‘Sorry,’ I said.
Jenny and I climbed out of the taxi, paid, and went into the hospital.
Dr Osborne in Casualty had said that the first three hours would be critical, but he had said that over four hours ago and Marina had survived so far. Every passing minute must surely improve her chances.
When we arrived at Intensive Care, Jenny said she would wait on the same chairs outside by the lifts, and read. I noticed that she had borrowed a book from my flat. I was surprised to see that it was an autobiography by a leading steeplechase trainer, someone I had ridden for regularly, and someone Jenny and I used to argue about.
I put on the regulation blue uniform and went in to be met by the police guard that had belatedly appeared in the unit. Yes, a nurse agreed, she could vouch for Mr Halley; he’s Miss Meer’s fiance. Pass, friend.
Marina looked the same as when I’d left her.
I sat down as before and held her hand. It seemed natural to talk to her so I did, albeit softly.
I told her about all sorts of things. I told her about leaving my car on the pavement and how the bomb squad had been called out to check it. I told her that Charles had come up to London and how he had arrived with Jenny. I told her about Rosie and that she might be staying the night but not to worry because Charles would be there too as a chaperon. I didn’t tell her about the card and its violent message. I was pretty sure that she couldn’t hear me but I didn’t want to distress her, just in case.
‘And do you know,’ I said to her, ‘Jenny says you take away her guilt. Her guilt for leaving me. Now there’s a shock, I can tell you. I’ve never thought she felt guilty for a moment. The irony is that I had felt guilty, too, because I hadn’t given up riding when she wanted me to.’
I stroked her arm and sat there for a while in silence. For all its intensiveness, the Intensive Care Unit was a calm, quiet place with subdued lighting and almost no noise. Just the hum of the ventilator pump and the slight hiss of escaping air.
‘But I don’t feel guilty any more,’ I said.
‘Guilty about what?’ said a voice.
I jumped. Mr Pandita, the surgeon, had entered the cubicle silently behind me.
‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘you nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘There are worse places to have one,’ he smiled. ‘I have a friend who had a heart attack at a hotel where hundreds of cardiac surgeons were having a convention. They almost fought over him as he toppled off a bar stool.’
‘Lucky him.’ I nodded at Marina. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I think I would refer to her condition now as serious but stable. It’s no longer critical. I do believe your girl is going to live.’
I could feel the welling in my eyes, I could sense the tightening at the bridge of my nose and the pressure in my jaw. I cried the tears of relief, the tears of joy.
‘Provided we can bring her out of the unconsciousness safely tomorrow then she should make a complete recovery. But we’ll keep her sedated for the night just to be on the safe side.’
‘What time in the morning?’ I asked.
‘We’ll stop giving her the sedative in the drip around seven. We’ll remove the ventilator, and then we’ll see. Everyone is different but, if I was a betting man,’ he smiled again, ‘I’d say she should be awake by noon at the latest. That is, of course, if her brain wasn’t starved of oxygen, but I think that’s unlikely. There were no reports that she had stopped breathing at any time.’
‘Should I stay here the night?’ I asked.
‘You’re welcome to if you want,’ he said, ‘but it’s not necessary. She’s over the danger time. There shouldn’t be much change overnight and we can always call you if there is. The best thing you can do is to go home and get a good night’s sleep and be here for her tomorrow. She won’t be feeling too well, I’m afraid. The sedative tends to make patients feel rather sick.’
‘Thank you, doctor,’ I said.
‘Actually I’m a mister.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Off the street?’ I smiled at him.
‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘It stems from the time when surgeons were all barbers. They were the only people with sharp enough blades. Can you imagine? “A quick shave, sir, and I’ll whip out your appendix on the side.” In those days, doctors saw it as a failure to have to cut open their patients, and most surgery proved fatal. It was the option of last hope. So surgeons weren’t doctors and they were called mister. And it’s stuck. Now you progress from being a mister to a doctor and then finally back to a mister.’
‘For jockeys, mister means an amateur.’
He laughed. ‘Well, I don’t think I’m an amateur.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think not. You saved her life.’
He waved a hand. ‘All in a day’s work. Bye now.’
He moved on. There were probably others more needful of his skills.
I waved at the silent policeman as I went back out to Jenny. I thought it would be too soon for Charles and Rosie to be there but they appeared out of the lift at the same moment as I came through the door.
‘Great news,’ I said. ‘The official bulletin is now that Marina is no longer critical and she is expected to make a full recovery.’
‘Thank God,’ said Charles.
Rosie clasped her hands to her face but it did nothing to stem the rush of tears down her cheeks. Her shoulders shuddered with sobs at the same time as her mouth opened in laughter. The release of tension was tangible for us all.
‘That’s all right, then,’ said Jenny.
Yes, indeed, it was very much all right.
‘I only have three bedrooms,’ I said when Jenny said she wanted to come back to Ebury Street with the rest of us. ‘So who are you going to share with?’
I thought for a moment that she was going to say she’d share with me, but good sense prevailed.
‘I’ll go home later,’ she said, ‘and I’d better give Anthony a call. He may be wondering where I’ve got to.’
‘Haven’t you called him?’ Charles said.
‘No. I’m often out when he gets in from the office. And other times I wait in and he doesn’t come home for hours. He goes for drinks or dinner with a colleague. He doesn’t usually phone me. It’s the way we are.’
How sad, I thought.
We went straight down to the street and set off back to my flat in a black cab.
‘Well?’ I said to Rosie.
‘No match,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘We’re looking for two people then.’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie. ‘And this one’s a woman.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’ She sounded rather hurt that I’d questioned her. ‘I got a good profile off that piece of envelope and it didn’t match the first one at all. Men and women have different chromosomes and different DNA. It’s easy to tell from the two profiles that it was a man who punched Marina last week, and a woman who licked the envelope tonight.’
A wife, perhaps, or a girlfriend? Could anyone stick that envelope shut without knowing the contents? I doubted it. A man had attacked Marina outside my flat last week; Marina had his skin under her fingernails. And this week the message came with the saliva of a woman. Maybe I was searching for even more than two people.
‘So what are we going to do now?’ said Charles.
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘I thought I could at least discount the female half of the population from suspicion, but now…’
‘It can’t be that bad,’ said Charles.
‘Almost,’ I said. ‘And there is one thing that really bothers me. Is race fixing sufficient motive for
