Chapter 31
I had absolutely no recollection of what happened after that. My head hit the ground and the lights literally went out for what felt like days, but in reality, I later discovered, it was nowhere near as long.
‘Lottie?’
Gingerly I turned my face towards the sound, wishing that the persistent thumping in my head would go away, and slowly opened my eyes.
‘Lottie.’
It was Mags.
‘Where am I?’ I croaked, my voice was barely audible and my throat was tight and dry. I felt as if I hadn’t had a drink in weeks.
‘You’re in hospital,’ she said, ‘you’ve had a bump on the head, but you’re going to be OK.’
‘Where’s Minnie?’ I croaked again, trying to lift my head but finding I couldn’t. It felt as if someone had strapped a ten-tonne weight to the back of it. ‘Where’s my girl?’
‘She’s at my house with Liam and Ed,’ said Mags softly, ‘and she’s fine, as is the cottage and everything else. You just have a nice rest and I’ll be back in a bit.’
The next time I opened my eyes it was dark, but I could make out the silhouette of a man sitting next to the bed. I wasn’t sure if it was Will or Matt or a figment of my imagination.
‘So how are we feeling?’ asked a cheery nurse at what I guessed was early the next morning.
‘Sore,’ I said truthfully.
My whole body ached, I could feel my face was grazed and there was a lump easily the size of a ping-pong ball above my left eye. I dreaded to think what the bruising was like.
‘Well, if you will go around trying to break up bar-room brawls.’
‘It wasn’t a bar-room,’ I said, suddenly remembering and wondering which of my two knights in shining armour had been the one to strike the blow.
‘Anyone at home?’
‘I asked you to wait,’ tutted the nurse, as she fussed with my blanket and scowled at the policeman whose ruddy face appeared around the side of the curtain.
‘Any chance of having a quick chat, Miss Foster?’
‘You can have a chat when this young lady has had some breakfast,’ insisted the nurse.
‘How about, while she has some breakfast?’
As I slowly worked my way through a beaker of tepid sweet tea and a slice of rubbery, barely buttered toast, PC Williams took me through the finer details of what he had discovered had played out in the yard of Cuckoo Cottage the morning before.
It soon became obvious that he knew little more than I did. Matt and Will were fighting, Matt was coming off worse and I had stepped in before things took an even nastier turn and ended up getting thumped in the process. Neither man could be sure who had delivered the blow which sent me reeling, but as Matt was the worse for wear, the general consensus was that it was probably Will. Did I want to wait and see if I could remember more in a day or two and press charges? No, I certainly did not. It was simply a misunderstanding that wasn’t worth the court’s time and that was the end of that, or so I thought.
‘The nurse says they’ll be discharging you later this afternoon,’ said Matt, who turned up around lunchtime sporting at least half a dozen stitches, a black eye and was walking with the support of a stick.
‘Look at the state of you!’ I gasped.
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Have you looked in a mirror?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘not yet.’
Considering there was a one in two chance that he was the one who had inflicted my injury, I was rather taken aback by his off-the-cuff remark and laid-back attitude and wondered if he knew for certain that it had been Will who had knocked me out.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, as he carefully lowered himself into the chair next to my bed.
‘I’ve been better,’ he said with a shrug, ‘but I’ll mend. To be honest, what’s going on in my head is causing me more concern than this,’ he added, pointing to his face.
‘What do you mean?’ I frowned, even though it was agony to do so.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you thought I was stringing you along, Lottie?’
‘What?’
‘Why didn’t you ever say you weren’t sure about the work I was doing?’ he said accusingly. ‘If you’d asked me a few more questions I would have explained what I was doing in more detail and exactly why I was doing it. There was no need to ask that bloody thug to take me to task about it all when a simple conversation between us two would have sorted it.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘Have I really been that overbearing?’
‘No, of course not,’ I squeaked, feeling furious with Will. ‘Is that what you and Will were arguing about?’
‘Of course.’
‘But I never asked him to say anything,’ I insisted. ‘I didn’t know he was going to say a word and I certainly never put him up to take you to task, as you put it.’
Who the hell did Will think he was? I might have been having my doubts and concerns about Matt, but I never would have dreamt of sharing them with Will if I thought for even one second that he would take matters into his own hands and use my worries as an excuse to have a brawl with my builder.
‘I just feel such an idiot,’ Matt went on, shaking his head and looking thoroughly fed up. ‘I’ve only ever tried to be your friend, Lottie,’ he said, making my guilt escalate even higher than my temperature had been. ‘I’ve only ever tried to help you.’
‘I know that,’ I said, ‘and I should have talked to you sooner. I was going to talk to you, had I been given the chance. I’ve just had so much on my mind.’
‘Well, I’m almost done at the cottage for now,’ he announced, ‘and I don’t want a penny for anything I’ve done. I have a reputation to uphold around here and I don’t want anyone saying that I took advantage of the situation.’
‘I would never do that,’ I said firmly.
‘I know you wouldn’t,’ said Matt, ‘but what about Will? You saw for yourself yesterday just what an explosive temper he’s got, didn’t you? I wouldn’t put it past him to tell everyone that you’ve confided in him and that I’ve been taking you for a ride. You’ve discovered for yourself first hand just how quick folk are to jump to conclusions.’
‘I’m sure Will wouldn’t do that,’ I said, ‘temper or no temper.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘You do know why he left the army, don’t you, Lottie?’ Matt asked, suddenly changing track.
‘No,’ I said, and given his change of tone I probably didn’t want to know either.
Having seen the dangerous expression in Will’s eyes as he towered over me the day before, I knew that I would never want to pit myself against his temper again. He had been a beast of a man, and not in an attractive, protective way, but in an unhinged, explosive way. He couldn’t have been further from the gentle, caring soul who had patched me up after my silly trip out during the thunderstorm if he tried. The transformation was as shocking as the fact that he had gone behind my back and talked to Matt when I hadn’t asked him to.
‘It was his temper,’ said Matt. ‘His stupid temper got the better of him, yet again.’
‘I’m not sure I want to hear this, Matt,’ I said, wondering how he could possibly know when no one else did. ‘This is really none of my business.’
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he? I think you need to know what you’re letting yourself in for if you decide to keep in contact with him.’
‘So how come you know why he left when no one else does?’ I asked, unable to stop the question tumbling out.
‘That’s hardly relevant right now,’ he said darkly, ‘and I’m sure Will would rather I didn’t know at all. After what happened back at the cottage I’m even more convinced he’d far rather no one knew his shameful secret.’
I closed my eyes and listened as Matt explained, in far more detail than I would have liked, how Will had served in Afghanistan and how, having worked closely with the bomb disposal unit and lost a colleague as well as their dogs in a roadside bomb, he’d set out to deliberately gun down an entire civilian family before being bundled back to barracks and then to England, where he was hastily discharged and stripped of every medal he’d ever earned. According to Matt, he’d been lucky to escape a lengthy prison sentence.
I knew Will had been reluctant to take on Minnie after Gwen had died, and I could appreciate that if he had lost a loyal companion in a war zone then that was certainly an understandable reason as to why he wouldn’t take on another dog, but as for the rest, surely that couldn’t be right? I knew that these things happened and that soldiers the world over, working under extreme pressure, occasionally made mistakes, but not gargantuan ones like this surely, and certainly not Will.
‘I know you find it hard to believe,’ said Matt. ‘I did when I first heard it for myself, but think about it, Lottie. What do you really know about him? You’ve only known him five minutes. How can you possibly think you know someone who you’ve spent so little time with? Surely what you and I were subjected to yesterday is enough to prove that he’s dangerous and not to be trusted?’
‘But I’ve only known you a few weeks as well,’ I pointed out.
‘But I haven’t gone around picking fights and telling tales, have I?’
He had a point. I really didn’t know what to say. I needed time to think. By tackling Matt about the work at the cottage behind my back, Will had already proved he thought nothing of betraying a confidence, so perhaps Matt was right. Perhaps I should make a point of staying out of Will’s way, for the time being at least, but how difficult was that going to be, especially given the fact that he lived just up the road?