by Manda Scott
‘Have you seen what it’s like under there?’
‘Yes. You might not want to look, it’s not that encouraging.’
‘It looked fine last time I saw it.’
‘Aye. Well. That was a while ago.’
‘Really?’
‘You’ve been out of it for almost ten days, Kellen.’
‘Shit.’
‘Mmm. I think it’s probably easier that way.’
‘When did they let you out of the Western?’
‘A couple of days ago. They’re short of beds on the orthopaedics ward and they weren’t doing anything I couldn’t do at home. Besides, Mhaire can be very persuasive when she tries.’
I can imagine.
‘Was Caroline happy to have you at the farm?’
‘She wouldn’t have let me go anywhere else. She wanted me somewhere she could keep an eye on me. If you had died, I’d have been the wood that lit your funeral pyre.’
‘She doesn’t mean it. It’s just an over-developed sense of guilt.’
‘Maybe. I don’t want to find out.’ She finished unpicking the micropore from the edges of the bandage. ‘Hold tight. This is going to hurt.’
It did. It hurt a great deal. I lay back on the towel and stared at the sky, counting backwards from 100, in threes. By the time I got down to single figures, I was feeling well enough to have a look.
The wound was every bit as bad as she had said. The nice neat puncture wound had transformed into a gaping cavity with an interesting purulent discharge that coated the dressing and spread out over my shoulder.
Almost as bad as I had imagined and I thought I was being pessimistic. I looked away.
Lee was watching me. ‘Nasty,’ she said.
‘True.’ I looked at the languid water of the pool. It looked pleasantly inviting. Like a siren-mirror calling me in. It didn’t promise to let me out again. ‘Is washing it going to help?’
‘I think so.’
‘OK.’ I stood up, slowly. ‘Shall we go?’
We stayed a long time in the water, walking out under the waterfall, letting it cascade over us like a living shower, scouring off the waste and the debris and the smell of death that clung, unnoticed, as a second skin. After the first shock of the cold, the anaesthetic effect on the wound in my shoulder felt as if someone had removed a spiked vice from the skin. Wonderful. I leant over backwards and let the water jet in, like a power hose, or a surgical irrigation, abrading all the dead flesh.
Afterwards, we lay back on the towels and toyed with the food, watching the wind ripple the fringes of grass at the top of the cliff and keeping an eye out for imaginary kingfishers.
Lee rolled on to one side to look at me. ‘How’s your shoulder?’
‘Better. How’s your hand?’
‘OK.’
‘Was the surgery all right?’
‘Reasonable. Marje Stevens did it. She’s as good as they come.’
‘All in one piece?’
‘It’s all there. It might not work quite as it used to.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘I’m still alive. In the scale of things, it could be a lot worse.’
‘Mmm.’ I stared at the clouds for a while and thought about how much worse it could have been. I rolled over to see her better. ‘Andersen’s dead, did you know?’
‘Yes.’ She kept her face to the sky. ‘Gemmell isn’t.’
‘We can’t leave him like that.’
‘No. But we’ll wait till you’re better before we do anything heroic.’
‘And if I don’t get better?’
‘He can stay where he is.’ She sat up and reached for a pocket in the rucksack. ‘Here. It’s time we were going or the others will be home. Do you think you could stand another bandage on your shoulder?’
‘Do you think I need it?’
‘I think it would look less suspicious if you had one.’
‘Fine. You’re the surgeon.’
We made the descent a lot faster than we had climbed up and I was back in bed, coffee mug removed, by the time the sound of voices and hoof beats rattled into the yard.
Three months later, around midnight on hogmanay, a white-coated clinician made an unscheduled visit to the Intensive Care Unit of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Some time later, the night nurse in charge of Peter Gyton Gemmell, noticed a change in the stable rhythm of his heart. In the time it took her to call the emergency team, the dysrhythmia had changed to overt fibrillation and the doctor in charge, who was a humane man, elected not to initiate resuscitation.
In due course, the ventilator was disconnected and the body transferred to the Pathology unit, where a brief post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of death as cardiac arrest.
A small private service, for close colleagues and members of the immediate family only, was held the following week at the local crematorium.
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A thrilling collision of past and present: a race-against-time detective puzzle and
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About the Author
Over the past two decades, Manda Scott has brought iconic historical figures back to life, reimagined and rebooted for the twenty-first century. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize, nominated for an Edgar Award and translated into over twenty languages.
Manda’s bestselling Boudica series was recently optioned for television.
Also by Manda Scott
INTO THE FIRE
HEN’S TEETH
NIGHT MARES
STRONGER THAN DEATH
NO GOOD DEED
BOUDICA: DREAMING THE EAGLE
BOUDICA: DREAMING THE BULL
BOUDICA: DREAMING THE HOUND
BOUDICA: DREAMING THE SERPENT SPEAR
THE CRYSTAL SKULL
ROME: THE EMPEROR’S SPY
ROME: THE COMING OF THE KING
ROME: THE EAGLE OF THE TWELFTH
ROME: THE ART OF WAR
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First published in Great Britain in 1996 by The Women’s Press Ltd
First published in paperback in 2005 by Review,
an imprint of Headline Book Publishing
Corgi edition published 2013
Copyright © Manda Scott 1996
Manda Scott has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781448154876
ISBN: 9780552168731
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