Beneath the Bleeding

Monday

‘Remind me again why I let you open that third bottle,’ Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan sighed, putting the car in gear and inching forward a few yards.

‘Because it was the first time you’ve graced us with a visit since we moved to the Dales and because I have to be in Bradfield this morning and you don’t have a proper spare room. So there was no point in driving back last night.’ Her brother Michael leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. Carol slapped his hand away.

‘Leave it be,’ she said.

Michael groaned. ‘Bradfield Sound. Who knew my life would come down to this? Local radio at its most parochial.’

‘I need to hear what’s happening on my patch.’

Michael looked sceptical. ‘You run the Major Incident Team. You’re affiliated to the British equivalent of the FBI. You don’t need to know if there’s a burst water main causing problems for traffic on Methley Way. Or that some footballer’s been carted off to hospital with chest problems.’

‘Hey, Mr IT. Wasn’t it you who taught me the “micro becomes macro” mantra? I like to know what’s happening at the bottom of the food chain because it sometimes provokes unexpected events at the other end. And he’s not just “some footballer”. He’s Robbie Bishop. Midfield general of Bradfield Victoria. And a local lad to boot. His female fans will be staking out Bradfield Cross as we speak. Possible public order issues.’

Michael subsided with a pout. ‘Whatever. Have it your own way, Sis. Thank god their reception doesn’t stretch far from the city. I’d have lost my mind if you’d made me listen to this all the way in.’ He rolled his head on his neck, wincing at the crackling it produced. ‘Haven’t you got one of those blue lights that you can slap on the car roof?’

‘Yes,’ Carol said, easing forward with the traffic flow, praying this time it would keep moving. She felt sweaty and faintly sick in spite of the shower she’d had less than an hour ago. ‘But I’m only supposed to use it in emergencies. And before you go there, no. This is not an emergency. This is just the rush hour.’

As she spoke, the clotted traffic suddenly began to flow. Within a couple of hundred yards, it was hard to figure out quite why it had taken twenty minutes to travel half a mile when now they were moving relatively smoothly.

Michael frowned slightly, studying his sister, then said, ‘So, Sis, how’s it going with Tony?’

Carol tried not to let her exasperation show. She thought she’d got away with it. A whole weekend with her parents, her brother and his partner without any of them mentioning that name. ‘It’s working out pretty well, actually. I like the flat. He’s a very good landlord.’

Michael tutted. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

Carol sighed, edging in front of a Mercedes who blared his horn at her. We probably saw more of each other when we were living on opposite sides of the city,’ she said.

‘I thought…’

Hands tight on the wheel. ‘You thought wrong. Michael, we’re a pair of workaholics. He loves his nutters and I’ve had a new unit to get up to speed. Not to mention trying to put Paula back together again,’ she added, her face tightening at the thought.

‘That’s a pity.’ The glance he gave her was critical. ‘Neither of you is getting any younger. If I’ve learned anything from being with Lucy it’s that life’s a lot easier when you share the nuts and bolts with somebody on the same wavelength. And I think you and Tony Hill are totally that.’

Carol risked a quick glance to check whether he was taking the piss. The man who once kind of, almost, sort of, maybe thought you might be a serial killer? This is the man you think is on the same wavelength as me?’

Michael rolled his eyes. ‘Stop hiding behind the history.’

‘It’s not about hiding. History like ours, you need crampons and oxygen to get over it.’ Carol found a space in the traffic and edged to the kerb, hazard lights flashing. ‘This is the part where you run away,’ she said in a bad imitation of Shrek.

‘You’re dropping me here?’ Michael sounded mildly outraged.

‘It’ll take me ten minutes to get round to the front of the Institute,’ Carol said, leaning past him to point out of the passenger window. ‘If you cut through the new shopping arcade, you’ll be at your client meeting in three.’

‘God you’re right. We’ve only been away from the city for three months and already I’m losing the mental map.’ He put an arm across her shoulders, gave her cheek a dry kiss then climbed out of the car. ‘Speak to you in the week.’

Ten minutes later, Carol walked into Bradfield Police headquarters. In the short gap between dropping Michael off and leaving the lift on the third floor, where the team she thought of as the ragged misfits was based, she had made the shift from sister to police officer. The only element the two personae shared was the mild hangover.

She carried on down a corridor whose lavender and off-white walls were broken up by doors of plate glass and steel. Their central sections were frosted so it was hard to see any detail of what was going on behind them unless it was happening on the floor or dangling from the ceiling. The tarted-up interiors still reminded her of an advertising agency. But then, modern policing often seemed to have as much to do with image as it did with catching villains. Happily, she’d managed to keep herself as close to the sharp end as was possible for an officer of her rank.

She pushed open the door of 316 and stepped into the land of the dead and the damaged. This early on a Monday morning, the living were thin on the ground. DC Stacey Chen, the team’s IT wizard, barely glanced up from the pair of monitors on her desk, grunting something Carol took to be a greeting. ‘Morning, Stacey,’ Carol said. As she crossed to her office, Detective Sergeant Chris Devine stepped out from behind one of the long whiteboards that encircled their desks like covered wagons keeping the enemy at bay. Startled, Carol stopped in her tracks. Chris held her hands up in a placatory gesture.

‘Sorry, guv Didn’t mean to freak you out.’

‘No harm done.’ Carol let her breath out in a sigh. ‘We really do need to get those see-through incident boards.’

‘What? Like they have on the telly?’ Chris gave a small snort. ‘Don’t see the point, myself. I’ve always thought they’re a proper bitch to read. All that background interference.’ She fell into step beside Carol as her boss made for the glassed-off cubicle that served as her office. ‘So what’s the latest on Tony? How’s he doing?’

It was, thought Carol, a funny way to put it. She gave a half-shrug and said, ‘As far as I know, he’s fine.’ Her tone was calculated to close the subject.

Chris swung around so she was walking backwards in Carol’s path, checking out her boss’s expression. Her eyes widened. ‘Oh my good god, you don’t know, do you?’

‘Don’t know what?’ Carol felt the clutch of panic in her stomach.

Chris put a hand on Carol’s arm and indicated her office with a jerk of her head. ‘I think we’d better sit down,’ she said.

‘Christ,’ said Carol, allowing herself to be led inside. She made for her chair while Chris closed the door. ‘I’ve only been in the Dales, not the North Pole. What the hell’s been going on? What’s happened to Tony?’

Chris responded to the urgency in her voice. ‘He was attacked. By one of the inmates at Bradfield Moor.’

Carol’s hands came up to her face, covering her cheeks and pushing her mouth into an O. She drew breath sharply. ‘What happened?’ Her voice was raised, almost a shout.

Chris ran a hand through her short salt-and pepper hair. ‘There’s no way to soften it, guv. He got in the way of a madman with a fire axe.’

Chris’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way off. Never mind that Carol had inured herself to sights and sounds that would have made most people whimper and gibber. When it came to Tony Hill, she had a unique vulnerability. She might choose not to acknowledge it consciously, but at moments like this, it altered everything. ‘What…?’ Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. ‘How bad is it?’

‘From what I heard, his leg’s pretty smashed up. He took it in the knee. Lost a lot of blood. It took a while for the paramedics to get to him, on account of there was a madman with an axe on the prowl,’ Chris said.

Bad though this was, it was far less than her imagination had managed to conjure in a matter of seconds. Blood loss and a smashed knee were manageable. No big deal, really, in the great scheme of things. ‘Jesus,’ Carol said, relief in her released breath. ‘What happened?’

‘What I heard was that one of the inmates overpowered an orderly, got his key off him, trampled his head to a bloody pulp then got into the main part of the hospital where he broke the glass and got the axe.’

Carol shook her head. ‘They have fire axes in Bradfield Moor? A secure mental hospital?’

‘Apparently that’s precisely why. It’s secure. Lots of locked doors and wire-reinforced glass. Health and Safety says you have to be able to get the patients out in the event of fire and a failure of the electronic locking systems.’ Chris shook her head. ‘Bollocks, if you ask me.’ She threw up her hands in the face of Carol’s admonitory expression. ‘Yeah, well. Better a few mad bastards burn than we get this kind of shit. One orderly dead, another one on the critical list whose internal organs are never going to be right again and Tony smashed up? I’d shed a few homicidal nutters to avoid that.’ Somehow, the sentiment sounded even worse in Chris’s strong Cockney accent.

‘It’s not an either/or, and you know it, Chris,’ Carol said. Even though her own gut reaction matched that of her sergeant, she knew it was emotion and not common sense talking. But these days, only the reckless and the heedless casually spoke their mind in the workplace. Carol liked her mavericks. She didn’t want to lose any of them because the wrong ears heard them sounding off, so she did her best to curb their excesses. ‘So how did Tony get caught up in it?’ she asked. ‘Was it one of his patients?’

Chris shrugged. ‘Dunno. Apparently he was the hero of the hour, though. Distracted the mad bastard enough for a couple of nurses to drag the injured orderly out of harm’s way.’

But not enough to save himself. ‘Why did nobody contact me? Who was our duty officer this weekend? Sam, wasn’t it?’

Chris shook her head. ‘It was supposed to be Sam, but he swapped with Paula.’

Carol jumped up and opened the door. Scanning the room, she saw DC Paula McIntyre hanging her coat up. Paula? In here a minute,’ she called. As the young detective crossed the room, Carol felt the familiar wash of guilt. Not so long ago, she had put Paula in harm’s way and harm had come running. Never mind that it had been an officially sanctioned operation: Carol had been the one who had promised to protect Paula and had failed. The double whammy of that botched operation and the death of her closest colleague had set Paula teetering on the brink of abandoning her police career. Carol knew that place. She’d been there herself, and for scarily similar reasons. She’d offered what support she could to Paula, but it had been Tony who had talked her back from the edge. Carol had no idea what had passed between them, but it had made it possible for Paula to continue being a cop. And for that she was grateful, even if it meant having that constant reminder of her own inadequacy on her team.

Carol stepped aside to make way for Paula and returned to her chair. Paula leaned against the glass wall, arms folded as if that would disguise the weight she had lost. Her dark blonde hair looked as if she’d forgotten to comb it after towelling it dry and her charcoal trousers and sweater hung baggily on her. ‘How’s Tony?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, because I’ve only just found out about the attack,’ Carol said, careful not to make it sound like an accusation.

Paula looked stricken. ‘Oh, shit,’ she groaned. ‘It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t know.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘They didn’t even ring me, actually. The first I knew about it was when I turned on the TV on Saturday morning. I just assumed somebody would have called you…’ her voice trailed off, dismayed.

‘Nobody called me. I was having a family weekend in the Dales with my brother and my parents. So we didn’t have the TV or the radio on. Do we know which hospital he’s in?’

‘Bradfield Cross,’ Paula said. ‘They operated on his knee on Saturday. I checked. They said he’d come out of surgery OK and he was comfortable.’

Carol got to her feet, grabbing her bag. ‘Fine. That’s where I’ll be if you need me. I take it there’s nothing fresh in the overnights that we need to concern ourselves with?’

Chris shook her head. ‘Nothing new.’

‘Just as well. There’s plenty to be going on with.’ She patted Paula’s shoulder as she passed. ‘I’d have made the same assumption,’ she said on her way out. But I’d still have called to make sure.

Dry mouth. Too dry to swallow. That was just about the biggest thought that could make it through the cotton wadding filling his head. His eyelids flickered. Dimly, he knew there was a reason why opening them would be a bad idea, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He wasn’t even sure he could trust this fuzzy warning from his brain. What could be so bad about opening his eyes? People did it all the time and nothing bad happened to them.

The answer came with dizzying speed. ‘About time,’ the voice snapped from somewhere behind his left ear. Its critical edge was familiar but only historically so. It didn’t seem to fit the ragged impression he retained of his current life.

Tony rolled his head to the side. The movement reawakened pain that was hard to locate specifically. It seemed to be a general ache throughout his body. He groaned and opened his eyes. Then he remembered why keeping them shut had been the better option.

‘If I’ve got to be here, the least you could do is make conversation.’ Her mouth clamped tight in the disapproving line he remembered so well. She closed her laptop, put it on the table beside her and crossed one trouser-clad leg over the other. She’d never liked her legs, Tony thought pointlessly.

‘Sorry,’ he croaked. ‘I think it’s the drugs.’ He reached for the glass of water on his tray, but it was beyond his grasp. She didn’t make a move. He tried to pull himself into a sitting position, idiotically forgetting why he was in the hospital bed. His left leg, weighed down in a heavy surgical splint, shifted infinitesimally but delivered a completely disproportionate blast of pain that made him gasp. With the pain came memory. Lloyd Allen bearing down on him, screaming something incomprehensible. The glint of light on blue steel. A moment of paralysing pain, then nothing. Since then, flickers of consciousness. Doctors talking about him, nurses talking over him, the TV talking at him. And her, emanating irritation and impatience. ‘Water?’ he managed, not sure whether she would oblige.

She gave the flouncing sigh of a woman much put upon and lifted the water glass, prodding the straw towards his dry lips so he could drink without having to sit up. He sucked at the water, taking it in small sips, enjoying the sensation as his mouth recovered moistness. Suck, savour, swallow. He repeated the process till he’d drunk half the glass, then let his head fall back on the pillow. ‘You don’t have to be here,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

She snorted. ‘You don’t think I’m here from choice, do you? Bradfield Cross is one of my client accounts.’

That she could still let him down so brutally was no surprise but it didn’t stop it hurting. ‘Keeping up appearances, eh?’ he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

‘When my income and my reputation are at stake? You bet.’ She gave him a sour look, the eyes that were so like his narrowing in appraisal. ‘Don’t pretend you disapprove, Tony. When it comes to keeping up appearances, you could represent England at the Olympics. I bet none of your colleagues has a clue what goes on in your grubby little mind.’

‘I had a good teacher.’ He looked away, pretending to watch the morning magazine show on the TV.

‘All right then, we don’t have to talk. I’ve got work to do and I’m sure we can get someone to bring you some reading material. I’ll stick around for a day or two, just till they get you on your feet. Then I’ll be out of your way.’ He heard her shift in her chair and the tap of fingers on keys.

‘How did you find out?’ he said.

‘Apparently I’m on your personnel records as your next of kin. Either you haven’t updated them for twenty years or you’re still the Billy No Mates you always were. And some clever clogs senior nurse recognized me when I walked in. So I’m stuck here for as long as propriety demands.’

‘I had no idea you had any connection to Bradfield.’

‘Thought you were safe here, did you? Unlike you, Tony, I’m a success story. I have connections all over the country. Business is booming.’ When she boasted, her face softened.

‘You really don’t have to be here,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell them I sent you away.’ He spoke quickly, his words tumbling over themselves in an attempt to minimize the effort of speech.

‘And why exactly should I trust you to tell the truth about me? No thanks. I’ll do my duty.’

Tony stared at the wall. Was there a more depressing sentence in the English language?

Elinor Blessing swirled the whipped cream into her mug of mocha with the wooden stirrer. Starbucks was a two-minute walk from the back entrance of Bradfield Cross, and she reckoned there was a groove in the pavement worn by the feet of junior doctors fixing themselves with caffeine to keep sleep at bay. But this morning she wasn’t trying to stay awake, she was trying to stay out of the way.

A vertical line furrowed between her brows and her grey eyes stared into the middle distance. Thoughts tumbled over each other as she tried to figure out what she should do. She’d been Thomas Denby’s SHO for long enough to have formed a pretty clear opinion of him. He was probably the best diagnostician she’d ever worked with, and he backed it up with solid clinical care. Unlike a lot of consultants she’d seen, he didn’t seem to need to massage his ego by trampling junior doctors and students into the dirt. He encouraged them to take an active role in his ward rounds. When his students answered what was asked of them, he appeared gratified when they got it right and disappointed when they got it wrong. That disappointment was far more of an incentive to learn than the sarcasm and humiliation dealt out by many of his colleagues.

However, like a good barrister, Denby was generally asking questions whose answers he knew already. Would he be quite so generous if one of his underlings had the answer to a problem he had failed to solve? Would he thank the person who interrupted the smooth flow of his ward rounds with a suggestion he hadn’t already considered? Especially if it turned out that they were right?

You could argue that he should be pleased, no matter who came up with the theory. Diagnosis was the first step on the journey of helping the patient. Except when it was a diagnosis of despair. Incurable, intractable, untreatable. Nobody wanted that sort of diagnosis.

Especially when your patient was Robbie Bishop.

There was, Carol thought, something dispiriting about knowing your way round a hospital so well. One way or another, her job had taken her to all the major departments of Bradfield Cross. The one advantage was that she knew which of the congested car parks to aim for.

The woman on duty at the nurses’ station on the men’s surgical ward recognized her. Their paths had crossed several times during the surgery and recovery of a rapist whose victim had miraculously managed to turn his knife against him. They’d both taken a certain amount of pleasure in his pain. ‘It’s Inspector Jordan, isn’t it?’ she said.

Carol didn’t bother correcting her. ‘That’s right. I’m looking for a patient called Hill. Tony Hill?’

The nurse looked surprised. ‘You’re a bit high on the totem pole to be taking statements.’

Carol debated momentarily how to describe her relationship with Tony. ‘Colleague’ was insufficient, ‘landlord’ somehow misleading and ‘friend’ both more and less than the truth. She shrugged. ‘He feeds my cat.’

The nurse giggled. ‘We all need one of those.’ She pointed down the hallway to her right. ‘Past the four-bed wards, there’s a door on the left right at the end. That’s him.’

Anxiety worrying at her like a rat with a bone, Carol followed the directions. Outside the door, she paused. How was it going to be? What was she going to find? She had little experience of dealing with other people’s physical incapacity. She knew from her own experience that when she was hurt the last people she wanted around her were the ones she cared about. Their obvious distress made her feel guilty and she didn’t enjoy having her own vulnerability on display. She would have put money on Tony sharing similar feelings. She cast her mind back to a previous occasion when she’d visited him in hospital. They hadn’t known each other well then, but she remembered it hadn’t exactly been a comfortable encounter. Well, if it turned out that he wanted to be left alone, she wouldn’t stick around. Just show her face so he’d know she was concerned, then bow out graciously, making sure he knew she’d be back if he wanted her.

Deep breath, then a knock. Then the familiar voice, blurred around the edges. ‘Come in if you’ve got drugs Carol grinned. Not that bad, then. She pushed the door open and walked in.

She was immediately aware that there was someone else in the room, but at first she only had eyes for Tony. Three days’ stubble emphasized the grey tinge to his skin. He looked as if he’d lost weight he could ill afford. But his eyes were bright and his smile seemed like the real thing. A contraption of pulleys and wires held his knee braced in its splint at an angle that looked scarcely comfortable. ‘Carol,’ he began before he was interrupted.

‘You must be the girlfriend,’ the woman sitting in the corner of the room said, the accent faint but recognizably local. ‘What kept you?’ Carol looked at her in surprise. She looked to be a well-preserved early sixties, doing a good job of keeping the years at bay. The hair was skilfully dyed golden brown, the make-up impeccable but understated. Her blue eyes held an air of calculation, and the lines that were visible did not speak of a kind and generous nature. On the thin side of slender, she was dressed in a business suit whose cut raised it above the average. Certainly well above what Carol could afford to pay for a suit.

‘Sorry?’ Carol said. She wasn’t often caught on the back foot, but even villains were seldom quite so blunt.

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Tony said, irritation apparent. ‘She’s Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan.’

The woman’s eyebrows rose. ‘You could have fooled me.’ A thin smile, entirely lacking in humour. ‘I mean about the girlfriend part, not about you being a copper. After all, unless you’re here to arrest him, what’s a senior police officer doing sniffing around this useless article?’

‘Mother.’ It was a snarl through clenched teeth. Tony made a face at Carol, a mix of exasperation and plea. ‘Carol, this is my mother. Carol Jordan, Vanessa Hill.’

Neither woman made a move to shake hands. Carol fought back her surprise. It was true that they’d never spoken much about their families, but she had formed the distinct impression that Tony’s mother was dead. Pleased to meet you,’ Carol said. She turned back to Tony. ‘How are you?’

‘Cram-jammed with drugs. But at least today I can stay awake for more than five minutes at a time.’

‘And the leg? What are they saying about that?’ As she spoke, she realized Vanessa Hill was packing her laptop away in a bright neoprene case.

‘Apparently it was a clean, single break. They’ve done their best to stick it together…’ His voice tailed off. ‘Mother, are you going?’ he asked as Vanessa rounded the end of the bed, coat over her arm, laptop slung over her shoulder alongside her handbag.

‘Bloody right, I’m going. You’ve got your girlfriend to look after you now. I’m off the hook.’ She made for the door.

‘She is not my girlfriend,’ Tony shouted. ‘She’s my tenant, my colleague, my friend. And she’s a woman, not a girl.’

‘Whatever,’ Vanessa said. ‘I’m not abandoning you now. I’m leaving you in good hands. A difference that will be apparent to the nursing staff.’ She sketched a wave as she left.

Carol stared open-mouthed at the disappearing woman. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said, turning back to Tony. ‘Is she always like that?’

He let his head fall back on the pillow, avoiding her eyes. ‘Probably not with other people,’ he said wearily. ‘She owns a very successful consultancy business in HR. Hard to believe, but she oversees personnel decisions and training in some of the country’s top companies. I think I bring out the worst in her.’

‘I’m beginning to understand why you’ve never talked about her.’ Carol pulled the chair out of the corner and sat down next to the bed.

‘I hardly ever see her. Not even Christmas and birthdays.’ He sighed. ‘I didn’t see much of her while I was growing up either.’

‘What about your dad? Was she that rude to him?’

‘Good question. I have no idea who my father was. She’s always refused to tell me anything about him. All I know is that they weren’t married. Can you pass me the remote control for the bed?’ He dredged up a proper smile. ‘You saved me from another day of my mother. The least I can do is sit up for you.’

‘I came as soon as I heard. I’m sorry, nobody called me.’ She passed him the remote and he fiddled with the buttons till he was half-upright, wincing as he settled. ‘Everybody assumed somebody else had told me. I wish you’d let me know.’

‘I knew how much you needed a weekend off,’ he said. ‘Besides, there’s only so many favours I can call in and I thought I’d rather save them for when I really needed them.’ Suddenly his mouth fell open and his eyes widened. ‘Oh shit,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you been home or did you go straight to the office?’

It seemed an odd question, but his manner was urgent. ‘Straight to the office. Why?’

He covered his face with his hands. ‘I am so sorry. I forgot all about Nelson.’

Carol burst out laughing. ‘A nutter smashes your leg with a fire axe, you spend the weekend in surgery and you’re worried about not feeding my cat? He’s got a cat flap, he can go and murder small animals if he gets desperate.’ She reached for his hand and patted it. ‘Never mind the cat. Tell me about your knee.’

‘It’s wired together but they can’t put a proper pot cast on it because of the wound. The surgeon says they have to make sure that’s healing properly, that it’s not infected. Then they can put a cast on it and maybe I can try to move around with a walking frame by the end of the week. If I’m a good boy,’ he added sarcastically.

‘So how long are you going to be in hospital?’

‘At least a week. It depends on how good I get at moving around. They won’t let me out till I can get about with the walking frame.’ He waggled his arm. And probably without the intravenous morphine too.’

Carol grimaced sympathetically. ‘That’ll teach you to play the hero.’

‘There was nothing heroic about it,’ Tony said. ‘The guys who were trying to drag their mate out of there, they were the heroes. I was just the diversion.’ His eyelids fluttered. ‘That’s the last time I work late.’

‘Do you need anything from home?’

‘Some T-shirts? That’s got to be more comfortable than these hospital gowns. And some pairs of boxers. It’ll be interesting to see if we can get them over the splint.’

‘What about something to read?’

‘Good thinking. There’s a couple of books I’m supposed to be reviewing on my bedside table. You can tell which ones they are because they’ve got Post-It notes on the covers. Oh, and my laptop, please.’

Carol shook her head in amusement. ‘You don’t think this might be a good opportunity to chill? Maybe read something frivolous?’

He looked at her as if she was talking Icelandic. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t think anybody’s expecting you to be working, Tony. And I think you might find it’s not as easy to concentrate as you imagine.’

He frowned. ‘You think I don’t know how to relax.’ He was only half-joking.

‘I don’t think that. I know it. And I understand, because I have similar tendencies.’

‘I can relax. I watch football. I play computer games.’

Carol laughed. ‘I’ve seen you watch football. I’ve seen you play computer games and there is no sense of the word “relaxing” that applies to either activity where you are concerned.’

‘I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. But if you are bringing the laptop, you might as well bring me Lara…’ He gave her the full twinkle.

‘You sad bastard. Where will I find her?’

‘In my study. On the shelf that your left hand would reach if you stretched out from the chair.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘And now it’s time for you to go. I need to sleep and you’ve got a Major Incident Team to run.’

Carol stood up. ‘A Major Incident Team with no major incidents to run. Not that I’m complaining,’ she added hastily. ‘I don’t have a problem with a quiet day at the office.’ She patted his hand again. ‘I’ll pop back this evening. If there’s anything else you need, call me.’

She walked down the corridor, already pulling out her mobile phone so she could turn it back on as soon as she left the hospital building. As she passed the nurses’ station, the woman she’d spoken to earlier gave her a wink. ‘So much for feeding the cat.’

‘What do you mean?’ Carol asked, slowing.

‘According to his mum, he does a bit more than that for you.’ Her smile was arch, her eyes knowing.

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Does your mother know everything about you?’

The nurse shrugged. ‘Point taken.’

Carol juggled bag and phone and pulled out a card. ‘I’ll be back later. That’s my card. If there’s anything he needs, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘No problem. Good cat feeders are hard to find, after all.’

Yousef Aziz glanced at the dashboard clock. He was doing well. Nobody expected him to make it back from a nine o’clock meeting in Blackburn much before lunchtime. Everybody knew what Monday morning trans-Pennine traffic was like. But what they didn’t know was that he’d rearranged the meeting for eight. Sure, he’d had to leave Bradfield a bit earlier, but not the whole hour, because he would avoid the worst of the rush hour this way. To cover himself, all he’d had to say to his mother was that he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t be late for this important new client. He knew he should have felt uncomfortable when she’d used his supposed punctuality as a stick to beat his little brother with. But it was water off a duck’s back with Raj. Their mother had spoiled him, the youngest son, and now she was reaping what she’d sown.

The main thing was that Yousef had created a little window of opportunity for himself. It was something he’d grown accustomed to doing over the previous few months. He had become adept at squeezing unmissed hours from the working day without raising suspicion. Ever since…He shook his head as if to dislodge the thought. Too distracting. He had to try to compartmentalize the warring elements of his life, otherwise he would be bound to give something away.

Yousef had kept the Blackburn meeting as tight as he could without appearing rude to the new client, and now he had an hour and a half for himself. He followed the instructions of his satellite navigation system. Down the motorway and into the heart of Cheetham Hill. He knew North Manchester pretty well, but this particular section of the red-brick warren was unfamiliar. He turned into a narrow street where a battered terrace of weary houses faced on to a small industrial estate. Halfway down, he spotted the signage for his destination. PRO-TECH SUPPLIES, in scarlet against a white background inside a border of black exclamation marks.

He parked the van outside and turned off the engine. He leaned on the steering wheel, breathing deeply, feeling his stomach wind itself into knots. He’d hardly eaten anything that morning, using his urgency to get to his meeting to defuse his mother’s oppressive concern with his recent loss of appetite. Of course he’d lost his appetite, just as he’d lost the ability to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. What else could he expect? This was how it was when you embarked on something like this. But it was important not to arouse suspicion, so he tried to be away from the family table at mealtimes as much as he could.

Given how little he was eating and sleeping, he couldn’t quite believe how energized he felt. A bit light-headed sometimes, but he thought that was more to do with imagining the effect of their plan than the lack of food and rest. Now, he pushed back from the steering wheel and climbed out of the van. He walked through the door marked RETAIL SALES. It led into a room ten feet square partitioned off from the warehouse behind. Behind a zinc-topped counter that bisected the room, a skinny man hunched over a computer. Everything about him was grey-his hair, his skin, his overalls. He looked up from his computer screen as Yousef entered. His eyes were grey too.

He stood up and leaned on the counter. The movement stirred the air enough to send the bitter after-smell of cheap tobacco across the gap between them. ‘All right?’ Yousef said.

‘All right. What can I do you for?’

Yousef pulled out a list. ‘I need some heavy-duty gloves, a face shield and ear protectors.’

The man sighed and pulled a dog-eared catalogue along the counter. ‘Best have a look in here. That shows you what we do.’ He opened it, flicking through the creased pages till he reached the section on gloves. He pointed to a picture at random. ‘See, there’s a description. Gives you an idea of thickness and flexibility. Depends what you want them for, see?’ He pushed the catalogue towards Yousef. ‘You decide what you’re after.’

Yousef nodded. He began to pore over the catalogue, a bit taken aback by the range of choices on offer. As he read the descriptions of the items, he couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, Pro-Tech didn’t list his project among their recommended uses for their protective gear. Mr Grey behind the counter would shit himself if he knew the truth. But he never would know the truth. Yousef had been careful. His tracks were clean. A scientific and chemical supplies warehouse in Wakefield. A specialist paint manufacturer in Oldham. A motorbike accessories shop in Leeds. A laboratory equipment supplier in Cleckheaton. Never, never, never in Bradfield, where there was an outside chance of being spotted by someone who knew him. Every time, he’d dressed the part. Painter’s overalls. Biker’s leathers. Neatly pressed shirt and chinos with a line of pens in a pocket protector in the shirt. Paid in cash. The invisible man.

Now, he made his decision and pointed out what he wanted, adding a protective chest shield for good measure. The warehouseman entered the details into the computer and told Yousef his goods would be along in a minute. He seemed nonplussed when Yousef offered to pay in cash. ‘Have you not got a credit card?’ he asked, sounding incredulous.

‘Not a company one, no,’ Yousef lied. ‘Sorry, mate. Cash is all I’ve got.’ He counted out the notes.

The warehouseman shook his head. ‘That’ll have to do, then. Your lot like cash, don’t you?’

Yousef frowned. ‘My lot? What do you mean, my lot?’ He felt his fists clench in his pockets.

‘You Muslims. I read it some place. It’s against your religion. Paying interest and that.’ The man’s jaw took a stubborn set. ‘I’m not being racist, you know. Just stating a fact.’

Yousef breathed deeply. As these things went, the man’s attitude was pretty mild. He’d experienced much, much worse. But these days, he was hypersensitive to anything that had the faintest whiff of prejudice about it. It all served to reinforce his choice to stay on this road, to carry his plans through to the end. ‘If you say so,’ he said, not wanting to get into a ruck that would make him memorable, but equally reluctant to say nothing at all.

He was saved from further conversation by the arrival of his purchases. He picked them up and walked out without responding to the warehouseman’s ‘See ya.’

The motorway traffic was heavy and it took him the best part of an hour to make it back to Bradfield. He barely had enough time to take the protective gear to the bedsit, but he couldn’t leave it lying round in the van. If Raj or Sanjar or his father saw it, it would provoke all sorts of questions he definitely didn’t want to answer.

The bedsit was on the first floor of what had once been the town house of a railway baron. A sprawling pile of Gothic Revival, the stained stucco covering the gables and bays was scabby and crumbling, the window frames rotting and the gutters sprouting an assortment of weeds. It had once had a view; now all that could be seen from its front windows was the cantilevered slant of the west stand of Bradfield Victoria’s vast stadium half a mile away. What had once been a quarter endowed with a certain grandeur had declined into a ghetto whose inhabitants were united only by their poverty. Skin tones ranged from the blue-black of sub-Saharan Africa to the skimmed-milk pallor of Eastern Europe. According to a survey carried out by Bradfield City Council, thirteen religions were practised and twenty-two native tongues spoken in the square mile to the west of the football ground.

Here, Yousef travelled under the radar of his own third-generation immigrant community. Here, nobody noticed or cared who else came and went from his first-floor hideaway. Here, Yousef Aziz was invisible.

The receptionist tried to hide her shock and failed. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hill,’ she gabbled on automatic. She glanced down at the calendar on her desk, as if she couldn’t believe she’d got it so wrong. ‘I thought you…we weren’t…’

‘Good, it keeps you on your toes, Bethany,’ Vanessa said as she swept past on her way to her office. The faces she passed on the way looked startled and guilty as they stammered out their greetings. She didn’t imagine for one moment they’d done anything to be guilty about. Her staff knew better than to try to put one over on her. But she liked that her unexpected arrival sent a ripple of anxiety through the office. It was a sign she was getting her money’s worth. Vanessa Hill wasn’t a touchy-feely employer. She had friends already; she didn’t need to make her employees her buddies. She was tough, but she thought she was fair. It was a message she tried to hammer home to her clients. Keep your distance, win their respect, and your HR problems would be minimal.

Pity it wasn’t that straightforward with kids, she thought as she dumped her laptop on the desk and hung up her jacket. When your staff didn’t cut the mustard, you could sack them and recruit someone better suited to the job. Kids, you were stuck with. And right from the start, Tony had failed to live up to expectations. When she’d fallen pregnant to a man who had disappeared like snow off a dyke at the news, her mother had told her to put the baby up for adoption. Vanessa had refused point blank. Now, she looked back in bewilderment and wondered why she had been so adamant.

It hadn’t been for sentimental reasons. She didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. Another position she recommended to her clients. Had she really gone that far out on a limb just to spite her demanding, controlling mother? There had to be more to it than that, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember. It must have been the hormones, addling her brain. Whatever, she’d endured the neighbourhood spite and gossip that went with single parenthood back then. She’d changed jobs, moving right across town to where nobody knew her, and lied about her past, inventing a dead husband to avoid the stigma. And it wasn’t as if she’d had any illusions about basking in a hazy glow of motherhood. With her father dead and no prospect of a husband now, she was the breadwinner. She’d always known she’d be back at work as soon as was humanly possible, like some bloody Chinese peasant dropping one in the ditch then getting back to the paddy field. And for what?

Her mother had taken reluctant charge of the boy. She didn’t have much choice since it was her daughter’s pay packet that kept them all afloat. Vanessa remembered enough of her own childhood to know the regime she was condemning her son to. She tried not to think about what Tony’s days would have been like and she didn’t encourage him to talk about it. She had enough to contend with, running a busy personnel department, then branching out to set up her own business. She relished the challenge of work, but she didn’t have energy to spare for a whiny kid.

Credit to him, he got that pretty early. He learned to put up and shut up, and to do what he was told. When he forgot himself and bounced around her like a puppy, it only took a few sharp words to knock the stuffing out of him.

Even so, he’d held her back. No doubt about that. All those years ago, no bloke wanted to settle down with some other man’s kid. He was a handicap professionally too. When she was getting her own business established, she’d had to keep the travel to a minimum because her mother kicked off if she was left overnight too often with the boy. Vanessa had missed chances, failed to build fast enough on the contacts she was making and played catch-up too bloody many times thanks to Tony.

And there had been no pay-off. Other women’s kids got married and provided grand-kids. Photos on the desk, anecdotes in the meeting breaks, family holidays in the sun. Ice-breakers, all of them. Confidence-builders. The bricks and mortar of professional relationships that generated business and earned money. Tony’s continuing failures meant Vanessa had to work that much harder.

Well, it was payback time now and no mistake. Things couldn’t have worked out better if she’d planned it. He was stuck in hospital, groggy with drugs and sleep. No hiding place. She could get access to him whenever she wanted and pick her moment. All she had to do was make sure she avoided the girlfriend.

Her PA slipped in and wordlessly delivered the coffee that always arrived within minutes of her settling behind her desk. Vanessa opened up her computer and allowed herself a grim little smile. Fancy Tony landing a woman with looks and brains. Carol Jordan wasn’t the sort of catch Vanessa expected of her son. If she’d imagined him with anyone, it would have been some mousy slip of a girl who worshipped the ground he walked on. Well, girlfriend or no girlfriend, she was going to have her way.

Elinor raised her hand to knock then paused. Was she about to commit career suicide? You could argue that, if she was right, it didn’t matter whether she spoke up or not. Because if she was right, Robbie Bishop was going to die anyway. Nothing could alter that. But if she was right and she didn’t speak up, someone else could die. Whether accident or intent lay behind whatever had happened to him, it could happen to someone else.

The thought of having another death on her conscience swung it for Elinor. Better to make an arse of herself in a good cause than have to deal with that. She rapped on the door and waited for Denby’s distracted, ‘Yes, yes, come in.’ He looked up impatiently from a stack of case notes. ‘Dr Blessing,’ he said. ‘Any change?’

‘In Robbie Bishop?’

Denby pulled a half-smile. ‘Who else? We claim to treat all our patients equally, but it’s not exactly easy when we have to run the gauntlet of football fans whenever we enter or leave the hospital.’ He swung round in his chair and looked through the window to the car park below. ‘Even more of them now than when I came back in after lunch.’ He turned back as Elinor began to speak. ‘Do you suppose they think being there can influence the outcome?’ He sounded more bemused than cynical.

‘I expect it depends whether they believe in the power of prayer. I did see a pair of them huddled in a doorway saying the rosary.’ She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t appear to be helping Mr Bishop–he seems to be deteriorating steadily. The fluid on his lungs is building up. I’d say respiratory distress is getting worse. There’s no question of him coming off the ventilator.’

Denby bit his lip. ‘No response to the AZT, then?’

Elinor shook her head. ‘Nothing discernible so far.’

Denby sighed and nodded. ‘Damned if I know what’s going on here. Oh, well. So it goes sometimes. Thanks for keeping me posted, Dr Blessing.’ His eyes returned to the files on his desk in dismissal.

‘There was one thing?’

He looked up, eyebrows raised. He appeared to be genuinely interested in what she had to say. ‘To do with Mr Bishop?’

She nodded. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but have you considered ricin poisoning?’

‘Ricin?’ Denby looked almost offended. ‘How on earth would a premiership footballer be exposed to ricin?’

Elinor battled on. ‘I’ve no idea. But you’re a terrific diagnostician and when you couldn’t come up with anything, I thought it must be something a bit off the wall. And I thought, maybe poisoning. So I checked it out on the online database and all his symptoms match ricin poisoning–weakness, fever, nausea, dyspnea, cough, pulmonary oedema and arthralgia. Add to that the fact that he’s not responding to any of the medications we’ve tried him with…I don’t know, it fits the way nothing else does.’

Denby looked bemused. ‘I think you’ve been watching too many episodes of Spooks, Dr Blessing. Robbie Bishop is a footballer, not a KGB defector.’

Elinor stared at the floor. This was what she’d been afraid of. But the reason that had driven her through the door in the first place still existed. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But none of us has been able to come up with an alternative diagnosis that makes sense of the symptoms and the fact that the patient is not responding to any of the drug regimes we’ve tried.’ She looked up. His head was cocked to one side and although his mouth was a tight line, his eyes expressed interest in what she had to say. ‘And I’m not saying this to flatter you into taking me seriously. But if you can’t work out what is clinically wrong with Robbie Bishop, I don’t think there can be a straightforward explanation in terms of a viral or bacterial illness. Which only leaves poison. And the only poison that makes sense is ricin.’

Denby jumped to his feet. ‘This is crazy. Terrorists use ricin. Spies use ricin. How the hell does a premiership footballer get ricin into his system?’

‘With respect, I think that’s somebody else’s problem,’ Elinor said.

Denby rubbed the palms of his hands over his face. She had never seen him flustered, never mind this agitated. ‘First things first. We need to check whether or not you’re right.’ He looked expectantly at her.

‘You can do an ELISA test for ricin. But even if they’ve got the right antigen in stock and they fast-track it, we still won’t get the results of a sandwich ELISA till tomorrow.’

He took a deep breath and visibly pulled himself together. ‘Set the wheels in motion. Take the bloods yourself, take them straight to the lab. I’ll call ahead, make sure they know what’s coming down the line. We can start treatment-’ He stopped dead, his mouth hanging open. ‘Oh fuck.’ He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. ‘There is no bloody treatment, is there?’

Elinor shook her head. ‘No. If I’m right, Robbie Bishop’s a condemned man.’

Denby slumped back into his chair. ‘Yes. Well, I don’t think we need to share this possibility with anyone just yet. Not until we know for sure. Don’t tell anyone else what you suspect.’

‘But…’ Elinor frowned.

‘But what?’

‘Shouldn’t we tell the police?’

The police? You were the one who said it was someone else’s problem, determining how the ricin got into his system. We can’t call the police in on a hunch.’

‘But he’s still having lucid spells. He can still communicate. If we wait till tomorrow, he could have lapsed into a coma and he won’t be able to tell anyone how this happened. If it happened,’ she added, seeing the ominous expression on Denby’s face.

‘And if you’re wrong? If it turns out to be something quite other? This department will have lost all credibility within the hospital and the wider community. Let’s face it, Dr Blessing, two minutes after we call the police in, the media will be screaming from the rooftops. I’m not prepared to put my reputation and that of my team on the line like that. I’m sorry. We don’t tell anyone–not another living soul–until we get the ELISA results and we know for certain. Are you clear on that?’

Elinor sighed. ‘I’m clear.’ Then her face brightened. ‘What if I was to ask him? When we’re alone?’

Denby shook his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said firmly. ‘I will not have you interrogate a patient like that.’

‘It’s kind of like taking a history.’

‘It’s nothing like taking a history. It’s playing at Miss bloody Marple. Now please, let’s not waste any more time. Get started on the ELISA protocol.’ He managed a faint bloodless smile. ‘Good thinking, Doctor Blessing. Let’s just hope for once you’re wrong. Apart from anything else, Bradfield Victoria have no chance of making it into Europe next season without Robbie Bishop.’ Elinor’s face must have revealed her shock for he rolled his eyes and said, ‘I’m joking, for Christ’s sake. I’m as worried about this as you are.’

Somehow, Elinor doubted that.

Tony started awake, eyes wide, mouth stretched back in a silent scream. The power of morphine dreams to recreate the gleam of the axe, the battle cry of his attacker, the smell of sweat and the taste of blood was terrifying. His breathing was fast and shallow and he could feel sweat curdling on his top lip. Only a dream. He deliberately controlled his breathing and gradually the panic subsided.

Once he’d calmed down, he tried to raise his wounded leg from the hip. He clenched his hands into tight fists, the nails biting into his palms. The veins on his neck corded up as he strained to move a limb that seemed to have been transmuted into lead. The futile seconds stretched out, then with a grunt of frustration, he gave up. It felt as if he’d never move his left leg again.

Tony reached for the bed control and eased himself upwards. He glanced at his watch. Half an hour till they would bring his evening meal. Not that he felt like eating, but it was a way of punctuating the day. He almost wished his mother had stayed. At least it gave him something to butt against. Tony shook his head, aghast at the thought. If his mother’s company was the answer, he was asking the wrong question. Not that there weren’t aspects of the history of their relationship that he ought to confront and deal with. But this wasn’t the time or the place. He wasn’t sure when or where would be appropriate for something so potentially painful, but he knew it wasn’t here and now.

Still, it couldn’t wait for ever. Carol had met her now, and she would have questions. He couldn’t just blank her; Carol deserved more than that from him. The problem was where to start. His childhood memories lacked a narrative. They were fragmentary, a series of incidents loosely linked like dark beads on a tarnished chain. Not all of the memories were bad. But his mother featured in none of the good ones. He knew he wasn’t the only person with such an experience. He had treated plenty of them, after all. Just one more aspect of his history he shared with the crazies.

He flapped his hand in front of his face as if swatting a fly and picked up the remote control. He began to flick through the limited range of channels. Nothing engaged his attention, but he was spared having to make a decision by a knock at the door.

The person on the other side didn’t wait for an invitation. The woman who marched in looked like a peregrine falcon run to fat. Glossy brown hair swept back from her forehead in a wavy bob that stopped just short of her shoulders. Deep-set hazel eyes gleamed beneath perfectly shaped eyebrows and the hawk’s nose jutted out from plump cheeks. The sight of Mrs Chakrabarti lifted Tony’s spirits far more than any TV channel could have. Here was more interesting news than BBC24.

She was trailed by half a dozen acolytes in white coats who looked young enough to be doing sixth-form work experience. She gave Tony a swift, practised smile as she reached for his notes. ‘So,’ she said, looking at him from under her brows. ‘How’s it feeling?’ Her accent bore a greater resemblance to that of the royal family than to the denizens of Bradfield. It made Tony feel as if he should doff a cap or tug a forelock.

‘Like you replaced my leg with a lead pipe,’ he said.

‘No pain?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing the morphine can’t take care of.’

‘But you’re not feeling any pain once the morphine kicks in?’

‘No. Should I be?’

Mrs Chakrabarti smiled. ‘It’s not our preferred option. I’m going to take you off the morphine drip tomorrow morning, see if we can achieve the pain management by other means.’

Tony felt the clutch of apprehension. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

The smile grew positively predatory. ‘Just as sure as you are about the advice you give your patients.’

Tony grinned. ‘In that case, let’s just stick with the morphine.’

‘You’ll be fine, Dr Hill.’ She replaced the chart and studied his leg, angling her head round to see the twin drains carrying bloody fluid away from the wound in his knee. She turned to the students. ‘You’ll see there’s not much coming off the wound site now.’ Back to Tony. ‘I think we might take the drains out tomorrow and get this splint off so we can get a sense of what you’re going to need. Probably a nice cylinder cast.’

‘When can I go home?’

Mrs Chakrabarti turned to her students with the perennial condescension of the surgeon. ‘When can Dr Hill go home?’

‘When he can bear weight on his leg.’ The speaker looked as if he should be delivering newspapers, not clinical judgements.

‘How much weight? His whole body weight?’

The students exchanged covert glances. ‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame, another offered.

‘When he can get around with a Zimmer frame, do a leg raise and climb stairs,’ a third chipped in.

Tony could feel something inside his head stretch to its limit. ‘Doctor,’ he said forcibly. When he had her attention, he spoke very clearly. ‘That was not an idle question. I need to not be here. None of the important things in my life can be accomplished from a hospital bed.’

Mrs Chakrabarti wasn’t smiling now. This, Tony thought, must be what a mouse feels like eyeball to eyeball with a raptor. The only good thing about it is you know it’s not going to last long. ‘That’s something you have in common with the vast majority of my patients, Dr Hill,’ she said.

His blue eyes glittered with the strain of not showing his frustration. ‘I’m perfectly aware of that. But unlike the vast majority of your patients, nobody else can do what I do. That’s not arrogance. It’s the way that it is. I don’t need two functioning legs to do most of the things I do that matter. What I really need is for my head to function, and that’s not happening very well in here.’

They glared at each other. None of the students fidgeted. They barely breathed. ‘I appreciate your position, Dr Hill. And I understand your sense of failure.’

‘My sense of failure?’ Tony was genuinely puzzled.

‘It was one of your patients who put you here, after all.’

He burst out laughing. ‘Good God, no. Not one of my patients. Lloyd Allen wasn’t one of mine. This isn’t about guilt, it’s about giving my patients what they need. Just like you want to do, Mrs Chakrabarti.’ His smile lit up his face, infectious and compelling.

The corners of her lips twitched. ‘In that case, Dr Hill, I’d say it’s up to you. We can perhaps try a leg brace rather than a cast.’ She eyed his shoulders critically. ‘It’s a pity you don’t have better upper body strength, but we can try you on elbow crutches. The bottom line is that you have to be mobile, you have to be committed to your physiotherapy and you have to be off the intravenous morphine. Do you have someone at home to take care of you?’

He looked away. ‘I share the house with a friend. She’ll help.’

The surgeon nodded. ‘I won’t pretend the rehab isn’t tough. Hard work and a lot of pain. But if you’re determined to get out of here, we should be able to free up your bed early next week.’

‘Early next week?’ There was no hiding his dismay.

Mrs Chakrabarti shook her head, chuckling softly. ‘Someone split your patella with a fire axe, Dr Hill. Just be grateful you live in a city whose hospital is a centre of excellence for orthopaedics. Some places, you’d be lying there wondering whether you’d ever walk properly again.’ She dipped her head in farewell. One of this lot will be here tomorrow when they take the drains out and the splint off. We’ll see where we go from there.’

She moved away from the bed with her entourage in tight formation behind her. One of them scuttled in front of her to open the door and the surgeon nearly walked into Carol Jordan’s raised fist. Startled, Mrs Chakrabarti recoiled slightly.

‘Sorry,’ Carol said. She looked at her hand and smiled sheepishly. ‘I was just about to knock.’ She stepped aside to let the doctors pass and raised her eyebrows at Tony as she walked in, loaded with cargo. That looked like a royal progress from the Middle Ages.’

‘Close. That was Mrs Chakrabarti and her body slaves. She’s in charge of my knee.’

‘What news?’ Carol asked, dumping assorted carrier bags and easing the laptop in its case on to Tony’s bed table.

‘I’m probably going to be stuck in here for another week,’ he grumped.

‘Only another week? God, she must be good. I thought it would take a lot longer than that.’ She began to unpack the carrier bags. ‘Ginger beer, dandelion and burdock, proper lemonade. Luxury roast nuts. Books as requested. All the Tomb Raider games Lara Croft ever starred in. Jelly beans. My iPod. Your laptop. And…’ She produced a sheet of paper with a flourish. ‘The access code for the hospital’s wireless broadband.’

Tony mimed astonishment. ‘I’m impressed. How did you manage that?’

‘I know the senior nurse from way back. I told her how much easier her life would be if you were online. She seemed to think that a total breach of hospital regulations was a small price to pay. You’ve obviously made an impression already.’ Carol shrugged off her coat and settled into the chair. ‘And not in a good way.’

‘Thanks for all of this. I really appreciate it. You’re a lot earlier than I expected.’

‘Privilege of rank. I suspect I’m going to have to show my warrant card next time I want to get in, though.’

‘Why’s that?’ Tony handed her the power cord for his laptop. ‘There’s a socket behind you, I think.’

Carol got up and stretched behind the chair to plug it in. ‘The Robbie Bishop fan club.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Have you not seen the news? Robbie Bishop’s here, in Bradfield Cross.’

Tony frowned. ‘Did he get injured in Saturday’s match, then? I’m so out of touch in here, I don’t even know if we won.’

‘One-nil to the Vics. But Robbie wasn’t playing. He supposedly had flu, but whatever it is, it got bad enough for him to be admitted here on Saturday. And I just heard on the radio that he’s been moved to the ICU.’

Tony whistled. ‘Well, it’s obviously not flu, then. Are they saying what the problem is?’

‘No. They’re just calling it a chest infection. But the fans are out in force. You can’t see the main entrance for a sea of canary yellow. Apparently they’ve had to bring in extra security to keep the more enterprising ones at bay. One woman even dressed up in a nurse’s uniform in a bid to get to his bedside. I’m sure she won’t be the last to try something like that. It’s a big problem, because you can’t close the hospital to the public. The patients and their families wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘I’m surprised he’s not in one of the private hospitals.’ Tony opened the bag of jelly beans and stirred them with his finger till he found his favourite buttered popcorn flavour.

‘Neither of the private hospitals in Bradfield has the facilities to deal with acute respiratory problems, according to your friendly senior nurse. They’re fine if you want a new hip or your tonsils out, but if you’re seriously ill, Bradfield Cross is where you want to be.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Tony said wryly.

‘You’re not ill,’ Carol said briskly. ‘You’re just a bit more damaged than usual.’

He pulled a half-smile. ‘Whatever. I’d still bet that Robbie Bishop will be walking out of here ahead of me.’