She was in Queensland with Jack and Eva, swimming in the warm sea at the Gold Coast, visiting the koala sanctuary, with the barbecue to look forward to later. A world away with constant sunshine, and her deeply tanned son saying earnestly, over and over again, ‘You should move out here, Mum!’ Oh, how she wished she had!
Now she was up in Edinburgh with Tom and Jane, in their grey stone house, the cold east wind rattling its ill-fitting sash windows. ‘We’re going to get them double-glazed, Mum, but it’s expensive because we don’t want to lose the character.’ The house was warm and cosy inside though, with its pale-yellow painted nursery because, at first, anyway, they hadn’t wanted to know the sex of the baby. Best to be safe with yellow. Then the angelic little bundle that was Calum Fraser Palmer arrived, two days after her own birthday. ‘You should come up more often, Mum,’ said Tom, and Jane nodded in agreement.
Next Kate saw Calum as a bigger boy, wanting to know about his Granny Palmer. ‘Granny Palmer died in a cellar when you were a baby, Calum,’ they said. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What was she doing in a cellar?’ ‘You may well ask!’ roared Woody, who was there as well. ‘Because she got involved! How often I told her not to get involved!’ And Angie said, ‘Well, at least Fergal can move in now!’
Kate woke with a start. Back to the waking nightmare, the blackness and the silence and the cold. She saw with some horror that she’d slept throughout the day, that it was now eleven at night. Her thoughts were becoming jumbled and fuzzy. Was it still Saturday? How much longer would she be able to breathe this air? She was already struggling. It was taking all her energy to force her lungs to get the oxygen out of the air. And she had a raging thirst.
She wouldn’t be able to shout now even if she had the energy because her mouth was so dry that her lips were sticking to her teeth and she couldn’t form the words properly. She’d eaten the other two Polo mints. She’d read somewhere that you could drink your own urine which, although not an attractive proposition, wasn’t even possible without some sort of container to catch it in.
Kate finally wept and then wondered if she could drink her salty tears. She felt incredibly tired. Time ceased to matter. She was in Hell, and Hell was supposed to be hot. This hell was freezing cold. Nobody had missed her. She was going to die down here, and soon. She looked at her watch. Now it was 11.25.
Kate lay down on the floor and waited.
Thirty-Three
Somewhere, deep in the nightmare, a dog was barking hysterically. She knew that sound, that bark, but she was too exhausted to open her eyes, or care for that matter. Even through her closed eyelids there seemed to be light. If this was Heaven it was OK because they obviously allowed dogs. A near-death experience they called it, but this was surely a real-death experience – all light and air and nothing to be afraid of any more. If she had the energy she’d open her eyes and look down on her crumpled body in the cellar. Who needs a body anyway? This was much, much nicer, this floating on air.
Now she was moving towards the light in the tunnel that everyone spoke about. And there were voices. Male voices. She’d really have preferred a choir of angels.
Thirty-Four
Kate had no idea where she was when – at around four in the afternoon, she later discovered – she opened her eyes to a blur of daylight and lots of white everywhere. Where had all this white come from? What was this thing stuck in her arm? Who was calling her name? ‘Kate, Kate,’ someone was saying. Yes, that’s me, I’m Kate, she thought. She felt warm and comfortable, so she’d probably died and gone to Heaven.
‘Kate, Kate, darling…’
Darling? She hadn’t been called ‘darling’ in years! Who would be calling her ‘darling’?
Things began to take shape through the blur. Why was there a drip in her arm? And someone was holding her hand. Who? Kate focussed her attention toward the direction of the voice.
‘Woody?’
‘Oh, thank God,’ said Woody, squeezing her hand.
‘Where am I?’ Kate had always wondered if people really said that, and now here she was saying it herself! She wanted to giggle; she’d say it again. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in hospital, Kate, recovering from your ordeal.’
‘Ordeal?’
‘Remember, in the cellar? Kate, tell me, who shut you in down there?’
The cellar! The cold; the damp; the thirst. She hadn’t died then?
‘I thought I was going to die,’ she said.
‘You damned well nearly did, Kate. Please, can you tell me who shut you in that cellar?’
Everything was coming back now. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Barney found you, Kate. But who—?’
‘Hetty,’ Kate said, struggling to sit up. ‘It was Hetty.’
‘Hetty? Hetty Patterson?’
‘That’s her.’
‘Dear God, why?’
A nurse had appeared, looking stern. ‘Take it easy,’ she admonished Woody, ‘you’re not to tire her.’
‘No, no,’ Woody agreed. He released Kate’s hand. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Kate could hear him talking outside the door. ‘Who’s he talking to?’ she asked the nurse.
‘Probably to the policeman who’s been on watch outside,’ the nurse replied.
‘Oh,’ said Kate, ‘good.’
And she dozed off to sleep again.
When she awoke Woody was there again.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked sleepily.
‘Well, that’s a fine welcome from your knight in shining armour! Not that I can take all the
