Her mood darkened further. She was fed up, cold, hungry and thirsty. For a moment she considered just getting into bed with a hot-water bottle and forgetting the day. Then she thought again. She really should at least try to do something positive.
She called Marlena and suggested she come over and bring a bottle. Marlena jumped at the idea.
‘Just make sure it’s a decent one,’ she commanded imperiously.
Michelle grinned. Marlena rarely disappointed. And Michelle knew exactly what her friend meant by a decent bottle. It had to be champagne. She checked her watch. It was just gone eight. If she hurried, Marks and Spencer in Long Acre, just half a street away from Marlena’s home by the Opera House, should still be open. Their own-brand vintage bubbly was one of the few mass-market labels Marlena found even remotely palatable. Anything beyond that, however, was outside Michelle’s means, until and if that long-awaited transfer to a better job, and maybe the promotion to go with it, ever came.
She had walked home still wearing her police uniform, with only a raincoat covering it. She changed swiftly into jeans and a sweater, then hailed a cab to speed up the short journey, a luxury she rarely allowed herself. Less than an hour later, carrying an M&S shopping bag loaded with champagne, chicken liver pâté, a loaf of crusty bread, a piece of decent cheese, and a few other bits and pieces from the deli counter, she arrived at Sampford House.
Marlena buzzed her in.
‘Darling,’ she said, by way of greeting, as she leaned on her crutches in the hallway of her flat. ‘I didn’t expect dinner.’
‘Why, have you eaten already?’ enquired Michelle disingenuously, well aware of her stick-thin friend’s insistence that she rarely took solids except in company.
‘Of course not,’ said Marlena, appalled at the suggestion.
‘Well, I’m absolutely starving, so I thought if I brought some grub you might at least have the grace to join me.’
‘If you insist,’ drawled Marlena. ‘But for God’s sake, let’s have a drink first.’
Swiftly and efficiently she opened the champagne Michelle had brought and poured generous portions into large crystal glasses. Meanwhile Michelle piled the food on a tray which she placed on the coffee table in the middle of the sitting room.
As if by unspoken agreement both women at first avoided all mention of the string of incidents which was at the forefront of both their minds, which resulted in their conversation taking a rather stilted and unnatural tone.
How Marlena was feeling and the condition of her leg occupied some time. Marlena, who claimed to be much better and said she was sure she would be on her feet in no time — ‘both of them, darling’ — wanted to know how Michelle was getting on at work, and if she was any nearer to the promotion she so desired.
Eventually this led Michelle on to the subject which was actually the only thing either of them really wanted to discuss that night. She told Marlena how she had sought help from the man whom she regarded as probably the best detective in the Met.
‘Would that be Detective Sergeant Vogel?’ asked Marlena.
‘Ah,’ responded Michelle. ‘Has he been to see you already?’
Marlena said that he had, adding: ‘I could see he was a sharp cookie.’
‘He’s that all right,’ said Michelle, giving the words more edge than she’d intended.
Marlena glanced at her enquiringly. ‘I thought that was why you went to him,’ she said.
‘Ummm.’ Michelle couldn’t help herself. ‘Trouble is, now the bastard seems to have me down as his prime suspect, damn and blast him.’
‘You? Why on earth would he suspect you? I mean, any more than anyone else. One would assume you would be beyond suspicion, since you’re in the police and you brought the whole darned thing to his attention?’
Michelle gave herself a moment to think. She realized that she had backed herself into a corner. If she responded honestly, that would mean revealing to Marlena that she had lied about being away in Belfast on that non-existent course. And she couldn’t do that. Not yet, anyway.
‘Oh, I don’t suppose he does — not any more than Alfonso and Ari, anyway,’ she said eventually, keeping her voice as level as she could manage. ‘We’re the only three not to have been targeted, so obviously any police inquiry is going to focus on us first.’
‘Ah, I hadn’t thought of that.’ Marlena clasped her hands together under her chin. ‘What an absolutely ghastly state of affairs.’
‘Isn’t it just.’ And you don’t know the half of it, thought Michelle.
‘Indeed, indeed. And all I can suggest right now, darling, is that we finish the last of your champers. I think I may well have another decent bottle or two tucked away somewhere.’
‘As long as you think you dare risk it,’ said Michelle. ‘I mean, maybe I spiked the bottle.’
‘Well, if you have, darling, that should solve all our problems,’ said Marlena, emptying the last of the Marks and Spencer champagne into Michelle’s glass.
Another bottle was duly opened. This time a claret far superior to anything Michelle would ever have acquired.
‘Just a little something to go with that rather good cheese you brought with you, dear,’ said Marlena. ‘Mr Kips — the nice man who runs that shop in Endel Street which sells everything — gets it in specially for me. He sent round half a dozen bottles the morning after I came out of hospital, bless him. A welcome-home present, he said. Seems everyone in Covent Garden knows what happened — in as much as any of us do...’
Marlena allowed her voice to tail off as she poured them each generous measures. She took a long appreciative drink.
‘Nothing quite like drowning your sorrows,’ she murmured.
By the time Michelle finally left Marlena’s apartment just before midnight she was inclined to agree. She had declined her friend’s offer to open a third bottle, but consuming the equivalent of one had definitely helped. Along with the food too. Funny how a full tummy could improve your state of mind.
And so Michelle found herself feeling surprisingly positive as she began to walk home, not allowing herself the luxury of a second cab in one day and unwilling to face public transport in the early hours. Besides, she enjoyed walking in London at all times of the day and night. It was good thinking time. And after the amount of wine she’d dispatched, she hoped the night air might clear her head.
Naturally, her thoughts returned to Vogel and the investigation. He’d be sure to get to the bottom of it all, she told herself. And if he could find no sinister link between the incidents... well, that must mean there was no connection. But Michelle didn’t really believe that. And she didn’t believe Vogel was the sort of man who would write the whole thing off as random. No, he would persevere until he had everything satisfactorily accounted for.
She was still considering what path Vogel’s investigations would take, and what conclusions he may or may not come to, as she crossed Southampton Row, heading into Theobalds Road.
The punch, when it came, was a total surprise. A fist smashed into her nose, its force all the greater because its perpetrator, whom she saw only at the very last moment, was riding a bicycle. She did not even register whether the cyclist was a man or a woman. His or her face was obscured. She had a vague impression of some kind of goggles or glasses beneath a grey hoody, and maybe a scarf wound round the chin of her assailant. At any rate, the lower face was covered.
The next thing she knew, she was going down like an axed tree trunk. There was blood everywhere. It was as if her nose had exploded. But at first she was too dazed to register the damage, or to notice that her handbag had been wrenched from her shoulder.
She was, however, aware of the searing pain emanating from her shattered nose. It seemed to spread across her face and right through her entire head, piercing into every nerve. She started to scream and couldn’t stop.