Peter Lovesey: Upon A Dark Night

No jewellery, apparently- unless someone took it off me. There isn’t the faintest mark of a wedding ring. Is there?

Rose felt the finger again. This was the horror of amnesia, not being certain of something as fundamental as knowing if she was married.

The injuries told some kind of story, too. Her legs were bruised and cut in a couple of places, apparently from contact with the vehicle that had hit her. The broken ribs and the concussion and the state of her clothes seemed to confirm that she’d been knocked down, but it must have been a glancing contact, or the injuries would have been more serious. The likeliest conclusion was that she’d been crossing a road and the driver had spotted her just too late to swerve. It was improbable that she’d been riding in another vehicle, or there would surely have been whiplash injuries or some damage to her face.

She walked the canal towpath for an hour before returning to the hostel, where she found a policewoman waiting. A no-frills policewoman with eyes about as warm as the silver buttons on her uniform.

‘I won’t keep you long. Just following up on the report we had. You are the woman who was brought into the Hinton Clinic?’

‘So I’m told.’

‘Then you haven’t got your memory back?’

‘No.’

‘So you still don’t know your name?’

‘The social worker called me Rose. That will have to do for the time being.’

The policewoman didn’t sound as if she would be calling her Rose or anything else. Not that sympathy was required, but there was a skeptical note in the questions. Jobs like this were probably given to the women; they weren’t at the cutting edge dealing with crime. ‘You remember that much, then?’

‘I can remember everything from the time I woke up in the hospital bed.’

‘The funny thing is, we haven’t had any reports of an accident yesterday.’

‘I didn’t say I had one. Other people said I did.’

‘Has anyone taken photos yet?’

‘Of me?’

‘Of your injuries.’

‘Only X-rays.’

‘You should get photographed in case there’s legal action. If you were hit by some driver and there’s litigation, it will take ages to come to court, and you’ll have nothing to show them.’

Good advice. Maybe this policewoman wasn’t such a downer as she first appeared. ‘Is that up to me to arrange?’

‘We can get a police photographer out to you. We’ll need a head and shoulders for our records anyway.’

‘Could it be a woman photographer?’

‘Why?’

‘My legs look hideous.’

The policewoman softened just a touch. ‘I could ask.’

‘You see, I’m not used to being photographed.’

‘How do you know that?’

It was a fair point.

‘If this goes on for any time at all,’ said the policewoman, ‘you won’t be able to stay out of the spotlight. We’ll need to circulate your picture. It’s the only way forward in cases of this kind.’

‘Can’t you leave it for a few days? They told me people always get their memory back.’

‘That’s not up to me. My superiors take the decisions. If an offence has been committed, a serious motoring offence, we’ll need to find the driver responsible.’

‘Suppose I don’t want to press charges?’

‘It’s not up to you. If some berk knocked you down and didn’t report it, we’re not going to let him get away with it. We have a duty to other road users.’

Rose agreed to meet the police photographer the same evening. She also promised to call at the central police station as soon as her memory was restored.

She was left alone.

‘Rose.’ She spoke the name aloud, trying it on in the bedroom like a dress, and deciding it was wrong for her. She didn’t wish to personify romance, or beauty. She went through a string of more austere possibilities, like Freda, Shirley and Thelma. Curiously, she could recall women’s names with ease, yet couldn’t say which was her own.

‘I’m Ada.’

Startled, Rose turned towards the doorway and saw that it was two-thirds filled. The one-third was the space above head height.

‘Ada Shaftsbury. Have they put you in with me?’ said Ada Shaftsbury from the doorway. ‘I had this to myself all last week.’ With a shimmy of the upper body she got properly into the room, strutted across and sat on the bed among the orange peel. ‘What’s your name?’

‘They call me Rose. It’s not my real name. I was in an accident. I lost my memory.’

‘You don’t look like a Rose to me. Care for a snack? I do like a Danish for my tea.’ She dipped her hand into a carrier bag she’d brought in.

‘That’s kind, but no thanks.’

‘I mean it. I picked up five. I can spare one or two.’

‘Really, no.’

Ada Shaftsbury was not convinced. ‘You’d be helping me. I’m on this diet. No snacks. Five Danish pastries isn’t a snack. It’s a meal, so I have to eat them at a sitting. Teatime. Three would only be a snack. If I was left with three, I’d have to blow the whistle, and that might be good for me. I’m very strict with myself.’

‘Honestly, I couldn’t manage one.’

‘You don’t mind if I have my tea while we talk?’ said Ada, through a mouthful of Danish pastry.

‘Please go ahead.’

‘I’ve tried diets before and none of them work. This one suits me so far. Since my mother died, I’ve gone all to pieces. I’ve been done three times.’

‘Done?’ Rose was uncertain what she meant.

‘Sent down. For the five-finger discount.’

Rose murmured some sort of response.

‘You’re not with me, petal, are you?’ said Ada. ‘I’m on about shoplifting. Food, mostly. They shouldn’t put it on display like they do. It’s a temptation. Can you cook?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll find out, I suppose.’

‘It’s a poky little kitchen. If I get in there, which has to be sideways, I don’t have room to open the cupboards.’

‘That must be a problem.’

Ada took this as the green light. ‘I can get the stuff if you’d be willing to cook for both of us. And you don’t have to worry about breakfast.’ Ada gave a wide, disarming smile. ‘You’re thinking I don’t eat a cooked breakfast, aren’t you?’

‘I wasn’t thinking anything.’

‘There’s a foreign girl called Hildegarde in the room under ours and she likes to cook. I’m teaching her English. She knows some really useful words now: eggs, bacon, tomatoes, fried bread. If you want a good breakfast, just say the word to Hildegarde.’

‘I don’t know if I’ll be staying long.’

‘You don’t know, full stop,’ said Ada. ‘Could be only a couple of hours. Could be months.’

‘I hope not.’

‘Do you like bacon? I’ve got a whole side of bacon in the freezer.’

‘Where did that come from?’

Ada wobbled with amusement. ‘The back of a lorry in Green Street. The driver was delivering to a butcher’s. He was round the front arguing with a traffic warden, so I did some unloading for him, slung it over my shoulder and walked through the streets. I got looks, but I get looks anyway. They shouldn’t leave the stuff on view if they don’t want it to walk. I’ve got eggs, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, spuds. We can have a slap-up supper tonight. Hildegarde will cook. We can invite her up to eat with us.’

‘Actually, I bought my own,’ Rose said.

‘Good,’ said Ada Shaftsbury, failing or refusing to understand. ‘We’ll pool it. What did you get?’

‘Salad things mostly.’

‘In all honesty I can’t say I care much for salad, but we can use it as a garnish for the fry-up,’Ada said indistinctly through her second Danish.

Rose’s long-term memory may have ceased to function, but the short-term one delivered. ‘It’s a nice idea, but I’d rather not eat until the police have been.’