A Poisoned Mind Read Online Free Page B

lipstick case with its mashed red stick. Its owner was standing close by, smiling with amazing benevolence.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Trish said. ‘I think it’s ruined.’
    ‘That’s fine. It was in a good cause.’
    ‘You must let me pay for it.’
    ‘Don’t be silly. My small contribution to saving your friend. You did very well.’
    Trish felt idiotic tears heating her eyeballs and looked away.
    ‘You did everything anyone could,’ the American woman said with deliberation, before adding more lightly: ‘But if you are going with him, you should go now.’
    Trish gestured to the paramedic who was standing by the open back door of the ambulance. He nodded. She put out
her hand. The American was wearing stiff beige suede gloves. Ignoring the blood and mess, she squeezed Trish’s hand between both of hers.
    ‘If he lives,’ she said, deliberate all over again, ‘it’ll be because you were here. He’s lucky. Stay with him now.’
    ‘I will. Thank you.’
    A moment later, Trish was pulling herself up into the ambulance. She smelled disinfectant and was surprised by the dim light and the machinery all round, with its dials and tubes, and the heaviness of the door the paramedic pulled shut on the three of them. Antony’s neck was immobilised in a yellow plastic contraption, and he was lying unconscious under a thin red blanket, strapped to a stretcher. Red to hide the blood?
    The ambulance swayed as the driver set off. The atmosphere felt strange: official, yet intimate. The paramedic sitting opposite Trish pulled out a clipboard and in a professionally kind voice she recognised from all sorts of other carers, he asked for Antony’s name and details.
    ‘He’s Antony Shelley QC, head of chambers at 1 Plough Court. He lives in Holland Park.’ Her mind began to work again, but jerkily. ‘Someone should tell his wife. She’s Liz, Elizabeth Shelley. I’ve got her phone number here.’
    ‘Does she know he’s with you?’ A hint of curiosity in his voice sharpened her dazed mind even more.
    ‘Of course. I’m a member of his chambers,’ she said, at last buttoning her long dark overcoat over her goose-pimpled skin. ‘Can I use my phone in here?’
    ‘If it’s important.’
    She phoned Liz, told her what had happened, heard her gasp and choke back a cry. Trish had to break off her attempt at reassurance to check which hospital was going to
receive Antony. Then she phoned Steve, the head clerk at Plough Court to tell him what had happened, assuring him that she’d stay with Antony until Liz got there. At last she could lie back against the fake leather of the banquette and close her eyes, cradling one aching hand in the other.
    She could still feel the squeeze of the beige suede gloves and hear the comforting American voice:
    ‘If he lives, it’ll be because you were here. He’s lucky.’
    If, she said to herself, feeling her stiff lips move. If, if, if, if, if, if …

Chapter 3
    Trish’s sleep had been disturbed by menacing dreams and restless legs and once or twice by George’s snoring. But it was the ringing phone that woke her properly just before eight on Saturday morning.
    As she reached for the receiver, she looked in the opposite direction to see George still asleep with his mouth open
    ‘Hello?’ she said quietly, cupping her hand around the receiver to keep the sound from waking him.
    ‘Trish! You don’t sound very alert this morning.’
    ‘Antony?’ Her dreams had all been of his funeral or wheelchairs and day-long operations. To hear his voice, even slurred like this, made her shiver. Odd that relief could make you feel so wobbly. ‘Antony! Fantastic to hear you. Listen, hang on while I go downstairs to the other phone.’
    She replaced the receiver as quietly as possible and slid out from under the duvet. Her dressing gown was in the wash, so she pattered downstairs in nothing but the long T-shirt she wore instead of a nightdress. Its hem barely covered the top of her thighs, but there