A Place Of Safety(53)

‘The Hollies?’

‘Mm. Vaguely.’





Chapter Eight

It was nearly ten the following morning when Ann Lawrence regained consciousness. No way could you call it simply ‘waking up’. The Hoover on the landing outside her room buzzed faintly at first, no louder than a bee. Gradually the level of the sound increased. There was knocking as the machine banged against the skirting board.

Ann felt as if she was swimming up from the depths of the ocean. On and on she swam, struggling through dark layers of muddy mind swamp until finally somehow heaving back her swollen eyelids. She found herself in semi-darkness. For a moment, lying on the pillow, she stared at the uncertain outlines of heavy furniture. It all looked completely unfamiliar. Then she made the mistake of trying to lift her head.

‘Ahhh . . .’ A searing pain flared behind her eyes. Gasping from the shock of it, she closed her eyes and waited for the agony to pass. Then, keeping her head very steady and pressing down weakly on the mattress, Ann levered herself up the bed until she was leaning against the headboard and rested there, absolutely still.

The vacuum cleaner had been switched off. There was a very gentle tap at the door. Hetty Leathers put her head round then came cautiously into the room.

‘Thank goodness. I thought you was never waking up.’ She crossed over to the window and drew the curtains. A grey dullness crept into the room.

‘Don’t put the light on!’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ She sat on the side of the bed and took Ann’s hand. ‘My goodness, Mrs Lawrence, what on earth happened to you?’

‘I . . . don’t know.’

‘I said you should never have had two of them tablets. I told him.’

‘What?’

‘Last night. When you went to bed.’

‘But . . . you’re not here . . .’ Ann sighed deeply, made another effort to complete the sentence but failed.

‘In the evening? That’s right. But he rang nine o’clock yesterday wanting to know what to do about his supper.’ Hetty’s voice still quivered with an echo of the irritation she had felt. As if the man couldn’t have opened a tin of soup and made himself a sandwich. ‘So I thought I’d better come back this morning or you wouldn’t have a bite all day.’

‘Who rang?’

‘Who?’ Hetty stared in amazement. ‘Why, Mr Lawrence, of course.’

‘Ah.’

‘Had to ask my neighbour to sit with Candy. I wouldn’t of come only he said you were ill.’

‘Yes.’ Ann’s cheeks became hot as certain vivid scenes, disjointed and seemingly quite disconnected, started jerkily running through her mind. A distraught woman being seized and bundled, struggling, into a car. The same woman, weeping, pushing a man away as he tried to calm her, fighting a woman in a nurse’s uniform who was trying to hold her arm. Then the whole set-up becoming stable but distant, as if being viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Finally the woman seated in surroundings which seemed vaguely familiar but also intangible like a room in a dream. The place was crammed with bulky but strangely insubstantial furniture. She was slopping tea against her lips and tipping it everywhere.

‘I can’t stay here!’ A sudden movement and nausea possessed her. Ann clapped a hand to her mouth.

‘What do you mean, Mrs Lawrence? Where would you go?’

‘I . . . don’t know.’

‘You try and rest. There’s nothing downstairs to worry about.’ Hetty got up from the bed. ‘Everything’s running smoothly. Now, what if I make you a nice hot drink?’

‘Feel sick.’

‘Listen.’ Hetty hesitated. ‘It may be none of my business but them trankerlisers don’t suit everybody. If I were you I’d chuck the lot out the window.’

Ann eased her way back down the bed and rested on the pillow. She lay flat on her back staring at a single spot on the ceiling and gradually the sickness passed. She began to feel better. A little bit stronger. But only in her body.

Her mind was still a rag bag of jumbled sounds, pictures and impressions that seemed quite meaningless. Then a single spear of light pierced the tangled mess and Ann understood that she was the woman in the strange, dreamlike sequence.

If this recognition was alarming - she really had made a public exhibition of herself, been forced into her husband’s car and made to submit to treatment in a doctor’s surgery - it was also consoling. Memory had played her true and there was nothing seriously wrong with her mind.

But how had she got into this state in the first place? Ann tried to concentrate. Before being found and made to get into the car, she had met someone - Louise Fainlight! And there had been some unpleasantness - no, she had been unpleasant. Louise had been simply friendly in a perfectly normal way. Yet Ann had seen her as some sort of threat. Why?