Текст книги "Leaving George"

Автор книги: Diane M. Dickson

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter 25

The cold forced her back to the world, cold and the shivering. When she opened her eyes the sky above was indigo, silver stars were sliding through the blanket and so she knew she had been out of it for a while.

The pain in various parts of her body had become an old enemy by now and so pushing herself to a sitting position brought no surprises. The world tipped and swam but righted quickly and the slight nausea passed leaving her feeling drained.

The horror of the fight swarmed back in. She lowered her head and forced herself to breathe deeply. Was he still there? Did the body still swill back and forth at the foot of the cliffs? Of course she would need to go and look.

She had killed a man.

What was she going to do now?

This wasn’t something that could be fixed. He was dead. Wasn’t he? Her mind’s eye recalled the image of his body, arms flailing as he rolled towards the rocks.

It was her fault he was dead. How would she ever be able to bear it? Right now most of what she felt was empty. The fear was gone, the horror numbed by a sort of disconnection.

First she had to get rid of the rope which was still around her swollen wrists. He had loosened it when she tripped repeatedly and so, with a little effort she was able to wriggle her hands free. She tossed it to one side among the boulders.

She leaned sideways and then rolled to her knees and, using the rocks for aid, managed to push herself upright. Stiffly she made her way to the edge of the cliffs and made herself look. His body was still caught in the tumble of rocks at the base of the promontory and the receding tide raised his arm and waved a hand to her. Surely it was just the action of the water? Could she be sure? Maybe he was still alive? Horror consumed her and bile rose in her throat.

She must clamber down. She should at least do that. She ran, small uncertain steps back and forth looking for a safe place but there was none. Often she glanced back to where he lay. White water broke against the body. Surely he must be dead. But then, did he try just now to raise his head?

“Hello? Hello, can you hear me?” The only response to her desperate call was the roll of waves and the distant cry of a single gull making for his roost.

She didn’t want to be responsible for the death of anyone! It was unthinkable! More tears, yet more, and she wiped them away on the back of her hand and admitted to herself it wasn’t possible to reach him and that he was beyond help.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but you hurt me. I wish you hadn’t hurt me!” Leaving the whispered words to fade into the breeze she turned and staggered back towards the beach. She slipped and scrambled down the rocky side, opening old wounds and rubbing fresh grazes onto her hands and arm. But she felt none of it, for her soul was broken, her feelings were dead.

Was it possible that it had been just one day since he had forced her along the beach? Had driven her terrified and shaking and with no idea of the horror that she would endure and the tragedy that would unfold? She trudged past the road and to the dunes where he had hidden her bag and coat under some fallen pine branches. It was no surprise to find that they had gone. No great loss; a cheap phone, a few pounds in her change purse. It didn’t matter.

At the cottage the little gate was ajar and she pushed through and up the sandy path to the kitchen door and there she stopped. What was she thinking? She must go to the farm, call the police, tell someone what had happened.

Could she bear it?

If she didn’t what then? There was another option: just leave the body to be found by a passing fisherman or an unsuspecting dog walker. Could she expunge this event from her history and pretend it had never happened? If she called the police they would question her and dig into her past. Perhaps they would find her account of the events as unbelievable as the motor cyclist had done? There were two distinct paths, one – the hardest – was to get help and face the consequences. The other was to run again, to fly from the terrible day and lock it away in the back of her mind and live with it.

She raised her hand to the door and realised that she had no key. If it was locked then she would have to go to Dolly and ask to be given access. Perhaps the choice wasn’t to be hers to make after all.

Chapter 26

“Dolly, I’m sorry to disturb you but I’ve lost my key.”

“Oh good heavens, Pauline! What’s happened?” Dolly stretched out her arms in automatic response to the figure standing in front of her. Then she hesitated; the other woman looked so damaged that she didn’t know where it would be possible to touch without causing harm.

“I’m fine.” Pauline tried to smile as the lie left her lips. “It’s just that I’ve lost my key and I really need to get into the house. I’m sorry… I’ll pay for the locks to be replaced.”

“Locks? What are you talking about? What’s happened? Come in for Pete’s sake! Come in. Can you manage? Have you been in an accident? Oh no, you haven’t been mugged? You’ve been mugged! Oh you poor thing. Come on in, I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No, no please. I’m fine.”

“Fine? You certainly are not fine! Have you seen yourself? Your poor face! No, you need an ambulance, and the Police. I’ll get the police. Come in… will you just come in?”

Pauline gingerly climbed the three old stone steps. Holding onto the door for support she made her way into the narrow hallway of the farmhouse.

Dolly took her arm and led her towards the open door in the cream painted wall. “Now, first of all, where are you hurt? Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?”

“No, no, I’m sorry to disturb your evening, really I am. I just want to get into the house and have a bath actually…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go off on your own. Let me at least get you a cup of tea and help you to clean up those wounds.”

“Wounds.” Pauline raised a hand and touched her swollen lips. The aches and soreness that she felt had become so much a part of every movement that she had given no thought to her appearance. “Is it bad? Does it look bad?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but yes. Whoever did this… Did someone do this? You haven’t told me; what happened to you? Was it an accident or were you mugged?”

An escape was presented to her. In just those few words, several possibilities opened up and she searched for an answer that would be so much better than the truth. Then like a grey blanket exhaustion and defeat descended and she was just too tired and battered to begin to form the lies.

“No, I haven’t been mugged. Oh Dolly, there’s a man, dead. I killed him.” As the words became reality her shattered spirit finally unwound into tears of fear and horror. Dolly flopped onto the settee beside her and wrapped her in a gentle hug as she sobbed. Great wracking gulps convulsed her trembling body. The other woman crooned soft, disbelieving murmurs.

“Now, now come on, come on. Don’t be silly, calm down. Hush, hush.”

As she regained control Pauline pushed back and took hold of both of Dolly’s hands in hers. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “I have Dolly! I couldn’t help it. I think he was going to kill me, I really do, and I pushed him, oh God. He’s in the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.”

Uncertainty and disbelief met her gaze now. “What happened? Did he take you away? Oh no, no… have you been raped? Oh Pauline!”

“No, no. I haven’t… he didn’t. No. I don’t know what to do next though.”

“Well, we’ll have to have the police. You do see that, don’t you? If he took you away and there was an accident or… well… whatever happened, you have to tell them. They won’t blame you, I’m sure they won’t. Apart from that you know we have to get the coastguard, get him back. We can’t risk someone finding him. Think how awful that would be? No, we must get some help.” The sensible schoolteacher like part of her took over now and Dolly stood and reached for a soft woollen blanket that covered a nearby chair. She wrapped it around Pauline’s shivering shoulders.

“Now, I’m going to make you some hot tea. I’m going to send Jim up to the rocks so that he can get an idea about what has to be done; you know, to fetch the body back, and he can call the police.” She turned and walked from the room shouting as she went. “Jim! Jim! Get down here will you? We need some help!”

Pauline laid her head back against the soft cushions and closed her eyes. Her mind raced. What was she to do now? To stick to the truth would expose the past lies or she could cover the mess with yet more subterfuge. For just one brief moment it seemed that maybe it would have been better had she been the poor broken body washing about in the waves at the foot of the promontory with all her troubles gone and finished.

Chapter 27

She wanted to be clean. The soft sleeping suit that she wore was stained and ripped. It was impossible to distinguish bruising from dirt on her hands and her nails were filthy and torn. She ran a hand through her hair and felt grit there in the salt laden strands.

“Dolly, please can you just give me a key and let me go and have a shower? I feel disgusting.”

“I’m sorry my dear, the police were very firm on that. They’ll be here soon, Jim has spoken to them and they are on the way. They said you weren’t to try and clean yourself up though before they’ve been. It’s evidence you see.”

“Evidence?”

“Yes, the way that you look, bits of stuff on your skin and your clothes. Oh now don’t cry, please don’t. It’s horrible I know, but it’s for the best that they see you like this,” she swept a hand towards where Pauline curled on the couch, legs drawn up under the blue blanket. “Well then they’ll see, won’t they, that you weren’t to blame.”

“I was though, I was. I’m to blame!”

“Now, come on, please don’t do this to yourself. You’ve been through a terrible time. Don’t wind yourself up. Of course you weren’t to blame. I don’t know what the world’s coming to when innocent people can’t even sleep in their beds without… well… this.”

“Innocent? I’m not sure I am Dolly! I didn’t mean for any of this. I don’t know how everything has turned out this way. I didn’t think… I just tried to help and then I was afraid… but I did it, I pushed him and before that, earlier, I lied. If I hadn’t lied in the first place this wouldn’t have happened and they were such stupid lies, probably not even necessary, but I was scared.”

“Now, come on. You’re not making any sense and I think it’s best if you just sit quietly and wait for the police. I’ll make some more tea and how about a piece of toast? Could you eat a piece of toast?”

At the thought of food Pauline’s stomach churned and she shook her head and gulped back the bile in her throat. “A cup of tea would be nice.”

All she had tried to do was protect herself. Right from the start the lies had been only to hide from George. The accident and all the horror that had come from her one kind action was still an unexplained nightmare. There had been no diamonds, no bag, no memory stick. She closed her eyes and concentrated on remembering the man when she had first found him, unconscious, his legs in the ditch. She remember the fear and panic. She had gone through his pockets looking for a phone but there had been nothing. She had only looked in his jeans anyway. Perhaps the things that he had lost were in his leather jacket? If that was the case though then where were they now? If the hospital had kept her jacket and handed it to him with its traitorous note inside then surely they would have returned his jacket to him as well?

So, someone else had removed the bag then. Surely not the rescue services, nurses, doctors; they were people to trust weren’t they, not thieves and pickpockets. No, there must be another explanation. Perhaps the bag had fallen into the road and been swept away? It may be lying in the ditch even now. But would he not have gone there? Surely he had looked? Now it was too late to ask him, even as the salt and grit dried in her hair the regret and self doubt crept into her mind. She had handled this all wrong, hadn’t she; everything she had touched had been tainted by her own desire for safety. Could she not have talked to him, logically and calmly? The horror was retreating now in the warmth of Dolly’s home and so Pauline began to second guess her actions and her shocked and confused mind filled with what ifs.

As thoughts chased puzzles through her head she rubbed her hands together and the chaffing on her wrists spoke plainly of the truth. He hadn’t wanted conversation and explanation; he was convinced that she had his property and his anger had been driven partly by fear. She had seen it in his eyes when he had screamed at her. The fog of confusion closed her lids and exhaustion lulled her to sleep before she realised that she had drifted away…

“Pauline, Pauline, come on my dear, wake up. The police are here. I’ve made some tea.”

With a groan she came back to the world, pushed up from the slouch and turned to the doorway. A young woman in a dark suit and a tall uniformed police officer waited. “Have they found him? Have they got the body?”

The pair moved into the room and perched on the edges of homely old chairs. The woman leaned forward. “Pauline, may I call you Pauline? I’m Detective Ryan. I have to ask you some questions and see if we can sort out what’s been going on here. Do you feel well enough? You look pretty beaten up; have you had a doctor look at you?”

“No, no I don’t want that, I’m alright really. I just want to have a bath and get clean. Have they found him? Have they got him out of the water?”

“They’re searching now.”

“But, he’s there, just in the water at the bottom of the cliffs. I can take you.” As she spoke the words she prayed that they wouldn’t ask her to follow through on the offer. She didn’t believe she would be able to trudge back across the sands and make the climb and she didn’t want to see him again rolling in the waves, bumping against the rocks.

“We have a team looking now, the lifeboat is there and the coastguard, but I have to tell you that up to now there is no body. We haven’t found anything. Are you quite sure that was where he fell?”

Chapter 28

Pauline felt that she was teetering on the edge of insanity. There was now even more hell heaped on the torment she had already suffered. The side room at the hospital was bland and not quite clean. The medical team were calm and professional but without any warmth. Though the people searching had still not found a body the possibility of murder or misadventure had meant that she must be “processed.” It was an awful concept and a dreadful ordeal.

While she was examined, poked, prodded, scraped and questioned, her clothes were taken away and put in bags. At first they offered her a paper suit to wear in place of the hospital gown, but in the end Dolly was allowed to wait by the front door of the cottage until one of the forensic people brought her some of her clothes from the wardrobe and drawers at her cottage. It seemed that they didn’t quite know how to treat her. She was so very obviously a victim and yet with no real evidence and only her confused account of events they didn’t know whether she was a murderer or not. They were polite, kind and sympathetic to her wounds, but in the back of their eyes she could see suspicion.

However it was clear to everyone that she was on the verge of total exhaustion. And so with the strong urging of the doctor and because she was now almost incapable of forming meaningful answers to any questions they took her back to the farm. They had wanted her to stay in the hospital and she had begged to be allowed to leave. In the event they had no real means to make her stay. They had of course wanted her home address and because she didn’t have the strength for anything else, she had given them the details of the house in The Dales. Trying to explain that she didn’t live there anymore brought more tears and so they gave up on the questioning and sent her away, “For now,” they said, and the words chilled her.

She asked to go to the cottage but they were adamant. It wasn’t possible; the little house was now a crime scene, tape covered the doors and it would be sealed while they combed the rooms for evidence of the intruder. What would they look for? There was nothing to find; just her clothes, a couple of books. She had so little; would that in itself cause them to be suspicious? She didn’t know.

It was only the feel of Dolly’s kind arms around her and her gentle voice urging her to be calm and promising a bed at the farm house that stopped her from falling apart completely. Then after it all; the hospital, the questions, the empty silences filled with puzzlement and disbelief, there was a drive home in the back of a police car with a silent driver and Dolly uncomfortable and embarrassed beside her.

At last she clambered between sweet smelling sheets in one of the neat little bed and breakfast rooms. A drug induced sleep carried her away, and while boats and police teams scoured the cliffs and beaches she slept, with Dolly creeping up the stairs at regular intervals to listen at the door and shake her head in confusion…

The house was quiet and calm. Pauline didn’t want to open her eyes. If she could just stay where she was in the warm, dark place, maybe it would all go away.

Of course it didn’t and in the end she knew it was time to drag herself back into the mess that had displaced her life.

She stretched her legs. The pain was similar to that after strenuous exercise; not too bad, bearable. She pushed herself up against the pillows and carefully swung round. She felt better than she had expected.

Her clothes were thrown on a chair and she vaguely remembered Dolly helping her to undress and pull on the T shirt that she had on. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt coated, the effect of the drugs she supposed. With the stiff movements and sighing groans of an old woman she rose to her feet and straightened her creaking back. A dresser stood against the wall; a mirror in a frame standing on the polished top.

She hadn’t seen her face. Dolly told her it was bruised and battered but nothing could have prepared her for the wreckage that greeted her startled gaze. The skin around both eyes was blackened and swollen and her cheeks were multi-coloured with bruises. She had felt the swelling in her lips but hadn’t been prepared for the sight of them; liver coloured with bruising and streaked with red where the skin had burst.

Though she knew it was all temporary – the doctor had assured her that most of it was superficial and would all heal – it was worse than any ruin George had caused. But of course he had been careful to hide his handiwork: he had expected her to live.

The tiny creak of the door had Dolly out of the kitchen and half way up the narrow staircase barely before Pauline had moved across the landing.

“How are you feeling? Take it carefully; here let me help you.”

“Thanks. Actually it’s not too bad.”

“You’ve been crying again haven’t you?”

“I saw my face. It’s silly I know but…” She shrugged her shoulders.

“It’ll mend my dear. You’ll be surprised. It won’t take long.”

“Oh I know. It’s not that important really, not just now. Is there news Dolly, have they found him?”

“I haven’t heard anything. Nobody has been, but we are supposed to give them a call once you are up and about. There is just one constable now at the cottage; all the cars have gone. I don’t know about the beach. Jim has gone out to see what’s happening. He’ll be back soon.

“Come on down and have some soup. You’ll feel better with some food in your tummy.”

“Oh, you are kind. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Thank you. And Dolly, I didn’t mean to kill him. Well, I don’t know what I meant; I just had to get away. You do believe me don’t you?” The moment of hesitation was brief but it was enough, no-one really knew what to think, not even this kind new friend.

It was time for truth. It was time to bring everything out into the light. “Can you call them for me, the police? I need to tell them everything that’s happened. Before I do though Dolly, I want to apologise to you. I haven’t been completely honest, I am sorry but maybe when I explain you’ll understand.”

Pauline had made her way slowly down the steps and now Dolly reached a hand and gently squeezed her shoulder. “Whatever you’ve done, or said I’m sure you had your reasons. I think I’m a pretty good judge when it comes to people and I know you’re not a bad person Pauline. Come on, let’s get on with it. You’ll feel better when it’s over.”

When it’s over. It would never be over. She would remember his screams forever. “Bitch! Bitch!” And the look in his eyes as he had scrabbled in the rocks for handholds and felt the cliff edge give beneath his panicked feet. No, some things were never over.