Chapter 9
I looked at his face, he had aged a bit…more lines and a few grey hairs, but he was my lovely Dad. Then someone moved my leg and I felt a sharp pain as if I was being knifed. I could hear myself scream and then thankfully, it all went black.
After a bit…I have no idea how long, I woke up and could hear an incredibly loud engine noise. I was on my back and could feel a sense of movement. I wasn’t in pain anymore and I felt strangely floppy as if I couldn’t move and didn’t particularly want to. As I opened my eyes, I could see someone leaning over me. I couldn’t speak for some reason and my head felt as light as a feather. It was all too much effort to stay awake and I shut my eyes; as I did so I could hear Dad speak.
‘Please do something, she’s turning blue!’
As I drifted off, I wanted to ask my dad so many questions, but it was all too much effort…
I could hear a beep, beep, beep; it was very annoying. All I wanted to do was sleep. I could sense some light outside my eyelids, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I could hear someone talking and eventually I realised who it was…Claire; she was talking….what was it? I tried to move but couldn’t. My eyes refused to open. I listened to what she was saying…
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where -' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.”
I wanted to open my eyes…but couldn’t and after a while, I went back to sleep…
It was like this for a few times, the bleep, bleep noise, me trying to wake up but not able to even open my eyes…once I even heard my favourite band, Coldplay. I wanted to sing along but couldn’t.
One of my favourite times was when I could hear Dad; he was reading to me too; more Alice in Wonderland, I think. I wished I could speak to him…
Sometime later, I could feel an itch in my nose…and I sneezed.
My eyes opened and I gasped; choking on a pipe that was down my throat. I could hear alarm bells going and then after a frantic few minutes when I was almost sick, someone took the pipe out and I could breathe okay. I coughed and coughed then I was given a sip of water by someone who I thought must be a nurse. Although the lights were dim, I still squinted at the light. I could see figures moving about and then someone shone a torch in my eyes.
‘Emma; it’s okay, just relax a bit.’
After a few moments, the light went away from my eyes and I could see a bit more clearly. A doctor in a white coat was looking at me and saying something.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Melissa...Emma.’ I croaked.
‘How old are you?’
‘13 no 12.’
‘Who is your best friend?’
‘Flic…no Georgie.’
‘What’s your father’s name?’
‘Where is he, I want my Dad!’
‘He’s just outside; I promise he can come in very soon; just tell me his name?’
‘Frank Jefferson.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Melissa… Emma.’
I could feel a warm wet cloth over my face, cleaning my gungy eyes. I felt very weary, but I was determined not to go to sleep.
I could hear a squeaky door open and steps coming towards me. I tried to lift my head from the pillow, but it was too heavy.
Someone swum into my vision and my eyes finally focussed.
‘DAD!’
‘Hello, honey; how are you feeling?’
‘Like an elephant has stamped on me.’
He laughed.
‘Well, by the look of you, one has!’
He was holding my hand and smiling down at me.
‘Dad, what happened?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
‘It’s a bit like a bad dream, but I thought you were in trouble.’
‘No…it’s a bit complicated and the doctor has said not to get you too worked up. We’ll talk later but what I can promise you is that I’m not in trouble and you are going to be all right. You have been through a lot and you need to have some rest. It’s quite late and you need to have some real sleep, not drug induced. I promise, I’ll be here before you wake up tomorrow and if the doctor says it’s okay, I will tell you everything.’
As he finished speaking, I could feel my eyes closing. I so much wanted to find out about things, but I was just too tired…
When I woke up, I felt a bit better and not so woolly; although my throat hurt a bit and my chest felt tight. As I opened my eyes, I could see that it was daytime and the sun was streaming in through the window.
‘Hello Emma.’
I turned my head and there was Dad, sitting at the side of the bed with a book in his hands.
‘How are you feeling love?’
‘Okay, Dad.’
‘That’s good. You had us all worried for a while.’
‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘’Four days, on and off; what can you remember?’
‘Erm…I remember running away and finding myself cut off on the beach. I scrambled up some rocks and hurt my leg…oh Dad it was the worst pain! Then I somehow got into a cave and then there was a mouse and she didn’t stay long and I was sad when she left me. Then I hurt some more and I fell asleep then when I woke up, I saw it was light and then I dragged myself to the front of the cave….That was really painful too…then when I looked out I saw Flic on her boat. She saw me and came to me. She said that I had been missing two days; is that right?’
I was wheezing a bit after that and had to catch my breath as I listened to Dad.
‘I’m glad you haven’t lost your voice you chatterbox! Well, you ran away on Friday morning; was missing all day and Felicity found you on Saturday afternoon so I suppose technically it was two days…long enough because you were in a bad way.’
‘H…how bad?’
‘You nearly died twice…but us Jefferson’s are made of strong stuff and you made it through.’
‘Am I still sick?’
‘Considering that you have a broken leg, suffered from exposure and shock, you are in remarkably good shape, but you won’t be able to play football for a while.’
‘That’s a shame, I like football.’
Just then I coughed a bit and it hurt my chest.
Just then a nurse came in and took my temperature and did other things. My leg was suspended up on some sort of belt like thing and it was covered in plaster from my ankle to the top of my leg. I was wearing a white hospital gown with teddies of all things on in. It was uncomfortable having my leg up like that and it itched a bit under the plaster. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to have it on for long.
‘How are we feeling?’ said the nurse.
‘A bit sore and thirsty and I can’t breathe very well.’
She took a jug from the side table and put some in a plastic cup.
‘Right, sip this. The doctor will be seeing you soon and he’ll give you the once over and also say if it’s okay to have solids…mind you, the food here isn’t very exciting…we don’t do McDonalds!’
We all laughed and after plumping up my pillows, she left the room.
‘Dad.’
‘Yes, Emma?’
‘You promised to tell me what happened.’
He brought his chair closer to the bed and then held onto my hand.
‘Yes, I did. I spoke to the doctor earlier and he said that you should be okay to talk about it when you woke up, but if you get upset or don’t feel well enough, I must stop; okay?’
I nodded, wondering if, at last I would know the truth.
‘First though, tell me about what happened to you.’
I took a deep breath and told him about being met at school by Claire and what
she had told me about what had happened to him and how I ended up where I was now.
‘Oh Emma you have been through it, haven’t you! Well what actually happened to me was slightly different to what Claire told you. I have to tell you this from the beginning but I’ll try to keep it simple; if you get tired or you feel unwell, you have to promise to tell me.’
I just nodded.
‘Right; as you know, I head up a multi-million pound company. We have offices all over the world and have our fingers in many pies. We have factories making everything from machine parts to toys. We have an investment company, a travel company and many other things. Because I am in charge, it means that I am open to the possibility of threats and kidnap; especially as I travel the world to do our business. Are you with me so far?’
‘Yes Dad.’
‘You know that Henry is not just my chauffeur? Yes, Claire told you about that, didn’t she? Henry is the head of my security. He likes to be as close as possible to me as he knows that I am always a target. He heard a whisper on the grapevine that worried us both. Now I want you to be brave about this.’
I looked at him, wondering what all this was about. My heart was in my mouth as I listened…
‘A contract was put out on my life…and also yours; that means that unknown people would try to find us both and eliminate us. The person behind this was Dave Evans, my finance director and second largest single stockholder after me. Evans had been taking money out of some of the smaller companies for years and taking funds out of the companies’ pension funds as well. Being the finance director meant that he was the one looking after the books and he had been able to shield what he had been doing by some creative and highly fraudulent accountancy. I know this is complicated but do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Not all of it but I suppose he was putting his hands in the till?’
Dad looked at me and laughed.
‘You are a bright girl. Yes, he had been putting his hands in the till. The problem was that he knew that I was on to him. I had a secret audit done on two of the companies he had been taking money from; that means a check on the books to see what money comes in and goes out.
‘Henry had been investigating some irregularities regarding unexplained losses in those companies and with the help of his staff, had unearthed some nasty stuff including problems with the pension funds. We were both surprised that the trail ended at the door of Evans. Somehow, Evans got wind of all this and panicked. He thought that if I was eliminated, he would naturally take over from me and then be able to limit the damage by doing some creative accountancy.
‘ One problem for him was you. Since your mother died, you are the major beneficiary in my will. If I died, I had in place a number of executors that would look after your interests until you came of age. Those executors are well respected businessmen… accountants and lawyers and they would, if you inherited, take a great deal of interest in the running of the company. If you died, Evans hoped that he wouldn’t have many people looking over his shoulder and those that did, would be his cronies and therefore no threat to him.’
‘Someone wanted to kill us…Mr Evans, I mean?’
‘Yes, Evans. Now, I was in Liverpool when I heard about this. I must admit, I panicked. I was okay because Henry was with me. He said that I should get out of the way as soon as possible until the coast was clear. On no account was I to go near you as then you as well as I would be easier to hit. Henry said he would get in touch with the school and the police to try to get you away from harm, but as I say I panicked and after agonising for a short while, I came up with an idea. I rang Claire and told her to collect you from school and that your life was in danger. I said get to get you away and somewhere safe and make sure that you didn’t panic or worry. I said I would contact her with details as soon as I was able and that on no account was she to tell you that you and I were in danger. I told her to do literally anything to make you safe.’
‘She lied to me.’
‘She knows that you are bright and she didn’t feel that she could hide the truth from you so she changed the facts so that you would accept what you heard and not be too frightened for my safety and yours. She had to make you understand why you had to run; it was frightening for you, but less frightening than telling you that there was a strong possibility that you might get hurt or killed.’
‘I had to change the way I looked.’
‘I know; that was her idea; she thought that no one would recognise you if your hair was changed and you wore different clothes to what you normally wore.’
‘I didn’t know what was happening I had no phone and Claire didn’t want me to hear the radio or see the TV.’
‘She said that you were a criminal!’
‘That’s my fault, in my hurry to talk to her and get you safe, I told her about the problem with the pension fund. I rang her on my mobile and the line kept braking up. She thought I said that I was the one who took the money not Evans. Also she heard about the contract being put out on both of us, but not that Evans had arranged it. She assumed that it was someone who I had swindled money from. I wish now that I had spoken to her on a land line, but I didn’t know if I would be overheard or if the office phones were bugged.’
By this time I was crying and Dad was sitting on the bed and cuddling me.
‘I…I…I saw pictures of you and me on the TV in the supermarket. Then when we got back to the cottage, I found my mobile and it…it didn’t work. There were phones in the house but they didn’t work. I thought that she had kidnapped me. Then when Flic and her mum came to the cottage I thought I was safe and Claire couldn’t have kidnapped me because she wouldn’t have asked Flic’s mum to look after me. Then…then,Flic’s mum locked me in the bedroom and I thought that she was in on it too. I had to get away and that’s why I ran off.’
I sobbed in my dad’s arms and then I heard the door open. With everything that had happened, I was getting close to hysterical. I felt I slight prick in my arm and could hear Dad saying something about talking again and then everything went dark.
Over the next few days, I felt quite bad. I kept waking up and falling asleep. My breathing was very bad and I had to have an oxygen mask on. I kept coughing and feeling very weak. I found out in one of the short periods that I was properly aware, that I had pneumonia. What with that and my weakened state from my ordeal, I was very sick.
I kept having vivid dreams and in most of them I was running away and then getting caught by some very bad people. I was roughly put in a cave and chained to a wall. The tide then came in and I found myself drowning. This happened time and time again.
Eventually I began to feel better and the nasty dreams went away to be replaced by more pleasant ones.
Eventually I started taking more notice of what was going on around me. Dad was in the room with me a lot and from what I could gather, he spent a lot of time in the room even when I was asleep. We spoke occasionally of the things that had happened, but he didn’t say much, just that the doctors wanted me to be a stronger before we talked more about things.
All Dad said was that everything was okay now and I shouldn’t worry. Of course I did worry but I didn’t want to say anything to Dad as he had a lot on his mind.
The one thing about hospitals is how boring it was. I was getting better now and I wanted to go home and see Georgie and just be normal.
Only things weren’t normal any more. I had nearly died and came close to losing my father. I tried to put in the back of my mind everything that had happened, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be the best girl that I could be for my Dad and I was determined not to add to his worries.
I was in the hospital for a total of one month. Then Dad found a place where I could have some convalescence and physiotherapy. I was there for another four weeks. About six weeks after the accident, the plaster was removed and I could finally scratch myself! My leg was very weak and I had to do exercises twice a day and also use a special swimming pool to make me strong.
>
The convalescence home was nice; it was part of a posh health farm and had all sorts of modern equipment. My room looked over a golf course of all things and I used to watch overweight people slicing their shots and missing the balls entirely.
One high point was when Georgina visited me!
I was watching cartoons on the TV when a warden…I mean nurse came in.
‘Hello Emma. I have a visitor for you.’
She stepped aside and there was Georgie!
‘Hi Em’, how are you doing?’
There she was large as life and twice as ugly!
‘Georgie!’
She came over and sat down beside the deep armchair I was sitting in.
‘This looks nice…it beats double maths!’
‘I would rather do that than have a leg broken!’
The nurse brought us a couple of cokes which was nice of her and then left us alone.
‘So, Emma; what happened?’
I took a deep breath and told her all about it.
‘Wow, you must have been scared stiff!’
‘Yes, it was awful. I…I…thought I was going to die.’
‘So, how’s school?’ I asked.
‘Okay, I suppose.’
‘Has anyone missed me?’
‘Not really.Tammy Dyson wanted to see you, cos you owe her some chocolate. Other than that, and a few remarks from teachers, nothing has been said.’
‘You know that the school has been giving me homework.’
‘Wow, that sucks!’
‘Tell me about it. Mind you I’m bored out of my skull here and at least it’s something to do.’
Georgie stayed for another hour and then had to go as her mum was taking her to see a film.
‘See you soon then?’ I said.
‘Yes, when you get back to school, I suppose.’
She tapped my arm and then went off with a little wave. I was sad to see her go and also sad that I hadn’t really been missed at school.
The trouble with not being active was that it gave me too much time to think. Although I only knew her briefly, I thought that I had more in common with Flic than I ever did with Georgie. Thinking about it, I was really only friends with her because neither of us had any other friends and we sort of came together as no one else was particularly interested in us. I wondered if it was possible for me to transfer to Flic’s school. It sounded nice and at least I would have a friend that I had more in common with.
I didn’t want to add to Dad’s worries by telling him how I felt, so I kept it all bottled up inside.
Eventually it was time for me to leave. I had to use crutches as my leg was still not strong enough to take much weight. As I sat in the waiting room for Dad to pick me up, I wondered about the future and how things might turn out for us.
The door opened and I looked up. I smiled as I saw Dad and then my smile wavered a bit when I saw just behind him, Claire.