‘You did kill him, I know you did. Iknow...’
‘Duck, Derek!’ screamed Todd as the security men grabbed her from behind. Arms flailing, Maggie pulled the trigger and three bullets ricocheted off the flats at the side of the stage.
‘Okay, okay, lady.’ One of the guards wrestled with her until he had the gun in his possession. ‘We’ll take her and lock her up until the police arrive.’
‘God, oh, God.’ Derek was crouching on the floor, head in his hands.
Todd knelt next to Helen. He felt for a pulse. ‘Someone better call an ambulance and fast. Lulu, come and stay with her until it arrives.’ He moved to Derek. ‘You okay, mate?’
Derek knew he needed to remain as calm as possible. ‘Yeah, yeah, sure.’
‘Look, I don’t know what the hell she was talking about, but there’s a billion people waiting to see our ugly mugs out there. The show must go on, as they say. Can you make it?’
Derek looked up at Todd and smiled weakly. He had no choice. Act. Normal.
‘Sure.’
56
Helen opened her eyes and felt the heaviness of her body. Even turning her head was an effort.
She appeared to be in a hospital ward. A numbness in her leg signalled that she had some sort of injury. She stress-tested her other joints and found to her relief that she could move everything else.
Looking up at the drip entering her arm, she wondered how she could attract a nurse’s attention.
Ten minutes later, the door to the room opened. ‘Sleeping Beauty has awoken.’ The matronly nurse checked the drip.
‘What’s happened to me?’
‘You had an operation to remove a bullet from your left thigh. The anaesthetic has made you drowsy, that’s all. You were awake when you came in here, carrying on about Peggy and...Desmond or someone. Anyway, you’re going to be fine. By tomorrow you should be off the drip and onto food, so I’ll leave you a dinner-choice card to fill in when you feel like it. Your friend’s still here. I’ll let her know you’ve woken up.’
The nurse bustled out.
Helen wondered who she meant by ‘friend’. By her reckoning she didn’t have any.
‘Hello, how are you?’
Lulu was pale and make-up-less.
‘I don’t know really. Is everyone else okay?’
‘Yes. It was a close-run thing, though. They reckon she would have killed Derek if you hadn’t done your heroic dive. How did you get on to her?’
Helen sighed. ‘It’s a long, long story.’
‘Well, everyone wants to hear it. We’ve pieced some of it together ourselves of course. Maggie was your secretary at the time, which meant she had access to your gun and could move around the building with ease. We think that she must have mistaken Con for Derek that day in the studio.’
‘Con was wearing Derek’s cardigan and he was in the studio Derek was meant to be using. I always knew it wasn’t Sorcha the murderer was after. It turns out it wasn’t Con either,’ sighed Helen.
‘Yeah, well, as I said, when you’re feeling a bit stronger, perhaps you can go through it slowly for us idiots who are slow on the uptake. I tell you one thing, Helen, you’re off the hook now. She confessed last night to shooting Sorcha, even if it was a mistake. Seventeen years for something you didn’t do. God, you must be bitter.’
Helen bit her lip as tears came to her eyes.
‘Of course I am. But I’m also relieved that it’s over at last.’
‘We’re all feeling devastated that we thought it was you. I hope you’ll be able to forgive us.’
Helen nodded. ‘How was last night?’
