Melting Ms Frost (36 page)

Annabel backed further away from him, headed nearer her mother. ‘What the hell is going on here?’

‘Oh, you mean all this?’ He swept his arms out to indicate the mess. ‘Retribution.’ He sneered.

Retribution?
Annabel frowned. ‘You did this? Why?’

‘I’ve come to get back a little of what you took from me.’

In the hallway the entrance buzzer sounded another short burst. Could it possibly be Aidan? If it was, it didn’t make a blind bit of difference as she had no way of getting past Tony to let him in. She didn’t like the look or the sound of him. He was drunk on gin and bitterness, a nasty cocktail simmering under the surface.

‘What are you talking about, Tony? We’ve already had this discussion. I haven’t taken anything of yours. You need to leave.’

‘Liar! You always had a grudge against me – couldn’t wait until my back was turned for a second to swoop in like a vulture and shut me down.’

‘Shut you down?’

‘Yes. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy letting the bailiffs take everything, watching me lose my house.’

‘How is that any of my fault? I had no authority to stop the repossessions, and you can’t keep a house you don’t pay for, Tony.’

‘And as if that wasn’t enough for you, you resentful little cow, you’ve been busy since, closing all my lines of credit.’

‘
Your
lines of credit? I assume you mean the accounts you got my mother to open for you? The ones that left her solely liable for any debts you ran up?’

His face flushed a vivid red. ‘I’m talking about things between me and your mother that were none of your fucking business,’ he shouted. ‘Who the hell do you think you are interfering in somebody else’s relationship? Especially as you don’t have the first clue about what that involves – frigid bitch that you are.’

‘Tony,’ her mother spoke out loud for the first time. ‘Please stop this. I told you, all Annabel has done is help me.’

‘And I don’t want to hear another fucking word from you.’ He turned to Ellen. ‘You were so quick to run when she turned you against me.’

Annabel shook her head. ‘She didn’t need me to do that. You managed to turn her against you all on your own. You ran off and left her with less than nothing. What sort of person does that?’

The red flush darkened to a mottled purple. ‘Don’t you dare look down your fucking nose at me. You think you’re so smart trying to shaft me, but I’ve seen just what you’re worth.’ He waved the bottle in the direction of a mess of papers spread across the floor – most of them her bank statements. ‘And I’m telling you you’re going to pay me back for the fucking trouble you’ve caused me.’

The buzzer sounded again and she grabbed at the opportunity it presented. ‘Talking of trouble, that’s my boyfriend. If I don’t answer he’ll use his key to get in,’ she bluffed. ‘You’d better get out of here.’

Tony laughed nastily. ‘Lover boy? No, I was watching you arrive out of the bedroom window. I saw him take off down the street in the taxi. It’s just you and me, ladies. And I’m not going anywhere until I’ve received some compensation.’

She couldn’t tell whether it was booze or belligerence that fuelled Tony’s refusal to accept a word she was saying, his determination to blame her for his own shortcomings. Either way, she wasn’t taking any more of his threatening behaviour. Her heart thumping, she was determined to show no fear as she pulled her phone out of her bag.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Tony, but the only thing I’m going to do is make more trouble for you. With the police.’

Tony roared, his face puce with fury. He dropped the bottle and threw the glass against the wall, lunging as it shattered, coming for her. With a scream, her mother jumped to her feet and lunged into in his path.

‘Bitch!’ He threw her, literally through the air. Ellen hit the wall, hard, and crumpled to the floor.

Annabel shouted and raced to her mother’s assistance, but Tony swung toward her and struck her on the side of the head with enough force that white lights exploded across her vision and she staggered, dropping the phone.

She’d never been hit before and the shock was absolute. Before she could properly process the enormity of what was happening, there was another blow, every bit as hard as the first that made the world lurch and brought her to her hands and knees. A forceful shove from the side had her sprawling on the floor, a kick in her side stole her breath and then Tony Maplin was on top of her straddling her. How had it happened so quickly?

Annabel fought with everything she had to get him off her, pummelling him with her arms, kneeing him in the back, twisting and bucking. She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping the racket would draw the attention of any of her neighbours still at home.

‘Shut the fuck up.’ Tony’s hand clamped over her mouth and nose, cutting off her oxygen. In terror she bit into his palm, tasting the iron tang of blood.

With a shout, Tony whipped his hand away. ‘You’ll pay for that, you little bitch!’ he yelled, backhanding her across the cheek, adding more searing pain to her face as it snapped to the side. As her vision righted, she saw the photo of her and her father lying close by. Without thinking she reached for it, grasping the frame and swinging it at Tony’s face with all the strength she could muster.

Glass shattered and wood splintered at the contact, but it inflicted only enough hurt to make Tony angrier.

‘You think it’s fun to fuck with me?’ He wrenched the broken frame from her hand and tossed it aside. ‘See how you like this.’ He raised his fist high to bring it down onto her face. Annabel put her arm up to deflect the blow, which landed on her forearm. She heard the crack of what surely must have been bone a split second before agony shot up her arm.

Tony must have heard the noise too, because even as she tried to bring it closer to her body to protect it, he got his hands around it and squeezed, the grating sensation making her scream again.

He laughed. ‘Not so fucking high and mighty now, are you?’ He squeezed tighter, the pain so sickening it left her choking on the bitter burn of vomit that seared the back of her throat. In a desperate bid she went for his balls with her free hand, her fist striking him in the groin. Not hard enough to dislodge him, but hard enough to incense him further.

One of his hands clamped around her throat. ‘I’ll fucking kill you,’ he screamed, his spittle spraying her face. And then suddenly he was gone.

Gone where? For a weapon? A knife? God, she needed to move, get her mother and get out before he came back. She could hear him banging about, grunting, swearing; the fury in the sounds was the most frightening thing she’d ever heard.

She tried to pull herself up, but her body didn’t seem to want to obey her commands. Fire shot through her arm and every movement was slow, heavy, like pushing through treacle. An insidious blackness pulled at the edge of her consciousness. No.
No
. She had to fight against it, knowing that if she passed out …

Too late. He was back – through the darkening spots in her vision and the blur of tears she saw the shape of him bend over her again but she couldn’t focus enough to see what he was about to do to her.

‘No!’ she screamed, frantically trying to get her limbs to propel her away, to put up some resistance as she felt his hands take hold of her shoulders to turn her onto her back.

She knew she must be in a bad way when she realised that she could no longer feel the pain those hands were inflicting. She’d gone mercifully numb. She heard shouting as if from far away. Her name? She couldn’t be sure over the ringing in her ears, the blackness pulling insistently at her.

The hulking shape loomed close and she sobbed, trying to shrink back from what was to come, knowing she had nothing left. Like a coward she embraced the darkness that rushed up to meet her.

Aidan hadn’t thought twice about lying through his teeth to the duty sister to make sure he could be by his fiancée’s hospital bed when she woke.

Annabel’s green eyes blinked a little blearily to start with and then looked around the six-bed ward with wild eyes as she got her bearings. Her gaze landed on him as he pushed to his feet from the visitor’s chair he’d set by her side.

‘Mum?’ she asked anxiously.

He laid his hand gently over her good wrist. ‘She’s going to be OK, Annabel. They’ve put her on another ward.’ The specialist spinal ward to be exact. She’d suffered a fracture in her neck and would need to be put in traction for a while, but he didn’t think Annabel needed those details right at this moment.

‘I want to see her,’ she insisted and tried to get up. Almost immediately she subsided again, even the small movement she’d managed making her cry out in pain.

‘I’m sure you can. But not on your own.’ He reached for the call bell looped around the head of her bed and pushed the button. ‘Let a nurse help.’

‘I feel strange, woozy.’

‘Probably groggy from the meds they gave you. Try to take it easy.’

The sister he’d conned his way past earlier came into the room to be greeted by Annabel’s curt demands to see her mother. With professional equanimity, she promised to check, unhooking the clipboard from the end of the bed and retreating.

Annabel sank back into the mound of pillows, the tension leaching from her body as her eyes closed and she seemed to drift for a bit. When she reopened them she seemed calmer but still somewhat disorientated.

She looked down at herself noting her arm, heavily bandaged and strapped with cool packs as though in surprise. ‘I’ve got a broken arm,’ she said. ‘I’ve never had a broken bone before.’

Aidan stroked his thumb over her other slender forearm, aware how much more delicate her bone structure was than his. Than Tony fucking Maplin’s. ‘And here’s hoping you never have another one.’

Suddenly her eyes snapped wide with a terror that tore at him. ‘Tony?’ she said on a gasp.

‘It’s all right, Annabel,’ he assured her firmly, wanting to wipe the fear from her eyes. He grasped her hand as panic threatened to take hold. ‘He can’t hurt you now. Just breathe.’

It took her a minute to overcome the threatening hysteria. ‘Where is he?’

‘In police custody and waiting to be taken down to the station as soon as he’s been patched up.’

‘Patched up?’

‘Yes. I believe he was in need of some immediate medical attention himself.’ Out of sight, he flexed his right hand, relishing the sharp protest from his stiff knuckles. With any luck the bastard would find himself eating his meals through a straw for a while yet.

Annabel sank back into the pillows at that news, her eyes drifting shut only to jerk open again. ‘Work!’

‘All in hand. Tim’s got everything covered for today and Tuesday. I’ve spoken to Richard. You don’t need to worry about anything but yourself,
a mhuirnín
.’

The sister came back into the room with her chart, wheeling a blood pressure monitor. ‘You’ll be able to see your mother briefly in an hour or so, Annabel,’ she said, closing the curtains around the bay. ‘I’ll book a porter and chair to take you. In the meantime we need to carry out a few checks.’

Aidan moved aside to allow the woman access to Annabel’s uninjured arm.

‘When can I go home?’ Annabel asked.

‘Bored of us already? You’ve only just got here.’ The sister smiled, manoeuvring the monitor close to the bed. ‘You’ll be here overnight at least so we can keep an eye on you. As well as the arm, it looks like you took some nasty blows to the face and head.’ Annabel’s hand rose to feel her face, but the sister caught it and wrapped the wide cuff around her biceps. ‘Doctor has also requested more X-rays once we’ve got the swelling around the bone to go down a bit. If everything looks all right you’ll probably be OK to go tomorrow.’ She pushed some buttons on the monitor before turning to Aidan. ‘Providing there’s some full-time care at home for a couple of days?’

Obviously catching the look, Annabel blurted, ‘Oh, no,’ as the cuff began to inflate. ‘We don’t live together. We’re work colleagues.’

The sister raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointed stare, to which he just smiled and shrugged. Let her try and turf him out now.

‘Well.’ Deciding to let his deception pass, she turned back to Annabel. ‘As long as someone can be there to care for you.’

‘I’m used to being on my own, I’ll be fine.’

‘You might think so but it’ll be a condition of your discharge nonetheless. Hospital policy.’

Aidan watched Annabel’s face fall, her energy deflate. She closed her eyes and rested her head back on the pillow. It didn’t surprise him that she’d hate the idea of lying around in hospital being reliant on others – he’d hated it himself. What did surprise him was what he seemed to be thinking of doing to help her with a solution.

She slipped back into a doze before the observations were complete and he took the opportunity to stretch his legs, get a cup of coffee and clear his thoughts. But twenty minutes later he was back by her bedside, still in the same frame of mind.

When she woke again she was a little more together.

‘How is it that you’re here?’ she questioned with a small frown. ‘I mean, you dropped me off and then left. How did you find out what happened?’

Although she’d come around during the ambulance ride, she’d been so disorientated that he wasn’t surprised she couldn’t remember much.

‘I saw Tony at the window as the cab was pulling away,’ he explained. He’d still been grinning at that look she’d given him as he’d signalled the driver to move off. What had made him glance up at the building, he’d never know, but that’s all it had taken for him to catch a glimpse of a face – one that had seemed familiar and which had punched a fist of fear into his gut when he’d managed to place it.

‘I got the driver to stop and call the police and I came back to do what I could until they got there.’ It had taken precious moments and too many yards before the driver had pulled over again and the automatic lock released to let him fling the door open. Then he’d hit the pavement at a dead run. He hated to think what would have happened if chance hadn’t played its part. ‘It was pure luck that I looked up when I did.’