Thieving Fear

THIRTY-THREE

Charlotte thought she had nodded off for only a moment again, but this time it wasn't a jerk of her head that roused her. Her eyes wavered open to see that Rory's were still dormant. Though the whole of him was as inert as his flaccid hand in her determined grasp, she was sure there had been movement. She glanced across the aisle at Annie, who leaned sideways on her chair while keeping hold of her husband's fingers. 'Is he back?' she whispered.

Hairs stirred at the nape of Charlotte's neck, and she was hardly reassured by recognising that a breath had troubled them. It must be a breeze through the window under which she was sitting, which let her feel marginally less enclosed whenever she remembered it was ajar, but she couldn't help peering over her shoulder to make certain the gap was unoccupied. 'Who?' Annie had left her anxious to know, or at any rate anxious.

Annie's laugh wasn't quite as sure of itself as she wanted it to sound. 'Why, who do you think?'

'I've no idea,' Charlotte said, hoping she hadn't. 'That's why I'm asking.'

'Who else could it be but your Rory?' Having issued the rebuke, Annie said 'It's all right, you've just woke up.'

Charlotte felt as if she hadn't entirely once she realised she should ask 'Why were you saying he's back?'

'I was only asking. It looked like he woke you. I couldn't see what else would.'

Charlotte thought the conversation had grown uncontrolled as a dream – perhaps not a nightmare, but little more bearable. 'Do you mean you saw him move?'

'No, I saw you.'

'It wasn't just me.'

As Charlotte finished speaking, the truth caught up with her. She laid Rory's hand down and took out her mobile to see that she had indeed missed a call. 'It's never that devil of a thing again,' Annie said.

'It is.' Charlotte stayed polite while adding 'Would you mind if I step out and deal with it?'

'It's not up to me to mind.'

'If you mean Rory, I don't think he will.'

'We can't say, can we? Nobody's really sure if they know we're here, our men. Maybe we're all that's keeping them here.'

Charlotte squeezed Rory's unresponsive hand for encouragement – his or her own – and stood up. 'I definitely need to take this call,' she said. 'I won't be any longer than I have to be.'

'I expect he'll understand. You've still got a job.'

Charlotte let the misunderstanding explain her haste in making for the corridor. Her anxiety for her cousins was almost enough to blot out any other. She hurried to the lifts, where a nurse beside a patient on a trolley stopped a pair of doors from closing. Charlotte immediately regretted sidling in, because the trolley seemed to take up far more space than was reasonable. She tried to breathe evenly as the doors crawled together and the occupant of the trolley raised his sketchily grey-haired head to speak. 'Who's in here?'

'Just a lady who's having a ride with us, Jonah.'

'I know there's a girl.' The man's loose wrinkled face worked as if his dissatisfaction were a weight he was unable to dislodge from it. 'Aren't we moving?' he complained.

'Just as fast as we can.'

Charlotte was afraid this might mean not at all. The man's head fell back, and his watery eyes rolled in their sockets as if searching for an intruder or some assurance that the lift wasn't stuck. Perhaps he was sensing her nervousness, but his unease was aggravating hers, so that she imagined their fears nourishing each other while the lift stayed buried between floors and the air grew unbreathably stale. Since the trolley blocked her access to the controls, she was on the point of asking the nurse to give the button another push when the lift shuddered like a troubled sleeper and settled into place before, with a considerable show of reluctance, it set about parting its doors. As Charlotte hauled them wide and launched herself between them, she heard the man protest 'Who's in here?'

If there had indeed been an intruder she was ashamed to hope she'd left it beyond the doors, but she did. Too much of a crowd surrounded her in the reception area and in the smoky open air for her to look at every face. She was busy retrieving the missed call, which began to address her as she did her best to emerge from an oppressively insubstantial medium composed of the murmur of the loiterers outside the hospital. 'I've lost her,' Hugh confessed, or rather had. 'I've lost Ellen. Call her when you get this. Tell her she's got to call me. Call me if you speak to her. Call me anyway. Somebody call me.'

He sounded reduced to a nightmare. How could Ellen have left him in that state or indeed at all? For the duration of several unnecessarily conscious breaths Charlotte couldn't think which of them she ought to phone first. Replying to Hugh's call would be easier, and only a sense that she ought to have news about Ellen made her key that number instead. Since Ellen was presumably not answering his calls, had the cousins fallen out somehow? Not necessarily, because she didn't respond to Charlotte either. When the pretence of a bell ceased at last, it had only roused the answering service.

'Ellen, why aren't you answering anyone? You've got me worried. Why aren't you with Hugh? We don't want you splitting up. We don't need this on top of everything else. I've had to come out of the hospital again to call you. I'm going to wait here for a few minutes, but I don't want to be away from Rory any longer than I absolutely have to be. Please let me know what's going on. Please call.'

She was beginning to sound far too much like Hugh's message, overwhelmed by an excess of words. Having to speak to someone who wasn't even a version of Ellen or indeed real had brought her close to babbling. Until she shut up, Ellen wouldn't be able to reply, and so Charlotte ended the call. She stood with the inert mobile in her hand while black shapes multiplied next to her – taxis full of visitors to the hospital. The gathering blackness reminded her of nightfall, although that was hours away. Her mobile didn't ring, and didn't ring, and didn't ring. She bore its silence for a little longer than she thought she could, and then she gave in to calling Hugh. His phone rang as long as Ellen's had and spoke to Charlotte in exactly the same automatic voice.

She could have imagined that she was the victim of a trick – that somebody who had answered both her calls was putting on the bright efficient female voice. Perhaps the truth was worse: perhaps Charlotte had missed her chance to speak to Hugh. 'Hugh, I'm sorry,' she said. 'I should have called you back. I was waiting to hear from Ellen. Have you yet? Call me anyway. I'll try and stay out here until you do. Don't leave me worrying. Let's talk and decide what's to be done.'

She was losing control of her words again, as though they were being sucked into a black hole. If they were being swallowed by deadness, why were his and Ellen's phones dead? There must be a signal at Thurstaston for Hugh to have made the call. Ellen might have switched off her mobile so that he couldn't reach her, whyever she was behaving that way, but it made no sense for him to have turned off his. Could the batteries have failed in both? It seemed far too conveniently inconvenient. Charlotte paced back and forth alongside the taxis, only to have to assure the foremost driver that she wasn't looking for a ride. When his replacement made the same assumption Charlotte felt as if they were urging her not to loiter. 'Aren't you there yet? Where are you?' she said uselessly twice to the same artificial voice, and then she knew that wasn't enough.

If she called the police, what could she tell them? Certainly not just that she was unable to raise her cousins, but how could she explain that she was concerned because of their intentions? Suppose she managed to persuade the police to search, what might they catch her cousins doing if they found them? Of course she was presuming that the disinterment was taking place, if it hadn't already happened, whereas she could be sure of nothing of the kind. She only knew that Hugh and Ellen weren't receiving her calls, and she'd had enough of herself and her doubts. What if she and her cousins were being prevented from contacting one another?

As soon as she thought it she knew she had been resisting the notion. However credulous it was, could she dismiss it when that might be at her cousins' expense? She stared at her silent mobile and then at the taxis before marching towards the hospital. She was willing the phone to ring, but as she reached the lobby she had to mute it. She dodged around a queue of visitors at the reception desk and sprinted into a waiting lift. 'Who's in here?' a voice enquired as the doors shut, but surely that was just an echo in her head. Her fears for Hugh and Ellen outweighed any other panic, so that she was able to ignore the lack of windows in the lift and in the corridor.

A nurse was writing on the clipboard at the end of Rory's bed. 'Any change?' Charlotte was more than anxious to discover.

'He hasn't missed you.' That was Annie, and the nurse said 'Nothing yet.'

'I've been called away urgently. Can I leave you my number in case anything happens?'

'Give it in at the desk. We'll do our best to keep you posted.'

Suppose Charlotte became as unreachable as her cousins? Perhaps it wouldn't need to be like that; perhaps she would hear from one or both of them before she ventured too far. She advanced to give Rory's hand a squeeze that felt like leaving him for worse than the unknown. As she turned away Annie met her eyes. She looked as though she had a less than favourable question, but all she said was 'I'll be here.'

Charlotte remembered her saying 'Maybe we're all that's keeping them here.' That might be true, but as she'd meant it or the opposite? Perhaps if Charlotte didn't act he might stay there until he died. That was one more fear to drive her away from him. 'I will be,' she promised and managed not to add 'I hope.'