Page 127 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

The door opened. If only I could have locked it.

A young man came in.

“Who are you?” came out in a shout.

“Oh,” he said, a bit taken aback. “Sorry if it’s not a good time. I’m Darren, one of the police officers who was present at your interview? I’m visiting my mum, thought I’d just pop in. Couple of things.” He approached the bed and handed me a box of chocolates. “You were awesome standing up to the boss like that. Everyone’s talking about it.”

I looked back at him, not sure what the point of this was.

He went on. “And another thing… Is it all right if I…?” He pointed to a chair.

I shrugged.

He sat. “He misled you. Always does that. It’ll never get to court. You won’t have to face your attacker. She’ll be declared unfit to stand trial. Mentally, you know. I just thought you might be dreading it and should be told.”

I hadn’t been dreading it. I hadn’t even been thinking about it. But this man, this police officer, knew it all and was still treating me like a normal person. I got him to open the chocolates, and I asked about his job. Drunk and drugged people were his biggest bane. I wondered if Michelle had been on something. She’d had access to drugs. Stabbed them right into me.

“You must be really fit, being a ballet dancer?”

“Not at my best right now.”

It felt odd to be chatting with someone. Was I allowed to sit around and eat chocolates and chat? Hadn’t everything changed in the dark? The break from my new reality didn’t last long. The others soon trailed back in, and the police officer left.

“Can’t leave you alone for a minute, can we, Treadwell?” Justin’s attempt to make up for earlier awkwardness was obvious and annoying. “In a hospital bed, and you’ve still got it going on. And he was cute. Where and how? Explain.”

I explained as Michelle took off her dress on the inner screen of my mind.

“Hot fuzz, indeed,” Justin continued. “A police officer, good person to have around in a tricky spot, I’d warrant.”

“He wasn’t really,” I said. “He sat and said nothing yesterday when I was made to go over everything, and they already knew it all.”

“How are they knowing it all?” asked Aleks.

I accidentally looked at him. It didn’t worsen the vision in my head, but it didn’t feel good. He looked strained and ill and some tiny part of me, a very distant part, didn’t like that. I picked up a chocolate and studied it while speaking.

“She liked to film things,” I said. “They have her computers.”

It occurred to me that among the nightmare of questions, there was still a lot I didn’t know. So, I asked. Will sat on the end of the bed and filled in the gaps with calm and logic. He took a chocolate and held it as he spoke. It melted in his hand.

I’d been underground less than an hour. Will had somehow, and he couldn’t explain how, sensed that I was under the floor of the dungeon studio and had raised the alarm. The elevator had been immobilised. They’d climbed through the glass floor and found me. Aleks had held me up, while Will located the key for the chains in the wreckage of her table.

“I saw you,” I recalled, careful not to imagine the blood that must have featured in the events. Had Michelle looked like an evil witch, red shoes poking out from under the stone? If only she’d had stripy tights on. My laughter seemed to worry Justin and Aleks.

“You opened your eyes for a second,” Will told me. “I was glad you weren’t dead.”

“You’ve eaten all the best chocolates,” complained Justin in another mood-lightening effort. “I’m going down to the second layer. Oh, ho, ho,” he said, reading what I assumed was the guide to the confections within. “Listen to this: ‘If you ever want to talk, or anything,’ and then there’s a mobile number. Look.” He showed it around to no one’s amusement.

“Well, he must be some sort of pervert,” I said with irritation. “If he thinks… I mean, he heard it all and sees a dating opportunity? Bloody men. And women for that matter. People, bloody people and their weird messed-up heads.” Mine contained an IMAX cinema with a very limited and pornographic film schedule, but still… people!

“I’ll just keep this then, shall I?” asked Justin, pocketing the note. “What? I can’t have my own private database of perverts? It’s not illegal if it’s for personal use only, surely?”

The expected laugh didn’t come. No one else filled in for me. Will had squashed the chocolate in his hand. It oozed between his fingers.

“You need to wash your hands,” I told him, and he got up and went into the small ensuite. Great, people did what I asked. “You need to shut up,” I said to Justin. “And you need to go back to the castle.” I made myself look at Aleks, took in his bereft countenance and added automatically: “You all do. Go home and sleep, eat, relax. I’ll get a taxi back tomorrow after my final checks.”

I had more than enough to cope with without Aleks mooning around looking all sad. I needed to be on my own now. Totally on my own.

Chapter 39

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