Confusion stole through the thick fog in her head. She knew Lee was dead. There was plenty evidence of that. She had half his brain splattered over her. It wasn’t him she needed to know about.
She coughed to clear her throat of the dust and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth to give a distressed clucking noise that would normally have shamed her. Too numb, she was beyond shame.
‘Gordon Lawrence. Did he get away?’ She needed to know, because if he was still out there, Poppy was still in danger and her boys didn’t seem to be rallying.
Mason pulled back, his gaze taking on a hawk-like stare as he gave a controlled shake of his head.
She blinked up at him. It was as she thought. There had been a second shot. Not an echo. She was sure.
But where from?
As Mason moved, she followed the track of his gaze and rolled onto her side to look behind her.
Ethel Crawford’s frail shoulders hunched forward over the still smoking double-barrelled shotgun. With the barrel cracked open from the stock to make it safe, she cradled it in competent, unshaking hands.
With the pull of Jenna and Mason’s stare on her, she did a slow head turn, her watery gaze meeting theirs.
‘I said he was a nasty man.’ Her fingers whitened as she tightened her hold on the gun. ‘Nobody listened.’ Her eyes glazed over. ‘They never listen when you get old.’
Jenna’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh, Ethel…’
52
Tuesday 21 April 1725 hours
‘Hey. What have we got here?’
Jenna whipped her head around at the soft female voice.
In the ugly green uniform of paramedics, the tall woman hitched her trousers as she squatted next to Jenna. ‘Would you give her some room, please?’ Her tone brooked no argument as she reached for Jenna’s wrist. She pushed her weathered face close to Jenna’s. ‘What’s your name, my love.’
Her tongue thick, Jenna swallowed. She’d not lost her mind, only her voice. ‘Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan.’
‘Well, Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan. My name’s Lucy. Lucy Beck. I’m just going to check you over for injuries. Is that okay?’ So close that Jenna could see every fine line and wrinkle feathering over the other woman’s face as she studied her. Soft eyes of lavender blue, with the short, stubby, faded eyelashes that came to women of a certain age. Strong fingers of one hand pressed against Jenna’s wrist while the woman tucked salt-and-pepper strands of hair behind her ear, only to have it whipped away by an errant wind.
As awareness returned, Jenna shuddered. Her teeth rattled inside her head as that cool wind penetrated her clothes and chilled her to the bone in one fast rush.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘No.’ She didn’t want to. Not yet. She wasn’t ready.
‘Okay, we’re going to lift you onto the stretcher and get you inside the ambulance.’
‘I can walk.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘I’m not injured, merely in shock.’ She dropped her voice an octave to make her point. ‘I’ll walk!’
Determination shot through to give her the energy she needed to lift her arse from the cold ground and march to the ambulance no more than thirty paces away. This time no-one attempted to stop her as she clenched her jaw and struggled up. The solid, reassuring touch of Mason’s hand on her elbow gave her enough resilience to put one foot in front of the other with little more than a slight waver as she passed by PC Gardner’s body. She hesitated as she reached him and forced herself to look, because if there was one thing she knew for certain, her imagination would be far worse than the reality.
She sucked in a whistling breath through her teeth as she raced her gaze over him. Half his head missing, which would explain the amount of matter sprayed over her. Other than that, nothing. Not a mark on the rest of his inert body.
She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise in the back of her throat and took a deliberate look away. She’d deal with it. She had no option. She blinked. As saliva rushed into her mouth she swallowed again. It was a vision she’d never forget.
She raised her chin and followed Lucy to the ambulance, her teeth chattering until her jaw ached.
Lucy closed the ambulance doors behind them to lock out everyone other than Mason, who slipped inside and stood, his head bowed to avoid the roof of the ambulance.
Lucy turned and flicked a switch and heat pumped out to fill the small space.
‘Hop on the bed. We need to warm you up before hypothermia sets in.’
‘Hypothermia. I don’t have hypothermia.’ Her teeth rattled in her head.
The smile was kind, creasing deep into Lucy’s cheeks. ‘Slip your coat off and roll up your sleeve.’ Too weary to question, Jenna did as instructed while she attempted to follow the general gist of the conversation. ‘You may not have hypothermia yet, but it’s surprising. How long were you on the ground? Forty minutes. Forty-five?’
Confused, Jenna squinted at the other woman. Had she been down that long? Could she have been on the floor that length of time? ‘I don’t know, I…’ It all came back to perception distortion. It happened so quickly. It was a lifetime. Two timelines intermingling in her head.
‘Twenty-eight minutes.’ Mason’s waterproof coat rattled as he fidgeted to find a comfortable position. He’d be cold too, he only had a shirt underneath the coat. He’d given up his fleece for her. Wrapped it around her. The memory rushed back.
Without looking at him, Lucy indicated a seat at the head of the ambulance. ‘Take a pew. We’ll be a while.’
He squeezed past and grunted as he perched on the small pull-down seat at Jenna’s head.
Lucy bustled about, she pressed buttons, moved equipment, adjusted the height of the bed once Jenna had made herself comfortable and draped a cellular blanket over Jenna’s legs. ‘You’re young, strong. It’s quite mild and you hadn’t been out there long. Just imagine…’ she strapped a blood pressure cuff to Jenna’s exposed arm, chattering all the time, Jenna suspected just to distract her, ‘…elderly people who take a fall, it doesn’t take long for hypothermia to set in, even in their own homes, at this time of year. At least you were dressed appropriately for the weather conditions.’
Jenna recalled a time when she hadn’t been, when Fliss had gone missing. She’d learnt her lesson well then and not been caught out since. Her mother would be proud of her. She huffed out a breath.
‘It wasn’t my intention to take a lie-down.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘My legs just gave way. Crumpled under me.’
Lucy nodded and released the cuff as she skimmed a sympathetic gaze over Jenna. ‘I’m not surprised. Anyone would have hit the ground under the circumstances.’
‘It wasn’t intentional. Just instinctive.’
‘Shock. We all react in different ways. No one person can dictate what will happen.’
The warmth in the ambulance seeped through her clothes and Jenna’s clenched jaw softened as the trembling lessened. Shock, hypothermia, whatever the terminology, the numbness started to wear off and as her body relaxed and she closed her eyes, PC Gardner’s head exploded all over her face once more—