Memory Scents (21 page)

              “Oh Dennis, she’s upstairs….she’s in Alice’s bedroom…”

              Dennis sprinted up the stairs two at a time with Grace following closely behind him.

              “Christ, Eve!”

             
“Is she still alive, Dennis?” Grace said, as Dennis checked Eve for a pulse.

              “There’s a faint pulse.” He leaned his face near to hers to see if he could feel her breath on his cheek.

              “It’s weak, but she’s still with us.” Dennis moved her carefully into the recovery position in case she was sick. He picked up the bottles of tablets she’d taken, and examined the labels.

              “Just try and keep calm, Grace, the ambulance will be here in a minute.”

              “Oh god, Dennis! What was she thinking?”

              Grace sat on the end of the bed, her head in her hands.

              “She’s not been right since Alice went Grace. You know that.”

              “But to get in this...that’s the ambulance!” Grace raced back downstairs to guide them to the correct house, not wanting to waste a second.

              Grace and Dennis followed the ambulance to the hospital, leaving the crew space to bring Eve back to life.

              “Try not to worry, Grace. I don’t think she’s taken enough. She’s in the right hands now.”

              “But I wasted time making a drink and unloading the shopping,” Grace sobbed, “I just thought she was having a nap as normal.”

              “You’ve got nothing to reproach yourself for. It was inevitable it would come to this, she’s been in such turmoil.”

              “If it was inevitable, Dennis, then I should have looked after her better.”

              “Look, you can’t watch someone twenty four hours a day. She’d have found a way at some point.”

 
              “I clearly wasn’t watching enough. I just assumed Jon was on top of it all. But now, as I reflect on recent events, he obviously wasn’t.”

              “Grace, you need to remember you had your own loss to deal with. In my experience, when people plan this sort of thing, they’ve gone beyond accepting any sort of help.”

              They parked out the front of the hospital and watched as the ambulance crew deftly unloaded Eve and rushed her through the emergency doors. Grace and Dennis followed. They were sent to the family room by an austere but friendly nurse, despite Grace’s protests to be with her sister.

“Let them do their jobs, Grace. Sit there and I’ll get you a drink.”

              Grace was going over and over things in her head. Her mind was like a washing machine running through a cycle. Round and round. All she kept thinking was what if she’d reported Tim or followed through with her plans earlier. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

              Perhaps Eve would have coped better knowing who it was, even though it would have been such a shock finding out it was her brother-
in
-law. This thought caused little sobbing noises to escape her mouth; she was so knotted up with it all. When Dennis came back in with their drinks she was rocking backwards and forwards in one of the weather beaten chairs.

              Dennis put the cups down and grabbed Grace by her shoulders.

              “Grace, this is not going to help Eve!”

             
“You don’t understand,” Grace sobbed again, “you don’t understand.”

              “Hey, come on. It’s ok. She’ll be alright.” He sat next to her and pulled her body towards him. She gripped his shirt, having always found him more of a comfort than Tim. She relaxed in his arms and cried and cried.

              Once she’d calmed, Dennis got her to drink the coffee he’d brought. She seemed to be much calmer after she’d released all her pent up emotion.

              She smiled at Dennis and then frowned as she looked at his tired face.

              “Are you alright? You don’t look your usual sprightly self.”

              “I’m just tired, Grace. Too much golf and gardening.”

              “Are you sure that’s all it is? You look a bit pale.”

              Dennis was the picture of health. He was in his fifties, the same as Grace, and as the years had been kind to her, so they had to him. He’d had his fair share of admirers over the years and he was the healthiest police officer Grace had ever known. In her experience they were usually overweight smokers with a drink problem. But she’d known Dennis long enough to know there was something weighing heavy on his mind.

              “Honestly. I’m fine. By the way I’ve called Jon and he’s on his way. I tried Tim as well, but there’s no answer.”

              “Thanks Dennis, but I don’t want him here.”

              “Good job I didn’t get hold of him then.”

              “I’m not being ungrateful. He’s just the last person I want to see at the moment.”

              “Not getting on?”              

           
“Just the usual. You know what we’re like; you’ve known us long enough.”

              Grace almost choked on the words. What she’d wanted to say was, “he’s a fucking bastard and I want him to suffer a slow and painful death and never see him ever again”, but this was hardly appropriate.

              Dennis half chuckled and sighed to himself.

              “You’ve never had what could be called a ‘blissful’ marriage, have you?”

            “Far from it, Dennis. Far from it.”

              “My parents were like you two. Bickered all the time, but really loved each other. When my mother died, my father was a broken man.”

              “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Dennis. There’s no love lost between Tim and me.”

              Dennis frowned.

              “Is he really that bad, Grace?” Dennis laughed, “I’ll take him on another fishing trip. We haven’t been for a while; get the old boy out of your hair for a bit.”

  
              Dennis nudged Grace, trying to cheer her up, which probably wasn’t going to work under the circumstances.

              “That would be great. Give us a break from each other.”

              “You’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment. You’re bound to rub each other up the wrong way.”

              Dennis patted Grace’s knee.

The doctor that had been dealing with Eve came into the room.

              Grace held her breath. Good news or bad, doctors always appeared to have that sombre “I have tragic news” look on their faces.

             
“We have managed to stabilise Eve’s condition, but she’s in a very fragile state. We don’t believe enough has been absorbed into her system to cause any permanent damage to her organs.”

              “So, will she be alright?”

  
              “We’ve stabilised her, as I said, and she’s in the best place. You found her just in time. She’s very lucky”

              “But surely, if she hasn’t taken enough to do any permanent damage to her organs, then she hasn’t taken enough to kill herself?”

              “It’s a little more complicated than that. If Eve hadn’t been found then the tablets would have completely dissolved into her system, which could have been fatal. We have managed to pump quite a lot out of her stomach. Now we have to let her body do the rest. She’s being monitored.”

              “Can we see her?”

              “The nurses are just getting her settled into a side room on the Sandringham ward. Give them a few minutes and then you should be able to go and see her. Only for a few minutes though, she’s very weak.”

              The doctor nodded reassuringly, smiled and left the room.

              “They never seem to answer the bloody question.” Grace frowned.

              “Sounded pretty clear to me. She’s very bloody lucky.”

              “Let’s hope she sees it that way when she comes round.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN                                                            

              Chrissie had been lying awake for quite some time. She was watching the sun come up through her bedroom window. It was slowly lighting up her garden and giving it a warm glow.

              Strangely, she’d had the best night’s sleep since she’d lived in the cottage. After the shock of the news from her mother and all the pieces she’d linked together, she’d thought that would have caused her to have a very bumpy journey through the night. But it was quite the opposite and she felt very calm. It was as if by solving part of the mystery, her mind could relax. Like she’d let go of something.

              Everywhere felt calm. Chrissie knew it hadn’t stopped there. That there would be another part to the puzzle she would have to solve. She promised herself that from now on she wouldn’t rule out any possibilities, however outrageous they were or however much she didn’t want them to hold any truth. She’d done that over the regression therapy and Sarah had turned out to be right.

              Since the session and her mother telling her what had happened, the memory had become clearer in her head. Little bits and pieces were coming back to her, mainly about that particular holiday, rather than anything to do with the actual incident. Most of what she remembered was of it being very dark and that she’d felt absolutely petrified.

              A thought hit Chrissie like an electric shock. Something her mother had said replayed in her head.

              “You just said you thought it was a man and he smelt funny…”

              What smell?

              Chrissie ran downstairs to call her mother. It was some time before Sylvia answered the phone and Chrissie wondered if she was still in bed.

              “You’re up and about early, darling. Are you alright?”

              “What smell did I say he had?”

              “Sorry?”

              “You said yesterday that I thought it was a man who snatched me and he smelt funny. Did I say what smell?”

              “Oh, yes. Umm…let me think…it was something herbal, but I can’t remember what. It was such a long time ago. Darling, I hope you’re not torturing yourself with all this?”

              “No Mum. I just need to work something out. Was it Fisherman’s Friend?”

              “That rings a bell. It might have been. Why is it so important?”

              “My therapy session brought up the memory of a smell and it’s been bugging me. It was Fisherman’s Friend.”

              “Oh. Well. Do you feel better now?”

              “I do now I know what it is. I’m just not sure I know what it means.”

              “Probably nothing, darling, I’m sure there are hundreds of people who ate and smelt of those sweets. You must remember that you were very young at the time and memories get muddled. Now go and do something nice with your day and try not to dwell on it.”

              Chrissie had decided not to tell her mother about what had happened in the garden. It would only worry them. They wouldn’t think it was someone with a message from beyond the grave. They’d think it was some psycho stalking her. They’d only talk her into phoning the police, or worse still, call them themselves.

              Chrissie’s mind rested on this thought. Having dismissed the regression therapy theory that it was a childhood memory and not a past life, maybe she shouldn’t ignore this either. After all, Sarah and Grace had suggested it might not be a paranormal message.

              A really disturbing thought entered her mind. If it was the serial killer who had snatched her, was he still in the village, and had he recognised her? Had all the paranormal activities been a clever trick in order for him to frighten her? She plonked herself down on the sofa after turning on the television. She needed some background noise, some attachment with the real world to drown out the eerie atmosphere that was descending on the house again.

She went through all the people she’d met since she’d arrived in the village. Then she went back over the paranormal activity. Some of it couldn’t have been orchestrated. But then, when she thought about it, some of it could have. Did someone know about the paranormal activity and think it’d be funny to frighten her further?

              For some reason Chrissie’s mind kept picturing Grace’s kitchen, a clear vision in her head. Grace and her husband Tim were the only people who knew about the incidents, unless they’d told someone else about it, which was doubtful.