Питер Ловси - On the Edge

‘That’s more like it, chérie.’

Antonia went ahead. She reached the top of the first flight and stepped to the room at the end talking like a ward sister dealing with a student nurse. ‘This is no picnic, I grant you, but it could be worse. We’ll manage easily between us.’

When Rose reached the bathroom, Antonia was already inside, talking. ‘It must have been quick. He couldn’t have suffered much.’

The link in Rose’s mind with hospital was reinforced by a pungent smell she distantly remembered from years ago, when she’d had her tonsils removed. She took a step into the bathroom and looked around the door. There was no corpse in there.

She jerked towards Antonia to protest and several things happened quickly. At the edge of her vision she caught a glimpse of something white flying towards her face. Her neck was seized from behind. She flung up her arm defensively and knocked the white object upwards. It reeked of the smell she’d noticed. She was being chloroformed.

Her neck was clamped in the crook of Antonia’s arm. She was forced to gasp for air just as the pad was thrust towards her face again. This time she couldn’t push it away. She succeeded in deflecting it slightly and turning her face aside. It missed her mouth and nostrils and made stinging contact with her cheek. She dragged it off with both hands and fought for possession of it. She wasn’t as strong as Antonia, but with her two hands she prised some of the fingers away.

Antonia removed the arm that was around Rose’s neck and made a grab for the pad. She wasn’t quick enough. Rose seized it from her and flung it into the bath. Momentarily Rose had the advantage. Antonia had reached out like a tennis player retrieving a serve and she only needed a push to lose her balance.

Rose supplied it.

Antonia crashed between the side of the bath and the wash basin, bringing down a glass shelf. If she was hurt it wasn’t apparent. She recouped immediately.

Rose had turned to escape, but she was grabbed by the ankle and fell on her hands and knees. She was hauled in like a hooked fish. She kicked out with the free leg and caught some part of Antonia, possibly her chest.

There was a yelp of pain.

Rose’s left ankle was given a vicious twist that forced her to roll on her back. At once Antonia hurled herself forward. She was unquestionably the stronger of them. Rose squirmed against the side of the bath to avoid being pinned down. They wrestled head to head. Then her hair was grabbed and her head forced against the floor. Antonia pressed down on her, tugging viciously at her hair while she manoeuvred herself into a sitting position by bringing her knees up to the level of Rose’s shoulders and forcing them down. Her thighs flattened Rose’s breasts.

Rose looked up into the wildcat eyes. She felt a hand at her throat, forcing the collar apart and she believed she was going to be strangled. But the pressure came on the back of her neck. Her pearl necklace bit into her flesh and snapped as Antonia jerked it from her throat, scattering beads across the room.

‘Cheap imitations, ducky.’

The face came closer. The blonde hair brushed Rose’s cheek.

‘What’s that scent you’re wearing? It stinks.’ Antonia slapped her hard across the face.

She stared back and bore the pain in silence. Then she was conscious of a shift in the weight. Antonia was reaching behind her into the bath, groping for the pad of chloroform. Rose sensed an opportunity. Although her head was held and her shoulders were flat to the floor, her hips were still slightly angled against the bath. She flexed, raised her knees and got enough leverage from her feet to buck forward. Some hair was torn from her scalp in the process, but she managed to tip Antonia off completely and drag herself free.

She got off her knees, stepped clear of Antonia’s flailing arms, and rushed out of the bathroom and along the corridor. She’d lost her shoes, which was an advantage in taking the stairs at speed. Antonia was up and in pursuit, but Rose was quicker. She jumped the last few steps and dashed across the hall to the door and dragged it open. The inrush of foggy air gave her hope. She lurched into the street and ran blindly.

A policeman in braces and with his sleeves rolled up opened the door of the room where Rose had been sitting for longer than she could estimate, bent forward with her face in her hands. He stood just inside, taking stock.

‘Ready to talk now?’

She raised her head. She had panicked when they had brought her in and now despair had set in. She felt too exhausted to protest. Her brain rebelled at concocting a story that would satisfy them. She was certain she would get confused and blurt out the whole devastating truth.

‘What time is it?’

‘Just gone six.’

‘Six in the morning?’

‘You are in a state.’

‘I’m thirsty.’

He went out, leaving the door open. Although she wasn’t being kept in a cell, she was resigned to being transferred to one shortly. She had been driven here in a Black Maria with barred windows. This was just a place where they questioned people, somebody’s office, with a desk and several chairs and hooks on the wall for coats. She’d kept hers on. The coke stove in the corner wasn’t giving off much heat.

She had got off to a bad start with the desk sergeant by refusing to answer his questions. It was the first time she’d ever been in a police station. She hadn’t trusted herself to say anything that wouldn’t get her into trouble. Her silence had made the sergeant hostile. She was convinced that whatever she said he would keep her in custody. Up to now they didn’t know anything about her except her name and where they had found her, but they’d break her down. It wouldn’t take much.

A man she hadn’t seen before brought in some tea in a chipped enamel mug. He had his jacket on, with a sergeant’s stripes. He was silver-haired and his smile didn’t sit well with his toothbrush moustache and drooping eyelids. He tried to pitch his voice to sound reasonable. And failed.

‘So your name is Bell.’

‘Yes.’

‘Christian name?’

‘Rose. I told the other man.’

‘Mrs Rose Bell.’ He’d noticed her ring, of course. ‘Living with your husband?’

She didn’t like the tone he used. It stung her into a response. ‘He’s dead.’

‘The war?’

‘No. Last month.’

‘As recently as that?’

‘It was an accident.’ She stopped. She needn’t have come out with this. She’d meant to say the minimum. Her nerves had betrayed her.

‘Bad luck.’ He didn’t sound sympathetic. ‘A road accident?’

No use denying it now. ‘The tube. He fell off the platform.’

‘Nasty. Not uncommon, though. Do you have any other family? Children?’

‘No.’

‘Have you got a permanent address, Mrs Bell?’

‘Yes.’

He waited a moment. His voice slipped into a harder register. ‘Come on, now. Let’s have it. You’re wasting police time.’

‘In Pimlico. Oldfield Gardens.’

‘Pimlico. Yet one of our patrols found you on Paddington Station in the small hours of the morning. Is that where you normally spend the night? It’s a long way from Pimlico. I’d have thought Victoria Station was more convenient.’

He kept looking at her legs. The ruins of her stockings hung in ribbons.

He developed his theme. ‘It all depends what you were up to, doesn’t it? I’m told by certain ladies who parade there that Paddington is better for business than any other London terminus.’ Seeing the outrage in her eyes, he smiled. ‘But they don’t take kindly to newcomers, as you appear to have discovered. What happened to your shoes?’