Ken McClure - Chameleon

Jamieson smiled reassurance at Sue but saw that there was something awfully wrong. Her eyes were not registering relief; they were showing absolute terror. Her eyes rolled up to the top of her skull and Jamieson looked at the wall above her head. Her hair was not tied to the ceiling it was tied to… 'Jesus Christ!' yelled Jamieson as the truth dawned on him and the first police car crossed the path of the infra red beam outside. The door motor whirred into life and Sue's head was jerked hard against the wall. 'No!' he cried, springing to his feet and throwing his arm into the pulley mechanism. Pain exploded inside his head as the flesh of his forearm was drawn into the moving gears and then he blacked out momentarily as the bone jammed hard against the steel pivot and the whole mechanism seized to a halt. Smoke started to rise from the motor and a burning smell filled the garage before the main fuse blew and the lights went out.

Jamieson came round to discover Clive Evans and two policemen trying to free him.

'We'll have to get the Fire Brigade,' said one of the policemen.

'We can do it if you bring that hydraulic jack over here,' said Clive Evans with quiet authority.

'Sue…' murmured Jamieson. 'Where's Sue?'

'Your wife is all right sir,' said one of the policemen gently. 'She passed out but she's all right.'

The other policeman wheeled the garage trolley jack across the floor as, in the distance, they heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.

Clive Evans gave instructions for the jack's positioning and then asked the policeman to start pumping the handle. The steel bar trapping Jamieson's arm was prised slowly away from the pulley wheel and Evans released Jamieson's arm. There were sighs of relief as Jamieson brought his arm down in front of him and they could assess the damage.

'The bone isn't broken,' said Evans but the flesh is a bit of a mess. You are going to have some scars to remember.'

Jamieson ignored his wounded arm, holding it across his stomach as he went to kneel by Sue whose head was being cradled by one of the other policemen. He could see that that her hair and scalp were undamaged. 'Oh my love,' he said softly.

'I'll have to deal with that arm,' said Evans, standing behind him and after a few moments, Jamieson complied with the hand that was put on his shoulder. He got up but continued to watch Sue as Evans stopped the bleeding in his arm with a make-shift tourniquet. The ambulance arrived and took Jamieson and Sue back to Kerr Memorial.

Sue regained consciousness in the ambulance. Her relief at seeing Jamieson sitting beside her was suddenly eclipsed by the memory of what he had done to save her. 'Your arm!' she whispered. 'Your poor arm!'

'It will be fine,' Jamieson assured her.

Sue looked to Clive Evans for confirmation and Evans concurred.

'Oh Scott!' Sue exclaimed as emotion overtook her and tears started to flow.

'There, there,' murmured Jamieson. 'You are safe now Sue. We both are. He took her hand.'

Sue began to shiver. Jamieson felt it begin with a little tremor in her hand but the shaking began to spread until she could not speak properly and her whole body was trembling. 'That man…' she stammered. 'How could anyone…' Jamieson tried to hold Sue with one arm and attempted to reassure her but inside, he was hurting. The pain from his arm was getting steadily worse and it was now starting to come in waves, each one stronger than the last until one finally washed away his consciousness and he slumped backwards into Evans' arms.

'I'm sorry. She's lost the baby,' said Phillip Morton who had been called in to examine Sue.

Jamieson nodded and looked away. He had no wish to look anyone in the eye when he felt this vulnerable. In his heart he had known what Morton was going to say. He had known from the moment that he had heard someone say that Sue was bleeding. He had only been semi-conscious at the time and lying on a trolley being wheeled into A amp;E, but snatches of conversation had drifted through to him. Hearing was always the last thing to go and the first to come back.

Now that his pain was under control and his arm had been cleaned up and stitched he had been sitting waiting with Clive Evans who had volunteered to keep him company until Morton had completed his examination of Sue. Despite fearing the worst, he had been clinging to a wisp of hope that it had all been some kind of misunderstanding on his part and that everything was going to be all right. Morton snuffed out the candle of hope and Jamieson felt his shoulders sag and his limbs start to feel very heavy.

'I'm sorry,' said Evans, putting his hand on Jamieson's shoulder.

'Bad luck,' said Morton. 'But she's young and strong and there's no reason why…'

Jamieson had stopped listening. He knew the routine. He just wanted to be with Sue. 'I'd like to see her now,' he said.

'Of course,' said Morton and stood back to allow Jamieson to pass.

Jamieson opened the door with his left hand; his right arm was bound up in a sling. Sue was lying motionless on the bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

'Hi,' said Jamieson softly. 'How are you feeling?' The words turned to acid in his mouth. He knew exactly how she was feeling but he had to start somewhere and beginnings demanded words.

Sue continued to stare at the ceiling as if she hadn't heard and then Jamieson saw a tear start to roll down her cheek. She turned her head to look at him. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm so sorry.'

'You idiot!' whispered Jamieson taking her hand in his, 'You are all that matters. Nothing else.'

'But you wanted the baby so much,' said Sue, the tears now flowing freely.

'There will be others. We've got all the time in the world. Right now you are all that is important. God! I was so relieved to find you alive… I can't begin to tell you how worried I was. I was going out of my mind…'

Sue put a hand up to his lips and whispered, 'I know, I know.'

They held each other in silence for a moment, happy that the need for words had been overcome and they were truly together again. Sue said, 'I can't seem to stop thinking about what would have happened if you had driven up to the garage instead of walking. I just go through it over and over again. It's a nightmare I just can't seem to escape from. Why did you stop down the road from the garage? What made you do that?'

Jamieson stroked her hair. 'You can thank a traffic jam for that. It gave me time to think.'

'Tell me,' said Sue.

Jamieson told her about his initial panic stricken dash to what had turned out to be the wrong address and then how he had started to consider the motives behind the phone call, including the possibility of a cruel hoax. 'So I stopped at the phone box round the corner from the garages and called the hospital to check if you were still there. Evans told me that you had gone into town earlier so I asked him to call the police. When I came out of the phone box I was so close to the lane that I left the car where it was and ran round on foot.'

'Thank God,' said Sue.

'I'll second that,' said Jamieson.

'Scott?'

'Yes?'

'What did the man say on the phone?'

'A lot of sick nonsense.'

'What exactly?' asked Sue.

Jamieson told her.

'That was untrue you know?'

Jamieson squeezed her shoulder.

'I don't want you thinking that I lost the baby because of anything he did to me like that. He didn't touch me in that way. I think I lost the baby because he just scared me so much. It sounds silly now that you're here and I'm all safe and warm but at the time

… I thought he was the killer, the man who cut up all these women. I never knew I could be so frightened.'

Jamieson soothed Sue as she started to shake again. When she had calmed down he said softly, 'Clive tells me that the police are waiting downstairs to talk to you if you feel up to it.'