Hilary Bonner - Friends to Die For

‘Yes, darling,’ said Alfonso, his voice tender and full of concern.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came along right after it happened. Don’t you remember? They let me ride with you in the ambulance.’

Alfonso smiled and when he spoke again it sounded as if he was trying very hard to be reassuring.

‘Somebody had to look after you, didn’t they, you daft old broad.’

Marlena stared at him. The fog was beginning to clear. She remembered then. The shock of the bus running over her foot, and probably a slightly delayed reaction to the bang to her head when she’d cracked it on the pavement, must have caused her to lose consciousness for a few seconds. Alfonso had been the first person she’d seen when she came to, as she lay in the road at Cambridge Circus. He was crouched down next to her, talking into his mobile phone, asking for the emergency services. He must have reacted to everything extremely quickly. Next to him had been a man who, even in her fuddled state, she’d recognized as the bus driver. He’d been near hysterical.

‘Oh thank God, she’s opened her eyes! I thought I’d killed the woman. I couldn’t do nothing about it, honest. She just came flying through the air and landed right in front of me wheels. Damn cyclists. They don’t obey the rules everyone else does, see. They have ways of their own. They’re all over the road and they don’t stop at traffic lights. No, they just go straight through and drag some poor old lady with them...’

The man seemed to have a bad case of verbal diarrhoea. He’d been shaking from head to foot, his face white, drained of blood. By contrast Alfonso had been ultra calm. Funny how clear the memory of it suddenly was, thought Marlena.

Alfonso had used that reassuring voice from the start.

‘You’re going to be all right, darling, you’re going to be all right,’ he’d told her repeatedly. ‘Just trust the Fonz. Stand on me, darling, stand on me.’

Now, in the hospital, Alfonso was still calm. Calm yet anxious. He reached out and touched Marlena’s hand gently.

‘Did you see what happened, Alfonso?’ Marlena asked.

Not really, I heard you scream and I saw this cyclist take off down Shaftesbury Avenue, that’s just about all.’

The cyclist who had failed to stop. That was Marlena’s other vivid memory.

‘Did they catch him, Alfonso, the cyclist, did they catch him?’

‘I don’t think so, sweetheart. Not as far as I know, anyway.’

Marlena nodded and rested her head back on the pillows. She would have been surprised to receive any other answer.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, girl?’ Alfonso asked. ‘Anyone else you want me to let know what happened? Anything you want? Anything at all?’

Marlena shook her head, very slightly because it too was throbbing, though not nearly as much as her injured foot.

‘You were the first person by my side, weren’t you, Alfonso?’ she enquired.

‘Yes, I was, darling.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘I was going to work, Marlena darling. Early shift. Flippin’ business breakfasts are bigger than lunch nowadays. Don’t you remember? We’ve seen each other before on Monday mornings when you’ve been on your way to Soho.’

Yes, of course,’ said Marlena. ‘I’m just not thinking clearly.’

‘Anyway, I heard a scream,’ Alfonso continued. ‘That’s what attracted my attention. I looked along the street, saw this woman lying in the road, the bus, and everything. So I rushed up to see if I could help. Then I realized it was you, darling. I couldn’t believe my eyes: my best girl under the wheels of a bus! What a shock you gave me, sweetheart.’

Alfonso smiled at Marlena with great affection.

She managed a weak smile back.

‘Good job I came along, wasn’t it, darling?’ said Alfonso.

Yes, wasn’t it,’ responded Marlena.

She reached out again, took Alfonso’s hand in hers, and squeezed it.

But her aching head was filled with unwelcome thoughts.

You don’t think we’re being targeted, do you?’ she asked. ‘Our little group, one by one, all these things happening, and getting more serious. Not pranks any more.’

Alfonso shook his head.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I honestly don’t know. I can’t believe it, though. I mean, why would anyone target us?’

‘And who? That’s the big thing. Who, if not one of us?’ Marlena looked stricken.

‘We mustn’t think like that, Marlena,’ said Alfonso quickly. ‘We’ll drive ourselves mad. Look, what happened to you could have been just an accident. In any case, the police are involved now. Two officers came to the scene. I think we should leave it all to them, and you should just concentrate on getting better.’

Marlena smiled at him again, even though she did not feel like smiling at all.

It hadn’t gone as I had planned. I hadn’t intended for anyone to be so badly injured. Not at this stage. Not yet. I would have to think again now, slow things down. Otherwise I risked revealing myself.

It was perhaps a lesson that even I could not control everything. I hadn’t bargained on a bus travelling so fast — surely far too fast. But then, I hadn’t given much thought to what might be behind me in the bus lane. I had made a mistake.

I would need to be more careful from here on. I had been so hell-bent on staging another incident that would give cause for concern among the members of Sunday Club that I had failed to think it through. The intention had been to keep them on edge, keep them second-guessing, nothing more. But in my eagerness I went too far.

As a result, this had turned into a matter for the police. The other incidents had been silly pranks. Even the slashed tyres would not have merited much police intervention. There was no way anyone could prove that the incidents were connected. And with each of these ‘random’ pranks I had been growing more confident, testing my camouflage, making sure that I would be beyond suspicion when it came time to inflict vengeance on my real target, the one who had so wronged me.

However, I had allowed myself to become overconfident, and as a result my entire plan was in jeopardy.

Somehow I needed to divert attention away from the spectacle of an old woman thrown into the path of a bus by a hooded cyclist.

I needed to come up with something that would shock and stupefy the whole group. I sought an abomination. And I believed that I had found one.

The gates of the rivers shall be opened.

Late that evening Michelle telephoned University College Hospital and somehow persuaded the staff to allow her to speak to Marlena.

She said she was away in Belfast on a training course and had just picked up a worrying voicemail from Alfonso, telling her about the accident.

‘If that’s what it was,’ Michelle continued. ‘Fonz said he saw it happen, more or less, and he reckons the cyclist rode at you deliberately. Is that what you think?’

‘Oh, darling, I don’t know what to think,’ Marlena replied. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m just grateful to be able to still think at all. In any case, that’s not what Alfonso told me. He said he heard me scream and saw the cyclist riding off, that’s all.’

‘Well, he probably didn’t want to upset you. Particularly after all the other stuff that’s been going on. I shouldn’t have said anything. Just forget I opened my big mouth.’

‘Do you think it hadn’t occurred to me that what happened today mightn’t have been an accident?’ enquired Marlena. ‘It is a big step, though, from a couple of silly pranks and some slashed tyres.’

‘True,’ said Michelle. ‘And working in Traffic I see all too many cyclists speeding through red lights or riding on the pavement without a thought for any poor pedestrian who might step into their path.’