The sun had dropped behind the hills, and thick, dark clouds were moving in. It was time to go, if for no other reason than to find some water and something to eat. The dust from the hay seemed to have drawn every last ounce of moisture from Vikki’s body, and she felt as if she hadn’t eaten for a week.
But go where?
It was a question she had wrestled with throughout the day. Self-preservation was urging her to continue on, to get as far away from Broadminster as she could, but her conscience was telling her something entirely different. It was telling her to go back.
The trouble was, she doubted very much if Joanna would want anything to do with her after the way she had run off at the first sign of trouble, deserting Bunny the way she had.
Vikki’s eyes became moist as she thought of the kind and gentle woman who had cared for her those first few days. Bunny had even given her some of her own clothes and a pair of shoes when she had
barely enough to clothe herself. As had Joanna. And she’d repaid them by stealing from them and running away when she should have stayed to make sure that Bunny was all right.
Thank God those two men had been there to pull Bunny out and get her breathing again. She’d looked terrible. And no wonder, with all that filthy water inside her. She might still be deathly ill.
Or dead!
She could still see Bunny’s chalk-white face, still hear her laboured breathing and the awful sounds of retching as Bunny tried to rid herself of all the muck she’d swallowed. The sights, the sounds were all still there in Vikki’s head, and no matter how far or how fast she ran, they would always be there.
There was no choice. She must go back.
Vikki wiped her eyes with the back of a grimy hand. The thought of returning terrified her. Whoever had attacked Bunny could still be looking for her; he’d tracked her down once, so why not again? Yet she knew she had no choice. She owed it to Bunny. She owed it to Joanna. And she owed it to herself. She could not go on without making sure that Bunny was all right. Perhaps then the only choice she would have left would be to give herself up to the police and pray that they’d believe her. They just might, now that Bunny had been attacked.
And she couldn’t run forever.
Vikki stood up and poked her head above the hay. No sign of movement at the house; no sign of the dog. She stood there, motionless, for several minutes, then pulled the bike from beneath the hay. She mounted it, breathed in deeply several times, then left the cover of the shed, head down, pedalling as fast as her legs would move over the rough ground to the road below.
No one shouted. No one saw her leave.
Vikki’s mouth was dry and her stomach rumbled noisily, but she felt a surge of exhilaration at being on the move again. So far, so good, she told herself—and tried not to think of what might lie ahead.
The smell of rain was in the air as Vikki trudged slowly up the hill. She’d lost track of time, lost track of everything except the pain and the knowledge that she dare not stop to rest.
Of all the rotten luck! She hadn’t seen the pot-hole in the road until the front wheel dropped in it, twisted sharply, and threw her and the bike into a tangled heap. She was shaken up, but apart from a bleeding hand and elbow she seemed to have escaped serious injury.
Or so she’d thought until she tried to stand.
She felt her ankle swelling, and gasped with pain when she put her foot to the ground. She winced and prayed it wasn’t broken. Gingerly, she tried again. It was painful but she thought that she could manage. Besides, what choice did she have?
Fearfully, she’d examined the bike. A few spokes were bent, and a bit of paint was gone, but it was otherwise undamaged. Vikki heaved a sigh of relief as she mounted it and set off again. But she couldn’t put enough pressure on her injured foot to make it up the hill. Painful as it was, she’d had to dismount and walk. Her foot throbbed with every step as she plodded toward the top.
She lifted her head; only a few more yards to go.
The road was narrow, and Vikki moved closer to the high grass verge as she heard a car approaching from behind. She didn’t bother to look up as it went by, so intent was she on counting every step. It was only when she heard it slow, then stop, that she raised her head and saw it wasn’t a car at all, but a half-ton truck, and the driver was getting out.
“Looks to me like you need a lift, girl.” The driver was a grey-haired woman with a lean and weathered face. She walked back down the road and took the bike from Vikki. “Come off and hurt your foot, did you?” she asked as she laid it down.
Vikki nodded.
“Sit down,” the woman ordered, pointing to the high bank.
Vikki did as she was told, too tired to do anything else. The woman bent to examine the foot, and clucked her tongue. “I don’t know if it’s broken or not, but I do know you shouldn’t be walking on it. Come on, I’ll give you a lift. The bike can go in the back. Don’t know what you were doing on the road without lights in any case. You’re lucky I didn’t run you over.” She picked up the bike and walked back to the truck, with Vikki hobbling along beside her. “Get in,” the woman ordered. “I’m going into Broadminster anyway, and that foot needs attention, so I’ll drop you at the hospital. All right?”
Vikki could have kissed her. “Thank you very much,” she said gratefully as she climbed into the passenger’s seat.
“Put the seat-belt on,” the woman commanded as she got in and started the engine.
It felt so good to sit down. Vikki clipped the belt in place and leaned back and closed her eyes. She just wanted to go to sleep and forget that any of this had happened.
“How old are you?” the woman asked.
“Seventeen—eighteen in November.”
The woman eyed her shrewdly. “Left home, have you?” she asked.
Vikki pressed her lips together. She was grateful—more than grateful—for the lift, but there were some things she was not prepared to share with this woman.
The woman nodded slowly. “All right,” she conceded, “so I’m a nosy old woman, and perhaps I don’t have a right to pry into your affairs, but I can see that you’ve been sleeping rough. You’ve got hay in your hair, and it’s all over the back of your clothes, and it seems to me that you might be running away from more than home.”
The truck hit a rough patch of road, and Vikki gasped as her foot bounced against the floor. She gritted her teeth against the pain, unable to speak.
The woman gave Vikki a searching look. “What have you had to eat today?” she asked. “Not much, I’ll be bound. Look in that glove box, child. Go on, open it. There’s a packet of biscuits in there.
Always carry a few with me; never know when you might need a bite when you’re diabetic like me. Go on, eat them. There’s more where they came from.”
“But …”
“Never mind buts, girl, get’ em down you. Do you good. Do you have any money?”
Vikki’s mouth was full. They were plain biscuits, but they tasted so good it was hard not to wolf them down. She swallowed. “Not much,” she said. Then, “Well, to be honest, no, I haven’t.” It was hard to lie to this woman.
“Soon be there,” the woman observed as they came to the top of Strathe Hill. “We’ll have you down to the hospital in no time. What’s your name, girl?”
“Vikki.”
“Right, then, Vikki. I’m going to take you to Casualty and drop you there. I should stop, but I have to get on. I’m going to visit my mother, and I’m late as it is. She’s ninety-two and she’ll worry herself silly if I’m late.”
They crossed the bridge and turned into Broad Lane. The headlights swept across the broken walls of the minster ruins, stark and forbidding against the darkening sky, and Vikki shivered. The massive ruins gave her an uneasy feeling, and in the short time she’d been in Broadminster she’d avoided them. Now, in the full glare of the headlights, the walls seemed even higher, and the shadows darker and more menacing.
The truck swung in through the hospital gates and came to a halt outside the Casualty entrance.
“I’ll get your bike out of the back and put it over there in the bike rack,” the woman told her. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a lock and chain?” She saw the look on Vikki’s face. “No, I didn’t think so. In that case, I’m afraid you’ll just have to take your chances on its being pinched. Perhaps someone inside can tell you where you might put it, because I have a feeling they’ll want to keep you in once they see that foot.”
Before Vikki could say anything, the woman was out of the truck and lifting the bike out of the back. She wheeled it across to the bike rack, then came back as Vikki eased herself out of the truck.
“Thank you ever so much,” Vikki said gratefully. “It was very kind of you to—”
“No need to go on about it,” the woman said gruffly as she took Vikki by the shoulders and began to brush her down. “There, that’s better,” she declared. “Don’t want them to think you’ve been sleeping in a barn, do we? And you’d better take this.” She held out two five-pound notes. “They have a cafeteria in the basement. It will probably be a while before they get round to treating you, so go down and get yourself a hot meal. Go on, take it,” she said roughly as Vikki hesitated. “I may not look as if I have two pennies to rub together, but I’m not so badly off that I’ll miss it, and you need it more than I do.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Vikki stammered. “Thank you ever so much”—she glanced at the worn ring on the woman’s left hand—“Mrs … . ?”
“Meadows.” The woman prepared to get back in the truck, then paused and looked around. “The last time I was here was when they brought my Len in after the tractor rolled and he was pinned underneath it,” she said softly. “Been gone now a good many years, and it still seems like yesterday.”
Mrs. Meadows got back in the truck and closed the door. “Now, you take care of yourself, young Vikki,” she said through the open window, “and get that foot seen to straightaway. Good luck, girl.”
Vikki watched with tears in her eyes as the truck left the car-park. Mrs. Meadows didn’t look back, but a rough brown hand waved as she went out into the street and disappeared into the darkness.
Vikki looked at the money in her hand. She needed change, so she would do as Mrs. Meadows had suggested and have something to eat. The biscuits had disappeared, and she was ravenous. She entered the hospital and made her way to the basement. Her foot
throbbed with every step, but she wasn’t going to chance having a doctor keeping her in until she had done what she’d set out to do.
She looked at everything on the glass shelves and chose a hamcheese-and-lettuce sandwich and a bowl of vegetable soup, because other than sweets and muffins, they were the cheapest things on offer.
It took Vikki only a few minutes to finish the soup and devour the sandwich, and moments later she found a public phone at the entrance to the cafeteria. The telephone book beneath it was in tatters, but the page she wanted was still intact. She punched in the number and waited.
“Invisible Man. George speaking.”
Vikki lowered her normal speaking voice and mimicked the local dialect as best she could. “I’m a friend of Bunny’s,” she said, “and I only just heard about her being in hospital. Is she very bad?”
“She was, but they say she’s much better today.”
“Can you tell me what room she’s in?”
“Hang on a minute.” He cupped a hand over the transmitter and called, “Joanna? Do you know what room Bunny’s in?”
He took his hand away from the phone. “Joanna says she’s in the Special Observation Unit on the third floor, and she wants to know if you’re—”
Vikki put the phone down quickly and let out a sigh of relief. So Bunny was all right! Great! Perhaps she should be satisfied with that and go and have her foot seen to now. But it was still her fault that Bunny had been almost killed, so the least she could do was find her and tell her how sorry she was for all the trouble she’d caused. But not yet. Bunny might have visitors, and she’d rather see Bunny alone.
Vikki went back upstairs to look for a place where no one would notice her. The waiting room in Casualty seemed to be as good a place as any. People there were too preoccupied with their own troubles to pay any attention to her. She chose a seat farthest from the desk, leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.
It was such a relief just to sit and rest, and even the police wouldn’t think of looking for her here.
She’d wait an hour, she decided, and then go down and have another bowl of soup. That was something to look forward to. Visiting hours would be over by then, and she could go upstairs and look for Bunny.