Chapter EIGHTEEN
Because of the weather, when Mark called for an ambulance, it was clear the news wasn’t going to be good.
He ended the call and shook his head worriedly.
‘They can’t guarantee getting an ambulance out here. It depends on the roads, whether they can get through or not. If there’s a problem, they’ll try to scramble a helicopter. But again, that depends on the weather and how windy it is.’
He looked anxiously over at the patient.
‘They think Sylvia’s likely gone into diabetic shock through not taking her meds and the stress of organising the wedding.’
He walked over to the bed and laid a comforting hand on Mick’s shoulder.
‘As soon as she’s conscious, she needs to eat some sugary food,’
he murmured.
‘And if she doesn’t come round in the next five minutes, we need to call back.’
‘Right.’
Mick stood up.
‘She usually takes a spoonful or two of honey if her blood sugar is low. I’ll go and get some. And maybe a banana.’
He disappeared and Primrose took over, sitting on the side of the bed and leaning over Sylvia, holding her hand, while the rest of us looked on helplessly, willing her to wake up.
She stirred just as Mick came back in with a jar of honey, and he and Primrose managed to half-sit her up so they could feed her the honey on a spoon. Then we waited.
To our relief, she seemed to rally a little, looking around and asking where she was. But then seconds later, her eyelids flickered and closed, and she was out again.
‘The honey seemed to help,’
said Maddy, and we all murmured our agreement.
‘How much can you safely give her, though?’
asked Ellie, who looked beside herself with worry.
‘Would too much be dangerous?’
‘It’s hard to know,’
confessed Mick, who was grey with stress.
‘Every patient is different. Maybe I’ll try some orange juice.’
‘I’ll go and get it,’
offered Fen.
Mark nodded.
‘We’ll do a thorough search of the place and try to find the medication. What’s it contained in, Mick? A box? A bag?’
‘It’s a small black box with syringes and insulin in it.’
He shook his head in despair.
‘God knows where it’s disappeared to.’
‘Right, so we’re looking for a small black box, everybody,’
said Mark, and I suddenly recalled how great he was in a crisis. Mark was someone you could rely on to solve problems and do the right thing.
‘The sooner we can find it, the better.’
‘Yup. Come on.’
Maddy roused the rest of us into action.
‘How about some of us start on the ground floor and the rest of us remain up here and search the bedrooms?’
‘Good idea,’
said Katja, following her out of the room.
‘Thank goodness it’s not like a hotel where all the bedrooms would be locked.’
So we left Sylvia being cared for by Mick, Primrose and Ellie, and we dispersed throughout the mansion, determined to find the precious meds that would hopefully bring Sylvia out of her diabetic shock.
*****
Over an hour later, with Sylvia drifting in and out of consciousness upstairs, I sat with Mark and Fiona at the kitchen table with a mug of tea that had gone cold.
The search for the meds had proved frustratingly fruitless.
After a thorough search by everyone, Mick was forced to admit that perhaps he’d only thought he’d packed the little black box. I couldn’t imagine how bad he must be feeling.
We’d all sat around in the morning room after admitting defeat, not saying much. Evelyn, who was curled into the corner of a sofa, was sobbing quietly and dabbing her eyes with the paper hankies Joyce was handing her.
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’
she kept asking Joyce, and Joyce would pat her shoulder and say of course and try her best to set her mind at rest.
You could have cut the tension with a knife as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. But so far, there’d been nothing.
Eventually, Maddy, Katja, Fen and Ellie said they were going to have a look outside, just in case the black box had fallen out of a bag on the way in. And Fiona said she could do with some caffeine to perk her up, so that’s when the three of us had come through to the kitchen to boil the kettle.
‘I’ll make some tea and take it up to Sylvia’s room,’
said Fiona now, scraping back her chair. She smiled ruefully.
‘I just need to be doing something. Because this waiting around is awful.’
‘I know,’
I agreed.
‘I’m starting to wish I had a nail-biting habit. Maybe that would help with the tension and anxiety!’
Mark gave a lopsided smile of agreement.
‘What I can’t understand is where those bloody meds have gone.’
I nodded.
‘Mick seemed so sure that he’d packed the box and I’m inclined to believe him. He wouldn’t forget something as vital as that.’
‘Exactly. Maybe we should search the bedrooms again.’
He shrugged.
‘It would make us feel like we were doing something?’
He glanced at me quizzically.
‘Let’s do it.’
I stood up and Fiona said she’d join us as soon as she’d delivered the tea.
Upstairs, we systematically combed through the rooms, looking under bedside tables and wardrobes, just in case the box had somehow rolled underneath, but the longer we searched, the more despondent I got.
‘There’s just Sarah Frobisher’s bedroom to look in,’
I said at last, pointing to the room next door, which was situated at the very end of the west wing corridor.
‘How do you know it’s hers?’
Mark asked.
‘Oh, Sylvia and I had a chat with her when I was here to plan the flowers for the wedding. She said she used that room because it had the best view of all, across the lawns to the river.’
‘Right. Come on, then. We might as well finish what we’ve started.’
‘At least we’ll have left no stone unturned.’
‘Or left no bed looked under.’
He grinned wearily.
‘I’m covered in dust bunnies from looking under bits of furniture.’
‘Doesn’t Sarah Frobisher employ cleaners?’
‘Yes. But I don’t think she can afford the outlay, so she does a lot of it herself,’
I said, as we explored the room.
‘Isn’t this beautiful?’
I gazed down at the silver mermaid box I’d noticed the last time I was in this room – when I’d gone in here, mistaking it for my room.
Mark came over.
He looked but I could tell he wasn’t really seeing it. His eyes were glazed as if his mind was on something else altogether. Trying to work out what the hell was going on here, I imagined.
I turned back to the heart-shaped box and ran my fingers over the mermaid on the lid.
I’d always found it fascinating seeing other people’s possessions and imagining what they were like as a person. Bedrooms, especially, told you so much about the occupier! Sarah Frobisher was obviously on the keto diet. The small tube of keto test strips lying there was the give-away.
‘What are you smiling at?’
asked Mark.
I chuckled.
‘Just thinking I’d quite like to have been a detective.’
He nodded approvingly.
‘You’d have been good. You’ve got the organised, analytical mind for it.’
I turned away with a frustrated sigh.
‘So why can’t I work out what’s happened to Sylvia’s meds, then?’
He frowned but didn’t reply.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’
I enquired.
‘Controversial, I know. But . . . what if all these weird things that have been happening here are connected?’
I frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the screams and then the lights going out and the painting suddenly happening to fall off the wall? Then Sylvia’s destroyed wedding dress? And her medication vanishing? It’s all a bit suspicious, isn’t it?’
I nodded slowly.
‘You’re right. It’s completely mad. We’ve all been too wrapped up in our concern for Sylvia to actually start questioning what the hell is going on here.’
‘So . . . are we saying that someone might be causing all these things to happen?’
I stared at him.
‘Deliberately? But why?’
He shrugged.
‘Maybe . . . because they have a grudge against Sylvia?’
‘I can’t believe that. Sylvia’s too lovely to have an enemy.’
‘A grudge against Mick, then?’
I shook my head.
‘Maybe it’s someone who wants to sabotage the wedding?’
I stared at him.
‘Who has been affected most by all the horrible and weird things that have been happening?’
‘Erm . . . Sylvia?’
I nodded.
‘Someone must have it in for her. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.’
Then I remembered something that made me go cold inside.
‘Oh, my God!’
‘What?’
asked Mark.
‘I’ve just realised. Things didn’t just start happening when we all arrived here. The warning sign was there much earlier.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, two of Sylvia’s tyres were punctured with nails. At the time we thought it was strange it should happen to both tyres at the same time but not impossible. I think we assumed it had happened accidentally. But . . .’
I swallowed hard and stopped, barely able to believe what I was about to say next.
‘But what?’
‘Well, what if someone actually sabotaged her car that night?’
He stared at me.
‘Mark, what if someone was trying to harm Sylvia?’
Fen