Instead, I lied. ‘I fancied a change, and it does it good to have a run every now and then. Otherwise, things start to seize.’ Don’t ask me where I dredged that little snippet of information from. I expect it was something Archie once said.
Mindy grabbed the passenger door handle and tried to open it. She expected central locking, of course. The idea of a car that had to be opened with a key one door at a time was completely alien to her. This was probably like travelling back in time.
I had to coax Buster into the back and fiddle with the seat belt again to make sure he was secure.
He said, ‘I’m sure the official sidekick needs to ride shotgun.’
Tightening his harness, I whispered. ‘You’ll be more comfortable back here. There’s plenty of room for you to stretch out.’
‘More like limber up,’ he grunted. ‘I need my muscles loose if I am to fight criminals and deliver justice this day.’
I really need to start unplugging the television before I leave him in the house.
Mindy was in the front seat and all buckled in when I finally settled behind the wheel. Her eyes were agog as she looked around the vintage car.
‘It’s so sparse,’ she commented. ‘It doesn’t come with any extras at all.’ She gasped as her eyes stopped at the stereo. ‘Oh, my goodness. That looks like it came off the Ark! What is that slot for?’
‘Cassettes.’
‘What now?’ She was poking the hole a cassette would go in with one delicate fingernail.
I chuckled at her and turned the key, keen to get going.
Nothing happened. Pulling a face, I tried again.
I got the same result and said a rude word. There were no lights on the dashboard. Not a thing. The car didn’t even click when I turned the key.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Mindy.
Huffing, I unclipped my seatbelt again. ‘The car won’t start. I’m going to look under the bonnet.’
Two minutes later, Mindy and I were both staring at what I thought was the engine. I could identify the battery and the radiator. It got a bit murky after that.
‘We could take my car,’ Mindy suggested.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to me.
With the bonnet of the Escort shut again, all the doors locked, and Buster transferred between cars, we eventually set off just a few minutes later.
Mindy drives a new plate Renault Clio Williams Supersport and when I say she drives it, what I mean is she uses it as a tool to test the planet’s gravitational pull. Ever seen The Italian Job? Our journey to Maidstone Hospital was like that only much, much scarier.
On the backseat, Buster was loving it. ‘Yeah, this is how we should drive all the time!’ he slobbered behind my ear. ‘Tell her to press the button that makes the machine guns pop out of the bonnet.’
I seriously doubted Mindy’s car had those, but I wasn’t going to ask … you know, just in case. She’d already shocked me to my core recently by revealing herself to be some kind of ninja. Today, she was wearing an elegant pencil skirt and heels with a satin top and an office appropriate winter coat, but I would not be surprised to learn she had a short sword strapped between her shoulder blades or some throwing stars in her handbag.
‘Have you always driven like this?’ I asked her, gripping the handle above my head until my knuckles turned white.
She shot me a grin. ‘It’s like you said about giving them a run sometimes. The route through the towns will be terrible at this time of day but the back roads through the countryside are empty.’
She was right and I often picked them for the same reason. However, when I came this way, I didn’t attempt to break the land speed record.
In the next second, she crested a small rise and the land dropped away more quickly than inertia would allow the car to follow. We were momentarily airborne, which made my stomach rebel and caused Buster to whoop with joy.
When the wheels touched down, and once I was sure I wasn’t about to be sick, I asked, ‘Can you slow it down a little, please?’
Mindy grinned again. ‘Sure thing, Auntie.’ Her pace slowed, and as it did, she said, ‘I wanted to take up rally driving. Dad bought me one of those experience days for my eighteenth, but mum said it was not a thing for a lady to do. I like going fast.’
I had no doubt about that.
We got to Maidstone Hospital a good deal quicker than we would have had I been behind the wheel and found a parking space straight away for once.
Buster couldn’t go in, but Mindy had spotted a sandwich joint across the street and volunteered to walk him. Like a lot of teenagers, she was eternally hungry and never seemed to gain any weight. She probably had the same genetic characteristic that kept my sister and I so skinny. Ginny is taller than me by several inches, but otherwise we look quite similar and though she had a child, her hips remained as narrow as ever.
Inside the hospital, two ladies on the reception desk were able to point me in the right direction for Derek Bleakwith. He was in the critical care ward which I guessed was at least one rung down from intensive care.
Arriving on the ward, I heard the commotion before I saw it.
Diagnosis
‘This is what he needs,’ insisted a woman whose voice was familiar to my ears. ‘He’s been prescribed this cream for months now and he had been improving.’
‘But that’s just topical corticosteroid cream,’ argued a man in calm tones.
I reached the door to Derek’s room and looked inside. Joanne Bleakwith was facing off against
