Downtime - Marc Platt [8]
‘Stupids,’ she said. ‘You had your dinner hours ago.’ She left them to it, filled her hot-water bottle and went to bed.
It was all quiet until about a quarter to four. Then Mrs Cywynski was startled out of a restless sleep by what sounded like a yell. She lay in bed, certain that she could hear someone upstairs crying.
Muttering, she pushed four cats off the counterpane and slid out her feet. Wrapped in her candlewick dressing-gown and an ancient hand-woven shawl, she mounted the back stairs that connected to Victoria’s flat.
She knocked gently on the door and waited. After a second, she stooped creakily and called through the keyhole. There was an ominous silence.
‘Victoria, dear,’ she called again. ‘I wanted to be sure you were all right. It’s very late.’
After a pause she heard, ‘Yes. Yes. I’m all right. I promise.’ The voice was half choked.
‘Would you like to reassure me of that?’
A very long pause. Suddenly a bolt on the other side was drawn. Then the second bolt, followed by the jangle of the security chain. The door opened a crack and Victoria peered out, her hair tangled and her eyes very heavy.
‘Oh, kochano!’ exclaimed her landlady. ‘My God, what has happened?’
Victoria tried to suppress a sob and failed completely.
Before she could be stopped, Mrs Cywynski was inside and hurrying her into the little sitting-room.
‘What has happened? Victoria, have you been hurt? No, stay there while I make you some tea.’
Victoria sat on the ancient settee, wrapped in a blanket, trying to do something with her shaking hands. It was another ten minutes before she could begin to talk.
‘I don’t know where I’ve been. I can’t remember. I mean, to start off with I was at the cemetery.’
‘At Highgate?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Why? Has somebody died? Your tea’s getting cold.’
‘No. It’s not like that.’ Victoria sipped at the herbal concoction. ‘It’s my mother. I took the afternoon off to try and find her grave. It’s been a long time, you see.’
‘I see. And did you find it?’
‘I don’t... I can’t remember.’
‘There, there, kochano. It’s well past getting late. It’s already getting on for early. Tell me after you’ve had a good sleep.’
‘No. Please, I must tell you now.’
‘So you do remember.’
Victoria had been staring at the floor, but now she lifted her eyes to look straight into Mrs Cywynski’s face. ‘Something happened in the cemetery. Something’ – she searched for a word – ‘overwhelmed me, but I can’t remember what. A dizziness. It wasn’t any person,’ she added. ‘Not just then.’
Not then?’
‘Perhaps I just fainted. But afterwards I was wandering about.’
‘Until two in the morning?’
‘Was it that time? I know I was walking for hours. Miles and miles through the city, until I finally recognized where I was. But there weren’t any buses or taxis, so I had to keep on walking.’
‘ Kochano, sweetheart, you know it isn’t safe for a young lady to be out on her own at that time of night.’
‘I know,’ Victoria snapped. ‘That’s what I meant.’
Mrs Cywynski gently squeezed her hand. ‘You have been attacked, haven’t you? Where was this? Oh! I shall... My dear, this man, I shall damage him personally. Are you hurt? He didn’t touch you, did he?’
Victoria shook her head. ‘I was walking up the hill and I heard footsteps running behind me – that always frightens me.
The man ran straight on past me and so I thought I was all right.
‘But then he turned round and he had a knife. And he was pointing it at me. A kitchen knife. And he said he wanted my money, so I opened out my bag and purse, but I wouldn’t let go of them. I just opened the bag wide to show him. And he pulled out the notes and started flicking through the other papers and things with the point of the knife. And all the bits were falling out onto the pavement. And he kept apologizing, saying he