A Trick of the Mind by Penny Hancock Read Free Book Online Page B

if, say, he’d stepped out from the verge, perhaps waving me down, perhaps hitching a lift. I remembered the jogger
then, how I’d barely seen him until I’d almost passed. It was completely possible I had seen no one on the road, because I was looking down when it happened, and hadn’t heard the
full impact because Beyoncé had been singing about not wanting to play the broken-hearted girl.
    I visualised it all as I stood there beside him, the impact as he stepped out, losing his foothold, knowing he could do nothing to help himself as he ricocheted into the air, the flipping over,
the legs buckling, the head-first crunch onto the tarmac.
    I stood up. I needed to get out. I couldn’t stay here, knowing something no one else in the world knew. Or I could tell someone. Who? I could tell the tall nurse with his skinny legs. What
would he care?
    I could go to the police.
    Then other thoughts tumbled in. My friends, all waiting for me to return and entertain them for the weekend. The show this evening at which I was to raise money for Mind. There were important
buyers coming.
    And anyway it was insane, wasn’t it?
    There had been nothing but part of a tree on the road, and the bird. That was what had caused the blood on the bonnet.
    I stared at his well-toned body. He was well groomed; neatly clipped sideburns, as well as the beard, and, I noted, über-clean nails. He had tanned skin with a sheen of health on it.
    His lips turned up a little at the corners as if he was dreaming of things that amused him.
    Would he still have that look when he came round and found he’d been knocked over by a stranger?
    I looked about the room.
    I mustn’t be long. Anyone might turn up at any time, ask what the hell I was doing here, a stranger at his bedside. But maybe if I found out who he was, where he was going last night, I
would perhaps be able to fit things together, prove it wasn’t me.
    There wasn’t much here. A locker. I opened it. A wallet, packed with credit cards.
    An iPhone. I flicked it on. He didn’t have a pass code, the icons came straight up on the screen. There was his Facebook, impossible to resist a quick peek. I clicked on it.
    This must be him, squinting into the sun. He was in a suit, his arm round a woman. She was Asian-looking, Chinese, Korean maybe.
    He was grinning, creases radiating from the corners of his eyes.
    The woman was smiling adoringly up at him. I examined her. Slim, beautiful, in flimsy black evening clothes and high heels. Behind them, just visible, was a line of deep blue sea.
    His ‘Friends’ list was there, his life in mates in front of my eyes.
    I scrolled down the list. There were a few men standing beside yachts, several were in wetsuits. A couple of tanned, smiling women.
    I had to leave. I put the phone away. I’d take a quick look in his locker then go.
    An expensive-looking watch.
    A receipt in his wallet printed out from the internet, a flight booking receipt. He’d flown back from Corfu in March.
    I closed the wallet.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, taking up his hand, feeling its weight, the black hairs that curled over his knuckles, a chunky ring, not on his wedding finger. The nurse had told me to
speak to him, but what to say?
    ‘Please, whatever you do, don’t die,’ I said. ‘It was an accident. I was on my way to Southwold. To my aunt’s house. You might know it, the blue clapboard house on
the beach. If you don’t die you could come one day. When you’re better. You and your girlfriend. Do please get better.’ A last plea, it came out with a sob.
    ‘I want you to know I never meant to hit you.’
    The door opened and I swung round.
    A nurse. Small, neat, Filipino.
    I steeled myself, opened my mouth to say I was leaving, but she smiled as she checked Patrick’s monitors and made notes on his charts and ticked things off.
    ‘It was bad luck,’ she said, pulling his sheets straight. Picking up his file from the end of his bed. ‘He’s handsome. But silly