"I knew you'd ask." The sadness in Bridget's tone had deepened. "I have to say yes, don't I? Tell me one thing. Did he nick it?"

In a manner of speaking, Hannah thought. "I can't tell you that," she said, but she was touched suddenly by unusual emotion, by fellow feeling for a sister-woman. "The important thing is he gave it to you. He wanted you to wear it."

It is surprisingly difficult to crawl on two legs and an arm, easier (but more painful) when you bend the damaged limb at the elbow and swing it back and forth. He was afraid that if he stood he might find he'd broken more than his wrist, but he tried and made it to the wall of the building, where he hung on with his left hand to a drainpipe. Not an ache but an intense burning soreness shivered through his body. In the morning he'd be a ma.s.s of bruises, but he was alive and not, he thought, much harmed. They would ask him, he knew very well, if he had lost consciousness. He wasn't sure. Had he? How was it that he didn't know? There seemed to be some missing minutes in his recall of the past ten, a black curtain coming down like a brief dropping off to sleep. Well, he'd tell them that. His phone was all right. As he began to key in the numbers a car turned in from the road and he recognized it as Raymond Akande's. It stopped before it reached him. Dr. Akande jumped out.

"Someone tried to run me over in a car," Wexford said.

"Tried to?"

"Failed, as you see. It was more a case of me running over them. I got tossed onto the top of the car and think I've broken my wrist. Look, I've got to make a phone call."

"No, you haven't. I'll take you to the infirmary myself."

"Thanks but this is something else." Akande helped him into his car and there, when the sharp pains a.s.sociated with movement had subsided, he spoke to Burden. "I want you to go to Athelstan House and arrest Maeve Tredown. What for? Attempted murder. That's right. Attempted murder of me. me."

His notion that she had tried to poison him hadn't been so fantastic after all.

"Of course you have to stay in overnight if they say so," Dora said in the mildly scolding voice she used when he was recalcitrant. She sat by the bed he had rejected in favor of the armchair next to hers. "They've got to take X-rays and things. A scan, that doctor said. And they're going to put a plaster on your arm."

"When Jenny Burden broke her wrist they put a pin in. She didn't have a plaster. Why can't I have a pin?"

"Don't be so childish, Reg. What were you doing at the hospice, anyway?"

"Visiting Tredown. Or trying to."

"A corporal work of mercy, as the Catholics say?" She didn't wait for his answer. "I'm reading The First Heaven. The First Heaven. Sheila kept on saying I have to, and I must say it's not a hardship. I'm loving it." She hesitated, then said tentatively, "Would you think I was mad if I said the only thing is he didn't write it?" Sheila kept on saying I have to, and I must say it's not a hardship. I'm loving it." She hesitated, then said tentatively, "Would you think I was mad if I said the only thing is he didn't write it?"

"My sentiments entirely," said Wexford. "Here, give me your hand. Two minds with but a single thought we are. I wish they'd let me go home."

She shook her head. "Don't get run over again, will you?" To his dismay he saw a tear in her eye, but she said brightly, "Here's Mike. You'll want to talk to him."

"Don't go," he said, but she was halfway across the ward. Burden kissed her cheek, came to the bedside, and stood over him. "What happened?" Wexford asked.

"Court in the morning," Burden said. "Of course she denies it, says you walked-well, ran-out in front of her. Are there any witnesses?"

"Of course not. If there'd been anyone around she'd have postponed it till another day."

"Sure."

"Like I've had to postpone seeing Tredown. But she must be seriously afraid of me, don't you think? Did you have a look at the car?"

"Both of us did. I took Barry with me. There are scratches on the bonnet and a couple of sc.r.a.pes made by the heel of your shoe where I guess you tried to get a purchase and both sides are sc.r.a.ped to h.e.l.l. There's a long dent all along the nearside. But so what, Reg? She doesn't deny hitting you, she just says it wasn't her fault. And she's got the nerve to say she's not a very good driver. I don't think we've a chance of making the charge stick, other than her leaving a scene of an accident."

"I don't think so either," said Wexford, "but that doesn't matter all that much, seeing that we'll very shortly have her back in court on an even more serious charge, she and her henchwoman, Ricardo."

"And will we make that stick?"

"G.o.d knows, Mike. We can only try."

Chapter Twenty-five.

The two rings spilled out of the plastice zipper bag onto the lap of his blue-check dressing gown. One was tagged with the name "Cook," the other "Hexham." Hannah handed him a magnifying gla.s.s, apparently having no faith in his unaided eyesight.

"Did you notice the chasing on the Cook ring is very slightly more worn than on the Hexham?"

She hadn't. "Why d'you think that is, guv?"

Dora had called him childish on the previous day and no doubt this was the word for his unreasonable hope that none of his fellow inmates of Frobisher Ward heard the t.i.tle she gave him. Still, we all have our vanities and our touchiness, he told himself, we are only human. "Because one was on someone's finger more than the other. Three years went by when Miller had the ring before he gave it to Bridget Cook and in those years no one wore it."

The ward sister came up to them, told Hannah she would have to go as the doctors were doing their rounds. "And I expect he'll let you go home, Mr. Wexford."

"I thought they always called people by their first names these days, guv," whispered Hannah.

"I expect that like most of us," said Wexford blandly, "they call them by the name they prefer."

At home he found a reception committee of daughters and grandchildren. "I haven't been at death's door," he told his social-worker daughter.

"They all want to write their names on your plaster," Sylvia said. "What is it about the British that they always have to queue?"

"They learn it at their mothers' knees," said Wexford, holding out his cast for the two boys. "I don't believe you can write, you're too little," he said to Amy.

Shouting, "I can, I can," she executed a bold squiggle in red felt-tip and he told her how clever she was.

Anoushka, in her mother's arms, managed a scribble but Mary really was too little to do more than crow and laugh.

"I've been calling on the Imrans," Sylvia said when he and she were briefly alone.

"You have?"

"I'm a child care officer-remember?"

"And what have you found?"

"Not much," she said. "Shamis starts school next month. She's excited about it. I don't tell them why I'm visiting and they haven't asked. Maybe they think it's all part of the service, something that we do for every family with a preschool child. If only we had the resources!"

"Do you tell them when you're coming?"

"Not to the time, Dad. I tell them I'll be along Monday or Tuesday, say. I can't tell them to stop at home for me. I've no grounds for that. There's just one thing to tell you and it's nothing really. They've got someone staying with them, a woman of about fifty. Mrs. Imran calls her 'auntie,' so I a.s.sume she's a relative."

"She came back with them from Somalia?"

"I think so."

"Can't you ask her?"

"She doesn't speak a word of English," said Sylvia.

"And you don't trust the Imrans to interpret?"

"What do you think?"

Karen Malahyde was also paying friendly visits to the Imrans and not always notifying them of the precise time she was coming. Possibly they thought this too was all part of the service.

Two days later than he had intended, he walked into the reception area at Pomfret Hospice and asked for Owen Tredown. As he had predicted, he was a ma.s.s of bruises and his whole body ached. Though supported by a sling, the cast on his right arm felt heavy and c.u.mbersome. He was all right sitting down, provided he was padded with a cushion, but walking made him wince at almost every step. Returning to the hospice gave him a strange feeling, and he told Donaldson to drop him outside the front doors. The sight of the fairly narrow defile-its walls scarred with dark red paint like a bloodstain-in which Maeve Tredown's car had trapped him and tossed him onto its bonnet, showed him how easily, if she had been going a fraction more slowly, she might have run over instead of under him. Had her action been aimed at preventing him being alone with Tredown? Or was it designed to expel him from the inquiry altogether?

The advantage to the driver of a car as lethal weapon was that the intended victim doesn't believe until the very last minute that any fellow human being deliberately means to run him over. He, who ought to have known better, hadn't believed it. He'd simply set her down as the bad driver she boasted she was.

The receptionist directed him to the lift and told him he would find Tredown in Room Four on the second floor. It was only when he was past the first floor that it occurred to him Claudia Ricardo might be there. Tredown's request that he come, his urging a nurse to phone him ("He insists you come yourself," the woman had said. "He won't take no for an answer. And could you be alone please.") would have no effect on her. He hoped too that the other inmates of the ward might be far enough away for no conversation to be overheard or that curtains could be drawn around Tredown's bed. At least, this time, he wasn't an inmate himself but a visitor, free to come and go.

Tredown was in a private room off the corridor that led to the main ward. The door was shut. He knocked and, getting no answer, opened it. Inside it was light and airy, but excessively warm. A blue gla.s.s vase held white dahlias, another branches of red rowan berries. Room Four had only one occupant and he, as Wexford himself had been when in the infirmary, was sitting in a chair by the bedside with a blanket across his knees. There the resemblance ended. Tredown was asleep, his head turned to one side; and ill as the man had been last time he had seen him, now the advanced stage of his disease made him almost unrecognizable. All his flesh seemed to have been pared from him and the skin that was stretched over sharp but frail bones was a reptilian green. Tredown slept with his mouth closed, his face peaceful in repose and, in spite of wasting disease, protracted suffering, and discolored emaciation, remained handsome. So might be the sculpted face of some medieval ascetic carved from olivine stone.

Pulling himself out of these fanciful flights, Wexford sat down in the other chair. In the absence of a cushion, he took a spare pillow from a pile and stuffed it behind his back. That was better. He reminded himself that this time it was Tredown who had asked for him and not he for Tredown-though he would have asked the next day-but still he hesitated to wake him. Perhaps a nurse would come and do it for him, but as yet there was no sign of one. The place was silent except for the occasional soft, steady footfall along the corridor outside.

Ten minutes went by. Outside, he heard a car arrive. In the corridor someone whispered to someone else. A petal dropped off one of the dahlias and fluttered to the ground. Tredown slept, his breathing light but uneven and once or twice he made a little sound that Wexford interpreted as distress without quite knowing why he did so. Next time he heard the footsteps he opened the door and asked a man in a white boiler suit if it would be all right to wake Mr. Tredown. The man looked at his watch, said it was time he woke anyway, and entering the room, spoke gently and in a very low voice into Tredown's ear.

Stirring, Tredown muttered, "It was so wonderful I was envious-no, I was consumed with envy . . ."

The nurse who had awakened him looked inquiringly at Wexford, and Wexford stared at him too, slightly shaking his head.

"I'll leave you, then," he said. "He gets very tired."

"I'll try not to exhaust him."

"Would you like a cup of tea? I'm bringing one for him."

Wexford thanked him. He watched the man in the chair as he opened his eyes. Tredown had slipped down while asleep and now he struggled to pull himself up.

"I'm sorry I can't do anything to help you," Wexford said, lifting up the arm with the cast and attempting a smile.

"I can manage." Tredown heaved himself higher in the chair with difficulty. It was painful to watch, but when he had raised his upper body an inch or two he seemed satisfied and he sighed. "What did I say just now? I was half asleep."

"You didn't say much," Wexford said. "Just that something was wonderful and you were envious."

"Yes."

The silence endured for a full minute, Wexford saw from the clock on the wall. All of our lives were ticking by, he thought, but for this man its pa.s.sing must be more poignantly prescient than for most of us. Another precious minute would pa.s.s and another and another until one more of those last days was gone. Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days . . .

Suddenly Tredown said, speaking in a strong voice, "I'm going to die. I shan't last long now." He looked hard at Wexford. "Please don't say anything cheerful such as 'while there's life there's hope.' "

"I wasn't going to."

"I want to tell you about it before I die. It's weighed with me for eleven years, yet-I don't know if I did anything wrong. If I did it was a sin of omission. 'I left undone those things which I ought to have done.' I failed to ask questions when I should have asked them. I accepted."

There was a knock at the door and the nurse came in with a teapot, milk and sugar, and two cups on a tray. He poured the tea, suggested to Tredown that a biscuit would be a good idea, but Tredown shook his head.

When the man had gone he said, " 'Life is but a process for turning frisky young puppies into mangy old dogs and man but an instrument for converting the red wine of Shiraz into urine.' "

Wexford didn't recognize the quotation. "Who said that?"

"Isak Dinesen. I may not have got it quite right but that's the gist. I suppose you think it very odd my wife and I and my ex-wife all living in the same house."

"Unconventional," Wexford said, "but not all that odd. It's more common than you might think, though usually it's a husband and wife and her ex-husband. Men on their own find it hard to look after themselves."

Tredown's laugh was a broken cackle. " 'Like unto the crackling of thorns under a pot is the laughter of fools,' " he quoted. "I'm good at quoting-maybe that's all I'm good at. I used that in one of my biblical books. I enjoyed writing them," he said, "but they were never very successful. They were a century too late. My publishers were always suggesting I try something else."

"And you did," said Wexford.

He drank his tea and took a fatladen, sugary biscuit, reflecting in the ensuing silence that the food that is damaging to one may be, if not healthy to another, at least life-prolonging. Tredown ate nothing. He said, "In a manner of speaking. When the ma.n.u.script came-it came in the post, you see-I did what I always did with these things, read the first page, meaning to read the first chapter. I did. I read the first and the second and the third . . ."

"You couldn't put it down."

"You've read it?"

"Oh, yes. My daughter has a part in the film."

"She's Sheila Wexford?"

He nodded, said, "Go on."

"Maeve read it, and then Claudia did. Maeve acted as my secretary, you know. She wrote all my letters. We never-er, quite cottoned on to e-mail. They read it and they said-well, things about its potential and how the author was a real find and that sort of thing. Claudia said, 'What a pity you didn't write it, Owen.' " He took a sip of his tea, made a face, and put the cup back on the tray. "I don't want to blame them for this. It was my fault, entirely my fault-and yet . . . The upshot of it all, of our discussions, was that Maeve wrote to the author and asked him if he could come here and see me, have a talk with me about his ma.n.u.script. I don't exactly know what her precise words were, though I suppose I did at the time. They say we block off unacceptable memories-do you believe that?"

"I don't know," Wexford said.

"I do. I know I do it all the time. And I've done it more since that ma.n.u.script-fell into my hands." He gave a heavy sigh. "That is an accurate description, carrying with it a certain menace. Fell into my hands-so much stronger, don't you think, than 'came into my hands'? Well, he wrote back. He'd be in Suss.e.x in a week's time and could he come then? He came. He brought another copy with him-the only other copy he had, he said." Tredown's voice was losing strength, the tone cracking. "I told him what we all thought of the ma.n.u.script and I said I thought parts of it needed rewriting and some careful editing. He said he'd do some work on it. No one knew he'd written a book. He seemed to think he'd be laughed at if anyone knew or else be told to do something that would make money. He'd sent it to me because he'd heard me speak on the radio and he thought-G.o.d help me-I was a good writer. He'd read two of my books too."

"Mr. Tredown, take it easy. You're tiring yourself."

"What would it matter if I were?" Tredown pulled himself up with a gargantuan effort, leaned forward earnestly. "Better if I tired myself to death. Sorry, I don't mean to be melodramatic, but all this is painful to me, very painful. Anyway, he went. He took one of the ma.n.u.scripts with him and I-I never saw him again. Maeve told me he'd gone, and two days later she had a letter from him, saying he'd decided not to do any more about it. Writing it had been all he wanted. Having it published didn't interest him."

Wexford shifted in his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable. "You believed this?"