Part 19 (1/2)

Kate was brilliant. She had come down to the hospital with me in the ambulance and had the presence of mind to bring some clothes and toiletries with her. She had stayed with me until all the tests had been done, and then gone back up the dale, no doubt done a day's work, cooked a meal for the family, so I could hardly expect her to drive the forty miles back down to the hospital again in the evening.

Becca's mum and dad were here now. They thanked me profusely, tearfully, for my efforts in saving Becca. They had brought me some flowers, some apple juice, some chocolates. I lay back on the bed and thanked them in return. And then they, understandably, concentrated on Becca, hugging her, helping her, making a fuss of her.

It was quite irrational, I know, but I felt out of it. Alone. And I couldn't even leave the room and leave them to it as I just didn't have the energy and my feet were like puffb.a.l.l.s.

So I thought I was dreaming when I heard my mum's voice. But suddenly there she was, leaning on a walking stick and Bill, abandoning them both to swoop down and hug me hard.

'My darling girl!' she said. 'My lovely bold brave girl!'

Kate had called them and they had come straight up. Their only delay had been in hiring a car roomy enough for Mum and her plastered leg.

'We just wanted to get to you as soon as possible, to make sure you were all right,' said my mother in between hugs.

We? We? My mother never thought in we terms. A little bit of my mind noticed this with some satisfaction as I proceeded-with what breath I had-to tell them all that had happened. As my mother leant forward, anxiously, holding my hand-the one that wasn't sprained-and peering at me intently, Bill looked down at her, indulgently. Something had changed; something had s.h.i.+fted between them.

Mum was talking to me fiercely. 'That was an amazing thing you did,' she was saying, 'brave and determined. I am so proud of you. So very proud of you. And I'm just so glad you're safe.' She was crying and smiling at the same time. I'd never seen her so emotional. Everything was all so unreal.

They were introduced to Becca and her parents. There was much discussion of their daughters and the bad luck of the accident and the good luck of the rescue and my presence of mind etc, etc, etc. And then, just as it seemed as if everyone was going to start crying all over again, Becca's mum said to my mum, 'You're wearing one of our Becca's scarves!'

'Oh yes!' said Mum to Becca, 'are you the girl who made it? I love it, love it. In fact, I wear it nearly all the time. I've never had a scarf like it.'

Becca's parents beamed proudly and my mum smiled happily in return. Then a nurse came in and said, tactfully but firmly, that it was long past visiting time.

'Kate invited us to stay with her, but it's such a long drive, we're booked into a hotel around here,' Mum was saying. 'But we hope to see her before we go back.'

That we again. And when the time came for them to go, Mum actually allowed Bill to help her as she manoeuvred up out of the chair.

'We'll be back in the morning,' said Mum, leaning forward on Bill's arm to kiss me goodbye. Bill winked. And I drifted off to sleep, feeling that the world was becoming very strange.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

The police came to see us the next day. Two lots. The first, in uniform, wanted to know about the car crash. We explained about the fog and about how Sandro hadn't known the road. The younger policeman nodded. He knew that road well. Easy to get it wrong, especially in the fog, especially when you didn't know the road.

'But Sandro hadn't been drinking!' said Becca anxiously.

'No, miss, we know. The blood tests showed that. Don't worry. It was clearly an accident.' He looked at me.

'You did well, miss. Lucky too. Not a very sensible thing to do when you don't know the area. Even the best of us could get lost in the fog up there.'

'I had to do something.'

'Well, you must have had someone looking after you, that's all I can say. You must have had someone looking after you.'

The second lot of police officers were much harder. A man and a woman in plain clothes. They asked so many questions: Why were we at the party? Who had we gone with? How long had we known them? Did we recognise people there? Did we see Simeon Maynard? Was there anything strange going on?

'There was a row involving Clayton Silver, wasn't there? The man you'd gone with.'

'Yes, but that was nothing much. Just a woman who was very drunk. Clayton didn't react to it at all and then someone took the woman away. There was nothing to it.' (Only, I thought, my utter disillusionment and the total collapse of the idea of Clayton Silver that I had foolishly built up in my head.) 'I'd gone with Clayton, but after the first hour or so, I hadn't spent much time with him. It just seemed easier to leave when I had the chance of a lift.'

'Did you see anything of Simeon Maynard at all?'

I told them of that quick glance I'd had of him scrabbling desperately through papers on his desk.

Then we moved on to the matter of the drugs and I could truthfully say I'd seen no footballers doing anything with drugs. As for the rape...I explained I'd seen a girl I didn't know going up the stairs with two men. Was she unwilling? No. But she was drunk.

And so it went on. Had I known Clayton Silver long? Had I seen him with Maynard? Did I know any of the other people at Shadwell? Did I know Bob Brandon, the manager, Terry Hopkins, the a.s.sistant? No, no, no again.

I lay back on the pillows, exhausted. I really had tried to help.

'Look, I met Clayton Silver and Alessandro when they walked into The Miners' Arms a few weeks ago. I went to lunch with him, went to a dinner with him in Newcastle and then to the party. It was no big thing. It was just because I happened to be around, that's all. He's not my normal sort of boyfriend and I'm quite sure I'm not the type of woman he normally goes out with. It was just a matter of accident and geography.' Was I trying to convince them or myself ?

'Yet he bought you a very expensive necklace?'

How did they know about that?

'And we understand that you were with him during that...incident...at King's Cross. You were seen running away.'

'I was seen running for a train,' I replied as sharply as my wheezing allowed. 'If you know all about that, then you know it was just a stupid mistake when Clayton's keys got locked in the car.'

They said nothing and I was suddenly nervous, even though I had no reason to be. How much did they know? Had Jake been right about Clayton being involved in something dodgy? I was glad I had nothing to hide. But how lucky that I'd left Ravensike without him. Still, Tell the truth and shame the Devil.

'I think Clayton Silver liked the fact that Simeon Maynard poured money into Shadwell. He loved playing with the best people. But apart from that I don't think he had much time for the man. I certainly don't think he was involved in any way with him.'

And I didn't. But then again, I hadn't thought he was the sort of man to walk out on his son, did I? I'd done my bit. Now I wanted to forget all about him.

That, however, proved impossible. Simeon Maynard's death was big news. As I slipped in and out of sleep in my hospital bed, Simeon Maynard seemed to fill my head whether I was awake or asleep. The drama of it, the implications of it, the footballing lifestyle, all were a.n.a.lysed until there could simply be no more to say. Then the story moved on. The pictures of Ravensike Lodge and the crash scene vanished as I began to think more about the implications for football in general and Shadwell in particular.

It was hard to avoid news of Clayton Silver and his team-mates. Shadwell had imploded. It was one of England's top clubs, yet it seemed to have been built on sand, or the fortunes of one man, and on his death had collapsed like a pack of cards. I watched it all, fascinated despite myself, unable to summon up the energy to switch the television off.

Jake had been right-of course. It seemed the club had virtually no money. Simeon Maynard's finances were so perilous as to be nonexistent and it would in any case take months to untangle it all. Two of their star players had been charged with drug offences, another with rape. Sandro was in hospital. No one knew what the future held. Or even if the club had a future. In a midweek match they were beaten five nil by a team at the bottom of the table, and one of the players punched an opponent so hard he broke his jaw. The commentators relished their failure. 'A team without hope' was a typical comment. Clayton had apparently played appallingly. 'Tarnished Silver', one paper called him.

There was talk of the club going into receivers.h.i.+p, reports and rumours of who-if anyone-would take it over. Already the sports pages were writing obituaries of one of England's most famous and successful clubs.

The more the dreary tales of dodgy dealing and failure unfolded, the gladder I was that I had not got more involved with Clayton Silver, that I had realised his true character just in time.

Which still left the press to deal with. The hospital had been inundated with messages for me, requests for interviews. Some of them wanted the story of the crash and my struggle through the fog-they had already christened me 'The Halloween Heroine'. Others were more interested in my involvement with Clayton as part of the ongoing Simeon Maynard saga.

'I'll have to do something,' I said to Bill. 'It's not fair to make the hospital cope with all this.'

'The easiest way is to give an interview to one person and let them share it,' said Bill.

'I guess so. But which one?' I said, looking at the long list of messages left for me.

'Well, there's an obvious one, really, isn't there?' said Bill.

'You're right.' I reached for the phone.