Bridget stirred. Her limbs felt so heavy. What was wrong with her? This wasn’t right; nothing was familiar. A machine hummed beside her. The light was too bright: it hurt her eyes to open the lids so she closed them again.
The second time she woke a nurse was leaning over her.
‘Mrs Whittingham – Bridget – can you hear me?’
Bridget blinked.
‘You’re in Intensive Care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. You’ve been unconscious for five days. We’re giving you something to help with withdrawal symptoms but I expect you still feel rotten.’ The nurse – dark-skinned with a thick Jamaican accent – moved competently but flatfootedly around the bed, checking the drip and the monitors. ‘You were on a ventilator until last night so your throat is likely to be a little sore?’ She offered Bridget a drink with a straw. ‘There: that’s better, isn’t it?’
Bridget pushed the cup wearily away. ‘What … happened?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. The police will be in later and I’m sure they’ll fill you in on all you need to know. We removed the catheter earlier – I don’t suppose you remember. Do you need a bedpan?’
Bridget shook her head. People had been doing things to her – intimate things – and she hadn’t been aware.
‘Push the buzzer when you do. Do you want to sit up a little?’
‘Yes.’ That seemed the first step to recovering some sense of normality.
The nurse raised the head of the bed with the control and showed her how to adjust it herself. ‘Now you no longer need intensive treatment, we’ll probably move you onto a ward in a few hours. Just sit tight for the moment.’
And she bustled out, her generous backside straining against the seat of her scrubs.
What a motherly person, thought Bridget languidly. My opposite in so many ways. She would’ve loved a child but Paul refused to countenance a bastard. She hated him for that sometimes. Her gaze went to the window with its view of the brick wall opposite and ventilation units. She appeared to be on one of the upper floors. If she wasn’t so floaty, she’d feel … what? Frantic about not being at Gallant House?
Her fingers explored her neck. The nurse was correct: she was feeling sore and sick. What had happened? Fragments came back: her and Jonah caught on the daybed in the attic; her storming down to confront Jenny and somehow being sidetracked by the pills Jenny waved in front of her. They’d fought, hadn’t they? Had she … had she struck Jenny? Oh God. She remembered screaming and blood as the Wicked Queen in the mirror had emerged and struck down her rival.
But that had been her, hadn’t it, in a mad, mad moment? Bridget, what have you done?
And then what? She’d panicked, taken a handful of pills to … to what? Dull the pain – dull reality? She couldn’t remember. She’d been beyond rational, spinning out of control. Normally that number of tablets would just take the edge off but she’d entered a confused fugue state where she felt beside herself, watching this harridan storm through the house. She’d met Jonah in the hall and he’d asked about Jenny and questioned why she had blood on her hands – she remembered that much. He’d tried to get past her to go up the stairs.
Then what?
She felt like she might’ve flown at him, trying to push him away, stop him seeing what she’d done. She’d been screaming.
And then he’d fought back, hadn’t he? He’d throttled her, yelling at her that she was not his fucking mother, that she couldn’t fucking hurt him again, that she mustn’t hurt Jenny.
Was that what had happened?
It all felt so dreamlike, so impossible.
The next time she opened her eyes two scruffily-dressed strangers were at her bedside. One – the man – looked positively thuggish. Her heart raced in panic.
‘Nurse! Nurse!’ She groped for the buzzer.
The man passed it to her. ‘Mrs Whittingham, I’m Detective Inspector Khan, and this is Detective Sergeant Foley.’
These were the police?
The motherly nurse came in. ‘Is everything all right, Bridget?’
‘I think we just startled her,’ said Khan.
‘These visitors are from the police, Bridget, like I said. You can ask them your questions.’ The nurse plumped up her pillows and patted her arm reassuringly.
‘Sorry.’ Bridget tried to regain her poise. ‘Water, please?’
The female officer passed her the cup. ‘May we sit down?’
‘Please do. How can I help you?’ The nurse left the room.
‘Mrs Whittingham, you should know before we go any further that we are placing you under arrest for the assault on your tenant Jenny Groves. Charges pending.’ The sergeant ran through the usual caution, words Bridget had only ever heard in Radio Four dramas.
‘Jenny? I assaulted Jenny? That can’t be right.’ It was the Wicked Queen from the mirror.
‘It is of course your prerogative to maintain your innocence but you should be aware we have substantial forensic evidence of the assault, including your fingerprints on the weapon, Miss Groves’ blood on your hands when you were brought into hospital and her witness statement.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘Miss Groves had to have ten stitches to her scalp and stayed in hospital for a few days with concussion, but yes, otherwise she is expected to make a full recovery.’
‘This doesn’t feel real,’ murmured Bridget. It struck her anew that she wasn’t in Gallant House, that they’d brought her somewhere else. She was so far from her things, her writings and her perfectly arranged rooms. What were these drugs they were pumping into her by the drip? She wanted her pills. Panic surged again. ‘I have to go home!’
‘Mrs Whittingham, we aren’t here to question you about the assault as that can wait until you’re stronger. I’m afraid we’ve come to tell you about subsequent events that have taken place while you’ve been in hospital.’ The female officer injected a tone of concern into her forthright manner.
‘What events? What are you talking about?’
‘There was a fire at Gallant House two nights ago. It happened when your tenants returned to collect their belongings. They surprised an intruder, and in the resulting altercation the first floor caught fire.’
‘What? No!’
‘The fire brigade was able to contain it to your tenant’s room and the attic. The rest of the floor and the rooms below sustained some smoke and water damage, I’m afraid. As it’s a crime scene, we’ve barricaded off the house. Because you were unconscious, I understand that your family solicitor contacted your insurer. They’ve sent people to tarpaulin the roof. It is quite secure and safe from further damage.’
‘My house? My house burned down?’
‘Only a section of the upper floor. In the course of our investigation,’ the woman continued in a brisker tone, ‘we had cause to examine your bedroom and bathroom, looking for evidence of what the intruder might have been doing. Mrs Whittingham, would you care to explain why you were in possession of so many prescriptions for painkillers, only a few in your name?’
‘My house,’ moaned Bridget.
The police officers exchanged a look. ‘Did you know a man called Matthew Upshaw?’
‘What has he to do with anything?’ She clawed at the IV port at the back of her left hand. ‘I want to go home – I want to see.’
‘That won’t be possible just yet. Please, Matthew Upshaw? I should explain that he died in the fire.’
‘Someone died in my house? But why? What was he doing there?’
‘But you know who he was? He lived next door.’
‘He’s Norman’s boy? The lodger?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘That wasn’t the name he gave me.’
The female policeman glanced at her colleague, who gave her a slight nod. ‘When did you last see Norman Stratton, Mrs Whittingham?’
‘Norman? Why? Has something happened to him too?’
‘Please just answer the question.’
‘What day is it, did you say?’
‘It’s Saturday. You were admitted to hospital exactly a week ago.’
‘So long?’ Bridget raised her right hand to brush aside a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. It felt lank and unwashed. ‘Then I last saw Norman a week ago Tuesday. I called round to ask if he wanted to come in for one of my gatherings but his tenant said he was busy. Ah, no: so I didn’t actually see him, did I? It must’ve been the Tuesday before that then. We had a cup of tea together in his kitchen.’ It was the furthest she ever went from her home. ‘He said he didn’t feel up to socialising. I was worried about him, actually; he seemed very out of sorts.’
‘Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr Stratton passed away a few days after. He was already dead, we think, when you called in.’
‘Norman? Dead? No, that can’t be right!’ But why would the police lie about something like that? ‘Matthew hid that he was dead from me?’
‘From everyone.’
‘But why?’
‘So he could go on living there with no one the wiser. He was obsessed with your tenant, Jenny, and it appears, also with you and Jonah Brigson.’
‘Obsessed with us?’
‘We found cuttings in his room. He’d made a scrapbook on you and Jenny Groves, and defaced the one Jonah had compiled on his career. We believe he then planted them under Jonah’s bed immediately after the first assault to direct our suspicions towards Jonah. He wanted Jenny for himself, you see, and saw Jonah as a threat.’
Bridget shuddered. ‘Do you mean to say that this … this creature has been watching us from next door all this time? But why?’
‘That’ll be one for the psychologists. What we do know is that he started a few years ago obsessing about Jenny and then his paranoid fantasies spread out to those closest to her – which means the inhabitants of Gallant House. We found scrapbooks on other people who were close to her – her friends from work and the orchestra – but nothing as violent in their imagery as those in the books on you three. Mrs Whittingham, I have to ask this. Everyone tells us that you were in the house the whole time. Did you on any occasion see him come and go? For example, did you see him leave flowers on Jenny’s pillow over the past year?’
‘That was him? No, no, I didn’t. I swear it.’
‘Did you notice any signs that he’d been in the house?’
Bridget thought back to the drips on the floor, the well cover, the strange noises which she’d imagined were ghosts. She’d sound foolish to admit that she’d put these down to the house ‘talking’ to her through its past occupants. ‘Nothing that raised my suspicions, no.’
‘OK,’ said the male officer. He was the senior person, wasn’t he, even though he held himself back through most of this? ‘Now, what can you remember of the night of your own collapse from an overdose.’
‘I overdosed, Inspector … sorry I’ve forgotten you name?’
‘Inspector Khan. Yes. On Fentanyl – your tenant’s black-market pills.’ He said this without any hint of judgement but that sounded so sordid. Bridget wondered at herself: how low had she stooped?
‘I didn’t mean … how on earth …’ Bridget touched her neck.
‘Opioid painkillers are well known to suppress breathing. You only survived because Jonah Brigson gave you first aid,’ said Khan.
‘He did?’ That wasn’t how she remembered it. ‘I thought he strangled me?’
‘Did he?’ Khan leaned forward, a spark of interest in his eyes.
‘I … I don’t remember clearly.’
‘Why would he strangle you, Mrs Whittingham? Your argument was with Jenny, wasn’t it?’
‘But he was holding me by the throat, forcing my chin up?’ She could remember the pain of that. She’d already been struggling for breath, hadn’t she, disorientated, before he’d touched her?
The officers didn’t say anything, waiting for her to decide her version of events. Her memories were so fragmentary, so distorted. ‘He was resuscitating me, you say?’
Again they said nothing. One step more with these accusations and she could send the boy back to jail – and for what? She really couldn’t remember. What kind of witness would she make at a trial? And the humiliation, consider that. She would prefer to plead guilty to everything they charged her with and drop allegations against all others to free herself from that.
‘Yes, yes, that sounds like Jonah. He’s a kind boy and provides what I need. He would’ve tried to help.’ She preferred that version of the story than the one where she had provoked him to a murderous rage. ‘Tell him I’m grateful. And tell Jenny I’m sorry. I really don’t remember what happened but if I hurt her, I truly regret that.’
DI Khan stood up. ‘Thanks, Mrs Whittingham. That’s all for now. We’ll take a more formal statement when you’re recovered.’
‘Do I need a lawyer?’
‘It’s not our place to say.’
‘Please, I have no one else to ask.’
‘Most people in your position find it helpful to have legal representation,’ said the female officer carefully.
‘I see. Thank you. I’m sorry for being such a nuisance.’
They left and she had the room to herself again. So much lost. Soon she’d be down on a ward where she’d have to remember she had an audience. Here though: here she could cry and no one would see. No one.