Waking Broken (2 page)

Monday, 11.48am:

Elsewhere, normality continued. The unfolding of a lone personal drama, potential tragedy for those concerned but unremarkable in a wider context, failed to stop the world from turning.

In the newspaper offices where Danny Harper worked, the morning went on without pause. Reporters sat at phones and keyboards, creating that day’s mix of slurs, rebuttals and tirades. Relayed to sub-editors: the copy was tweaked, tightened or padded. Next it would be slotted into the spaces between the adverts on the pages being laid out for the first edition. Pictures were cropped, headlines composed and paragraphs shuffled: all part of the daily jigsaw puzzle known as the news.

As his colleagues continued their work without any inkling life was about to change, Harper’s eyes met those of the oncoming driver. It was that freeze-frame moment, the point where disaster is inevitable but milliseconds from happening. Horror, fear and resignation in two touching gazes.

Then, hiatus over, time wound back up. It reached its normal speed and sprinted beyond. It kept accelerating: events happening too fast to comprehend.

Action. Reaction. Impact.

In the flat Harper called home it was quiet. Bedroom, lounge and kitchen were still. The only disturbance came from the dining room. At exactly that same moment when metal and plastic made contact with flesh and bone, as lacquer and paint met skin and sinew, a tulip petal fell from a wilting stem. Too long severed from its parent bulb, too long sat on a sunny windowsill: the flower’s days of beauty were over. Twisting slightly, the lemon yellow petal lost its grip and dropped to the varnished wooden floor below.

Elsewhere, while Danny Harper’s body flew through the air, his fiancée leant back in her chair and picked up the phone. Content in life and work, she was untroubled by thoughts of calamity or catastrophe. After one last sip of coffee, she punched in a number and relaxed, getting ready to steal half an hour of company time for a chat with her mother.

Spinning from the force of the impact, Harper’s body turned a couple of times in mid-air, his legs and arms whirling in graceless spirals as it flew. His mind was still absorbing the force of the impact: no time or capacity to register the messages coming from his eyes. A continuing screech of metal and abrupt howl of rubber on tarmac went equally disregarded.

Then, slam. His body hit.

In the flat, a mouse trotted out from behind a broken cupboard and strolled towards the front door. It sat for a moment cleaning its whiskers then looked around, weighing up its options.

At the newspaper office, the news editor glanced at a rota, checking names against the date, wondering where Harper had got to this time.

Sunlight streamed in through the plate glass windows. The building had felt cold first thing but as the day went on the temperature in the offices lining the third floor of Westcote House had risen steadily.

Rebecca Shah leant back. She sighed. A quick click of the mouse and it was gone. Problem sorted. Job done.

She looked around. On the other side of the office, Sarah Young caught the movement and looked up. Their eyes met. Sarah’s look flicked sideways and Rebecca nodded. She stood up and moved away from her desk, heading towards the corridor that led to the ladies toilets.

The corridor was even warmer than the main office. Sandwiched between thick glass and white-painted walls, the air was starting to bake. Rebecca stopped halfway along the passage and looked down. Below, the cobbled riverfront walkway that ran along the back of the office building was in full sunshine. But there were few pedestrians about and those who had braved the elements moved quickly, tugging collars up against the sharp wind.

Rebecca turned. She was about to move on along the corridor when the door behind her opened and Sarah came through. Her friend hurried up. Sarah had been late getting to the office and there had been no opportunity to talk during the morning.

Sarah grinned eagerly. ‘Well? How was it? What was he like? When are you seeing him again?’

Rebecca raised her hands. ‘Woah! One question at a time.’

Sarah pursed her lips and flapped a hand. ‘Come on. I need to know.’

Rebecca smiled. ‘Truth is there’s not much to tell.’

‘Huh? What do you mean?’

‘I just emailed him. Politely.’

‘Oaaw, no!’ Sarah’s face fell. ‘I thought he sounded really good. Nice guy. Good looks, good job — and a lovely car.’

Rebecca laughed. ‘Yeah, the car was definitely a plus. He was halfway there before he even started. I was already imagining romantic weekends away. You know, touring the West Country with the top down, checking into secluded little country house hotels, that sort of thing.’

‘So?’

Rebecca smiled wryly. ‘He still lives with his mum.’

Sarah shrugged noncommittally. ‘Doesn’t have to be a bad thing.’

‘She still makes his sandwiches for him every day. Puts his tea on the table.’

‘Oh.’

‘Makes his bed for him too.’

‘No!’

‘Oh yes.’ Rebecca paused, then laughed. ‘I reckon if we did go off for weekends away we’d have his mum sitting in the back with us.’

Sarah giggled.

‘On the other hand,’ Rebecca frowned, ‘perhaps she’d be in the front seat and I’d be on the luggage shelf.’

Sarah made a vain attempt to stop herself from smiling.

‘That’s a shame. I really, really had high hopes for this one. But tell me more. How did the evening go? When did you start to realise?’

She took Rebecca’s arm. ‘You’ve got to fill me in on all the details.

Rebecca glanced over her shoulder at the office door. It was nearly midday.

‘Tell you what, we’ll go out for lunch. There’s a new Mexican opened along Cecil Street I want to try. The paper said they’re doing a lunchtime special. We’ll get out at one and go there.’

There were still a few minutes to go before one o’clock when the phone on Rebecca’s desk rang. She grimaced when she saw who the call was from.

‘Hello?’

‘Can you pop up, Rebecca.’

She caught Sarah’s eye as she stood up, pulled a face and tilted her head towards the stairs leading up to the top floor. Rebecca held up her hands and spread her fingers.

‘Ten past,’ she mouthed.

Sarah pouted and shrugged in resignation.

At the top of the stairs, Rebecca straightened her shoulders and put on her best blank expression. She approached Claire Hamilton’s expansive desk with a professional smile. ‘Hello, Claire. How can I help?’

‘Take a seat, dear.’ A beringed hand waved graciously at the sumptuous leather armchair off to the right.

Rebecca carefully ignored the armchair and perched herself on the edge of an office chair that sat between two barren bookshelves. She loathed the leather chair. It looked luxurious but sucked the unwitting down into a clammy, unpleasant embrace.

Everyone in the office had experienced the blob at some stage. All hated it equally. The armchair looked innocent, welcoming even. Most people, the first time they were invited, fell into its trap. They thought themselves privileged to be invited into the top domain, seated next to the boss. But then, as the blob collapsed beneath them and they sank into its clutches, the mistake would dawn on them. Once in, they were trapped, caught in a position from which it was hard to escape with any semblance of grace. And, once imprisoned in that soggy leather blancmange, with no choice but to look up into Hamilton’s nostrils.

Rebecca smiled down at her miniscule employer as she quickly raked through her memories in search of oversights: work not delivered on time, possible errors of judgement or other misdemeanours.

‘Is there something I can do for you, Claire?’

‘Yes, dear, there is.’ The vermilion lips curled. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve got a little something that will be right up your street.’

Hamilton flicked her fingers at a red folder.

‘I’ve got a client who needs some help from us. He’s not normally someone I’d pass on to you Rebecca. I think you lack the experience and… shall we say social background for this particular individual. Given who it is, I would deal with him personally but maybe, given the circumstances of the brief, you might have particular skills relevant to his needs.’

Rebecca nodded, expressionless. ‘Is that so?’

The bird-like creature behind the sweep of desk fluttered her eyes coyly. ‘Yes, I think it is. This could be the opportunity for you to show us what you are capable of Rebecca. I’d like you to have a good look at this outline and come back with some detailed proposals for how you, on behalf of the Hamilton Agency, can meet the requirements of this particular client. Your suggestions would, of course, take into account the particular sensitivities involved.’

Hamilton smiled at Rebecca with the maximum wattage used on staff and flicked again at the red folder.

‘I would suggest you take this away somewhere quiet and read it through carefully. Make sure you appreciate all the details. I would like to see a full analysis of the brief and some detailed proposals of how you suggest the Hamilton Agency should present this to the client. Keep your response to a dozen pages.’

Rebecca stood up and reached over for the folder. ‘Okay. I’ll start looking through it this afternoon.’

Hamilton nodded, her tight helmet of blonde ringlets moving in unison with the rest of her head. ‘Yes, you should. If you think you could manage it, Rebecca…’

Rebecca gave a quick smile. ‘Oh yes, that’s alright Claire, the other projects I’m working on aren’t urgent. I can make time for this today…’ Her voice died away as she realised Hamilton had not finished her sentence.

The smile was a touch more wintry this time. ‘Yes, Rebecca, I’m sure you will. If you make sure your response is on my desk before… say, four o’clock this afternoon. Would that be alright?’

It was nearly one-thirty before Rebecca had a chance to speak to Sarah again. They met in the corridor.

‘I guess lunch is off,’ said Sarah.

Rebecca sighed. ‘I’m sorry. She just sprung it on me. You know what she’s like and I could hardly say no. Things have been a bit dodgy here with me after that business back in the autumn. I don’t want to risk pissing off
la belle dame
too. Once she gets her knife out you might as well forget it and leave.’

She shrugged. ‘Besides, it might be a good project anyway. Sounds quite interesting.’

‘Really.’ Sarah’s eyebrows rose sarcastically. ‘An interesting client? I didn’t know we had any of them.’

‘Well, he does sound a bit different from most of them.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Someone called Paul Cash. He’s an artist, bit eccentric by the sound of it.’

‘Paul Cash?’ Sarah’s eyes opened wide and she giggled. ‘Paul Cash? You’ve not heard of him before? The Lord of the Manor?’

Rebecca looked blank for a moment then gave a little gasp. ‘Him? That’s Paul Cash?’

She looked at Sarah and smiled. ‘I hadn’t put two and two together. This could be more interesting than I thought.’

Rebecca turned and stared at the view. On the other side of the river, they could see the old Pine Mill Warehouses, blank windows gaping out of dirty stonework. Beyond were a few streets of houses and then countryside stretching away towards the Whitelow Hills. The distant fields still shone in the bright winter sunshine. Further off to the left the horizon was broken by the swell of Beacon Ridge.

A pained expression crossed Rebecca’s face and she frowned. Out of nowhere, a strange sensation cut across her mood: a darkness that crept across her soul. Biting her lip, she glanced down at the river. It was full at the moment: the tide in and covering its muddy banks. Small waves were being whipped up on the water’s surface by the brisk wind and Rebecca stared at them uncertainly. She shivered abruptly, feeling slightly nauseous.

Sarah laughed.

‘What’s that? You can’t be cold?’

Rebecca shook her head, feeling slightly disorientated.

‘No… just a strange feeling. Kind of… like you know, when they say there’s someone walking over your grave. Weird.’

Sarah nodded. ‘Geese.’

‘Geese?’

‘Yes, like goosebumps. That shiver down your spine. Geese.’

Rebecca frowned at her friend, normality returning as the eerie sensation faded. ‘What are you on about? Geese? Where did you learn that one?’

Monday, 6.20pm:

Harper aimed for the large pillar. On reaching its reassuring bulk, he let his body slump against the concrete tube. He closed his eyes, waiting for the queasiness to subside.

Around him, the usual humdrum emergencies of a busy hospital continued. Medical staff, visitors and patients eddied and flowed past Harper’s temporary anchorage, faces reflecting different states of mind: anxious, fearful, exhausted, calm, careless, detached. To either side of the entrance smokers huddled together, enduring the cold for the sake of a few more lungfuls of soothing poison.

Harper took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. The giddiness had faded. He still felt awful but much happier: being upright, outside and on the move was far better than stuck inside on a bed. The hospital had advised against going home, wanting to keep him in for observation. They did, however, concede — somewhat grudgingly — that they had no power to keep him. Despite a bad limp in his left leg and a mass of bruises elsewhere, there was nothing apparent to endanger his life.

‘You were lucky,’ said one nurse, her tone suggesting he had cheated in some way. ‘You must have a skull like a rhino.’

Now he was outside, Harper felt more like his head was made of tissue paper and cobwebs. However, he had no intention of going back to confess.

He looked around, frowning. His memory was blurry and concentration tricky. Small objectives like walking were manageable but trying to cast his mind further seemed impossible. If he tried, his thoughts seemed to go off into a grey soup. It was disconcerting. Little unseen thoughts whispered at the back of his mind. He had a sensation of something out of place but was unable to focus on it enough to work out what was bothering him.

Harper swallowed. The best thing was to get on. Give his head time to calm down on its own. The impact was sure to have shaken a few connections. But, importantly, nothing was broken.

He tugged his denim jacket tighter as a gust of wind whipped around a parked ambulance. As he did so, Harper scowled at the tatty old garment. It was familiar enough but not right. His bike’s disappearance was upsetting. But he could sort that out another day. The thing with his clothes, though, was bizarre.

He had arrived at the hospital by ambulance. He was unconscious when they picked him up but already starting to wake as they unloaded him onto a trolley and wheeled him into casualty. As he came to, Harper was unable to remember anything of the day leading up to that point. All he had was a vague memory of going to bed the previous night. Then waking on a hospital trolley.

To begin with, he was too woozy to worry about why he was being taken into hospital. Watching the lights swimming overhead, he realised it was an odd way to start the day but puzzling over it seemed troublesome. Only later, as he lay there waiting to see a doctor, did the fog start to recede.

His memory gradually returned: getting up early, taking out his bike and cycling out of the city. He remembered seeing trees, riding somewhere cold but sunny, enjoying himself: feeling good. After that, it was still all a bit uncertain.

He asked about his bike while discharging himself but the nurse did not appear to know anything about it. ‘I was told you were crossing the road when you were hit,’ she said.

At the time, Harper had not wanted to argue. It seemed more important to get out of hospital. Showing confusion might have increased their reluctance to let him go. Besides, he was thinking clearly enough to know he was in no fit state to ride home.

Much more puzzling though were his clothes. The sketchy images produced by his mind showed him dressed in his usual riding gear. But that wasn’t what he found himself wearing in hospital.

It only began to sink in as he limped out through the main foyer and checked to see if he had enough money to pay for a taxi. Going through his clothes, he found his empty wallet in one pocket and less than three pounds in change in another. At that point, he started getting really confused. He more or less recognised the clothes: some faded jeans, an
Africa Calling
T-shirt, a fleece top bought years ago in the Lake District, as well as an ancient denim jacket he barely remembered. On his feet he had an old pair of trainers.

His clothes, sure enough, but nothing he would wear for cycling. He did not even realise he still owned the jacket. Which made it doubly strange. He calculated he was at the hospital for five or six hours at the most. He was also convinced he had been more or less conscious since his arrival. So the clothes on his body must be the same ones he was wearing when the paramedics picked him up off the road.

Besides which, it was not as if he had been in overnight and Becca had brought in a change of clothes. Harper shivered. They would hardly have changed his clothes in the ambulance. And where could they have found them? And why an old jacket that must have been lurking at the bottom of a suitcase?

By the time he reached the junction where Quay Hill met the top of the High Street, Harper was getting steadier on his feet. The limp still slowed him down though.

It was well past six in the evening now but the city centre was still humming. Most of the shoppers were gone. Now it was office workers thronging the streets: some on their way home, others off in search of refreshment or entertainment.

There were more people around than cars but as Harper limped over the pedestrian crossing at the junction, a black BMW swerved around the corner and into the High Street without pausing. Harper swore as he stumbled out of the way and the polished paintwork brushed his hip. Other pedestrians jumped back or jerked to a halt, some gesturing at the blatant disregard of their right-of-way and safety. But whoever was behind the tinted glass did not hesitate and the car continued without any sign the driver had even noticed the people in his path.

Harper shook his head. He was about to continue, when glancing sideways, a familiar face in the flow coming up Quay Hill caught his eye. Breathing a sigh of relief, he stopped next to a bollard and waited. He smiled as she drew nearer. One hand raised itself, ready for the embrace.

But she walked straight past, her eyes just grazing him as she turned the corner without pausing. Harper turned, confused. He stared at the back of her head, relief melting from his face. ‘Becca?’ he called.

She gave no indication of hearing him.

‘Becca!’

Still no response.

‘Rebecca!’ He bellowed her name and this time she stopped, turning to scan the street. She was wearing a big fluffy hat against the cold, her hair tucked out of sight. Her eyes flicked around in surprise, looking for the person who had hailed her.

‘Becca.’ Harper hurried towards her as fast as his limp would allow. ‘Didn’t you see me?’

The expression on Rebecca Shah’s face made him slow and he stopped a few feet away, one hand still outstretched. ‘What is it, Becca?’

She regarded him nervously. She appeared wary. Then she frowned. ‘Harper isn’t it?’ Relief washed some of the uncertainty from her face. ‘You work for Tony Wright, don’t you?’

Harper looked at her blankly. ‘What’re you on about? Work for Tony?’

He shook his head. ‘Didn’t you see me?’

Rebecca started to appear worried and a little nervous. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just didn’t recognise you.’

She bit her lip. ‘It
is
Harper, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s not bloody “Harper”! And what do you mean “recognise me”?’ Harper shook his head in angry confusion. ‘Come on, Becca. I’m not in the mood. I haven’t had a good day. I’ve just walked out of hospital; some idiot ploughed into me when I was on my bike and knocked me into a ditch. They wanted to keep me in and I’m covered with bruises.’

Rebecca backed off a little and glanced around. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you and I’m sorry if I got your name wrong. I mistook you for someone else.’

Harper held out his hands. ‘Becca, please. This isn’t funny. I just had a nasty knock and woke up in hospital. Stop acting weird.’

Rebecca began to move away more steadily. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you but it wasn’t intentional. I really don’t know what your name is. I’m sorry you had an accident but I don’t think there’s anything I can do to help.’ She shook her head. ‘My name’s not ‘Becca’ either. You must have mistaken me for someone too.’

She gave a polite smile, turned and began to walk off, glancing over her shoulder as she went. ‘I’m sorry but I really need to go.’

‘Becca!’ Harper began to limp after her, holding out his hands. ‘Stop this, Becca. Please.’

Rebecca stopped for a moment. She looked scared and unhappy in the face of his intensity and earnest entreaty. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m really sorry but I don’t think I can help. Maybe you should go back to hospital if something’s not right.’ She turned again and started to stride away.

Harper stayed in the same spot for a moment, too confused to know what to do. He was still standing when Rebecca began to run. Without thinking, he started to chase her. After only a few strides, though, he was forced to give up; the pain from his left leg and hip was too much and he could not limp fast enough to keep up.

He stopped, swaying on his left leg and grabbed a lamppost for support. He stared in bewilderment at her receding form. ‘Becca,’ he groaned. ‘What are you doing?’

Then she was gone, round a corner and out of sight. Harper clung to the lamppost, practically sobbing with frustration and worry. As he did so, he became aware of the stares, some subtle, some not, being directed his way.

One man, with dyed hair and a purplish suit far too young for his actual age, looked at Harper sympathetically. ‘Women, mate,’ he said. ‘That’s the problem. No logic in any of them.’

Harper stared for a moment. ‘Oh, piss off!’ he snapped.

The purple suit shrugged and hurried on again, soon lost in the crowd that flowed around Harper and his lamppost. He stayed clinging to its support for several minutes, trying to collect his thoughts.