PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - READ BETWEEN THE LIES

PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - EPISODE TEN

I touched a hand to her face, where a trail of water had worked its way down past her ear, to her neck.  “You won’t have to compete with her.  That’s the mistake that Kimberley made.”

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  “I will always love Zoë,” I said.  “A part of me will always love her, whatever happens.”

  She nodded.

  “But . . .” I paused and looked into her eyes.  “I’m tired of feeling lonely, of being scared of letting go.  I’m tired of looking at her in pictures when I am at home and feeling guilt choking me when I think about moving on.  She would never have expected me to spend my life trying to cling to every memory I have of her.  That wasn’t who she was.  If she could see the way I’d been for almost five years, terrified about moving on . . . She would have never forgiven me.  She would have wanted me to take the next step.”

  I ran a hand through Kira’s hair and then leant in and kissed her.

  “So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do . . .”

  “No,” she said firmly, but with a smile.  “I’ve got to go to work.  Are you going to have a look at your office?  See if there is anything that can be retrieved.”

  “Probably not a bad idea.”  I agreed.  “Then I think I should better hand that DVD over to the police.  Before anything else happens. What’s happening about your place?”

  “Insurance assessor is going in tomorrow.”  She paused.  “Are you going to walk into town or do you need a lift?”

  “I’ll take my car,” I replied.  “My body fills like it’s been through the mill enough already.”

  I threw back the covers, and she gasped when she saw my bruise-covered body.  They were starting to change colours.

 When I went outside I found my car unlocked, the driver's door not fully shut. I couldn’t actually remember leaving it like that, but then it wouldn’t have been the first time, not by a long chalk.  After so many years of misuse, the door needed a good slam to get it shut properly.  Matthew at the repair garage had often tried, at great expense, to sell me a new door seal, but I had always declined his offers on the grounds that the coat of the seal was only a fraction less than the car's value.

  I had a good look around the car.  I checked the tyres, but they seemed all right.  I got down on my hands and knees and looked underneath.  Nothing.  I even opened the bonnet and looked at the engine.  I knew from experience what a bomb would look like so the chances of me spotting something amiss were pretty good, but there were no suspicious packages I could see attached to the car’s electronics.  This case had made me paranoid.  I had watched too many TV conspiracy programmes.  However, my heart thumped in my chest a little louder than normal when I turned the ignition key to start the engine.

  It sprang to life, just as it should.  I revved up for a few seconds but all sounded fine to me with no clunks or clangs.  I wiggled the steering wheel but nothing untoward occurred.  I pulled off the driveway and headed into town.

  The brakes of my Peugeot 208 failed at the bottom of my road.

  I had relaxed too much, taken my eye off the ball and as soon as I put my foot on the brake nothing happened.  I pushed harder.  Nothing.  The car actually increased in speed down the hill towards the T-junction.  I could have been quicker with my thinking.  I could have tried the handbrake, or maybe shifted the gears to slow me down.  As a last resort, I could have turned the car through the hedge on the left and onto the salt marshes beyond. Instead, I gripped the steering wheel tightly in panic and kept pushing the useless brake pedal harder and harder into the floor.

  In a way, I was lucky.  A fifty-three seat, fully air-conditioned coach with individual video screens built in struck my car. I knew this because the Peugeot ended up on its side around the back of the bus and I could read the details of their service as advertised in large white letters painted on a red background.  Funny how the mind works.  I remembered the words as my consciousness slowly drained away:  fifty-three seats.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Someone wheeled me on a hospital trolley along a grey corridor. I saw the lights in the ceiling.  But they weren’t the usual bright rectangular panels. Instead, they were round glass globes.  I saw lots of bright sunlit windows, and I heard voices, male and female.

  “I think he’s come round again,” a male voice above me said.

  A face came into view and smiled at me.

  “Mr Handful,” the face said.  “You’ve had a bit of an accident, but you will be fine.”

   That was a relief.

 Everything hurt, but my body didn’t feel attached to my head as though looking down on somebody else’s corpse.  Oh no, surely I haven’t broken my back?

  Panic hit me and I tried to sit up.

  “Just lie back and rest,” the female voice said, placing a restraining hand on my shoulder.  She looked into my face.  “You’ve had a nasty bang on the head.”

    Oh God, I must have broken my neck. 

  I tried to wriggle my toes and was rewarded with the sight of the blanket moving above my feet.  Waves of relief flowed over me.  I lifted my hand to my face and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.  All is well, even if the sensations are a bit unusual.

  “You probably have concussion,” she said.  “You’re on your way now to have a brain scan.”

  I hoped they’d find one.

  Where am I?  I knew I was in hospital, but where?  And why?  The questions were too difficult for my befuddled brain, so I decided and take notice of what the medical staff were telling me.  I laid my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes again.

  For the next few hours, I went in and out of consciousness, aware of being lifted and poked, talked about but not talked to.  I let the world get on without me.

  I couldn’t remember why I was here.  I couldn’t remember very much at all. Who am I?  I received comfort from knowing it mattered.  Surely, if I am crazy, I wouldn’t know to ask myself the question in the first place?  But what’s the answer?

  Thoughts drifted in and out of my consciousness. Come on, sort it out.  Who am I?  Why am I here?  And where is here?

  “Mr Handful?  Mr Handful?”  A woman called from my left and someone stroked my arm.  Am I Mr. Handful?  Did I really want to come back into the land of the living just yet?  I supposed I should.

  I opened my eyes.

 “He’s back again,” the woman said.  “Hello, Mr Handful, how are you feeling?”

 I tried to say fine, but it came out as a croak.  The woman obviously thought it was a good sign that I had reacted at all.  She leant over me and smiled into my face.  “Well done,” she said.  “You will be all right.”

  Why did I think she tried to convince herself as much as me?

  I tried again to speak.  “Where am I?” 

 “Special Neurological unit at Oxmarket Hospital.”

  Satisfied with her answer, I closed my eyes again.  I wasn’t yet ready to participate in the world any further.

 When I woke next, darkness had fallen.  Through the black window on my right I saw a couple of yellow street lights visible in the distance.  I lay there looking out.  I remembered I was in the Specialist Neurological ward at Oxmarket hospital, but I couldn’t remember why.

  “Hello, John,” a voice said to my left.

  I rolled my head over.  Kira.  I smiled.

  “Hello, darling.”

  “You know who I am then?”

  “Of course I do.  I may be back in hospital, but I’m not stupid.”

  “The doctor warned me you might not remember me.  He said earlier you appeared not to remember who you were either.  You have been drifting in and out all day.  How do you feel?”

  “Better for seeing you.  But why am I here?”

  “You had an accident, you were hit by a bus, and you banged your head.  They think it must have been on the side window of your car.  They say that you had a concussion, but you should be fine in a few days.”

  I couldn’t remember an accident or a bus.

  “How did you know I was here?”  I asked her.

  “I called your mobile to tell you the time that I hoped to finished work and a nurse answered it.  She told me you were in hospital, so I came straight away.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About two o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you slept or eaten?”

   “Don’t worry about me,” she smiled at me.  “They’ve allowed me to stay with you.  Took a bit of persuasion but, in the end, they agreed.”

  “But you must have somewhere to sleep,” I insisted.

  “I’ll be fine.  I’ll catch a few hours back at your place before going into work.”

  “You’ll wear yourself out.”

  “You’re worth it,” she said, and she laughed.  Her laughter turned to tears that streamed down her face.  She was laughing and crying at the same time.  “Oh God, I’m so relieved you are all right.  Don’t you ever do that to me again?”

  “Do what?”

  “Frighten me like that.  When I called your phone they told me you were having a brain scan to check for any pressure build-up.  They told me that they didn’t yet know the extent of any permanent brain damage.”  She was crying at the memory.  “I don’t want you lose you.”

  Wow.

  She leant forward and kissed me on the forehead, then she kissed me on the forehead, then she kissed me gently on the lips.

  “I’m sorry, but I really need to go to the toilet.”

  “I’ll get a nurse,” Kira said and disappeared.  She came back with a large middle-aged woman wearing a blue nurse’s tunic.

  “Ah, you’re back with us again, Mr Handful,” the nurse said.  “How are you feeling now?”

 “Not too bad.  I’ve got a bit of a headache and I need to go to the toilet.”

 “Bottle or bedpan?” she said.  It took me a quite a few seconds to understand what she meant.

  “Oh,” I said.  “Bedpan.  But can’t I go to the bathroom?”

  “I’ll see if I can find a wheelchair,” she said.  “I don’t want you walking yet after such a bang.  You have a concussion and your balance may be affected.”

  She returned with the wheelchair and helped me out of bed and into it.  I was wearing what could only be described as a nightshirt with an opening down the back.  It did nothing for my modesty since my backside was exposed for all to see as the nurse lowered me gently into the chair.  My balance, indeed, wasn’t excellent and the manoeuvre could hardly be described as elegant.

  The nurse pushed me down the corridor to the bathroom.  It was getting rather urgent, and I started to get myself out of the chair and onto the lavatory.

  “Just a minute,” the nurse said.  “Let me put the handbrake on first.”

  The brakes.  Wasn’t there something else about brakes?  I tried to remember what it was.

  As if wearing a gap-backed nightshirt wasn’t bad enough, the nurse insisted on standing next to me and holding my shoulders throughout the procedure in case I toppled off the lavatory and onto the floor.  Hospital, I concluded, did nothing for one’s dignity.

  Feeling much better but still embarrassed by the process I was wheeled back to my bed by the nurse.  She applied the brakes of the wheelchair.  I sat there.  What was it that I hoped the brakes wouldn’t fail again?

  “Kira,” I called out loudly.

  “Shhh,” the nurse said.  “You’ll wake everyone up.”

  “I’m here,” Kira said, coming, and crouching down to my level.

  “The brakes on my car failed,” I whispered.

  “I know.  A policeman told the doctors they thought it was the brakes failing that caused the accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Are you certain, John?”

  “Positive.”

  As she held my hand, I told her about my car being unlocked outside my house.

 “Would you ask DI Silver to get one of his accident investigators to look at my car?”

  “Of course.”  She yawned.  “Sorry.”

  “You need to go to sleep.” 

  “I’m fine,” she said, yawning again.

  I wanted to ask her to get into bed and sleep next to me, but I thought the nurse wouldn’t like it.

  “You can’t stay here all night.  Go to my house.  The key must be somewhere.”

  She looked through my things, which someone had thoughtfully placed in a white plastic bag in the bedside locker.

  “Where’s the DVD?”

  “That was in the car.”

  “Well, the car is a write-off.” 

  “Damn.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I am going to sleep on it.”

  “Well, I’m staying here.  I don’t fancy going back to your house on my own anyway.”

  In the end, she slept in the chair next to my bed.  It was one of those chairs that reclined so that bedridden patients could be lifted into it to have a change of posture.  Kira reclined in it, covered herself with a blanket from the bed, and fell asleep in seconds.

  I soon fell asleep myself and first thing next morning, DI Silver phoned the hospital to find out my condition. As expected, he gave the impression of mild disappointment to find out I was not only alive, but my brains were unscrambled and functioning properly.  The hospital operator had put him through to my bedside telephone.

  “So, you’re still with us, then?”  He said with a sarcastic frustrated tone.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.  Do you know what’s happened to my car?”

  “It was towed away by Oxmarket Rescue and Recovery. They’ll have it there.”

  “Has anyone inspected it?” 

    “Sergeant Higgins was the attending officer at the accident and would have briefly inspected the vehicle before it was removed.”

  “Apparently, someone from the police told a doctor the accident was due to brake failure.”

  “That would be Sergeant Higgins, hang on a minute.”  I didn’t have a chance to say anything else before I found myself listening to a recorded message telling me of the services offered by Suffolk Constabulary.  I listened to the whole thing through at least three times before DI Silver came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, John.  Sergeant Higgins doesn’t seem to be here at the moment.”

  “Can you get him to call me?”  I didn’t hold out much hope the message would get through.  They were busy investigating a double murder, he reminded me, but he would see what he could do.

  I called the recovery company and was pleased to hear Matthew Cobbold’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “It’s not in excellent shape, I’m afraid.”

  “Can I come and visit when I’m out of hospital?”

  “Of course you can.”

 I was discharged the following day.  Kira had convinced the doctors I would be fine at home if she looked after me.

  A black and yellow taxi collected us from the hospital and delivered us to see my car.

  As Matthew had said on the phone, my car wasn’t in great shape.  In fact, I had to be told which one of the wrecks was mine as I didn’t recognize it.  The roof was missing completely, for a start.

  “What on earth happened to it?”  I asked Matthew.  My car was nothing more than a mangled heap.

  “The fire brigade cut the roof off to get you out.  The car was on its side when I got there with my truck and the roof was already gone.  Maybe it’s still in the ditch next to where the car was.”

  It didn’t matter.  Even to my eyes, the car was a complete write-off.  Not only had the roof disappeared, the front offside wing was completely ripped away and the wheel was sitting at a strange angle.  This must have happened, when I hit the bus.

  “Has anyone been to inspect it?”  I asked him.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but it’s been sitting here since yesterday morning and I don’t exactly keep guard.”

  “Here” was down the side of the workshop, behind a pair of recovery vehicles.

  “You were very lucky,” Matthew told me.  “I thought it was a fatal when I first arrived.”

  “Why?”  Kira pressed.

  “Fire brigade and ambulance spent ages getting you out.  That’s never a good sign.  Had you in one of those neck-brace things?  You didn’t look too good, I can tell you.  Not moving, like.  I thought John was probably dead.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a hint of sarcasm.

  Matthew laughed.  “No, no, I’m glad you’re not.  It’s easier for me.”

  “Why?”

  “If it had been fatal, I would have to keep this pile of garbage here for the police inspectors, and they take bloody ages to do their stuff.  Since you’re OK, I can get it off the premises just as soon as your insurance bloke looks at it.  Also,” he added with a smile, “since you’re alive, I can now send you a bill for recovering it from the roadside.”

  I made a mental note to phone the insurance company when I got home.

  “I think the accident occurred because my brakes failed.  Did you notice anything wrong when you fixed my door?”

  “I didn’t look, to be honest.”

  “Is there any way of checking them now?”

  “Help yourself, it’s your car.”  He turned away.  “I’ve got work to do.”

  “I wouldn’t know what to look for. Could you have a look for me?”

  “It’ll cost you.”

  “Very well.  How much?”

  “The usual rates.”

  “Can you look at it now?  While we are here?”

  “Suppose so.”

  He spent about twenty minutes examining what was left of my car, but the results were inconclusive.

  “Could have been the brakes, but it is difficult to tell,” Matthew said once he had finished.

  I assured him that I was certain it was the brakes that had failed and caused the accident.

  Matthew gave me an irritated look.  “If you were so bloody certain it was the brakes, what did you want me to check it for?”

  “I want to know if the brakes had been tampered with,” I explained.

  He stared at me.  “What, on purpose?”

  “I don’t know.  That’s what I want you to tell me.”

  “Bloody hell,” he said before leaning back over the car.  “Look here.  The accident seems to have smashed it all.  It would be impossible to tell what had been done beforehand.”

  “Would the police accident investigators have any better idea?”  Kira asked him.

  He seemed a bit offended that I had questioned his ability.  “No one could tell from that mess what it was like before the accident,” he said with some indignation.

  I wasn’t sure that I totally agreed with him, but I didn’t think it was time to say so.  Instead, I paid him half an hour’s labour cost in cash and used my mobile phone to call a taxi.

  “You didn’t be by any chance find a DVD in the wreckage?”  I asked him.

  “No, sorry.”  He pondered for a few moments and then asked me.  “Can I send it off to the scrap then?”

  “Not yet.  I’ll rather wait until the insurance man has seen it.”

  “Very well, but don’t forget, you’re the one paying.”

  How could I ever forget that?

 Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Well, that wasn’t very conclusive,” Kira said as we sat in the taxi taking us back.  “What do you want to do now?”

  “Go home.  I’m feeling lousy.”

  We did go home but via one of the many supermarkets.  I sat outside in the taxi while Kira went to buy something for supper, as well as a bottle of red wine.  The painkillers I was taking didn’t mix too well with alcohol, but I didn’t care.

  I lay on the sofa and rested my aching head while Kira fussed around in the kitchen.  I put the radio on and listened to the local news:

  ‘Radio Oxmarket, serving Oxmarket and all the surrounding villages.  This is Richard Felix with your local news and weather on Friday evening.  Police at Oxmarket are appealing for any information concerning two brutal deaths that have taken place in Oxmarket Forest over the past week.  Detective Inspector Paul Silver from Oxmarket CID.’

‘Charles ‘Buster’ Bill and Sabrina Muller were both found savagely murdered on separate occasions. We believe that the murders were carried out by the same perpetrator and are in some way connected.  This is a murder enquiry like we have never seen before in Oxmarket.  We’re very anxious for members of the public to report anything they think might be relevant, however insignificant it seems.  If you think you have seen anything, please get in touch with us urgently at Oxmarket CID on 01445 281832.’

  The news report switched back to Richard Felix.

  ‘An Oxmarket man has received ten thousand pounds in compensation from the firm for which he worked for seventeen years.  Stanton Electronics, after. . .’

  Kira returned from the kitchen, turned the radio off and handed me a tray of cooked fresh salmon with a parsley sauce, new potatoes, and salad, and it was delicious.  We sat together on the sofa and ate it on our laps while watching a talent programme on the television.  Real domesticity.

  I had a restless night, again.  However, rather than the all-too-familiar nightmare of the ghost of my dead wife Zoë pushing me down a brightly lit corridor on a hospital trolley, I instead lay awake trying to get my mind to think of Caroline but always returning to the burning questions:  who or what killed ‘Buster’ Bill and Sabrina Muller?  Who had set fire to Kira’s house?  Who had planted the bomb at my office?  Who had tried to kill me by fixing the brakes of my car?  Lots of questions, but precious few answers.

  Kira left for work in the morning in a taxi and I mooched around the house wishing she was still there.  I tidied the kitchen at least three times and I even vacuumed the floor in the sitting room until the noise made my head ache.  I had a bowl of cereal, with painkillers, for my lunch.

 With mixed emotions, I took Kira’s telephone call around one o’clock.  She was extremely busy and probably wouldn’t be back with me until quite late.  I would have been kidding myself if I didn’t admit I was rather disappointed that she wouldn’t be re-joining at a more civilized hour.

  I decided to go out and once again quickly realized that life without a car was becoming.  The invention of the internal combustion engine has proved to be the greatest provider of personal freedom that man has ever known, but it has become a freedom we tend to take for granted.  The most recent provider of my own personal freedom was still sitting in a mangled heap at the back of the recovery garage, and I severely missed its convenience for quick, simple journeys, journeys that were now neither quick nor simple.

  I called the number for Oxmarket taxis, which I now knew by heart, and booked myself a ride to Oxmarket Forest.

  I was dropped off in the car park of the Fox and Hounds and walked in the pleasant afternoon sun towards the forest.

  It was still cordoned off with police tape and warning signs were placed at every entrance point.  No one was about.  The police and their vehicles and equipment had all left.

  I hobbled round the perimeter path, looking through the deserted trees and undergrowth.  There was no indication of how long the police would keep it closed, but even when the forest was reopened it would take a long time for people to return as normal there.  They would be anxious now, rumour would feed on rumour, no one would feel safe, everyone would be watched and the police would patrol visibly and regularly.