She shivered. Nobody had thought to bring her a coat.
The Dorchester doorman, tall, elegant and presumably warm, in his grey topper and frock coat, helped her out of the taxi. Managing to look only slightly askance, he carried her bright-blue hospital-issue plastic bag into reception as she hobbled behind him.
The receptionist, a pinstriped young woman with spectacles and a nose which turned conveniently upwards at the end, attended to two other customers before Lilian, at least one of whom, Lilian was quite sure, had arrived at the desk after her. She did not have the strength to protest.
Eventually the pinstriped young woman turned to her. The eyes behind the spectacles which took in Lilian’s battered appearance, her unsuitable stained clothes, and the plastic bag, were both suspicious and disapproving.
‘I would like to book a room for tonight,’ said Lilian, rather more loudly than she had intended.
Pinstripe consulted the computer in front of her in silence.
‘I’m afraid all we have available is a junior suite,’ she said eventually. Then, with a considerable degree of smugness, as if knowing full well that would be the end of the matter, she added, ‘And it’s seven hundred and fifty pounds a night.’
‘I’ll take it,’ said Lilian producing her platinum American Express card. The expression on Pinstripe’s face altered very slightly.
Just a few moments later the smug look was back.
‘I’m afraid your card has been declined, madam,’ she said, in a tone of voice which indicated that this was only what she had expected.
Lilian felt her blood chill.
‘There must be some mistake,’ she began.
Pinstripe, with an almost audible sigh, tried the card again.
‘No mistake, madam,’ she said.
Lilian stared at her for just a few seconds. Then, afraid she was about to burst into tears, hurried from the Dorchester foyer as quickly as her crutches would allow.
Outside she stumbled across to the little wall which separated the grand old hotel from Park Lane proper and sat down wearily. She checked through the contents of her plastic bag. She had asked for her handbag to be collected, but, instead, whoever had gone to the flat had merely emptied into that hospital issue bag all that they could find of her life which might be considered an essential.
She realized that her fingers, still sore from being bent backwards during her attempts to defend herself, were trembling. Eventually underneath a small tangle of underwear, she found the envelope she was looking for. It contained just over a hundred pounds in cash. There was also a five-pound note and some coins in the back pocket of her trousers. About £110 in all. That certainly wouldn’t pay for a decent London hotel room.
The doorman was staring at her. Eventually he walked across.
‘Can I help you, madam?’ he asked. ‘Would you like a taxi?’
Lilian knew that he just wanted her off the premises. Her head ached. The cold was biting into her. Her injured ankle was throbbing. She couldn’t walk anywhere. She didn’t feel that she had anyone to turn to. So she really had no choice, did she?
She would have to return to the scene of the crime until she sorted herself out. To the Mayfair apartment where she had suffered so much abuse.
Her husband, Kurt St John, a UK-based South African, had, however, returned to his native land. Or so she’d been told. And he wouldn’t risk returning to the UK with the police looking for him, she was pretty sure of that. If indeed they really were looking for him.
She did not have her keys to the flat. She assumed they were still in the handbag she had wanted brought to her in hospital. But at this time of day she expected Ben, the head porter, to be on duty at Penbourne Villas. He would let her in, as he presumably had whoever the hospital had sent to collect her belongings, armed with the note of authorization she had written. Even if Kurt had changed the locks — which she felt was unlikely as he would surely not want to discourage her from returning to the one place where he could so easily find her — Ben would still let her in.
She allowed the doorman to summon her a cab and climbed in without tipping him. He did not look as if he expected a tip from her.
At the Villas she stood for a moment looking up at the towering old mansion block, which dominated one corner of Berkeley Square. She remembered the high hopes she had held when Kurt first invited her there, and the terrible despair she’d ultimately been reduced to within its red-brick Edwardian walls.
There was a porter on duty, as she had expected. But she did not recognize him. He stared at her crutches as she blundered through the revolving doors. The plastic bag somehow got caught up in the mechanism. She was momentarily stuck. The porter rose to his feet from behind his desk and took a few steps towards her. He was very tall, very thin, and moved like an athlete. She thought he looked like an American basketball player, although he was probably of Caribbean descent.
‘Do you need any assistance, ma’am?’
‘Thank you. Yes. Oh, and I don’t seem to have my keys...’
‘No problem, ma’am.’
He was swiftly at her side. Smiling, he manipulated the doors with ease, took the plastic bag from her, and escorted her to the lift, pushing the button for the fifth floor.
Then he used his master key to unlock flat fifty-six.
‘Is there anything more I can do for you, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘No. Thank you very much.’
She tipped him five pounds. A habit she had got into with the porters. One she would not be able to continue.
It was only as he walked away that the obvious thought struck her. How had he known who she was and which flat she lived in? She was sure she had never seen the man before. Yet it had been almost as if he had been expecting her.
Although the apartment was warm, heated even when unoccupied by Penbourne Villas’ efficient communal heating system, Lilian realized she was still shivering.
She walked across the sitting room to the safe built into the far wall and tapped in the combination Kurt had made her memorize. It did not work. She tried again. It still did not work. If the various pieces of expensive jewellery, he had given her remained inside it seemed she had no way of getting at them. She did not even have her engagement ring, a substantial diamond, or her Cartier watch. She was sure she’d been wearing both the night it happened, but the hospital was adamant that she had not been. Either someone had stolen them, or Kurt had removed them before the paramedics took her away. She favoured the latter.
She wandered fitfully around the rest of the apartment. Everything was in order and immaculately tidy. She opened the door to Kurt’s wardrobe. Jackets and trousers neatly hung, shoes on racks, sweaters and shirts folded on shelves. There did not seem to be any significant amount of clothing missing. But then, he kept a complete wardrobe in at least two homes.
She opened her own wardrobe doors. At a glance her clothes — almost all of them chosen either by him or by her with him in mind — seemed to be all there. Kurt St John had not just married her, he had completely taken over her life. And she had let him. In fact, hard as it was for her to accept, she had, in the beginning, wanted him to do just that.
The declined Amex card, and two others in her sad plastic bag, had been linked to shared accounts. She had no bank account of her own. Indeed, she’d felt for some time, long before the events that had landed her in hospital, that she no longer had anything that was entirely hers. Except her rabbits, Loppy and Lena, the two no longer fluffy bunnies — she never referred to them as toys — that had been her solace in times of strife since childhood, but had ceased to live on her bed from the moment Kurt came into her life. She took them from their box in the bottom of the wardrobe, stroked their balding heads, and held them close. Their glass eyes glinted. If they could have spoken she reckoned they would have said, ‘Told you so!’