When Harry made no comment he asked in a mock grumpy voice, ‘Cat
got your tongue? Somebody rattled your cage, have they?’
Harry gave no answer. This was between himself and Judy. It was not up for discussion.
When Len chose to start at the back end of his route, Harry was curious. ‘Why the change in routine?’
Len tapped his nose. ‘You’ll see soon enough,’ he told him slyly.
In order to complete the round as quickly as possible, they went off in separate
directions. They had each visited several houses between them, before they met up again. ‘We might as well leave the car here,’ Len decided. ‘I’ve a very special call to make,’ he confided. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when we meet up afterwards.’
They were only a few yards from their next port of call down Jackson Street, when they heard the argument. ‘Oh, my.’ Len looked up at number 16. ‘That
couple are at it again!’
There was a crash, like something heavy being thrown, and then a scream, and what sounded eerily like a gunshot, ‘Bloody hell!’ Len turned white. ‘Was that what I thought it was?’ Then he shrugged. ‘No, it couldn’t have been. It must have been a car backfiring … they sound like that, don’t they?’
Quickening his steps, he ushered Harry along with him. ‘Best make ourselves
scarce,’ he muttered. ‘The last thing we need is to get caught up in that kinda trouble!’ Almost running, he physically dragged Harry down the street.
Suddenly, two incidents happened in quick succession. A van came hurtling round the corner, screeching on two wheels; at the same time the front door of number 16 was flung open and a woman came stumbling down the steps, a river of blood flowing
down her face. She was crying, panic-stricken; hardly able to see as she set off across the road.
Both men saw instantly what was about to happen. It was only when Harry looked again at the woman that he began to realise,
it was Judy. Harry began running back to her. ‘JUDY!’ There was a scream and a thud and the woman was thrown high into the air. ‘Oh my God!’ With his lungs almost bursting,
Harry ran like the wind until he fell on his knees to take her in his arms, his voice shaking with terror. ‘Judy … Judy, look at me …’ Oh, dear God, NO! ‘I’ve got you, my love, I’ve got you!’ He yelled out, ‘Somebody get an ambulance!’
Grey with shock, Len assured him quietly, ‘Somebody’s already called them.’ A neighbour had seen it all. Len looked across to where the driver of the van had been
thrown out of the vehicle. ‘I reckon he’s had it,’ he muttered. ‘The poor sod didn’t stand a chance.
After hitting Judy, the driver had been thrown out, and the careering van had trapped him against the house wall. Lolling across the mound of broken bricks and shattered metal, he looked like a discarded doll, head twisted and arms thrown forward.
While Len sat on the steps, head bent and his
whole body trembling, Harry talked to Judy, telling her he loved her, promising how they would be all right. He would take care of her, he vowed. She couldn’t die, because there were so many things they had to do … a life they had to live.
He kissed her mouth, and he stroked her face, warm and sticky with blood. He rocked her in his arms, and still she made no move.
‘Where’s the ambulance! For
God’s sake, Len! Why isn’t it here!’
‘It’s on its way,’ Len assured him again. ‘It’s on its way, mate.’ He glanced at Judy and wondered who she was, and how Harry came to know her. But it didn’t really matter anyway, because she was gone. Her and the driver both.
In that moment, the tallyman made a vow: he would never mess around with women again, but would stick to his long-suffering wife.
No, Len thought, if this was what passion led to, he would do it strictly by the book in future.
Inside the house, Phil Saunders lay on the floor of the sitting room, his head against the fender, a trickle of blood spreading a pattern on the arm of his shirt; but he was not dead.
YOU CAN’T KILL EVIL.
N
ANCY WAS UP
the ladder in the bathroom when the phone rang. ‘Get that, would you, Dad?’
When the phone continued to ring, she called again. ‘DAD! Answer the phone, would you, please?’ The curtain she had been hanging fell to the floor.
Cursing and clambering down the ladder, she left the curtain where it was and ran downstairs to answer the phone. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.
For a moment she listened, her face opening with shock as Harry related what had happened to her sister, Judy.
With the receiver still in her hand, she stood a moment, letting the message sink in, rubbing the palm of her hand over her face, and muttering to herself, ‘I should have helped her. She needed me to be there for her. Oh Judy, I’ve been so selfish.’ She knew how it had been. She had known
all along. Some things are so painful, you tend to shut them out of your mind.
Unaware of the call, Don ambled in. ‘I’ll strangle that blessed cat from next door,’ he was grumbling. ‘It’s been digging up my vegetable patch again.’ Catching sight of Nancy, he started across to her ‘Nancy?’ He saw her shocked face, he saw how she was gripping the receiver so tight, her knuckles had whitened. ‘What’s
happened? For God’s sake, tell me what’s happened.’
His eldest daughter turned to him. ‘It’s Judy,’ she whispered. ‘She’s been in a road accident. She’s badly injured.’ Suddenly she threw the receiver into its cradle. ‘We have to go to the hospital.’
As she ran upstairs, Don had dropped into the armchair; staring into space. ‘I knew it!’ he kept mumbling. ‘I had a feeling something bad would
happen.’ His legs were like water.
He sat for a while unable to move, blaming himself for not being strong enough, blaming his late wife for turning Judy out instead of helping her – oh, and Mac, his brother – he blamed him too.
While Nancy telephoned Brian and told him what had happened, Don got himself ready. First, he went to wash the garden muck from his hands, then he grabbed his coat and
when Nancy came rushing down, he was already in the car, waiting to leave. ‘Where is she?’ he asked as Nancy climbed in. ‘Where are we headed?’
‘Bedford General Hospital,’ came the reply. ‘Hurry, Dad. Please, hurry!’
Just as he had done for the past twenty-four hours, Harry sat beside Judy, willing her to come through; asking her to think about their future together, and how wonderful it would
be.
Unaware of what had happened, Judy drifted in and out of consciousness. She had injuries to her neck, her face had been pitted with shards of flying glass, and her leg was broken in two places.
Irish Kathleen was never far away; satisfying herself that Judy was all right, praying she would survive. In her heart she suspected it was not the injuries to her neck, or the broken limb that kept
Judy unconscious. It was her psychological state; the trauma of years of emotional abuse and mental cruelty from the bully she had married. It was what had happened
before
the accident that had brought her to this. Even now, they were not sure of the circumstances immediately leading up to the accident.
Kathleen came in now, softly as always. ‘How is she?’ She glanced down on Judy’s pale, injured
face, and her heart shrank. ‘What did her sister say when you told her?’ she asked Harry. ‘I’d an idea there was bad blood between them … certain things that happened that helped to send Judy down the wrong road, if you know what I’m saying.’
She suddenly felt ashamed, realising how this was the wrong time and place to be discussing such matters. ‘So, do you think her sister will come?’
Harry
looked up. ‘I hope so,’ he answered. Then ‘I have a feeling you’re right,’ he mused. ‘I can’t help but wonder if it was because of me that Judy fell out with her family. Maybe I’m the reason they deserted her the way they did?’ Deciding, like Kathleen, that this was not the time or place, he answered her question. ‘Yes, Kathleen, I have a feeling her sister will come. She seemed genuinely shocked
when I told her about Judy’s accident.’
He thanked Kathleen. ‘It’s a good job you thought to look into
Judy’s handbag,’ he sighed. ‘If you hadn’t, we would never have known where to find Nancy.’
‘We’ll have to call Aunt Rita!’ Nancy said to her father as they hurried along the winding hospital corridors. ‘Tell her what’s happened – ask her to let Uncle Mac know. Not the children, though. There’s
no need for them to know. At least not yet.’
‘Why tell anyone yet?’ Don argued. ‘They’ll all find out soon enough, and we don’t really know how serious it is yet. Besides, Rita will only go into one of her nervous fits. As for Mac … well, we don’t want
him
round us just now. You know what he’s like.’
The last thing he wanted was that devious bugger hanging about. The longer that one kept away
from this family, the better Don liked it. There were things going on in his brother’s mind; bad things. Mac might be his own flesh and blood, but he was not to be trusted!
When they got to the ward, Kathleen was waiting outside. Nancy thought she recognised something of the Irish neighbour who had taken Harry Blake into her home after his parents died. She had been a good friend to Judy when
they were young.
There was something else too; something that shook her rigid, but then it all began to fall into place. ‘You’re Kathleen O’Leary, aren’t you?’ She hurried straight to her. ‘You were the woman I saw banging on Judy’s door, threatening her – and now here you are at her bedside! What the devil are you up to?’
Kathleen explained. ‘I’ve been worried about Judy for a long time,’ she
said. ‘I’ve been trying to get her away from that monster of a husband. I had a feeling he was beating her. I offered her a home with me, but for some reason, she wouldn’t leave him.’
Nancy believed her explanation, and thanked her. Then she said anxiously, ‘Where is Judy? How is she? I have to see her.’ She shivered a little.
Kathleen took hold of Nancy’s hand. ‘I’ll take you to her,’ she said,
walking her to the little side-ward. ‘When you see her, don’t be alarmed. She’s been shifting in and out of consciousness, talking incomprehensible stuff mostly.’
Harry looked up as Nancy came through the door, with Don trailing behind. ‘I take it you’re Judy’s sister, Nancy?’ Harry had known her as a young adult, but during the intervening seventeen years she had changed, and he would not have
recognised her. ‘I’m Harry Blake. I used to be a friend of Judy’s.’ In the circumstances he thought that was enough information.
Nancy knew him straight off, that tall, capable figure and those
dark, quiet eyes. She nodded, then hurried past him to be with her sister.
Don stepped forward to shake Harry’s hand. ‘We’re grateful that you contacted us,’ he said. ‘Judy has not been a part of our
family for too long now.’ His worried gaze reached out to her, so small and helpless, and all the years of anguish overwhelmed him.
‘We thought we wouldn’t be able to find you,’ Harry admitted. ‘Then Kathleen took the liberty of looking inside Judy’s bag. Luckily, she found your number and address in her notebook.’
Don smiled through his tears. ‘I didn’t know she had our address, let alone the
phone number.’ It pleased him.
‘Try not to worry, Mr Roberts,’ Harry told him quietly. ‘The doctor is very hopeful that she’ll make a full recovery.’
While Don went in search of the doctor, eager for more information, Nancy remained at the bedside whispering to her sister and comforting her. ‘Where’s my father?’ she asked Harry.
‘He was upset.’ Harry had seen the look on Don’s face. ‘He’s gone
to speak with the doctor.’
‘Look after her, will you? I’m going to find Dad. I’m worried about him.’
Harry did not need asking twice.
Some way along the corridor, Nancy glanced through one of the long windows and saw her father there, seated on a bench outside. His shoulders were hunched and he looked like an old, old man. He was puffing on his pipe and staring into space, as though miles away.
Nancy slipped through a nearby door and joined him in the courtyard. When she came closer she could see he had been crying. She slid her arms round his shoulders. ‘She’ll be all right, Dad,’ she comforted him. ‘She might be a little scrap of a thing, but she’s strong. She’s always been strong.’ She thought of the night they had turned Judy out onto the streets, and the pitiful way her young sister
had pleaded with them.
‘Listen to me, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘We all do things we regret. Turning Judy out all those years ago – maybe it was wrong. Maybe you didn’t have a choice – I’m not sure. All I know is, we have a chance to put things right now. Just pray she gets better, eh? That’s all we need to do right now.’
Nancy had disagreed with him on the matter of contacting Aunt Rita and Uncle
Mac. She brought it up again now. ‘You’re wrong not to want family here,’ she said. ‘Don’t let that be another regret, eh?’
When he gave no indication that he had heard, she kissed him on the side of his face. ‘I won’t be long.’
Round the corner, she found a phone booth. Going inside, she dropped her pennies into the slot, and dialled the number, pressing Button B when Rita answered. ‘It’s Nancy,’
she told her calmly. ‘I need to tell you that Judy’s had a bad accident, but she’s recovering. Please tell Uncle Mac, but not Sammie as it will upset her and just now, it’s best if she doesn’t know. We’re not telling David.’
A few moments later, she put the receiver back in its cradle and breathed a sigh of relief, muttering, ‘Always the drama queen, my Aunt Rita!’
Then she went back to the
ward at the run. Back to her sister.
Rita rang Mac at work. ‘You have to come home,’ she wailed. ‘Nancy just rang; she’s very upset. Judy’s been in a terrible accident and she’s in hospital in Bedford. Nancy says we mustn’t tell Sammie. It’s a good job she’s doing that typing course in the North this week. Nancy just wanted me and you to know what’s happened. Hurry, Mac!’
Half an hour later,
Mac came rushing in the door. ‘We’d best go now!’ he said, throwing down his coat. ‘Get in the car, Rita love – or you can stay at home if you’d rather?’
‘No!’ She hated being away from him and was horrified at the prospect. ‘I’m all ready,’ she said, and quickening her steps, she went down the drive and got into the car before he could change his mind.
En route, Mac asked her as many questions
as came to mind. ‘What exactly did Nancy say?’ Eager to get to Bedord, he put his foot down hard.
‘I told you – that Judy had been in a road accident, and that we should be there.’ She felt uncomfortable as she saw the speed he was doing. ‘If you don’t slow down, we’ll be the next ones in hospital!’
‘Did she say how Judy was?’
‘She said the doctor told them that she would recover – that she
would be all right.’
‘What else?’ Sometimes Rita could be a bit scatty. ‘Can you remember what else she said?’
‘She said not to tell the children, that it would upset them.’
He glanced sideways at her. ‘That’s a strange thing to say!’
‘That’s what I wondered, but then I think she was right. Sammie
would want to come and David is in the middle of his studies, and neither of them knew Judy,
did they? So it makes sense to let the children get on with what they’re doing. I left a note for Sammie, said we were out for the day and that she should get fish and chips from the chippie for the tea: I left her money too.’
‘Mmm!’ Mac was quiet for a time, then, ‘Is Judy able to speak – did Nancy tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure!’
‘So, did she say who else was
there?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Was Don there?’
‘What?’ Rita was looking nervously at the speedometer.
‘I said, was DON there?’
‘I expect he was, yes.’ She touched him on the shoulder. ‘I wish you’d slow down. I don’t like going this fast.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have come,’ Mac snapped. ‘You said yourself that Nancy wanted us to get to the hospital as soon as possible.
‘Yes, but not to the Emergency
Ward, which we will if you keep driving like a maniac!’
Mac was thinking about what she had told him – that Don was already there – and what about Judy? How badly injured was she?
Like it or not, Judy might wake up and start talking.
That could be dangerous!
He had to get there before it happened.
For the rest of that day, while Harry was ever-constant at Judy’s bedside, Nancy shared
her time between giving him breaks and tending her father, who had taken the situation badly. ‘It’s my fault,’ he kept telling Nancy. ‘I should never have allowed her to be turned out! If only I could turn back the clock. Dear God! Look what’s happened to her! Look at my baby girl … all broken and bruised. What kind of a father am I? What kind of a man could turn his own daughter away? If I’d been
a proper father, a better man, this would never have happened!’
When Nancy tried to comfort him he barely seemed to listen, locked in his own private world. Once, sitting up straight and looking her in the eye, he asked, ‘What exactly happened? Who did this to her?’
At first, Nancy wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘They say it was an accident – that she came running out of her house, straight under
the wheels of a van. She could have been killed, like the driver. But she wasn’t, and when she’s out of this, we can tell her how much we love her, and how sorry we are for what happened. We’ve got the chance now, Dad. Be grateful for that, at least.’
But Don would not be pacified. ‘Why was she running from the house?’ he wanted to know. ‘Why did she not see the van?’
‘I don’t know, Dad. We
can get answers when Judy is able to tell us. Now come on inside – it’s getting dark out here and you don’t want to catch a chill, do you?’
A few moments later, Nancy and Don came into the ward. Don stood at a distance quietly watching his daughter, while Nancy walked to the bedside. ‘How is she?’ Nancy asked.
‘The same.’ Harry looked up at her. ‘She’s been through so much. I didn’t understand,
but I do now. She was so cruel … so vicious to me today. It wasn’t like her at all.’