by Peter James
She wanted to cry but she hurt too much. And she did not want this man with the snake tattoo, who was driving, who had not spoken one word, but kept looking at her in the mirror and smiling at her, a filthy, dirty lecherous smile, to have any encouragement from her.
She just wanted to go home. Home. Home to Romeo, to the dog, to the screaming baby. To the people who cared about her. To her family.
He was stopping the car. The street was dark, and she had no idea where she was. He was opening the rear door and climbing in. Pushing himself next to her. He had banknotes in his hand. ‘Good money!’ he said, grinning. He pressed them into her hand, then unzipped himself.
She stared at him as he wiggled his erection out of his trousers. Stared at the tattoo of the striking snake that rose from his shirt collar.
‘Good money!’ he said.
Then he grabbed her hair, just like the man had done, and pulled her face down on to his erection.
She closed her lips over the head, then bit, as hard as she could, until she could taste blood in her mouth, until her ears were ringing with his screams. Then she grabbed the door handle, pulled it down, pushed with all her strength, stumbled out and ran into the night.
She ran without stopping, lost and disoriented, through an endless maze of dark streets and closed shops, knowing that if she kept running, kept running, kept running, she would eventually find somewhere she recognized, somewhere that would give her bearings and take her back to her home under the road.
In the blindness of her panic as she ran, she did not see that the black car, driven erratically but keeping a safe distance, was following her.
21
After driving for several minutes through the labyrinth of the Royal South London Hospital grounds, Lynn halted the Peugeot in frustration in the driveway outside the Emergency entrance, as the way ahead was barred by a metal barrier. It was just after half past nine in the evening.
‘Jesus!’ she said, exasperated. ‘How the hell is anyone supposed to find their way around here?’
It was the same every time; they always got lost here. Construction work was going on constantly and the liver unit was never in the same building twice – at least, that was how it seemed to her. And since the last time, a good two years ago, the whole traffic layout appeared to have changed.
She stared around in frustration at the institutional-looking buildings surrounding them. Tall monoliths, a mish-mash of architectural styles. Close to the car was a barrage of red, yellow and pale green signs and she had to strain to read them in the glow from the street lighting. None contained the name of the wing she was looking for, the Rosslyn Wing, which she had been told to access via the Bannerman Wing.
‘Must be in the wrong place,’ Caitlin said, without looking up from her texting.
‘Is that what you think?’ Lynn asked, more good-humouredly than she felt.
‘Uh huh. Like, if we were in the right place, we’d be there, wouldn’t we?’ She tapped her keys in furious concentration.
Despite her tiredness and her fear and her frustration, Lynn found herself grinning at her daughter’s curious logic. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Quite right.’
‘I’m always right. Just have to ask me. I’m like the Oracle.’
‘Perhaps the Oracle could tell me which way to go now.’
‘I think you’ll have to start by reversing.’
Lynn backed a short distance, then stopped alongside more signs. Hopgood Wing, she read. Golden Jubilee Wing. Main Hospital Entrance. Variety Club Children’s Outpatients. ‘Where the hell is Bannerman?’
Caitlin looked up from her texting. ‘Chill, woman. It’s like a television game, you know?’
‘I hate it when you say that!’
‘What, television game?’ Caitlin teased.
‘Chill, woman! OK? I don’t like it when you say that.’
‘Yep, well, you are so stressed. You’re stressing me.’
Lynn looked behind her and began reversing again.
‘Life’s a game,’ Caitlin said.
‘A game? What do you mean?’
‘It’s a game. You win – you live, you lose – you die.’
Lynn brought the car to a sudden halt and turned to face Caitlin. ‘Is that what you really think, darling?’
‘Yep! They’ve hidden my new liver somewhere in this complex. We have to find it! If I find it in time, I live. If I don’t, tough shit!’
Lynn giggled. She put an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her head, breathing in the scents of her hair shampoo and gel. ‘God, I love you so much, darling.’
Caitlin shrugged, then in a deadpan voice said, ‘Yep, well, I’m quite worth loving really.’
‘Sometimes!’ Lynn retorted. ‘Only sometimes!’
Caitlin nodded, a resigned look on her face, and resumed her texting.
Lynn reversed out on to Crystal Hill, drove a short distance forwards and finally found the main entrance for vehicles. She turned left into it, passed a cluster of yellow ambulances parked outside the curved glass façade of an almost incongruously modern block, then finally saw the Bannerman Wing sign and turned right into the car park opposite a Victorian building that looked as if it might recently have had a facelift.
A couple of minutes later, carrying Caitlin’s overnight holdall, she walked past a man wearing a coat over his hospital pyjamas who was sitting on a bench beside a floodlit statue, smoking a cigarette, and entered the columned entrance porch of Bannerman Wing. Caitlin, dressed in a lime-green hoodie, ripped jeans with frayed bottoms and untied trainers, trailed behind her.
There were twin vertical perspex signs in front of them, printed with the words ROYAL SOUTH LONDON, and a row of white columns stretching ahead down the hallway. To the right was a visitors’ information desk, where a large black woman was on the phone. Lynn waited for her to finish the call, glancing around.
A bewildered-looking grey-haired man with a red holdall in one arm and a black handbag in the other was shuffling forwards in slippers. To her left, a cluster of people sat around in a waiting area. One, an old man, was in a motorized wheelchair. Another old man, in a beanie and tracksuit, sat slumped on a green stool, with a wooden walking stick out in front of him. A youth in a grey hoodie and jeans was plugged into an iPod. A young man, with despair on his face, wearing a blue T-shirt, jeans and trainers, was seated, bent forward, his hands clasped between his thighs, as if waiting for someone or something.
The whole place seemed filled with a late-night air of tired, silent desperation. Further along she saw a shop, like a small supermarket, selling sweets and flowers. A shell-suited elderly woman with blue-rinsed hair emerged, opening a chocolate bar.
The woman behind the desk ended her call and looked up pleasantly. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes, thank you. Shirley Linsell in the Rosslyn Wing is expecting us.’
‘Can you give me your names?’
‘Caitlin Beckett,’ Lynn said. ‘And her mother.’
‘I’ll tell her. Take the lift to the third floor and she’ll meet you there.’ She pointed down the corridor.
They walked along, past the shop, past signs reading, BUTT OUT, SMOKING BAN IN ALL NHS HOSPITALS AND DON’T INFECT. PROTECT and past weary-looking, disoriented people coming in the opposite direction. Lynn had always been spooked by hospitals, remembering the countless visits to Southlands Hospital in Shoreham when her father had had a stroke. Other than maternity wards, hospitals were not happy places. Hospitals were where you went when bad things happened to you or to people you loved.
At the end of the corridor they reached an area, in front of the steel doors of the lift, that was bathed in an iridescent purple light. It was more like the light she would expect to find in a disco, or on the set of a science fiction film, Lynn thought.
Caitlin paused from her texting to look up. ‘Cool,’ she said with an approving nod. Then, in a breathless rush of excitement, ‘Hey! You know what, Mum? This is a clue!’
‘A clue?’ Lynn questioned.
Caitlin nodded. ‘Like beam me up from Star Trek, right?’ Then she grinned mysteriously. ‘They put this on for us.’
Lynn gave her daughter a quizzical look. ‘OK. So why did they do that?’
‘We find out on the third floor. That’s our next clue!’
As they rode the slow lift, Lynn was pleased that Caitlin seemed to have perked up. All her life she had had strong mood swings and recently the disease had made them worse. But at least she was coming in here with a positive attitude, for the moment.
They stepped out on the third floor, to be greeted by a smiling woman in her mid-thirties. She was pleasant-looking, a classic English rose face framed with long, brown hair, and she was dressed in a white blouse, with a knitted pink top and black trousers. She gave Caitlin a warm smile first, then Lynn, then turned back to Caitlin. Lynn noticed she had a tiny burst blood vessel in her left eye.
‘Caitlin? Hi, I’m Shirley, your transplant coordinator. I’m going to be looking after you while you are here.’
Caitlin eyeballed her levelly for some moments and said nothing. Then she looked down at her phone and resumed her endless texting.
‘Shirley Linsell?’ Lynn asked.
‘Yes. And you must be Caitlin’s mum, Lynn.’
Lynn smiled. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘I’ll take you along to your room. We’ve got a nice single room for you, Caitlin, for the next few days. And we’ve arranged an overnight room nearby for you, Mrs Beckett.’ Addressing them both, she added, ‘I’m here to answer any questions that you have, so please ask anything you like, anything at all that you want to know.’
Still looking down at her phone, Caitlin said, ‘Am I going to die?’
‘No, of course not, darling!’ Lynn said.
‘I wasn’t asking you,’ Caitlin said. ‘I was asking Shirley.’
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Then the transplant coordinator said, ‘What makes you think that, Caitlin?’
‘I’d have to be pretty fucking stupid not to, wouldn’t I?’
22
Roy Grace followed the tail lights of the black Audi TT, which was some distance ahead of him and drawing further away all the time. Cleo didn’t seem to fully understand what speed limits were. Nor, as she approached the junction with Sackville and Nevill roads, what traffic lights were for.
Shit. He felt a stab of fear for her.
The light turned amber. But her brake lights did not come on.
His heart was suddenly in his mouth. Being T-boned by a car running a stop light produced some of the worst injuries you could have. And it was not only Cleo in that speeding car now. It was their child too.
The lights went red. A good two seconds later, the Audi hurtled through them. Roy gripped his steering wheel hard, fearing for her.
Then she was safely over and continuing along Old Shoreham Road, approaching Hove Park on her left.
He halted his unmarked Ford Focus estate at the lights, his heart hammering, tempted to call her, to tell her to slow down. But it was no use, this was how she always drove. She was worse, he had come to realize in the five months they had been dating, than his friend and colleague Glenn Branson, who had only recently passed his Police High Speed Pursuit test and liked to demonstrate his skills behind the wheel – or rather, lack of them – to Roy at every opportunity.
Why did Cleo drive so recklessly when she was so meticulous in everything else she did? Surely, he reasoned, someone who worked in a mortuary and handled, almost every day, the torn and broken bodies of people killed on the roads would take extra care when driving. And yet one of the consultant pathologists for Brighton and Hove, Dr Nigel Churchman, who had recently transferred up north, raced cars at weekends. Perhaps, he sometimes thought, if you worked in such close proximity to death, it made you want to challenge and defy it.
The lights changed. He checked there was no one doing a Cleo coming across, then drove over the junction, accelerating, but mindful that there were two cameras on the next stretch of road. Cleo totally denied that she drove fast, as if she was blind to it. And that scared him. He loved her so much, and even more so tonight than ever. The thought of anything happening to her was more than he could bear.
For nearly ten years after Sandy vanished, he had been unable to form any relationship with another woman. Until Cleo. During all that time he had constantly been searching for Sandy, waiting for news, hoping for a call, or for her to walk in through the front door of their home one day. But that had begun to change now. He loved Cleo as much as, and maybe even more than, he had ever loved Sandy, and if she did suddenly reappear, no matter how good her explanation, he strongly doubted he would leave Cleo for her. In his mind and in his heart he had moved on.
And now this most incredible thing of all. Cleo was pregnant! Six weeks. Confirmed this morning, she had told him. She was carrying his child. Their child.
It was so ironic, he thought. In their life together before her disappearance, Sandy had been unable to conceive. The first few years they hadn’t worried about it, having made a decision to wait a while before starting a family. But then, when they had begun trying, nothing had happened. During that last year before she had disappeared, they had both had fertility tests. The problem turned out to be with Sandy, some biochemistry to do with the viscosity of the mucus in her fallopian tubes that the specialist had explained in detail, and Roy had done his best to understand.
The specialist had put Sandy on a course of medication, although he had told her there was less than a 50 per cent chance of it working, and that had depressed her, making her feel inadequate. Sandy always liked to be in charge. Probably one of the reasons why she too had liked to drive fast, commanding the road, he thought. She was the one who created the Zen minimalist look inside their house and who designed the garden. She always made the arrangements when they went away. Sometimes he wondered if she had been more depressed than he had realized about her infertility problem. And whether that might have been the reason behind her disappearance.
So many unanswered questions.
But now the vacuum in his life was filled. Dating Cleo had brought him a sense of happiness he had never believed would be possible again. And now this news, this incredible news!
He saw her car ahead, this time stopped at the lights at the junction with Shirley Drive, where there was a safety camera.
Please, darling, please drive a little less crazily! Don’t go and wipe yourself out in a wreck, just when I have found you. Just when life is beginning for us.
When life is growing inside you.
He saw her brake lights come on before the next camera and finally caught up with her car at the next lights. Then he followed her, right into Dyke Road and along to the Seven Dials roundabout. Half past eleven on a Wednesday night and there were still quite a few people on the streets, in this densely populated area.
Instinctively checking out every face, he soon saw someone he recognized, a ragged, small-time drug dealer and police informant, Miles Penney, shambling along, head bowed, cigarette dangling from his lips. From his slow pace it did not look as if he was on his way either to score or to sell tonight, and besides Grace didn’t care what he did. So long as Penney didn’t rape or murder anyone, he was part of another division’s set of problems.
He followed Cleo on down past the railway station, then through the network of narrow streets of the North Laine district, filled with its mix of terraced houses, individual shops, cafés and restaurants, and antiques dealers, until she found a resident’s parking space near her home. Grace pulled up on a single yellow line in sight of her car and got out, casting a wary eye around for any moving shadows, feeling doubly protective of Cleo all of a sudden.
He followed her through the gates of the converted warehouse building where she had her town house, and put an arm around her as she pressed the entrance keypad.
She wore a long black cape over her dress, and he s
lipped his hand inside it and pressed the palm against her stomach.
‘This is amazing,’ he said.
She stared at him with wide-open, trusting eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re OK with this?’
He slipped his hand out of her cape, then cupped her face in both his hands. ‘With all my heart. I’m not just OK with this, I’m incredibly happy. But – I don’t know how to express it. This is one of the most incredible things ever. And I think you will be a wonderful mother. You will be amazing.’
‘I think you will be a wonderful father,’ she said.
They kissed. Then warily, because it was late and dark, he glanced around again, checking the shadows. ‘Just one thing,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Your driving is something else. I mean, Lewis Hamilton, eat your heart out!’
‘That’s a bit rich coming from a man who drove his car over Beachy Head!’ she said.
‘Yep, well, I had a good reason for that. I was in a pursuit situation. You just did eighty in a forty limit and shot a red light for no reason at all.’
‘So? Book me!’
They stared into each other’s eyes. ‘You can be such a bitch at times,’ he said, grinning.
‘And you can be such an anal plod!’
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘Do you, Grace?’
‘Yes. I adore you and I love you.’
‘How much?’
He grinned, then held her close and whispered into her ear. ‘I want you inside, naked, then I’ll show you!’
‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all night,’ she whispered back.
She tapped out the numbers. The gate lock clicked and she pushed it open.
They walked through, across the cobbled yard and up to her front door. She unlocked it and they went inside, straight into a scene of utter devastation.
A black tornado hurtled through the mess and launched itself into the air, hitting Cleo in her midriff and almost knocking her over.
‘Down!’ she yelled. ‘Humphrey, down!’
