Friends to Die For (9 page)

Momentarily, however, there was a tempting lull. Once upon a time Marlena would have diced with death and dashed across, but those days were over. Instead she waited – albeit impatiently,
her nature not having changed with age, as it rarely does – for the little green man to appear on the traffic light opposite. Only then did she step into the street. And, although she was on
red alert, half expecting something like it to happen, she was taken quite by surprise when it did.

He was upon her almost immediately. A grey, hoody-clad figure on a bicycle. His head was down. He was pedalling hard and did not appear to even glance up at the road ahead. Marlena saw him at
the last moment – if indeed it was a him – and tried to take a step back out of the way. But such was her shock, it was as if she were rooted to the spot. In any case, she could have
sworn the cyclist swerved towards her when she tried to move. The bicycle slammed into her side and pushed her in the direction of the stream of oncoming traffic. Its rider did not at any point
appear to slow down, nor indeed give any indication that he was even aware of what was happening. He just kept pedalling, occasionally lowering a foot to the ground in order to maintain his
balance.

Something caught in Marlena’s clothing. Or was the cyclist holding on to her? Surely not. But it felt that way. She was dragged several yards along the street, then discarded. Or
that’s what it seemed like, anyway. And as she fell, full length right across the road, she watched the cyclist pedalling off down Shaftesbury Avenue without a backward glance.

Marlena’s head was spinning and she realized she’d hit it quite hard. Then she saw the bus coming towards her. It seemed to be travelling at enormous speed, far faster, certainly,
than the disappearing bicycle. In a split second the big red double-decker loomed right above her inert form. And from the expression on the driver’s face, he had no hope whatsoever of
avoiding her.

Marlena steeled herself for the impact. And for what she thought would probably be the final moments of her life.

They told her in A&E at University College Hospital just how fortunate she had been. She’d fallen in such a way that only her right foot actually lay directly in the
path of the bus. Her head had dropped safely away from the oncoming vehicle. Or more or less safely. She’d given it such a crack on the edge of the pavement that she still had concussion,
which was why they were keeping her in overnight. That and the state of her foot. It hadn’t just been broken but thoroughly crushed by the weight of the bus.

She’d been lucky, they told her. Marlena tried hard to believe that as she struggled to make herself comfortable in her hospital bed. Her foot throbbed for England, her head ached, and her
thoughts remained muddled.

It must indeed be considered lucky that she had fallen the way she had. The bus would certainly have killed her, had her head ended up under one of those enormous wheels. And Marlena was not
ready to die yet. But neither did she want to live as a cripple. She was a proud and independent woman, born in the days before political correctness, when if you couldn’t walk you were a
cripple. And Marlena couldn’t help wondering if she would ever walk again. The doctors had already told her there wasn’t a lot they could do for her foot except wait for it to heal. And
at her age, that sort of injury might never heal properly.

It was her toes which had borne the brunt of the pressure, and apparently you couldn’t set crushed toes in plaster. Instead they were loosely taped beneath a dressing. Every time a nerve
twitched, the pain was so excruciating Marlena practically jumped out of her skin. She lay with her eyes tightly closed, willing the agony to ebb away. Marlena believed in the power of the mind.
Perhaps she could turn the whole dreadful incident into a nightmare from which she would soon wake.

A voice cut through the pain.

‘How are you, Marlena darling? I just wanted to make sure you were all right before I leave.’

It was a familiar voice. Marlena opened her eyes and struggled to focus on the speaker. Nothing about her body was working properly. Even her vision seemed blurred.

‘They said I could have five minutes,’ the voice continued.

Marlena lifted her head from the pillows and blinked.

‘Alfonso?’ she queried.

‘Yes, darling,’ said Alfonso, his voice tender and full of concern.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came along right after it happened. Don’t you remember? They let me ride with you in the ambulance.’

Alfonso smiled and when he spoke again it sounded as if he was trying very hard to be reassuring.

‘Somebody had to look after you, didn’t they, you daft old broad.’

Marlena stared at him. The fog was beginning to clear. She remembered then. The shock of the bus running over her foot, and probably a slightly delayed reaction to the bang to her head when
she’d cracked it on the pavement, must have caused her to lose consciousness for a few seconds. Alfonso had been the first person she’d seen when she came to, as she lay in the road at
Cambridge Circus. He was crouched down next to her, talking into his mobile phone, asking for the emergency services. He must have reacted to everything extremely quickly. Next to him had been a
man who, even in her fuddled state, she’d recognized as the bus driver. He’d been near hysterical.

‘Oh thank God, she’s opened her eyes! I thought I’d killed the woman. I couldn’t do nothing about it, honest. She just came flying through the air and landed right in
front of me wheels. Damn cyclists. They don’t obey the rules everyone else does, see. They have ways of their own. They’re all over the road and they don’t stop at traffic lights.
No, they just go straight through and drag some poor old lady with them . . .’

The man seemed to have a bad case of verbal diarrhoea. He’d been shaking from head to foot, his face white, drained of blood. By contrast Alfonso had been ultra calm. Funny how clear the
memory of it suddenly was, thought Marlena.

Alfonso had used that reassuring voice from the start.

‘You’re going to be all right, darling, you’re going to be all right,’ he’d told her repeatedly. ‘Just trust the Fonz. Stand on me, darling, stand on
me.’

Now, in the hospital, Alfonso was still calm. Calm yet anxious. He reached out and touched Marlena’s hand gently.

‘Did you see what happened, Alfonso?’ Marlena asked.

Not really, I heard you scream and I saw this cyclist take off down Shaftesbury Avenue, that’s just about all.’

The cyclist who had failed to stop. That was Marlena’s other vivid memory.

‘Did they catch him, Alfonso, the cyclist, did they catch him?’

‘I don’t think so, sweetheart. Not as far as I know, anyway.’

Marlena nodded and rested her head back on the pillows. She would have been surprised to receive any other answer.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, girl?’ Alfonso asked. ‘Anyone else you want me to let know what happened? Anything you want? Anything at all?’

Marlena shook her head, very slightly because it too was throbbing, though not nearly as much as her injured foot.

‘You were the first person by my side, weren’t you, Alfonso?’ she enquired.

‘Yes, I was, darling.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I was going to work, Marlena darling. Early shift. Flippin’ business breakfasts are bigger than lunch nowadays. Don’t you remember? We’ve seen each other before on
Monday mornings when you’ve been on your way to Soho.’

Yes, of course,’ said Marlena. ‘I’m just not thinking clearly.’

‘Anyway, I heard a scream,’ Alfonso continued. ‘That’s what attracted my attention. I looked along the street, saw this woman lying in the road, the bus, and everything.
So I rushed up to see if I could help. Then I realized it was you, darling. I couldn’t believe my eyes: my best girl under the wheels of a bus! What a shock you gave me,
sweetheart.’

Alfonso smiled at Marlena with great affection.

She managed a weak smile back.

‘Good job I came along, wasn’t it, darling?’ said Alfonso.

Yes, wasn’t it,’ responded Marlena.

She reached out again, took Alfonso’s hand in hers, and squeezed it.

But her aching head was filled with unwelcome thoughts.

You don’t think we’re being targeted, do you?’ she asked. ‘Our little group, one by one, all these things happening, and getting more serious. Not pranks any
more.’

Alfonso shook his head.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I honestly don’t know. I can’t believe it, though. I mean, why would anyone target us?’

‘And who? That’s the big thing. Who, if not one of us?’ Marlena looked stricken.

‘We mustn’t think like that, Marlena,’ said Alfonso quickly. ‘We’ll drive ourselves mad. Look, what happened to you could have been just an accident. In any case,
the police are involved now. Two officers came to the scene. I think we should leave it all to them, and you should just concentrate on getting better.’

Marlena smiled at him again, even though she did not feel like smiling at all.

It hadn’t gone as I had planned. I hadn’t intended for anyone to be so badly injured. Not at this stage. Not yet. I would have to think again now, slow things
down. Otherwise I risked revealing myself.

It was perhaps a lesson that even I could not control everything. I hadn’t bargained on a bus travelling so fast – surely far too fast. But then, I hadn’t given much
thought to what might be behind me in the bus lane. I had made a mistake.

I would need to be more careful from here on. I had been so hell-bent on staging another incident that would give cause for concern among the members of Sunday Club that I had failed to
think it through. The intention had been to keep them on edge, keep them second-guessing, nothing more. But in my eagerness I went too far.

As a result, this had turned into a matter for the police. The other incidents had been silly pranks. Even the slashed tyres would not have merited much police intervention. There was no way
anyone could prove that the incidents were connected. And with each of these ‘random’ pranks I had been growing more confident, testing my camouflage, making sure that I would be beyond
suspicion when it came time to inflict vengeance on my real target, the one who had so wronged me.

However, I had allowed myself to become overconfident, and as a result my entire plan was in jeopardy.

Somehow I needed to divert attention away from the spectacle of an old woman thrown into the path of a bus by a hooded cyclist.

I needed to come up with something that would shock and stupefy the whole group. I sought an abomination. And I believed that I had found one.

The gates of the rivers shall be opened.

Late that evening Michelle telephoned University College Hospital and somehow persuaded the staff to allow her to speak to Marlena.

She said she was away in Belfast on a training course and had just picked up a worrying voicemail from Alfonso, telling her about the accident.

‘If that’s what it was,’ Michelle continued. ‘Fonz said he saw it happen, more or less, and he reckons the cyclist rode at you deliberately. Is that what you
think?’

‘Oh, darling, I don’t know what to think,’ Marlena replied. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m just grateful to be able to still think at all. In any case, that’s
not what Alfonso told me. He said he heard me scream and saw the cyclist riding off, that’s all.’

‘Well, he probably didn’t want to upset you. Particularly after all the other stuff that’s been going on. I shouldn’t have said anything. Just forget I opened my big
mouth.’

‘Do you think it hadn’t occurred to me that what happened today mightn’t have been an accident?’ enquired Marlena. ‘It is a big step, though, from a couple of silly
pranks and some slashed tyres.’

‘True,’ said Michelle. ‘And working in Traffic I see all too many cyclists speeding through red lights or riding on the pavement without a thought for any poor pedestrian who
might step into their path.’

‘It’s as if some extraordinary lunacy descends upon everyone who climbs aboard a bicycle in this city,’ agreed Marlena.

Relieved to hear her friend starting to sound more like her old self, Michelle asked about the extent of her injuries, how she was feeling, what the prognosis was and so on, before ending the
call with a promise to visit the moment she returned to London.

After hanging up, Marlena lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes, trying to blot out the world. Michelle’s call, although she was sure it was well meant, had done nothing to ease her
state of mind. But thanks to a shot of painkilling morphine, administered into her bottom by a brisk but efficient young nurse, she slept through most of the night.

Early the following morning two uniformed police officers, who introduced themselves as Constables Perkins and Brandt, arrived at her bedside to interview her. It seemed, from the way they
talked, that they were the same officers Alfonso had spoken of, the ones who’d attended the scene of the incident the previous day.

She did not confide her inner thoughts and suspicions. It was Marlena’s policy never to tell the police anything more than she had to. Not even when the police officer in question
considered herself a friend, as in Michelle’s case. In spite of her pain and distress, Marlena had been guarded in what she’d said to Michelle the previous evening. It was ingrained in
her, the result of a lifetime spent measuring her words, taking care never to unwittingly let slip some detail she would rather others did not know. She was so accomplished in this that none of her
small circle of friends, and much larger circle of acquaintances, were ever aware of Marlena holding back. Indeed, with her flamboyant manner and quick wit, she contrived to give the opposite
impression. The truth was that the outer Marlena, so vivacious and engagingly bold, was a totally different creature to the inner one, tightened into a knot of eternal angst.

And so it was to her dismay that she now had to deal with two officers intent on taking her laboriously through the details of exactly what had happened when she’d been hit by that
bus.