Knightley and Son (9781619631540) (3 page)

She did not notice Knightley behind her, now gesturing wildly with both hands, his tubes getting crossed, straining at their moorings. As she slammed the door behind her, Knightley sat bolt upright in bed and managed to get the word out all at once.

“The Combination!” he said, sounding strangely surprised.

He opened his eyes—or tried to. His left eyelid was sealed shut, giving a sort of pirate impression, the eyelashes bound together by hundreds of hours of sleep. He rubbed them impatiently then both eyes opened, looking alarmed, taking in their surroundings.

“What . . . ?” He inspected the tubes running from his arms and chest. Without thinking, he quickly tore them out. “Ouch!!” he screamed, and looked around to see if anyone had heard him, but apparently no one had. The ECG machine was flashing an error, but as yet no one seemed to have noticed.

He tried to move but found more tubes under the sheets, rooting him in place. He winced as he disconnected them, then smiled, relieved, and managed to swing his legs out of bed. His toes touched the cold linoleum and flinched slightly. Unperturbed, he adjusted his gown, pressed his soles to the floor, and took his first steps.

Knightley’s knees buckled and he fell flat on his face. He breathed slowly, performing a series of mental diagnostics on his body. His hands were functioning, his arms were passable, but his legs were basically useless. There was adequate feeling, but no muscle mass.

He reached out for the foot of the dresser and used it to drag himself along the floor, creating a deafening squeaking noise of bare skin against linoleum. His features settled into a look of grim determination as he reached the dresser and then stretched out his hand to find purchase on a wall socket. He continued traversing the room like a rock climber, only he was climbing across the floor.

In a nearby corridor, the nurse’s pager beeped again. She looked down at it, annoyed. Then a much louder beeping echoed through the whole building. She could not ignore this sound, because it was the alarm. She took off down the corridor at a brisk clip, turned the corner, and was confronted by something so inexplicable that it momentarily took her breath. The door to Alan Knightley’s room was hanging ajar. She had not left it that way. She raced toward it, breaking into a sprint.

She burst into the room to find the bed empty, tubes discarded on the floor, a puddle of intravenous liquid gathering under the bed. The nurse stood gaping as the doctor burst through the door behind her.

“What happened? Where is he?!” The doctor gripped the nurse’s arm, breaking her trance.

“I don’t know . . . ,” she responded.

In another wing of the hospice, Knightley staggered bowlegged down a corridor, his limbs barely supporting his body. At the end of the corridor, a walker stood discarded outside a recreation room, and Knightley grabbed hold of the handlebars. With a lurch, he accelerated down another corridor, wheels rattling.

He reached a staircase and paused, his legs wobbling uncontrollably. He heard voices from the bottom of the stairs.

“He’s not in his room? Well, he’s not down here.”

The voices were getting closer. Knightley saw a private room on his right and ducked inside. An elderly male patient reclining in the bed looked up from behind an oxygen mask.

“And how are we doing today, Mr. . . . ?” Knightley cleared his throat and glanced at the man’s clipboard. “Jones?”

Mr. Jones looked up at him, alarmed: this was most certainly
not
his doctor. He moaned loudly, trying to alert the nurses. Knightley spotted a pair of slippers by the bed.

“Mind if I borrow these?” he asked.

The patient groaned in complaint.

“Thanks.” Knightley put them on and opened the window behind the bed. With some difficulty he used both hands to lift his leg onto the mattress, stepped over Mr. Jones, and slid himself onto the window ledge.

Outside, a strong wind gusted through the trees, lifting Knightley’s gown, which he held firmly in place. He stupidly looked down, seeing the manicured lawns and hedges some twenty feet below. He shivered, feeling goose bumps popping up over his entire body. He willed his slippered feet to inch along the ledge toward a rusted fire escape at the corner of the building. His feet shuffled obediently as the wind kept blowing, ruffling his hair.

He reached the fire escape, swung his legs over the railing, and awkwardly backed down the ladder toward a row of flower beds.

Floodlights flicked on across the grounds. The doctor and several nurses ran out of the main entrance, scanning the area.

“Mr. Knightley! Mr. Knightley, come back!”

At the edge of the lawn, just beyond the large circles of electric light, a white shape disappeared into a hedge.

Knightley careened headlong through the undergrowth, tearing his gown. The heavens opened up, drenching him in heavy rain. Undaunted, he swung himself over a perimeter fence and found himself on a dimly lit road. He stumbled along the grassy shoulder toward a row of neon lamps in the distance.

Chapter 3

The Case of the Scratched Quarter Panel

Clive pressed his face against the misted windshield, peering through the fog as they drove home from the spelling bee. Jackie, Darkus’s mom, fiddled with the heating controls. She was still attractive, even under a layer of sensible woolens, with her hair in a more conservative style than she wore in her younger days.

“I can’t get the defroster to work,” she complained softly.

“The climate control in this thing is pretty much non-existent,” Clive muttered.

“In your review you called it ‘absolutely spectacular,’” said Darkus from the backseat, attempting light conversation.

“That was TV; this is reality. Big difference,” replied Clive. “Besides, they gave us a deal on
this
!” he said, gesturing dismissively at the car.

“Well, it’s lucky you’ve got your new jacket,” Jackie reminded him. “That’ll keep out the cold.”

“It’ll keep out a nuclear winter,” remarked Tilly from beside Darkus, then returned to staring sullenly into the soupy darkness.

Clive glanced at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “Well, if I wanted fashion advice, Tilly, you wouldn’t be the first person I’d ask, that is unless I was going to a funer—”

“Clive,” Jackie interrupted him.

“Sorry, love.” He guided the station wagon into a turn.

Tilly smiled privately, shook her head, and continued watching the trees go by. Her dad would feel worse about that last comment than she would.

Darkus considered giving her a sympathetic glance, then thought better of it. He and his stepsister kept a safe distance; it was easier that way.

They emerged from the mist onto a quiet residential street, signposted Wolseley Close, and pulled up to a neat, detached mock-Tudor house. A large Jaguar coupe took up one side of the driveway.

Clive turned off the car, and Tilly was first up the path and into the house, using her own keys. Jackie gave Clive a look, and he returned his customary shrug. They continued up the driveway after her with Darkus in tow, until Clive came to an abrupt halt.

“I don’t
believe
it . . .” Clive froze, then crouched down like a Neanderthal, approaching the Jaguar almost on all fours. He peered over at the neighboring house, whose yard was adjacent to theirs. “That son of a—”

“Clive,” Jackie interrupted him.

“Well, look!” He gesticulated toward the back of the car.

A thin silver line defiled the perfect midnight-blue paint of the Jaguar’s rear quarter panel.

Clive stared at the scratch in a stunned trance. “It must’ve been the bins. He’s always moving those ruddy bins around.” He took out his cell phone and marched after Jackie into the house, angrily dialing a number.

Darkus watched him go, then returned to the scene. He knelt down by the Jaguar and examined the scratch, slowly running his finger over it. Then he glanced at the grass around the edge of the driveway. Satisfied that he’d observed everything he needed to, he walked into the house and closed the front door behind him.

Clive was striding around the kitchen on the phone while Jackie stood patiently by the teakettle.

“He’s not picking up. Typical.” Clive waved the phone in the air, awaiting an acknowledgment from Jackie, who instead set about making tea.

“Well, we’ve all had a difficult day,” she said, nodding at Darkus, who had appeared from the other room and sat down at the kitchen table. “Jam sandwich, sweetie?” she asked him.

“Yes-yes. Triangles, not squares,” Darkus answered automatically, nodded appreciatively, and sat silent for a moment. Then he added, as if in passing, “Er, Clive?”

“Yes . . . ?” he hissed impatiently.

“I think you’ll find it wasn’t him,” Darkus stated frankly, then turned his attention to the cup of tea his mom had just set before him. He sipped it and raised his eyebrows. “Perfect, thank you.”

“What do you
mean
, it wasn’t
him
?” Clive demanded.

“It wasn’t Mr. Hanson, or his bins.”

“Jackie, tell the boy to speak English, for crying out loud.” Jackie and Clive watched Darkus, awaiting an explanation. “Well . . . ?” Clive implored.

“Judging by the slightly deeper incision on the right side, the scratch moved from right to left, indicating that the perpetrator was moving in the direction of the house. That fact discounts the possibility of the bins being the weapon, as Mr. Hanson’s bins are still in the road and haven’t been brought in yet.”

Clive gaped at Darkus, astounded. Behind him, Jackie carefully applied jam to four pieces of buttered white bread, sandwiched them together, and cut them into triangles.

Darkus watched her do this, took another sip of tea, then continued. “I also noted only one set of footprints on that side of the car, and they’re consistent with a casual loafer, not the more formal shape of Mr. Hanson’s business shoe.”

Darkus refreshed himself once more with some tea before carrying on.

“Finally, I observed that the scratch was uniformly level at three feet from the ground. So I conclude that the only possibility is that
you
were in fact the culprit, Clive—by accident or misadventure, of course. And I will hazard a guess that if you measure the position of the zipper on your fashionable new coat, in all probability you will find it’s approximately three feet from the ground.”

Clive looked down at the oversized zipper on his jacket—which was positioned exactly as described­—then erupted: “That’s it! I’ve had it with this detective stuff—”

“Clive, control yourself,” Jackie admonished.

Darkus selected a jam sandwich and took a bite, nodding his satisfaction. “Excellent.”

“You’d better be careful he doesn’t turn out like his father!” Clive warned. “I mean, he
talks
like Alan, he
dresses
like Alan. And look what happened to
him
. . .”

Jackie set down her cup of tea in protest.

“I think I’ll retire to my room,” said Darkus politely.

“Me too,” said Jackie, glaring at Clive before following her son upstairs.

Darkus’s bedroom was simple and well appointed. A heavy oak desk faced the window, with a comfortable office chair drawn up to it. Beyond the window was a view of the street and a single lamppost. Against the bedroom wall were a series of bookshelves and a filing cabinet, overshadowing a twin bed. No posters were in evidence—only a whiteboard neatly arranged with handwritten Post-its.

Darkus entered his room, placed a coaster on the desk, and set his cup of tea on it. Jackie watched him, concerned, closing the door behind them.

“Sweetie,” she said.

“Yes, Mom?”

“Clive . . . ,” she began, “well, he just never understood your father. For that matter, neither did I. Alan’s . . . complicated.”

“He’s not crazy,” Darkus responded.

“Sweetie, your dad saw the world differently from the rest of us. He looked at things more closely than the rest of us. He often mistook fantasy for reality. That’s why it didn’t make sense to live together anymore.”

“He’ll prove you all wrong when he wakes up.”

“The doctors don’t know when that’ll be,” Jackie explained gently, “or if he’ll even remember anything from before his . . . ,” she chose her words carefully, “from before his episode.”

“I know what they said,” Darkus replied, “but they’re wrong,” he stated without anxiety.

Jackie sat on the bed, facing him. “Look, I know you miss your dad, and, believe it or not, sometimes so do I.” Darkus looked up hopefully for a moment, until Jackie qualified her last statement. “Not enough to ever consider turning back the clock, obviously.”

Darkus frowned and sipped his tea.

“And Tilly misses her mom . . . ,” Jackie continued, “and she’ll
never
get her back.” Darkus nodded solemnly. “We may not be perfect, sweetie, but we’re still a family,” she concluded, “and Clive and me are doing the best we can to make it a happy one.”