Chameleon (31 page)

Jamieson looked for someone else to ask. A teenage boy was coming along the road on a bicycle that was several sizes too large for him. He was standing on the pedals, moving up and down like a fairground horse. Jamieson shouted to him as he drew level. 'Where's West Side Mews son?'

'Along there on the left Mister. After the yellow painted shop.'

Jamieson turned left into the lane. The yellow painted shop was a sub post office. There was a telephone booth outside it and it was empty. It would only take a moment to check out the hoax theory. Jamieson called the hospital. There was no reply from his room. He asked for Clive Evans' extension and the call was answered at the first ring.

'Have you seen Sue? Is she in the residency?'

'No she isn't. I bumped into her earlier this morning. She said she was going into town to do some shopping. I don't think she's back yet.'

'Sweet Jesus,' muttered Jamieson.

'Is something the matter?'

'Sue's been hurt. I want you to get an ambulance and the police to West Side Mews.' Jamieson gave Evans the number and checked that he had taken it down correctly. 'It's urgent!' Jamieson put down the phone and cut off the question that Evans was about to ask. He left the phone booth and decided to leave the car where it was. He ran round the corner on foot and into West Side Mews. Lock-up number seven was the last one in the line.

Jamieson stopped in the middle of the road and stared at the white painted number seven above the garage door. There was no one else in the lane and it was very quiet. He could hear the sound of his own breathing as he began to walk slowly towards the door. There was a window above the garage. Jamieson guessed that it was some kind of loft store room judging by the junk he could see through the dirty glass. Just below the window he caught sight of the infra red beam device. It comprised a black, plastic box with a small tube protruding from it at an angle. Jamieson stared at it and wondered. There was nothing unusual about garage door opening devices these days but you could use beam triggers for a range of other things. Maybe he was being paranoid but explosions featured among them. He avoided crossing the path of the beam and tried the small door at the side of the garage. It was locked.

There was still no sign of life anywhere and no sound came from inside any of the lock-ups. The awful thought that Sue might be dead was born inside Jamieson's head as he stared at the featureless door in front of him. He took a step back and threw himself at it. The door did not give but the splintering sound gave him encouragement. He put his shoulder to the door another two times and it flew back against the wall with a crash.

Silence returned as Jamieson took his first tentative step inside. He was in a narrow corridor that led to a flight of steps leading up to the loft above the garage. Just in front of the steps was a door leading off to the left. It had to lead into the lock-up. Jamieson turned the handle slowly and it opened. It was pitch black inside. He felt along the wall for the light switch and pressed it.

Sue's terror filled eyes were like saucers above the gag that kept her silent. Jamieson rushed towards her. All he could think of was that he had found her and that she was still alive. Why had the bastard tied her up in the way he had? Why had he tied her hair to the ceiling? He was searching in his trouser pocket for a penknife to cut away the gag from Sue's mouth when he heard the police cars turn into the mews outside.

Jamieson smiled reassurance at Sue but saw that there was something awfully wrong. Her eyes were not registering relief; they were showing absolute terror. Her eyes rolled up to the top of her skull and Jamieson looked at the wall above her head. Her hair was not tied to the ceiling it was tied to ... 'Jesus Christ!' yelled Jamieson as the truth dawned on him and the first police car crossed the path of the infra red beam outside. The door motor whirred into life and Sue's head was jerked hard against the wall. 'No!' he cried, springing to his feet and throwing his arm into the pulley mechanism. Pain exploded inside his head as the flesh of his forearm was drawn into the moving gears and then he blacked out momentarily as the bone jammed hard against the steel pivot and the whole mechanism seized to a halt. Smoke started to rise from the motor and a burning smell filled the garage before the main fuse blew and the lights went out.

Jamieson came round to discover Clive Evans and two policemen trying to free him.

'We'll have to get the Fire Brigade,' said one of the policemen.

'We can do it if you bring that hydraulic jack over here,' said Clive Evans with quiet authority.

'Sue ...' murmured Jamieson. 'Where's Sue?'

'Your wife is all right sir,' said one of the policemen gently. 'She passed out but she's all right.'

The other policeman wheeled the garage trolley jack across the floor as, in the distance, they heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.

Clive Evans gave instructions for the jack's positioning and then asked the policeman to start pumping the handle. The steel bar trapping Jamieson's arm was prised slowly away from the pulley wheel and Evans released Jamieson's arm. There were sighs of relief as Jamieson brought his arm down in front of him and they could assess the damage.

'The bone isn't broken,' said Evans but the flesh is a bit of a mess. You are going to have some scars to remember.'

Jamieson ignored his wounded arm, holding it across his stomach as he went to kneel by Sue whose head was being cradled by one of the other policemen. He could see that that her hair and scalp were undamaged. 'Oh my love,' he said softly.

'I'll have to deal with that arm,' said Evans, standing behind him and after a few moments, Jamieson complied with the hand that was put on his shoulder. He got up but continued to watch Sue as Evans stopped the bleeding in his arm with a make-shift tourniquet. The ambulance arrived and took Jamieson and Sue back to Kerr Memorial.

Sue regained consciousness in the ambulance. Her relief at seeing Jamieson sitting beside her was suddenly eclipsed by the memory of what he had done to save her. 'Your arm!' she whispered. 'Your poor arm!'

'It will be fine,' Jamieson assured her.

Sue looked to Clive Evans for confirmation and Evans concurred.

'Oh Scott!' Sue exclaimed as emotion overtook her and tears started to flow.

'There, there,' murmured Jamieson. 'You are safe now Sue. We both are. He took her hand.'

Sue began to shiver. Jamieson felt it begin with a little tremor in her hand but the shaking began to spread until she could not speak properly and her whole body was trembling. 'That man ...' she stammered. 'How could anyone ...' Jamieson tried to hold Sue with one arm and attempted to reassure her but inside, he was hurting. The pain from his arm was getting steadily worse and it was now starting to come in waves, each one stronger than the last until one finally washed away his consciousness and he slumped backwards into Evans' arms.

FOURTEEN

'I'm sorry. She's lost the baby,' said Phillip Morton who had been called in to examine Sue.

Jamieson nodded and looked away. He had no wish to look anyone in the eye when he felt this vulnerable. In his heart he had known what Morton was going to say. He had known from the moment that he had heard someone say that Sue was bleeding. He had only been semi-conscious at the time and lying on a trolley being wheeled into A&E, but snatches of conversation had drifted through to him. Hearing was always the last thing to go and the first to come back.

Now that his pain was under control and his arm had been cleaned up and stitched he had been sitting waiting with Clive Evans who had volunteered to keep him company until Morton had completed his examination of Sue. Despite fearing the worst, he had been clinging to a wisp of hope that it had all been some kind of misunderstanding on his part and that everything was going to be all right. Morton snuffed out the candle of hope and Jamieson felt his shoulders sag and his limbs start to feel very heavy.

'I'm sorry,' said Evans, putting his hand on Jamieson's shoulder.

'Bad luck,' said Morton. 'But she's young and strong and there's no reason why ...'

Jamieson had stopped listening. He knew the routine. He just wanted to be with Sue. 'I'd like to see her now,' he said.

'Of course,' said Morton and stood back to allow Jamieson to pass.

Jamieson opened the door with his left hand; his right arm was bound up in a sling. Sue was lying motionless on the bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

'Hi,' said Jamieson softly. 'How are you feeling?' The words turned to acid in his mouth. He knew exactly how she was feeling but he had to start somewhere and beginnings demanded words.

Sue continued to stare at the ceiling as if she hadn't heard and then Jamieson saw a tear start to roll down her cheek. She turned her head to look at him. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm so sorry.'

'You idiot!' whispered Jamieson taking her hand in his, 'You are all that matters. Nothing else.'

'But you wanted the baby so much,' said Sue, the tears now flowing freely.

'There will be others. We've got all the time in the world. Right now you are all that is important. God! I was so relieved to find you alive ... I can't begin to tell you how worried I was. I was going out of my mind ...'

Sue put a hand up to his lips and whispered, 'I know, I know.'

They held each other in silence for a moment, happy that the need for words had been overcome and they were truly together again. Sue said, 'I can't seem to stop thinking about what would have happened if you had driven up to the garage instead of walking. I just go through it over and over again. It's a nightmare I just can't seem to escape from. Why did you stop down the road from the garage? What made you do that?'

Jamieson stroked her hair. 'You can thank a traffic jam for that. It gave me time to think.'

'Tell me,' said Sue.

Jamieson told her about his initial panic stricken dash to what had turned out to be the wrong address and then how he had started to consider the motives behind the phone call, including the possibility of a cruel hoax. 'So I stopped at the phone box round the corner from the garages and called the hospital to check if you were still there. Evans told me that you had gone into town earlier so I asked him to call the police. When I came out of the phone box I was so close to the lane that I left the car where it was and ran round on foot.'

'Thank God,' said Sue.

'I'll second that,' said Jamieson.

'Scott?'

'Yes?'

'What did the man say on the phone?'

'A lot of sick nonsense.'

'What exactly?' asked Sue.

Jamieson told her.

'That was untrue you know?'

Jamieson squeezed her shoulder.

'I don't want you thinking that I lost the baby because of anything he did to me like that. He didn't touch me in that way. I think I lost the baby because he just scared me so much. It sounds silly now that you're here and I'm all safe and warm but at the time ... I thought he was the killer, the man who cut up all these women. I never knew I could be so frightened.'

Jamieson soothed Sue as she started to shake again. When she had calmed down he said softly, 'Clive tells me that the police are waiting downstairs to talk to you if you feel up to it.'

Sue made a face.

'If you can't face it tonight I can tell them that but the sooner they get on with catching that lunatic the better, so anything you can tell them ...'

'Can you stay with me?'

'We could make that a condition,' said Jamieson.

'All right. I'll see them now. Correction, we'll see them now.'

Jamieson left the room to tell the Staff Nurse in charge of the ward that Sue had agreed to talk to the police provided that he was allowed to stay with her. He waited in the duty room until the two police officers came up the stairs and introduced themselves to him. He was pleased to find that they both seemed decent, sympathetic individuals but he still felt he should remind them of what Sue had been through.

'We do understand sir,' said the inspector. 'We'll be as brief as we possibly can.'

Sue told the police about the man in the store and the subsequent train of events.

'You say that he said he wanted revenge?' asked the inspector.

'That's what he said.'

'But he didn't say for what or give any indication?'

'No.'

'And you say you have never seen this man before?'

'No. Apart from on the bus down.'

The policemen looked at each other. 'The bus down?' asked the inspector.

'Yes, he was on the same bus into town. He got off where I did.' said Sue as if this had been an irrelevant detail.

'You didn't say anything about that earlier,' said Jamieson.

'Didn't I? Sorry.'

Mrs Jamieson, this is very important. Did you happen to notice where this man got on the bus?' asked the inspector.

Sue shook her head and apologised. 'No, I didn't.'

'Did you look out the bus window on the way into town Mrs Jamieson?'

'Yes I did.'

'But you don't recall seeing this man get on the bus?'

'No.'

'Is it possible that he was on the bus when you got on?'

'But I got on here at the hospital,' said Sue. 'It's the terminus.'

'So it is,' agreed the policeman. 'Were there any people sitting on the bus when you got on?'

'Quite a few.'

'Is it possible that he was among them?'

'I suppose so,' said Sue. 'I didn't pay much attention to the people sitting inside when I got on. I just went straight upstairs.'

'Thank you Mrs Jamieson.

Jamieson saw what the police had been getting at. The man had not just suddenly appeared at the store down town. He had followed Sue and what was more, it seemed likely that he had done so from the hospital.

'There's something else,' said Sue.

'Go on Mrs Jamieson.'

'He was wearing a disguise,' said Sue.

'A disguise?'

'His hair was a wig. I saw that when he was close to me at the garage and his moustache was false. It had started to come adrift at one of the corners.'