A Mersey Mile (52 page)

A face appeared at the hole in the door. No chance of privacy here, was there? Suddenly, she swayed like a drunk. She felt as if she’d consumed the contents of a wine cellar. Control. She
was losing control. The pain in her head intensified as she sank to the unforgiving floor. The last sound she heard came from Peeping Tom in the corridor. ‘She’s fitting, she’s
down—’ Darkness enfolded her, and she embraced it gratefully.

Matron opened Frank’s door and placed her head in the gap. ‘All right, Frank?’

‘Not too bad, thanks,’ he replied. ‘Transfusions are finished, and the catheter’s disappeared, thank God, but I’m just dead tired.’

‘Good morning, both of you. Polly? Come with me, please. Just a few forms to fill in. The police are on their way, too.’

Polly kissed the bump on her husband’s nose. She called it his forgivable bit, because the rest of him was damned near perfect.

Out in the quiet corridor, Esme Burke, matron of St Thomas’s Hospital, grabbed Polly’s hands. ‘There’s been a development. We’re besieged again, but not by
Liverpool. Downstairs is crawling with press and police, and gossip’s spreading like wildfire.’

Polly gulped. ‘What’s happened?’

‘She’s in this hospital under guard.’

‘Elaine Lewis?’ Polly whispered.

Matron nodded. ‘Your husband’s already front page news, as is Miss Lewis, so the papers are preparing for a few field days. She had a fit last night in her cell. According to her
mother, she’s never suffered from epilepsy. They’re testing her for poisons just in order to eliminate possibilities, but they’re also talking neurology or brain
tumour.’

Polly swallowed hard. ‘Hell’s bells. So is there a chance that she didn’t know what she was doing when she shot my Frank?’

Matron shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, dear. I’m only in charge of running the nursing side; I’m not an expert in all areas of medicine. Her mother’s giving as detailed a
history as she can, but I can’t discuss it, you see. All I want to say is that she’s ill, she’s here under guard, and you’d better stay where you are, with Frank. If the
vampires downstairs hear your accent, there’ll be chaos.’

Polly folded her arms. ‘I’m not telling Frank she’s here. Will you phone his mam and tell her he’s doing OK? I left the number on your desk. And ask about Beth, our baby
girl?’

‘Of course I will. Now, Frank starts a light diet later on today, just broth and a milk pudding. I’ll have your meals brought up, too. Let’s hope no one takes a bribe in
exchange for Frank’s room number. And I’ll try to find you something to read. Don’t fret, and do your best to keep your husband from worrying. Nurse Barnes has removed his
catheter, and we’ll get you home as soon as we can.’

Matron was as good as her word. Within the hour, Frank was attended by two surgeons who had been involved in his treatment. If he continued to make such good progress, if he could eat and manage
without the catheter, he could go home tomorrow afternoon.

‘Just one more night, hopefully,’ said the older man. ‘With luck, we’ll let you go after lunch. The buzzards have been cleared from downstairs, but they’re gathered
outside. If you can walk today, eat, get yourself to and from the bathroom, you will go home in a private ambulance courtesy of your mother, and you’ll leave from the staff car park at the
back of the hospital. Your wife, a doctor and a nurse will accompany you. It will be no mad dash, just a comfortable ride in a luxury vehicle. The internal bleeding has been stopped, but you must
rest when you get home. You’ve suffered a trauma, a shock to the system, and that can affect organs that are nowhere near the injury site.’

‘They’ll follow us up in Liverpool,’ Polly grumbled. ‘Reporters, photographers. They’re like a pack of hungry wolves when it comes to somebody being shot on
Parliament Street.’

The two doctors exchanged glances. Instructed by Matron to say nothing about Elaine Lewis being in St Thomas’s, they offered no comment. ‘We’ll check on you later,’ said
the consultant before leaving with his paler, younger shadow.

‘What’s going on?’ Frank demanded. ‘Come on, Pol, you can’t fool me. I wasn’t fooled when you bossed me about in the cafe, when you pretended not to be
bothered when I found you naked, when you blamed my mother because you wanted to look after Cal – you could have stood up to Norma any day of any week even blindfolded and
handcuffed—’

‘You’re better,’ she accused him. ‘Get out of that bed and start walking, because we’re going back to our daughter tomorrow. Bathroom’s there, so clean your
teeth.’

He raised his hand in the manner of a traffic policeman. ‘Just go back a bit, girl, put your brain in reverse. What is going on?’ He separated the four words as if speaking to a
person with diminished powers of comprehension. Carefully, he got out of bed. His side hurt like hell, while his legs didn’t know whether they were coming or going, but he stood as well as he
could manage. ‘Polly?’

‘She’s here. All right?’

‘Who’s here? My mother?’

‘Elaine bloody Lewis. Sit before you fall.’ She dashed round the bed and helped him into the armchair. ‘I’ve two kids,’ she snapped. ‘You and Beth. Three if I
count my passenger. Elaine was brought in after throwing a fit in her cell, apparently. And I don’t mean she lost her temper; I mean a proper fit, like epilepsy. She’s ill, love.
They’re looking for poison in her blood, but it may be something else.’

‘Oh,’ was all he achieved.

‘So that’s why all the lunatics are downstairs. It’s a big, big story. Now, lean on me while we get you washed and tidy. Thank goodness that flaming catheter’s gone. Oh,
and we’re being interviewed by the cops this morning.’

He stood up. ‘Get a nurse; you’re too little to deal with me.’

‘Frank?’

‘What?’

‘The name of the road where my cafe is?’

‘Scotland Road.’

‘Exactly. Lean on me.’

‘Born tough, eh?’ He raised an eyebrow.

Polly nodded. ‘And loving you makes me tougher still. Think about Ida and Hattie, and know that I’ll go even worse as I age.’

‘Is that a threat, babe?’

‘It’s a promise. Let’s get you clean.’

Frank and Polly were home, thank God. Chris Foley’s ‘bezzie’ mate was quieter these days, as if Elaine Lewis had kicked some of the joy out of him. The shop
had been closed for weeks while its owner rested; all Chris wanted was to see Frank’s wicked smile again, to have an argument, a game of poker and a drop of Irish. Polly. She had to manage
this somehow. Pregnant and busy with Beth, she was also working hard to get her man back. The house was under guard by bruisers hired by Richard Pearson to keep the press at bay.

Elaine Lewis. Oh, what a sad, sad girl she was. It was thoroughly tragic. That talented and beautiful woman, whose behaviour had rocked foundations right across the establishment, had a brain
tumour. According to her mother, it was huge, benign and very slow to grow. Although not malignant, although contained in a sac, it had pushed areas of Elaine’s brain out of their rightful
place. It had its own stem, rather like mistletoe clinging to and stifling a tree, a parasite feeding carelessly off its host.

He turned right, parked and studied the map. He was almost there, and he’d be glad of a cup of tea when he finally arrived.

They had removed the giant cyst, and were resting Elaine in a deliberately induced coma. Christine and Richard were staying in London with a priest who had trained alongside Chris. Day after
day, the mother sat with her sleeping daughter, hoping against hope that Elaine’s brain would sort itself out and reclaim ownership of her skull. ‘Be gentle with her,’ Chris said
to his God. ‘Mend her, please.’

The growth had been in her head for years, probably since her teenage. Her medical history, researched by doctors and relayed to her next of kin, seemed to confirm the diagnosis, as the poor
girl’s behaviour had deteriorated over a long period of time. No one could predict how she would be once woken from the long rest.

Ah, he had arrived. A new-looking sign adorned the gate;
Kingsmead Farm
, it announced, with the bracketed word
Drovers
underneath the main heading. A comical little man was
dividing his time between feeding chickens and trying to escape from them. As he alighted from the car, Chris saw a pretty, plump and weathered face at a window. A hand rose up and waved at him, so
he waved back. Gladys Acton was the woman who had seen the best and the worst of Eugene Brennan. She’d known and benefited from his farming skills, and she’d also seen the results of
scourging, sackcloth, ashes and suicide.

She arrived at the door. ‘Father Foley?’ she asked.

‘Indeed. But I’m in mufti, so I’m Chris. And you’re Gladys.’

‘I am.’

He looked over his shoulder. ‘Who’s the amateur with the hens?’

Gladys ushered her visitor into the kitchen. ‘When Don died, I went a bit funny for a few days, and Tom looked after me. Psychiatrist. Then he let me go to some neighbours, and I became a
day patient once a week. Sit you down. And I baked cakes for him. Even when I was better, he made appointments for me just so that he’d get his cakes. Anyway, he retired a couple of weeks
ago.’

Chris sat and grinned at her. ‘So you wore him down, then?’

She managed an answering smile. ‘Not at all. I made him cakes, pies and scones. He started placing an order with me, cheeky beggar.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I got fond of him,
and he got fond of my baking. I’m selling the farm to the Croppers – they looked after me when I got out of hospital. Tom’s sold his house, and we’re opening a tea shop in a
village not too far from here.’ She blushed. ‘It’s not like Don and me; it’s more like brother and sister. Tom makes me laugh, but he’s hopeless with
animals.’

‘And Don didn’t make you laugh?’

‘Sometimes. He was a very good farmer, Chris.’

He took the proffered cup of tea. ‘Well, I think I should have some cake, Gladys. It’s a fair drive down here from Liverpool.’

‘How about these scones with clotted cream and my home-made jam, then?’

‘Oh, I think I’ll manage to force one or two down, so.’

‘You’re Irish.’

‘As was Father Brennan.’

A cloud seemed to pass across her face, and she sat down opposite her visitor. ‘I didn’t know he was a priest. We get a lot of itinerant workers, and he was just another of those.
What was the matter with him, Chris?’ She passed him a plate and a knife, a spoon, the jam and the cream.

‘He followed a path that was wrong for him, drank too much, and suffered from bouts of temper.’

Gladys thought about that. ‘He never lost his temper here.’

‘That’s because he loved farming. And he loved you, too. I’m here to make sure you know that you did nothing wrong.’

A tear trickled down her cheek. ‘He did, though. How could I live with a murderer without knowing it?’

Chris swallowed a bit of scone. ‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘Killers don’t have their sins tattooed on their foreheads. When I spoke to you on the phone, you told me he’d
almost stopped drinking. That was because he was living the wrong life until he found you. Yes, he should have left the priesthood, but he didn’t, so he drank himself halfway to death
instead. Just know this and remember it for the rest of your life – you did nothing wrong. I realize I’ve said that already but, as you noticed, I’m Irish, and we get a bit
repetitive.’

‘He was brilliant,’ she murmured. ‘Just a sniff at a handful of soil, and he knew what he called its constituents. He could balance a parcel of land to serve a crop, or he
could choose the crop to suit the soil.’ She shook her head. ‘What a waste.’

‘He was his mother’s creature, I’m afraid. She wanted a priest, and she got one. He loved his mother. And the day he died, he posted a letter to me, begging me to make sure you
were coping. You’re coping. Which is more than can be said for your man with the chickens.’

‘He’s crackers,’ she said, a wide grin on her face.

Chris chewed thoughtfully. ‘Well, he’d need to be, so. Which normal person chooses to delve into human minds?’

The door opened slightly. ‘May I come in?’ Tom asked anxiously. ‘I’m henpecked.’

‘Oh, get inside,’ Gladys ordered. ‘My turn to henpeck you.’

‘Are you the priest?’ the newcomer asked.

‘I am.’

Tom Evans stepped inside. ‘You can do it, then.’

‘I can do what?’

‘Marry us.’

Gladys blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘I’ve only known him for a few weeks.’

Chris fought his laughter. ‘You’re only interested in her cakes, but.’

‘The cakes are a bonus,’ Tom said haughtily. ‘And she’s divorced and I’m a widower.’

‘He wore her out,’ was Gladys’s declared opinion.

‘Register office,’ Chris advised. ‘Divorce remains forbidden in my faith. Unless you’re loaded with money, in which case you might purchase an annulment.’ He smiled
when the other two stared hard at him. ‘Yes, I question some of Rome’s functions and decisions, just as Tom must doubt those who write about mental health. There is never a complete
answer. We walk on blindly.’

‘Intelligent priests. What next?’ Tom held out his left hand. ‘I can’t give you my right hand, because it’s bleeding.’

They shook awkwardly.

Gladys fussed about with first aid. Chris watched, listened to the banter and saw a couple who were perfect for each other.
I must change my name to Cupid
, he mused internally.
Polly and Frank, Gladys and Tom – perhaps I could charge for my services?

‘I’ll look after her,’ Tom said.

Chris rose to his feet. ‘I’m sure you will. Now, I must be on my way, because my parishioners need me, strange as that may seem. God bless you both.’ He walked to the door.

Gladys looked at Tom, who was almost as short as she was. ‘Are you serious?’

He nodded gravely. ‘Only if you make the wedding cake.’

She clouted him with a tea towel. ‘I’m still in mourning,’ she pretended to snap.

‘I’ll give you a month,’ he warned, ‘then I’ll book the registrar.’

‘All right, then.’

‘And you can feed the chickens. I’m having nothing more to do with them, because they’re nuts.’