Angel of Death

‘You sound almost disappointed!’ Nurse Embry grinned at her. ‘It’s bad enough, surely!’

Miranda smiled back at her. ‘I’m relieved, believe me!’

A woman in a bed on the other side of the ward raised her head and called, ‘Nurse . . . nurse . . . I feel sick!’

Nurse Embry hurried over there. Miranda closed her eyes and drifted away into a dream about the Dorset garden; the clove-like scent of old-fashioned, frilly petalled pinks, a thrush picking up a snail and smashing it down on the rockery, the sound of the wind in the lime tree, and her mother wandering about clipping and weeding.

At lunchtime next day she was eating a small chicken salad when a man walked up to her bed, drew up a chair and sat down. The other women in the ward watched curiously. One of them bridled and said pointedly, ‘This isn’t visiting time, you know.’

The man ignored the comment. One of the nurses came into the ward and the other patients all watched avidly as she went over to Miranda’s bed, expecting the visitor to be turned out. Instead the nurse drew the curtains around Miranda’s bed and murmured, ‘Now, I told you, you can only stay for a little while.’

Miranda stared at the visitor who smiled.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You remember me, don’t you? Sergeant Maddrell, Neil Maddrell. I interviewed you a couple of days ago.’

She flinched back against her pillows, reminded sharply of what she only wanted to forget. She had barely taken in what he looked like, but now she realised she did remember him. What was he doing here? Had he come to give her another chilly warning about wasting police time?

‘I’m sorry to hear about your accident. I’ve talked to your doctor and heard about your injuries. I’m afraid you’ll be stuck in bed for a while. That will be boring for you, but at least you’re being well looked after and you can have a good rest in here. You look as if you need one.’

His face was angular, a sculptured mask, the skin pulled tight over the bones and framed in straight, dark hair. His eyes were sharp and intelligent, bright hazel. He wasn’t good-looking, yet he was attractive, she liked looking at him. Perhaps it was that calm, cool expression he always wore? You felt you could trust him. She should have remembered him. He had a memorable face.

‘How did it happen?’ he asked her.

Nervously she whispered, ‘I don’t remember much, just that I was crossing a road when a car hit me.’

She remembered his quiet, level voice very well, she found; the patient technique with which he questioned, water dropping on a stone, repeating every query until he was convinced he had got a final answer. He took her through her accident now in the same way.

‘Did you notice the make of car?’

‘No; just that it was black.’

‘Had you ever seen the car before?’

‘Not that I remember.’ She was puzzled by the question – why should she have seen the car before? What was he implying? Filaments of doubt began twining through her mind. Why was he here, anyway? Why would a detective follow up a perfectly ordinary traffic accident? Surely they didn’t suspect her of inventing it?

‘Did you see anything of the driver?’

She shook her head. ‘It all happened too fast.’ Defiantly, angrily, she said, ‘There were plenty of people around. I’m not inventing it.’

He considered her soberly, his head on one side, then crisply told her, ‘I know you’re not. We have statements from a number of people who saw it happen, including an eye witness who says the car deliberately swerved towards you after you had moved out of its path.’

‘Deliberately . . .’ Miranda looked at him with startled incredulity and he nodded.

‘You seem surprised – that hadn’t occurred to you? Our witness said the driver drove straight at you.’

She remembered with sudden, shocking intensity the way the car had been driven at her, had hit her twice. ‘He meant to hit me?’

‘You didn’t get that impression at the time, or since?’

She had to be honest. ‘No. Never.’ She wished it hadn’t entered her mind now, she did not want to think that somebody had deliberately tried to kill her. A shudder ran down her spine.

Sergeant Maddrell stared fixedly, those hazel eyes wide and clear. ‘Try to remember exactly what happened, how the car came towards you – and think about it. Could the driver have meant to hit you?’

‘I don’t know, how can I tell? I heard the car behind me and looked round.’ Her memory sharpened. ‘No, wait a minute . . . the driver sounded his horn, to warn me he was there. Yes, that was what happened. I heard his horn and looked round – surely he wouldn’t have warned me if he wanted to hit me?’

‘Maybe not,’ agreed Neil. ‘You hadn’t been aware of a car behind you until then?’

‘No, it was the horn sounding that made me realise there was a car right behind me. When I saw it, I tried to get out of the way but it swerved at the same time, and hit me. And . . . anyway . . . why on earth should anyone try to kill me?’