by Ashe Barker
Heidi arrives, dressed as she was when I first met her, in jeans and a jumper. We go through the same exchange of information. She’s already been in touch with the Army Staff and Personnel Support Unit for details of Josh’s family, and they have agreed to pass on the message. His sister was the last named next of kin as he and I had already separated by the time he left the Parachute Regiment.
“On the radio they were saying that Josh getting shot is somehow connected to an earlier incident at Hunter’s Gate,” Heidi says. “Is that right?”
I nod. “It was that woman, the one who tried to snatch that baby.” I remember her lying on the cold tiles. “Is she dead, do you know?”
Heidi nods. “They are reporting two fatalities, one the suspected shooter, a female, and the other a member of the security team. I thought at first that it might be Josh…”
It still might, but not yet. Not quite yet.
I remember Trevor. I remember seeing him die right in front of me. I barely knew him other than to nod at him in passing, but he seemed a decent sort of a man. “It was one of the guards. She was firing at anyone in uniform, and he was in the wrong place.”
“Bloody hell,” Michele mutters.
That’s about right.
I’m dreading the surgeon coming back. As long as he isn’t here, I can hope. As long as he’s still working on my husband, there’s a chance. I need to know, and at the same time, I never want to hear those words. All the old fears and uncertainties and paranoia that drove us apart are back with a vengeance, but this time it’s real. This time it’s not all in my imagination.
My heart lurches when the door opens, and the surgeon arrives, still in his operating theatre scrubs. He looks haggard, but who am I to talk?
I get to my feet and try to form words. The surgeon beats me to it.
“The surgery went as well as we could hope…”
I try to make sense of what he is saying. Is this good news?
The surgeon continues. “Intensive care…haemorrhage, infection, complications… Next few hours critical.”
I latch on to that final remark. Next few hours. It’s forward-looking. There must be hope.
“Is he…? Will he…?” I stammer.
“The bullet was lodged in the pleural cavity,” the surgeon explains, “so there was a high risk of haemorrhaging or developing an infection. We managed to remove it and repair some of the damage. We stopped the internal bleeding, but there is still a risk of further complications. We need to keep your husband in a drug-induced coma for a day or so to allow the injuries to start to heal. He’s already on his way to the ICU.”
“ICU?”
“Intensive Care Unit.”
“Can I see him?”
“You should be able to stay with him down there, but, as I have explained, he is deeply unconscious. You might prefer to see him briefly, then get some sleep yourself. We have rooms here for relatives…”
I shake my head. I won’t be sleeping, not until I know my husband is safe.
“Thank you,” Michele steps in. “We’re so grateful for all you’ve done. Truly, we are. And yes, my sister would like to go to the ICU.”
“The nurse will show you the way. I shall be checking in on Mr Novak throughout the night, so no doubt we will speak again.” He offers me a curt nod. “Mrs Novak.”
I am still too shellshocked to thank him properly for the miracle he has worked for me this evening, but he doesn’t seem interested in our gratitude anyway. As quickly as he arrived, he is gone.
“Follow me.” The nurse is already holding the door open. “I’ll take you to your husband now.”
Despite my best intentions, I’m only human, and eventually, twenty-seven hours later, I drift off to sleep, my face resting on the hospital blanket covering Josh’s prone form. The constant flashing, blinking, beeping, and whirring of the machinery keeping him alive has become the unseen wallpaper to my existence. Everywhere, there are tubes. Dials, screens, incomprehensible numbers flickering away, the constant surveillance of the two nurses assigned to care for Josh around the clock. In their way, they look after me, too. The make sure cups of tea arrive, bring me sandwiches from the canteen, and a pillow for my little plastic chair.
They are cheery and competent, always talking to Josh as though he could hear them.
Perhaps he can. They encourage me to speak to him, too.
“What should I say?”
“Anything. It doesn’t matter. Let yours be the voice he hears when he comes round.”
When he comes round. No longer are we hearing if he comes round. There is no more talk of being in the best hands, as if that were in the slightest doubt, or of the next few hours being critical.
Those hours have been and gone, and Josh is still with me.
Throughout most of the vigil I have had Michele or Pru or Heidi beside me. I don’t know how I would have coped on my own. The day after he arrived in ICU, Josh’s younger sister, Janine, showed up, fresh off a plane from Brussels where she works as some sort of diplomat. The last time I saw her was at our wedding. Now, she takes her turn to perch on a plastic chair beside me, and we wait together.
One of the nurses, Sadie, arrives to adjust the drip. “I’ve reduced the amount of sedation,” she explains. “He might start to stir sometime soon.”
I grasp his hand, careful not to dislodge any vital piece of life-saving gadgetry. “You hear that, Josh? It’s time you woke up.”
“Is he still malingering? He was just the same in Camp Bastion. I thought I might have to prod him out of bed with a pitchfork back then. Shall I try the same thing now?”
Heidi has just arrived, her usual intimidating self in a severe trouser suit, killer heels, and sleek ponytail. I’m not entirely sure if she’s joking about the pitchfork. Janine heads off to get something to eat, and Heidi takes her place.
I lay my head on the bed beside Josh’s hip, and the hours of anguish finally take their toll. I close my eyes, just for a moment, and drift off into oblivion myself.
I don’t know what wakes me. Maybe nothing.
I blink, confused for a moment until I register where I am, and what I’m doing in these harsh, unfamiliar surroundings.
The machines are still whirring. The screens are still blinking merrily, little lines rushing across from left to right, numbers popping up. Sadie flicks switches, jots notes on her clipboard, sends a comforting smile my way, then returns to her meticulous surveillance.
Josh’s hand is still lying beneath mine. I would have missed it, otherwise.
I start and stare at his fingers. Did I imagine what just happened?
As I watch, his index finger moves. Only a little, the merest hint of a shift, barely perceptible. But I see it. I’m not mistaken, not dreaming, not conjuring this out of my own longing and near despair.
“He moved,” I whisper the words.
Sadie is beside me in a moment, peering under his eyelids, flashing her little pen torch. “Josh,” she calls, her voice unnaturally loud in the reverent silence which is the ICU. “Can you hear me?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Let me try,” I say, leaning over him.
Sadie nods.
“Josh, it’s me. Libby. Can you hear me? Please, let me know if you can hear me.”
The pressure on my hand increases. Just a fraction, but enough.
“He squeezed my hand.” I stare down at our joined fingers, willing him to do it. again.
He makes me wait. He always bloody does, but at last he responds. This time, we all see the movement.
“I’ll get the consultant to come and have a look at him.” Sadie heads for the central control island and the phone.
Heidi and I lock gazes across the bed. I’m sobbing, again, but this time with relief.
He’s back. My Josh has come back to me.
Chapter 17
Josh
I settle back against the pillows, exhausted, but I’m damned if I’m about to say so. It doesn’t do
to show any weakness around the nurses. They get ideas, which might well include recommending I stay in hospital a bit longer. I’m not having that. I’m determined to get out of here.
It’s Christmas Eve, and I have no intention of spending the holidays in this place if I can help it.
The two detectives have just left, having been here most of the morning. I already told them all I could about what happened at Hunter’s Gate. They were at my bedside within hours of me regaining consciousness. Today’s visit was to inform me of the outcomes of their investigations.
It would appear our guess was right. According to her brother who she cajoled and bullied into helping her with the failed abduction attempt, Christina Kelly was motivated by a sense of burning injustice. Whatever her doctors might have thought, she was far from well. As far as she was concerned, my team and I had meddled in her affairs. She was not about to let us get away with it. We should have minded our own business and let baby Daniel go to the home he deserved, with a mother who would love him and give him everything he needed. We were not to be forgiven for that. She would make us pay. Christina Kelly spent weeks hatching her revenge.
When the police broke into her house they found newspaper cuttings of the original abduction offence, along with photographs of me and my team. She must have been coming to the centre regularly, taking her pictures, storing up information about the best vantage point. No one ever spotted her, so it is assumed she managed to disguise herself. A number of wigs were discovered in her bathroom, so it seems likely enough.
She had grown up on a farm so was accustomed to firearms and had learned to shoot as a girl. The gun and ammunition she used that day was purchased a week or so earlier, on the internet.
The police are of the opinion that her shot at me was deliberate. She would have recognised me, certainly at that distance, and they are pretty sure she meant to kill me. I was her primary target that day, according to the notes she had made in her journal where she wrote down the twisted rationale for what she meant to do.
She would probably have succeeded if a police bullet hadn’t hit her first and caused her aim to swerve. What would without doubt have been a deadly head shot hit me in the chest instead.
I take all this in. None of it comes as much of a surprise, though Libby has gone ashen on hearing of the deliberate, planned attempt on my life. It is only due to the skill of the surgeon on duty that day that I survived to tell the tale.
Speaking of which, the man himself appears at the door to my private room, his usual posse of trainee medics and nursing staff behind him. I manage a cheery enough greeting.
Like I said, never show weakness.
He checks my notes and asks me how I’m feeling.
“Good as new,” I assure him, ignoring the throbbing pain in my left arm and shoulder.
He peers at me, purses his lips. “Well, Mr Novak, I don’t think we need detain you any longer.”
“Thanks. Not that I haven’t appreciated your hospitality.” I shift against the crisp, cotton sheets, more than ready to leave this hard, clinical bed after the better part of a fortnight in hospital.
It’s Christmas tomorrow. Freedom beckons, offering mistletoe, tinsel, and mince pies. I can’t wait, and I don’t even like mince pies.
My consultant, the indomitable Mr Matthews-Clarke, miracle worker extraordinaire who I have no doubt dragged me back from the brink of death, makes a note on the clipboard at the foot of my bed and flashes me a tight smile. God forbid the man might actually look happy.
Libby, on the other hand, is beaming. “Josh, That’s brilliant news. How soon can he leave, Doctor?”
Mr Matthews-Clarke furrows his brow. I don’t bother to point out that his proper title is Mister, not doctor, and neither does he. Such niceties seem not to matter to the Great Man.
“As soon as the pharmacy can send up his meds,” he replies. “I’ll write it up. You can have your husband home in time for the Queen’s speech.” He peers at me over his rimless spectacles. “You will need to come back in a week to attend my outpatients’ clinic, but after that we can refer you to your own GP.” He gives me a nod and hands the clipboard back to the junior doctor hovering behind him.
“Thank you,” Libby calls to his retreating back. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome,” he replies. “Merry Christmas.” Then he is gone.
Libby leans down to give me a hug. “I’m putting him on our Christmas card list.”
“Do we have a list? And isn’t it a bit late now, for this year? Could you pass me my clothes, please?”
“I’m making a list for next year, and he’s right at the top.” She crouches in front of the clinical bedside cabinet and retrieves the fresh clothes she brought in for me a few days ago. Jeans, a T-shirt, a jumper, trainers, socks, and underwear. She dumps them on my bed. “Do you need any help?”
I probably do, but I shake my head. A Dom has his pride. I mean to dress myself if it kills me. “Could you pull the curtain around?”
She does, then picks up her bag. “I’ll go and get a coffee or something. Do you want anything?”
“A latte would be nice. Strong.” I swing my legs out from beneath the covers. I didn’t bother to put on the brand-new pyjamas Libby bought especially for my hospital stay. I never wear the things usually and didn’t see the point. I’ve made do with the NHS-issue gown that fastens at the back. Very fetching. I pull that over my head one-handed as my left arm is still painful to raise, leaving me clad in nothing more than the thick dressing over my bullet wound.
I manage the underwear and jeans well enough, and my right sock. I’m still wrestling with the left one when Libby returns with two coffees from the Costa kiosk somewhere in the hospital. She kneels at my feet to finish the job off, stirring not unwelcome memories of happier times.
Which reminds me…
“I need you to give me a lift to my apartment, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She looks up at me, her features betraying her surprise. And shock.
“But I thought… I mean, I assumed you’d be coming to my house. You need someone to look after you.”
Strictly speaking, I can probably manage. But I don’t have to and I’ve no intention of roughing it. A week or so of TLC at Libby’s hands sounds like my idea of fun right now.
“I am coming to yours. I mean, we never talked about it, but I assumed, too.”
“Then why…?”
“I want to pick up some things. Clothes, mainly, and a few other bits and pieces. Before the new tenant moves in.”
“New tenant?” She straightens. “You rented out your apartment?”
“I did. It’s a waste, don’t you think, to leave it standing empty?”
“Well, yes, but…you love that place.”
I shrug. I like my apartment well enough, but I’m not about to get sentimental over it. It suited me, once. Still does, as an occasional crash pad, but I need to be practical. And these last couple of weeks I’ve had plenty of time to think, to reflect and to take stock. I finally got my priorities properly sorted and in the right order.
With Libby right at the top.
“If we’re to make this marriage work, we should live together. Properly. In the same house. Not just stay over most nights. I want to move in.”
“You do? But I thought we agreed to keep two homes.”
“You agreed, because I suggested it. It was a crap idea. A marriage — our marriage — works best with two people in one home. That’s what I want. If you’ll have me.”
She flings her arms around me. “I love you.”
I had been grappling with the thorny issue of getting my left arm through the sleeve of my T-shirt, but I pause to hug her back with my one good arm. “I love you, too. Can I assume I’m welcome in Knutsford, then?”
“You can. I’ll clear some space for you, in the wardrobe.”
“Bollocks. I’ve slept in your bedroom enough times to know that the wardrobe is already overflowi
ng with all your shit. We’ll buy another one, for mine.”
“Okay. Do you need a hand with that?” She gestures to my ongoing struggle with the T-shirt.
“No, I can—”
“Give it to me.” She takes it from me, threads my left hand through the sleeve then pulls it up to my shoulder. Another deft tug, and my head pops through the neck hole. From there it’s easy enough for me to get my right arm in the sleeve as well. We repeat the process with the jumper.
Maybe I do need help, after all.
I mutter something about ‘could have managed’, but I’m glad to be able to enjoy my coffee in peace while we wait for the pharmacy to deliver my antibiotics and pain relief.
“There was something else I wanted to raise with you.” We’re in Libby’s bright-orange Mini, the boot and back seat loaded with my clothes, a few books, and my collection of Coldplay albums.
“Okay. What’s that, then?” She slows down for a red light at a pedestrian crossing, then accelerates away when the road is clear.
“I’ve been thinking, we’re still married, despite the decree nisi…”
“I know. You said that, I seem to recall.”
“Yeah, well, I wondered about making our reconciliation official. Sort of.”
“Does it need making official?”
“Not officially. But I’d like to. I think we should renew our vows.”
Libby almost stands the Mini on its nose. Good thing there was no one following close behind. She pulls into a lay-by at the side of the dual carriageway and turns to face me. “Renew our vows? Have you forgotten, we got married in a register office?”
“There were still vows,” I protest. “As far as I can remember…”
She ignores me. “When was either of us last in a church?”
Fair point. But irrelevant.
I reach for her hand. “I don’t mean the traditional way. We should do this thing our way. I’m thinking, a Dom/sub exchange of vows. In the club.”
