said, ‘and that Miss Meer was specifically targeted by the gunman.’
‘But he would have had to wait there for ages,’ I said. ‘It was only by chance that Marina came out when she did.’
‘Assassins can wait for days or weeks to get a single opportunity if they are determined enough,’ he said.
And, I thought, if it was the same person who had attacked Marina in Ebury Street, he had had to wait for her then, too.
‘So, I ask again,’ he said, ‘do you think this has anything to do with your investigations?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘If you mean do I know who did this, then the answer’s no. If I did, I’d tell you, you can be sure of that.’
‘Do you have any suspicions?’
‘I always have suspicions,’ I said, ‘but they’re not based on anything solid. They’re not actually based on anything at all.’
‘Anything you say might be useful,’ he said.
‘Do you remember the jockey who was murdered at Cheltenham races two weeks ago?’
‘I remember that horse — Oven Cleaner — died,’ he said. ‘Now, that was a shame.’
‘Yes, well, a jockey was murdered on the same day. Then a racehorse trainer appeared to kill himself. Everyone, and especially the police, seem to think he committed suicide because he’d murdered the jockey.’
‘So?’ he said.
‘I believe the trainer was in fact murdered by the same man who killed the jockey and that it was made to look like suicide so that the police file on the jockey’s death would be conveniently closed. And I’ve been saying so loudly and often for the last ten days to anyone who’ll listen.’
‘What has any of this to do with Miss Meer being shot?’ he said.
‘Last Friday, I was warned that, if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, someone would get badly hurt. And now they have.’
CHAPTER 16
They finally allowed me in to see Marina around four.
First I had to don the regulation outfit of blue smock, with matching dishcloth hat. And I had to wear a mask over my mouth and nose. I wondered how she would know who I was, but I needn’t have worried, she was deeply asleep.
She looked so defenceless lying there, connected to the machines, with the tube still in her mouth. Her breathing was being assisted by a ventilator and the rhythmic purr as the bellows rose and fell was the only sound. A rectangular blue screen showed a bright line that peaked with the beat of her heart. Go on heart, I said to the machine, keep pumping.
I sat to one side, opposite the ventilator, and held her hand.
There were other patients in the unit but partitions rather than curtains separated the beds and these provided a fairly high degree of privacy.
I spoke to her.
I told her how much I loved her and how dreadfully sorry I was to have brought all this on her. I told her to fight, to live, and to get better. And I told her that I would get the man who had done this. And then we’d see. Maybe I’d take up gardening as a career, though one-handed gardening might be a problem.
And I asked her to marry me.
She didn’t reply. I told myself she was thinking it over.
A nurse came to tell me that there were some people to see me outside. Not more police, I thought. But it was Charles, and he had brought Jenny with him.
‘Hello, Sid,’ she said. She leaned forward and gave me a peck on the cheek. ‘How is she?’
Charles and I shook hands.
‘She’s doing OK — at least, I think so. The nurses seem optimistic, but I suppose they would. Certainly her colour is much better than earlier.’
‘Jenny picked me up from Paddington,’ said Charles. ‘I called her on the way up on the train and she wanted to come. You know, to give support.’
Or to gloat, I thought. But maybe that was unfair of me.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ I said. ‘Both of you.’
I looked past Charles and was astonished to see Rosie still sitting on one of the chairs opposite the lifts.
‘Rosie,’ I said, ‘why don’t you go home?’
She turned and looked at me with sunken eyes. She was clearly in no state to leave the hospital on her own. There was no sign of the Superintendent or his sidekick. What were the police thinking of, I thought, to leave her here without help?
‘Charles, Jenny, this is Rosie,’ I said. ‘Rosie works with Marina. She was there when Marina was shot. She saved her life.’
Jenny sat down next to Rosie and put her arm round her shoulder. The human contact was too much and Rosie burst into tears and sobbed, hanging on to Jenny as though her life depended on it.
‘We’ll look after Rosie,’ said Charles. ‘You go back to Marina. We’ll be here when you need us.’
He ushered me back to the unit door and almost pushed me through. It was such a comfort to have them there but I felt a little guilty at leaving them out in the corridor.
‘Sorry, just you,’ said the nurse when I asked. ‘And only then because she’s your fiancee.’
I stayed with Marina for what seemed like a long time. Every few minutes, a nurse would come to check on her and twice Mr Pandita, the surgeon, came in too.
‘She’s doing fine,’ he said on his second visit. ‘I’m more hopeful.’
‘More hopeful’ didn’t sound wonderful but a lot better than ‘less hopeful’.
‘It’s been more than two hours now since she left theatre,’ he said. ‘Her blood pressure is still low but that’s a good thing. It reduces the chance of internal bleeding. We will leave her sedated overnight and attempt to bring her out in the morning.’
‘Bring her out?’ I asked.
‘From the induced coma,’ he said. ‘Only then will we really know.’
We stood at the foot of the bed looking down at the unconscious figure.
‘I think I’ll go and get something to eat,’ I said. It was a while since I’d left my uneaten lunch on the floor of the sandwich bar, and even longer since dinner the previous night. ‘Then I’ll come back, if that’s all right?’
‘There are no visiting times on this ward. We run a twenty-four-hour service here.’ He smiled. At least I think he smiled. Due to his mask, I couldn’t see his mouth but there was a smile in his eyes.
Charles, Jenny and Rosie were still there when I came out.
They had made themselves at home and were surrounded by the remains of bacon rolls and chicken mayonnaise sandwiches with salad. Empty polystyrene coffee beakers stood in a row on the bottom of an upturned waste bin that had doubled as a table.
Rosie looked much better for having had something to eat and other people to take her mind off the horrors of earlier.
‘Hello,’ said Charles, looking up from a newspaper. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘The official bulletin is “more hopeful”.’
‘That’s great,’ said Jenny.
‘I’m starving,’ I said. ‘I see that you’ve all had something but I need some food. Where’s the hospital canteen?’
Charles stood up, put all the trash in the reinstated bin, and gathered up his newspaper.
‘A policeman came and gave me these,’ he said, holding out my car keys. ‘He said to tell you that your car is
