The Summer Without You (29 page)

‘I’m saying that I don’t think whoever took the money actually wanted the money. I think they took it either hoping to frame me for it or, at the very least, make me look
incompetent slash suspicious – delete as appropriate.’ She shrugged. ‘Either way, my reputation’s shattered.’

‘But surely the police were able to discount you as a suspect early on?’

‘Transparently, yes. The authorities were able to establish pretty quickly that I don’t have it in any of my accounts, unless of course I’m secretly some technological
mastermind capable of siphoning money through hundreds of offshore accounts.’ She smiled. ‘And given my callouts to my IT support company for help with my email account, I don’t
think that’s an avenue they’re actively exploring.’

‘So then you’re saying that someone took the money to discredit you?’

‘Exactly.’

There was a long pause as Ro digested the hypothesis. Frankly, it seemed almost egoistic on Florence’s part to believe that someone would go to such lengths to smear her, that they would
steal $3 million and not even
want
it.

‘I know it sounds far-fetched, but it’s—’

The sudden scraping of a chair being pushed back made Florence stop, sitting straighter in her chair as she looked across at the people sitting nearby. A middle-aged couple were standing up, a
newspaper rolled under his arm, sunglasses on the top of her head.

‘You were saying,’ Ro prompted, looking back at Florence again.

But Florence just shook her head. ‘No, I’m being a blabbermouth, forgetting myself. I’m too indiscreet sometimes,’ she said, shutting the conversation down as though
remembering where they were. ‘This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation, but . . .’ She patted Ro’s hand. ‘I do appreciate your loyalty, Ro.’

Ro felt disappointed that she had to let the matter drop. Florence’s theories were almost more dramatic than the actual crimes. ‘Well, I think you and I got the measure of each other
very quickly, Florence.’ Ro shrugged lightly.

Florence looked touched as she reached down for the cardboard tube. ‘Anyway, on to some fun business,’ she said brightly, pulling out the poster and pinning it flat at the corners
with the saucers and plates.

‘Ace!’ Ro gasped, taking in the lustrous quality of the finished product, which her printout hadn’t been able to achieve. Ro looked at Ella’s image – her
blacked-out silhouette telling nothing more than that she was going to be tall, and her hand around her brother’s revealing that she was kind. It was strange seeing her again, now that Ro had
been privy to such seminal, intimate moments in her life. Ro smiled at the recollection of Ted engaged in the tug-of-war with the pug over the kite, her grandparents’ pride as they took turns
holding her, her beloved pink pig, Binky. Did she still have it?

‘Hey! Lady!’

The sudden shout made Ro look up, just as she saw a man advancing towards her, his face twisted in a vicious sneer. He was wearing jeans and a blue hoodie – the hood pulled up, his arms up
in the air like he’d thrown out a sheet across a bed. Ro saw something coming towards her. She couldn’t work out what it was: there was no time. She was just up and out of her seat,
blocking Florence from the impact of whatever was coming.

She screamed as, in the next second, her skin stung like it had been ripped from her face and arms at once. Florence screamed too, rising from her chair, trying to support Ro as she toppled back
against the table, coffees and muffins crashing to the floor, making more noise, more mess, more heat.

Ro felt like her skin was on fire, taut and raw. Someone grabbed a tablecloth from the neighbouring table and ran at her again. She blanched, unable to react in time, paralyzed now. She heard a
man shout, ‘Get this off quickly!’ and felt hands rip her T-shirt away like it was made of paper, the tablecloth pressed against her scalded skin.

‘Soak another one in cold water! Get it out here now!’ the man demanded, sending the waitress running out to the kitchen.

Ro began to shake as the shock set in. What had happened? Her skin felt scorched and tight, several sizes too small.

‘Oh my God, how could this happen? Who would do this?’ Florence was crying, the manager’s arms around her as everyone clamoured for a better look, some people taking photos on
their phones.

‘We’ve called 911,’ a waitress said.

‘Did anyone see his face? Do you have CCTV?’ the man demanded. He still had his arms around Ro, holding the tablecloth to her.

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ The waitress shook her head.

‘For Chrissakes,’ the man muttered furiously. ‘It’s OK, Ro, we’ll find out who did this.’

He knew her name? Ro looked up and saw that she was in Ted Connor’s arms. Again.

Ro stepped out of the cool bath, shivering, wrapping herself carefully in the pima cotton dressing gown that someone had just happened to have bought from the Monogram Shop
over the road and generously given her as a cover-up. The cotton felt good against her vulnerable skin, and she could tell just from the feel of it that it would have been expensive. The kindness
of strangers. They weren’t all bad, then?

She felt the tears flow again and sat on the edge of the bath, letting them fall. Her hand, forearms and neck had been worst affected, her face mainly protected – bar a few drops –
by her instinct to raise her arms. Thankfully, Florence hadn’t been hurt at all. The situation would have been even worse if it had been her thinner, more fragile skin that had been
scalded.

The paramedics had said she’d been lucky – she had mainly first-degree burns, apart from on her arms, which had second-degree severity and would probably blister within the next few
days. She didn’t feel lucky. A stranger with a coffee pot? Wrong time, wrong place. Bloody unlucky.

Ted Connor had driven her and Florence back to Hump’s house, Florence increasingly agitated by what had passed and Ro’s injuries. They were downstairs now, Hump trying to soothe the
older woman with cups of camomile tea and Rescue Remedy as he’d ordered Ro into the deep, cold bath he’d drawn for her. The shock on
his
face as he’d opened the door to
them had almost been one of the worst things.

She wiped her eyes and opened the bathroom door, pausing to listen for noises downstairs. Hump’s voice drifted to her ear and she could tell from his tone he was calming Florence down,
fully back in the doctor mode he’d walked away from, apparently without a backward glance.

She walked lightly over the landing to her bedroom, dodging the creaky boards – she knew where they all were now – not wanting to alert them that she’d got out of the bath. It
was Matt she wanted to speak to, Matt she wanted to comfort her. Much as she loved Hump, only Matt could make her feel better.

She walked straight over to the laptop set up on the pine chest of drawers and pressed the Skype button, waiting for the distinctive bubbly underwater-sound dial tone to fill the room. She held
her breath, staring at his Skype ID picture on the screen, as it rang. She needed him desperately now. More than she’d ever needed him. He had to be there. He had to be. Pick up.

Pick up.

Pick up.

Pick up!

PICK UP!

‘Dammit, Matt, where are you?’ she screamed, kicking at the chest of drawers furiously as the line disconnected, all her pent-up rage and frustration and fear tumbling over each
other in a tangled ball that left her breathless and exhausted. ‘I need you! Where the
fuck
are you? You can’t not be here. You can’t!’ she cried, her hands balled
into fists, tears streaming down her face as she leaned on her forearms – forgetting – before crying out from the pressure against the burns. ‘Ow! OW!
Bastard!
’ she
railed, sinking to the floor in dejection, sobbing.

‘Rowena.’ The voice was quiet, so quiet she hardly registered it over her sobs and the sound of blood rushing in torrents through her head. She felt so unbelievably angry, as though
the heat in her skin was boiling her blood, and she realized she was pounding the floor with her fists.

It was only the soft touch of skin on hers that made her stop. She looked at the hand closed gently round her wrist and knew she had seen it before. On the film . . . She opened her eyes. Ted
Connor was kneeling beside her, his head dipped beneath hers, trying to get her to look at him. His face as close to hers now as it had been on the screen last night as he’d leaned in for the
kiss.

The shock of the visual echo stunned her into stillness. ‘Hey,’ he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips, his voice so quiet she was forced into silence to hear him. She watched his
eyes travelling over her face and knew she must look hideous – as red and blotchy from crying as the rest of her was from the scald.

He blinked. ‘Let’s get you into bed. You need to rest.’

He helped her stand, his arms supporting her as she walked to the bed. For some reason, her legs couldn’t stop shaking and she felt as boneless as jelly. She got to the side of it and
hesitated. She was nude beneath the robe.

‘I’ll turn round while you . . .’ he said quietly, turning his back to her.

Quickly, she slipped off the robe and slid between the sheets. They felt cool against her skin, which felt like it was trapping fire beneath the dermis.

‘OK,’ she croaked, holding the sheet close to her neck, still shivering slightly, paradoxically.

He turned back, handing her a white caplet and the glass of water from the table. ‘Painkiller. Hump says to take these regularly, every four hours, OK?’

She leaned up on her elbow, swallowing the pill like an obedient child as her body began to realize it was spent – Matt’s absence the proverbial last straw on today. Ted took the
glass from her, and she lay back on the pillow, silent tears streaming from the outer corners of her eyes, forcing them shut.

Occasional hiccups punctuated the silence, but she was too far removed from herself to care about little indignities today.

‘I’ll let you sleep,’ Ted murmured after a moment, intruding into her oblivion, and she realized she’d already forgotten he was there. Sleep was claiming her fast, as
adrenalin gave way to a smothering exhaustion.

‘Don’t go. Not yet,’ she mumbled, and she turned her hand so that her fingers caught his. ‘Please stay, just a little longer.’ She felt sleep rolling up from her
feet, making her body heavy, drowsy, even her mind just filling with a tempting empty blackness. She felt him hesitate, then relax, felt the weight of his body dropping onto the side of the
mattress.

‘I’m so tired of being alone,’ she murmured, almost incoherent now, barely aware of his hand lightly stroking the back of hers.

She couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t trust her own ears when her body was so fugged with pain and fright and shock. But she thought she heard him say two words as she dropped into the
chasm she so desperately craved. ‘Me too.’

‘You made the wrong call, Hump.’

Hump, who was applying a bandage to her left forearm – the blisters had burst, as predicted, and were prone to infection – raised a querying eyebrow.

‘I’m serious. You must have been a brilliant doctor.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Too many rules and regs.’

She watched him closely as he expertly wrapped her arm, keeping it clean and protected from invisible but omnipresent bacteria, which he treated with a sombre respect, knowing he would change it
again tomorrow and the day after that. Tension infused his face, his happy-go-lucky grin but a distant memory these past two days. Since the attack, he had hovered over her with a concern
she’d have expected for 90 per cent burns, not 15 per cent. He had delegated his shifts among his other drivers for the rest of the week and wouldn’t let her off the sofa, much less out
of the house.

‘
Rules and regs?
Hump, no one walks away from God-knows-how-many years of post-graduate study and the thousands of pounds – I mean, dollars – it would have cost because
of
rules and regs
.’

His eyes flickered to hers quickly and back down again. ‘I’m just not suited to it. It’s a personality thing.’

‘But what about the people? You’re so good with people. I mean, the way you’re looking after me—’

‘You’re my friend. You get special treatment. Anyone else?’ He pulled a face. ‘I’d just let the arm rot.’

Ro laughed, not fooled. ‘Everyone loves you. Think how much nicer it would be for people to be given bad news by you rather than someone like . . . I dunno—’

‘Ted Connor?’

Ro stopped in surprise. ‘Don’t say that,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘He was really kind.’

‘Yeah, he was. Quite the revelation,’ Hump said quietly, his eyes meeting hers briefly as though she was supposed to say something back. ‘So I take it you’re friends now,
then?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I hardly know the man.’

‘Well now, we both know that’s not true,’ Hump replied, alluding to her almost constant watching of the Connors’ home videos as she lay on the sofa, a notebook beside her
covered in scrawls of timings, dates and scenes. ‘Sometimes I think I’m living with a spy.’

‘It’s my job, Hump,’ Ro spluttered, laughing in spite of herself. ‘He’s paying me to watch them! Besides, what else have I got to do when you’re forcing me to
rest all week? I need to keep on top of things. It’s ridiculous – I’ve gone from famine to feast in just over a week and I can hardly keep up with all the enquiries coming
in.’

Whether it was the ad in the hardware store, her cards in the galleries or, most probably, her overnight, highly dubious fame after being splashed on the front pages of the local newspapers,
which had featured some of her work, to show what a talented, hard-working victim she was, suddenly people were stopping by the studio every day and Hump was run ragged trying to deal with her
business (as he enforced her absence), as well as his.

She put her head to the side and smiled sweetly. ‘Surely I can just pop by the studio with you while you make your calls later?’

‘Out of the question,’ Hump said shortly, straightening up and putting away the first-aid kit.