and not put someone in hospital for it. His scar was hurting again. He reached up, pressed fingers against the skin just below his right temple.
‘Thanks for the report,’ he said. ‘Very thorough.’
A moment passed, whilst she thought of something sarcastic to say back.
‘Pleasure,’ she said. ‘Where are you?’
Joesbury took a step closer to the window. From the third floor of the hotel he could see the tower and some of the taller buildings of St John’s. He was looking in the exact direction of her room.
‘Thames Embankment,’ he said. ‘On my way home. Long day.’
The tiniest sigh that could almost have been a crackle on the line. Or, if he didn’t know her better, the start of a sob. ‘Pity,’ she said.
‘Why?’ he asked, before he could stop himself.
An intake of breath. Then a gulp. ‘Oh, nothing. I could just use a drink and some grown-up conversation right now.’
Joesbury turned back to his room, to the neatly made double bed with its dark-red throw, and saw Lacey’s head on the crimson silk, her arms outstretched, hair trailing to the carpet.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Fine, just tired. I should let you go too. Thanks for checking in. Goodnight, Sir.’
‘Lacey, be careful.’ Idiot. Shouldn’t have said that.
‘Why? What’s up?’ Alert again.
‘Just do what you’re told for once,’ he said. ‘Keep your wits about you. I’ll see you soon.’
IT’S SURPRISING HOW a spot of medieval-style humiliation can give you an appetite. I woke early and went straight up to the Buttery, where I helped myself to scrambled eggs and bacon that were surprisingly good. As the hall filled I became increasingly aware of the sideways glances directed my way, and the muttered conversations that were just out of earshot.
Instinct told me to hold my head high and thump anyone who stepped out of line. Common sense made me keep my body language submissive, to avoid eye contact. I was Laura, nervous and needy. Laura would not fight back.
By the time I left, the room was largely full and a small queue had formed outside. I was about to leave the building when something made me stop. The crowd outside the entrance weren’t queuing, they were looking at something on the notice board. Something I was pretty certain hadn’t been there when I arrived. I walked over.
Two large pieces of white card covered most of the board. The card, in turn, was filled with photographs. Of me.
The pictures told the story. They started with the arrival of the three boys at the door of my block, then showed me being carried out and across the lawn. As I’d become increasingly drenched, the photographer had moved in closer. One shot was of little more than my breasts, all too visible beneath a soaking wet vest. Two shots from the end, I disappeared from view, ushered by Talaith and the girls back into my block. The last two were of the three boys, posing triumphantly for the camera. One was a pretty good close-up of their masked faces.
‘Oh, I think we can do without this crap,’ muttered a voice beside me.
I turned. The boy wasn’t much bigger than me, pale and flabby from too much time indoors. He reached up, slid his fingernails behind the drawing pins and began pulling them out. In seconds, the card and photographs fell to the floor.
‘Want me to get rid of them?’ he offered.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He was leaving the building when I called him back. I found the picture of the three masked men and ripped it from the card. Thanking him again, I slipped the photograph in my pocket and went back to my block.
‘Thanks for seeing me so early.’
The two women made their way along the towpath. Most of the narrowboats moored along this stretch had been closed up for the winter months. Only the occasional one they passed showed signs of recent occupancy. The taller, thinner woman pushing the wheelchair looked down at the dark-haired one sitting in it. ‘You’ve never let me push you before,’ she said.
‘Not sure I have the energy,’ replied Evi in a dull voice.
‘I thought you looked tired,’ said Megan. ‘Didn’t you sleep? After they’d gone?’
‘Would you have done?’ asked Evi, without turning her head.
They slowed as they approached the lock, to allow three female students to wind their way round them on the path. When they’d moved out of earshot, Megan said, ‘
Evi nodded. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘When I was working with that little boy last year, the thing that struck me most was his belief that the family were being watched all the time. Even before I knew he was telling the truth, it used to creep me out. Just the idea of someone always watching.’
‘Not pleasant,’ Megan agreed. ‘And the blood in the bath?’
Evi nodded again. ‘The woman I was treating, do you remember me telling you, the case I seriously screwed up? She was found in a bath full of blood.’
The women moved on, drawing level with a navy-blue narrowboat with a row of potted plants on its flat roof. An elderly man, huddled in oilskins against the cold, pulled weeds from a pot directly above the main cabin. As Evi watched, a duck landed on the bow of the boat.
‘Did John say who they think is doing it?’ asked Megan after a moment.
Me, thought Evi. They think I’m doing it. Out loud she said, ‘They have no idea. No sign of a break-in. The locks were changed recently. No fingerprints that they can find. Nothing.’
The chair’s wheels crunched over the rough path; from the river came the sound of waterfowl fighting over scraps and the soft plash, plash of a sculling boat passing by.
‘Evi,’ said Megan, ‘did you talk to Nick about increasing your medication?’
Evi nodded. ‘A couple of weeks ago,’ she admitted. ‘He put me on gabapentin and OxyContin. Amitriptyline to help me sleep. It helped for a few days but it’s just got steadily worse since.’
‘What does he say?’
A pile of blown leaves lay across the path. Some of them became caught on the chair’s wheels, altering the sound it made as it was pushed along.
‘He’s sympathetic,’ said Evi, ‘but we both know pain management is all he can do for me.’
‘Are you in much pain?’
Evi took a deep breath, her special way, since being a child, of fighting back tears. ‘It never goes,’ she said. ‘All day long, it hurts. When I wake in the night, the pain is the first thing I think about. But if I take anything stronger I’ll be like a zombie. I’m only thirty-four, Meg. How can I get through the next forty years?’
Megan stopped pushing and came round to crouch in front of Evi. She took her hands, forcing Evi to look directly at her. A couple approaching didn’t bother to hide their stares.
‘Evi, you need to take some time off,’ Megan said. ‘You’re not fit to be working.’
Megan’s face had become blurred. ‘I’m doing practically no clinical care at the moment,’ Evi said. ‘You don’t need to worry about my patients.’
She felt her hands being squeezed. ‘It’s you I’m worried about,’ Megan told her.
‘I know. But if I stop work now, I might never start again.’
Megan stood up and walked to the back of the chair.
‘I hear voices too, did I mention that?’ Evi went on, as Megan turned the chair on the spot and headed back towards St John’s. ‘Voices in the night when I’m half asleep, half awake.’
