Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness by Alison Joseph

Author:Alison Joseph [JOSEPH, ALISON]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

‘Might have known you’d pop by. Still, makes a change from t’coppers.’ Lianna was propped up on pillows, wearing fluffy pyjamas covered in pink ponies.

Agnes arranged some grapes in a bowl. ‘You look very well.’ She wore no make-up and her skin looked clear, apart from a bluish mark over one eye.

Lianna laughed, and rolled up one sleeve. Her arm was swollen, purple and yellow with bruising, marked with weals, still scarlet and raw. ‘And me ribs — it’s all plaster under here,’ she said, tapping her chest. ‘He never gets the bits what show. Go on, then,’ she said, turning to Charlotte, ‘gawp away then. Summat to tell your friends when you get back.’ Charlotte lowered her eyes and sat on a chair at the end of the bed. Lianna grinned and turned back to Agnes. ‘S’pose they’ve sent you to get more out of me.’

Agnes laughed and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘They know there’d be no point. It’s not as if you’d tell me.’

‘Not with her here.’

‘I’m going to find a cup of tea,’ Charlotte said, and disappeared along the ward.

‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ Agnes said when she’d gone. ‘She’s very jealous of you.’

‘You what?’

‘Of course she is. You knew Mark. Charlotte saw you together. She’s no fool. She knew that there was something special between you.’

Lianna shifted her position, wincing. ‘Jealous?’ She reached out her hand for a glass of water and Agnes passed it to her. ‘Yeah, well. I s’pose we were special.’

‘Charlotte loved him. She’s only young. It’s bound to hurt to know that he was never hers.’

Lianna handed the glass back to Agnes. ‘Why’s she come here then?’

Agnes took off her coat and arranged it over a chair. ‘Mark was killed on Morton’s Crag.’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘Who else would know he was there?’

Charlotte reappeared with three polystyrene cups and distributed them, then sat on her chair again. Lianna smiled at her, tried to take off the lid with her one good arm, failed. Agnes opened the cup for her.

‘Yeah, well,’ Lianna said at last, ‘Billy Keenan drove him up there, didn’t he.’

‘Why?’

‘Dunno. Said he was going that way, I suppose.’

‘But they weren’t close.’

‘No.’

‘Would Anthony Turnbull know?’

Agnes noticed Lianna wince.

‘Turnbull? Why should he know?’

‘Because the only thing that brought Billy and Mark together was his sports centre.’

Lianna shifted on her pillows. ‘You’d better ask him then.’ She sipped her tea.

Charlotte put down her cup. ‘I’m sorry—’ she began. She gestured vaguely towards Lianna’s injuries.

Lianna shrugged.

‘And . . .’ Charlotte hesitated. ‘Mark . . .’ her eyes filled with tears. Lianna looked up at her, and for a moment the two young women were caught in each other’s gaze.

‘It’s knowing there’s someone out there . . .’ Lianna said. Charlotte nodded. Lianna smiled at her. ‘He were a man in a million,’ she said.

* * *

‘Rachel’s been discharged,’ Teresa whispered to Agnes at tea in the staff room that afternoon.

‘Is she at home?’

‘Home? No, she’s here.’

‘Here?’

‘Don’t shout. There’s no one at her London house, they’re all abroad.

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