Dixie hoped the Fiat would do as well as the Metro she'd learned to enjoy. It seemed like a nice little car. She liked the dark green, but the dashboard had a dozen unfamiliar switches. She'd have to read the manual to figure it out. Oh well, it was only for the weekend. She'd have the Metro back by Tuesday.

She was bent down, trying to figure out which way to fit the key into the ignition, when the blast came. Sheltered as she was behind a seven-foot wall, she missed the core of the explosion.

"Stanley!" she screamed, wrenching open the door and rus.h.i.+ng toward the gate, the acrid, gray smoke billowing over the ivy- covered wall. She never reached the gate. A stray fragment of hot metal struck her on the temple and she fell backwards.

Chapter Eleven.

Whirling dervishes spun and droned in her head. Light faded and brightened in shaky waves. Something warm and damp trickled down the side of her face. She could smell her own blood and something else. That smell came in wafts that choked.

An arm curled around her shoulders. Someone called her name repeatedly.

Dixie opened her eyes only to shut them again. It felt better that way. But she'd recognized the face bent over her. "Emma, why are you here? It's dangerous."

"Alright now, love," said a deep masculine voice. "Here put another blanket round you. We'll get you in the ambulance in a minute."

"No." It hurt to crease her forehead, but she couldn't help frowning. She couldn't remember why, but she knew she couldn't go to a hospital. "I'll be okay." She struggled to sit up.

"We'll see about that," the voice replied from the shadows. "You took a nasty bash on the head." A hand came into her line of vision and wiped something damp and soothing over the spot that hurt the most. "You'll need st.i.tches there."

She'd had more st.i.tches in the last week than in her entire life. Must be the company she kept! She started to giggle, shaking and sobbing as Emma's arm tightened around her.

Previous Top NextMale hands shook her. Not too gently. "Come on now, no need for that!" A more distant voice said, "Someone needs to fix her some tea."

"I've got tea," Dixie said, feeling like she was talking to the air. "I made a pot just before Stanley came."

"I'll make you a nice, fresh one," Emma said.

Two burly ambulance men hoisted Dixie up in a fireman's seat and carried her round to the lane. It seemed half the police force of the county was milling around her house as yet another police car pulled up, blue lights flas.h.i.+ng and siren wailing. As they pa.s.sed the iron gates, Dixie saw two blue-uniformed policemen bailing out blue and white tape around a twisted, metal heap.

But what made her stomach clench and roil was a b.l.o.o.d.y hand in the rose bush.

They deposited her in the rocking chair by the stove and wrapped blankets around her. When she protested, one of them insisted, "You need the warmth. Sooner or later you'll go into shock." He looked up. "Now, where's that tea?"

Dixie wrapped her hands around a still-steaming mug. She took a sip. "Please, Emma, no sugar. I thought you knew that."

"You need it," she replied. "I don't know why, but you always have sweetened tea for shock. If you want to argue, take it up with my mother."

Feeling shakier than ever, Dixie sipped the hot brew. A tear rolled down the side of her nose. As she brushed it away, she slopped tea on to her hand. She barely felt the burn. Would she ever feel anything again? "Stanley's dead, isn't he? He has to be."

Everyone treated the question as rhetorical. The sound of someone vomiting in the bathroom by the back door was enough confirmation. She shut her eyes, held the cup close to warm her chest as well as her hands, and tried to piece together the events of the past few minutes.

"If she's in there, I need a word with her."

Dixie's eyes snapped open at the familiar voice. "Sergeant Wyatt?"

"Morning, Miss LePage. Wondered if you could tell us what happened." He rested his hip against the table and looked down at her. "Nasty business. Wouldn't know anything about it would you?"

"I know a nice, harmless, kind man is in pieces in my front yard. Isn't it your job to find out why?"

"We plan to, Miss LePage. We plan to."

"When you do, I hope you lock him up in The Tower for twenty years."

"We'll put Fred in Pentonville when we get him. You can help by telling us what you remember. Inspector Jones will be along soon... What is it?" He turned as a uniformed constable coughed at his elbow.

"Someone here who insists on coming in. Thought you'd better talk to him, sir."

"Can't you cope with reporters, Mason? We'll offer them a press release soon."

"It's not a reporter. It's..."

"I'm a doctor and I believe you need my services."

"Justin!" Dixie stood up, grabbing the arm of the chair for support as the room swayed around her."Sit down," Justin said. "I'll take care of things."

Justin wasn't Christopher, but under the circ.u.mstances, he was the next best thing. He'd make sure they didn't haul her off to the hospital.

"Excuse me, but who might you be, sir?" Wyatt asked with plastic politeness.

"I'm Dr. Corvus, Dr. Justin Corvus. I'm a friend of Miss LePage's."

"Very convenient, arriving like this."

Dixie suppressed a grin as Wyatt seemed to shrink a couple of inches under Justin's gaze. "Actually, I'm afraid I was rather tardy. But now I'm here..."

"Yes, sir, you're here and that's very nice for both of you. But I need to speak to Miss LePage."

"First, she needs medical attention." Justin deposited a large, black leather bag on the kitchen table. "As you can see, Sergeant, she needs st.i.tches. Let me take care of her and I'm sure she'll be ready by the time your inspector arrives."

Wyatt withdrew and Justin took rolled packets and small, plastic cases out of his bag. "I'll manage," he said with a nod to the two ambulance men. There wasn't much they could say to that.

As the door closed behind them, Justin turned to Emma, who was standing by the sink, looking as if he'd need Semtex to move her.

"I'm Dixie's friend," she said. "I heard the explosion and dialed 999. She never mentioned your coming."

"It's okay, Emma, really it is." Emma looked unconvinced. "What about your kids?"

"Lord! They're probably wrecking the house."

"Go take care of them."

It didn't take much urging.

The door had barely closed behind her when Justin said, "I think I'd better st.i.tch you up before the next visitor arrives." He unrolled his instruments on the scrubbed pine table. "Sit on a firm chair. I'd just as soon you didn't rock as I put in the sutures."

She moved to one of the pine Windsor chairs as he scrubbed up in the kitchen sink.

"Alright, my dear, lean back." She brushed her hair away and closed her eyes as he swabbed cold liquid over the cut. She caught her breath as the local anesthetic stung, but relaxed as the numbness set in. "Justin, we've got to stop meeting like this,"

she said, as much to cheer herself as anything else.

"Must be the company you keep."

"I came to England for a break, for a few weeks in the peace and quiet of a nice, English village." She felt the pressure of the first st.i.tch. "Well, if nothing else, it hasn't been boring."

The thread pulled but didn't hurt. She tried to relax. She didn't have much luck. "Nice is not the word to describe Bringham, after what they did to Kit," Justin said as his wrist moved and pulled another suture.

"There's more. Much more..." She felt lightheaded, and the effort of talking overwhelmed her. "Later," said Justin as he snipped the last thread. "You can tell me later. The police need to talk to you." He placed gauze over the wound and dabbed with a long cotton stick. She should be used to this by now.

There was a knock at the door and a strong voice called, "Miss LePage? It's Inspector Jones." Jones strolled in with the air of a conquering hero. He must get a charge out of death and destruction. "We meet again, Miss LePage." He sat down without waiting to be invited.

"Unfortunately, yes, Inspector." He could take that any way he wanted, but she forced herself to breathe deeply and hide her irritation. This man was her best chance of justice for Christopher and Vernon and Stanley.

"Got yourself taken care of, I see." Jones looked Justin over. "And you are?"

"Dr. Justin Corvus." Jones nodded. "Dixie needed medical attention. A flying fragment. Fortunately, I was here."

"Very fortunate, I'd say," Inspector Jones said. "Not a local pract.i.tioner, are you, Dr. Corvus?"

"No, I have a small practice in London and an interest in Havering Clinic in Yorks.h.i.+re." That was news to Dixie, but then she knew precious little about him.

"Very nice for you, I'm sure. But right now I need to talk to your patient."

Justin turned his eyes to Dixie's. Dark eyes that had seen the rise and fall of several empires filled her with calm and confidence.

"Not too many questions, Inspector," Justin said. "She's suffered a severe shock."

Justin left, closing the door to the dining room behind him, and Dixie was alone with Inspector Jones, the man who believed Christopher was a murderer.

"Dr. Corvus staying here, Miss LePage? Very convenient."

"He came down this morning. Just after the..." She paused. "The..." She gave up. What could she call it?

"The detonation," Jones supplied.

She nodded. "What really happened?"

"How about you tell me, Miss LePage."

It wasn't that much, but she told him-everything from Stanley's knock on the door until the arrival of Justin. Jones listened carefully, making notes as she went.

"When did you agree to exchange cars for the weekend?"

"Back when I first rented it. He had a prior booking and someone wanted this particular car this weekend."

"Anyone else know about this?"

"I don't think so."

"When did you last drive the car?"

"Yesterday. No, Wednesday."

He scribbled on his pad. "Where do you keep it?""In the drive. Exactly where it was when..."

"Quite," he said, frowning a little. "And you were in the house all day yesterday and never took the car out?"

"I didn't take it out but I was gone yesterday."

His eyebrows shot up like black caterpillars. "Gone?"

"I went into Guildford with some friends. We had lunch and went shopping." It was a lifetime ago. Stanley's life ago.

"Friends. I see. Their phone numbers?" He wrote them down. "So you went out, left the car parked here all afternoon, behind a seven-foot wall, next to an empty house." He made it sound like vehicular neglect.

"Inspector, forgive my impatience, but poor Stanley Collins is blown to bits. Why not find out who b.o.o.by-trapped my car?"

"Don't worry, we will. Once our bomb boys get on the job, we'll know."

A cold chunk jammed in her throat. "You have a.s.sa.s.sins and terrorists wandering around and you know who they are?"

"Not exactly. If we did, they'd be in maximum security. But there aren't that many people who do this sort of work, and they all have their own touch. They can match remains up with other jobs. We may not know who he is, but we'll know what else he's done. Sooner or later we'll find him and pin the record on him. It takes time, but we'll get him."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Inspector Jones leaned over her chair. "We'll get him or her. Must be PC these days." He paused. "Just one last question, Miss LePage. Who wants to kill you?"

Dixie gasped. Had he said that to shock her? If so, it worked. "All I thought about was the noise and the light and the smoke, and the fact that poor Stanley was dead. It never occurred to me it was supposed to have been me."

"Why not? Someone placed an explosive device in your car, parked outside your house, with every expectation that you'd be the one to turn the key. Who do you think they were after? The Queen Mother?" He paused. "I'll repeat my question. Who wants to kill you?"

She shook her head, as much to clear the confusion inside as to deny something she couldn't say. "I don't know." She had to say more. Much more-enough to satisfy him. "I just don't know. There have been odd things. The break-ins I reported to Sergeant Grace." She looked up and met his steel-dark eyes. He nodded. "They stopped when I moved in. I put on new locks.

Good ones. Then the trouble up at Dial Cottage. And Vernon."

"Yes, the nasty business at Dial Cottage You knew Mr Marlowe very well, I gather?"

That was her fault She'd opened her big mouth "I met him We spent some time together We became friends."

Jones said nothing, just waited Wasn't this an interrogation technique? To say nothing and wait until the suspect spilled her guts?