The Tulip Girl (33 page)

‘Will you be able to take these to the station this evening?’ she asked Nick when he joined her in the greenhouse.

‘Sure you don’t want to ask Steven?’

She glanced at him but he was grinning at her and she smiled back. ‘He was only trying to help and we were a bit pushed that day, Nick.’

‘I know. And you’re right.’ He came and stood close to her and, to her surprise, he put his arm around her shoulders. For a moment, she stiffened under his touch. It was what
Michael used to do and the memory hurt. Then she relaxed, relieved that Nick seemed prepared to accept outside help now and again.

Softly, so that Frank would not hear, for they were in the greenhouse attached to the house wall and both Frank and Harriet were only on the other side of the living-room window, Maddie said,
‘We’ll have to have some help come April. This year there’ll be more to cope with than even the three of us can manage. And that’s if Frank’s fully
recovered.’

‘Oh, he’ll be fine by then,’ Nick said airily. ‘But you’re right. And to be honest, I’d sooner it was Jenny and Steven than complete strangers.’

There was silence between them for a moment, but still Nick did not remove his arm. ‘Maddie,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve been thinking that perhaps I should still go to see
Michael. Like the doctor said.’

She looked at him, their faces close together. ‘Why? He’s so much better now. I – I don’t think his life’s in danger now.’ When Nick made no reply, she added,
‘Do you?’

He sighed before answering. ‘I really don’t know what to think. I just wondered if – if the hospital have found something that they’re not telling us about.’

‘They’d tell me, wouldn’t they? As his wife?’

‘You’re very young, Maddie. Maybe they wouldn’t tell you. Or me.’

‘What about your mother then?’

She felt him shrug. ‘She’s not his next of kin. Besides, she didn’t even go to visit him in hospital, did she? Actually, that did surprise me, you know. I thought she would
have made the effort for Mr Frank.’

‘But you think . . .’ Maddie said slowly, beginning to see the reason behind his suggestion. ‘That they would tell his son? They would tell Michael?’

‘Yes, I do.’

She was thoughtful for some moments, though her hands were still busy picking the flowers. As she moved to reach over, Nick’s arm fell away from her shoulders. His action had surprised her
and although his touch had not really bothered her, when his arm was removed, she felt relieved.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said at last. ‘Maybe you should see him again and at least tell him everything that’s happened. I suppose . . .’ The words were
difficult to say. ‘It’s only fair.’

‘It’s more than he deserves,’ Nick muttered. ‘But I’m thinking of Mr Frank more than – him.’

‘Me too,’ Maddie murmured, but in her heart she knew that was not strictly the truth.

There was no way that they could keep the reason for Nick’s absence for two days a secret from Frank and although he objected at first, Maddie could see that his protests
were only half-hearted.

‘Now don’t you go sleeping in station waiting rooms again. It’s too cold this time of year,’ his mother insisted, ladening him up with food parcels, not only for Michael
this time but enough to sustain Nick for two days, too.

‘No, I won’t. I’ll find somewhere I promise. No more, Mam,’ he held up his hand as she tried to stuff yet another parcel into his rucksack. ‘I’m biking to the
station. I really can’t carry another thing.’

Maddie walked with him to the gate. ‘Tell him everything, Nick, won’t you?’

‘Don’t worry, Maddie. I’ll sort it out.’

And he was gone, wobbling down the road on his bicycle and whistling cheerfully.

That evening as Maddie was undressing Adam in front of the warm glow from the range, without warning the lights went.

Harriet, in the kitchen making cocoa, gave a cry of alarm. ‘Oh, the milk! I can’t see – wait a minute, there’s a torch in the table drawer.’

Maddie sitting perfectly still until her eyes became accustomed to the dim light cast by the fire, heard Harriet scrabbling about. ‘It’s all right,’ came her voice again.
‘I’ve found the torch.’

Maddie finished undressing Adam and waited until Harriet came into the room, the light from the torch wavering in front of her.

‘Will you be all right if I take the torch? I must go and see what’s happened.’

‘Don’t you go out there. Mr Frank wouldn’t want you anywhere near his battery house.’

‘Mrs Trowbridge, I can’t leave it. The pump will stop and the greenhouses will go cold. I’ll go up and see Frank.’

Carrying Adam against her left hip, Maddie took the torch and climbed the stairs. Frank was in bed and, because he had already put out the light, he was unaware of any problem.

‘Frank, I’m sorry to wake you . . .’

‘Mm . . .?’ came his sleepy voice. ‘What is it, love?’

‘The lights have all gone out. What do I do? Isn’t there a lever in the battery house that I just put up a notch?’

‘Don’t you go in there, Maddie. Let me go.’ He pushed back the bedclothes and began to get out of the bed.

‘I can manage it, if you just tell me what to do.’

‘No, no. I don’t want you going in the battery house and besides,’ he smiled at the child in her arms, ‘that little chap is dropping to sleep in your arms. You put him to
bed. I’ll go and see to things out there. I can’t understand it, though,’ he added as he pulled on his trousers over his pyjamas and tapped his pocket to make sure he had his
keys. He slipped his arms into his dressing gown and thrust his feet into his slippers. ‘Nick had the engine running only yesterday. I can’t think what’s happened.’

He paused only to light the candle in its pink holder that always stood on the bedroom mantelpiece and then he took the torch from her hands. ‘Can you manage with that light to put him to
bed?’

‘Yes, but . . .’ He was moving quite strongly out of the bedroom. Maddie, torn between going with Frank, and seeing to her child, said, ‘Are you sure you’re all right,
Frank?’

‘Yes, yes, love. You see to Adam, bless him.’ He came back and planted a kiss on the sleepy little boy’s head. Then he looked at Maddie, his brown eyes twinkling, his cheeks,
though a little thinner just lately, creasing into such a loving, caring smile, that she smiled back at him. Their glance held for a long moment before Frank turned away and headed for the
stairs.

‘The lights have come back on,’ Harriet greeted Maddie a little time later when at last she came downstairs. Adam, though tired, had taken a long time to settle.
‘But Mr Frank’s not come back in.’

Maddie stared at her. ‘Not come back in,’ she repeated stupidly. ‘But I thought when the lights came on again, he’d be back in. I just thought he’d stayed down here
to have a hot drink . . .’ Her voice faded away.

‘He shouldn’t have gone out there in the cold. Couldn’t you have done it?’

‘He wouldn’t let me. But I’d better go out and see what’s happening. Listen out for Adam if he starts to cry, won’t you?’

Harriet’s face positively beamed. ‘Of course I will.’ And though Maddie knew that Harriet would probably find an excuse to climb the stairs and bend over the cot, crooning
softly to ‘her little man’, she had no choice but to go out to Frank.

Whatever could be wrong that was keeping him out in the cold battery house so long?

Maddie ran to the barn at the side of the house and pulled open the door. Thankfully, he had not closed it behind him, locking her out, for Maddie had no other key. Only Frank, and now Nick, had
keys to the battery house. ‘Frank, Frank, where are you?’

His torch lay on the floor casting an eerie beam of light . . .

Maddie’s scream echoed around the rafters and a bird, perching in the eaves, flew off in fright. Frank was lying on the floor directly beneath the control panel, his mouth agape, his eyes
wide and staring and she knew without even touching him that he was dead.

‘Well, it looks like accidental death to me,’ Dr Hanson said. ‘It looks as if he’s reached up to the panel and then fallen backwards and hit his head on
this.’ He pointed to the sharp corner of the concrete plinth on which stood the engine and the generator. ‘Of course, he might even have had a heart attack. There’ll have to be a
post-mortem and an inquest, Maddie, but it should be quite straightforward.’ He looked up at the police constable standing solemnly in the doorway, notebook in hand. ‘You
agree?’

‘Well, yes, but I was just looking at his hand, doctor. Looks odd to me. Do you think there could be a fault on that there thing?’ Constable Parsons nodded towards the brown knob on
the control panel.

‘Well, get it checked, if you’re not happy.’

The constable made a note in his book. ‘Sad though, ain’t it? I always thought what a clever chap Frank was to generate his own electricity.’ Sorrowfully, he looked down at the
twisted form lying on the ground. ‘Shame if it turns out that’s what’s killed him.’

Maddie turned away and saw Harriet standing in the doorway. Woodenly, the housekeeper moved towards them, staring straight ahead, past Maddie, past the policeman. She stepped into the battery
house and knelt down beside Frank. She leaned over him and stroked his forehead, a low, keening sound coming from her throat.

From her apron pocket, she took a pair of scissors and, reverently, she cut a lock of his hair and held it in the palm of her hand. Then she straightened up and walked out of the barn without
speaking to, or even glancing at, anyone.

PC Parsons closed the door and checked that it was locked. ‘I’ll get Frank moved for you, love. We don’t want to think of him lying there all night, but after that, you
mustn’t come back in here and you mustn’t let anyone else come in here either until I’ve had an expert check that there control panel. I just want to be sure what’s happened
here.’

‘Of course,’ Maddie nodded. ‘Nick’s away and neither me nor Mrs Trowbridge want to go back in there.’ A sob caught at her throat and she stumbled away.

The following afternoon, as darkness closed in around the farm, Maddie stood at the gate, huddled in her warmest coat, yet still shivering, though more from the shock and the
dreadful night and day she had just lived through than from the cold.

She heard him whistling first even before she saw the dim, wavering light of his bicycle lamp coming towards her. She wanted to run towards him, but her legs would not move and she was still
standing there, like a statue, when he spotted her almost at the last minute. He wrenched on his brakes and the wheels slithered on the loose gravel as Nick brought the bike to a standstill.

Before she could speak, he said, ‘Michael won’t come. I told him how – how serious it is, but . . .’ His glance at Maddie was apologetic. ‘I did try, Maddie.
Honestly, I did.’

‘It’s too late,’ she said bluntly. ‘Frank’s dead.’

She was sorry she had broken the news so abruptly when she saw, even through the dark, Nick’s face turn white and his lips part in a horrified gasp. He gulped before he stuttered, ‘B
– but he seemed so much better. He . . .’

‘It wasn’t the sickness. He’s been killed. There was an accident. In the battery house. We don’t quite know what happened . . .’ Her voice trailed away and unshed
tears filled her throat.

‘Me Mam?’ Nick asked hoarsely. ‘How is she? Is she all right?’

‘She’s taking it very badly. She’s sat at the kitchen table all day just staring into space.’

‘Why aren’t you with her, then? What are you doing out here?’

‘I – I had to come out. Adam’s in bed asleep and I came out to the greenhouse . . .’

‘Oh aye. You’d still have to carry on working, wouldn’t you, Maddie? Nothing’s as important as your blasted tulips, is it? They still have to be picked, even on the day
poor Mr Frank’s died.’

He pushed hard down on the pedals and rode into the yard, leaving Maddie standing by the gate, staring after him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Nick the following morning. ‘I didn’t mean to sound unfeeling. It’s my way of dealing with it. To work hard. Keep
busy. It’s the only way I can cope. I’m going to miss him dreadfully. I owe him a lot.’

‘You owe him everything,’ Nick was not about to let her off lightly. ‘Where would you be without him, eh? Out on the streets. You and the kid, both. That’s
where.’

For once, Maddie stifled the sharp retort that sprang to her lips. She did not say the words ‘And by the sound of it, but for him, that’s where you and your mam would have been
an’ all.’ Instead, she said gently, ‘You’re right. But we all say things when we’re upset.’ She waited for him to apologize for what he had said, but Nick was
silent.

Maddie sighed. ‘I must get changed and go into town. To the hospital to – to collect his things. That’s where they took him,’ she added, explaining. She waited again,
this time for him to say ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ But once more, Nick said nothing, only nodded.

Maddie squared her shoulders. Very well, she thought. I’ll go on my own. In fact, I won’t even ask them to look after the baby. I’ll take Adam to Jenny and Mrs Grange.

A little later, as she was manoeuvring the pram out of the back door, Nick came to the kitchen door. ‘You haven’t talked the funeral arrangements over with me Mam. Don’t you
think you should?’

As the pram bounced over the threshold, Maddie looked back at him briefly. ‘Of course I shall, but I can’t do anything yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’ll be a post-mortem and an inquest.’

The horrified look on his face startled her. His voice was a strangulated whisper as he asked, ‘A post-mortem? What on earth for?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘It’s usual in sudden deaths.’

‘But – but they know what killed him. You said the doctor said so himself.’ There was a strange desperation in his tone. ‘Why can’t the doctor just sign the death
certificate?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘Maybe he will. I don’t know.’

‘They shouldn’t be cutting poor old Frank about now. Why can’t they let him rest in peace?’

The vivid picture of her husband’s body being mutilated, however sensitively it was done, disturbed her, but to cover it she said brusquely, ‘It’ll hardly hurt him now, will
it?’