The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit) by Gyland Henriette

Author:Gyland, Henriette [Gyland, Henriette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: contemporary fiction, contemporary thriller, Fiction
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2013-06-09T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Head whirring, Helen trundled after Charlie. On their way out they ran into the security guy, another one of Charlie’s slaves, and Charlie said something that made him laugh. Listening to their banter, Helen wished she could just get on with everyone like Charlie did. There had to be a special knack to it.

A dark car was parked across the road, on a double yellow line. Someone was inside having a cigarette, a thin grey line of smoke escaping from the open window and rising straight up in the evening air. It looked like the same sort of car as the one she’d seen outside Jason’s house on the night of her uncle’s party, and although it probably wasn’t, she couldn’t prevent a tight feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘I might go and see Jim,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s back home now.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I wanna say hello to Jim.’ Charlie twirled one of her matted dreadlocks around her finger. ‘He gets a bit grumpy, being cooped up with only his mum fussing over him.’

‘Sure.’

‘Are you okay about us not going back on the train together?’

A strange noise buzzed in Helen’s ears, and she found it hard to take in what Charlie was saying. ‘Yeah. No problem. I’m absolutely fine.’

‘You don’t sound fine.’

‘I am.’ She forced a smile. ‘Off you go. By the way, I think Jim likes you.’

Charlie grinned. ‘Jim’s all right, I suppose.’

‘Yeah, he is.’

Charlie dashed in the opposite direction to catch a bus, and Helen headed for the tube station. When she crossed Berkeley Square, under the shade of the trees, she noticed that the dark car was following the road around the park. At the end the driver stopped as if waiting for her, revving the engine aggressively, and suddenly sped off towards Piccadilly.

Staring after it, she took it as a warning. The only problem was, she didn’t know against what.

Her feet took her to Aggie’s house. On the path in front of the house she stumbled across a soft bundle, picked it up and saw it was a cardigan. She checked the pockets for identity of the owner, but found only a sterile plastic wrapper with a syringe and an unopened sachet of antiseptic wipe.

‘You dropped this,’ she said to the loathsome Mrs Sanders when she let her in, this time without protest.

‘Not mine,’ said the nurse and disappeared down the hall. Helen checked the grandfather clock. EastEnders was about to start. So much for the around-the-clock care her grandmother needed and presumably paid a lot of money for.

‘Well, what am I supposed to do with it?’ she muttered. She held the cardigan up in front of her and caught the faint scent of lemon verbena. Ruth’s perfume. Perhaps Ruth was helping Aggie with her insulin injections?

None of my business.

Aggie was asleep in her hospital-like bed. Helen dropped Ruth’s cardigan on a chair, pulled the curtains back and opened the window to banish the familiar stuffiness in the room. Aggie stirred lightly but didn’t wake, and she drew up a chair and sat down by her grandmother’s bedside.

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