at the wan, shadowed face in its frame of rich auburn hair. ‘Helen? Helen, are you OK?’
‘She’s fainted!’ someone in the crowd said.
‘Knocked herself out,’ someone else insisted. ‘I saw her do it; she hit her head on that lamp-post. Drunk, most likely; she looked drunk to me.’
‘Send for an ambulance! She needs to go to hospital; she’s out for the count,’ somebody said, and a shopkeeper leaned forward.
‘I just did. They’ll be here any minute.’
Helen’s lashes were flickering. She sighed through lips almost as white as her face. Clare almost caught the word she said. She was almost sure Helen had said, ‘Denzil...’
Clare didn’t know whether to be sorry for her, or furious with her, or just furious with Denzil Black. Any woman who let a man reduce her to this state deserved a good slap, she thought, watching the other woman bleakly.
The ambulance arrived a moment later, siren wailing. The crowd cleared enough to let the men through with their stretcher. They took a look at Helen, asked, ‘What happened?’
A babble of voices tried to answer.
Clare cut through them coldly and efficiently. ‘She fainted, and managed to hit her head on that lamp-post while she was falling.’
The voices stopped, and people stared at her. She was well-known in town; nobody argued openly, although she heard a few whispered comments from those who preferred to believe Helen had been drunk.
She went to the hospital with Helen, and rang Helen’s mother from the waiting-room. ‘They’re keeping her in here tonight; they want to do some tests on her. They think she could be anaemic; apparently her blood-count was very low, and so is her blood-pressure.’
Helen’s mother sounded terrified. She was a small, delicate woman, and very highly strung. She often seemed to Clare still to be grieving for her husband, who had died a couple of years ago. Tears came easily to her, and she wore either black or grey most of the time.
‘Oh, no; you don’t think...they don’t think...it might be...? Her father died of cancer, you know—’ She broke off, obviously close to tears now. ‘Clare, if anything happened to Helen... I’ve been so worried about her; she has been terribly pale lately, and she never has any energy. That was how it happened to her father. She used to be the life and soul of the party. Well, you remember what she was like before the divorce, Clare! I know you weren’t a close friend, but you’ve known Helen for years; she was always full of fun. But over the last couple of months she’s been fading away, and yet the doctor could never find anything wrong with her.’
Clare’s blue eyes had an icy sparkle. Well, she knew what had been wrong with Helen lately, and there was nothing the doctor could do to help that pain. ‘Will you ring Paul and let him know?’ she asked Joyce.
‘Paul? Oh, do you think I should tell him? After all, they are divorced; I expect he has someone else by now.’
‘Well, they were married for a long time. I’m sure he’ll be concerned about her.’
‘Oh...Clare, I...Clare, couldn’t you?’ gabbled Joyce. ‘If you rang him, it would be so much easier. I mean...I don’t like to interfere...Helen wouldn’t thank me; she might be furious with me for doing it.’
Clare sighed. ‘I hardly know him, Joyce!’
‘Please, Clare...would you?’
Clare gave in, her face grim. She rang Paul Sherrard at his hotel and was put through to his office. His secretary answered breathlessly, sounding very young and faintly scatty.
‘Mr Sherrard’s office. Oh, yes? Miss Summer? Was it important? Well, I don’t know if he’s...I’ll see if he’s free...’
Paul’s voice appeared on the line a second later. ‘Good morning, Clare. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, Paul, but I’m ringing from the hospital—Helen is here, and they’re keeping her in overnight. She may be seriously ill; they aren’t sure yet. I thought I ought to let you know.’
‘What do you mean, seriously ill?’ Paul asked curtly. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘I’ve no idea, Paul, but she looks terrible. I just thought I should let you know. I’ve rung her mother; she was very upset. I wish I could get the doctors here to be frank, but they won’t commit themselves.’
‘Oh, won’t they? We’ll see about that. I’ll be there in half an hour,’ Paul said, and rang off.
Clare stayed at the hospital until Paul and Helen’s mother arrived, almost at the same time, and then she had to get back to the office, which had been closed all this time.
She rang the hospital later that day, but there was no further news, other than that Helen was in no danger, was conscious again, and would be in hospital for some days. Clare sent her flowers and a get-well card. She visited her the next afternoon and found her sitting up against banked pillows, still pale, still listless.
‘They say I can go home at the weekend,’ Helen said. ‘After these tests. They think I’m anaemic. I’ll have to drink blood, like Dracula!’ She laughed.
Clare didn’t. She was too horrified by how ill Helen looked; by the dark shadows under Helen’s eyes and the thin, restless, frail fingers. It was a relief to find that the illness was nothing worse than anaemia—no doubt that would be a huge weight off Mrs Storr’s mind—but Clare kept remembering Helen’s look of pain as she talked about Denzil Black and his sexy actress. That man had a lot to answer for! ‘You’re beginning to look better,’ she lied.
Helen brightened. ‘Do you think so? They say I mustn’t go back to work, I must rest for a few weeks, and I’m going to my brother’s place, to stay with him. Paul thinks I should go abroad after Christmas; he’s going to Majorca to the apartment we owned over there, and he suggested I came too.’ A faint flush crept up her cheeks. She gave Clare a defiant look, looked away quickly. ‘Well, we were married for years. Nobody will think anything odd about that.’
‘Of course not,’ said Clare. ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea.’
She smiled at Helen warmly. If Paul took her away she would soon forget Denzil Black, and maybe Helen and Paul might even get together again for good, not just for a holiday?
Very flushed, Helen said, ‘Oh, and Johnny Pritchard is dealing with Dark Tarn, by the way.’
‘I wasn’t worried about it,’ Clare said coolly. ‘It can wait.’
‘Oh, no,’ Helen said, sounding shocked. ‘Denzil is in a hurry.’
‘Never mind him,’ said Clare. ‘You just look after yourself.’
Over the next few weeks she seemed to be busier than usual. This was usually a dead time of year. People didn’t buy and sell houses in winter; spring was when their minds turned to moving home. But that winter Clare was very busy. A firm had recently built a large block of luxury apartments overlooking the harbour, and, failing to sell half of them, was eager to rent them out rather than leave them empty. They gave Clare the job of finding tenants, and for a while she was constantly
