She couldn’t hear what she said back. She leaned closer and closer until she was whispering in her ear. ‘Water,’ she said.
Sasha lifted her head so gently and tipped the glass. The water was warm and stale and delicious.
‘Frieda?’ Sasha said. ‘The doctor’s going to see you tomorrow. If you’re up to it.’
‘You said I could tell you.’
‘What?’
It was very hard to form the words. ‘When I needed to talk.’
She tried to find words, holding on to Sasha’s slim cool hand while the machine behind her bleeped.
‘It’s all right,’ said Sasha, kissing her cheek. ‘We can talk later.’
‘One day,’ said Frieda, sinking back beneath dark waters.
The next day was different. Frieda woke, and was properly awake. She sat up and saw the ward she was in: three beds opposite, and two between her and the window. A woman across the way was complaining to a nurse, and behind a screen next to her she could hear the voice of an old woman saying the same word – ‘teacher’ – over and over again. The day was grey and she felt awful. Her throat was ragged and almost the whole of her body ached. A trolley arrived with breakfast, some kind of porridge, milky tea, orange juice, all of it disgusting.
A nurse bustled across and said to Frieda, ‘He’s here.’
There, standing at the end of the bed, was a very distinguished-looking middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit and a bow tie. Through her bleary consciousness, Frieda managed to feel irritated. Why do consultants still wear bow ties even when they know it’s a cliché?
He smiled down at her. ‘How’s our phenomenon?’ he said.
It took an effort, but Frieda could speak now. Even to herself, she sounded hoarse and halting, like someone who had just learned to speak. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He sat on the edge of the bed, still smiling. ‘I’m Mr Khan,’ he said. ‘Your surgeon. I saved your life. But you saved it first. I’ve never seen anything like it. You have a medical degree, yes?’ Frieda nodded. ‘Even so. Quite remarkable.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘What’s remarkable?’
‘You don’t remember?’ said Mr Khan. Frieda shook her head. ‘It’s understandable in the circumstances. One of the stab wounds resulted in a penetrating trauma that sliced a femoral artery. As you clearly realized, you would have bled out in a minute or two. Before you passed out, you managed to apply a tourniquet to your own leg.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Frieda.
‘You were in a state of severe shock,’ said Mr Khan. ‘I have to say that tourniquets are no longer recommended. You risk necrotic damage but not in this case. We had you in theatre in under an hour.’ He was about to pat her leg but stopped himself. ‘You were lucky with the stab wounds to the back and abdomen, if I can put it like that. Neither of them struck an organ. But, as they say, it only takes one. We worried about your leg at first, but you’ll be fine. You may have to delay your triple-jump training until the Olympics after next, but apart from that …’
‘Mary Orton,’ said Frieda.
‘What?’
‘What about Mary Orton?’ said Frieda.
Mr Khan’s smile faded. ‘A friend of yours is here,’ he said. ‘He’ll answer any questions. If you’re strong enough, that is.’
‘Yes,’ said Frieda. ‘I am.’ She lay back on the pillow and saw Karlsson’s face appear above her. She thought of a cloud floating overhead, or a zeppelin. Maybe it was the painkillers.
‘You look terrible,’ she said.
‘We can do this another time,’ he said. ‘The nurse said you needed to rest.’
‘Now,’ said Frieda. ‘Mary Orton.’
Karlsson looked to the side, as if he were waiting for someone else to speak. ‘She was pronounced dead at the scene,’ he said. ‘I think she’d been dead for some time.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘She was alive. I remember her eyes. They were moving.’
‘They said she’d lost a lot of blood. I’m so sorry.’
Frieda felt tears hot on her face. Karlsson reached for a tissue and dabbed them away.
‘We let her down,’ said Frieda. ‘We failed her.’
‘The paramedics had enough on their hands with you. The other two were beyond help.’
‘The other two?’
‘Mary Orton and Beth Kersey.’
‘What?’ said Frieda, trying to raise herself from the pillow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Easy, easy,’ said Karlsson, as if he were soothing a restless child. ‘Don’t worry. There won’t be any trouble.’
‘What do you mean, trouble?’
‘There’s no problem at all,’ said Karlsson. ‘Quite the opposite. You’ll probably get a medal.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Frieda. ‘I don’t remember anything.’
‘You don’t?’
Frieda shook her head. She tried to think. It all seemed dim and far away.
‘I was stabbed first from behind,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even see her. Or at least – I barely remember. But there’s something. I was losing blood, a lot of blood, and I passed out. I remember hearing something. That’s all.’
‘I see this all the time,’ said Karlsson. ‘You’ll probably never recover the memory. But it was easy to reconstruct what happened when we saw the scene. Christ, there was blood everywhere. Sorry, you don’t need to hear this.’
‘But what happened?’
‘We can save this for later, Frieda.’
‘Now,’ said Frieda. ‘Tell me.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Karlsson. ‘It’s clear what must have happened. You acted out of self-preservation. After you were stabbed, you must have fought over the knife while you were bleeding yourself. You got hold of the knife and stabbed her in self-defence.’
‘How?’
‘What?’
‘How did I stab her?’
‘She died of blood loss from a laceration to her throat.’
‘I cut her throat.’
‘Yes, and then you took her belt and tied it around your leg. The doctors say that if you hadn’t done that you would have bled out in a couple of minutes.’
Frieda gestured to the drink of water. Karlsson brought it to her lips. It hurt to swallow it.
‘Sleep now,’ he said. ‘It’ll all be fine.’
‘All right,’ Frieda said. Speaking seemed the hardest thing in the world just now. ‘But one thing.’
He leaned close to her. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘I’ve told you,’ Karlsson said. ‘You won’t be in trouble. It was pure self-defence.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t have. Besides …’ Frieda made herself think of the moments before she had passed out. She tried to separate it from all that had followed, the oblivion, the nightmares, the fragments of waiting. ‘I heard something. But I know anyway. It was him.’
Karlsson looked puzzled and then alarmed.
‘What do you mean “him”?’
‘You know who I mean.’
‘Don’t say that,’ hissed Karlsson. ‘Don’t even think it.’
Fifty-three
Sandy parked the car near the western gate of Waterlow Park. On the steep drive up Swains Lane, Frieda had felt as if they were taking off and leaving London behind them.
‘I think the park’s open this time,’ Sandy said, with a smile that was full of pain.
Frieda winced as she got out of the car. She still felt sore, especially when she’d been sitting down.
‘Are you up for this?’ said Sandy.
Frieda had hated the pain, the treatment, the medication, the continuing hospital visits, but even worse was the sympathy, the attention, the concern, the look that came into people’s eyes when they saw her, the way they worried about the right thing to say. She walked slowly and stiffly through the gate. A yellow dazzle of daffodils swaying in the wind.