“Where is Lex?”
“Sorry, Johnny, we don’t know and can’t find out.”
“What do you mean? The police can always find out where people are.”
“I’m glad you have such touching faith in the force. No, when I say we can’t find him, I mean we’re not allowed to. Orders from higher up, apparently the very top—no searching for Lex Warrington—case closed. Sorry.”
What on earth did that mean? I stored it in my mind for later examination.
“There is another possibility. You know my real name, don’t you, Duggie? I’m actually quite famous in my field,” I modified this. “Well, slightly famous. Anyway, that guy responsible for the London terrorist incident, I took his picture, and though you haven’t actually caught him yet, he knows who took it. The paper published my name. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might want revenge. He could look up my name on the electoral register—no, that wouldn’t work because the address will be my parents’. Should they be given protection?”
“I doubt he’d go to such trouble, and why should he be reading the Bristol Gazette?”
“It was taken up by the National Press and my name accredited.”
“But not where you lived. No, Johnny, I don’t think you should worry about that.”
Another thing, though, to store in the back of my mind.
“Okay, when do we actually make the move?”
“This afternoon if you feel up to it. The doctor says you’re all right to travel, and if you think you can, we’ll get you into safety ASAP. But it won’t be me. We’re being ultracareful. I won’t even know where you’ve gone.”
I felt a bit sorry. Even though I’d only known him for half an hour or so, he was nice and caring and, I thought, honest.
But, as he said, it was not to be. I was transported from the hospital, I think the back way, possibly even through the morgue, into an unmarked van, though equipped as if it was an ambulance.
“How far are we going?” I asked the nurse who accompanied me.
“Only about forty miles,” she said cheerfully. “Are you comfortable?”
I was going to say I was but then decided not to play the frigging hero. “Far from it.” So she gave me a pill to help, and while I was waiting for it to work, I pondered on what towns were within a forty-mile limit. There was obviously Bath, but that was only about twenty miles from Bristol, then Chippenham, Weston-super-Mare, and Chepstow across the Bristol Channel and almost into Wales. And then, as I woozily drifted off, I thought there’s Glastonbury, where it was rumored King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were buried, but that was probably an invention of the abbey monks to increase the number of pilgrims who….
Again an awakening but this time just from a sleep while the ambulance was backing into a side entrance (a hospital in Glastonbury, I was told) and soon I was ensconced in a very private room with nothing but my thoughts to entertain me. Not that they were all that entertaining. Where was Lex? He couldn’t have been responsible for the fire, yet I remembered, “If you ever leave me, I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.” But that hadn’t happened. If anything, he had left me, but the outcome was the same, the two of us parted, and he wouldn’t allow it, would kill to stop me going off with someone else.
The terrorist was the more likely, but how would he know (a) how to find me, and (b) that I was alone in the house? Not possible.
I racked my brain for a third alternative. (Can you have a third alternative?) Someone I’d upset in one of my articles? The guy on whose behalf I’d gone up to London but had failed to speak to his MP because of the terrorist attack? Bloody daft, no one could be so petty—could they?
A woman bustled in. I thought at first she was a nurse, but then I noticed the stethoscope round her neck.
“Well, Mr Appleseed”—obviously, the fiction was being kept up—“I hope you’re settling in comfortably. We’ll change the bandages soon, put more soothing cream on your side, which is best left uncovered, so try to sleep on your right side. Now is there anything I can organize for you?”
“Thanks, Doctor. I’d like a bit more pain relief, if that’s possible, a computer or, if not, a phone—something I can get in touch with the Net. Oh, and a mirror.”
“I’ll see what I can do, though I wouldn’t advise the mirror for a couple of days.”
Oh God, I must look like Frankenstein’s monster.
“Just a bit singed round the edges,” she added. “But I’ll see what I can do about the other things.” She prodded my chest with the stethoscope, then called in a nurse, who took my blood pressure, temperature, and blood oxygen while the doctor watched. “All what we’d expect under the circumstances.”
She went out, leaving the nurse, who fussed about with pillows and straightened my sheets, which looked perfectly straight to me. She seemed disposed to chat, and because people in busy hospitals tend to “forget” patients’ requests, not intentionally but because they’re called away to do something urgent, like save a life, I asked her about the phone, which I felt absolutely lost without.
She looked doubtful. “I’ve actually got a spare mobile. It’s only basic and you can’t do anything really except make and receive calls. But…. Well, you’re supposed to be a special patient.”
“Special in what sense? Criminal?”
“Oh no, nothing like that—just special, no visitors, like, and no communication with other patients, that sort of thing.”