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I’m on my back, head cushioned in a pillow. A silvery fluorescent light gleams from the ceiling. From somewhere above, I hear soft, regular beeps. The bitterness of smoke and blood sits in my throat like I’ve been licking hot bitumen. Pain lurks behind my eyelids, inside my skull, in my nose, below my eyes, and in one of my knees.
I try to focus.
Disinfectant. The squeak of rubber-soled shoes. Hushed voices. Metallic sounds. Hospital?
My eyes are tight and swollen, and I’m only able to open the left one. I rapidly blink back tears. A constant throb-throb in my temples makes it feel like I have twin hearts.
‘Jane? Are you awake?’
I turn towards Walshy’s voice. He’s unclear, as if we’re separated by frosted glass. But it’s him: wide cheekbones, darkness of stubble, green eyes. A warm hand takes mine.
‘Lmlmlm,’ I manage. I meant to say, ‘You’re back?’
I try to lift my hand, but it’s tied to something. I attempt to moisten my lips, but my tongue has turned to leather. Freeing my other hand, I then point to a glass on a wheeled tray table.
‘Dink.’ God it’s hard to do anything. Forming the word, then making it come out of my mouth. ‘Thirsty.’ A sharp pain shoots through my skull. I wince and breathe through it.
‘I’ll get the nurse.’
People talk, and a bell goes off somewhere. Footsteps, faster, faster, the rattle of something on wheels. ‘Code Blue!’ The noise recedes. I imagine never-ending corridors with rooms branching off, beds with white sheets.
Then there’s a cup and a straw and, hallelujah, water in my mouth. It tastes bad. I cough and splutter. Stuff runs from my nose. Someone dabs my nostrils. There’s blood on a tissue. Another tissue is pushed into my hand. There is a tube is taped to the back of my wrist.
‘There now, take it slowly,’ says a calm female voice. I track across. A young, pretty nurse with a ponytail and pink lipstick. She wears a navy blouse with about six pens in her breast pocket and waves at me like I’m a kid.
‘Something for the pain?’
I nod slightly.
‘I’m Renee, your nurse. Are you allergic to anything?’
I go to shake my head but think better of it. ‘No.’
A tiny cup is held against my lower lip and pills are tipped into my mouth. ‘Thanks.’ I manage to swallow without choking.
‘Do you know where you are?’
I move my eyes, scared to turn my head. The lime green walls and curtains confirm my initial guess. ‘Hospital.’
‘Can you tell me what day it is?’
Sunlight shines through the window. Something comes back. Friday night. I’d worked, and then I saw Shelley. Then I had to get home urgently.
I want to get the questions right, so lipstick girl doesn’t do the stupid wave. ‘I worked Friday night. It’s Saturday?’
She nods. ‘Good. Do you know why you’re here?’
‘Um.’ I hope they’ll think I’m just working through stuff. My face is tight, one of my eyes a mere slit. I’m getting a whole lot of black. Then my bike. A small shock happens, like I’ve hit something. ‘I crashed?’
She nods. ‘Good, okay. I’m going to unstick that eye. You ready?’
I nod.
She holds the closed eye open with her fingers. There are pale blue gloves on her hands. Walshy takes my hand. I pull my head back into the pillow as far as possible, but she keeps coming. She’s relentless. She seems to grow in size as liquid falls on my eyeball, and I hiss inwardly. It’s like hot mercury. I blink and blink, but I’m so swollen it is more of a twitch, twitch.
‘Okay now, just look straight ahead.’ She has one of her pens.
‘Argh, no!’
‘It’s okay. I’m just looking into your eyes, Lola.’
The pen has a little light at the end, which she shines into one eye and then the other.
I get my breathing under control. ‘Am I alright?’
‘You’ve broken your nose and knocked yourself out,’ she says. She looks over my head to Walshy. ‘It’s important we orientate her and keep her calm.’ Her gaze returns to me. ‘You came into Northam District Hospital at ten o’clock last night. It’s almost lunchtime Saturday. Welcome back.’ She smiles. ‘Now, let me get some ice on all that swelling.’ She turns and leaves.
Broken nose? Shit! I could end up looking like a rugby player or a pug. I turn and see Walshy, who takes my hand and smiles. His expression is tight, complexion paler than normal.
‘You’re back,’ I say. It sounds more like, yo bock.
An expression flickers across his face. ‘Yeah. Got back early this morning. Perry told me where you were.’
‘Perry?’
‘He found you by the road last night. He and his mum brought you in.’
I frown, look over at the window, close my eyes. I hear the nurse return.
‘Here’s the ice,’ she says.
Walshy’s other hand presses something soft and cold lightly over my eyes.
‘Don’t go,’ I say, fingering the callouses at the base of his fingers. ‘I love you.’
* * *
I smell honeysuckle, flowers so sweet they’re sickly. I’m outside Lorrelai’s room at the inn. The door opens inwards and there she is—Lorrelai, long, curly hair, glamourous dress, smiling. Her mouth moves, but there’s no sound.
‘Where’s the baby?’
She frowns, shakes her head. ‘There’s no baby.’ She backs into the room. I push open the door, but it’s Shelley Turner wearing Lorrelai’s red dress. Her mascara has run, like she’s been crying.
‘Please don’t tell anyone.’
* * *
I wake with the dream fresh in my head. Lorrelai. Shelley. Then I remember what I found out at the inn, about the third victim being Shelley’s friend. Information comes at me like slaps to the cheeks. Blossom’s sketches. The house I grew up in belongs to Ned Del Saur, husband of a murdered woman.
The ice has fallen off my face, and my eyes can open a bit more, so I can see better.
Walshy has gone. A knot tightens beneath my ribs. The past and the present inch closer, like hungry dingoes sniffing the edge of my consciousness.
Using the hand control, I sit the bed up. My head is swimming, but I need to see and breathe and wake. I’m starting to think more clearly.
I have things I need to do—urgent things. I need to get to the Flower House and make some calls. Then I remember: the door was broken, the sketchbook missing, things sifted through.
I have to tell Walshy about everything. I’m dizzy just thinking about it.
It all seems too big, too overwhelming, like a wave has risen above me and will wash down and engulf everything.
I’m suddenly busting to pee. I press the call bell. A solemn dong-dong starts up, and above my door, a small light flicks on.
An efficient older nurse helps me to the bathroom. My knee throbs when I put weight on my right foot. ‘I’ll wait outside,’ she says.
I gather the voluminous blue gown and sit on the toilet. My head swims as I get up and wash my hands at the sink.
‘Jesus!’ In the mirror, my face is a mess. I cough up something nasty into the sink and my throat feels clearer.
I look like one of those old people on the news who’s been assaulted in a ‘cowardly attack’. Both eyes are purple and red, one worse than the other. A deep graze shears along my cheek to my nose, which is covered with white plaster. I have a fat upper lip and a graze below one nostril. I gently lift my top lip to check my teeth. They’re all there.
Dizzy again, I’m grateful for the nurse’s solid body to lean on as we hobble back to the bed.
Even in bed, my head weighs a tonne. I feel like I’ve slept beneath a hundred layers of earth, and sleepy bees circle my eardrums.
‘You’re awake.’ Walshy’s in the doorway, hands thrust in his pockets. He’s clean-shaven, wearing a white shirt and black denim jeans. He looks like heaven. I hold out my hand, and he walks over, takes it, and kneads gently.
‘You okay? Your eyes are both open.’
‘Hmm, yeah. Ice works wonders. Bit stiff and sore.’ With my fat nose, everything sounds nasal.
Walshy’s mouth tightens in sympathy. He lets go of me to find a chair and pull it up close. Then he takes my hand and holds it against the mattress. He leans in. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night.’
‘Walshy. I need to tell you something.’
‘Jane. The back door is broken.’
I get up on one elbow. My head swoons like my brains have moved side to side. I feel a bit sick. ‘I know. They stole the sketchbook.’
‘Sketchbook?’
I sigh hard. ‘Geez, Walshy. Your timing really sucks. You’ve missed everything!’
‘Seriously, I had to sort out my head, and I couldn’t with you there. Having you back is like being caught up in a hurricane.’
I can’t help smiling a bit. ‘Is that a good thing?’
‘Hurricane Jane?’ Walshy chuckles. ‘Always.’ Then his expression sobers. ‘Going out with Shelley wasn’t my idea, but at the time, there seemed no reason to say no. I’ll let her know it’s off.’
‘I thought that you might have been keen on her for years.’
He shook his head and sat back, a puzzled look on his face. ‘She is lovely.’
‘Okay, shut up!’
Walshy chuckles and takes my hand. ‘I was going to say, she’s a nice person. It just wasn’t a thing. She’s delicate. Someone you’ve gotta really commit to. And you can tell she’s holding back. She’s never really relaxed or ... natural.’
I swallow, unsurprised that Walshy has picked up on something. ‘Good. Now that’s sorted, Tom Cat, I’ve gotta tell you about this sketchbook!’
Walshy shakes his head good-naturedly. He looks relieved and he listens without moving as I fill him in.
‘Lorrelai was nineteen when she was jailed in 1971 for strangling the crazy wife of her boyfriend. Then she’s supposed to have thrown her off a bridge into the river.’ I cough and must spit into a tissue. It comes away crimson.
I take a long drink of water. My heart is beating faster. ‘I went to the library because this woman, Lorrelai, just kept coming up. Blossom was determined for me to know about her. I believe I know why.’ I catch my breath. ‘I think Blossom was there when the murder happened.’
I check there’s no one hanging around the door and lower my voice. ‘Blossom’s sketches are so good, Walshy. She’s drawn Lorrelai a dozen times, doing everyday stuff, and then the pictures get darker, more serious. One, right near the end, shows the husband chasing his wife towards the river in a storm. The murder happened during a storm.’
Walshy frowns.
‘Don’t you see?’ I implore. ‘Blossom implicates the husband in the murder.’
Walshy takes a deep breath, less impressed than I hoped he’d look. ‘They’re sketches?’ He shrugs. ‘Maybe she wanted to give you something other than her death to think about when she died. Anyway, who knows how she felt about this woman. Murderers have admirers too.’
‘Sure, I know that. But ...’ I close my eyes, a throb starting in my temples. ‘The pictures are so freaking detailed, almost like photographs. And listen, after that picture, there’s pages missing.’ I take another deep breath. ‘I looked up the husband, Ned Del Saur. But I couldn’t find him. Then I find a football article about a Ned whose son died, and the son has the same name as the baby from the Del Saur family. This Ned, though, is called Ned Berry. I compare the photos from 1971 with the football article, and he looks the same. Walshy, I’m ninety-nine percent sure that Ned Berry is Ned Del Saur.’
Walshy sits back and crosses his arms. ‘It’s a long shot, Lola. It’s possible for two different Neds to have sons of the same name. Neither name’s uncommon.’
‘You’re right, but apart from them looking identical, there’s something else. Did you know the Flower House was only on loan to Blossom? That we didn’t pay rent, but didn’t own it either?’
Walshy frowns and shakes his head. ‘Definitely no rent. I’d remember that.’ I glance at the doorway before I speak.
‘I found out who the owner is. Walshy, Ned Berry owns the Flower House.’