Christopher Freeman seemed to have been drifting for days, waking every so often to be greeted by agonising pain and then, just as it seemed unbearable, relief would wash over him from somewhere on the tide, carrying with it the gift of unconsciousness, until the next breaking wave of agony. Once more his body sensed oblivion’s approach, was beginning to cry out for the sweet euphoria that the morphine brought, but until its touch there was something he knew he must do. Sandra was there, beside him, he was sure of it, he could feel her familiar presence even if he could no longer see it. Somehow, he must speak, explain everything to her before he died, and death seemed to be creeping closer every day in the guise of sleep.
‘Sandra,’ his voice sounded unfamiliar, dry, like the hissing of a snake. ‘I want you to know why I killed James…’ He stopped, briefly gathering together all his strength before continuing, ‘I went to beg him, tell him… to change his mind about the wind farm… ah… the money… the bastard was drunk… slurring his words… DRUNK. He started on about the way I’d lived my life… alcohol… ah… you, everything. We argued. It was nothing to him and… ah… everything to me. He turned his back on me… Then I hit him… my cuff around my hand… with that trun…’
His voice tailed off, the effort of speaking having drained him of the little energy he possessed, but, thankfully, he could make out a woman’s voice, talking softly, answering him, protesting even, attempting to console or maybe silence him. An immense sense of relief flooded over him, as he imparted the reasons to her. But he must finish, explain all or be lost again on a tide of painkillers, unable to speak.
‘Sweetie,’ he tried again, hearing the same ugly rasp as before, ‘the Lyon man… ah… he invited me to Moray Place to choose mementoes… stuff not left to me in the will… ah… it was all really mine. He offered me things he’d chosen-nothing decent but… ah… it was all my family’s… not his…’ He stopped, momentarily, to lick his lips. ‘Said no to the wind farm, too… James’s wishes to be sacrosanct. If James… ah… then who was he to override them… the hell with me…’ He hesitated again briefly, marshalling his resources to continue. ‘I thought… after his death everything… come back to me… the land… I’d be the only Freeman left. James was old-fashioned that way… and if it was to go elsewhere? Well… nobody else would refuse that huge sum of money… no, they’d co-operate with me… When the car hit him… ah… wro…’
His mouth was moving, he was sure of it, enunciating the words, but no sound was coming out and he cursed himself, for leaving the most important thing to last when there was nothing left to say it with. That he had loved her. But already he could feel the pain lifting, easing, the awful aching in his limbs melting away, and it was impossible not to welcome it, surrender to it, whatever remained unsaid.
Seeing his eyes gradually closing, Alice hurriedly signalled for the doctor to approach, fearful that the man might die before his wife returned.
‘Thanks for staying with him, Sergeant. I don’t know where the hell Mrs Freeman’s got to. The nurses have looked everywhere they can think of. But don’t worry, this sometimes happens. A short, lucid interval and then oblivion for hours or even days.’
‘Will he survive?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘No chance. Anyway, he doesn’t want to, and no wonder. Half his body burnt and the prospect of a trial. Then God alone knows what.’
Unpleasantly aware that Christopher Freeman’s message had never been intended for her ears, Alice left his side, determined to track down his spouse and relay it to her. It no longer had anything to do with the law; the man was way beyond all that now. Minutes later she put her head out of the main doors and spotted the woman sitting on a bench, mouthing smoke rings and staring into space. Taking a seat beside her she carefully repeated every word she could recall, apologising all the while, trying to explain how she had ended up as his involuntary confessor.
‘So now you know… everything that I heard, I mean…’ Alice concluded.
As Sandra Freeman listened impassively, she rolled a ball of silver paper backwards and forwards between the fingers of one hand before, suddenly, flicking it away. Then, dropping her cigarette onto the tarmac, she left without a word to resume her vigil by her husband’s bedside.
A decision must be made. He would like what she did not, that was the invariable rule in all dealings between them. If she stuck to that she could not go wrong.
‘I’ll take a box of the dark chocolates, please,’ Alice said, trying, vainly, to remove some pound coins from her purse without hurting her damaged hands. The assistant, seeing her predicament, extracted the money for her and put the box into a carrier bag. If only I could carry it in my teeth I’d be all right, she thought, as the weight of the small load began to cut in, reminding her just how tender the burns still were. An old man smiled at her as she stopped at the end of his bed to cast her eye around the ward, still searching for her quarry. As she was scanning the male patients, a nurse tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Who are you looking for, dear?’
‘DI… er… Mr Manson.’
‘The foot or the elbow? They’re both Mansons.’
‘Eric, the foot. Is he all right now?’
‘Fine. Everything’s under control. He’ll be out in the next day or so. You’ll find him in the second to last on the left.’
Bag swinging uncomfortably, Alice made her way to the bottom of the ward, but stopped a few beds away from the man. He was lying asleep, snoring gently, with both his hands above the covers, his wife holding each of his in hers. It was a picture of marital devotion, and one she was reluctant to disturb. So she handed her gift to an auxiliary and left the hospital, deep in thought, wondering if she would ever be loved as he appeared to be. All imperfections accepted.
‘Everything done?’ Ian Melville asked, opening the car door for her.
‘Everything done.’
‘To the beach, then?’
‘To the beach. The beach at Tyninghame.’