‘Yes. I do see. Oh - this is all so dreadful.’ He wrung his hands for a moment, then opened his desk diary, checked a date and started to speak.
‘Ann came in to see me on Saturday morning. August the twenty-second. She needed to borrow five thousand pounds against the security of the house. That was acceptable, of course. The Old Rectory is worth a great deal of money. But her income is a modest one and I was concerned about her ability to make regular repayments. When I mentioned this she became almost hysterical, which naturally made me more concerned then ever. She had already drawn a thousand pounds from her current account.’
‘When was this, sir?’
Richard Ainsley had almost forgotten Sergeant Troy, quietly taking notes. He studied his diary again and replied, ‘Wednesday the nineteenth.’ Then, turning back to Barnaby, ‘I’d made a note of the date should it arise during my meeting with her.’
‘So it was six altogether?’
‘That’s right. And she insisted on cash both times. Extremely worrying. I was so relieved to hear yesterday that she was bringing it all back.’
‘What?’
‘She rang in the morning, about ten thirty.’ Ainsley smiled, quietly pleased that he could bring about this consternation, even under such unhappy circumstances. He was only human. ‘I was to cancel the loan and she would be returning the cash that very afternoon. Oh.’
Oh indeed, thought Barnaby, watching the shock hit home.
‘Did the person who attacked her . . .?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said the chief inspector. ‘When she said “all”, did you understand this to mean all she had borrowed or just the five thousand?’
‘Deary me. What a situation. We’ll never get it back. What will head office say?’
‘Mr Ainsley?’
‘Mm?’
‘Five or six?’
‘I don’t know. Oh, this is terrible. Terrible.’
Being economical with the truth had been an integral part of Louise’s life for so long it had been years since the fact had even registered. A huge proportion of her working day was spent lying. Not that she thought of it like that. After all, who in the financial world wasn’t doing it? Brokers, analysts, financial advisers - all prepared to conceal or misrepresent what they believed to be the true state of affairs while struggling to penetrate the false representations of others. So this latest small untruth, spoken earlier over the telephone to the reception desk at Stoke Mandeville, had caused her no trouble at all. Now she approached the reception area and gave her name.
‘Mrs Forbes?’
‘That’s right. I rang earlier.’
‘Ah, yes. Your sister’s on the third floor. Take the lift and I’ll let them know you’re coming.’ The receptionist, a pretty Asian woman, added, ‘I’m so sorry. Such a terrible thing to happen.’
‘Thank you.’
A staff nurse met Louise, said pretty much the same thing and led her along a long, silent corridor, her shoes squeaking on the rubbery surface. She opened a door at the very end and they went in.
Louise stopped in her tracks. Her heart gave a jerk then suddenly started to beat with furious speed. For no reason, she felt suddenly frightened. Ann lay quite motionless in a narrow iron bed. Precisely in the centre of the bed, Louise noticed. The same amount of space each side of her thin shoulders. You could do that, of course, when a person was deeply unconscious. Satisfy the human passion for order and balance.
The room was full of blue light. Machinery hummed, quite noisily. There were several computer screens, one of which had the shimmering green line, constantly peaking and subsiding, so familiar to viewers of hospital dramas.
There was a single bedside chair, rather office-like with a tweed seat and tubular chrome arms, but Louise did not sit down. She stood at the foot of the bed, staring. There were no what she would call signs of life. Louise had never seen a dead person but surely this was what they looked like. There was not the slightest trace of colour in Ann’s skin, what one could see of it. And no rise and fall of her breast. The taut, hospital-cornered sheet did not move. A needle in her arm led to a bottle suspended on a frame. A tube disappeared into her mouth and another depended from her nostrils.
In alarm, Louise turned to the nurse. ‘She’s not breathing.’
‘The ventilator does that for her. Have you spoken to Dr Miller?’
‘No.’ Louise felt her heart turn over. ‘Should I have?’
‘The brain scan showed a clot, I’m afraid. We’ll be operating later today.’
‘What chance is there—’
‘The very best chance. Mrs Lawrence is in good hands.’