For The Death Of Me

6

We were on the road inside fifteen minutes, Conrad driving the off-roader, Susie in the front passenger seat, Prim and I in the back.

‘Tell me exactly what Harvey said,’ Prim asked quietly. She’s a nurse.

I ran through our conversation as closely as I could remember it. ‘Does that tell you anything?’

‘He survived the trip to hospital; that of itself says something. But any number of things could have happened. He could have had a coronary thrombosis, or an aneurysm. Maybe it’s an arterial blockage and they’ll be able to fix it with an angioplasty, a device that restores the proper blood flow without a full-scale bypass.’

‘Does it sound good or bad?’

‘Nothing about this is good, Oz,’ she pointed out gently. ‘But at least he isn’t simply lying on a life-support machine, in a coma, in an IC unit. Mac’s a pretty fit man for his age; strong, too. That will improve his chances.’

I took out my cell-phone. ‘I’ll try calling Ellie. She’ll maybe know more by now.’

She put a hand on mine, to stop me. ‘Ellen’s phone will be switched off in the hospital. She’ll get in touch with you if anything changes, I’m sure.’

I had to see the sense of that, but it was bloody difficult. Normally, I’m a patient guy, but crises are something else. My instinct is to solve them there and then, and if I can’t I get frustrated. When the solution is out of my hands. .

You know, physical fear I can handle. I’ve been in a few tricky situations in my life, including a couple in which it was actually in danger. I’ve dealt with them all, and it never occurred to me to be scared, not in the heat of the moment, at any rate. There’s a big adrenaline rush, sure, but I’ve always been too caught up in the action to dwell on the consequences of failure. I’ve got the job done, and dealt with the fear afterwards.

But this was different: this was something that I couldn’t handle personally. Other people were doing this job, and I had plenty of time to consider the consequences of their failure. I started to shake; I took a tight grip of my travel bag, trying to control it before anyone saw.

The chopper was waiting for us on the pad at the heliport behind the Columbus. Susie followed me towards it. As Conrad climbed on board, she reached up and touched my cheek. ‘Wish I could come,’ she whispered.

‘So do I, honey, but it’s best you stay here, especially with her around.’

‘What about Mike? Will he hang around indefinitely?’

‘That’s up to him, but if he wants to do this precious deal of his, he will. If things. .’ I faltered, then steeled myself. ‘If Dad doesn’t make it, I’ll make other arrangements with him, but I’m refusing to think of that. I’m assuming that he’ll come through this and that I’ll be back here by the weekend. Don’t you get drawn into it, though. Any messages that need to go to Mike, Prim can carry them. I don’t want Mike involved with my family, and I don’t want him in my house.’

She squeezed my arm, and gave me a half-smile. ‘Are you worried about me with my ex?’

I tried to smile back. ‘With the size of my ego? You have to be kidding. No, it’s just this: he betrayed us all, back then, and you most of all. We might be glad that he’s not dead, but it doesn’t mask what he did. I’m no moral paragon, but I don’t want my kids to have anything to do with him, anything at all.’

She got on her toes and kissed me. ‘Don’t worry, big guy,’ she said, raising her voice above the roar of the helicopter. ‘I feel the same way. You be on your way now: when you see Mac, tell him from me that he’s not to give us all such a scare again.’

Somehow, I felt better as I ducked the rotors and boarded the Jetcopter, sliding in beside Conrad on the bench seat, and fitting a headset to my ears. ‘Buckled in, gentlemen?’ the pilot asked.

‘We’re set,’ my assistant replied. ‘You know where we’re going?’

‘General aviation, Cannes-Mandelieu airport, to connect with a Citation jet chartered from Excel Air.’

‘Fine. Let’s take off.’

‘How long will it take?’ I asked Conrad, through the headphones. The pilot was connected to the air-traffic system: we couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear us.

‘Less than half an hour, sir. Cannes is about fifty kilometres straight line, and this machine can travel. Audrey told the charter company to be ready to take off as soon as we get there, with a flight plan filed to the nearest possible landing point.’

‘Do you know where that will be?’

‘I’m hoping it’ll be Dundee. They normally close at nine p.m. BST, but if staff are available, they can extend that by an hour. The charter company said they’d do their best.’

I nodded and leaned back in my seat, staring out of the window at the coast as we headed west, doing my best not to think the worst, and failing abysmally, until I summoned a picture of Susie’s optimistic smile into my mind. That helped, a little.