A Red Herring Without Mustard

The next set of doors on the left, judging by the bracing whiff of formalin, belonged to the morgue. I gave a little shiver as I passed: not one of fear, but rather of delight.

Another room was marked “X-Ray,” and beyond that point, open doors on both sides of the corridor, with room numbers on every one. In each room, someone was sleeping, or rolling over. Someone was snoring, someone moaned, and I thought I heard the sound of a woman crying.

These are the wards, I thought, and there must be others on the first and second floors.

But how could I find Fenella? Until then, I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. How does one quickly find a needle in a haystack?

Certainly not by examining one straw at a time!

I had now arrived at a doorway that opened into a sort of large foyer, in the center of which a woman wrapped in a black woolen sweater was staring intently at a spread of playing cards on her desk. She did not hear me come up beside her.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but you can put the five of diamonds on the black six.”

The woman nearly fell out of her chair. She jumped to her feet and spun round to face me.

“Don’t ever—” she said, her face going the color of beets. “Don’t you ever dare—” Her fists clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to, really …”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “No visiting until one-thirty this afternoon, and it’s only just gone—” She shot a glance at her watch, an impossibly tiny lump strapped to her wrist.

“I’m waiting for my cousin,” I explained. “She’s just slipped in to bring our grandmother some …”

I took a deep breath and wracked my brains for inspiration, but the only thing that came to mind—to my nostrils, actually—was the nauseating odor still leaking from the kitchen down the corridor.

“Soup!” I said. “We’ve brought our gram some soup.”

“Soup?” The woman’s voice—and her eyebrows—went up into an inverted V. “You’ve brought soup? Here? To a hospital?”

I nodded meekly.

“Who’s your grandmother?” she demanded. “What’s her name? Is she a patient here?”

“Fenella Faa,” I said without hesitation.

“Faa? The Gypsy woman?” she asked, sucking in her breath.

I nodded dumbly.

“And your cousin, you say, has brought her soup?”

“Yes,” I said, pointing haphazardly. “She went that way.”

“What’s your name?” the woman asked, snatching up a typewritten list from her desk.

“Flavia,” I said. “Flavia Faa.”

It was just implausible enough to be true. With a snort like a racehorse, the woman was off, down a wide corridor on the far side of the foyer.

I followed in her wake, but I don’t think she noticed. Still, I kept well back, hoping she didn’t turn round. I was in luck.

Without a backwards glance, she vanished into the second room but one on the left, and I heard the sound of curtains being swept open. I didn’t stop, but continued on past the open door. A single glance revealed Fenella in the farthest bed, her head swathed in bandages.

I ducked down out of sight behind a draped cart that was parked against the wall.

“All right, come out of there!” I heard the woman say, followed by the click of a door being opened—probably the room’s W.C.

There was a silence—then a low, muttered conversation. Was she talking to Fenella—or to herself?

The only word that came clearly to my ears was “soup.”

Another brief silence, and then the sound of the woman’s shoes went echoing away down the corridor.

I counted to three, then flitted like a bat into Fenella’s room, closing the door behind me. A whiff of ether told me that this must be the surgical ward.

Fenella was lying motionless on her back, her eyes closed. So frail, she looked—as if the bedsheets had absorbed the last ounce of her juices.

“Hello,” I whispered. “It’s me, Flavia.”

There was no response. I reached out and took her hand.

Ever so slowly her eyes came open, fighting to focus.

“It’s me, Flavia,” I said again. “Remember?”

Her wrinkled lips pursed, and the tip of her tongue appeared. It looked like the head of a turtle emerging from its shell after a long winter at the bottom of the pond.

“The … liar,” she whispered, and I grinned as stupidly as if I had just been awarded first prize at the spring flower show.

Licking her lips feebly, Fenella turned her head towards me, her black eyes now suddenly fierce and imploring in their sunken sockets.

“Sret,” she said quite distinctly, giving my hand a squeeze.

“Sorry,” I said, “I don’t understand.”

“Sret,” she said again. “Puff.”

A light went on at the back of my brain.

“Cigarette?” I asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded. “Sret. Puff.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t smoke.”

Her eyes were fixed upon mine, imploring.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go find you one, but first, I need to ask you a couple of important questions.”

I didn’t give her time to think.

“The first is this: Do you really believe I did this to you? I’d die if you did.”

Her brows knitted. “Did this?”