His eyebrows flipped up. ‘Should I be asking if there’s a catch?’
‘Not so much a catch as a few provisos. The mortgage stands at just under £20,000. I want you to pay it off. And I don’t want you ever to query what I do with my money and neither will I with yours. In other words, you get to keep nearly all your cash in your own grubby paws. Right?’
‘Right,’ he agreed, cautiously, as if looking for a catch no matter what she said about provisos.
‘And I have a new money-making scheme for you – sue Valerie. I think it’s an interesting point whether you will do this to a sibling. But I was reading in the paper about claims for damages and you’ve certainly been damaged, so I thought I’d mention it to you.’
He replied, stiffly. ‘In fact, that’s common practice. Valerie wouldn’t pay, her insurance company would. But I haven’t seen a solicitor.’ His eyes lit up suddenly. ‘In the next couple of days the nurses are going to get me used to a wheelchair and take me in to Valerie’s room. I’ll talk it over with her.’
Diane put down her sewing to give him her best school marm look. ‘Gareth, youhaveseen a solicitor because one of the nurses let it out accidentally. No doubt you were establishing what you can do to protect your fortune if I go for a divorce … hell’s bells, what’s that?’ She lunged to her feet.
The scream had been unearthly.
Gareth tried to pull himself up, glancing towards the door. ‘Is it human?’
‘It’s a woman.’ Diane frowned and cocked her head. Then she caught a familiar voice.
Quickly, she threw down her work and crossed to the door. Hesitated, hand on the chrome door plate, frowning. She opened the door a few inches; the heartbreaking wails becoming louder – and the familiar voice also.
She pushed the portal wider and darted through.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
James felt as if his insides had been turned to stone.
He held Tamzin in his arms. Not the happier Tamzin that he was daring to get used to but a gasping, keening, grey-faced Tamzin whose arms and legs jerked out of control.
Her wails of anguish, ‘No!No!No!’ were choking her. Crowing for breath, she ripped sobs out from the pit of her stomach.
James tried to hold her tightly, to keep her tipping into hysteria. ‘I’m here, Tamz.’ But her frantically pedalling legs trampled his toes and drew lines of fire down his shins.
Two nurses encouraged her back down the corridor, voices soothing. ‘Let’s get you to the relative’s room, dear. You’ll be better, there.’
It was ineffective.
Tamzin was in some private agony zone and seemed quite unable to control her pumping legs.
And then, like an answer to a prayer, Diane was racing up the corridor towards them, compassion all over her face. ‘James?’
Tamzin yanked herself free and threw herself at Diane. ‘Diane! Oh, Diane. Mummydied. Right there in front of us. She began to gasp and panic and Dad pressed the red button and people raced in and they were trying to help but she justgaspedand gasped. And then she stopped. ’ Her voice spiralled. ‘Shestopped breathing!’
Diane cradled the shuddering body, her horrified eyes seeking James’s. Dumbly, he nodded. Stroking Tamzin’s back, Diane murmured, ‘Oh, darling.’
With her other hand she reached out to James.
Helplessly, he let her arm slide around him. But the bad stuff didn’t go away. It was like the sweating, terrifying kind of nightmare when a family member is torn away by the slavering fangs of a monster. This time the monster was death and there would be no grateful awakening.
Diane helped him haul Tamzin along to the relative’s room and a doctor came and gave her something to calm her. James held her, repeating endlessly, ‘I’m here. I’m here, Tamzin.’ Eventually, she slumped, her head on his shoulder, quieting in the protective circle of his arms.
James began to shake as awful reality sank in, the images of the last few minutes hanging ghastly before his eyes. Valerie’s strange colour. The life draining from her face. She had always been so alive, so animated, her eyes alight with laughter or gleaming in scorn. But never as they were now – with no expression.
He thrust away the image of what he’d just witnessed, letting his tendency for logic and control carry him into action. ‘I must tell Natalia and Alice, and Harold. Be with them.’
Diane was seated on his other side. He could feel her hand, firm on his arm. ‘Do you want to leave Tamzin with me? You could break the news, gather everyone at your house, then I’ll bring her along. Just give me a few minutes to tell the nurses so that when Bryony comes –’ She halted, suddenly. ‘Oh, no. Gareth.’
They stared at each another bleakly. Diane grimaced. ‘I’ll have to tell him. Stay with him.’
She helped James down to the car with Tamzin sleepwalking between them, James half-carrying her. She weighed no more than a child. Diane took his keys and opened the car door and they loaded her into the front seat and fastened the seat belt.
