Three Things About Elsie(93)

I looked at his clipboard across the coffee table.

‘You have the answers.’ I pointed. ‘Printed at the side.’

Dr Andrews curled his arm around the sheet of paper, like a child in a classroom. ‘You shouldn’t worry about what I know,’ he said.

‘But of course I should worry about what you know. You’re the person deciding which one of us is going to be sent to Greenbank.’ I craned my neck. ‘Spell WORLD backwards. D-L-R—’

Dr Andrews sprang from his seat like a jack-in-a-box and conducted the rest of the test from the far corner of the room, next to the window. Elsie struggled to hear what he was saying, because it’s her bad side, and I had to repeat everything to make sure she understood. The last thing he did was hold up a piece of paper. It said, Close Your Eyes on it.

‘Why would we want to do that?’ I said.

‘Because I’m asking you to.’ Dr Andrews held the instructions a little closer.

‘Is it a surprise?’ I said.

I heard Dr Andrews sigh. ‘Do you not usually do as someone asks?’

I frowned. ‘Not if I can help it.’

When we’d finished the test, we watched Dr Andrews fill out an entire side of A4. We buttoned ourselves into our coats and I turned to him and asked what we’d got.

He said he would be forwarding on the results to Cherry Tree in due course. He still didn’t look up. Not even when I said, ‘They’re our scores, though, aren’t they? Shouldn’t someone tell us first?’

The nurse herded us back into the care of Natasha and her mobile telephone, and we were marched through the hospital – past the League of Friends – and shuffled on to the back seat of a taxi. I looked out of the window.

‘I didn’t really enjoy that little chat very much, Elsie,’ I said.

When the taxi pulled in at Cherry Tree, it struggled to do a three-point turn, because there was a police car sitting right in the middle of the car park.

Natasha looked up from her mobile telephone for the first time in twenty minutes and stared. It’s strange how we always stare at emergency vehicles. Whenever there’s a siren, everyone appears at their windows to watch it whip past, even though no one has the first clue where it might be going. Perhaps it’s reassuring to hear the sound of an alarm disappear into the distance and away from our own lives. Although the police car at Cherry Tree was silent, it was parked at a peculiar angle, in the way only police cars seem to be able to get away with.

Of course, Elsie and I headed straight for the residents’ lounge, to watch through the glass. Jack had already taken up his position on the sofa, and nodded at us when we walked in.

‘Something’s afoot,’ he said. ‘Although no one is saying what.’

There were two policemen in Miss Ambrose’s office, and their uniforms seemed to take up all the space. Miss Ambrose was crowded into the corner, squeezed up against her desk, watching them lift everything out of the filing cabinets.

‘Fraud, do you think?’ Jack said. ‘Has someone been cooking the books?’

‘Miss Ambrose doesn’t look the type, does she?’ I said. ‘She buys all her clothes from Marks & Spencer.’

Jack wandered over to the noticeboard and lingered by the door.

‘Does shopping at Marks & Spencer offer some kind of indemnity?’ Elsie said. ‘Because if that’s the case, half of Cherry Tree must be sainted.’

Jack wandered back. ‘Can’t hear a bloody word,’ he said.

We sat in a row on the sofa. After a few minutes, Handy Simon appeared through the double doors with a clipboard, but as soon as he saw the policemen, he took three steps backwards and disappeared again.

‘Do you think they’re after the handyman?’ I said. ‘It’s usually the handyman, isn’t it? Or someone in the background, someone you’ve not noticed very much.’

Elsie stared at me. ‘Life isn’t an episode of Columbo.’

‘Sometimes it is,’ I said.

The policemen left ten minutes later, with a selection of envelopes and their hats back on. Miss Ambrose watched us for a while through the chequered glass. There was a moment when I thought I saw her smile, but perhaps I was mistaken. When she finally left the office, Jack opened his eyes and shouted, ‘What was all that about, then?’ and Miss Ambrose said, ‘You tell me and we’ll both know,’ which confused me for a good fifteen minutes.

‘At least it’s taken our minds off the hospital,’ I said.

Jack turned from watching Miss Ambrose disappear along the corridor. ‘And how did that go?’

‘You can only do your best,’ I said. ‘Can’t you?’

Jack looked at me, and his eyes held my words for a moment. ‘You look after yourself, Florence, won’t you? We all need help from time to time. All you have to do is reach out and ask for it.’

‘I don’t think I deserve any,’ I said.

‘Of course you do. Everyone does. What on earth makes you say that?’

The words came out before I had a chance to go through them first.

‘I was so sure it was Ronnie who drowned, not Gabriel Price. I would have put my life on it.’

I watched him hesitate. ‘How can you be so certain, Flo?’ he said.

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Because I was the one who pushed him in.’