The Loyal Servant (13 page)

17

By the time Caroline reached her mother’s bedside, Jean was in the midst of an animated conversation with two police officers, waving her arms around, occasionally grabbing a uniformed sleeve when she wanted to make a point more forcefully. Her head was wrapped in thick white bandage from her eyebrows to the crown. A lock of tinted blonde hair poked from an airhole at the very top. Caroline approached the little group and stopped at the foot of the bed. Eventually Jean paused to take a breath and spotted her.

‘What are you doing skulking down there?’

Caroline inched up to the side of the bed and nodded and smiled at the two policemen.

‘Did you see my note?’ Jean asked. ‘About Claire and Ben. Are they here?’

‘Claire’s picking Ben up from his friend’s and taking him home.’

‘Is that a good idea?’

‘You know Claire. She’s sensible. Besides, Pete’ll be home soon.’

‘Oh, has he left already?’

Caroline glanced at the police officers, put a hand over her mother’s and squeezed. She lowered her voice. ‘Pete’s not here, Mum. I came with Dan. He’s sitting in the car sulking, keeping Minty company. Do you want to see him?’

‘Pete’s gone home? Without even coming in to say hello?’

‘No, Mum. You’re getting confused.’ Caroline glanced around the ward, hoping to spot a doctor to speak to. Her mother’s injury was obviously more serious than they’d led her to believe.

‘I’m
not
confused. I saw his van.’

‘It must have been another white van – they do all look the same.’

‘I’ve had a bang on the head, Caroline. I haven’t completely lost my senses.’

Caroline let out a breath. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She lifted the bag she was carrying and waved it in front of her mother’s face. ‘I brought you in a few odds and sods. Should I get you something to drink? Are you hungry?’

‘If you want to make yourself useful. You can get these lovely boys a cup of tea.’

The two constables smiled apologetically at Caroline, insisted they were fine and told her not to bother.

‘I won’t be much longer,’ Jean said. ‘I’ve just got to tell these nice young men what happened while it’s still fresh in my mind. Amnesia could set in at any moment.’ She turned back to the policemen. ‘Now… what was I saying?’

Having been dismissed from Jean’s bedside, Caroline wandered into the corridor. She spotted a man listing slightly on a hard plastic chair. It was one of her mother’s cronies from the action group. What was his name – Alfred? Arthur? Something old-fashioned and vaguely royal. He saw her and tried to get up. He didn’t quite make it. She sat down next to him.

‘I saw it all,’ he said, quietly. ‘Shocking, it was. Just shocking.’

He seemed genuinely shaken, his face whiter than his hair.

‘Are you all right?’ Caroline said, putting a hand on his sinewy arm. ‘Should I get a nurse?’

‘Heavens no! I’m perfectly fine.’

‘What about a cup of tea then?’

Caroline helped him to his feet and they progressed slowly to the little café concession by the main entrance. It seemed to take all of the old man’s powers of concentration to put one foot in front of the other – he didn’t have the energy to walk and talk at the same time. Caroline found herself filling the awkward silence with mindless small talk that didn’t require any contribution from him.

When they finally reached the café, the woman behind the counter was wiping down surfaces, the metal shutter already pulled down half way. Caroline helped her mother’s friend – Albert, it turned out – to a chair and approached the counter. The woman let out a noisy sigh and looked at her watch. Then she looked over at Albert who was smiling back at her.

‘I should have closed five minutes back,’ she said. ‘Your dad not well?’

‘My dad?’ Caroline glanced at Albert. ‘He’s not…’ The image of her father the last time she saw him forced its way into her mind. He died looking as thin and white as Albert did now, in a hospital not unlike this one. She managed to shake the thought free and cleared her throat.

‘Actually we’re here for my mum. She’s in A&E.’

The woman smiled sympathetically. ‘Falls can be really nasty at their age.’

‘Oh it wasn’t…’ Caroline thought better of explaining how her mother was more of a street-fighting anarchist than a frail broken-hipped OAP, and just smiled instead.

‘The coffee machine’s off now,’ the woman behind the counter said, ‘but there’s still tea left in the pot.’ She looked at Albert again. ‘He’ll be wanting plenty of sugar, I’d imagine. Poor soul.’

‘I do appreciate it.’ Caroline got her purse from her handbag and the woman waved it away.

‘You sit down – I’ll bring them over.’

Caroline shuffled a chair closer to Albert’s. ‘What a fine mess!’ she said. ‘Arrested one week, hospitalised the next. What am I going to do with her?’

‘She’s just doing her bit. For the good of the community. We need more people like Jean in the world. It would be a much better place if we did.’

Caroline baulked at the thought of an army of Jean Hendersons storming barricades and overthrowing governments.

‘I know she’s very committed to the cause,’ she said, silently wishing her mother had chosen a different cause entirely. She suspected Jean had latched on to academies just to wind her up.

The woman carried over two teas in cardboard cups and a couple of flapjacks on a tray. ‘Near their sell-by date,’ she explained, depositing the contents of the tray on the table. ‘I have to shut up now, so just put the empties in the bin.’ She gestured to a recycling point.

‘Thanks again,’ Caroline said, but the woman had already turned away.

‘You were saying just now you saw everything.’ Caroline ripped open the cellophane wrapper of a flapjack and took a large bite of oats and golden syrup. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was.

Albert nodded slowly. ‘It was an organised attack. I’ve seen that sort of thing before.’

‘Really?’ Caroline took another bite.

‘I do have some experience. I was at Suez – ’56.’ He stared down at his tea, but didn’t touch it. ‘They came forward in a line, in formation, Larson’s hooligans, hit out at anyone who got in their way. Pushed back the crowd either side of the road until there was enough space for Lady Larson to escape in her Rolls Royce.’

‘And Mum got hit on the head in the confusion?’ Caroline popped the last of the flapjack in her mouth and stared longingly at the other one.

‘Oh it wasn’t an accident. They went for her.’

‘They what?’

‘She’s the most vocal protestor. It’s part of the strategy – take out the leader of a group, and the group disintegrates. We used the same technique in the army.’

‘Wait – are you saying one of the security people deliberately attacked Mum?’

Albert nodded.

‘They hit her over the head?’

‘Not exactly.’ He picked up his cup, held it mid-air for a moment then put it down again. ‘Two of them ran at her. She lost her balance and fell awkwardly, she hit her head on the way down.’

‘Have you told the police what you saw?’

‘I’m just waiting for them to ask me.’

‘Perhaps I can have a word with them for you.’

‘I’m not incapable.’

‘No – of course not.’

Caroline stared into space for a moment, trying hard to take it all in. ‘I had no idea she was going anywhere today. This all happened at Fred Larson’s head office?’

‘We didn’t know ourselves until the last minute. There was a cancellation at the coach hire company – Jean knows the proprietor. He called her at lunchtime.’

Caroline blinked. Why couldn’t her mother organise coach trips to Southend and Eastbourne, like any other normal pensioner? She took a sip of tea. It was so sweet it made the flapjack taste like a sugar-free health snack.

Albert shook his head. ‘You put a thug in a luminous yellow vest, and suddenly he thinks he can do what he likes. They’re animals.’ He sniffed. ‘If they’ve done any permanent damage to that dear sweet woman… they’ll have me to contend with.’

It took Caroline a moment to realise he was still talking about her mother. It hadn’t occurred to her before that Albert was quite so ardent in his admiration of Jean. Suddenly she felt defensive, seeing Albert in a completely new light. Not a harmless old man at all, but an insidious interloper. Her dad had been gone nearly five years, but it still seemed far too soon for some suitor to be sniffing around. She bristled, snatched the remaining flapjack from the table and shoved it in her bag. ‘We should probably be getting back,’ she said, and reached a hand under Albert’s arm.

‘I’m perfectly capable of getting up under my own steam. Thank you.’

She watched him struggle, leaning heavily on the table to lever himself up. She scooped up the teas and left them at the recycling point, the cartons too full to throw in the bin.

Caroline led the way back to A&E, slowing every few steps to allow Albert to catch up. Halfway down the corridor she stopped. A familiar figure dressed in a black raincoat and leather boots was hurrying through the exit. Caroline glanced over her shoulder. Albert was still a few yards behind her. Tempting as it was to leave him in the corridor, she retraced her steps and hooked her arm through his. He leaned his weight into her and they picked up pace.

Having safely deposited Albert on the chair where she’d found him, promising she would be right back, Caroline rushed out of the A&E department. An April evening chill had set in. She dragged her thin jacket across her chest and scanned the forecourt for Angela Tate. She spotted her standing at the edge of a huddle of uniformed paramedics and nurses, a cloud of cigarette smoke hanging in the air above their heads. She headed across the forecourt towards them.

‘Gone back to the evil weed, I see,’ she said.

Tate turned quickly and peered into her face. It seemed to take her a moment to make out Caroline’s face in the gathering gloom and then another to register who she was. ‘It’s my first of the day.’

‘Are you here for the same reason as my mother?’

‘Your mother?’

‘Jean Henderson – you interviewed her a fortnight ago. After she was arrested?’

‘Yes, of course. How is Jean? She’s a game old bird.’ She looked Caroline up and down, as if she was comparing her to her mother and deciding she didn’t measure up. ‘I’d like to have a word with her, if she’s up to it.’

‘She’s giving a statement to the police. And dealing with the effects of concussion. Did you see what happened?’

Tate took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘It was all over so quickly.’ She tilted her head back and exhaled, blowing smoke upwards from the corner of her mouth, narrowing her eyes. ‘I didn’t see anything I’d be prepared to testify about in court – put it that way. I wasn’t in the actual melee itself.’ She dropped the cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out, adding to the collection of butts already scattered across the concrete. ‘Whereas Frank – my photographer – was right in the middle of the action. He got hit in the face. A few stitches, nothing serious. I think he quite likes the idea of a battle scar. No doubt he’ll make up some story about being under enemy fire in Iraq or Afghanistan.’

The two women looked at one another for a moment and said nothing.

‘I left you a message,’ Caroline said.

Tate stuck a hand in her pocket and retrieved a phone, held it at arm’s length, screwing up her eyes to focus on the tiny screen. ‘Seems I have quite a few.’ She shoved the phone back in her pocket and grabbed Caroline’s arm, guiding her gently away from the group of medics. ‘Did you get it?’

Caroline slipped a hand into the front pocket of her trousers. It was empty. A surge of panic rose up from her chest. She quickly patted all her other pockets before remembering she’d put the memory stick on the kitchen table.
Please God it’s still there.

‘I don’t have it on me now.’

‘Oh.’ Tate withdrew her arm from Caroline’s. ‘But you managed to get everything I asked for?’

Caroline let out a breath and looked down at her feet.

‘Oh please don’t tell me you didn’t!’

‘My boss caught me.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not sure how much he saw. I’ve been worrying about it all evening.’

‘Great – that’s all we need.’

‘Do you know how much of a risk I was taking?’

Tate bit her lip.

‘I could lose my job – or worse.’

The journalist pulled a pack of cigarettes from her bag and lit one.

‘I copied everything except the honours nominations.’

‘Great – only one of the most crucial bits of information.’ Tate marched away.

‘This isn’t easy for me, you know.’ Caroline shouted at Tate’s back, waiting for her to turn round. Tate continued smoking her cigarette and ignored her. ‘I’m not actually doing this for you.’ She was determined to stand her ground. ‘What’s so important about the nominations anyway?’

Tate hurried back over to her. ‘For God’s sake keep your voice down.’ She pointed towards the group of smokers, which now included the two policemen who’d been interviewing Jean.