Peter Lovesey - Murder on the Short List

She put down the coffee and stood with her arms folded wondering how to deal with this. Wilbur came in and sniffed at the mud on the boots.

Fresh air, she decided. She flung open a couple of windows and an icy blast of December ripped through the room.

Wilbur streaked upstairs, but Melchior didn’t move a muscle.

“Come on, man!” Laura said. She found the remote and switched on the television. The Nine Lessons and Carols at full volume. Switched the channel to the Three Tenors.

No result.

In frustration Laura brought her two hands together and slapped her own face quite hard. She’d have to overcome her innate decorum and give him a prod. Alone with a strange bloke in someone else’s house, but it had to be done.

First she switched off the three of them belting out Nessun Dorma. Her nerves couldn’t take it.

Tentatively she put out a finger and touched the back of Melchior’s right hand, resting on the arm of the chair. It remained quite still. She placed the whole of her hand across it and squeezed.

There was a slight reaction, a twitch of the eyelids, but they didn’t open. Laura leaned closer and blew on them. Nothing. She drew a deep breath and patted his fat face.

He made a sound, no more than “Mm” — but a definite response.

“Wake up, please,” she said. “I don’t want you asleep.”

A triumph. The eyes opened and stared at her.

“It’s no good,” she told him. “You can’t sit here for ever. Let’s see if you can walk to the car and I’ll drive you home. Blackberry Farm, isn’t it?”

At the mention of his address, Melchior made a definite effort to move. He rocked forward and groaned. Laura thrust her hand under his armpit and encouraged the movement. Out of sheer determination she got him to his feet. He was still unsteady, but she wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hung onto it and kept him upright.

“The car’s outside. Come on. Start walking.”

It was slow progress and a huge physical effort, but she kept him on the move, talking all the time in the hope that it would keep him conscious. Getting down the two small steps at the front door was hard enough, but the real challenge was hoisting him onto the passenger seat of the Land Rover.

She swung the door open with her free hand. “I’m going to need your help here, Melchior. One giant leap for mankind.”

He moaned a little, maybe at Laura’s attempt to be cheerful.

To encourage him, she curled her hand under his knee and lifted his right leg up to the level of the vehicle floor. It felt horribly limp. She found places for his hands to grip. “On the count of three,” she said, “and I’ll probably end up with a slipped disc. One, two, three!”

If he made some gesture towards the performance it wasn’t obvious. Laura found herself making a superhuman effort. Dignity abandoned, she put her shoulder under his rump and inched him upwards. All those hours of heavy gardening paid off. He got one buttock onto the seat and she rammed him like a front-row forward until he was in a position where she could snap the safety belt across.

She ran back to the house and closed the windows and door. Wilbur was inside, but did she have the key? She hoped so.

The Land Rover, bless its antiquated ignition system, started first time.

Blackberry Farm. Which way? Her passenger was in no condition to say. Laura swung right and hoped. The lanes were unlit, of course. Her full beam probed the hedgerows ahead. Can’t be more than three hundred yards, Caspar had said. She’d gone that distance already. She continued for another two minutes, then found a gate entrance. Nothing so helpful as a sign. She reversed into the space and retraced her route. Maybe she should have turned left coming out of The Withers.

Then she saw the board for Blackberry Farm fixed to a drystone wall. Drove into the yard and sounded the horn. She’d need help getting Melchior down. It would be useful if he had a couple of hefty sons.

From one of the farm buildings came a wisp of a woman wearing overalls and wellies. She was about Melchior’s age, Laura judged. Two sheep dogs came with her, barking.

“I’ve brought the farmer home,” Laura said, competing to be heard. “He’s rather tired. Is there anyone who can help get him down?”

The little lady spread her hands. “There’s only me, my love.”

Laura got out and opened the passenger door. “We’ll have to manage together then. Is he your husband?”

“Yes, and I don’t like the look of ’un,’ the little lady said.

“Douglas, you gawpus, what’s the matter with ’ee?”

Laura looked. Her passenger had taken a definite turn for the worse. He was making jerky movements with his head and left leg. Change of plan. “I think we should get your husband to a doctor fast,” she said. “Jump aboard.”

“I can’t come with ‘ee,” the farmer’s wife said. “I’ve got a cow in calf.”

“But I’m a stranger here. I don’t know where to take him,” Laura almost wailed.

“Horse piddle.”

“What?”

“Royal United, Bath. Agzy-dennal Emergissy.”

Laura understood now. “Which way?”

“Left out of the yard and straight up the lane till you reach the A36. You’ll pick up the horse piddle signs when you get close to the city.”

“Can you call them and say I’m on the way with a man having convulsions?”

“After I’ve seen to the cow.”

Laura swung the Land Rover towards the gate, scattering the dogs, and started up the lane. “Don’t worry,” she said to Melchior, or Douglas, “you’ll be getting help very soon.” The only response was a vomiting sound.

“Please! Not in the Land Rover,” she muttered.

She was forced to concentrate on the drive, trusting in the Lord that she wouldn’t meet anything as she belted along the lane. Passing points seemed to be unknown in this part of Wiltshire. The beam picked out the scampering shape of a badger up ahead. It saved itself by veering off to the left.

Then she spotted headlights descending a hill and guessed she was close to the main road. Right or left? She’d have to make a guess. Her instinct said right.

Forced to stop at the intersection, she glanced at her passenger. His face was still twitching and looked a dreadful colour in the passing lights. This was much more serious than over-indulgence in mulled wine.

Now was when she could do with an emergency light and siren. Out on the A36, with a long run into Bath — and a sign told her she had taken the right direction — she was overtaking like some teenage joyrider in a stolen Merc. Other drivers flashed their lights at her and one idiot got competitive and tried to force her to stay in the wrong lane. But there came a point when she was high on the downs and the city lights appeared below her. At any other time she would have been enchanted by the view. All she could think was where is the hospital?

At the first traffic lights she wound down the window and asked. Of course it had to be on the opposite side of the city. Another hair-raising burn-up through the streets and she found seriously helpful signs at last.

A&E. She drew up behind an ambulance. Someone was rolling a stretcher on wheels towards the Land Rover. The farmer’s wife must have alerted them. The passenger door was opened.

‘Is this the man with convulsions?”

Laura took this to be one of those inane questions people ask in times of crisis. Of course he had convulsions. He’d been convulsing all the way to the hospital.

But when she turned to look at him, he’d gone still.

They checked his heart. The doctor shook his head. They unstrapped Melchior and transferred him to the stretcher and raced it inside.

Nothing had been said to Laura. She could only conclude that she’d brought in a man who was dead. Maybe they’d revive him. She moved the Land Rover away from the entrance and went in to find out.