Rose climbs gingerly into bed in the cosy little hotel that overlooks the River Ness and pulls the thick, soft duvet up around her chin. Sleep feels a long way away, despite the lack of it the night before and the long and traumatic day.
She closes her eyes but the very moment her mind is given a blank screen, it helpfully replays the whole scene outside the hospital in high-definition detail.
It had been a terrible moment. Running across the damp grass, gasping breaths, skidding as she went, to where the car had smashed through the fence.
Heather Doyle’s car went right into the path of a van that was delivering seafood from the fishing port of Scrabster to restaurants in Inverness.
There had been a moment when she wanted to cover her face like a child and block out the sights and sounds of it all. The Volvo, upside down on the other side of the road. The van with ‘The Seafood Company’ in jaunty blue on the side, its driver hidden from sight. Then she remembered she was a police officer. It wasn’t an option to turn away. Running straight towards the terrible things was the very nature of the job.
So she’d forced herself down there, into what was quickly a hive of activity.
It was surprisingly quick getting the road blocked off and preventing further accidents because there were so many police officers already in situ.
Lawson Memorial is only a cottage hospital and has no resources for dealing with a major emergency of this nature, although medical staff on site rushed to do what they could before more help arrived. The nearest big hospital, the Raigmore, is in Inverness, and a helicopter and ambulance came directly from there. The fire brigade also came from Inverness.
It could have been so much worse. The driver of the van, a Polish father of three called Pawel Wójcik, sustained relatively minor injuries, including a broken nose from the air bag and two broken ribs as he swerved to try to avoid the red Volvo that came from nowhere.
There’d been a moment’s lucky lull in the traffic that meant no other vehicles were involved. It could have been a massive pile-up.
But Heather had to be cut out of the car and sustained multiple serious injuries. She is now in the Raigmore in an induced coma to prevent further swelling on her brain.
She hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. Rose keeps wondering whether she panicked and acted as she did, or whether it was a deliberate act whose consequences she was fully aware of and actively seeking.
Gregory has sepsis. It’s a potentially catastrophic infection, which has festered in a cut on his hand, the cause of which is unknown. Every time Rose thinks about this, about the fact that Heather was so remiss in caring for the boy, she feels a surge of rage and the tiny bit of sympathy she has at the other woman’s smashed-up body and hopeless future dim a little more.
Gregory was also airlifted to the Raigmore, while Pawel had gone in the ambulance.
Once Rose and her colleagues had got to the Raigmore, a young and very perky female doctor with hair shaved on one side, had assured them that children can bounce back from sepsis quickly once the intravenous antibiotics get to work.
Rose feels something twist inside as she replays looking in at Gregory lying in the hospital bed. He’d looked very small indeed, lying there fast asleep, the drugs saving his life snaking into his skinny arm from the drip next to the bed.
‘Honestly,’ said the doctor, whose name Rose never caught, ‘you’ll be amazed when you see him tomorrow, I’ll bet. But we really were just in time.’
Anton and Gwen are coming on the first flight to Inverness the following morning.
Rose attempts to turn over but her ribs still hurt so damned much. Then she thinks about poor Pawel Wójcik, who must be in much worse discomfort.
She wishes she felt a bit more satisfaction about where they had got to.
Getting Gregory back home was the absolute priority. But she’s also keenly aware that nothing has changed in that house – not really.
If anything, his parents may well take an even more overprotective role now, controlling every aspect of the poor kid’s life. And what of the haunting? What of the presence in that building that supposedly drove a woman to murder her family and to snatch a child from his home? When is that story going to end?
In the end, sleep comes, blissfully heavy and dreamless.
In the morning she wakes early and stands under the shower for as long as she can bear it, the heat offering some respite from the discomfort.
She has forgotten to bring make-up and when she contemplates her bruised, tired face in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom – with its pale blue and white nautical theme – she grimaces a little. She attempts to finger-comb her thick chestnut hair and then reties it into a ponytail, noting how much it needs a wash. Still, it will have to do.
When they all arrive at the hospital a little later, there’s no change in Heather, they’re told, and no possibility that she can be moved in an unconscious state. The decision is made that they will return to London without her and organize for her to be flown down once she’s well enough to travel, should that time come.
It strikes Rose that she may be coming home in a body bag.
All the same, there’s a police guard outside her door, who won’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
They make their way to the Highland Children’s Unit, where they saw Gregory the night before. It’s painted in a cheerful bright blue and turquoise with murals on some of the walls. They pass one painted like a forest and meet a doctor coming out of Gregory’s room. He’s in his thirties and has curly blonde hair and very pale skin, his eyebrows almost invisible. Introducing himself as Dr Mike Bloomfield, he updates them on Gregory’s condition.
‘The wee lad is doing extremely well,’ he says. ‘He’s going to need to be on antibiotics for a while but we can take the IV out later today and it might be that he could even travel home by this evening.’
‘Oh, that’s so good to hear,’ says Rose. She looks at Mortimer whose face splits into a wide grin she hasn’t seen before.
‘That is very good news indeed,’ he says. ‘Are his parents here yet, by any chance?’
It’s almost as though by saying this, he conjures them into being.
Rose becomes aware of movement behind her and then a booming, familiar voice says, ‘I’m here to see my son – Gregory Fuller.’
She turns to see Anton at the nurses’ desk, Gwen hurrying behind him.
Anton’s face is drawn and flushed but he’s dressed in a smart charcoal coat with a checked scarf neatly folded under his chin. Gwen wears a voluminous mackintosh that looks as though it may belong to Anton and boots that are a short hop from wellies. Her hair and eyes are wild.
‘Where is he?’ she calls, almost pushing past the small knot of people to get through. ‘Where’s my son?’
Dr Bloomfield looks momentarily alarmed at the number of visitors for this one small patient before he holds out his hand and introduces himself. To Gwen first, which immediately makes him rise in Rose’s estimation, then Anton, who barely acknowledges the extended hand and merely gives a distracted nod.
‘Now, I can let Mum and Dad in,’ says Bloomfield, looking around the group, ‘but the rest of you can wait. I can’t have that many people around one bed on the ward.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ croaks Gwen, grabbing hold of his hand.
In the meantime, Rose and the remains of the team head to the café, each involved in different tasks. Rose is struggling to hide how terrible she feels. Her ribs hurt with every intake of breath now the adrenalin from yesterday has burned away, and her face throbs.
She’s run out of the strong painkillers and feels like a walking bruise. When she touches her cheek and winces, she catches Adam looking at her intently from where he’s buying a coffee and a pastry. A few moments later he has a quiet conversation with Mortimer, who looks over at her and nods in a decisive way.
‘What was all that about?’ says Rose as Adam comes over.
‘Mortimer is flying back this afternoon and you’re going with him.’
‘Wait, what?’ says Rose. ‘I can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’ says Adam, looking her directly in the eyes. ‘You’ve clearly been injured in the line of duty and are in pain. I’m going to drive back with Gail and Jamie is going to do it alone but stop off and see a friend in Dumfries to break the journey.’ His eyes soften. ‘We’ve got Gregory home,’ he says. ‘The job is over.’
Rose opens her mouth to protest again because it still seems unfair but she sees that Anton is now at the entrance to the café, looking around with an irritated expression.
He marches over and she arranges her face into one of polite helpfulness. There’s something about this man that gets her hackles up the moment he comes into her airspace.
‘Everything okay, Anton?’ says Adam, although his face seems to telegraph that no, everything most definitely isn’t okay.
‘It’s Gregory,’ he says curtly to Rose alone, ‘for some reason he wants to see you.’
‘Me?’ says Rose. ‘Me specifically, or my SIO, who’s been in charge of the case?’
‘You,’ says Anton, mouth turned down sourly. ‘I told him no but Gwen …’ He bites off the end of the sentence. ‘Well, let’s say that she’s feeling rather indulgent because of everything that’s happened.’
‘Right,’ says Rose, ‘I’ll come right now, in that case.’
But Anton doesn’t move. ‘If you ask me,’ he says, ‘I don’t think any of you were any bloody use.’
‘Right,’ says Rose again. Tiredness and pain are leaching what little tolerance she has for him. ‘Well, we did find him, to be fair.’
He practically snarls. ‘Well, you found him after he was made very sick by that …’ he pauses ‘… that woman.’
‘Yes,’ says Rose, ‘I do understand how upsetting it must be to have learned he was in hospital. But thankfully it looks as though he’ll make a full recovery and you’ll have him home in no time.’ The words feel robotic as they leave her mouth.
‘And what about her?’ says Anton. ‘Doyle? I hope they’ll throw away the bloody key this time.’
‘Well,’ says Rose, ‘she’ll certainly serve more time for this. But at the moment it’s not clear whether or not she’ll survive the accident.’ She gestures past him. ‘Want to lead the way?’
The curtains are drawn around Gregory’s bed when Rose and Anton approach. Anton says, ‘Knock knock,’ in a loud voice. A man with a Sikh turban who is sitting by the bed of a small, bald-headed girl across the way looks up sharply.
Anton pulls back the curtain to reveal Gwen sitting close to the bed and showing Gregory something on her phone that’s making him laugh. They seem to spring apart almost guiltily at the sight of Anton and Rose.
‘Here she is,’ says Gwen in a too-bright tone.
It’s cramped with the curtain closed but Rose smiles broadly at Gregory, who looks very pale in the bed, his dark hair sticking up all over his head. One of his arms is hidden inside a clean white bandage, small fingers curled over at the end.
‘All right, Gregory,’ she says. ‘You’ve had quite the time of it, haven’t you?’
‘Is Heather going to die?’ he says without further preamble. ‘Mummy won’t tell me and I want to know.’
Rose hesitates before replying, conscious of the eyes of his parents on her. ‘I can’t answer that, Gregory,’ she says. ‘I’m not going to pretend she’s okay because she had a very serious accident. I think you’re a really smart boy and you know when people are bullsh— when people are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. She’s very gravely injured, but the doctors are doing everything they can for her.’
‘Why do you care what happens to that woman?’
‘Oh shush, Anton,’ says Gwen. ‘It’s not the time.’
Anton’s eyes widen. Rose feels much the same surprise.
Go, Gwen.
Gregory sniffs loudly until his mother hands him a tissue from the box next to the bed.
‘It’ll be my fault if she dies,’ he says in a tiny voice. ‘If I hadn’t been clumsy like Daddy always says I am, then I wouldn’t have cut my hand and got sepsis.’
Rose casts a quick glance at Anton, who seems uncharacteristically lost for words.
‘Now,’ says Rose, moving a little closer to the bed. ‘I need you to listen to me very carefully as a police officer, okay?’
Gregory nods miserably, top lip puckering with the effort of not crying.
‘None of this is your fault,’ she says. ‘Heather is a grown woman and you are a child and it was very wrong for her to take you from your home like she did.’
‘I chose to go though,’ says Gregory, pitch whiny. ‘Because she was the only person who understood.’
‘I understand,’ says Rose and Gregory searches her eyes with his own, desperate to believe her. ‘I mean it.’
Gregory swipes his nose with the tissue.
Rose continues, ‘And aside from doing a bad thing by taking you away, she drove her car deliberately onto a busy road. She could have killed people.’
‘More people,’ mutters Anton. Everyone ignores him.
‘I just wish we could find out what he wants, the boy in the wall,’ says Gregory. ‘That was all I was doing. It was why I wrote to her. I thought she might know. But she didn’t. She said it wouldn’t ever stop and I had to get away. I just want to know.’
Gwen looks shiftily at Rose and then back at her son.
‘I told you, darling,’ says Gwen, revealing her horsey teeth. ‘I have a clever lady who’s helping with all that.’
Gregory looks at her, guardedly. ‘Yes you said. But when exactly are we moving house, Mummy?’ he says. ‘Will I have to go back at all or will we stay somewhere else while we look?’
Gwen looks properly at her husband for the first time, stricken.
Anton clears his throat. ‘We have plenty of time to talk about all that,’ he says, the fake jocularity in his tone as unnatural as if he had suddenly donned a comedy moustache and clown trousers. ‘We need to get you fighting fit again first, little man.’
‘We are moving though?’ says Gregory, looking only at his mother. ‘I mean—’ his words are coming out faster as he speaks, almost skidding into each other ‘—I wish we could help the next people who live there but at least it won’t be our problem anymore, will it?’
‘Darling,’ says Gwen, reaching for her son and realizing he has no hand available, so her own hand lands in an awkward pat on his leg. ‘Let’s not worry about it today.’
‘No!’ Gregory shouts. ‘I want to talk about it today! I don’t want to go back there and you can’t make me!’
Rose is thinking she may need to leave this family drama to play out on its own, a sad, sick feeling curdling in her stomach, and then she sees that Gregory is glaring right at her.
‘You said you understood,’ he says, starting to cry. He turns his head away from all the adult faces staring down at him and sobs.