laughed at his own joke.
‘Ha ha … ’ Phil moved his hand up to the side of his head, felt bandages. He noticed his hands were bandaged too. He felt his skin, found ridges, painful and swollen to the touch. ‘What do I look like?’
‘An oil painting,’ said Franks. ‘Something by Picasso.’
‘You’re full of them today.’
‘Or Frankenstein.’
‘How … long have I been asleep?’
‘Just a day or so. Not too long.’
‘A day or so … not too bad. Thought you were going to say … years. What happened?’
‘What can you remember?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The cottage? Aldeburgh?’
Phil frowned. At Franks’s words, he felt a part of his memory detach itself from the huge expanse of blackness in his subconscious and float slowly towards his conscious mind. ‘Yes, the cottage … we went to Aldeburgh for the … the weekend.’
‘That’s right. Well … ’ All traces of humour fell away from Franks’s face.
Phil scrutinised him. He recognised that look. All professional sympathy. It was the one police officers gave that transformed anxious relatives into grieving ones. ‘What … what’s happened …?’
‘The cottage … there was an explosion.’
Phil waited.
‘Don was … ’ Franks sighed. ‘Don died in it.’
Phil pulled the bedclothes back and tried to swing his legs round to the floor. The effort cost him, and he was soon out of breath.
‘What you doing?’
‘Getting … up … ’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Can’t … can’t lie here like … this … ’ He put one hand on the bedside cabinet, tried to pull himself out of bed. ‘Got to … to … ’
Franks placed a restraining hand, gentle but firm, on Phil’s chest. ‘You’ve got to stay where you are. Get well again.’
Phil shook his head, ignoring the swimming sensation. ‘No. Don’s dead … Got to—’
‘No, Phil.’ Franks used his most authoritative voice. ‘You need to stay where you are.’
Phil, exhausted and riddled with pain, flopped back on the bed. He stared at Franks. ‘Where’s … Marina? I want to see … Marina … ’
Franks paused. This was the bit he had been dreading.
73
Sandro stared at his sister. She had come off the phone on a high. Fired up, angry, ready to go and get Josephina there and then. But because there could be no immediate action, her emotion began to subside. And when the adrenalin dissipated away into her system, she hit a down.
‘Can I … Is … You all right?’ The words felt foreign on his tongue. He checked his watch. Not long to go now. He looked again at Marina. He couldn’t leave her like this. ‘Look, I’ve … Is there …?’
She sighed. ‘I want my family back.’
Sandro knew who she meant. He didn’t think she had intended the words to hurt, and after all these years he wasn’t sure they did. But she was still his sister.
‘Why don’t you … phone the hospital? See how Phil is?’
She looked up once more. ‘You think I don’t want to? You think I don’t want to do that every second of the day? I tried it once before and look what happened.’
‘Try it again. On that phone they call you on. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Now?’
‘You know what. I never see Josie again.’
‘After the way the woman was in that last call? That won’t happen. She wants this over as much as you now. Or you could do it from here.’
‘Even more risky,’ she said. ‘They could trace it right back here.’ She thought once more. ‘I’ll find a phone box. Call from there.’
‘A workin’ one? Round here? Good luck with that.’
‘There must be one somewhere … ’
‘Can’t think.’
She stood up. ‘I’m going to go and look. See if I can find one.’
Sandro looked like he wanted to object but couldn’t think of a reason. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You want me to come with you?’
‘I’ll be fine. The walk should take my mind off things, hopefully.’
She left the house before he could say anything more. It was cold outside, the sun seeming distant. She walked the broken, pitted roads looking for a phone box, or somewhere that would have a public phone. She came across the Broad way, a collection of shops, cafes and a pub that looked like it had given up fighting for life and accepted a slow, crumbling death.
And there she found a phone box.
She ran to it, willing it to be undamaged and working. To her amazement, it was. The cubicle stank of stale bodily fluids and the handset was greasy and filthy to the touch, but it had a dialling tone. Even the vandals have given up on this place, she thought.
She took out a piece of paper from her pocket with the hospital’s number on it. Dialled it. Once connected, she took a deep breath, told them who she was and who she was calling for. And waited. A nurse eventually came back on the line, but not before she had heard a click. She knew someone was listening.
‘Your husband’s come round,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s stable.’
Relief flooded her body, nearly took her legs away. ‘Oh … oh. Can I … can I talk to him?’
‘He’s sleeping at the moment.’
‘Is he OK? He’s not … ’
‘He’s shaky, but he’s doing fine.’ There was a pause. She heard someone talking in the background. ‘If you can give me your number?’
‘Just … just tell him … ’ She sighed. ‘Oh, he knows.’
She hung up, leaned against the filthy wall of the box, unable to move for a few minutes.
He’s alive, she thought. Phil’s alive. Get Josie back and we’re a family again. The euphoria she was experiencing soon subsided as she thought about her daughter.
She looked at the phone once more. The thought that Phil was well and alive gave her strength. She drew from it. And came to a decision. She picked up the receiver again, ignoring the rank smell coming off it, and placed it to her ear.
While she had been walking, she had come up with a plan. Call Anni, give her the address of the bare- knuckle fight. Tell her to get Mickey and the rest of the team there to pick up Josephina’s kidnapper. Keep a low profile at the event, only move when given the nod. Sandro wouldn’t mind, she was sure of that. Well, she hoped he wouldn’t mind.
Right, she thought. Good. That sounds like a plan. Her finger was poised over the buttons when she realised she didn’t have Anni’s number. It was programmed into her phone and she usually called it from her contacts list. She had never bothered to learn it.
She put the receiver down once more, slamming it harder than she had meant to, angry that her plan couldn’t go ahead. She stared at it, as if that would make it connect to Anni’s phone, then turned her back, stared out along the desolate stretch of Jaywick seafront, her heart sinking.
Then she had an idea. She turned back to the phone, picked up the receiver, smiling to herself as she did
