there was blood everywhere.
Sandy screamed. She felt her knees give way and she fell down on the floor in a sort of stupid kneeling position. She strove to recover herself, got up and ran. She pelted down the stairs and out of the kitchen door. The rain hit her in the face, smelling of the river and the reeds and the sea. It stopped her, like a reprimand. Grow up! A policewoman! Do your duty.
She stood trembling, breathing heavily. In the mud of the garden path at her feet, something gleamed. She picked it up. It was an old red penknife which she recognized – Duncan’s, which he used for cutting the baler twine on the straw. She put it in her pocket. Duncan did it, she thought. Duncan wouldn’t.
And then, because she had to, she went back. She climbed the stairs, breathing heavily like old Gertie herself, and forced herself to look at the old woman on the floor. She saw straightaway that she wasn’t dead. Her face was bluish, but a snoring breath was flaring her nostrils at regular intervals. The blood came from the side of her head, but her skull wasn’t bashed in or anything dreadful. There was a cut over her temple but the blood wasn’t flowing any more but sort of hanging in congealing lumps through her mangy hair. Ugh! Sandy felt her gorge rise. She burst into tears and ran downstairs and out into the rain. She ran down the hill so fast she almost fell, shouting, ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ like an infant child.
Her father was coming up from the marsh meadows in the tractor, having taken feed down to the cattle. Sandy screamed at him.
‘It’s Gertie! Gertie’s had an accident!’
‘Get up here!’
He opened the door. She scrambled in and he roared up the lane to the house.
‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s lying unconscious – her head’s all bleeding. Someone’s hit her!’
‘Hit her? More likely she just fell. Who’d hit her, for goodness sake?’
Why did she think someone had hit Gertie? Because Duncan had been there. Duncan had hit her.
‘We’ll get the police. And the ambulance.’
For a slow-moving man, Bill Fielding moved fast when motivated. He went indoors to the phone and Sandy followed him, shivering. Then her mother ran out and said, ‘Sandy, are you all right? Darling!’ She put her arms round her in a brief hug and gave her a sharp look.
‘I’ll have to go up there. But you stay here. Make yourself some strong sweet tea – you know, like the books say!’ and she was gone.
Sandy went indoors and it was very quiet. She felt stone cold and went and wedged herself against the Aga. The breakfast things were still on the table. Ian would be mad at missing the excitement! Serve him right! She had been noble, her caring nature going to look, and she had saved Gertie’s life. Or might have. Her mother wouldn’t have gone up till lunchtime, by which time Gertie was bound to have died. How long had she been lying there? Since last night, or had it happened early in the morning? What a tough old bird!
She dithered about for a bit, then cleared the breakfast things and put the kettle on. She was all shaky and her mind kept shooting about. She couldn’t think straight about anything.
Her mother came back in about an hour. She had a policeman with her.
‘He just wants to ask you a few questions, Sandy, about how you found her. The ambulance has taken her away and they think she’ll be all right.’
The policeman was young and friendly. He sat at the table and Mary Fielding made more tea, and Sandy explained how she had gone in, just to say hello, and found Gertie in her bedroom.
‘You didn’t touch her at all? You didn’t move anything?’
‘No. I just screamed and ran.’
‘Was the back door open or shut? How did you get in?’
‘It was open. But she often leaves it open, even in the winter, for the cat. She gets up early. I wasn’t surprised it was open.’
She remembered Duncan’s penknife lying on the path. She wouldn’t mention it.
‘Did someone do it? Or did
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