Declared Dead Page 17

  'I'm afraid, if that wasn't enough, you had even more bad luck when one of the horses following on behind you stamped on your right shin as he was passing. We've managed to reduce that fracture and get good alignment so it's just a question of time for the tibia to knit together with the plaster of Paris holding things in position. All clear?'

  'Painfully so. Thank you.'

  'The femur was hard work and I've screwed in a metal plate to keep the healing bone in proper alignment.' He took an obvious satisfaction in his work and at least I could feel confident I was in safe hands.

  'How long before I can walk again?' I was too terrified to ask the question I most wanted answered.

  'Well, that will depend on a number of factors. We'll take a couple of X-rays in the next day or so to check that the positions are satisfactory, which I'm sure they will be. You're young, so the bones should reunite quickly.'

  'How long then?'

  'Hold on, little lady, don't rush things. You have to accept this is going to be a long and frustrating recovery. The first target is to get you out of bed and then gradually walking on crutches. If you ask the bones to take any weight or strain they won't mend and you'll end up a cripple – which wouldn't be in anybody's interest, would it? Is there anything else?'

  I thought that was plenty to be going on with. I thanked him and he left me to my own thoughts.

  I tried to forget everything by sleeping, but even that was difficult. My body had been given over to medical light-engineering and all that entailed. My right foot had begun to itch under the plaster, my left leg throbbed and I felt thoroughly seedy. I still had that confounded drip in my left forearm although the nurse did at least tell me she thought it would come down tomorrow. That would be Thursday. Every time I attempted to find a comfortable position or moved a lower extremity, the ensuing sharp pain woke me from my slumber and brought me back to the depressing reality of my side room.

  Around about midday, or at least I thought it was, I received my first visitor. If you had offered odds on who it would be, I would have expected at least 66-1 against this particular individual. Without bothering to inquire after my condition, he came and stood beside me at the head of the bed and launched into a tirade of abuse and threats.

  I had never regarded Arthur Drewe as a very endearing or prepossessing character and as he raged on, I was fascinated by the way his left eye twitched in harmony with his increasing frustration. I had no intention of giving up the photograph and told him so in words of four letters.

  'How dare you talk to me like that!' he stormed. 'You leave me no alternative but to report you to the police as a blackmailer.'

  'Go on, go ahead. Nothing would give me more pleasure.'

  I noticed him eyeing the plaster that encased my right leg and I sensed that he was debating whether to try a more physical line of persuasion. I pressed the buzzer beside my bed, and within seconds a nurse had appeared.

  'Could you give me something for a headache, please?' I asked her. 'My uncle was just leaving.' I smiled my broadest smile at Sir Arthur, and presented my cheek for him to kiss. 'So sweet of you to come.'

  Caught between rage and embarrassment, he leant forward and under the benign gaze of the nurse gave me a hasty peck, the hair of his moustache tickling me in the process.

  'You'll regret this,' he muttered.

  'Give my love to auntie,' I said loudly as he turned to leave, 'and to Annabel of course.'

  He hardly wanted reminding of his favourite permit holder.

  Drewe was followed a while later by Ralph and Amy. They understood that I was too weak and tired to make much conversation. I chose not to mention Drewe's visit in front of Ralph but asked him whether Admiralty Registrar was all right, as my last recollection of the horse was of following me only a few inches away through the air.

  'He's fine,' Ralph answered. 'He was legless and winded for a little while but soon recovered and now he's as right as rain. The owners want to run him again this Saturday.'

  'Tell them I'm willing if the doc gives me the all clear!' And with that parting comment and a mumbled apology I closed my eyes and surrendered to sleep.

  * * *

  I awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. The resulting pain in my left thigh reminded me in no uncertain terms where I was and why I was there. The room was in darkness and I wondered what time it was. I was sweating all over and my forehead was clammy, as if I'd been having a nightmare. Strangely for me, I couldn't remember a single detail of my dream; normally such experiences linger with me for hours.

  My left arm was beginning to burn and sting from the drip, which already felt like a permanent part of me. For some inexplicable reason I was afraid. But perhaps it wasn't really surprising after the attacks over the past weeks and the accident on Tuesday. I tried in vain to adjust my eyes to the blackness that enveloped me like smog. I reached for the small box on the table beside my bed which contained the buzzer for calling the night nurse. I knew it was unfair but I just wanted to see a friendly face and have a reassuring chat. My outstretched right hand could feel the contours of a glass and the cover of a magazine that Amy had brought me, but that was all. I must have knocked the box onto the floor during my nightmare and now I was in no state to bend down and pick it up. At least I had stopped sweating and I was beginning to feel more relaxed.

  I rolled over and tried to work myself into a more comfortable position in which to sleep. I dropped myself firmly onto my right shoulder and after wriggling my head against the pillow, began reliving my victory in the Gold Cup. I had reached the second-last fence from home when I thought I heard a rustling sound in the far corner of the room, where they had stacked the flowers and fruit. I listened carefully for another noise or movement. The back of my neck was beginning to prickle and I chided myself for behaving like a child. I held my breath for what seemed like a good thirty seconds. Not a sound, not a murmur… I shifted my weight yet again and returned to the race. Cartwheel pinged the last two fences and we galloped up that gruelling final hill to the winning post. As we passed the line, I lifted my left arm, drip and all, to give the old fellow a pat on the shoulder, just as I'd done all those weeks ago. Out of the darkness a hand shot forward, forcing my forearm down onto the mattress, and a coarse cloth engulfed my face, stifling my screams. I thought I felt the drip moving as I twisted and struggled to draw breath, before fading and falling headlong into a bottomless pit.

  * * *

  I awoke in a hysterical state, screaming. I opened my eyes expecting to see the face of my intruder and was puzzled and relieved to see the gentle smiling face of a nurse.

  'Who are you?' I asked, almost in a whisper.

  'I'm Agnes, your night nurse,' she replied with a definite Italian accent.

  'Where's he gone? Did you catch him?'

  'Who?' asked Agnes, calm and comforting.

  'The man who came in here just now and attacked me.'

  'There was no man. You've just been having a bad dream. You've been through a lot lately, poor thing.'

  I wasn't going to stand for that. 'I'm sorry, but there really was a man. I wasn't dreaming. He grabbed my arm and did something to the drip. Look,' I said, holding up my arm for her to see. 'The bandage is loose.'

  'The safety pin must have come off while you were asleep, that's all. Let me tidy it up for you.' Agnes took the bandage off and then wrapped it round my arm, fastening it again with a safety pin.

  'You go back to sleep and I'll ask Dr Fox to see about taking the drip down first thing in the morning.'

  She doesn't believe me, it's obvious, I thought to myself. Nobody's going to believe me. I kept on repeating it to myself until I fell asleep and dreamt I was on trial for my own murder.

  * * *

  Dr Fox did not inspire quite the same degree of confidence as Mr Maddox. It might just have been his youthful looks, or the blond curly hair that made him look as if he'd be more at ease on a plinth in Ancient Greece than in a hospital in Surrey. I would hav
e bet any money he was a ladies' man who liked to start the day with a nurse for breakfast, preferably sunny side up.

  'Good morning, Mrs Pryde. I hear you had rather a disturbed night.'

  'That's an understatement. A man came into my room and attacked me.'

  He didn't reply and concentrated his attention instead on the clip board he had just picked up from the foot of my bed.

  'Some of those pain killers you're taking are very powerful, you know,' he said, flicking over the pages of the chart and deliberately avoiding my eye. 'Are you drinking all right now?'

  'Yes, I am, but I did not imagine what happened last night. It's my legs that were hurt in the fall you know, not my head.'

  'You're going through a very difficult time, Mrs Pryde, I do understand. I'll tell staff nurse to come and take your drip down and I'll have a word with Mr Maddox about your drugs.' He flashed me a nervous smile and shot out of the room.

  Ten minutes later the staff nurse arrived to take the pipe work out of my vein.

  'Can I have a look at that?' I asked politely, as she was turning to go with a half empty bag of saline and drip set.

  She hesitated, her face betraying considerable doubt about the wisdom of allowing me such an inspection. Fox's diagnosis had clearly taken hold in the nurses' room.

  'I suppose so,' she said, handing it over to me slowly, as if it was a loaded shotgun and I had just been declared unfit to have a firearms licence. I studied the plastic tube intently, gently bending it between finger and thumb. A few inches from the end, tiny beads of the clear saline leaked through a microscopic hole into the wall of the tubing. I held it up triumphantly for the nurse to see.

  'Who's mad now?' I asked, defiantly.

  I insisted on holding onto the drip and showing it to Amy when she arrived. She listened in horror as I told her about my night visitor, and went on to fill her in about Drewe's threats the previous day.

  'You don't think it could have been him, do you?' she asked, when I had finished.

  I shook my head. 'It's the usual story: I just didn't get a proper look at him. This is the third time I've been attacked and I'm becoming more and more terrified. Look at me: I'm helpless. But if it wasn't Drewe, how the hell did whoever it was know where to find me?'

  'That was easy. The news of your fall was all over the papers yesterday and the Sportsman made it their front page lead. You're a hot property, you know, because of all this Musgrave business.'

  'Am I? I'm not doing Tom any good that way. It's very kind of you to come and see me again. At times like this you really know who your friends are.'

  She smiled. 'Has Freddie been told?'

  'All he knows is that mummy's had a little riding accident and has to spend a few days in hospital. In fact it could be more like weeks. They won't give me a date when I can walk again and I expect I'll have to give evidence from a wheelchair or standing on crutches. Never mind. Back to business. What are we going to do with this drip? I want to have the hole looked at and if possible the contents analysed. Could you fix that? Somebody tried to kill me last night and I'm not going to blame it on the National Health Service.'

  Amy laughed. 'At least you seem to be keeping your sense of humour. Do you think they'll let me take it away with me?'

  'Almost certainly not, so we won't ask them. By the time they discover it's gone it'll be too late. Do you know someone who can examine it?'

  'There's a forensic chap, lovely old boy, we use in criminal cases. It'll cost a bit, I'm afraid.'

  Corcoran's antics had left me strapped for cash, but I had no other option now left open to me.

  'Okay. I'll find it somehow. Can he do it quickly?'

  'I'll send it round this afternoon and ask him to do it at once as a personal favour. It should work. What about you? Will you be all right on your own here?'

  'I'll have to be, and anyway, I don't see him making a return visit. If I kick up enough fuss they may even step up the number of checks by the night nurse.'

  'Good. I'm sorry I've got to get back to the grind. I'll crack on with this and come and see you after work tomorrow.' She carefully wrapped the drip in a tissue from my bedside table and slipped it into her handbag. 'Is there anything else you need?'

  'I wouldn't mind some mint chocolates actually! Since I won't be riding for a few months I might as well enjoy myself.'

  'That's the spirit,' she said, squeezing my left leg affectionately. They could hear the scream in the nurses' room down the corridor.

  Chapter 14

  I had hoped for a peaceful day on the Friday, but it was not to be. The sight of Amy and James bursting into my room, just after breakfast, told me something was up. It was Musgrave. The police had visited James the night before to discuss the results of the pathology report on the bookmaker's body. Tests showed that he had already been dead for at least nine hours when we found him. None of us was in a position to argue with that piece of forensic evidence, although if that was the case, just who had telephoned James at nine o'clock in the morning pretending to be Musgrave, and why? The police were suspicious without giving anything away and James wasn't at all clear from their line of questioning whether they accepted his version of events or whether they were hinting at more serious goings on. They wanted to make an appointment to come and see me as well.

  'You don't think they're building up to another murder case, do you?' I asked, wanting to pull the sheets up over my head.

  James contrived to look extremely serious. 'That's exactly what occurred to us. Don't worry, I don't think we're going to be fingered, but if they're right and somebody did close Musgrave's account prematurely, the next question has to be who and then why?'

  'Would you recognise the voice of the chap who talked to you on the phone?' asked Amy.

  James shook his head. 'It was rather nondescript. I suppose, looking back, he could have had a handkerchief over the receiver to take away any distinctive features. To be honest, I was still half sozzled and in fact nearly didn't even get to the phone in time. I'd never spoken to Musgrave before so I just naturally assumed it was him.'

  'Don't worry,' I said. 'Nobody can blame you for being taken in. This is all becoming pretty sinister. You don't think it could be Drewe trying to shut up everybody who has something on him?'

  'I don't follow,' said James. 'What's Drewe got to do with all this? I'm fed up with all this talking in riddles. Is this another thing you've been holding back from me, Victoria?'

  I looked to Amy for guidance and she duly obliged.

  'Go on, you'd better put him out of his misery.'

  'Okay, then. It's like this. In addition to his gambling exploits, my husband was, I'm afraid, a shameless blackmailer and Sir Arthur Drewe, along with one or two other people whose names needn't concern you, was one of his victims.'

  'How exciting! Why didn't you tell me this before? Do those names include Musgrave and Brennan?'

  'I'm afraid so. Musgrave was also my husband's off-course bookmaker to whom he was in debt for about a hundred thousand pounds. Those bets were unofficial – you know, unrecorded, to avoid betting tax – and the only proof I've got is a written demand from Musgrave to Edward to pay up or else.'

  James's eyes nearly popped out of his head. 'And I thought I was a bad gambler.'

  'Can I continue? I also have in my possession an incriminating photograph of Sir Arthur in flagrante delicto with a lady permit holder. I suspect, from something Edward told me before he was murdered, that Sir Arthur was amenable to helping out in the stewards' room when it was necessary to have a result, shall we say, rearranged?'

  'You mean if the wrong horse had won – let's say a horse that Edward or Musgrave didn't want to win – then Sir Arthur would do his best to get the placings reversed?'

  'You've got it.'

  'So Sir Arthur would have a very good reason for wanting to shut Musgrave up if the bookmaker knew about all this.'

  'Exactly.'

  'And you too, if he thought you knew?'
/>   'He already knows I have the photograph.'

  'How?'

  'I wrote and told him.'

  'You did what?'

  'I thought I could pressurise him into telling the police that Edward was a blackmailer and that they might wake up to the fact that several people other than Tom had a motive for wanting him dead.'

  'And have you had any results?'

  'One very unpleasant scene here when he tried to bully me into giving it back.'

  'Can I see the photograph? I mean, for professional reasons only, of course.'

  'I haven't got it here, it's at Ralph's.'

  'Christ, is that safe? Don't you think Amy and I ought to take care of it until you're out of here?'

  I thought for a moment and reckoned he was probably right. I asked him to leave me alone with Amy for a minute and told her where I had hidden the photograph and the other documents. She agreed to bring them to me in the hospital over the weekend. We recalled James, who was obviously aggrieved at not being included in the secret.

  'It's for your own good,' I told him. 'That photograph might give you the wrong ideas and for the present we need your full and undivided attention.'

  'Thanks a bunch. While I was outside, and just to prove I wasn't listening at the key hole, I had an idea. If Sir Arthur did kill Musgrave, why bother to phone up posing as the bookmaker and tell me all that stuff about naming names and so on? Without that call Musgrave's body wouldn't have been discovered until Monday morning and his death would almost certainly have gone down as suicide.'

  It was a good point until Amy shot it down. 'Unless, of course, it was a game of bluff, or is it double bluff? In which case, it's working quite well. My main worry at the moment is about you, Victoria. Somebody out there wants you dead and I don't reckon you're very safe here.'

  'There's not much we can do, is there, with me in this condition? I can hardly make a run for it.'