Here Be Monsters (22 page)

‘We’re booked in, I take it?’ If it had been Paul she might have added ‘
And in two single rooms
?’ But that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about with David Audley, because of his dearly-beloved Faith.

‘Yes—‘ He struggled with his safety-belt’—how d’you get this damn thing off?’

She almost helped him, but then didn’t. If he was so clever he could get himself out of the car, she thought savagely.

The square of the old coaching yard was a mixture of English hostelry styles, from what might be half-timbered seventeenth century—or more like eighteenth century, because Fordingwell would have been nowhere until the coaching age—to Dickensian brick and mock-Tudor additions—

But then she thought as she headed for the hotel entrance
…
in fifteen minutes
—
how the hell am I going to kindle Major Turnbull, with David Audley beside me
?

Horse-brasses, post-horns, old prints (or not-so-old) of hunting and coaching—reception desk ahead, unoccupied—dining room on the right, tables laid for dinner, nice-and-cosy, beams overhead and candles on the tables, ready for the inevitable
pate maison
and
prawn cocktail
and
whitebait
—

Bar, or maybe lounge, on the left—

Broken teacup on the floor, with spreading spilt tea across the dark-red Cardinal-polished tiles
—

There was a small crowd of people in the bar, but they were not drinking. And now a waitress from her right, blank-faced and unseeing and unwelcoming, crossing ahead of her, into the lounge—

Elizabeth stopped, partly because she was uncertain, but mostly because the waitress was quite obviously not going to give way to her—was pushing past her even now, even before she had decided to stop—so that her attention was pulled in the girl’s wake.

The crowd split apart as the waitress reached it, allowing Elizabeth to take a split-second memory-photograph of it: the ruddy-faced young man in shirt-sleeves, the archetypal young farmer on his knees—the man in well-cut tweeds—the man in an ordinary shapeless suit—the youth in sweat-shirt-and-jeans—grouped around a man lying flat on his back on the glistening tiles.

‘What did the doctor say?’ The young farmer half-shouted at the waitress urgently, on the edge of panic.

‘Is ‘e breathing?’ The waitress joined him on the same edge, breathlessly.

‘God Almighty—
what did
‘
e say
?’ The young man stared at the girl for an instant, then switched back to Major Turnbull irresolutely, and then looked up to the girl again. ‘Sandra—for God’s sake—what the ‘ell did ‘e say?’

The man-in-tweeds blocked off Elizabeth’s view momentarily, as he knelt beside the Major. ‘I think he’s stopped breathing,’ he announced.

Adrenaline flowed in Elizabeth as she pushed forward. ‘Can I help?’

They look at her.

‘Are you a nurse?’ asked the man-in-tweeds.

‘The doctor said, is ‘e breathing?’ said Sandra. ‘Because—‘

Elizabeth knelt beside the Major, feeling for his carotid pulse.

‘Give her room!’ commanded the man-in-tweeds. ‘Is he alive?’

Four minutes to brain-damage
—
but how long had they been arguing over him?

Her own brain was trying to work. She put down her bag and chopped him hard on the sternum—once, twice—as she remembered the St John Ambulance man do to the dummy in the sixth-form First Aid class.

‘Get him flat.’ The Major’s false teeth were awry; she had seen them a few hours ago, unsmiling at her, but now she had to get them out of the way, to do what must be done, however hopelessly. ‘Help me get him flat!’

Hands everywhere flattened the Major. ‘Arch his back—support his neck.’ The hands continued to obey her unquestioningly, as she remembered how the girls had tittered when plain Miss Loftus had kissed the dummy, mouth-to-mouth. But no one was tittering now.

Someone took the teeth from her. He had looked a dreadful greyish-white before, but recognizable. Now he was a complete stranger as she held his nose shut and sealed his mouth with hers, to try to bring him back from wherever he had gone.

Her own hope expanded as she felt his chest rise beneath her. But then, as she paused and counted silently, and tried again, and then again, she knew that it was her breath of life inside him, not his.

Keep trying
, the St John’s man had said—

The tweed-man touched her shoulder and she saw that he was holding the Major’s wrist as though he knew what he was doing. ‘There’s still no pulse, nurse.’

‘The doctor’s coming,’ said Sandra to no one in particular and everyone in general. ‘And he said he’d call for the ambulance.’

Elizabeth looked down at Major Turnbull—at what had been Major Turnbull, but wasn’t any more. The doctor and the ambulance could come now, but the Major would have no use for them. And, by the same token, she knew exactly what she must do, according to the rules.

‘Hold his neck up again—and his back.’ These weren’t the rules. And maybe she’d done everything wrong anyway, by the St John’s man’s rules. But she had to try once more, rules or no rules.

Again the sickeningly slack mouth, and the stubbly cheek, and the faint smell of after-shave. Father’s rare evening peck-on-the cheek had been brandy-flavoured, and old Major Birkenshawe’s moustache always smelled of tobacco and whisky; and Paul’s mouth, that one and only night—

She sat up, shaking with fear and distaste with herself.

‘He’s gone, poor devil,’ said someone. ‘It must have been his heart.’

Her fear expanded almost into panic. No one with a heart condition passed R & D’s medicals. And she was breaking the rules.

She picked up her bag and stood up. ‘I’ll get a blanket,’ she said.

They were all staring at the Major. And who would want to question a Sister of Mercy after what she’d done already? ‘I’ll get a blanket from my car,’ she repeated unnecessarily.

Then she was in the passage again, with the still-empty reception desk in front of her—and then she was outside, backing into the
Olde English
coaching inn yard, with David Audley still fumbling around to get their overnight bags out of the car.

‘Put them back in, David.’

‘What?’ He stretched, and stamped one leg. ‘What?’

So little time
! ‘Put them back in.’ She seized the car-key from him and threw the nearest bag into the car. ‘Major Turnbull got here ahead of us. And he’s dead.’

He stared at her for only a fraction of a second, and then threw the bag in his hand into the car and turned away towards his side of the car without any change in his expression.

Get in
—
start car
—
reverse out
—

‘Not too fast,’ murmured Audley. Turn right.’

Not too fast
—
turn right
—

Audley twisted in his seat. ‘You watch the front. I’ll watch the back,’ he said.

THERE WAS
nothing remotely menacing down the main street of Fordingwell: it was just a village street, nicer than most because the houses and little shops were set well back, a line of neatly-pollarded trees on one side and a scatter of parked cars on the other, with a few people going about their Fordingwell business.

Take it easy, Elizabeth—not too fast,’ murmured Audley soothingly. ‘Down the hill and over the bridge. The speed limit ends there. You can put your foot down then.’

Just ordinary people, they looked to be, left and right: butcher, baker, candlestick-maker—a knot of children, a young man chatting up his girl—a young motor-cyclist, black-helmeted, eyes on the girl, further down—a trio of men packing tools into a van outside a fine Georgian house locked in scaffolding—

Down the hill and over the bridge
—
but watch that motor-cyclist, just in case
—

‘Where are we going?’

No answer. Audley was intent on his wing-mirror.

Odd, how her palms were sweating on the wheel when she wasn’t in the least hot. ‘
Young ladies do not sweat, Elizabeth. Nor do they perspire. If they do anything, they
“
glow
”
.’ But her palms had always sweated when she took her first look at exam papers, and she had always surreptitiously wiped them on her skirt under the desk.

Over the bridge. No sound of any motor-cycle, and the road up the hill beyond was Roman-straight and empty. And steep, too—
foot down
—
in Fordingwell’s coaching days, if this was the old main London road, they must have had an extra team of horses here in the winter, to haul the coaches up in the snow, and slow their descent, like on Shotover at Oxford—but her own horses were pulling her away now, leaving Fordingwell, and the King’s Arms, and Major Turnbull behind in their own shared forever.

‘Where are we going?’ Audley repeated the question. ‘At this moment I have not decided where we are going. But take the first side road to the left, anyway. And then maybe left again—south-south-east is the general idea, for the time being. Just use your bump of direction.’

There would be a maze of little country roads ahead, because in England there always was. ‘Is there anything behind us?’

Audley fiddled with the mirror again. ‘Not as far as I can make out.’

‘There was a motor-cyclist … The maps are under your seat.’

‘Yes. But I think he was more interested in that pretty girl in the Laura Ashley dress.’

They were over the brow of the hill. And, sure enough, there was a sign-post coming up. Funny that David had noticed that the girl had been pretty, when she hadn’t. And funnier still that he had identified what she was wearing—David, of all people! Did Faith wear Laura Ashley dresses—or little Cathy? A bit old and a bit young, respectively, she would have thought. But they were all the rage, of course. But
funny
, all the same -
David, of all people
! Screamingly funny, even.

And now she could read the name on the sign-post—and that was funny too—
Hell
’
s Bottom 2
—
and funnier still, again, that the road to
Hell
’
s Bottom
wasn’t as broad and wide as the road to hell ought to be, it was a narrow, pot-holed track. But she had better not start laughing, just in case she had hysterics, with everything being so funny.

She decided against
Hell
’
s Bottom
. ‘You’re sure it was a Laura Ashley dress, David?’ she said instead.

He looked up from a map, which he had found, first at her, then in his mirror again, and then back at her. ‘How was he dead, Elizabeth?’

She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt, one after another. ‘Heart attack, it looked like.’

Audley stared at her for another moment, and then bent over his map again, studying it intently. ‘Along here, about a mile, on the left—“Lower Hindley”, it should say on the sign. And that’ll put us on the Winchester road, sooner or later.’

Her own wing-mirror gave her a sudden long view back, of a reassuringly empty road. ‘We’re going to Winchester, are we?’ But she couldn’t decide where she would feel safer: alone in this empty countryside, unprotected, or lost in a busy city, still naked.

‘No.’ Then he shifted awkwardly. ‘Well … ’

‘What?’ Another sign-post was silhouetted on the next rise. ‘Well what?’ But then she understood. ‘You mean—you mean I’m supposed to be in charge. Is that it?’ She snapped at him, although she had not intended to do so.

‘No … ’ He bridled. ‘Or … yes, I suppose so.’

It was ridiculous—Elizabeth Loftus pretending she was in charge of David Audley. It had always been … if not ridiculous, then
mischievous
, Latimer’s strategy. But Latimer had never envisaged what had happened in the King’s Arms, Fordingwell. Because what they both knew was that the odds against Major Turnbull having a heart attack to order at a rendezvous were even more ridiculous.

‘Hah—
harumphl
’
Audley cleared his throat. ‘You are …
absolutely
sure … that he was—that he
is
, that is to say …
dead
, Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth felt herself hardening as he forced his words out: they were all the bloody same—Paul and David, Father and Major Birkenshawe—all the same, the bloody same, when it came to their man’s world: all the bloody,
bloody
same, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary, from Queen Boudicca to Mrs Thatcher.

Lower Hindley
. Touch the brakes—
accelerate
—
there was a little more loose gravel on the silly road than she’d bargained for, but her little beauty was equal to it any day—
any day
! ‘You’re not scared, are you, David?’

He steadied himself. ‘Yes—just then, I was—‘ He reached down for the map, which had fallen off his knees ‘—but before that I was merely frightened half out of my wits. Because what I don’t understand always frightens me—‘ The road twisted unexpectedly, and he rolled against her ‘—as it should do you equally, Elizabeth dear.’

The road straightened—
Lower Hindley 5
—
and Elizabeth finally straightened herself out with it. Perhaps she should have been terrified—and ought to be frightened still. But there was a difference between being
terrified
and merely
horrified
, she decided: or, only briefly horrified, but then momentarily irresolute, faced with the unexpected. And then (which was now the exact opposite of
funny
, whatever the opposite might be)—
sickened
, maybe—?

Those teeth
—
those dreadful false teeth in her hand
—
slimy-hard! And that mockery-of-a-kiss, almost a French-kiss, against that toothless mouth, and those toothless gums
—