Instead I keep my head down and slide my glance sideways. The pain in my head recedes like a low tide but my ears still buzz, my skull filled with worker bees building a hive. Worker bees, Sam? a voice in my head says, gently. Honey, be careful. You were knocked out. This is a concussion. You’re going to need help.
I see the clawed feet of a bed, a day bed, one of those vintage French ones with flaking white paint and rattling supports. There is a pale paisley coverlet draped over a skinny form, like a bundle of sticks. I can hear a television playing softly, a laughter track. An old show, one I haven’t heard of in years.
‘Do you mean a bloodhound, Katie Marigold?’
‘No, sir! My daddy calls him a bloody hound, sir, ’specially when he’s mad.’
I hear a woman laugh softly, in the room with me. I risk lifting my head a little higher, hoping her attention is firmly fixed on the television where the old show is playing. I see a pale face floating above the covers, cocooned with white, wispy hair to the shoulders. Her pale eyes aren’t looking at me, and she is chewing something slowly, thoughtfully.
I know her. I know her.
‘Mimi?’ I can’t help it. It slips out my mouth. A spark of pain flares between my ears as I sit upright. For a second I see flashing white stars. The woman, Mimi Thorn, I’m sure it is her, lowers the apple she is eating and looks at me curiously. With her other hand she feels for the remote in the bed and mutes the television.
‘Looks like we’re twins,’ she says finally, pointing to her own scalp. I can see a part of her hair has been clipped away to reveal a long wound criss-crossed with ugly black stitches. ‘Please don’t bleed all over my new carpet. I’ve only recently had it done.’
She takes another bite of her apple, still chewing, still staring at me. I wonder if I am dreaming. A hallucination, conjured up by my shocked brain. I twist against the ropes. They are very tight, wrapped around my chest and the back of the chair. If I could walk, maybe I could stand and limp with the chair attached to my back, tortoise-like. If I made it as far as the door, however, it’s doubtful I would fit through. If I made it that far. My legs feel weak and shaky. I don’t think they could carry me all that way. The woman in the bed places the apple core, very carefully, into a dish on the table beside her. I don’t see a weapon, but she looks at me with the calm confidence of someone who is holding one.
‘You’re Mimi Thorn. Edie’s teacher. What am I doing here?’
She continues to look at me flatly, her expression unreadable. I feel panic clutch my chest.
‘You don’t need to tie me up. I’m hurt. I need help.’
‘There was a knife in your pocket. I think under the circumstances tying you up was the only appropriate course of action.’
I feel a rush of anger and have to clamp my teeth together. I push against my bindings, trying to ignore the pounding in my head, the warm trickle of blood oozing down the back of my neck. She watches me with that same bland curiosity. I’m a pinned insect.
‘I’m meant to meet someone,’ I gasp, twisting against the ropes. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘If you mean Frances, she’s with William.’
‘She’s not safe with William.’
‘Oh?’
I slump into the chair, exhausted, head pounding, a metallic taste bright against my palate. The rope hasn’t slackened an inch. If anything, it’s burrowed deeper. I can see purple welts on my arms where it has burrowed into my skin.
‘He hit me.’
‘You were coming at him with a knife – and not for the first time, I might add.’
I stare at her. She is sitting upright, straight as an arrow against the pillows. The day bed has been inched away from the wall at an angle so that she can see through the French windows into the long garden. When I first noticed the bed I presumed I was in one of the bedrooms upstairs, but now I realise we are on the ground floor in a room that has been converted, just for her. There is a trolley with wheels that serves as a lap tray on which sit a bowl and a fat round teapot in olive green. There is a pile of magazines on the bedside table, next to a jug of water. A bowl of fruit sits to her other side, where a chair is positioned, drawn up right next to the bed. She is like a little empress sitting high on her plump white pillows.
‘You remember that, do you? William was sixteen years old. You threatened him in a graveyard. You’re lucky we didn’t have you charged.’
My head throbs. The pain is sparked kindling, blown embers. I remember the sound of William’s voice: Mrs Hudson, please! Please! The way the frost crunched under my boots, the smell of woodsmoke and snow, almost metallic.
Mimi leans over and plucks a grape from the fruit bowl. She rolls it between her thumb and forefinger thoughtfully. ‘We don’t blame you, you know. No one would.’
‘Blame me for what?’
‘For what you did to Edie.’
I have been trying to shrug the ropes up my body instead of twisting out from under them, working them over my chest in small, caterpillar movements. Now I stop, lift my aching head. Mimi is smiling.
‘I didn’t do anything to her.’
She slides the grape into her mouth and bites down on it hard between her teeth. It makes an audible popping sound. I wince.
‘Are you sure? Are you quite, quite sure? Because William has seen you in quite a temper on more than one occasion, hasn’t he? All his interactions with you were stained with your anger. That night you caught the two of them together, Edie had wanted to leave with him. She practically begged him. Maybe she was scared of what you might do to her behind closed doors?’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Is it? William said it doesn’t take much for you to fly off the handle. It’s not such a stretch to imagine you went over the top one night in a fit of rage. After all, he saw you assault her.’
‘I didn’t assault her – Jesus.’
‘You didn’t grab her arm? Push her through the door?’
I blink. Mimi takes another grape, bites it clean in half. I’m trying to think but my head is full of clanging bells. I remember finding William and Edie together on the sofa, the way she called me a bitch. The word came out of her mouth glowing hot, hateful. I grabbed her arm. I wasn’t rough. I didn’t hurt her. At least I hadn’t meant to.
‘I was angry.’
‘I know. Like I said, no one blames you. She put you through a lot. It can’t have been easy for you, being on your own.’
‘It wasn’t. It was really, really hard.’
‘I know. I know that, Samantha.’
‘I loved her, though. I loved her so much. I would never have hurt her.’
‘But you did, didn’t you? You killed her.’
Another grape. Her eyes flick back to the television, then over to me again. I think I can hear footsteps on the gravel path outside, but perhaps it is just my imagination.
‘Can I ask you, Samantha, why you carry a weapon in your pocket?’
‘Protection,’ I say immediately. The vision in my left eye is blurred, casting everything in a shimmering aura. For the first time I wonder if this head injury is more serious than I first thought.
‘From whom?’
‘Edie.’